'Nother Solent

I felt very slightly excited

about the election today. Mr Blair might win. Or Mr Howard might win. Exciting.

Peter Briffa writes about declining trust in politicians for Civitas.

Civitas? The man is getting respectable.

UPDATE: You can comment on his article by going to the Civitas blog here.

Two quick links.

- a disturbing one from Of Arms and the Law, quoting a Guardian article about youths who film themselves violently attacking people for entertainment. I have not followed the link at the end which shows some of these videos. I get upset easily. (Hat tip: James Rummel.)

- a much more cheering post from Jim Miller, criticising by means of facts and argument a Guardian / Seattle Times article by Jonathan Raban. Miller says:

The Seattle Times headlined Raban's piece, "Democracy holds little allure in the Muslim world". The millions and millions of Muslims who have voted in the last few years would disagree.

Some people refuse to see the danger of the fascist-fanatic strain within Islam. Others refuse to see the existence of a powerful movement towards Islamic democracies. Some refuse to see both!

Lots to do.

I can't promise any more posts this week.

"Not sure Alastair Cambell would go for this, but you never know."

Anthony Cox's election poster for Labour has finally decided me on voting Conservative.

I had been uncertain. Conservatives least worst overall, UKIP best on Europe, Labour best on Iraq.

Anthony's poster has reminded me how awful it would be to see the Lib Dems gaining our constituency. I'm voting tactically.

Julius II he ain't.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is not at present planning to assume personal command of his armies and take the field against the French. Instead he has given a sermon on globalisation. As this Samizdata post explains, it could have been a lot worse. Congratulations to the still-young Globalisation Institute for getting mentioned; congratulations to the Archbishop for making the effort to listen to both sides. I still think he would do better to say less.

I do not think Dr Williams is egotistical. His trouble is almost the opposite: he is too easily led to link the Anglican church to embarrassingly temporary fads.

I note that Iain Murray has praised his stance on the family.

"Even when there was folly, it was often not the WWI cliche kind of folly."

More thoughts on Gallipoli. ARC writes:

One point always worth mentioning when Gallipoli is discussed is that the 'doomed, never had a chance' idea that is apt to creep into WWI discussions whenever one forgets to guard against it is even less true here than in some other theatres. At several points the campaign trembled on a knife edge. The ANZACs and others who went into action expecting to win were in some ways wiser than many later commentators; they did not know what would in fact happen but they were quite correct to think they had a real chance of winning and that winning could have a massive impact on the war.

As often, sometimes two valid concerns conflicted. Right at the start, when the Goeben arrived in Turkey and Churchill was wild to go in and sink her, he was overruled by Lord Kitchener on the grounds that, for the loyalty of the Moslem subjects of the empire, it was essential that Turkey strike the first blow. Churchill and Kitchener both had very good points. With hindsight, I'm tempted to think that Churchill was right but that is hindsight, knowledge of how Russia's isolation from western industry affected the war, and it assumes that Turkey's fear would have outweighed her rage; debatable, and doubly debatable that it would have gone on doing so for the next four years.

As often, it was sometimes not stupidity per se but assumptions that were the problem. During the naval attack, the Turks decided they had lost, and were astounded we called off the assault. While one can justly damn as overcautious the commander (Admiral de Robeck) who overruled his subordinate and halted the attack, the key influence was the initial minesweeper squadrons' managing just to fail to close their lines. As appalling luck would have it, the missed sliver of sea between the two sweeps contained a string of mines. The ship losses that caused were sustainable; what mattered was de Robeck's belief that the whole area had been swept, leading him to think that the Turk's were managing to float mines down the channel or that the minesweepers were incapable of clearing it. My grandfather was a minesweeper captain in the North Sea (and saw plenty of his fellow minesweepers blow up around him). From his stories, it is not too hard to see how the disastrous failure to prevent a slight gap between the two lines could have come about. The crew's were all ex-fishermen and at this point in the war, they were not very experienced.

As often, pure luck turned the scale. When the army attack began, Kemal, far and away the best of the Turkish divisional commanders, chanced to be in the area and did not wait for orders; if Enver had been in charge, it would have been a walk-over. It was good luck for Turkey, of course, and not just during the war; Kemal lacked the character(lessness) of a politician and would never have acquired political power if fate had not given him this chance to show what he could do. At several points, Kemal's leadership blocked victory where a lesser general would have failed, indeed would probably have panicked and fled.

Even when there ws folly, it was often not the WWI cliche kind of folly. The Sulva landing was entrusted to the 11th division fresh from the western front. By this time, those on the spot had experience of landings. The commander in chief (Hamilton) stressed the importance of heading inland instantly to take the heights and trap the Turks but the penny absolutely failed to drop for the divisional commander (Stopford) whose orders managed to lose the plot in western front style references to securing the beachhead and organising for the advance. (This reference, is a good summary, perhaps a little too kind to Stopford even amid all its criticisms. Underneath all the specific confusions he had a simple inability to grasp the difference between France and Gallipoli.) A senior commander correctly ordering impetuous advance and a junior wrongly hesitating is not the standard WWI picture. The divisional commander should have been sacked before, not after, the landing, but if Hamilton had a fault it was that he was not ruthless enough to his subordinates and allowed them too much initiative; again, not the cliched kind of WWI command failing. (Kitchener chose him for the operation because he thought Gallipoli would be tricky, requiring an intelligent, even intellectual, general, but at that moment Hamilton could definitely have done with being less of one.)

The historical effects of Gallipoli are too vast to assess easily. With Russia supplied by western arms, would there never have been a Russian revolution (or at least, not a second revolution in November 1917 bringing the communists to power)? Would Stalin never have ruled, never have killed tens of millions? With Russia still in the war, would Germany never have looked like winning in their 1918 offensive, never have survived till 1918? Would Hitler be a name noone had heard of? "Who knows? Who will say that he knoweth?"

An excess of monuments ensures none will be remembered.

One reason why I was pleased at the elevation of Pope Benedict to his present office despite the fact that some of his more liberal rivals for the job might have had beliefs closer to mine is that he clearly does not regard the teachings of his church as his personal property. He has no desire to innovate in order to memorialise himself, like Mitterand causing a glass pyramid* to be built in the courtyard of the Louvre.

In the secular world, if every king seeks to leave his monument they all become unmemorable. The Pharoahs had accounts of their victories cut into stone. True, they are still read thousands of years later, but the accounts are so stylized and conventional that carvings made centuries apart repeat each other verbatim. The very names of the conquered chieftains and the tributes they laid at Pharaoh's feet are the same. No modern ruler is likely to make that mistake: our grands projets differ spectacularly in physical form. There's a sort of sameness of concept about them, nonetheless.

Getting back to the subject of the papacy, even an an amoral, vainglorious pope indifferent to the truth of the teachings it is his task to proclaim (in no way is Benedict any of those things - but some of his predecessors were) should beware as a matter of prudence from trying to "leave his mark" on doctrine. The warlike Pope Julius II would be most displeased to know that not one in a hundred of us could name him as the Pope who commissioned Michelangelo to paint the roof of the Sistine Chapel but at least we know that some Pope or other did, and know what a Pope is, because Julius did not mess around with what the church taught. He may have ignored it but he didn't change it. There can only be so many changes in the content of a faith before it becomes too amorphous to transmit. The tablets are no longer stone but mud. If that happens the Holy Father will no longer be father of anything.

This is degenerate advice to offer compared to the argument that matters: that while there is scope for men to argue that the will of God might have been misunderstood in past ages, and scope to use logic to deduce what the Church should teach in new situations, there is no scope for a mere man to change God's word. But if (as is likely given Benedict's age) it is soon time for the next conclave to convene, and if (as is less likely) the next Bishop of Rome is of like temper to Julius II, then I submit these musings for His Magnificence to consider.

*Quite a pretty pyramid. But prettier somewhere else.

Gott in Himmel!

Richard Gott, writing in the Guardian, is harsh towards the Prime Minister:

By seeking to appease ... the principal threat to world peace at the time, he only succeeded in encouraging that country's appetite for aggression and expansionism.

In this case the Prime Minister referred to wasn't Tony Blair but Neville Chamberlain, who features in Mr Gott's book called The Appeasers, and the country referred to is Germany in the 1930s. However Mr Gott does have strong views regarding Mr Blair.

Having written a book about how the folly of appeasement encourages the appetite for aggression and expansionism of countries that are a threat to world peace you might think that Mr Gott would be keen on firm action. And you'd be right!

Blair is a war criminal who should be locked up behind bars without a vote, not standing for election.

Mr Gott is not a man who minimises the threat, either.

Blair has followed in his footsteps, and is destined for the same place in history's hall of infamy. Like Chamberlain, he is an arrogant and God-fuelled appeaser, the unseemly ally of an unbridled country that presents a global threat similar to Germany in the 1930s.

The United States 2005 = Germany 1939. Wait a minute, doesn't that make Bush the same as... No, that cannot be. Left-wingers only say that sort of thing in slanderous right-wing caricatures.

I must say, "God-fuelled" is a good choice of adjective that subliminally adds environmental unsoundness to Blair's other crimes. One does feel that it would have been fairer to have at least given Blair credit for the fact that he is C of E and hence fills his tank with Unleaded God.

Despite his name Mr Gott does not appear to be a fan of God, and elsewhere in the article is much peturbed by Blair having a hotline to Him and generally thinking himself the chosen agent of the Almighty. I really think Mr Gott ought to have more sympathy with those taking orders from a Higher Power, seeing that in the good old days Mr Gott himself was the chosen agent of the KGB.

I am glad to see the old boy has been reconciled with the Guardian, where he used to be Latin America correspondent and Features Editor. How forgiving of the present editor to take him back after his predecessor so rudely ejected him.

A Time Lord goes into politics.

Beware spoilers!

When the first episode of the two-part Dr Who series that has just finished came out I loved it. I also liked the second episode, "World War Three", but less so. There was a foolish anti-Tony Blair crack near the end that gave it relevance to Biased BBC, so I posted about it there. There are some entertaining comments to that post about evil profit-making aliens and the appalling fact that we seem to have surrendered our independent deterrent to the UN several years ago.

It is a pity that one quip obscured the many good aspects of the episode. I particularly liked the way that minor characters such as Mickey and Rose's mother were rounded out. (I agree with Joe Newbery, quoted by Patrick Crozier in the post linked to below, that the Doctor himself should not be rounded out.) Mickey's quiet refusal of the chance to see the galaxy was touching. He stepped out of being a joke character and became a person with self-knowledge. It was sad, too, when Rose's mother pleaded with her not to go. The Doctor was rather a git about that, wasn't he? He could at least have stayed for the meal and done something to reassure her. That he did not was believable: Time Lords don't do reassurance, hugs, phatic communication, or shepherd's pie. They do do status, which is why the Doctor's tact returned when it came to saving Mickey's pride. He made a big show of refusing to have Mickey on board on the grounds that he was a "liability": better to be thought a klutz than a coward.

Patrick Crozier says:

Doctor Who has always been profoundly political. The Daleks are the Nazis. Davros is Hitler. The Sun Makers (a Tom Baker-era story) was all about sky-high taxes. The Sea Devils is all about the Ulster Troubles. It is one of the great strengths of science fiction that it is much easier to discuss political issues than it is with straight drama. That an episode might try to make an (apparently) left-wing point should come as no surprise. You can’t expect it to go all your own way.

I commented:

There is a big difference between using SF to examine the underlying structure of a political situation without the distraction of one’s present allegiances (e.g. the Sea Devils series, as you say) and the kind of over-topical political reference that does the opposite, jolts one into remembering one’s present allegiances - and forgetting about the story. The former can succeed in dramatic terms for me even when I don’t like the politics. The latter would be likely to fail even if I agreed with the politics.

There was one part of the politics that did not have the approval of my anarcho-capitalist side but which had me cheering anyway: when the MP, Harriet Jones, takes charge as the only elected person there, and in the name of the people commands the Doctor to go ahead and do whatever it takes. You tell him, lady! His initial hesitation may have added to the drama but still came across as pointless. Rose's chances of seeing the next morning were obviously increased, not decreased, by his taking action. A scriptwriter who was fully on the job and not wasting his very considerable talents kissing the BBC top brass better after the Hutton Report would have contrived some way to give this pseudo-dilemma two proper horns.

My husband was impressed by the way that the viewer couldn't tell who was going to live and die. No one wore the red shirt. In the first episode the lady pathologist looked done for but she survived. That nice private secretary to the PM did not. Sergeant Price scarpered at the right moment and presumably made it, too. On second thoughts, maybe you could tell he was going to: Russell T. Davies also wrote Mine All Mine and Swansea boys always look out for each other.

A few unclassifiable pros and cons:

- Nearly all those scenes when the Doctor made a joke before escaping were played too slowly. The soldiers had time to shoot him before the lift doors closed, especially since his joke telegraphed what he was going to do. Every time he stopped to negotiate with the Slitheen they had time to hook him by the throat with those big claws of theirs and crunch his bones like matchwood but for some reason preferred to chat.

- The news scenes were convincing. Andrew Marr played himself without exaggeration. I laughed when Rose and the Doctor ended up going home to watch the crisis on TV like everyone else.

- It was ridiculous that the Slitheen could be liquefied by acetic acid. Ridiculous, but in keeping with the traditions of Dr Who. There really ought to have been some foreshadowing of this. Perhaps the policeman-Slitheen could have shouted at a subordinate for eating chips with vinegar on duty.

- A well-thought-out touch to end the show was that Mickey was given a computer virus to wipe all mention of the Doctor from the internet. Yes. That is what would happen.

Remembering Gallipoli.

To commemorate ANZAC Day Tim Blair has a selection of links about the doomed Gallipoli landings. Of the Australian troops who were there, Joseph Stratford was probably the first to die. Alex Campbell was the last to live.

For all the time I have spent arguing that the "lions led by donkeys" myth of the First World War is a myth, and a harmful one, I still feel about the First World War much as Sean Gabb does. He wrote:

I began this jotting with the intention of saying something smart and clever about today's anniversary. But there is nothing smart and clever to be said. When I contemplate the events that unrolled between the 28th June and the 4th August 1914, I become a child again, in the audience of a pantomime. I want to cry out to the person on stage - "Look behind you!" "Don't go there!", "He's coming for you!". But there is nobody out there to listen.

None of their descendants can truly project themselves into the minds of that generation, who, as they went to war, thanked God that they would have the chance to fight. No one now, however patriotic, however convinced of the rightness and necessity of a war, can say dulce et decorum est pro patria mori without uncertainty, irony, regret.

It was not sweet to die. It remains fitting to remember the dead.

To that end I am going to post again something I first posted in 2002, an excerpt taken from the Anzacs.org website:

I wasn't aware that there were British soldiers at Gallipoli. Who were they?

One of the saddest aspects of the history of the Gallipoli campaign is that, in Australia and New Zealand, there is almost never any acknowledgement made that other forces were present at Gallipoli other than the Anzacs, and that, in Britain, most people seem neither to know nor care about the part played by their own soldiers there. At the same time, though, it has also to be pointed out that the Anzac sector was separated from the British / French sector at Cape Helles (the southern tip of the peninsula), by some 13 miles, and that the two were never linked up, so in effect they can be treated as different battlefields completely.

That said, it must also be realised that some Anzac units served at Helles, and some British units served at Anzac. Later, in August, after the new landings at Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac, the Anzac and Suvla (British) areas were linked, and there was a little more contact between the two.

Who were they? There were too many different units for me to answer that here.

I'll work on putting up a list of all units present on a separate page (not possible yet because of memory restrictions on my site). Suffice to say that in total (including the Anzacs and Indians and French), approximately half a million men were sent to Gallipoli on the allied side, with total casualties (killed, wounded, sick and prisoners), of about 252,000 men.

Australians and New Zealanders pride themselves on giving everyone a 'fair go', but when it comes to Gallipoli, there has been so much misinformation taught that many people seem unwilling to even admit that other forces were present and become almost resentful when this is pointed out. The fact that others were there does not detract from what the Anzacs did, but it must be acknowledged that they also performed amazing acts of bravery, suffered and died, and some in greater numbers than even the Anzacs, and that therefore they also deserve a 'fair go'.

Allow me to repeat, too, what I said in that earlier post: "I don't think it diminishes the Anzacs' memory in any way to point this out. Their dauntless courage was acknowledged by all who saw it." The Australians and New Zealanders rightly honour their Gallipoli dead. So do the Turks, who fought bravely on the other side. Why do we in Britain forget?

Plonkers unaware of their plonkerdom: a particular peril for seamen.

Andrew Duffin writes:

I do a bit of sailing. Well quite a lot actually.

My crew - who is way more skilled than I - has a saying when someone is a complete plonker on a boat:

"He doesn't even know enough to know how little he knows"

Seems to chime in with the paper you link to, and it's a bit more, well, snappy!

As it happens the guy who pointed out the first link to me is a sailor too. Sailing is a complex activity that can go horribly wrong.

Contrariness prompts me to say that there are times when it pays not to know too much. War is also a complex activity that can go horribly wrong. Would it have helped or hindered 2 Para at the battle of Goose Green to have known that their 450 men were pitted against 1,600?

I know, I know. The odd counter-example does not disprove the rule: it generally pays to have accurate knowledge. And to make a habit of seeking it.

For all I know

the elevated sense of humour of those of the Middle Kingdom does maintain a harmonious parallelity etc. I would be delighted to discover the existence of a Chinese work that made play with what Belloc would have called "the English convention in the Chinese tongue."

How, or if, I could ever appreciate it would be another matter. It took me most of my life to get some of the jokes in Astérix chez les Bretons.

"However entrancing

it is to wander through a garden of bright images," as Wimsey said to Harriet Vane in Holloway Gaol as she stood trial for her life, "are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?"

Angie Schulz of Machinery of Night writes regarding this post:

You pointed to the .net guy's list of questions
supposedly asked of an Australian tourist bureau. As you probably guessed, this list was a joke/hoax. It sprang up during the time of the Sydney Olympics (I was living in Sydney at the time). I seem to remember that the Sydney Morning Herald had something to do with it (which comes as no surprise), but I was unable to google up a cite.

(In the course of my googling I learned that there was an HMS Rattlesnake which explored Australia and surrounds in the mid-19th c, the voyage of which was chronicled by T.H. Huxley. So the time spent searching was not a loss.)

I believe the responses were meant to be the SMH's, but I can't swear to it. I remember that it circulated around my workplace, and I was annoyed to find it was a hoax because I devoted a little thought to why people should ask such stupid questions. Perhaps, in Germany, milk *wasn't* available all year 'round; wasn't it provincial of the Australians not to think of that?

Someone swore blind to me that in Germany, if you want to sell your house, the law demands that you paint all the walls white even if your purchaser adores your wallpaper. - NS

Perhaps rattlesnake venom is used to treat some disorder, and the person wants to ensure that he has access to a supply?

And as for the hippo racing...well, hell, there is (or was) an annual camel race at the Randwick racetrack (the Sheikh Zayed Cup), and if you can believe camel racing in Sydney, is hippo racing all that far fetched? Well, maybe.

(It looks as if the Sheikh Zayed Cup no longer exists, because the most recent cites seem to date from 2000.)

If Angie can be sporting enough to admit when she was taken in, so can I. When I saw this passage about the Iraqi election -

It's easy to hail the courage of the purple-fingered sheep who sashayed to the voting centers under the protection of armed U.S. soldiers

- quoted on some blog I went haring over to the site in a fury ready to make the author taste the Wrath of Natalie.

Going back a few years, when first some few words from the sublime Kai Lung entranced my eyes (albeit in the ignoble guise of discourse between imaginary persons in the tales of Wimsey, a barbarian lordling), untrammelled was my rejoicing to discover this evidence (as I thought it) that the elevated sense of humour of those of the Middle Kingdom maintained such a harmonious parallelity to that of the unworthy one before you.