Category Archives: England

My brief conversation yesterday with the professor himself

chap-hop-professor-elemental

One of the truly awesome things about Twitter is the opportunity to converse with interesting people you might never otherwise meet.

I’ve mentioned in the past my exchanges with Adam Baldwin, of which I’m very proud because I’m such a fan of “Firefly” in general, and the wisdom of Jayne Cobb (a favorite example: “Eatin’ people alive — where’s that get fun?”) in particular.

I’m also an admirer of “chap-hop” artist Professor Elemental (greatest hit: “Fighting Trousers“). And so I thoroughly enjoyed this exchange with him yesterday:

prof3prof2

The Professor is so generous, deigning to converse with his fans, even those in the colonies. Such affability, such condescension; it is hardly to be credited.

For me, an exchange like that is as fulfilling as… well, as when my (fictional) hero Jack Aubrey was addressed by his hero, Lord Nelson, as follows: “Aubrey, may I trouble you for the salt?” After that, Jack always tried to say it just the same way…

So yes, an old newsman who in his time has had extended conversations with Barack Obama, John McCain, both George Bushes, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Fred Thompson (and the lovely Mrs. Thompson), Joe Biden and so forth can still get a kick out of a brush with a celebrity.

But it has to be a certain kind of celebrity. I wouldn’t be particularly excited to have a Twitter conversation with, say, Beyonce. But I’d be thrilled — and not really in a good way, given that I’m a happily married man — if Felicia Day acknowledged me in a Tweet. (Again, as with Baldwin, there’s the Joss Whedon connection there.)

My standards are a little idiosyncratic, even eccentric, but they are my standards…

Whoa! I missed the part about ‘Peace in our time’!

MunichAgreement_

As I said before, I didn’t catch all of the president’s speech yesterday, and something rather important got by me:

The WTF moment for me in Obama’s second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was his use of the phrase “peace in our time.” This came during his discussion of foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu’s chain.

I also simply didn’t understand what he meant by “a world without boundaries.” But my immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries — like those meant to keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan…

Yikes. You know, there are certain phrases that anyone with an understanding of history would be careful to avoid. Such as “Mistakes were made.” “I am not a crook.” “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

And of course, “peace in our time.” What was the thinking on that? Did the president think that his base would like the sound of it, and not understand the profoundly disturbing historical allusion? Hey, it was politically popular when Chamberlain said it, although Britain woke up later.

I just don’t see how a line like that appears in such a formal speech by accident. And no other explanation is excusable.

That’s an association you don’t want. And for another thing, it doesn’t fit well with the president’s ongoing aggressive drone war. That suggests cynicism. As in, the president gave the gift of peace to four al Qaeda militants on Monday…

Oh, and another thing… since when did people who right for Foreign Policy start using such expressions as “WTF”?

Paul Ryan: The Deerslayer, policy wonk version

OK, you know veep candidate Paul Ryan is a major policy wonk. One thing you might not think of him as is a good old boy. But a magazine with a name that sounds like a stutter — Deer and Deer Hunting — is aiming to set you straight. See this release:

Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan opens up to Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine about his love of the outdoors.

“Bowhunting is my passion,” said Ryan to Deer & Deer Hunting’s Editor Alan Clemons. “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Ryan talks more about his childhood, being a father and balancing his hunting and Capitol life in an exclusive interview with Deer & Deer Hunting. The column will be in the October issue of Deer & Deer Hunting and will be available on newsstands September 4.

If you’d like to learn more about the interview, I can provide you with the pre-released interview, a press release, a copy of the magazine issue or any additional information you may need.

For more information on Deer & Deer Hunting, please go to www.deeranddeerhunting.com. For any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

I didn’t get to read the whole story because I didn’t want to give the mag my email address and have a whole new batch of emails to delete (I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past). But I confess to being curious as to whether the piece contains any other quotes as, um, interesting as “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Yeah, OK. I thought he only got that excited about cutting Medicare costs.

Of course, I’m a bit of an old hand with a bow myself. One day when we were in England last year, we were strolling in Hyde Park and came across a sort of carnival, which had a booth called “Robin Hood,” which enticed marks to shoot an arrow at balloons. Sure, it could have been a trap set by the sheriff, but I couldn’t resist. I immediately laid down my five quid (the real Robin Hood would have loved to find a fat friar carrying that on him), gave my camera to my wife to record the moment, and took my three shots. Unfortunately, my wife thought the camera was set for still photos rather than video, and merely aimed it at me, pressed the shutter release, and turned away.

So it was that she missed when I actually burst one of the balloons. But the great tragedy was that she missed my next shot, which split the previous arrow… yeah, that’s the ticket

OK, so that last part didn’t really happen. But I did get one of the balloons. Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t match the excitement that Ryan speaks of. But that’s OK by me.

Take THAT, ye oppressor of good Saxon yeomen!

Nice job of repairing the ol’ Special Relationship there, Mitt. You trying to restart the War of 1812?

Well, you know how that awful Obama person went and insulted our Cousins across the water by dissing the Churchill bust?

Fortunately, Mitt Romney, a.k.a. The Mighty Mighty White Man, hopped across the pond to set things straight.

Above was the result. That’s from The Sun. Very lively newspaper industry they still have over there. Here’s more on the subject.

Anyway, the White House has really, really been enjoying this. And and at least one of Romney’s likely supporters is highly dismayed:

As Charles Krauthammer, who is probably Obama’s most vitriolic foreign policy critic on the right, put it, Romney really didn’t have to do much more than show up for the trip to be a success. Instead, he opened his mouth and undermined both of his goals. Whatever the right might say about the Obama administration damaging the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K., Obama has never caused an incident like the one Romney did yesterday. As an exasperated Krauthammer remarked last night, “All Romney has to do, say nothing. It’s like a guy in the 100-meter dash. All he has to do is to finish, he doesn’t have to win. And instead, he tackles the guy in the lane next to him and ends up disqualified. I don’t get it.”

Of three political rules broken, two involved SC

National media may get South Carolina wrong, but on the whole, I find the British press more readable. So it was that I enjoyed this piece in The Guardian, which took a hard-eyed look at political precedent.

You know how analysts over here like to say things like “If Obama wins/loses re-election, it will be the first time that a Democrat ever did so in a year ending in the numeral 2,” or some other such meaningless nonsense — as if every election weren’t distinct, and decided on the basis of millions of reasons scattered across the electorate.

It’s political analysis on the level of sports color commentary — Well, Tim, if he swings at this and misses, it will be the first time that an American League right-hander, facing a left-handed reliever in the bottom of the seventh with men on first and third, has ever, yadda yadda.

In this piece, Harry Enten demonstrates that this election, however it comes out, is destined to break all sorts of records — as does every election.

You should go read it.

But the part that jumped out at me, and that I want to share with you today, is this passage:

At least one of these rules, and likely more, are going to be broken in 2012. The conventional wisdom will be turned on its head: 2012 will indeed be a “unique year”. Believers of this idea can also point to the primary season for the uniqueness that is 2012.

Here are three of them that have since gone the way of the Linotype.

1. No Republican candidate had ever won the South Carolina Republican primary without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire – until Newt Gingrich.

2. No Republican had ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina – until Mitt Romney.

3. No non-Protestant candidate had ever won the Republican nomination – until Mitt Romney.

Yep, of the three unprecedented things that happened in the GOP primary season in 2012 involved South Carolina.

Sometimes, we even shock ourselves.

Stiff upper lip, mate: Coping with austerity in Britain

On a previous post, Bud and Silence had an exchange about Britain’s austerity measures, with Bud painting a fairly dismal picture:

Check out the results of the austerity approach in Great Britain. It’s been a disaster with GDP declining a full 2 years after the US began to grow. They’re approach a full blown depression.

Well, I don’t know about all that, but I do know that when I was there at the start of last year, all the buzz was about the steep increase in the VAT, which took effect while I was there. Everywhere I went, businesses had signs out about sales and such that appealed to people’s worries about the tax increase. The newspapers were full of back-and-forth between Labour pols attacking the increase and Tories defending it.

Personally, I didn’t notice the difference — everything was a little more expensive over there than here before the increase, and I didn’t feel a few more few bob here and there. Besides, when you’re on vacation you don’t count pennies the same way — especially since pennies there are different from here to start with.

I did appreciate the sign in front of The Crown Inn in Woodstock (a short bus ride from Oxford). We went in and had lunch, and I enjoyed a couple of VAT-increase-free pints. But then, I would have anyway. It was (we were told) the oldest pub in town, and we got a nice table next to the fireplace. Cheers!

My (successful) Quest for George Smiley

Outside Smiley's house on Bywater Street. No need to knock. George knows I'm here. And where's he going to go? It's a cul de sac. It's over, old friend.

I’d been holding this back for when the movie comes out, but now that it’s passed me by (although I look forward to its being at the Nickelodeon next month), I am much embittered and have decided to go public with the whole story — the Official Secrets Act be damned. See how they like it when it’s all laid out in the papers. Perhaps I’ll go with The Guardian; that should sting. Let Parliament launch an inquiry. Let them connect me to the notorious Rebekah Brooks, for all I care. (After all, I’ve done a freelance job for that same outfit, in the time since they cast me out.) I’ve been a good soldier, put in my time, watched and waited. All for naught. Here’s my story…

As you know, I went to the UK a year ago, ostensibly as a tourist. That wouldn’t fool a real professional, of course, but one keeps as low a profile as one can. I have my own tradecraft for this sort of thing — I make a big splash, publicize my whereabouts… what spy would do that?

It’s worked so far.

My mission — to find the Circus, and more importantly, George Smiley himself.

It was quite a challenge. George hasn’t been seen since 1982. And the original location of the Circus, now that MI6 has the River House (all mod cons, as Bill Haydon would say), is shrouded in service legend. It’s not something you’d assign to some probationer straight out of Sarratt.

First, we spent a couple of days settling in, establishing patterns. One assumes that tiny Toby Esterhase‘s lamplighters are everywhere, so you need to paint them a picture, let them get complacent. This we did — from Heathrow to Swiss Cottage (the very spot where General Vladimir would have been picked up as a fallback, had he not been killed on Hampstead Heath), then all over the city on the Tube, aimlessly. Trafalgar Square, St. James’s, Fortnum’s, Buckingham, the Globe, the Tate, the Cabinet War Rooms, the Tower, hither and yon in the City.

Finally, at the end of our third full day, after night had fallen, we ambled up Charing Cross Road, affecting to be interested in bookshops. We almost missed it, but then there it was — the Circus itself. There was the Fifth Floor, and even Haydon’s little hexagonal pepperpot office overlooking New Compton Street and Charing Cross. Quick, I said, get the picture. It took a couple of tries, the way these things do when you need to hurry. Thank heavens for our “tourist” cover; it excuses all sorts of odd behavior. Then on up the street, and an hour or so of browsing at Foyles to check our backs. Found a couple of decent-looking biographies of Lord Cochrane, but didn’t buy one. (They had shelf after shelf of naval history; it went on and on.) Then we wandered about in the West End, to clean our backs as much as possible, before heading back to Swiss Cottage.

One thing down. Hardest part to come.

By this time, I had decided not to risk the actual modern HQ of the SIS. Mix fact with fiction like that, and it’s like mixing matter and antimatter. Could blow you clear across the universe, or at least to Brixton, and who wants to go there, really? That’s why they put Scalphunters there.

We played tourist for another day. Then another. The Sherlock Holmes museum. A side trip to Greenwich, to stand astride the Meridian, and see the coat Nelson wore at the Nile. Back into town for the British Museum.

Then, it was our last day in London. Had to go to Oxford the next day, and check on Connie. Connie is high-maintenance. So it was do-or-die time. We opted to do.

We thought that twilight would be the best time to descend on George. Vigilance is low. Everyone’s tired then; time for tea and meet the wife. So we went to that general part of town. Spent several hours at the Victoria and Albert. Loads of statues and the like.

We took the Tube to Sloan Square, a good half-kilometer from Bywater Street, and went the rest of the way on foot. We entered the cul de sac as night descended (which it does before 4 p.m. at that time of year). There wasn’t a soul on the narrow street. Everything went smoothly. When we got to the part where Smiley lives, I tried to throw the watchers off by shooting pictures of houses other than his. In a way, though, they were all relevant. George lives at No. 9, of course. But the 1979 TV series was shot at No. 10. And No. 11 has a Banham security system, which the book describes as being on George’s house. No. 9 has an ADT system.

Anyway, after doing what I could to distract any lamplighters in the vicinity, I had J (her workname — best watcher in the outfit, is J) quickly shoot a happy snap of me in front of No. 9. She was a bit nervous, because there were lights in the basement-level windows. She said people who lived there would wonder what we were doing. I muttered no, they wouldn’t: “They know exactly what we’re doing.” The thing was to get it over with quickly, so we did. Given the hurry we were in, I’m struck, as I look at the image, by how placid and dispassionate and, well, Smileyesque I look in the image. Like I was channeling him in that moment.

Then, it was back out to King’s Road and back to the Underground as fast as our legs would carry us, trying not to show that our hearts were pounding like Peter Guillam’s when he stole the Testify file from Registry that time. I was getting too old for this, I knew. As I looked up at the Christmas lights in the trees on Sloane Square, they were as blurry as the stars in a Van Gogh.

I can hardly remember the next couple of hours, but I can’t forget the stroke of luck that befell us later. Nothing short of a miracle, it was.

We had decided to case Victoria Station and its environs, because we knew we had to catch a coach there for the trip to Oxford next morning, and it’s good tradecraft to reconnoiter these things ahead of time. We got a bit turned-around there, and ended up touring the whole station before we discovered that the coach station was on the next block. On one aimless pass through the vicinity of the ticket windows, I looked up and there he was. George himself. Right out of the first paragraph of this passage:

He returned to the railway station… There were two ticket counters and two short queues. At the first, an intelligent girl attended him and he bought a second-class single ticket to Hamburg. But it was a deliberately laboured purchase, full of indecision and nervousness, and when he had made it he insisted on writing down times of departure and arrival: also on borrowing her ball-point and a pad of paper.

In the men’s room, having first transferred the contents of his pockets, beginning with the treasured piece of postcard from Leipzig’s boat, he changed into the linen jacket and straw hat, then went to the second ticket counter where, with a minimum of fuss, he bought a ticket on the stopping train to Kretzchmar’s town. To do this, he avoided looking at the attendant at all, concentrating instead on the ticket and his change, from under the brim of his loud straw hat…

Apparently, our appearance at Bywater Street had sent him on the run, but we had stumbled into him anyway. I left him alone, except for grabbing this picture. You doubt that’s George Smiley? Look at this picture, and this one and this one, and then tell me that. ‘Course it was him. Stuck out a mile.

But now that I’d found him, what was the point? He was just my old friend George. I could hear Toby’s triumphant voice in my ear: “Brad! All your life! Fantastic!” But I ignored him. I got the picture, and moved on. I didn’t even look to see whether he had left Ann’s lighter on the floor.

My mission had been accomplished, and then some… Why did I not exult? All I felt was the urge to polish my glasses with the lining of my tie. But I wasn’t wearing a tie…

Tasteful understatement on display

My first reaction when I saw this was to flash on 1979:

Protesters Storm British Embassy in Tehran

But then, I had to smile when I read this blurb leading the NYT site:

In an assault Britain called “utterly unacceptable,” Iranian protesters entered the British Embassy on Tuesday, chanting “death to England,” pulling down a flag and ransacking offices.

Utterly unacceptable, indeed. And insupportable, I might add, if I may do so without being charged with rash hyperbole.

Oh, and by the way… the sun may have set on the Empire, but when all is said and done, I’m going to bet on the culture that says “utterly unacceptable” over the one that gets so whipped up by an ayatollah that it runs amok screaming “death to England” and destroying Her Majesty’s property.

And now, let’s drink to the King. Or to the Queen, if that’s all you’ve got.

Finally, my important discovery is recognized

For a second there, I almost deleted the comment and reported it as spam. Usually, when someone comments on a really old post, that’s what it is.

But I hesitated, and followed the link provided, and was happy to find that finally, an authoritative source had confirmed the validity of my important discovery of the actual site of the fictional Championship Vinyl.

You have to read High Fidelity to fully understand the importance of my discovery. Watching the movie is OK, but since it transports the shop to Chicago, no serious Hornbyologist would give it the time of day as a source of valid information.

I’m the one who crossed the ocean, left my wife asleep at our hotel in Swiss Cottage, crossed London in the Underground and searched the vast reaches of Islington alone, without a guide beyond the cryptic words of the novel itself, and found the hallowed spot.

And no one has fully recognized me until now, as DellaMirandola writes:

Thank you for this important discovery. I’ve just written about it here:http://thehornseyroad.blogspot.com/2011/11/championship-vinyl.html

Yes, there’s a bit of tail-chasing solipsism or some other fancy word going on here, in that the site in question is citing me as the source of truth without reference to the external world, and I’m citing him in return as the confirmation, but let’s leave that to the nitpickers. The bottom line is, what could be more expert on the validity of a find on the Hornsey Road than a website called The Hornsey Road? I ask you…

And that worthy author could hardly have been more definite:

In High Fidelity, Rob Fleming’s record shop is just off the Seven Sisters Road
This proves conclusively that it’s on the southern stretch of the Hornsey Road.

I am covered in glory. I don’t even care if there’s any money attached.

So now, I have another thing to be thankful for today.

Thanks for the ‘sunflower seeds,’ Mr. Weiwei

A few of the fake sunflower seeds (life-size if you click on 'em).

Yesterday, I saw this BBC item about how supporters of one Ai Weiwei were helping him pay the $2.4 million in taxes and fees that Chinese authorities say he owes:

Thousands of people have donated money to pay a massive tax bill served on Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

By Monday, there had been donations totalling more than 5m yuan ($790,000; £490,000) to pay off the $2.4m in taxes and fines the authorities say he owes.

Many people believe he was served the bill because of his outspoken criticism of the government rather than because he had evaded taxes…

And I thought, Hey, is that the sunflower seeds guy? The story didn’t say…

And then I moved on and finished my Virtual Front Page for the day.

A few minutes ago, I went back to check — yep, he was the sunflower seeds guy!

This was an… artwork, um, installation… whatever… that I saw in London late last year, at the Tate Modern. It was 100 million fake sunflower seeds (made from porcelain, no less), strewn across the floor of this huge, warehouse-like room. Weiwei had somehow persuaded the people of some Chinese town to make them by hand. I don’t know whether overtime was involved. I think it was supposed to be an economic stimulus or something.

Here’s what we’re supposed to get out of it, if we’re the right sort of people:

The work continues to pose challenging questions: What does it mean to be an individual in today’s society? Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future?

This is one of those things that make me feel like a total philistine. I see a Van Gogh, and I get it — it’s beautiful. I see a Weiwei, and I turn into a Homer Simpson. I think, That’s impressive, all right, but… you can’t eat ’em. I also think:

  • Was that the best use of those people’s time?
  • Wouldn’t it have saved a lot of money just to use real sunflower seeds, or if you wanted fakes, run them off in a factory?
  • How much do you suppose it cost to transport those things here and spread them on this floor? Did they build this part of the building just for this display?
  • How are the people who made these? Are they better off for his having done this?
  • Are you sure I can’t eat them?

And so forth. You know what, scratch the Homer Simpson analogy; that’s demeaning (to me). Seeing things like this make me more like… Mark Twain and his waggish friends in The Innocents Abroad, berating the European tour guides for showing them all that old stuff, because by golly they were paying good money, and wanted to see something new, etc.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Right after the Weiwei exhibit, I saw something that I did understand — my very first public bathroom signage that actually said “WC.” So I took a picture of that. I felt reassured.

After that, we walked downriver a bit and toured the Globe theater — which, as it turns out, is not the actual, original Globe, nor in the right location — yet another fraud! Don’t get me started…

Anyway, I hope Weiwei gets out of trouble with the Chinese authorities.

Gazillions of fake sunflower seeds.

Burl’s column about his Dad and the 8th Air Force

Burl Burlingame says on Facebook that he was contacted by “a documentary crew who reminded me of this piece I wrote some years ago. I miss my father.”

Here’s the piece, from June 15, 2003. If the Star Bulletin gets mad at me for repeating it in its entirety, I’ll boil it down to a quote and a link. But here’s the whole thing:

To England and
back with Dad


Dad doesn’t talk much about the war unless he’s had a couple of drinks, and even then you have to keep him from drifting into the realm of airplanes, which is related but has little to do with real life and family history. There is a period of his life — and my mother’s — that seems boundless and malleable, a mysterious dark forest with little light to illuminate the way, the few years between school days in rural Ohio and a rootless existence as the head of a career Air Force family, a wandering life that eventually settled in Hawaii 38 years ago.

The war came along and swept Dad up, rattled the childhood right out of him, stamped and marked the man who raised me. Like most veterans of his age, the war is likely the most vivid period of his life, and one that is quietly put away in a rarely opened compartment.

In college on a swimming scholarship, Dad joined the Army Air Forces and became a fighter pilot. By the time he was 20, he was flying Mustangs for the 8th Air Force, part of the desperate crusade throwing itself against Hitler’s Europe.

Once, as a adolescent, I was watching an aviation show on television and I asked Dad if he remembered what life was like on an English airfield during the war. Sure, he said, watching smoke curl upward from his cigarette. He described seeing a bomber full of teenage Americans smack into the ground and cartwheel, flinging debris and flames across the green grass. He spotted what appeared to be a parachute pack hanging on a wire fence and, trying to be useful, he trotted over to retrieve it — only to discover that it was actually a young man’s torso, tangled in the wires. I think it was the first time he’d seen a dead body.I shut up and he continued to watch cigarette smoke curl away into nothing.

We shared a love of aviation and Dad introduced me to the exacting craft of building model airplanes. The first model I built on my own was a clunky Aurora P-51 Mustang, the same kind of airplane he flew during the war, and I painted it with a can of lime-green zinc chromate he liberated from the base motor pool. It was hideous; I’m still building models of Mustangs, still trying to get it right.

Dad retired from the Air Force after a long career and went back to school. For a while, we were in college at the same time and, since our names are the same, our transcripts would get mixed up. He got better grades than I did. Eventually he earned a doctorate and taught university classes. The Air Force receded into the past and the war acquired a faint burnish, the rough memory worn down to gleaming daydream.

Like others of Dad’s generation — the generation Tom Brokaw is so impressed by — the 1980s and ’90s were a period in which veterans looked back on the war with perspective and an ability to come to terms with it. My father began attending reunions of the 355th Fighter Group, got involved in creating a memorial commemorating the group’s brief, dangerous liaison with the tiny towns of Steeple Morden and Litlington in faraway Cambridgeshire, north of London. Dad spoke of Steeple Morden with a fondness he doesn’t have for his own hometown.
This spring, it looked like the group association would have its last reunion. All of the members are in their 80s. A last hurrah was planned, a farewell tour, a final addition to the Steeple Morden airfield marker, a closing of the door, a turning off of the lights. Although Dad bought tickets, my mother decided she wasn’t up to the trip. Dad has a pacemaker, and a daily cocktail of heart drugs that makes him unsteady at times. Without backup, he wasn’t sure he was up to the grind of traveling. Would I be interested in filling in for Mom?
Absolutely. It’s impossible to do enough for your parents, and besides, I had not been back to Europe in 20 years. This time, however, I’d be experiencing it through my father’s eyes, seeing the places and people that became touchstones in his life and, by extension, my own. A journey into our shared past.
The traveling turned out to be the easy part, even though I haven’t traveled with a parent in more than two decades. Dad and I preferred the same hard mattresses, the same amount of ventilation in the rooms, falling asleep and waking up at about the same time, a glass of beer before dinner and something harder afterwards, an amused wariness of artery-hardening English breakfasts. On the other hand, I still hold out hope that Europeans will discover the magic of ice cubes in drinks; after 60 years, Dad has given up on them.
In the rolling green farmlands of Cambridgeshire, I discovered that the war was neither far away nor a fading memory.
The tour was organized by retired tractor salesman and aviation enthusiast David Crow, an apple-cheeked bundle of energy and the 355th’s English point of contact. During the war, he was one of the scrawny Brit kids hanging around the airfield, asking, “Got any gum, chum?” In school, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, Crow wrote, “A Yank!”
Instead of simply being lonely teenagers thrown into the maw of combat — the 8th Air Force had the highest casualty rate of any American military organization during the war — the Americans were heartily appreciated, perhaps more so in retrospect. They had a profound effect on the British simply by their presence. These “fields of Little America” that dotted the English countryside created lasting bonds between America and England, and help explain why the English stick up for us when other countries don’t.
Retired sales manager Albert Moore, whom I met in the spectacular 8th Air Force Memorial Library in Norwich, studies the deeds of the 8th Air Force every weekend while his wife goes shopping. Why? His eyes softened. “All those lovely boys sacrificed,” he said. “Mr. Hitler would have taken us, no error, if it had not been for the Americans. It was the Yanks saved our bacon, even though we had no bacon left.”
Another one of the veteran pilots, Bill “Tiger” Lyons, speaking at the rededication of the 355th Memorial at Steeple Morden, pointed out what a near thing it had been. “Imagine what the world would be like now if the Nazis had won,” he said. “Just imagine. Well, I can’t. It took desperate teamwork from the diverse peoples of the world to stop fascism, the political movement that wanted to destroy diversity. Well, it was diversity that made us strong, holding hands across an ocean.”
It was a mighty near thing, the war. Americans sacrificed lives for it, but we never came close to sacrificing our entire culture and history.
The reunion ceremony caused a bit of a news stir in England, as a panel had been added to the memorial commemorating the Royal Air Force — the first time an American military organization had so honored the British — and also because the Duke of Gloucester had asked to be part of the ceremony, reading a religious passage — the first time a royal had participated directly in such a ceremony. It took place beneath a lowering English sky, in an emerald stand of spring wheat, the long-ago vestiges of the Steeple Morden airfield barely visible in the contours of the land.
At the nearby Steeple Morden schoolhouse, which dates back several centuries, the hallways are illustrated with heroic images of flying Mustangs. The English children greeted the shuffling old American aviators as if they were pop stars. They sang hymns like angels; they performed an American cheerleading routine; a little girl sang “America the Beautiful” solo, in a haunting voice that hung in the air. I saw my Dad and others wipe their eyes.
In nearby Litlington, half the village turned out to feed the Americans in the town center. Relationships were renewed that had begun more than half a century before. The Crown, a Litlington pub that stood during the war, still has 8th Air Force pictures on the walls. Americans lifted pints of dark, bitter beer as they did in the days of 1944, and remarked how it still tasted the same.
Inevitably, a group photo was called for. The American veterans, some with walkers and canes, slowly assembled on Litlington’s small public stage. The English folks took snapshots of their heroes and friends. It was likely the last time they’d visit, at least as a group. Even this will pass.
Suddenly the American pilots began to sing:
Off we go into the wild blue yonder
Climbing high into the sun
Here they come, zooming to meet our thunder
At ’em boys, give ‘er the gun!
Even Dad, who never sings in church, was bellowing along, smiling and content. The citizens of Litlington clapped delightedly.
I began to understand how this relationship with the British has helped clear away the darkness of war. It is a flame that continues to burn; it is the light that preserves the world. I am immensely proud of my father, not just for surviving the horrors of the war with honor, but for coming to terms with it over the years.

Burl Burlingame is a Star-Bulletin writer and editor.

Burl’s an awesome writer. But of course, that’s awesome material.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Trailer

Just thought I’d share this, so that if there’s anyone among you who is as big a George Smiley fan as I, you, too, can start being frustrated waiting for this movie to come out in November. (Why does it take so long? If they’ve got it edited enough to put out a trailer…)

I was putting off posting this, after Mike Fitts brought it to my attention, until I could write a longer post I’ve been meaning to write ever since January, about my own successful Quest for Smiley (yes, Circus fans, that is an allusion to the Quest for Karla). But until I do that, here’s a picture of me standing in front of George’s actual house in London. Sort of a blog trailer, if you will. I think the picture captures a Le Carre kind of feel, doesn’t it? It was taken at dusk in winter, which is appropriate. Very Cold War.

Remember I said, in a post sent from the airport in Detroit, that I was going to look for signs of Smiley in London? Well, I did. More about that later…

God Save “the King,” and congrats to Firth et al.

I could go on a tirade here about why I don’t follow the Oscars, and revisit the fiasco of 1998… Actually, I will revisit it, just to this extent:

Why I don’t watch the Oscars.

There was a time when I did, avidly. I love movies, to a degree indicative of really messed-up priorities. As in, a man with priorities so far out of whack doesn’t deserve such a fine automobile. For instance, you’ll hear me quoting movies irrelevantly, seemingly at random. I love to read, have loved reading good fiction all of my life. But I think maybe movies are my very favorite art form. And yes, I know that’s kind of lowbrow, but it’s true. So be it.

Once, I used to go out of my way to at least see all of the movies nominated for Best Picture, and take an inordinate interest in which one won.

No more. My interest came to a crashing end in 1998, when “Shakespeare in Love” won Best Picture. That was the last straw.

I didn’t care that it beat out “Elizabeth” or “The Thin Red Line,” because they were both lame (especially that wretched adaptation of James Jones’ classic novel).

No, what got me was that “Shakespeare” was chosen over “Saving Private Ryan” (which sometimes makes my Top Five best pictures ever, depending on how I feel that day) and the wonderful “Life is Beautiful.”

Not that “Shakespeare” wasn’t fun. It was. As much fun as fluff can be. And that’s what it was. Worse, it was self-referential fluff. That was a movie for and about movie stars, transported to the 16th century. It made actors look cool, and fun, and clever, and way historical, meaning we should take them seriously. They adored it, because it made them feel great about themselves.

Which, come to think of it, is what the Oscars are about. Which is why I don’t watch anymore.

But all of that said, I’d still like to wish Colin Firth, et alia, joy of their triumph last night. Because, even though Mr. Firth was implicated in the fiasco, he certainly deserves this latest award.

And “The King’s Speech,” to my own admittedly limited knowledge, clearly deserved “Best Picture.”

I say “admittedly limited,” because, well, I had only seen four of the nominees. (Of which there appear to have been 10 — didn’t it used to be just 5? This is what happens when you stop following these things…)

Also, one more disclaimer. “The King’s Speech” is probably elevated a bit in my estimation because, well, I saw it in England. On my last night in the country, which happened to be the opening night in that country (oddly, this quintessentially British flick had opened in the States first). We saw it at the Odeon on Magdalen Street in Oxford. J and my granddaughter had had high tea at the Ashmolean, while I ducked over for another quick glimpse of the Pitt Rivers and then grabbed a quick bite at the McDonald’s on Cornmarket (just to prove that not everything I did was all touristy). Odd thing about ketchup in Britain, by the way — it’s much sweeter and less tangy; I don’t know why.

Bottom line, it was the best film I’d seen in the past year, and I suspect better than the nominees I haven’t seen, from what I’ve heard (and frankly, you’d have to pay me to get me to see, for instance, “127 Hours”). Perhaps I should provide a quick comparison to the few I have seen:

  • Inception — Biggest movie disappointment of the year for me. The trailers had done a good job of selling it to me, and it was one of the few that I meant to actually see in the theater, but didn’t make it in time. So I waited anxiously for its appearance on Netflix (and what is it with Netflix’ inability to get movies as soon as they’re available at WalMart, huh?), and then was disappointed. I mean, it was basically a play on the bad plot device of “and then the little boy woke up,” only taken to an exponentially greater point. I’m at the point of really wanting it to be over, and then… what? yet another dream level? gimme a break? It was like watching Twain’s “The Great Dark” translated to film — the years at the end that he skims over in the story.
  • The Kids are All Right — This was pretty good, and it has Julianne Moore naked (I say that not so much because it was significant to me, you understand, but in case lesbians are thinking about seeing it, which they may be), but in the end, I was disappointed. Actually, more specifically, I found the ending disappointing. I hated to see Mark Ruffalo’s character shut out at the end. My wife explained that I wasn’t supposed to feel that way, that he was a ne’er-do-well, etc. (in fact he was, technically and literally, a wanker — that was his importance to the plot), but I was still disappointed for him. Perhaps because he was the only character in the film with whom I could remotely identify. In any case, not the best of the year.
  • The Social Network — Ballyhooed by many as the best film of the year, my own estimation was only slightly higher than that of my younger son, who said “I’d heard it was a movie about inventing Facebook. And that’s what it was.” Yes, I appreciated it as social commentary on the way technology is changing our world and even our brains, but most of that had to be inferred. It was a good flick, just not as awesome as I had been led to expect.

And yes, it’s presumptuous to say I wouldn’t have liked the ones I didn’t see (and I still DO look forward to “True Grit” coming out on DVD — not because I liked the John Wayne one, which I didn’t, but because I continue to hold out hope for the Coen Brothers, in spite of “Burn Before Reading”). But hey, all I can do is go with what I have.

Oh, one last political observation on “The King’s Speech.” On the morning of the day I saw it, I read this review in The Guardian over my traditional English breakfast at the B&B, and uttered a Toryesque “harrumph” over this line: “Not everyone’s going to like this film: some may find it excessively royalist…” (There was also this online “poll” asking, “Is The King’s Speech royalist propaganda?” A slight majority said no.)

One thing I disliked when I ran across it during my brief sojourn in that country was when Brits apologized for anything touching upon their essential British identity. Fortunately, I didn’t run across it nearly as much as I expected. There was a museum exhibit about the  brouhaha over “Britannia” as a symbol on the coinage, and that line. But I still harrumphed.

I mean, if you’re the sort who gets offended by such, don’t see the bleedin’ film. The rest of you, if you haven’t already, see it as soon as you can.

UK deals properly with Assange — which reminds me of something funny

Have you seen the latest? A UK court has decided to send Julian Assange where he belongs:

A U.K. court ordered that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange be extradited to Sweden to face questioning about sexual-assault allegations, dealing a serious blow to the document-leaking site and its founder.

The decision means that Mr. Assange’s efforts to build and promote WikiLeaks will be detoured to some degree in coming months by the possibility that he will face criminal sex charges. WikiLeaks has gained notoriety with governments around the world through its release of thousands of classified documents and diplomatic cables.

Sweden hasn’t formally charged Mr. Assange with a crime, but wants to question him over allegations that he raped one woman and molested another during a visit to Stockholm last August. He denies any wrongdoing and said he will appeal the U.K. decision.

Good. Whatever the outcome of that case, if he is charged, Assange should be there to face the court’s decision.

But while he may be a super-creepy guy (and, say some, a rapist), he can still inspire some decent comedy. I loved this Bill Hader skit from back before Christmas, and today’s news reminded me of it.

In the skit, Assange hacks into a broadcast Mastercard commercial — from his jail cell in Britain (how did he do that? “Maybe you weren’t listening — I’m Julian Assange!” — and issues threats to the world if he is not released, with his “punishments” escalating each day he is held. Such as:

  • Day three. Facebook: You know that one profile picture that makes you look thin? It’s gone. Boo-hoo….
  • Day five, Netflix. Have you seen the fourth season of “Hanging with Mr. Cooper?” You’re ABOUT to. It’s first on your queue…
  • And if I’m incarcerated for one whole week, we start messing with porn sites — the FREE ones. Ooooh — got your attention NOW, do I?

Of course, it’s funnier the way Hader does it. There’s also a good Osama bin Laden joke — but I won’t spoil that. Enjoy.

A little ditty you can sing to take your mind off being groped

That is, if you mind being groped.

Personally, I was struck by how nonintrusive security was on my recent flights across the ocean and back. You’d think that on an international flight to and from a country that’s as involved (as target, and as combatant) in the War on Terror as the UK, you’d see security as tough as anywhere (with the possible exception of Israel).

The only sign I saw of really heightened security during the whole trip was when we went to see Downing Street, which is totally barred off and heavily guarded, with at least one submachine gun being wielded up close and personal so that the tourists can’t miss seeing it. But at least we could see something — I couldn’t quite make out the famous door of No. 10, although I could see the famous railings in front of it (which is how I could tell that was it, and not another black door that was at a slightly more advantageous angle for viewing — perhaps the chancellor of the exchequer’s abode; I don’t know).

But, after all the talk about invasive, intrusive new TSA procedures in recent months, what we experienced was not noticeably different from any other trip I’ve taken over the last decade or so. The only hassle I remember at all was the rigmarole of having to reclaim our bags in Atlanta after getting back, and then having to recheck them for the flight to Columbia. That was highly irritating at the end of a day (actually, the worst thing was that it WASN’T yet the end of the day) when we’d already been up for 18 hours, and had just stepped off a 9-hour flight. Without that drill, we might have made our connection in spite of our flight from Heathrow having been delayed. Delta quickly got us onto another one — although our bags didn’t follow us until the next day.

But all that stuff about futuristic x-ray machines and being groped by the TSA? We didn’t encounter any of that. I was ready for it, and all prepared to shrug it off (why people get so worked up about such things I still don’t understand), but then it just … didn’t happen.

Still I can enjoy a joke as well as the next guy. So when a friend who closely follows such issues showed me the above video, I just had to share it with y’all…

Near as I can tell, this video comes courtesy of buckhowdy.com.

The only obviously stepped-up security I saw the whole trip was at the end of Downing Street, where it runs into Whitehall.

Being watched in Airstrip One

Last night I was watching an episode of “Law & Order: UK” on BBC America, and was impressed by the extent to which the writers just expect you to keep up with the idiom, and the small differences between American and British culture and assumptions. For instance, there’s a scene in which detectives are fretting over the fact that they can’t easily retrace a suspect’s movements: He doesn’t carry a mobile, and probably doesn’t have an Oyster card. Then, a moment later, there’s a reference to CCTV.

The folks who do the show’s website are less respectful of the audience’s intelligence. The “British Terms Glossary” wastes time with “bloke” and “coppers” and “flat” and “guv.” Let’s face it, folks — if you don’t know what those mean, stick to re-runs of “Hee-Haw” (“Hey, Grandpa: What’s for supper?“) or the like. They also define “mobile,” but we know what that is too, don’t we?

The Oyster card is more subtle (and, you would think, a far more likely candidate for the online glossary than “Tube”). It’s the card you buy, and top up (do we say “top up”? I forget — but they say it a lot over there) as needed, to use the magnificent London system of public transportation. You swipe it to get through a turnstile on you way into a Tube station, and — here’s the pertinent part — you do the same to get out at your destination. Which means there exists an electronic record of your movements through the city. In the previous scene we had learned that the suspect had a fear of crowds that kept him away from the Tube. So, no Oyster card.

Of course, most people know what Closed Circuit TeleVision is. But it took me a day or so to consciously realized the implications of those signs I saw everywhere: “CCTV in operation.” (I actually had to think a minute to separate it in my mind from CATV, the old term for cable TV back in the days when it was the Community Antenna for small towns and rural communities, before it went all urban.)

What they meant, of course, is that you are under surveillance a huge proportion of the time. Yes, I know businesses here have CCTV, and footage from such cameras is often important in crime investigations. But it’s just nowhere near as ubiquitous as in London, and it doesn’t loom nearly as large in public consciousness. Watch TV news there, and it seems that every other word is CCTV, whether you’re talking the images of the crossbow robbers holding up a post office, or the images of murder victim Joanna Yeates (THE big story while we were there) picking up a couple of items at Tesco, or a routine crime at an off-licence. (Now there’s a term I had to look up — turns out “off-licence” doesn’t mean the shop is extralegal, that it lacks a license; it means it HAS a license to sell alcohol for OFF-premise consumption, as opposed to a pub. Generally, it’s what we’d call a convenience store.)

Of course, such consciousness of being watched — that those bright yellow signs — are a large part of the deterrent effect in themselves.

All of which is fine by me. As I always say, knock yourself out, Big Brother. I was conscious that some of my more libertarian friends back here in the States might have found it all creepy, but at no time in my sojourn in Airstrip One — I mean, England — did I feel the least bit put-upon or oppressed.

To me, it was part and parcel of being in a place that is very much like home, with freedom-loving people who respect the dignity of the individual, but where the politics is not plagued by the legions of radical-individualist paranoids who resist any effort at putting any sort of rational infrastructure in place. I loved the novelty of being in a place with such a dream public transit system, and where waiters and bartenders don’t mind not getting tips (or at most, don’t expect more than 10 percent) — after all, what are they worried about? They have health benefits they cannot lose. And I was very happy to pay the taxes that helped pay for it all. Some friends advised me that I could get a VAT refund on leaving the country, but there was no way I wanted that. I was happy to pay my share.

(And yes, sometimes it all goes overboard, which is why the coalition government is cutting back — AND raising taxes, remember, which they’re able to do because their conservative party doesn’t make a religion of irrational tax hatred. But on the whole, it was wonderful to be in a place where it’s assumed that one should have the Tube, and the buses (that’s “coaches” to you) and trains and parks and fantastic free museums (contributions suggested, but quite low and entirely voluntary) and a population of people who don’t fear being ruined by an unplanned sickness.

And which doesn’t mind being on Candid Camera, if it means you might catch a crossbow robber now and then.