Pure unadulterated hokum, deeply implausible – in other words a typical Arnie action movie scene. Yet, for all of that, deeply satisfying at that Hercules, Samson, Alfred the Great “against all odds” level….

….and when politeness is repulsed by the intimidating and aggressive swagger of the pig ignorant who better than Sly to offer a master class in the need to show a little respect and good manners.

Hokum = “A stock technique for eliciting a desired response from an audience”…

Yes, we fall for it every time…but why? It isn’t so much the violence although the idea of cruel and vicious people being paid back in their own coin generates a certain degree of schadenfreude. What is of greater significance is that it plays out the triumph of good v evil, a moral imperative that, despite our own flawed behaviour, appears to be a key driver in how we wish to be perceived.

Maybe, in our heart of hearts, most of us would prefer to be Robin Hood. Perhaps the time to worry will be when the majority go for the Sheriff of Nottingham….

Today is Armistice Day in the UK…

Millions of people across the UK have observed a two-minute silence to mark Armistice Day.
Starting at 11:00 GMT, the event mirrors the time guns along the western front fell silent for a final time at the end of World War I in 1918.
The ceremony also remembers those who died in two world wars and later conflicts, including 385 UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001.

Remembering those who have paid the price for our freedom…

Since the eruption of the banking crisis in 2008 and the justifiable public anger in the UK & USA at the amount of taxpayers money that had to be pumped into the subsequent bailouts there has been a marked revival of anti-capitalist, class war rhetoric and a renewed interest in the ideas of Karl Marx.

At the same time the bombastic posturing of the former KGB agent Vladimir Putin who now rules Russia with the help of a gang of vindictive and sticky fingered ex secret policemen seeks to restore the reputation of that archetypal left wing dictator Josef Stalin who spent thirty years claiming to have constructed the world’s very first perfect socialist where all men were equal and where all the means of production were controlled by the workers themselves – or rather, since it would be impossible to run a business dependent on the fluctuating wishes of the masses – controlled by the officials of the Communist Party claiming only they knew the “true” wishes and feelings of the working classes.

Russia and communism are both getting a big media makeover.

Which is why every sane man and woman in the west should read “Child 44” by Tim Rob Smith

Read it and realise the true nature of Russia in the 1930s and early 50s, the society that lay behind the Five Year Plans and People’s Arts festivals and the edifice of lies and hypocrisy that was shored up by the Bolshevik hacks and their brutal enforcers – and the useful idiots in the west who fell hook line and sinker for the whole sham.

It is essentially a crime novel in the police procedural mould, a hunt for a serial killer of children in Russia during the 1940s and early 50s during the latter years of the Stalin regime. Or rather the non hunt because the Communists claimed to have created a new kind of society where poverty and greed had been abolished and therefore crime no longer existed. If crimes were committed they were deliberate anti Soviet counter revolutionary acts, political crimes – therefore almost all policing resources were poured into the political police, the NKVD /MVD. Everyday policing was left to the underfunded and despised Militia. It followed that if an act could not be considered a political crime then it just drifted under the radar.

The novel is about an up and coming NKVD officer who upsets his bosses because he wants to track down a serial killer. He continues this obsession even after he is transferred to a dead end Militia placement.

It is a cold story set against the background of the moral vacuum of Soviet Russia where the only imperative is to survive the dead weight of an oppressive and secretive regime. There are disturbing snapshots of the darkness within the NKVD/MVD – one of the most chilling moments is the description of NKVD “specialists” (i.e.torturers) leaving the Lubianka at the end of their shift, going home to their families after a day of breaking bones and smashing bodies as if they were office commuters.
Read it if you can – then keep it burned in your memory next time you see somebody waving a hammer and sickle claiming to represent “the workers” – or watch Putin posturing on a Russian TV clip….

Usually we post pictures of England in the sun but, of course, we often have days that are damp and dull – like this one.

Every Wednesday morning, whatever the weather, whatever the season, we, plus an assortment of other aged folk, do a 5 or 6 mile walk in the countryside of Sussex or Surrey – then end up in a pub for a beer and a sandwich.

So here we are, at the top of a very steep hill, wet, muddy but unbowed…

Mrs P in the middle in red, yours truly next to the guy in the hat next to the lady with the umbrella….

Excelsior!!!

Well, that’s only my personal opinion, of course, but as it’s my blog….

He died in an aircrash in 1964 at the height of his fame but his velvet tones are stil recognisable nearly half a century later. His 1960 crossover blockbuster “He’ll Have to Go” had many people assuming that he came from out of the blue but in fact throughout the 50s he had become a well known figure on the country music scene with several big hits.

I thought I knew most of his recordings but only recently discovered this track from an album released in 1959….the unmistakable voice of Jim Reeves singing one of the most beautiful and tender of songs, music to touch any parent’s (or grandparent’s) heart…

The Occupy protesters in the UK and USA have apparently adopted Guy Fawkes as their role model.

That figures…

For many years he had been a soldier in the Spanish army sent to crush the Dutch rebels who were fighting to win their independence

He was a terrorist who did not mind killing hundreds of people in his attempt to kill King James I

He wanted to turn England into a client state of Spain

He planned to kidnap the young daughter of King James and educate her as a Catholic to rule over a largely Protestant England as a puppet Queen using the Spanish Inquisition to suppress those who opposed the influence of Rome and Spain

By the beginning of the 1600s the English Parliament was beginning to see itself as a counter balance to the power of the monarchy – Fawkes and his Spanish minders believed Catholic monarchs ruled by divine right and should not be challenged

So…let’s see….

Guy Fawkes =Soldier in an army of occupation +Terrorist +Traitor +Kidnapper + Fanatic + Hater of an elected parliament….

Come to think of it – that mask is a perfect fit for those Occupiers…