Dulce et Decorum est

I thought I'd write something for the memory of those who fought and died, giving their lives for causes good and bad. I just hope I never have the bloody and brutal inspiration which made Wilfred Owen the finest poet (in my opinion) that these Isles have ever produced. Have we learned anything from the sacrifices of people such as Wilfred Owen and the millions of others we never heard of ?
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Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

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As my father served in the RAF and lost many friends, I feel it is important to remember the sacrifice of those who died. I had intended writing a completely different blog, but being a Roman Catholic, I attended Mass this evening. Father Fergus Kelly gave a radically different sermon to that which we normally get. He briefly told us that his father served in the first world war.  He told us that when he was a small boy, he asked his father if he'd ever killed anyone. His father looked sad and said "Go on Fergus and play outside". He then read Wilfred Owens poem "Dulce et Decorum est". No commentary, no religious perspective, just Owens words, then he continued with the usual service. It rather moved me so I thought I'd share it with you.  I think it's a pretty universal message for people of all faiths or no faith at all.

The Blair Pope Project

As it's Good Friday I thought I'd look at Tony Blair's proposal that the Pope should get with it and modernise. Good old TB has only been a Roman Catholic for five minutes but he's already telling the Pope how to run the show (some things never change).

Tony's message - dump the old policies, modernise, make the Church punter friendly. Unpopular policies? Ditch them. I don't doubt that soon we'll all be "New Roman Catholics" I've no idea what clause 4 of Canon Law is but I'm sure Tony will soon be asking the Cardinals to ditch it. Now it may surprise you to hear this but I have a mole in TB's private office and he's passed me this transcript of an extraordinary conversation between TB and a secret advisor. I've no idea who the secret advisor is, but they have the codename "Mandy" - I've thus far been able to figure out who this is but any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

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TB: Hi Mandy, I'm off to Church with Cherie, fancy coming along?

Mandy: Why would I want to do that?

TB: It's great, you get a free sip of wine and when you die you go to Heaven

Mandy: Erm, Tony, I'm afraid to say that the Pope, you know the boss, is a bit of a stick in the mud. He's not really very keen on people who lead alternative lifestyles.

TB: That's terrible. What can we do?

Mandy: Why don't you ring him up and tell him that he'd increase his sunday takings by 10% if he dropped the ban on gays.

TB: That's a marvellous idea, I'll suggest it to the members at the next AGM

Mandy: Erm Tony, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't have an AGM. To get a vote, you need to be a Cardinal.

TB: That's terrible. I know, I'll ring up the Pope and suggest one member one vote. I wonder why he didn't think of that.

Mandy: Look Tony, even if the Pope agreed, the Cardinals wouldn't agree. They are all old men, who've never married, they are set in their ways.

TB: Well you're not married, I'll ring the Pope and tell him to make you a Cardinal. Then you can work on the others. We'll soon sort it out. You'd love Rome and those fantastic outfits.

Mandy: Tony, those outfits are terrible, so 1760's. I wouldn't be seen dead in one.

TB: Good point. Well once you're a Cardinal, you can get Jean Paul Gaultiere in to do a rebranding. I think Priests would look great in nice black polo shirts with, "Team Pope" on.

Mandy: Tony, you really have no idea do you?

TB: That's why I've got you.

Mandy: Look, before you ring up the Pope, let's float the ideas in the press.

TB: That's a fantastic idea, must shoot Cherie is giving me one of those looks.

Cherie: Hurry up twatboy, we're late for mass.
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Please note that the above conversation is a dramatic reconstruction of events that may or may not have happened. The Barnet Eye has been unable to verify the authenticity of the transcript, but felt that on this, the holiest day of the year, it may help you reflect on the issues and challenges facing us all in the next year.

The problem with smug Humanists

Today I feel like a row. Today I feel like picking a fight. It wasn't always thus but right now I need a row with someone to say in balance and harmony. Who better to pick a row with than probably the most smug bunch of the lot. The Humanists. Now I don't care what people believe in. By an accident of birth and sheer stubbornness, I'm a rather bad Roman Catholic. I'll quite happily admit that there are all sorts of things which, shall we say, could be improved within the Church. We are a pretty guilty bunch, we drink too much, we sometimes have to defend the indefensible, we have some fairly strange traditions and ideas. That's the downside. Hey but what an upside. The prettiest churches and I guarantee all the best countries for a party are Roman Catholic. Ireland, Brazil, Spain, Italy. All the best funeral wakes are Catholic as well, especially Irish Catholic.

Now I'm not claiming we have a monopoly on good parties. I've been to some great Bahmitzvahs. Hindu weddings party for three days and certainly have the best fireworks. Greek Orthodox weddings are pretty cool and my sisters Russian Orthodox effort was fantastic. What do the Humanists have to offer in the fun stakes? Posters on the bus? Big deal. They proclaim "Enjoy Life" - well if I want to enjoy life, I go to Dublin. Even London has a big St Patricks day festival. Where is the big Humanist party that we are meant to enjoy? All the countries which tried Athiesm as a state religion were pretty grim. USSR, China, Romania?

So what you may ask, have the poor old humanists done to deserve an earbashing?

Well they are just so smug. They have this awful condescending air of superiority, that only those who "know they are right" can manage. I was in a happy mood on the train home, until I read this letter from Terry Sanderson, President of the National Secular Society in todays Guardian (last letter in list). It seems that the countries numero uno humanist is smugly awaiting our new Archbishop of Westmister, Vince Nichols :-

Vincent Nichols is said to be a "bruiser" and "pugnacious", which is good news from our point of view. The Catholic church is committing suicide with its bullying, reactionary doctrines. It is constantly involved in confrontations with either secularists, gays, women, politicians who won't toe its line or humane Catholics who are appalled by the insensitivity and even cruelty of some of the Vatican's teachings. Your editorial gave Vincent Nichols good advice - stick to issues that can unite your followers. I am pleased to say he is unlikely to take it.
Terry Sanderson
President, National Secular Society

What really irked me was the fact that Mr Sanderson hopes that the new Archbishop will be a failure. He hopes that he'll divide the church and cause discontent within the ranks. In short he hopes that the Archbishop will do a rubbish job. If I was Mr Sanderson, I'd rather hope my arguments would stand up for themselves. I'd hope I wouldn't have to rely on Bishops cocking up to recruit followers to my ideology. If you follow his argument to it's logical conclusion, if the Bishop does a great job, the humanists will get less followers and maybe Mr Sanderson would be out of a job. What he's saying is similar to Sir Alex Ferguson saying "I hope that Gus Hiddink is a rubbish Chelsea manager, so we can walk the league without trying". What does Sanderson expect a bishop to do, totally disagree with the policies of the Church. English Catholics are not stupid. We know what areas of the proposition are, shall we say, a bit out of date. That doesn't mean we want to "commit suicide", much as Sanderson would like us to. I'm not what you might call a particularly devout Catholic. Having said that, I get rather annoyed at smug commentators, who know nothing about the subject talking nonsense about us. My advice to Sanderson - promote the positive messag you have to offer. Lay off the smug sniping.

I've no idea how the new Bishop will do. I hope he does well and promotes the positive messages the Church has to offer. I hope if Mr Sandersons sect pick up followers, its because they have something positive to offer them, not because a Bishop does a rubbish job, much as I'd only advise someone to become a Catholic if they felt it was an attractive proposition.

I've friends of all sorts of faiths. They get something positive from it. I'd not be so arrogant as to say that any faith has an exclusive monopoly on truth. Most people stick with the faith they are born with, sometimes drifting in & out. If it helps them through hard times, that is good enough for me. I know plenty of great humanists & athiests, they are not evil or terrible people, they've just come to a different conclusion to me. I'm not having a go at them or their beliefs, as I'm sure the last thing they want is a smug pompous fool such as Mr Sanderson to speak for them. As for me, I'll stick with my lot, they may not be perfect, but it works for me. Religious arguments are bad enough without Humanists, secularists and Athiests wading in.

Holocaust Denial

It seems that the various Christian Denominations have been having a few issues with Holocaust deniers and other assorted Nazi and Fascist scumbags of late. As I'm a (rather bad) Roman Catholic, I thought I might give you my views on the subject.

As I've mentioned before, one of my first jobs in the 1970's was working with a Jewish stonemason, who'd been with the British Army when Belsen was liberated. He was an incredibly intelligent man who had seen things no one should ever had to see. He was also a friend of my father, who had been an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force during the war and flown 40 missions over enemy territory for bomber command.

One day over a mug or two of industrial strength tea, the question of the holocaust was being discussed. My Father had been raised in the Australian outback, amongst Aboriginal people. Over our cups of tea back in 1976, my father was telling us that somewhere near where he was born, was one of the few places where Aboriginals fought back against white settlers, who were pursuing a policy of genocide against them, in the early part of the last century. My father was explaining about aboriginal culture and that in the traditional Aboriginal way of thinking there were only three numbers one, two and lots.

Our Stonemason friend unexpectedly interjected by saying "That is a good way of looking at the holocaust". He mentioned Stalin's quote that "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic". At the time of the conversation, the holocaust denial movement was in it's infancy (too many people with fresh memories to argue with then). Looking at many website's today, I am amazed by how much of what our friend said over a cup of tea in 1976 has come to pass.

He stated that he never ever used the term "6 Million" as no one could ever know how many millions had died. He always used the term "the unknown millions". He went on "how can you assign a number to such a tragedy, once you do, people for their own purposes will start twisting and distorting the figure. They will seek to chip away every single number they can, whilst ignoring all of the evidence around them" He said that they would claim that everyone who died after the liberation "was a victim of the allies" - even though their death was made inevitable by the Nazi's. He said that they would claim everyone who had disappeared off the face of the earth, had moved, not been murdered and burnt. He said that every record the criminal Nazi regime had destroyed would be counted as another life saved.

I asked why would anyone do such a thing? His response - "Imagine the crimes of the Nazi's as a jigsaw with six million pieces. If you take one piece away, you can still see what the picture is. If you take ten away, if you take a hundred away, if you take a thousand away, even if you take ten thousand away. There will however come a time when you take so many pieces away that you can't recognise the picture anymore. At that point they will say - actually the picture looked like this. You can't see the picture, you know they saw the picture before the parts were taken away so you trust them".

If a government's actions kill one person that is a tragedy, if they kill two people it's callous, if they kill lots of people they are a tyranny. The Nazi's killed untold millions. I heard many accounts of things in Belsen from our friend. He stated that the camp guards were the most degenerate and cowardly people he'd ever met. He said that if he'd had the chance he'd have machine gunned all of them. He said that the Nazi's were a warning to the world of what happens when a psychopath and a bunch of criminals get into power. He impressed one point on me and said "Never forget this". The point "The road that starts with a lie being allowed to let pass, ends with babies being fed to guard dogs". I've never forgotten that, I hope I never do.

Which brings us to the "Six Million" - is it accurate? - well it's good enough for me as an illustration of a very big number (more than lots). If anyone ever challenges it, they are not doing it for reasons of historical accuracy, because accuracy is impossible. They are doing it because they want to hoodwink us into believing that a bunch of evil, murderous criminals lead by a psychopath were really a bunch of great blokes. If you think that the world will benefit from racist policies or eugenics you cannot consider yourself a Christian. Jesus didn't gas the disabled, he cured them. Jesus didn't hate Jews, because he was a Jew. When he was crucified and was dying he is reported to have said "Father forgive them for they know not what they do". Doesn't sound too compatible with the Nazi agenda. Oh and as to his treatment of foreigners (a current rallying cry for our local brand of nutcases) - remember the story of "the Good Samaritan". Samaritans were considered to be undesirable foriegners by his audience. The story was illustrating the fact that there is good and bad in all races. He was saying that these people you despise (like the far right portray asylum seekers today) are no better or worse than you. I'm not a very religious person, certainly not a scholar. I was brought up in a house where you listened long enough to understand that the message was bleeding obvious, no more - some things are clearly right and some are clearly wrong - it's really not that hard. Nothing could be more obvious to me than the fact that if you are a Nazi Numpty you shouldn't be standing in a pulpit telling the rest of us how to live our lives.

Saturday Morning is Bacon Sandwich Time

Over the years, various Pope's have made many tragic mistakes. Generally these take about 500 years to be acknowledged and for an apology to be issued. In my own personal opinion, one of the worse decisions made in my lifetime was the one to do away with the traditional fast on a Friday. When I was a child growing up in a strictly Roman Catholic household, Friday was different. Friday was the day when no meat was eaten. For me, there was a big upside and a big downside. The downside was the fact that school dinners at St Vincents (a Roman Catholic Junior School) were usually inedible. Not only that but a team of nuns viciously enforced a policy of "eat it all up". Pockets were checked, floors were examined for any attempts to hide the inedible slop which we used to invariably be dished up. That was the downside. The upside was glorious. Every Friday evening, my Dad would arrive home from work with bags of Fish and Chips. As there were six of us kids, mum, dad and usually some strange northern relative visiting (nice old Aunty Mary, Harry Taylor (the Magician), John Rathbone (the guy who used to go to Crufts) or Bernard, my brothers friend from France (swimming & Karate Champion who I suspect my sisters all rather liked !). We'd all sit down with mugs of brimming tea and tuck in. If you've never witnessed the Tichborne Family en mass with food, you'd be shocked. Imagine a dead Wildebeast with a large pack of hungry lions. I was the youngest by a few years, so I had to be the meanest, or I'd starve.

To my mothers eternal horror, we all inherited our eating habits from my father. To him, dining was a challenge. His favourite trick was to distract the person next to him and steal the best item from their plate. I'll never forget my mothers horror and anger with him, when he did this to the Mayor at a charity dinner. Personally, I don't think I'd want a sausage from any of our current crop of Tory councillors, but hey that's another story. Anyway, I digress.

Anyway, as I was saying, Friday was a special day. I always thought the pope had imposed the rule because he was a great bloke. To this day, fish and chips is a treat. It's a great dish for when you've got visitors and you don't want to mess around. Pickled Onions and Gherkins, salt & Vinegar. Eat it with your fingers and wash it down with tea or beer. My dad was an avowed carnivore, so he was ecstatic when the rule was abolished. He could have a steak on a Friday (as well as Thursday, wednesday, etc). I was gutted, Friday was suddenly a bit less special.

One of the best things about the effect of Friday, was the fact that as my dad felt he'd suffered so much on a friday, the breakfast ritual on a Saturday was different. Every other day of the week, it was a rigid regime. A cup of tea, a slice of toast and a bowl of cornflakes or other cereal. My mum, who was never good in the morning would send one of us kids up with a tray of it for my Dad, who never got up before 9.30 am (allegedly for health reasons). He'd lie in bed, reading the paper, or saying the Rosary and eat his breakfast. Mum didn't mind this regime as she thought he was "Too cheeful in the morning". On Saturday, Dad would get up and make us Bacon Sandwiches. Mum would lie in bed and feel miserable. Saturday morning was the day we awoke to the smell of frying bacon. I was a vegetarian for 16 years (after I had an ulcer & nearly died). It is true that bacon is the secret weapon of all carnivores ! When I started eating meat again, bacon sanwiches where the first thing back on the menu.

To this day, I still think my dad made the best bacon sandwiches. he'd only buy the best bacon. He'd fry it in butter, with tomatoes. He'd get the best uncut bread he could and toast it under the grill. A spot of pepper on top and hey presto. As he died 22 years ago this week, I thought I'd make myself a dad style bacon sandwich for breakfast. It's hard to get proper hand cut bacon with rind these days. I compromised and got some expensive stuff from Waitrose. Sadly there was no rind. My mother always used to tell us about the times during the war when the bacon was rationed. Her father would have all the lean cuts and give the rind to the kids. He always used to tell them he'd saved them the best bit. They were always very grateful.

Anyway, I made my bacon sandwich a la Dad. It was great. The simple things in life really are the best ! Next Friday I think we'll all have fish & chips for supper. If you have any wacky Norther relatives visiting send them round. If you have any French Karate & Swimming champs send them around as well. I'm sure my 13 year old daughter would be most happy then!