On New Year’s Day of the new decade 2010, I opened the curtains in my work living room to reveal a thick covering of white snow at least two inches deep. It was still snowing but intermittently, and then there was clear blue sky and sunshine. I needed milk and decided to go as far as the nearest corner shop. I could not find the long white or brown socks that I had for over a decade to be used with the strong brown walking boots, purchased in the mid 1980’s and which had been used to climb a couple of Scottish rocky heights, and for such weather conditions. I did find a pair of longer sport’s socks which would go over those used for everyday and which were suitable for tucking in the bottom legs of the track suit. In addition to the maximum number of layers of jackets and coats I decided on the black scarf, black woollen glovers and if required the woolly hat. Before I could reach for the stick and the front door keys, there were fluffs of more snow and snow bearing clouds passing.
Fortunately it did not last long and as soon as the sky cleared I was out taking each step carefully and treading where the snow remained untouched. At the shop I bought a quart of milk and some back bacon slices and noticed a picture book about ships built on the Tyne and the workers who had built them. The photographs came from the archives of the local newspaper and cost an inexpensive £3.50. It was a small outing and on return I enjoyed the bacon having defrosted two bread rolls, accompanied by coffee. It was a good start to the New Year.
There were more deaths of young men in Afghanistan.
Previously I had watched the film, The Battle of the Bulge made in 1965 it is an honest appraisal the German offensive in 1944 and which catching the allies by surprise could have proved more damaging and even successful in its aims had it not been for the lack of fuel for the superior German Tanks in terms of size and range of their guns.
The film covered the overall battle, the major incidents and provided an insight into both the role of the respective military commanders and the life of the frontline soldier told from an American and German perspective. The film was star studded for its day with Henry Fonda in an important role as the officer who warned his HQ that the Germans were planning an offensive, with Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews as other senior officers. George Montgomery played a Sgt and Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas as frontline soldiers. The latter as a tank Sgt who in a quiet sector concentrated on amassing supplies to be sold for profit with a local accomplice, a young woman, who providing an unlikely, for him, love interest, and where her subsequent death turned him into an avenging warrior. Another frontline reality story was that of the experienced Sgt who tried to lead his inexperienced and courage lacking officer in the right direction and who perished after their capture in a documented massacre of prisoners. The officer comes good later when having escaped the massacre encounters a group of young recruits who have been separated from their company and helps them to continue to fight rather than surrender.
The offensive had four major components for success. Surprise, weather conditions to neutralise aerial superiority of the allies and rapid progress to reach the Meuse river by day 4 and to capture fuel of the allies along their way. The Offensive was planned to need 4 armies with 45 divisions but this was reduced to 30 because of manpower shortages and even then force was filled with old men and young boys in what the command knew was their chance to force a peace on the Western Front and buy tie against the advancing Soviets in the East. In addition to the conventional force a number of special operation were planned with the most successful one led by Tooto Skorzeny in which he infiltrated disguised English Speaking soldiers behind the lines, some as Military Police and created major confusion disproportionate to their numbers, changing signposts, cutting wires and providing disinformation about what was happening. The leader avoided capture, survived the war is thought to have been involved in the Nazi ODESSA escape network. Other special operations were not successful, including a parachute drop of 1300 to take control and an important cross roads but where a snowstorm and strong winds sent the majority of the 112 planes off course so that only 300 managed to assemble near their target, insufficient for the operation to be successful. Those caught wearing allied uniforms were shot, a practice followed by both sides although questionable under the Geneva convention.
The film also covered the Malemedy massacre in which the sixth Panzer army under the control of the Waffen SS murdered 150 captured Americans. No record of someone giving the order is known but news managed to spread throughout the allies stiffening their resolve, Separately 11 African American soldiers were captured, tortured and shot by men of an SS Panzer Division. The film overlooked this atrocity!
The film did concentrate on the siege of Bastogne. The Germans having surrounded the town offered the opportunity to surrender to which the commanding general McAuliffe responded with just the word NUTS which had to be explained to Germans and Non American allies but which had a great positive effect on the resistance and where the blockade was broken by the 4th Armoured Division who punched a corridor through the German lines with Patton’s third army ending the siege on Boxing day.
The film concentrates the subsequent offensives and counter offensives along the whole length of the battle field across the Ardennes into one assault by a Panzer force to capture a major fuel dump where control had been taken by Skorzeny forces but are thwarted by creative action on the part of Fonda, Savalas and Ty Hardin. In the film the German advance is spearheaded by Werner Peters as Gen Kohler who emerges as someone who knows that the war is lost but sees his role as prolonging the inevitable because fighting is what he and his ilk are only able to do. His counterfoil is his batman Konrad who longs to return home to see his wife and sons. He displeases Kohler by seeking a return to the front line where at the end of the film he is seen throwing down his riffle and commencing the long walk home, with thousands of others. Gen Kohler is seen destroyed by the very fuel he is seeking to capture. This leads to film of German armour abandoned in the hundreds as the fuel ran out and which is what happened as the offensive failed and was called off.
In addition to the lack of fuel the imbalance in forces was the key with the German armies totally 500000 and the allies over 840000. With fuel The Germans might have balanced the number having 1800 superior tanks to the allies 1300 medium quality and 1900 artillery guns against 394. Over half the allied tanks were destroyed - 800 with 700 German. Casualties were about even with 20000 allies killed of which 1400 were British and some 20000 allies captured or missing and 50000 wounded. 3000 civilians were also killed. It puts the loses in Iraq and Afghanistan in perspective.
There was also a strong reminder of the nature of war in an Ed McBain story whose title I failed to note and shown on a free Sky film channel, I think. Not knowing the name bugged me so I search and searched and eventually found out Three Blind Mice 2001 with Brian Dennehy as Vietnam lawyer Vet Mathew Hope called in to defend Stephen Leeds accused of murdering three Vietnamese young men previously acquitted of the rape of his wife and physical assault of his wife.
The backcloth to the story is the Vietnam War when USA soldiers were unprepared and untrained for combat against a guerrilla army prepared so sacrifice civilians, especially civilians who did not fully commit to the cause. The consequence was that troops sometimes went berserk if colleagues were ambushed and killed, indiscriminately slaughtering villagers in the attempt to kill the perpetrators who had long since vanished. Hope defends Leeds accused of murdering 11 Vietnamese civilians and gets him acquitted. 30 years later Hope has become a successful defence Counsel, divorced but with a daughter who works for him in the back office and with the help of a registered private investigator. He is reluctant to defend Leeds who uttered threats against the three young men accused of raping and physically assaulting his wife. He has successful farmer ploughing much of his profit into a social organisation helping the Vietnamese who have come to the USA, The case against the man becomes firmer when there are witnesses including one who states that the man had taken his boat out for a second time later evening when despite his wife confirming the alibi that he had retired to bed at his usually time of mid evening while watching a hired video.
Doubt begins to emerge when the politically ambitious Assistant DA passes the case to the latest addition to the City Prosecution Team, a young woman who gets off to a bad start in her dealings with Hope by crashing into the back of his prized car to avoid a passing cat.
The story is cleverly done especially when suspicion falls on the brother of the wife who has a criminal record and who had opportunity to frame his boss with access to the House from which clothing was used to disguise the assassin as well as having access to the wife’s red sport car and the motor Yacht. When a witness who remembers seeing the number plate of a vehicle used by the alleged murderer is found drowned Hope is further convinced. In order to interview the Vietnamese witnesses Hope has the help of a Vietnamese translate who strikes bond with him to the point of suggesting a relationship. Hope declines not because he is not attracted but because of the reality that he has come to prefer to live alone, a situation whether he feels he will not let down or disappoint anyone. Both men are haunted by their Vietnam experience.
The outcome is signposted with Hope working out that the wife faked the assault wanting to explain why she had been physically marked by her passionate lover also a Vietnam veteran and none other than the Assistant DA. While this will appear a convention story what makes this a good film in keeping with the McBain books is the way the wife describes the sexual and emotional passion which is controlling what she does and something not experienced with her husband whose passion has been controlled and in one sense spent through his Vietnam experience. I have three of Ed McBain’s novels, all in hardback, Bread and Blood relatives, 77th precinct mysteries and Golilocks a Mathew Hope story.
Contrasting morality and understanding of religion is very different in the Wicker Man, where I missed the start of the original production. There is nothing grey about the positions taken by the people of Summer Isle and their aristocratic head and police Sgt from the city who comes to investigate the allegation that a young girl has disappeared. In the film the clash is between Scottish Presbyterianism of the Sgt, a lay preacher, a virgin although engaged to be married and the pagan morality of the Islanders where adolescent maidens jump naked over the fire on May day seeking fertility while the adolescent boys circle the Maypole in honour of its phallic symbolism. The crunch test come sat the end of the film when after discovering the crops have failed Edward Woodward as the police Sgt believes the community is to sacrifice the young girl only to discover that the is human sacrifice with animals to be burn in the Wicker man. The Lord of Isle comments that he is being bestowed an honour among Christian today to become a martyr and sit immediately with the other Saints and the Sgt although understandably reluctant to end his life this way passes his test of faith although reluctant. The Lord of Isles knows that the crop strain has failed and that next May he will become the sacrifice and the community will then perish but they too remain consistent and faithful rather than faithless. I did see the recent American remake only which failed miserably and apathetically at every level and should be avoided.
The outstanding Dr Who of the past five decades is without challenge David Tennant, whose Hamlet I missed when it was also shown over the Christmas period. His two part final appearance on Christmas and New Year days was outstanding television and a great tribute to the Welsh production team. The Master is able to be resurrected and returns in such away that he is able to make also everyone on the Earth planet, including the Prime Minister and the President of the United States into individual function look a likes with a single consciousness. The Doctor is immune and also escaping is Bernard Cribbins whose stature had increased considerably with his performances in the series, together with Sharon Tate who will die if she remembers her experiences and whose wedding the Doctor attends before his goes on a a farewell travel to say goodbye to all his past friends before his death and transmutation into the next Doctor. However this outcome is in doubt as the Time Lords on their home Planet link with the Master in the last attempt to avoid what had already happened, their extinction, a temporary reprieve to cause the end of time and their transmutation into beings of everlasting self aware consciousness without any physicality. They are prevented only when the Master realises that he is still rejected and being used by the Time Lords that he prevents their plan from taking full effect. On earth human being had been turned back to their naturals selves are then made aware of the threat from the approach planet of the Time Lords find themselves back to normal without knowing why. Catharine Tate continued her role of the daughter Bernard Cribbins and one companion of the Dr and there are cameo performances from Claire Bloom and June Whitfield
The programme which had the greatest effect on me was the 13th episode of the original Wallander and with the discovery of the start of a second series in English on Sunday evening I will wait until after viewing to comment.
Sunday January 3rd 2010, It has snowed again although a lighter covering than on New Year’s day and with lighter skies for most of the day. I had several waking dreams during the night and spent several minutes this morning reflecting on possible significance. There was some anxiety in them and inability to control my life as I would like.
Fortunately it did not last long and as soon as the sky cleared I was out taking each step carefully and treading where the snow remained untouched. At the shop I bought a quart of milk and some back bacon slices and noticed a picture book about ships built on the Tyne and the workers who had built them. The photographs came from the archives of the local newspaper and cost an inexpensive £3.50. It was a small outing and on return I enjoyed the bacon having defrosted two bread rolls, accompanied by coffee. It was a good start to the New Year.
There were more deaths of young men in Afghanistan.
Previously I had watched the film, The Battle of the Bulge made in 1965 it is an honest appraisal the German offensive in 1944 and which catching the allies by surprise could have proved more damaging and even successful in its aims had it not been for the lack of fuel for the superior German Tanks in terms of size and range of their guns.
The film covered the overall battle, the major incidents and provided an insight into both the role of the respective military commanders and the life of the frontline soldier told from an American and German perspective. The film was star studded for its day with Henry Fonda in an important role as the officer who warned his HQ that the Germans were planning an offensive, with Robert Shaw, Robert Ryan and Dana Andrews as other senior officers. George Montgomery played a Sgt and Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas as frontline soldiers. The latter as a tank Sgt who in a quiet sector concentrated on amassing supplies to be sold for profit with a local accomplice, a young woman, who providing an unlikely, for him, love interest, and where her subsequent death turned him into an avenging warrior. Another frontline reality story was that of the experienced Sgt who tried to lead his inexperienced and courage lacking officer in the right direction and who perished after their capture in a documented massacre of prisoners. The officer comes good later when having escaped the massacre encounters a group of young recruits who have been separated from their company and helps them to continue to fight rather than surrender.
The offensive had four major components for success. Surprise, weather conditions to neutralise aerial superiority of the allies and rapid progress to reach the Meuse river by day 4 and to capture fuel of the allies along their way. The Offensive was planned to need 4 armies with 45 divisions but this was reduced to 30 because of manpower shortages and even then force was filled with old men and young boys in what the command knew was their chance to force a peace on the Western Front and buy tie against the advancing Soviets in the East. In addition to the conventional force a number of special operation were planned with the most successful one led by Tooto Skorzeny in which he infiltrated disguised English Speaking soldiers behind the lines, some as Military Police and created major confusion disproportionate to their numbers, changing signposts, cutting wires and providing disinformation about what was happening. The leader avoided capture, survived the war is thought to have been involved in the Nazi ODESSA escape network. Other special operations were not successful, including a parachute drop of 1300 to take control and an important cross roads but where a snowstorm and strong winds sent the majority of the 112 planes off course so that only 300 managed to assemble near their target, insufficient for the operation to be successful. Those caught wearing allied uniforms were shot, a practice followed by both sides although questionable under the Geneva convention.
The film also covered the Malemedy massacre in which the sixth Panzer army under the control of the Waffen SS murdered 150 captured Americans. No record of someone giving the order is known but news managed to spread throughout the allies stiffening their resolve, Separately 11 African American soldiers were captured, tortured and shot by men of an SS Panzer Division. The film overlooked this atrocity!
The film did concentrate on the siege of Bastogne. The Germans having surrounded the town offered the opportunity to surrender to which the commanding general McAuliffe responded with just the word NUTS which had to be explained to Germans and Non American allies but which had a great positive effect on the resistance and where the blockade was broken by the 4th Armoured Division who punched a corridor through the German lines with Patton’s third army ending the siege on Boxing day.
The film concentrates the subsequent offensives and counter offensives along the whole length of the battle field across the Ardennes into one assault by a Panzer force to capture a major fuel dump where control had been taken by Skorzeny forces but are thwarted by creative action on the part of Fonda, Savalas and Ty Hardin. In the film the German advance is spearheaded by Werner Peters as Gen Kohler who emerges as someone who knows that the war is lost but sees his role as prolonging the inevitable because fighting is what he and his ilk are only able to do. His counterfoil is his batman Konrad who longs to return home to see his wife and sons. He displeases Kohler by seeking a return to the front line where at the end of the film he is seen throwing down his riffle and commencing the long walk home, with thousands of others. Gen Kohler is seen destroyed by the very fuel he is seeking to capture. This leads to film of German armour abandoned in the hundreds as the fuel ran out and which is what happened as the offensive failed and was called off.
In addition to the lack of fuel the imbalance in forces was the key with the German armies totally 500000 and the allies over 840000. With fuel The Germans might have balanced the number having 1800 superior tanks to the allies 1300 medium quality and 1900 artillery guns against 394. Over half the allied tanks were destroyed - 800 with 700 German. Casualties were about even with 20000 allies killed of which 1400 were British and some 20000 allies captured or missing and 50000 wounded. 3000 civilians were also killed. It puts the loses in Iraq and Afghanistan in perspective.
There was also a strong reminder of the nature of war in an Ed McBain story whose title I failed to note and shown on a free Sky film channel, I think. Not knowing the name bugged me so I search and searched and eventually found out Three Blind Mice 2001 with Brian Dennehy as Vietnam lawyer Vet Mathew Hope called in to defend Stephen Leeds accused of murdering three Vietnamese young men previously acquitted of the rape of his wife and physical assault of his wife.
The backcloth to the story is the Vietnam War when USA soldiers were unprepared and untrained for combat against a guerrilla army prepared so sacrifice civilians, especially civilians who did not fully commit to the cause. The consequence was that troops sometimes went berserk if colleagues were ambushed and killed, indiscriminately slaughtering villagers in the attempt to kill the perpetrators who had long since vanished. Hope defends Leeds accused of murdering 11 Vietnamese civilians and gets him acquitted. 30 years later Hope has become a successful defence Counsel, divorced but with a daughter who works for him in the back office and with the help of a registered private investigator. He is reluctant to defend Leeds who uttered threats against the three young men accused of raping and physically assaulting his wife. He has successful farmer ploughing much of his profit into a social organisation helping the Vietnamese who have come to the USA, The case against the man becomes firmer when there are witnesses including one who states that the man had taken his boat out for a second time later evening when despite his wife confirming the alibi that he had retired to bed at his usually time of mid evening while watching a hired video.
Doubt begins to emerge when the politically ambitious Assistant DA passes the case to the latest addition to the City Prosecution Team, a young woman who gets off to a bad start in her dealings with Hope by crashing into the back of his prized car to avoid a passing cat.
The story is cleverly done especially when suspicion falls on the brother of the wife who has a criminal record and who had opportunity to frame his boss with access to the House from which clothing was used to disguise the assassin as well as having access to the wife’s red sport car and the motor Yacht. When a witness who remembers seeing the number plate of a vehicle used by the alleged murderer is found drowned Hope is further convinced. In order to interview the Vietnamese witnesses Hope has the help of a Vietnamese translate who strikes bond with him to the point of suggesting a relationship. Hope declines not because he is not attracted but because of the reality that he has come to prefer to live alone, a situation whether he feels he will not let down or disappoint anyone. Both men are haunted by their Vietnam experience.
The outcome is signposted with Hope working out that the wife faked the assault wanting to explain why she had been physically marked by her passionate lover also a Vietnam veteran and none other than the Assistant DA. While this will appear a convention story what makes this a good film in keeping with the McBain books is the way the wife describes the sexual and emotional passion which is controlling what she does and something not experienced with her husband whose passion has been controlled and in one sense spent through his Vietnam experience. I have three of Ed McBain’s novels, all in hardback, Bread and Blood relatives, 77th precinct mysteries and Golilocks a Mathew Hope story.
Contrasting morality and understanding of religion is very different in the Wicker Man, where I missed the start of the original production. There is nothing grey about the positions taken by the people of Summer Isle and their aristocratic head and police Sgt from the city who comes to investigate the allegation that a young girl has disappeared. In the film the clash is between Scottish Presbyterianism of the Sgt, a lay preacher, a virgin although engaged to be married and the pagan morality of the Islanders where adolescent maidens jump naked over the fire on May day seeking fertility while the adolescent boys circle the Maypole in honour of its phallic symbolism. The crunch test come sat the end of the film when after discovering the crops have failed Edward Woodward as the police Sgt believes the community is to sacrifice the young girl only to discover that the is human sacrifice with animals to be burn in the Wicker man. The Lord of Isle comments that he is being bestowed an honour among Christian today to become a martyr and sit immediately with the other Saints and the Sgt although understandably reluctant to end his life this way passes his test of faith although reluctant. The Lord of Isles knows that the crop strain has failed and that next May he will become the sacrifice and the community will then perish but they too remain consistent and faithful rather than faithless. I did see the recent American remake only which failed miserably and apathetically at every level and should be avoided.
The outstanding Dr Who of the past five decades is without challenge David Tennant, whose Hamlet I missed when it was also shown over the Christmas period. His two part final appearance on Christmas and New Year days was outstanding television and a great tribute to the Welsh production team. The Master is able to be resurrected and returns in such away that he is able to make also everyone on the Earth planet, including the Prime Minister and the President of the United States into individual function look a likes with a single consciousness. The Doctor is immune and also escaping is Bernard Cribbins whose stature had increased considerably with his performances in the series, together with Sharon Tate who will die if she remembers her experiences and whose wedding the Doctor attends before his goes on a a farewell travel to say goodbye to all his past friends before his death and transmutation into the next Doctor. However this outcome is in doubt as the Time Lords on their home Planet link with the Master in the last attempt to avoid what had already happened, their extinction, a temporary reprieve to cause the end of time and their transmutation into beings of everlasting self aware consciousness without any physicality. They are prevented only when the Master realises that he is still rejected and being used by the Time Lords that he prevents their plan from taking full effect. On earth human being had been turned back to their naturals selves are then made aware of the threat from the approach planet of the Time Lords find themselves back to normal without knowing why. Catharine Tate continued her role of the daughter Bernard Cribbins and one companion of the Dr and there are cameo performances from Claire Bloom and June Whitfield
The programme which had the greatest effect on me was the 13th episode of the original Wallander and with the discovery of the start of a second series in English on Sunday evening I will wait until after viewing to comment.
Sunday January 3rd 2010, It has snowed again although a lighter covering than on New Year’s day and with lighter skies for most of the day. I had several waking dreams during the night and spent several minutes this morning reflecting on possible significance. There was some anxiety in them and inability to control my life as I would like.
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