2427 End of February 2013 review 1

My plan was to complete this writing over the last weekend of February reporting on an unusual seven days of activities and decisions. I also planned to begin an update of TV programmes recently viewed but the decision to buy, and read the authorised biography of Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell has changed my focus.

Saturday evening  week I went to Rigoletto, the second time in less than three months. On December 16th I saw the Opera relayed from Convent Garden, a version which shocked some of the audience because of nudity. On Saturday the Opera, this time from the Metropolitan New York, was staged in Las Vegas at the time of the Rat Pack but the neon was always secondary to three outstanding performances from international specialists in singing this dramatic tragic opera about the power of a curse. While I am concentrating new activities and writings I will revise my previous piece on Rigoletto and write of the experiences of the week in more detail over the coming week.

On Wednesday evening I returned to Bolden again for a performance of Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky’s intense opera about missed opportunity and a lifetime of regret where the star performance was not one of the two lead leading characters but a third. I will write more fully about this experience in the same piece as Rigoletto.

On Saturday I  was able to enjoy three rolls filled with pâté and olives before setting off and then a cherry fruited  Ben and Jerry single ice cream at £2.60. On Wednesday I also had a filled rolls at tea and then purchased a £1.19 coffee from McDonalds. The food intake has been more balanced in previous weeks with salad on three  days,  with quiche, prawns and smoked mackerel, and rolls filled with pâté twice and with shredded cheese and Branston pickle on two and for main meals, a Pork Chop, a lamb steak both with fresh mixed veg, breaded fish with tinned tomatoes, beans and corn and the same veg with a  fish cake underway this evening; there was also prepared sausage and mash and,  deep fried  sprats in batter and bread crumbs last Saturday as tomorrow as one of my indulgences together with two cheese toasties one evening after having the rolls at lunch. There has two small bananas with custard and  a medium size tin of rice  divided over two days with a cinnamon topping which reminds I need to get a refill. There have been several cuppa soups and  in the mornings porridge several times   and then fruit and nut cereal serial plus a small prepared all day breakfast, once.

It will be noted that I have continued to use some prepared meals containing the sausage. There has been a great political and media fuss over the past two weeks, over horse meat being found in process meat described as beef. With the price of beef high it is not surprising that that some businessmen  will replace beef or include in the process the less expensive horse meat. This does not provide a problem to those consuming as horse meat is widely eaten on the continent and wider affield although it is not to the British taste. However the fuss is that as the evidence suggests illegal activity there is no way to establish the quality of meat and what else may have been included. The processing chain involved appears extraordinary raising further questions  about the quality of the food. Supermarkets are under fire because of their demand for cheaper prices however one education authority admit tests reveal  some of their meat has been contamination. Wetherpoons. the restaurant chain sends an mail announcing that it has made tests on 29 of its menu items which proved negative. Interestingly there are no news items about other food chain making similar announcements.  The problem here is contamination  by using the same processing machinery as used in relation to horsemeat. The tested samples indicate horseflesh DNA only. The subject appears  to have been dropped but will occur again if more arrests are made and prosecutions. (After the weekend Ikea announced they had discovered horsemeat in their meatballs and the item had been withdrawn until further notice).

Parliament has also been in recess for half term. Apart from Prime Ministers Question Time there is nothing to engender excitement scheduled within either of the Houses next week apart from the Lords where there is a motion proposing that new Members should not be admitted until issues regarding the future of the House are settled and there will  also be progress on the Succession Bill which propose that should the first child of the Duchess of Cambridge be female that this child would be next in line rather than any subsequent son. During the recess the Prime Minister has been in India attempting to force stronger commercial ties and during the visit attended a ceremony at Amritsar to mark the  genocide of 300 Sikh civilians in 1919 by the British commanding officer at the jail on one of the holiest days of the year for the Sikhs. There was a short media debate over why Cameron had not apologised although he did refer to the condemnation made at the  time by Winston Churchill.

Chris Hulne, a former member of the Coalition Government, and a one time candidate for the leadership of he Liberal Democrats has now pleaded guilty to persuading his wife to say she was driving the vehicle in which he had been caught speeding and would lose his licence as a consequence for a short period, something with happened a  short  time later. The matter only came to light after Hulne left his wife for another woman, he is yet to be sentenced, presumably being left until the by-election for his seat in Parliament has been held this coming Thursday. His wife took the story to  Sunday Times who did warn that she could also face prosecution which has also happened. The jury at her trial failed to reach a verdict causing the judge to comment on their incompetence.  There is to be a retrial. The issue appears to centre on whether her defence of marital duress is valid.

On the two days with only five to six hours of sleep after lying awake in bed I only manage the basic activity on Wii Fit and did not undertake. However I continue to make excellent use of the Sleep Apnoea Treatment machine and  this morning after a week of 8 hours plus use increased my average to 7.8 hours having dropped from a  consistent  average of 7.7 to 7.6 and even 7.5 over one  morning when I achieved under 7 hours of use. I have decided to note the hours each day to be able to reflect on changes in usage and consider the factor that may have been involved just as I have kept a detailed record of Wii Fir and Wii Sport. Have experience some longer periods of being awake when I need to rise but also some god sessions of four hours and one of five without waking and then may rise almost and two hours intervals, with the one or two less and one or  two over. What is evident  is that the ability to rise early and continue until late evening without feeling tired if I have enjoyed seven or eight hours of actual sleep. Five hours and I need a rest sometimes a doze during the day.

Using the Wii Fit weighing it is also evident that there is a difference of up to 5lbs between weighing in the morning  and afternoon, a difference not so evident on bathrooms scales where the difference can be 3lbs. I am still hovering sixteen and a half with only once getting well below to believe I was going to make progress towards the stone  barrier.

I have found a new activity to enjoy on Wii Fit extra which involved marching in time to a whistle while using both hands to try and catch falling objects in circles at the side. I have now managed to score over 400 around 7 times. You gain 5 points on perfect and 1  for Ok, 0 for a miss. The great breakthrough has come in the ski jump making several single jumps at over 100 metres the highest at 125 and breaking 200 four times. The art is to bend at the knees forward and hold position on the jump in such a way as to accelerate before take off and hold the straight position with moving. However I can still fluff the jump  and fail to accelerate.

In the sports play I have taken to aborting if it looks as if I will lose my rating with some days making no progress. It is only in bowling that I have reach professional level with a rating of over 1000 for around a month,  reaching over 1100 twice and then dropping down to just over 1000  before rising to the present high.

In golf I made excellent progress playing three holes gaining rating with a par score or less and perhaps an extra point or too with one over, My aim is to reach over 1000 before moving up to intermediate with a six holes game but if I continue to be stuck and I will start the six hole game anyway, One has only to aim straight on the putting green and speed posing the main problem. I have also reached a stone wall at baseball have moved into the 700 point plus rating. I have made  a little progress at tennis also in the 700 rating, but have moved back from a  three game set to one game at a time to gain the increased rating. When warming for tennis I had 33 return session gaining a  silver medal increasing from the bronze gained  from 19 returns. However making ten shots  with play at the net is  not easy.

After the show opera relay visit on Wednesday I went to Asda for milk and bought one of the smaller ring binders now on sale with a grey at 40p, black, blue and red glossy at 50P. I will get more when I returned to Bolden  Saturday 23rd February 2013 for a special showing of the film which won the Best Film at British Film Academy awards Argo and is the bookies’ favourite for the Oscars although I would not be surprised if Les Miserables or Zero Black Thirty was also in the running. Another of the Oscar nominated  best picture films is being shown on Monday evening Armour and I considered going to see if the BAFTA’s best actress award also becomes an Oscar I will stay up to watch the awards on Sunday night if I can and then do a piece on the  ceremony as well as the films viewed over the week: The Dark Hour in 3D on Friday afternoon, Three Colours White, late one evening, an amusing satire on the world of contemporary  art collectors, agents, galleries, artists and hangers on Boogie Woogie . I will also write of the Cruel Sea seen for the umpteenth time then another 3D Avengers Assemble. There is to be a radio dramatization of the Cruel Sea next week ( which I have listened to in two one episodes)

I have listened to more Radio Drama than usual. The highlight has not been more the Real George Orwell Programmes but eight of the ten one hour plays  of the Charles Percy Snow’s series of books Strangers and Brothers of which I have eight and have ordered another, debating still to purchase the other two to add the already year long reading list as has been explained The most interesting  have been the last two when  Elliot as a senior  civil servant, barrister and former Cambridge Don aligns himself with an ambitious Tory politician who chooses to give everything up for the love of a woman not his wife and fails in  his efforts to stop Britain developing its own  atomic and nuclear weapons.

I have listened to the two second episodes of 1984 in full having previously missed the opening part and considered what a powerful tale it is and how in effect events since have shown how accurate was his predictions with warnings ignored. I am still in the process of listening to the six 15 minute programmes on his essays and journalistic writings. I did listen to Jura the last in the dramatization about his life, the Road to 1984 and Melvin Bragg on the Spanish Civil War. I will finish writing about Homage to Catalonia which I am still rereading and will then read Animal Farm and 1984 next week before completing the writing on the series with a look back over his life when the biographies I have purchased arrive.  I am have been much affect by what I have read unable to get to sleep two nights this week considering implications in relation to future writings. I previously mentioned  that I used the opportunity of getting the C P Snow to also order three volumes missing from the Dance to  the Music of Time series of Anthony Powell with Casanova’s Chinese  restaurant and a Buyers Market having arrived together and with 8 episode TV series DVD also arriving. The surprise this morning was to get a huge 983 page second hand novel called The Kindly Ones by Antony Beevoir which I appear to have one click ordered by mistake. The is about the owner of a lace factory in France, a family man who was an SS intelligence officer in World War II and an assassin. The book complements  The Winds of War which I will look forward to reading, however unintentional. I will have to find out if this is an extra purchase an replaces an intended one!

On Monday morning I attended a training session as an NHS Patient assessor, which involves assisting NHS Trust managers in making annual inspection visits to facilities with ten beds and with making a separate report with other patient assessors which is published. I have started to digest the information provided. I suspect the new system which replaces the former will need to be revised again in the light of the Report on the  Mid Staffs Hospital where so many people died because of management failure to ensure the risk of secondary infections was kept at an acceptable level.

There has been some excellent sport on TV over the week with the highlight a great win by Newcastle United to reach the last sixteen and will play the first leg of their next game away on Thursday at 5 which means they will know what they have to do to win the tie when  the visitors come to St James. I must place a bet on them winning the competition. On Thursday  they won the game with the only goal of the two rounds, a penalty scored by Shoala Ameobi after the goal keeper brought down a player going no where. Papiss Cisse again missed chances, two although his two goal at St James were incorrectly adjudged offside by the linesman at home, with one several  yards on side and the other more marginal but still a good goal according to the commentators and press present.

I break off after  close on a two hour session of exercise and sport play on the Wii Fit board and console where I approached professional on three hole golf to match that on Bowling top take delivery of the Michael Shelden’s official biography of Eric Blair -George Orwell, in first 1991 edition hardback marking time to get myself ready early for trips to two supermarkets on way to Bolden Cinema for the fifth time in two weeks to see the winner of the best actress award in a film about bi polar disease. I need to do some sorting on the patio as some of daffs have reached the top of the mini glasshouse coverings.

After watching two performances by Warrington Wolves on the TV I missed their best while at the cinema last Saturday when they beat Hull away 24.10 after being led at the break. I am always unhappy when  a side is billed by the commentators and likely to become runaway winner over the season, Every game becomes a Cuptie rival. Huddersfield are only one point behind with a game in hand.

I also watched part of England’s 22 -13 win over France to after maintain their Six nation ambitions after being Ireland away 12-6 and Scotland 38-8 in the opening game at Twickenham. The game of this competition was Italy beating France.

England has also played a three game one day 50 over series against New Zealand after the successful 20 20 2-1 competition and lost the first game, In the second game is was an electric batting innings by young Yorkshire man Root not out 79 finished the job 270 for 2. He hit 2 sixes and 7 fours. Cook made 79 and Trott 65. Anderson had managed to hold some of the New Zealanders  taking two of the openers 19 for 2 and the tail to end with five for thirty four in just under 10 overs. However the team managed to reach 269  with  Taylor, who has played for Durham scored 100.

In that crucial last game it was the bowlers who did amazing things given the postage stamp of the playing areas with Finn in devastating good form having master the problem that led him to keep breaking the wicket on his run up to end with 3 for 27 and Broad 2 for 38. Swann 2 Anderson and Woakes one each and the opposition  was humiliated  to 188.  It was not quite the walk over it had first looked but root again, playing  a much quieter game finished twenty eight not out to see another 2.1 series win with 186 for 5.  Next a three  match Test series.

2426 George Orwell the authorised biography 1

Yesterday February 26th was an important event day because in  the evening I saw Silver Linings Playbook, arguable the best of a number of  good films this Oscar and Bafta season and which I had planned to write about next after another new series of weekly catch up summary reports. However the event of the day was the arrival of the brilliant Michael Sheldon’s 1991 authorised biography where I have I managed to acquire an original first edition in hardback.

My hope in purchasing was that this book will answer some of the questions and issues which have been raised while listening to the BBC The Real George 0rwell series of programmes together with re reading Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Down and Out in Paris and London, and reading The Road to Wigan Pier and Homage to Catalonia. There is Animal Farm and 1984 to reread. I had hoped to read some of his articles and essays which are available online but will not now do so unless the reading of two of  the biographies indicates that I should.

I have so far published my notes in 2419 to 2422 and 2424 and 2245 and after reading the Introduction and the first chapter on family  background and his childhood until going to preparatory school I need to continue  noting this important book chapter by chapter because of its significance to my life to date and my life that remains,  in addition to the original purpose of the completer finisher within me.

I was nearly tempted to omit the introductory chapter until after  reading the rest, but grateful that I did not as Shelden sets the scene for his book in the context of other works completed beforehand and which immediately answered some questions.

The first is why Eric Blair did not write his story and that there is no book devoted to Eileen O’Shaughnessy and only  in 2002 was a book written about his second wife and literary executor Sonia Brownell. The answer is not because Eric died comparatively young but according to Sheldon he understood that to be consistent with his ideals it would reveal what he wanted to keep private about his inner life, his inconsistencies and his relationships with others, which I suspect  was out of respect and protection of their right to privacy. I plead guilty from extrapolating from my recognition of important similarities between myself and Eric to making assumptions that I claim to know more or as much of him than those who have read and studied all his works and communicated with many people who had direct knowledge of him as Shelden mentions in his introductory chapter

I also ought to repeat my crackpot  warning that I continue to believe that despite the way human beings appear to differ in their physical make up and appearance and in their behaviour  we are all inherently the same and that we all inherit the accumulated memories of our biological ancestors which is another argument supporting my lifelong contention that everyone has the right to know the who their biological parents were, and in fact that this is one of few rights I would declare inalienable.

According to Shelden Eric argued that the work an artist produces should stand or fall on the judgement of others over time and that experience unrelated to the creation of any individual work should be discounted, a distinction Shelden himself rejects as I do. Having said this the question remains what would Orwell have written and done with the rest of his life had he not died when he did and would this have included and autobiography or two? Would he and Eileen have remained married if she  and he survived into their sixties and  in any event would she have remained silent when after his death he became the focus of so much research, and writing by others?
According to Shelden it was Sonia, in response to an unauthorised biography where she had refused to allow any direct quotations from his writings, to invite the academic Bernard Crick (1982 revised 1992) to write up his life which Shelden explains is full of facts without getting beneath the skin of the man, although it appears Sonia was displeased with his work which she attempted to stop the publication. Crick was an important writer on politics with a left of centre  slant and the reference has reminded  me to buy a second hand copy of his book on Protest and Discontent which he published in 1970 along with the only book about the life of Sonia, a fascinating woman in her own right

Shelden comments that Eric was a man of contradictions, Are we not all? We are all made up of conflicting forces, as I believe are societies  local, national and international. Unless there are counterbalancing forces a dominate force will gain such  an ascendancy that others will find it increasingly difficult to survive, for a time at least. If the dominant is benign then most people will argue  this is how it should be, but I believe any force even if for the good, constructive etc will become unstable  and turn in on itself unless it is able to achieve balance, stability, equilibrium and this is only attained from the tension between forces.

The other aspect I feel the need to feature in my introduction is the belief there is usually more than one valid answer to a mystery,  solution to a problem or response to a question. This aspect is covered by Shelden in the sense that he notes Eric liked to understand the position of those with whom he often had fundamental disagreement. This should not be misunderstood that understanding means one does not vigorously oppose or criticise.

Also important to me from Sheldon’s introduction is the information whatever his success, and Eric worked  to be successful and for his work to be appreciated, he always expected failure and recognised his shortcomings well as those of others. He also appears to have been a driven creative  individual.

2425 The Spanish Civil War and George Orwell 3

After Georges Kopp had arranged for Eileen, Orwell’s wife to visit him at the front after which he had his first experience of close action, Spring brought warm days which turned to hot and with cherries forming in their clusters and bathing in the river no longer agony. He comments on the gnarled rustic looking men from Andalusia, the homeland of my maternal great grandmother and that two fellow Englishmen were laid low with sun stroke. The Andalusians were described as illiterate, simple but knew how to make cigarettes out of dried fibre.

The Republican government doubled the number of men outside of Huesca to thirty thousand, and used  lots of planes to bomb and shoot but the city refused to fall. This could be said was an important turning point in the defence of the democratic republic against the nationalist forces of Franco. Then the Republic commenced to implode.

After 115 days at the front Eric Blair the combatant was given leave to join his wife in Barcelona and found that the workers’ revolution was coming to its end. The bourgeoisie were back on the streets and the workers were back to their jobs or their homes. The civilian population had lost interest in the war with voluntary enlistment dwindled.  

Worse perhaps than this while the hotels and restuarnts in the city centre appeared to have no difficulty in feeding their guests able to pay, in the working class districts there were queues for bread, olive oil and other necessities one hundred yards long, and children barefooted waited all over the city clamouring for scraps of food,  People went about their own business and greeting of strangers as comrades disappeared.  He came across a shop full of bon bons and pastries at ridiculous prices not out of place in Bond Street or Paris and marvelled at the extremes of means now openly displayed. It was during the week that he waited for his new pair of boots that his original enthusiams came apart as the street fighting involving comrades commenced. 

The sense of trouble brewing was not just between the Stalinist Communists and POUM anarcho syndicalism but between all the factions and differences in views about the kind fo society that should deveop once Franco was defeated. The spark was the arrival of several lorry loads of armed civil guards  driven to the telephone exchange and taken control from the CNT workers there. Two barricades were then created by the people and the war between the government and the nationalist became an open conflict between Government supported by the Communists and Stalin and the anarchists, the Syndicalist, the Trotskyists, POUM and in particular the second city of Spain Barcelona

Civil guards occupied a cafe next to the POUM building as a prelude to attacking the headquarters. There is a disussion between a Civil guard and Georges Kopp over unexploded bombs lying in the street. Orwell fires his only shot of these “troubles” in a failed attempt to explode one of them. He worries about his wife back at the hotel. There is chat between Orwell’s comrades at the top of one building and Civil guards occupying another and who explained that they did not want to shoot at them because they were all workers.

Orwell, the writer describes the changed atmopshere in the city from May5th with very few pedestrians on the street. One of main papers  called for everyone to return to work. There was rumours of Government forces and POUM men coming to the city to fight it out.  After sixty hours without sleep he is in a “ghastly state of mind.”       

Back at the hotel spy mania gripped everyone. There was only one sardine each for one meal, also mentioned in the radio programme. He and his wife breakfasted  only on goats cheese three mornings in succession and the hotel had no bread for days and nothing to drink. There was                                                                                                                        a chorus of there is no more food, we much “go back to work.”

The rumour of government troops, Assault Guards, from Valencia proved accurate and suddenly they appeared  taking control of the streets, with the outbreak of street fighting giving the government the opportunity to assume fuller control of Catalonia. In the press POUM was declared a Fascist organisation in disguise.

After describing his personal experience Blair used the next chapter, the longest in the book, to try and explain what was happening in terms of the wider picture but makes the point that working out what happened accurately is impossible because there are no records, either not made, or destroyed. Frustration and disappointment on the part of the working class once it was appreciated that the former gulf between wealth and poverty was continuing coupled with the Government orders for personal weapons to be handed in and the growth of non political well armed government forces from which trade unionists were excluded were among the factors he lists.

He describes the tactics of the Communists but not those of the secret Nationalists who would have remained in the to spy. Until he comes to writing 1984 and the role of 0’Brien Orwell, from what I have read so far, does not appear to appreciate that all sides will have undercover people joining the organisations they are against, sometimes holding major roles in an organisation and undertaking illegal  action. It is rare of these individuals to become known or for the practices to be admitted while they are taking place. Both as a young man practicing non violent direct action, in later life as local authority chief officer and since in the age when what we do and say can be viewed and listened to, recorded and changed by anyone, anywhere with the technology, I quickly came to assume that this was so, acted in accordance to what I felt and believed, and regarded as fair and good, but I also sometimes laid trails so see who and how they were followed. Eric Blair to me always remained the idealist despite the realism that became his experience  and never appears to have got stuck in until he went to Spain followed by World War Ii when his ingrained patriotism resurfaced and his anti totalitarianism governed his remaining years.

Orwell reports that people started to leave barricades almost as soon as they had been created. POUM leaders appeared ambivalent and unsure in that while they encouraged followers to remain at the barricades they had argued against insurrection until the war against Franco was won. He noted that the Communist press, highlighting the Daily Worker in the UK, put the entire blame for the street fighting in Barcleona on POUM as a France’s Fifth Column and goes in to considerable detail examining various articles and statements.

He also comments on Trotskyist tactics of causing disorder and bloodhsed to undermine the position of anarchists and syndicalists in Barcelona. This reminds of my single experience when I got to hear the demagogue tirade of Socialist Labour League Leader Gerry Healey at the annual meeting of the organisation at the Friends Meeting House in London in 1961( I think I have the year right). I was invited by Harry Mister, the manager of the Peace News Bookshop to spend the day looking after a  Bookstall at their annual meeting as Pat Arrowsmith had been invited to talk about the role of the Direct Action Committee campaign against the possession and potential deployment of weapons of mass destruction. In order to listen to Pat I had to complete a delegate’s card and having done so and no one showing any interest in the  books, I stayed inside the hall to listen to an address by Healey that went on for the rest of the morning.

He first told the delegates that the movement should support the action to reduce the power of capitalist countries but it was essential that the soviets did not reduce their position. He denounced the volunteering to go to prison as unproductive and wasteful.

As Orwell explains in Chapter 11 the Trotskyists like the SLL were little different from the Stalinist in both supporting the dictatorship of the proletariart and that their ends justified any means. The essential difference  being that the SLL and similar groups believed that socialism was impossible unless it existed within every country an  approach in principle, no different from the Facists,  fundamenal Christians and Muslims. Without a world wide approach the capitalists would continue to do everything they could to undermine and destroy socialism.

A major part of the speech of  the SLL leader was to report on progress achieved during the year and the various struggles many of them small scale that had taken place and that in the coming year the priority was to enter the machine tool industry. It was evident from what was said that known members of the League were black listed by employer organisatuions and therefore the approach  was to quickly move into an area, cause as much mayhem as  possible in terms of getting the employers, the capitalists to show their true colours by turning on the worker and this would have the effect of educationg the workers in to the reality of capitalism and moving them into their camp. A short time afterwards an elderly man called to see me unexpectedly at the home of the aunties first confirming that that I had attended the annual meeting. I explained the circumstances and my response to what I had heard. We argued over many issues and as I had come to appreciate from previous situations I lacked the general education and communication skills to match his eloquence although I thought I managed to hold my own as by then I had read and reflected sufficiently to be clear what I was for and what I was against. I have always wondered if the man was from the SLL or MI5!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Orwell does  report that during the month of the uprising in Barcelona, the former Monarchist flag appeared on several balconies in Barcelona thus fuelling the allegations against POUM. Poum became an illegal organisation over  15th and  16th June and one of the first acts of the Negrin  led government that came into power in May. The Executive Committee  was imprisoned as was George Kopp.

Blair wrote his analysis  six months after returning to the UK and he reports that the leadership of POUM was still in jail although within the small Spanish Cabinet they had voted by five votes to two (both Communist Ministers) to release the prisoners. There had been a number of delegations from the UK and elsewhere visiting the Republican government including one by the Socialist Labour Member of Parliament, James Maxton. And also John McGovern when he visited was told that that because they had received aid from Russia “ we had to permit certain actions which we did not like,”  the words of the Spanish Minister of the Interior. McGovern had not be able to gain admission to the secret prisons held by the Communists in Barcelona despite having a signed order from the Minster of the Interior to do so,

Three days after the fighting in Barcleona ended Orwell and his comrades in Barcelona returned to the front. He found ity difficult for anyone returning to look at the war in the same way as before.  He was stationed  back outside of Huesca, a little to the right than previously and he had been promoted to acting second Lieutenant  i.e. had he been in the British Army, an officer, and in command of about thirty men. His friend Benjamin had been officially  promoted to Captain, the same rank as a cousin and Georges Kopp to Major, the same rank as one of my uncles.   

It was five oclock in the morning always a dangerous time because with the dawn at their backs if you put your head above the parapet it was clearly outlined against the sky, He felt, although hard to remember or describe how he felt at the moment that a bullet went into and through his throat.  What surprised him was not being in pain.

As a school boy  I had  entered  the school House boxing competition, never  having boxed or been in a fight of any kind before. I was hit and hit hard but the odd thing was  I did not feel pain and considered it an odd experience and keen to have joined the school boxing club which the head of house recommended. I was stopped by the aunties.

Less than a decade later I was picked up by police as I sat  at a pier across from a Polaris Submarine supply vessel and tossed in the air on top of other protestors and the action was repeated several times. I was calm  as I had been when another prisoner at Stafford had taken offence at my manner when working in the prisoner Library and placed a neck lock intended to cause me harm. In  these incidents there was neither fear or pain, surprise yes and in retrospect  being bemused by my reaction.

He is taken to hospital where he remembers a nurse trying to feed him a large meal and two of his troop expressing relief that he was alive but then taking away his  watch, revolver, knife and electric torch, all valuable at the front, knowing that even as a survivor his war was over.   After a few days he was able to get up and walk with his arm in a sling which had become paralysed.

He was able to subsequently comment that hosptials near the front line were treated as cl;earing stations rather than as places of treatment which led to hundreds if not thousands of wounded dying prematurely or being disabled unnecessarily.  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Doctors were too busy to examine  wounds  commenting that will be looked when you get to Barcelona as they rushed by. There were no trained nurses in Spain as the work of caring was undertaken by nuns with the consequence that men too ill look after themselves  were shamefully neglected.

He was able to wire Eileen  before departing to Barcleona  via a bus to the station only to discover they were being taken to Tarragona instead presumably because that was where the train driver was prepared to go. The heat and lack of care meant that a number of the wounded died on the journey. It was ony eight or nine days after the shooting that his wound was properly looked at. The doctor told him he would never get his voice back. Although for two months he could not speak beyond a whisper, audible speech then returned. 

When he returned to Barcelona, there was a special evil in the air. Sinster rumours of all kinds rebounded. There was fear that  Franco force would attempt to invade Barcelona.  Bands of armed Assasult gurds raopmed everywhere while Civil Guards controlled buildings and strategic places with papers constantly being requested. Fortunately he had been warned  not to show his POUM doucmentation. There was a bad shortage of food. And there was no small change which meant those with large denomination currency might have wait for hours after queuing for hours to get the right change. He was taken to a sanitorium run by POUM where there were several other Englishmen.

His wife Eileen continued to stay at the Continental and he came into  the city centre by day attending the General Hospital for electric shock treatment on his arm where he could move his fingers and the treatment reduces the pain. The couple decided to return to England as soon as possible, because of his desire to get away from what was happening, the atmosphere of hatred and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            suspicion. He had been certified by the doctors as medically unfit to continue fighting.  He had to get  the position confirmed by POUM at Seitamo. Georges Kopp was back from the front in a good mood believing that at last Huesca was to fall and he had received  an invitation from the Government to go to Valencia for a special assignment leaving on the same day as Eric Blair.

It was five days before he got back with his discharge but at the POUM HQ in Barcelona everyone was issued with riffles and cartridges because an attack on the city was feared. He had to go from hospital place to hospital place to sort out his discharge . When his papers was eventually stamped he descided to take a look at Spain for the first time and he appears to have made visits to Lerida and Barbastro during the day or over a day before returning very late  to Barcelona although it is confusing given what he said about Eileen‘s concern and the wish to return to England quickly and also because of what was happening in Barcelona.  Without taxis it was too late to go to the Sanitoirum so he made his way to where Eileen was staying, stopping for dinner beforehand.

When he got to hotel he found Eileen looking relaxed in the louneg rising to greet him without emotion she put her arm tound his neck and whispered Get Out.

Get out of here at once after he had  exclaimed what? Don’t stand there you must go outside quickly. She ws leading him out and going down the stairs where  he met a Frenchman he knew who confirmed what Eileen had been trying to say, You must not come in here Get out and hide yourself before they ring the police.  He then met a member of he hotel staff also a POUM supporter who explained that the Government had suppressed POUM, seizing the buildings and putting members in prison. “They say they are shooting people already,” he added.   He and Eileen found a quiet cafe and she explained what had happened while he was away.

On June 15th the police had arrested the head of POUM in Barcelona and arrested everyone at the Hotel Falcon mostly militia men on leave. The hotel was converted into a prison. Next day POUM was declared an illegal organisation and the offices, book stalls, sanatoria and Red Aid centres were seized. The police arresting all members and associates. Almost all forty members of the Executive committee were in prison within a couple of days. Eileen had heard that some 400 hundred had been arrested in Barcelona alone. They had dragged wounded men from the hospitals. There were rumnours  that some of those arrested had been shot.  The arrests continued for months after he had departed and ran into thousands. He mentions one couple both arrested where the husband immediate disappeared and his wife remained in jail for two months, without a trial. She started a hunger strike for news of her husband and was told he was dead.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        She was released and then rearrested.

Some of their English friends and other foreigners had got immediately across the border. Others the police had taken including Georges Kopp.  I will look at the role of  Kopp and what happened to him later although on the run Orwell and his wife got to see Kopp in prison before they departed. They established that Kopp had returned from Valencia after visiting  the Ministry of War with a letter to the commander of  the Engineering operations on the eastern front. It had not occurred to him he would be arrested  on his way to the front with papers  for a special mission and came back to the Hotel for his kit bag, missing Eileen who was out at the time and  the hotel staff had notified the police as requested.

Eileen remained at the hotel and was not arrested, the couple taking the view that she was  being watched as a means of capturing Blair.  Their room had been searhed by plain clothed policemen in the middle of the night. They had removed all papers except their passport and cheque book. These included his diaries, their books and press cuttings  and letters. He later learned that the police had raided the sanitorium removing his possessions. It was agreed it was safer for her to remain at the hotel after this but he needed somewhere to stay for a good night’s sleep.  He destroyed papers  connecting  him to POUM except his official discharge papers  so it could not be claimed he was a deserter. He had difficulty finding somewhere to sleep and learned what is was like to be on the run.  He spent time  at a public bath until learning that the police had raised one and arrested a number of alleged Trotsyists with  the same idea as Eric. It was a place to relax and keep warm.

The couple arranged a meeting at the British Embassy attended also by John McNair.. McNair  born on Tyneside had become organising secretary of the Independent Labour Party and its International representative. In this capacity he had gone to Spain with John McGovern to investigate the role of the Catholic Church in the Civil War and  stayed to run the ILP office in Barcelona, greeting Blair on his arrival and later giving a job to Eileen.  Also present at the meeting was Stafford Cottman another volunteer. They learned that Bob Smillie, gradson of Robert Smillie the Labour Member of Parliament, had been arrested. He died in prison immediately after the arrest and buried, it is presumed to cover up how he died. The young man had left Glasgow Universirty where he was a student to fight Fascism  His death angered Eric.  It was in the afternoon they were able to see Kopp in prison. He was  described as being in excellent despite assuming they were all going to be shot.  Kopp explained the important of fhe letter from the War Ministry that had been taken from him. Blair went to see the Commanding officer to explain the mistake of arresting Kopp on the special government mission in an effort to retrieve the letter. Despite his  limited Spanish mixed with French, the letter was duly forwarded  to the Commander of the Engineers but his superiors failed to get him released from prison, as Orwell was to later find out.   

That same evening Orwell, McNair and Cottman slept on the grass at the edge of a derellict building lot. He comments that the Gaudi Cathedral building was hideous and regretted that it had not been blown up by the anarchists. He and his two comrades were leading an insane existence, criminals by night and by day prosperous English visitors. A  bath, shave and a shoe shine does wonder for an appearance. If I appear at my door in old clothes unshaved without my hair sorted I gain a very different reaction when in a suit, collar and tie. There was a warrant  out for the arrest of Mcnair and it was presumed Blair and the others were also on a list. The British consul got their passports in order with a train arranged from Port Bou at seven thirty in the evening so  an eighty thiorty start was probably the earliest time of actual departure. It was proposed to collect Eileen and pay her bill at the last possible moment as it was likely the hotel was required to notify the police of her departure. The train  left at ten to seven! Fortunately they managed to warn his wife  in time The three men had  dinner at a small hotel near the station and find that  the owner was politically friendly thay were given a three bedded room without notifying the police.

They left early the following morning meting up with his wife at the station. He wrote to the Ministry of War while they waited for the train to leave arguing that the arrest of Kopp was a mistake. In the radio play it was Eileen who pressed him about  trying to release Kopp.

They cross the frontier without incident. There were detectives on the train taking the names of foreigners but seeing the group in the dining car they were assumed respectable and not questioned. On his journey to Spain he had been warned  to take off his bourgeoise clothes for the anarchists would tear them off him, an exaggeration although at the broder the guards had turned back a smartly dressed couple. At the customs office they were checked on the list of the wanted but because of the general inefficiency thay  had not been included. The first newspaper they saw mentioned the warrant for the arrest of John McNair for espionage.

What is the first thing you do when setting foot outside  a war zone in which you have been involved? He rushed to robacco-kiosk (unaware of course that this act was far more dangerous than for much of the time he had spent in Spain. After this they had their first cup of tea with fresh milk for months. It was several days before he got used to the idea he could buy tobacco whenever and wherever he wanted. Their two companion went on to Paris which became the base of the ILP.

McNair was born in Boston Lincolnshire in 1887  and moved to here on Tyneside with his family at an early age. He left school at 13 years and became an errand boy. And my earliest memories after the war when I assisted my care mother as she struggled to work out  bills and change in a various shops along the main Wallington High Street was to see errand boys with their bicycles and  baskets delivering purchases all day and every day except Sundays and Wednesday afternoons.  

McNair became General Secrteary of the Independent Labout Party in 1939 and held the post until 1955, the year I left school, having moved their officers to Glasgow.  He then returned to Tyneside and complete a first degree at the University of Durham, studying French and English History, Greek and Roman Culture at the age of 72. He then obtained a master’s degree on the work of George Orwell    

And Eric Blair, Eileen and Georges Kopp, theirs is another story

2424 George Orewell and the Spanish Civil War 2

I decided to take a break from reading and writing about George Orwell’s participation in the Spanish Civil War Homage to Catalonia. In the time between the first writing and this I reached he conclusion that because of his rush to get to the front he had no time to examine how the worker’s city of Barcelona functioned in practice and when he returned its functioning was already being dismantled. For those of us with a leaning towards non violent local based syndicalism it was the first and the last occasion that a major city on the western democracies had moved in such a direction. The only examples there has been in the UK is the way miners tended to run their communities, especially in Fife in Scotland, nut in  communities in South Wales, in Yorkshire and Durham in particular miners and their families became a tribe part from the rest much like prison officers and the military and their encampments. Go to the supermarket at the centre of Catterick Camp and experience at first hand what I mean. Those engaged in direct action in the UK against weapons of mass destruction or the civil rights movement in the USA also understand the sense of being part of something yet also separate.  In Spain, Eric Blair who had spent all his life feeling apart from the majority  experience being one of many, perhaps the majority.

I have only visited Barcelona on day visits, at night to see the fountains, a daytime visit to a bullfight where  I left at half time having seen enough to confirm my prejudices. I have  visited the Gaudi Cathedral, still in its making and the site of the Olympic Games, walked the Rambalas, and driven past the magnificent Football stadium. My impression is of a city of apartments although.  I saw little of the outskirts or the industrial plants to obtain any meaningful impression without having stayed in the city and walked more or engaged with its people. It is a very different place from the coastal resorts where I have stayed in the North or had one quick hot and tiring trip along the coast in the South on an escorted trip from Gibraltar.

Reflecting on what I had read and written so far my main reaction was at the Black and White which Orwell had approached the War and so far he did not appear to appreciate that this was country of man against country man, neighbour and work mate against neighbour and workmate, soldier and against soldier, catholic against catholic and division within extended families and indeed within some nuclear families. Is it surprising that the ordinary people were reluctant to try and kill each other, apart from the ideological fanatics, and personal power seekers? Is it surprising that they attempted to persuade each other to change sides rather than kill?

The fourth chapter ends with a Fascist aeroplane coming over their position and instead of dropping bombs, there was a leaflet which announced the fall of the city of Malaga. It is my understanding that the Republican forces and most of the population decided to withdraw, leaving the remaining population to the fate of the advancing Italian troops who without the same understanding that these were fellow countrymen, women and children, set about machine gunning down the civilian population  including those who had already fled the city.

In mid February Blair and the others made a fifty mile truck ride to join the forces attempting to take the town of Huesca. Having taken another town in the area the promise was made that tomorrow, we will have coffee in Huesca. There had been several bloody attacks but the city had not fallen and Orwell says that if he was to return to Spain he would make a point of visiting Huesca to enjoy coffee one morning. Clearly he did not do so at the time.

It is on reading the next chapter that I find Orwell recognised the shortcomings of his original reaction to the political situation in Barcelona and the rest of Spain. He had not been interested in the political and was unaware of it. He had no notion of what kind of war it was.

The reason I have become so interested in the life as much as the writings of Eric Blair is that the more I read the more I believe there is considerable similarity between  our personalities and the development of our political outlook. Like Blair I rushed into supporting the extreme end of those involved in the Gandhian Satyagraha rooted direct action protests against weapons of mass destruction and it was only after I had been to prison that I commenced to take a more in depth look at the interests involved and the motives of the individuals  involved. It is a good coincidence that for different reasons I checked my birth name on Google once more and discovered that a book was published in 2011 by Sean Scalmar looking at the rise of radical Protest in the UK and the USA based on Gandhian Satyagraha which makes reference in one of his copious footnotes to the letters written to the Direct Action Committee on behalf of Peter Brown (the author of Smallcreeps Day) and I proposing a Gandhian style march ending with a direct action protest at the USA nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch and our response to the protest after it had taken place. We had the same belief and commitment as those workers in Barcelona, despite having recently volunteered to spend six months in prison rather than giving an oral undertaking not to participate in protests for a period of two years. It was only then I began to fully understand the extent of the differences between the various factions making up the leadership of the anti nuclear movement. We were both to improve our understanding and adapt our position to changed circumstances

On returning from Spain, based on his diaries and memories, Blair wrote  that the revolutionary atmosphere of Barcelona “attracted me deeply but I had made no attempt to understand it,” and he was exasperated by the number of political parties and trade union with their different names which he considered tiresome. It only on arriving outside Huesca when someone said that the Socialists were  positioned on their left that he queried,” I thought we were socialists? “

Orwell uses this event to introduce his understanding of the Civil War and its origins, he confirms my understanding outlined in the first part that Franco did not come to power to introduce Fascism in Spain but with  help of the  church and the aristocracy to return Spain to is Feudalism before the first mild democratic government had taken office. The consequence of this is that Franco had against him not just the working class but also various sections of the liberal bourgeoisie and I suspect many who would not describe themselves as liberal. Orwell incorrectly assumed that it was only the bourgeoisie who supported Fascism thus not appreciating the traditionalism, the conservatism, patriotism, anti outsider and tribalism of the working class, particularly the politicised and trade union working class. I also had found this in prison and in my work with poor families with multiple problems when I worked for a Family Service Unit  in Salford throughout the summer of 1962.

What happened in Spain is that the working class opposition to the arrival of Franco was to move from accepting the democracy to engaging in revolution.  Land was sized,  factories seized, often by the trade unions, and churches wrecked with many priests killed. This led to the reaction by the Catholic church and their support for Franco. The opposition to Franco was not the elected government as such but the trade unions. Blair reports that in the street fighting 3000 people were killed in a single day. Once the blood letting starts it is difficult to stop. For purposes of propoganda to the outside world the civil war was represented as Christian patriots versus blood letting Bolsheviks, which in many respects it was, or at least became, and good republicans (Orwell says gentlemanly) quelling a military revolt against the democratic  government, which it also was. The reality was that not just the western capitalist countries but Stalinist Russia was opposed to the kind of workers revolutuion that had  taken place.  More recently we have seen how this kind of revolt in Egypt although brought down one regime has been quickly replaced by another with the help of a other countries whose systems and motives are often in conflict.  Importantly In Egypt the revolt was non violent and therefore the leaders who emerged remain whereas in Spain it was more easy to get rid of them because they has used force and committed atrocities.

Through the various phases of Government during the first  year of the Spanish civil war it had moved more and more to the right  ending with a right wing socialists Liberals and the Stalinist communists. POUM, the syndicalists and the anarchists  were moved out. This appears to be part of the deal with Russia as they commenced to supply weaponry to the official government for its defence.  The arms were made available through the Communist party and those allied to the Communist Party and the Communists openly said they were non revolutionary in their approach and thus gained support from many on the left who were also not revolutionaries. By the autumn of 1937 the Socialists organisations were claiming that they respected  private property, When the tide turned and even after Franco won, it was the Communists who led the hunt to track down and eliminate the revolutionaries. 

POUM which Orwell was part of its forces because of the ILP links was not just fully behind the revolution that had taken place in Barcelona, and  elsewhere, but rightly in my view believed that any comrpomise on what they had achieved would be their doom. They resisted the “bourgeoisifying” of the  workers   militia   and police force. If the workers did not control the armed forces the armed forces would control the workers. 

Orwell then explains the problem with people calling themselves anarchists and belonging to organisations and  groups which the pure anarchist will argue is contradiction.  Orwell explains that the two million strong grouping of the anarchist was  largely made up of former socialists against the centralised state, whether a capitalist or socialist state, and were more interested in workers controls than parliamentary government. Orwell argues that the anarchism of liberty and equality  was so deep rooted in Spain that it would outlive Communism. I wonder what in fact happened to this significant anarchist movement and what the position is now.

I have only read the Wikipedia article on  the subject and it is a good one making the point that the anarchism was not ideological but borne out of fhe rural economy in Spain with its Federal and individualistic history. The CNT party, now split into two groups is said to have some 50000 members.  a significant number  in terms of the generality of political involvement as Party members that exists today in most west European countries. This may be because of the extent to which the Communists and then Franco persecuted the anarahcists with hundreds of thousands executed or imprisoned. Apparently there were 30 attempts to kill Franco, none succeeding and violent resistence to his regime until the early 1960’s.

This was the context which Orwell says he became aware of the feuding that was going on between the different groups and interests which made up the Anti Franco coalition. Thus he came to appreciate that the Communists and those allied were saying with slogans, posters, radio propoganda  that he and his comrades were Trotskyists, Fascists, Traitors, Murderers, Spies                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   and more.  He ends the chapter reflecting that he had never joined POUM as a party and given subsequent events he wishes that he had. I like that about                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           the man.      

Blair returns to his war experience in Chapter six admitting that at the time he was still of a mind to join an International Brigade and place himself under effective  communist control because  of the military inactivity of his front the time. He describes becoming vermin infested and the shortages and that as the end of March came he had developed a poisoned hand that had to be lanced. I had such an experienced in childhood. His infection was more serious and he spent ten days away from the line at a clearing station hospital.

And then there were the rats. Some as big as cats. They were  big  that they did not run away unless you shot at them. In the radio drama he is criticised for wasting a  bullet attempting to shoot one. He may therefore write about rats again and this experience according to the Drama Jura about the writing of 1984 is what led to have used the rats in  the room 101 torture scene at the end of  the story, after his sister encountered rats on the island.

It has also remembered that the revolution that took place in Spain occurred in the countryside as much as the town and Orwell in describing the arrival of Spring noted that the “peasants” ( his word) were spring  ploughing fields where the land owners had gone and fields appeared to be divided up between the agricultural workers rather than collectivised as happened in Russia and then in China, taking several decades to understand that this was a recipe for disaster. Blair`` was struck by the friendliness of  agricultural workers.

So far I had also found little written about religion by Orwell but in chapter six he observes that there appeared to be little religious feeling in this part of Spain and he never saw anyone cross themselves during his whole time in Spain. He does anticipate the return of Catholicism and its Spanish Church despite its collapse and refers to the Church of England in an aside as moribund. He describes the Church of the Inquisition as having become a racket and replaced by anarchism.`

Hr describes that in May on the cold night he had experienced the line was moved, quietly to a  new trench close to the Fascist line. He also mentions that ambulances would not come to the front because it was understood by  both sides that they  were being used carry ammunition and therefore were regarded as fair targets. We are then back to the rats which were swarming in the trench and he noted with pride being able to punch one flying.

His hand having repaired in time for participating in a small group participating in an attack for which he prepared with a hunk of bread, three inches of red sausage and a cigar which his wife had sent from Barcelona via George Kopp who come to direct action, addressing him in Spanish and then in English. In order not to shoot each other they were to wear white armbands except it was discovered these had not yet arrived.

In the radio play there is reference to the arrival of Eileen in Barcelona to work at the ILP office, the meeting with George Kopp and that her his accepted his offer to go for a meal. There was to be talk  that the two had an affair, and Eric thought so accusing his wife. I speculate why Kopp chose Orwell and his group to undertake a dangerous mission to capture a Nationalist position partly up a hillside.

Meanwhile Orwell was getting his wish for action and found himself throwing not one but two grenade bombs as another landed close to him from the other side wounding those around him. He threw and then ducked quickly not looking to see where his throws had landed. The enemy was firing their riffles as were comrades behind, one going close to his position. After throwing his third grenade bomb which landed on the target the order was given to charge, although his description was that of a lumber. On arrival he found that everyone had departed with  the exception of one man he chased as he successfully escaped to a higher position  where his comrades provided safety.

Eric mentions using a small electric torch his wife had purchased for him in Barcelona. Although they found plenty of ammunition they wanted riffles to replace their own which jammed from the mud and general lack of good condition. More importantly they wanted the machine gun that fired at them but it had been removed leaving only the tripod. The enemy was counter attacking from above as were  comrades below on several places along the line and his small group was now in the middle with their only booty a powerful telescope. He throws a grenade  bomb at someone firing towards him and the cries indicated the man is wounded which causes him some regret. Then the order comes for them to go back to their line. He failed to understand why.

With Kopp anxious about an officer, his friend, who had not returned, Eric and a couple of Spanish comrades volunteer to bring the wounded or dead man back. Finding themselves under attack they retreat with finding anyone. He estimated that the Fascists had thrown  a couple of hundred men into the counter attack although a deserter said the number had been six hundred. Eric Blair could now write as George Orwell he had fought in a war and survived.

2423 Radio programmes, Opera Relays, Books, Films and TV experiences

It continues to be cold with great swings in temperature often during one day  as I  lose  the struggle to keep up with my reading and writing, viewing and experiencing especially as I am devoting so much time to writing and reading, listening to the BBC series of programmes of the Real George Orwell and new experienced rapidly overtake the recent.

In relation to the George Orwell series I have covered Down and Out in Paris and London, the book and the BBC ten part Book at bedtime production. The Books Keep the Aspidistra Flying and The Road to Wigan Pier have been read and presently part way through Homage to Catalonia having previously listened to two one hour dramatizations of the book. I have also listened to Melvin’s Bragg programme discussing the Spanish Civil war with three academics.

There have been four one hour dramatizations of aspects of his life and the relationship between his books and other writing. The first Burma Days has been covered, followed by Dreaming  based on the trip he and his wife made to Morocco after his return from Spain when he was being persecuted by the Stalinists. This was followed by Loving about his relationships with of the women with whom he is known to have been associated and finally Jura after his first wife had died and he attempted to look after his adopted young son with the help of a sister, with the programme concluding with his marriage to young Sonia

I have heard a one hour version of Animal Farm and I will read the book which I possess and then 1984, which I will read on line and where I have heard the first episode of the two part dramatization and with undertaken the second before the week has ended. I have also listened to a programme explaining how the book came to be written drawing on his experiences in Spain and the aftermath on his return followed by the response to Russia when they switched sides.

I have also discovered that the brilliant 10 part radio series Strangers and Brothers on the books of C P Snow is being repeated on the BBC 4 extra after its first broadcasting in 2003.

I had become a fan of the books of C P Snow when  living, studying and then working in Oxford purchasing the majority of the already published books Time of Hope(1949) the first in series which covered the early years of Lewis Elliot, a Barrister his marriage and election as a Fellow to an Oxford College, The Conscience of the Rich (1958), The Light and the Dark (1947) broadcast out of chronological sequence but listened to this afternoon having commenced to the third and fourth episodes on the Masters (1951) this afternoon February 19th. Followed by The New Men (1954), and Homecomings (1956) also listened to, with the Affair (1960)  and Corridors of Power (1964) both of which I also have, but not The Sleep of Reason (1968) and Last things (1970) or the first book Strangers and Brothers published (1940), and the second in the series in Chronology. I also have from C P Snow’s The Search his first novel published in1934 and In Their Wisdom (1974). I have also seen the  brilliant 13 episode BBC TV series aired in 1964 and available on DVD, added to my must get list although there is only one copy available at £102 from the USA.  This reminds me that I want to reread  the Dance to Music of Time the 12 book series by Anthony Powell where I have 9 of the books and 2 others, and have ordered the missing 3 and the DVD, However both these projects are for the future, perhaps not until next year.

I have still to finish the reporting on the BBC radio plays on
Le Carré’s George Smiley the Honourable Schoolboys, Smiley’s People and the Secret Pilgrim. There are other Le Carré Works to experience again..

Before films already seen there  are Opera Relays, first from the Metropolitan Opera Rigoletto last Saturday and Eugene Onegin from Convent Garden to see this evening also at the Bolden Cineworld.

I have already viewed again  the Harry Potter films with the following to write Harry Potter and  the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince; Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 1 Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 2. I have the  book Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallow to real alongside.

I have also watched almost all the James Bond films again with all those of Roger Moore Live and Let Die,  The  Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Love me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy. A View to a Kill, followed by Timothy Dalton’s The Living Daylights and the Licence to Kill, and then Brosnan  with Golden Eye Pierce Brosnan With Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is not  enough. Die Another Day and then with Casino Royale and book  Daniel Craig Bond.

I have seen the first part of the Hobbit twice in 2D and then in 3D but it failed to match up to the Lord of the Rings despite the carry over of  several key actors. I have started to read the book.

I have also seen Les Miserables and recorded after listening to my three audio tapes of the original International stage show and will want to experience again in the cinema theatre. I have started to read my two volume edition  of Victor Hugo‘s book.
Then from some ago I experienced the Girl with Dragon Tattoo  Original and  English Language versions and have the DVD of both and propose to read the book, followed by the Girl who Played with Fire and  Girl who Kicked Hornets Nest having both DVD’s and to read  the Books which I have.

I have seen  the historical  Drama  Lincoln together with a film about Jazz Young Man with a Horn  (1950); and two war films Danger Within (1959) and The Cruel Sea (1953), the Adventure (Black Gold)  (2011)  and the biographical drama My Week with Marilyn (2011) a comedy Wunderlust in (2012) and a film about he impact on living in a commune and being brainwashed by it Martha Marcy  May Marlene together with Will (2011) a Sports programme about a young man plus a teen good feeling film Want a Girl Wants (2003) plus Playback (2012) Teen Horror, Boogie Woogie (2011) an interest film set in London’s contemporary art world. And a 3D offering Avengers Assemble.


Then I have watched much Television with the mini series The Winds of War Mini Series and to read The Winds of War which I have started to read followed by War and Remembrance, This is an excellent fictional presentation of the Second World war with the TV  series staring Robert Mitcham.

I have only seen Borgen the Danish TV series last 6 episodes of 20 about the female head of a Coalition government.


When in town recently I looked in at the MHV store due close and where almost everything was available at a discount although nothing substantial and loo, they had a copy of the first series on DVD but at the market price.

I believe Borgen, in its own way is as good as the American Series The West Wing where I have the complete edition of 154 episodes which I very much want to view once more. The BBC Gold Channel has recently shown a six episode new series of Yes Prime Ministers. I was hesitant at first given the brilliance of the original series of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. However the more I have watched the more I have enjoyed the performance with story very apposite although it did end in farce.

The series Dancing on the Edge about a Black Jazz Band and its two singers is drawing to a close and has progressed in the kind of  direction which in addition to the excellent music also is covering issues of great appeal to me.

The last series of Lewes, the successor to Morse has taken place with three two episodes. I wonder if the plan is now to broadcast a series on Young Morse after a pilot a couple of years ago.

I have been watching the Ice Dancing competition on ITV channel and some of the American Idol. The tenth season series of NCIS has commenced on the FX channel which is more openly now Fox and which after the first episode has disappointed so much I have not seen the most recent.

I have caught the first in a new series about Los Vegas and the first two of a  the soft porn with gross violence Sparticus, Sparticus Revenge,

I have read the excellent book by  C J Sanson Dominion about a Britain effective run by Hitler after the failures of the Norway Campaign and the first attempt to defeat Germany in France leading to Dunkirk.

Other books include 11 of the Inspector Montalbano books by Andrea Camilleri. I have three of the Wallander books by Henning Mankel and the five next in the George Martin series  where the series will commence next month on the Atlantic Channel under the heading Game of Thrones. There is the book on Amy Winehouse by her father and  to reread Gulliver’s Travels after seeing the latest film sometime back.

Finally I have commenced to read Gandhi in the West  by Sean Scalmer which explained that long after his death the writings of Gandhi, especially Satyagraha was behind  the unsuccessful anti nuclear protests in the UK and  the USA in the 1950’s and sixties and the successful civil rights movement in the USA. The book also makes references  to myself in  footnote and two other individuals who had great influence on my life involved as leading exponents of the Gandhian approach, Peter C Brown, the author of Smallcreeps’ Day and Laurens Otter and is now taking precedence over other reading once the Orwell series has ended.