From Phil Baker's biography of Dennis Wheatley:
"The RFC [Royal Flying Corps] was still in its infancy, having only just got past the stage of using hand-held revolvers in aeroplanes, but it was now rapidly expanding. In May 1915 it comprised only 166 planes in total, but within eighteen months it was losing fifty planes a week. Parachutes were not issued; senior Army staff believed pilots would try harder without them." (p.100)
"The man who commanded Wheatley's division, General Sir Oliver Nugent, had boasted that a double decker London omnibus would hold all the men he intended to bring home alive." (p.139)
Lest we forget.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Boxed in: BoJo opposes burqa ban, gets hounded by bien-pensants!
The controversy continues...
“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it."
― Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides
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| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/05/denmark-has-got-wrong-yes-burka-oppressive-ridiculous-still/ |
“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
"Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it."
― Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides
Friday, August 10, 2018
FRIDAY MUSIC: Two Sisters (Ravi's Daughters), by JD
The late Ravi Shankar is remembered as one of the best-known proponents of the sitar in the second half of the 20th century and he influenced many other musicians throughout the world. He was also the father of two daughters who have also been successful in their very different musical careers:
Norah Jones was born in 1979 and became a jazz singer and pianist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Jones
Anoushka Shankar was born in 1981 and followed her father in learning to play the sitar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoushka_Shankar
I suppose it was inevitable that these two half-sisters would eventually record together and with their father so here is a selection of their music, both individually and together.
Norah Jones was born in 1979 and became a jazz singer and pianist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah_Jones
Anoushka Shankar was born in 1981 and followed her father in learning to play the sitar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoushka_Shankar
I suppose it was inevitable that these two half-sisters would eventually record together and with their father so here is a selection of their music, both individually and together.
Sunday, August 05, 2018
A "finest hour": Operation Pedestal
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| Mortally wounded, the Ohio staggers into Valletta |
August 1942: Malta remained a thorn in the side of the enemy, who had been besieging the island since June 1940. Rommel had said in 1941 that unless Malta fell, North Africa would be lost to the Axis.
Disastrously, in September 1941 the US Embassy in Cairo had been secretly burgled by the Italians, who copied the code book; and the "Black Code" had also been cracked by the Germans soon after, so the enemy were reading translations of the American reports within hours of transmission.
In June 1942 two British supply convoys had been sent - Operations Vigorous and Harpoon - and owing in part to the intelligence intercepts were successfully attacked, with heavy losses to our side.
By the August, then, the situation in Malta was desperate, and another large convoy was put together under Operation Pedestal. As well as food and - crucially - fuel, the flotilla carried a squadron of Spitfires that took off once past Gibraltar and headed for the island via a circuitous route to evade trouble. These planes would be key not only to the defence of Malta but to future attacks on Axis forces in North Africa and Sicily.
Young Battle of Britain veteran and Pedestal participant Geoffrey Wellum noted that because of the need to carry extra fuel for the long flight, the Spitfires' ammunition was removed and replaced with rations of cigarettes - good for the defenders' morale!
The squadron got safely to Malta, and waited.
West of them in the Mediterranean, fourteen merchant ships and thirty-eight ships of war including four aircraft carriers came under an intense air and submarine attack that had begun even as the Spitfires were taking off. The Navy lost a carrier (the Eagle), two light cruisers and a destroyer, and nine merchant ships went down also.
But the Ohio* got through, carrying 10,000 tons of fuel oil and saving the island's capacity to defend itself. She only just managed to get into the Grand Harbour, severely damaged and with a destroyer lashed to either side of her, sinking even as her cargo was being pumped out, subsequently breaking into two and having to be towed out to sea and scuttled by naval gunfire.
Fourteen ships sunk, thirty-four aircraft destroyed, hundreds dead. But a gamble that paid off.
_____________________
*Requisitioned from her resentful US owners after reaching the Clyde in Scotland. She had arrived there on 21 June 1942, only three days after the C-in-C of the Mediterranean Fleet, looking at the recent failures of Operations Vigorous and Harpoon, had cabled Churchill to advise against another attempt to breach the Malta blockade.
Friday, August 03, 2018
FRIDAY MUSIC: Tiddely-Prom, by JD
More from the BBC Proms:
This evening, 3rd August, on BBC4 it is the folk music of these islands which is the focus of attention. So a preview of some of the artists taking part, all of them first rate. No doubt there will be others but that is the great joy of the Proms, they always deliver delightful surprises and excellent music.
This evening, 3rd August, on BBC4 it is the folk music of these islands which is the focus of attention. So a preview of some of the artists taking part, all of them first rate. No doubt there will be others but that is the great joy of the Proms, they always deliver delightful surprises and excellent music.
Thursday, August 02, 2018
Starting again
In December 1933, an 18-year-old decided to change his life. He'd been thrown out of school before taking his examinations, was pointed in the direction of the Army but didn't have the money to keep up the expected lifestyle, tried door to door selling half-heartedly, faced the prospect of an office job that would have withered his artistic and inquisitive nature, was getting into bouts of drink and depression, and was toyed with by bohemians and bored upper-class women at London parties.
He set himself a challenge: to walk across Europe to Istanbul.
On the Channel crossing, he couldn't sleep. "It was," says his biographer*, "as if he were sloughing off the skin of his old self."
His name was Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor; but for the next sixteen months he called himself by his middle name, Michael. And now we have all heard of him.
So what had he done? He had changed his social environment, getting away from family and friends who "knew" him; and he changed himself, breaking out of the accumulating crust of life experience and habits that gradually suffocate one's growth.
________________________
*Artemis Cooper, "Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure", John Murray, 2012
He set himself a challenge: to walk across Europe to Istanbul.
On the Channel crossing, he couldn't sleep. "It was," says his biographer*, "as if he were sloughing off the skin of his old self."
His name was Patrick "Paddy" Leigh Fermor; but for the next sixteen months he called himself by his middle name, Michael. And now we have all heard of him.
So what had he done? He had changed his social environment, getting away from family and friends who "knew" him; and he changed himself, breaking out of the accumulating crust of life experience and habits that gradually suffocate one's growth.
________________________
*Artemis Cooper, "Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure", John Murray, 2012
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