Southampton Warriors

Act One:

It's that time of year when we honour and remember the bravery, courage and sacrifice that our boys (and girls) gave to defend the British people's right to determine their own destiny, free from the rule of external ideological threats to our way of life, and that we celebrate this coming Armistice day to remind us of the horrors of WWI trench warfare and mechanized killing through tanks.

The carnage and bloodshed of the Great War were perfectly choreographed to end at precisely 11:11 on the 11th day of the 11th month. This is a wink by the scriptwriters who celebrated their victory by locking the Allies into the next world war, through the Treaty of Versailles.

Act Two:

The second act can usually be darkest and so after a phoney start, Allied forces (minus the Yanks) found themselves staring into the abyss of defeat, with the Axis Powers surrounding us at Dunkirk. A retreat was the only option. The show was nearly over, but the super weirdo Adolf Hitler, sensing a premature ending, allowed us to slip through his fingers and instructed his Panzer divisions to pause for some German sausage and beer instead. Fortunately, Churchill and FDR had a cunning plan. The people of the U.S. had no desire to get involved and so a New Pearl Harbour was guaranteed to secure the consent of the Americans. Oh wait a minute, a New Pearl Harbour was how the Neocons kicked off the 9/11 drama 57 years later. What I meant to say was the old Pearl Harbour happened as Japan had no oil and just like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria the best way to start a war is to choke a country economically, then kick their ass, and when they surrender, drop a nuke for a curtain call.

Act Three:

After the war, at our world-famous Southampton University, Dr Anthony Sutton earned his D.Sc (Doctorate of Science) in recognition of his research and a proven record of internationally recognised scholarship. By 1957 he had been snapped up by The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a public policy think tank promoting the principles of individual, economic, and political freedom.

With his planet-sized brain, Tony (as he preferred to be called) devoured his way through many of the nearly one million volumes and more than six thousand archival collections from 171 countries dedicated to documenting war, revolution, and peace in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Just one problem.

He found out through his exhaustive research who those 11:11 jokers are *winky*, and he didn't think it was funny. He discovered that the US was transferring its manufacturing technology to the USSR at the height of the Cold War and that US Infantry, Cavalry and Marines fighting the Viet Cong and dying in the tropical rice paddies of Vietnam, were facing the same Ford trucks they knew inside out from back home.

The Hoover Institution called a meeting and Tony's bosses said "now look Anthony, you've become a naturalised American, you have a top job at one of the most prestigious think tanks in the world and we need you to pull back on your research focus. Why don't you head a new department, dedicated to anything you like but not technology transfer to our enemies?

Maybe it's a Southampton thing but he told them to go fuck themselves, and he set up shop on his own. His later work is even more gobsmacking, but don't take my word for it. 

Make your own mind up if you've got an attention span longer than a poppy pin.

His interviews are quicker than reading his books. How can you "Never Forget" if you don't remember in the first place?

Tell me. Do you really support the troops?

Jon Bercow, Keith Vaz & Frith Manor

I was shooting my mouth off earlier on Facebook-em-Danno, about John Bercow the corrupt former speaker of the house of commons. 

If he was a Christian or a Muslim I would publish the BREXIT plotting that all sides of the most divisive issue to tear the British people apart should demand to know, but there are limits to free speech. 

This doesn't mean, JB wasn't one of the most learned speakers in modern times. He knew his subject better than his adversaries and delivered it in that dazzling upper-class, Pompous-English cadence that wannabes like myself wouldn't mind being capable of, but I didn't attend a top school like Frith Manor in Woodside Park as John Simon Bercow did.

Now the thing about JB is that his BFF was Keith Vaz MP, so I searched my blog archives to see if I could illuminate the depths of whatever made both of these men completely untouchable by the most powerful levers of statecraft.

Just imagine my pearl-clutching and heart palpitations as I discovered that manipulation of my esteemed and generally ignored work had taken place? My blog post about Vaz had been kneecapped. 

I nearly fainted for an encore.... many of the cast spontaneously broke into tears and the audience looked like they collectively stood up to applause, as the curtain was drawn, but as we can't see a thing with the spotlights turned on us, it's about the feelz not audiencide™ eye-contact in the business.

Anyway, Vaz, or maybe even his mates 503'd the last of three posts about Keef On The Goa Vaz. Not because I called him oily in the headline... that's still there. 

The content is gone. 

I was itching to find out how I had triggered things, so I hit on an idea, and for the first time ever, I searched the waybackmachine to see what the archives said, as top journos in the United States had confidently informed me that all claims of meddling could be settled in this manner.

Hah, the good old days eh.

Those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end.

Jack Hargreaves & Southern Television

By "us", I mean my siblings. A younger brother Alexander, and my older sister Maria (Marie-Elaine). 

I think they have both personalised their monikers now, so don't let me define how they like to be called. 

We children ("us") were born before the internet, and as kids if you wish, were often bored at the available options on Sunday for example, but even the weekdays and evenings could be tedious from a child's perspective. Uneventful if housebound.

Sunday was largely commerce-free (shops including supermarkets were closed), which isn't the same as commercial-free. 

The local TV station (Southern TV, TVS (subsequently Meridian) often broadcast perplexing Television content like Jack Hargreaves' Out of Town program about the countryside. 

Internally, we knew it wasn't designed to be boring but it does take aging to appreciate how "slow", can be imbued with more value than fast.

Unexpectedly, a nine-year-old or even an eleven-year-old wouldn't ordinarily be interested in fly fishing, or agrarian seasonal activity. 

It pleases me that I can revisit the "Out of Town" content on the internet, and reassess my somewhat immature, youthful reaction.

I'm still working on the 11:11, 555, 333, etc post. 

Update: Barry at the Waterloo Arms tells me Jack was a complete wanker.