Sunday Scribbles XXX

Apologies for missing the blog on Thursday night: i had connectivity problems. For some reason my computer/notebook device wouldn't talk to the wifi thingy, and so I was isolated from the rest of the world. Yes - the huigely big webby thing spurned me.

But now we're mates again, and it's all due to my own technical prowess. I did nothoing. It just, well, fixed itself. How can this be? I am mystified by these things, and wonder if I shopuld hire a five year old to stand by while I play at being technically competent.

The Waihopai Wonks have been in the news again, this time because some bright spark thought it'd be a good idea to sue them for the cost of repairing or replacing what theyb destroyed. It'd be a civil case. I gather this changes the burden of proof requirements.

I approve. I heard a couple of them interviewed by Kathryn Whatserface on National Radio, and they were mouth-foamers. They were claiming things about the Waihopai installation, and saying that the Chied of Defence Staff, the Bossman of our Intelligence service, and the prime Minister were all unaware of these things. Whoa! Back up the horse, Cedric! All these high-level tie-wearing Public Service functionaries didn't know this stuff, but an unemployed priest and his barely literate teacher chum did know?

I cannot believe a jury actually swallowed their bilge. I have no doubt about their sincerity, and that that they really do believe all this tripe. But they still haven't produced any proof of what they claim. If thye civil case does go ahead, I should hope the judge will demand some form of proof from them. If it turns out they're right, and they did save lives, then perhaps they should be congratulated. if they can't prove their accusations, then they should be held liable for at least the financial burden they're asking me to shoulder. And if their actions prevented a suicide bomber from being apprehended, and allowed him or her to kill people, then they must assume a portion of responsibility for those deaths.

The whole mining thing seems to be dying a death. I'm fascinated by this government. Some bright spark has an idea, and they float it out there to see how the public react. It's policy by poll, and it stinks. They don't have the couragew of any conviction. All they have is is Grinning Bill, Smiling John, plum-faced Nick, and Skeletor. Wind 'em up, set them to talking, and if the hoi-polloi holler too loudly, quietly drop it. Sometimes I think the only one in Government with any credibility at all is Hone Harawera. At least he means what he says.

She was 16 years old in 1941. The Germans were in charge of holland, and she was being used by the Underground to courier bits and pieces - false papers, forged ration books, the occasional weapon - under the noses of the Hienies. On one occasion she had five revolvers and two hundred rounds of ammunition in her saddlebags, and she'd been stopped by a roadblock. A bored German Feldwebel was about to open her saddlebags to effect a search...

But, a few miles above, a damaged Wellington bomber managed to jettison its load of 500-pound bombs. One bomb landed mere metres from this little tableau, and exploded. Ditty, the child, was blown thirty metres away, and was badly concussed. The three German soldiers were all killed, and her bicycle - with its load of weaponry - was toitally destroyed.

Ditty is now a New Zealander. She met her future NZ husband in 1944 when he, a downed airman, was helped by the same Underground group she was a part of. he escaped back to England, survived the war, and returned to Holland to find the young woman he'd fallen in love with.

She is now alone in New Zealand, crippled by the bastard arthritis, and going blind. She is one of my readers, and she is astonishing.

LISTENING TO: The best of Credence Clearwater Revival. More fun the beach Boys ever were.

READING: Nothing new. The James Rollins book is nearing the end, and it's been fun.

MOVIES WATCHED: "State of Play", starring Russell Crowe. Not bad, not great.

TV MUST SEE: The remake of "The Prisoner". It's on late on TV1, Monday night. Patrick McGoohan would, I think, be very happy. He wrote and starred in the original, which was must-see TV back in its day. This is must-see TV now.

Paper Heroes:

7.54am
The pain stops.
Robert looks at what he has done, and faints from the horror of it.
Robert, on this morning, has not been alone. In just three minutes of insanity, over 48,000 suburban Calcutta people died. A further 16,000 survive with the knowledge that they killed their families: their brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, and children. Most of them, fortunately, have been driven mad by the experience. They know what they have done, they know what happened, but they do not know why or how they could have been driven to it. For them, life ended with the lives of their families, of their loved ones.
This is the third time that a catastrophic explosion of violence had happened in the world in the past month. Two weeks ago it had happened in Manchester, England, where 1700 people had hacked, chopped, and beaten each other into a horrific orgy of death. And two weeks before then a small village on the Russian steppes had simply ceased to exist – with the loss of nearly 900 souls.

This is why, at the end of June, 2385, it was decided that Andrew Blunt and his friend Sean Whistler had to die at the Battle of Waterloo. It was also decided that John Prester had to be killed in 1987, and that others must also die before their time had come.

CHAPTER TWO
4.20am (approx.), 19 June, 1815.
The moist wind that blew gently over the battlefield carried with it the bitter coppery smell of blood mixed with shit, piss, fear, and glory. Skeins of gunpowder smoke still seemed to cling to grass at the sides of the hedgerow-bound pathway the two men were staggering along, followed by Nosey, Blunt’s rangy wolfhound.
The first grey light of dawn had been playing with the eastern horizon for twenty minutes, and the two men were glad of the light. It had taken the better part of an hour to walk the last mile: the hedgerows seemed to have taken on a habit of leaping out at a man in the dark. The coming dawn had taught the devious plants a thing or two about staying still.
The taller of the men was drunk. Riotously, uproariously drunk. He was a huge man, solidly built, with a plain, even face. He carried a 10-litre brandy barrel that seemed as small as a baby’s bottle in his wide, spatulate hands. He was dressed in a vast coat that had split down its back when he had fallen to the ground, giggling at an unspoken joke.
His companion, while shorter, was still a fine figure of a man. He, too, was drunk – but he had never had the capacity for being both drunk and cheerful at the same time.
If the light had been better, an observer would have seen his face. A face, which, in weariness, was lean and angular, scarred down the left cheek, giving him a rakish, even devilish appearance.
“Christ, Sean,” growled the smaller man. “Is there no way you can keep the noise down?”
“Holy God on His Cross, Colonel,” spluttered Sean Whistler. “Do you know what old Nosey did today?”
Nosey is the name the English private soldier gave to their commander, Arthur Wellesly, Lord Wellington. It is also the name Blunt has given his dog; it amuses him to give orders to Wellington’s namesake.
“Yesterday,” said Andrew Blunt, civilian, sourly. “It’s dawn, we’re both drunk, you’re making enough bloody noise to waken a bloody banshee, and the bloody battle was yesterday, you’re hogging the bloody brandy, and I want to go home.”
“He bloody beat Boney!” exulted the huge Irishman. “We bloody beat Boney! Have a drink!”
“No. No thanks,” said Blunt. He was despondent, weary, savagely bitter, and unemployed again. Yesterday morning he had been Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Blunt, with a roving commission under Prince William of Orange. Yesterday afternoon, during the course of the battle that had broken Napoleon’s power once and for all, Blunt had resigned his commission by taking the simple expedient of shooting the Prince. He was annoyed that he had only wounded the incompetent bastard: he had been shooting to kill.
Whistler looked at his friend’s face in the gathering light.
“Sweet Jesus, but you’re in a sour mood. I’ll finish this brandy by myself, so I will.”
And so he did.
If the light had been better, neither man would have died. As it was, it was the cold turning point of the dawn, when furtive figures are simply shapes in the grey, where the Devil’s purpose can be hidden in shadows.