Its a mere seven days since the end of Tv's greatest show. So it is inevitable that this week has been spent in search of a suitable replacement.. And I can't find one. But I have found trawlermen! Each night at 7 I have been found sat urging success on 6 men in a small boat in the North Sea. Its all very odd (am a bit scared of the sea, think fish are ugly etc).. but I love it. AM even going to drive through teh rush hour to try and see the last one tonight!
A week today, when all the furore has ebbed and the markets have bottomed out, our nation will awake to the sounds of bugles and church bells as we commemorate 100 years from the start of the Battle of The Somme. I am an historian by background, and the Somme for me is emblematic of a human tragedy that need never have happened. My reading of it is this: we began a war from a variety of odd alliances and murky motivations, capped off finally by a sense that no-one had the will to stop it. In order to give the war effort impetus, posters, propaganda began to be bandied around about the enemy, about what they would do to children and how they needed to be stopped. It worked as a recruiting effort- young men, boys, and women all joined the war effort. They joined as an act of patriotism, tinged yes with fear, but also a sense that it might be the right thing to do. They joined from across the country- but at the heart of the front line forces were thousands and ten of thousands...
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