(no subject)

[liadnan]

Another Saturday, another hangover...
I didn't make it to Wimbledon yesterday. Frankly, I woke up just before 9, when my experience tells me one needs to be in the queue by 9, and said fuckit. So instead I cleaned the flat, properly. Haven't finished yet, but it's no longer on the verge of going critical.
Then to Canary Wharf to meet Alan, Adele, Rob and Steph, and off to the hospital another friend of ours is in. Finally back to Primrose Hill, to Limani, and a meal where the 5 of us got through 7 bottles of retsina. Drinking with Rob and Alan is somewhat akin to pouring bottles of water into the Sahara. Quite cheap though.
The Campbell row seems to be going ballistic. I really think he's lost his notorious grip. See this story in The Times. And while we're on the subject, some of you, particularly Rparvaaz may appreciate this comment by Ben MacIntyre (those links probably won't always work, The Times has an irritating habit of changing links to articles). MacIntyre finds parallels between Napier's taking of Sind and the recent wars, to summarise it.
Since I'm in the business of handing out links, Tolkien fans should take a look at my fellow Culturnik (and Berkeley economics professor) Brad deLong's take on what happened when Gandalf reported back after the Balrog deaded him, here, or as a livejournal RSS feed here.
Enough linksplurging. Onto the important things: I have a really bad hangover. And K reckons my hair is "a bit too short". Ho hum. I am going to go drown my sorrows in the National Gallery. Laters.
(PS, does anyone but me find it immensely irritating that 9 out of 10 public fountains (&c) in London don't work.)

Comments

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I can't access the Times. Can't sub either as I am still holding out against credit cards. :)
Your hair will grow back, so no worries there.
Hm, the news has been rather blah today - the only thing of note that seems to have happened is the theft of the pistol with which Pakistn surrendered to India in 1971.

[liadnan]

Strange. I can access it still, I think the articles usually stay where they are for a week, after that you need a login (which I do actually have as The Times is a very useful resource for lawyers).

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

I still can't access it. Oh, I forgot about the fountains - all my sympathies really. It's a rare occasion when fountains work here. On a trip to Deeg last year, we were told that the fountains there [some 145 of them] were turned on only for a week in a year. Bah!

[liadnan]

Some high points...
"“We have no right to seize Sind, but we shall do so,” [Napier] declared. “And a very advantageous, useful, humane piece of rascality it will be.”

The world superpower, then as now, had been badly rattled by a horrific massacre of men, women and children. In 1841, 16,000 people, an entire British army, had been massacred during the disastrous retreat from Kabul.
First, an army of retribution descended on Kabul and killed large numbers of Afghans, some of whom might have been guilty of something. Then the empire turned its sights on nearby Sind, “like a bully who has been kicked in the street and goes home to beat his wife in revenge”, in the words of one critic.

[...]

“These villains of Amirs are my aversion,” [Napier] wrote. “Thank God the treacherous assassins are not to be restored, and I shall have the pleasure of doing good in recovering and cheering up a fine race of oppressed people.”

[...]

With British rule established, the victors basked in a glow of moral rectitude. “It is allowable to indulge feelings of satisfaction when the course of events brings the fall of barbarians and selfish rulers,” reflected Lord Ellenbrough, the Governor-General. Whatever the nit-pickers might argue, Britain, he said, had been morally right “to extend . . . the benefits of a beneficent and enlightened rule”.

[...]

Two parliamentary blue books of official documents were published to explain and justify what had happened. Sarah Ansari, an historian at Royal Holloway, University of London, however, has now compared the official with the unofficial account, to uncover a remarkable work of Victorian spin: phrases were tweaked, key passages omitted, while only the most supportive data were included, even exaggerated.

[...]

The fourth space [on the Trafalgar Sq plinths] remains empty, an endless source of debate about who deserves to be memorialised there. This might be the moment to have Blair, the victor of Baghdad, stand alongside Charles Napier, the victor of Sind. Blair, like Sir Charles Napier, believes himself more sinned against than sinning, and it would be only fitting to have them stand together, monumental proof that whether or nor you make a complete Horlicks of justifying an invasion, if you stand by the official version with enough conviction then, one day, your plinth will come. "

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, that sounds like a delightfully scathing article. Thanks. :)