What’s it like, strong sensations, each minute is counted, how much longer.The banal becomes a focus of attention. Sensory perceptions are stronger. Is that the last birdsong that I will hear. The smell of coffee, the crackle of the croissant, home made jam, Normandy butter. Ah and a new mown lawn.
Solidarity yes now I know how they suffered before me. The aborigines of the stolenwealth. Transhipped for a pat of butter, the punishment well laid on. Sleeping in small pox blankets and unwittingly catching the deadly disease.
Inspiration? Joan of course, courageous, blessed Joan.
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Boadicea's Chariot 
Thanks bearsy. Its a collusion of convicts aborigines and Amerindiens. I’ve modified the last line for your sensitivities.
MoO. You can write extremely well – thanks for the reminder that there are still people sitting on Death Rows, and that Aboriginals all around the world were treated appallingly.
As to your last sentence (as was) it isn’t the sensitivities – it is the axe-grinding (which gets exceedingly tedious!), and the fact that, had you left it as it was, I’d have felt compelled to add some qualifiers. Whereas, as it stands now, we can all agree that she is an inspiration. 🙂
mish-mash?
“N’est-ce pas la collusion de la musique et de la danse qui a contraint les poètes grecs à arracher la tragédie aux profondeurs du drame humain?”
See a lot of collusion.
I thought the title of this blog was about the poor little euro, sutting alone and unloved in the death cell just waiting foer the axe to fall. What can be worse a German judge and a Greek executioner, oh…I guess a French defender..no chance.
Boa thanks for the comment.Should good writing please? Can one not seek to provoke other emotions.Torture, rape, humiliation (metaphorically of course). It is blandness that must be avoided.
OMG You are feeling a little wind in your sails, a long suffering nation looking for an upturn. No I think you misread the situation with the euro. Difficulties yes, but a succesful passage through the toughest of crises is the reality. Just look at the benefit to Greece, they will now get to grips with their spendthrift bureacracy and come out of it a richer nation.
“Just look at the benefit to Greece, they will now get to grips with their spendthrift bureacracy and come out of it a richer nation”.
Tell that to those in Greece, the pensioners who will have their income slashed, the busines man who will lose everything, the hotelier with no guests and the copper who head is stoved by a greek rioter…and all because those in Brussels do not have the guts to let Greece float the drachma but keep them tethered to a failing euro for no other reason than political vanity. It just proves that diko or silly moo or whatever we are meant to call him or her has about as much grasp of the situation as karzy has on Carla.
I was watching the news at lunchtime. Demonstrators carrying signs reading ‘No to EU agreement,’ and, EU keep your hands off our rights.’ (Yes, I do read And write Greek – 23 years married to a Cypriot helped.) One demonstraion was by Greek Navy Officers, (I nearly wrote RHN – age showing.) That will all go down well in Germany. moo in panglossian mode, as ever.
There was a funny post on MyT about the euro and Greece yesterday. All the supporters of the EU and the euro have been booted off. So there were 30 comments saying the same thing. That’s free speech for yer.
Greece are staying in the euro by choice, nobody is forcing them to stay. If they left, they would still owe euros to all their creditors but it would take an awful lot of new drachma to reimburse. In fact Greece would not only leave the euro they would also default, not a good choice. They would also fail to deal with their underlying problems.
I agree that blandness is to be avoided, but so should hitting a reader with the same concept over and over again be avoided – after a while both arouse no emotion other than sheer boredom.
Let’s take Jeanne. I know, as fact, that Charles, made no effort to ransom her, and I know, as fact, that the Burgundians ‘sold’ her to the English, and I also know, as fact, that her ‘trial’ was a travesty. But, I cannot feel any personal guilt for what happened to her – it’s way too long ago, and there are too many other factors involved. No amount of ‘digs’ will make me feel any different.
Keep whacking me over the head with the fact that the English were responsible for her trial and death (which I acknowledge) and I will whack you back with the fact that the French king, basically, left her to her fate – which it seems you do not acknowledge – or do you?
How does this sort of confrontational writing engender any emotion other than anger? It doesn’t. If you want to engender anger in your reader – carry on with the confrontational writing. If you are trying to engender other feelings – you’ll have to change your style…. 🙂
Boa The paradox is why would the recounting of a simple piece of your history, even if it is done ad nauseum (actually not I have tackled the ‘finacial services’ to a far greater extent)create anger. Could it possibly be that the Brits are in denial over the less savoury parts of their history? Anyway I won’t persist.
It provokes anger, because it’s an unbalanced view. It’s not me who’s in denial – it’s you – you flatly refuse to acknowledge the fact that the French king made no attempt to ransom Jeanne.
As you very well know, it was customary at the time for leaders who were captured in battle to be kept in some comfort until their kith and kin (or someone else) paid a ransom to their captors. We, of course, have no way of knowing whether the Burgundians would have accepted an such an offer, but the fact remains that Charles washed his hands of any responsibility for her and left her to her fate. It simply is not reasonable to apportion all the blame for her death on the English – France must pick up its share.
As for the financial crisis – not all AS countries followed down the path of idiotic lending. And again, you are trying to make those who had absolutely no control over what happened feel guilty for things that were not of their making – of course they get angry.
No I don’t reject at all what you say about the French position, we know very well that we weren’t terribly clear over Jeanne’s trial, though we do see the conniving English as the more evil. What annoys the English is that they are not reconciled to their true history. They believe they are considerably better than they are. By going on and on about Azincourt and Crécy you’d think they won the 100 years war, I am not sure that many English people really understand that they were roundly beaten. By saying that a teenage girl whipped them, perfectly true, their self image is heavily attacked, hence the anger. I know this is so because I am English, and French.
As ar as ‘financial services ‘ are concerned, you are responsble you live in a democracy and your countries made that choice, France and Germany made a different choice. And at the height of the equity withdrawal scam and everybody was jetting off for weekends you were boasting about the success of your choice and Gordon Brown was popular.You went on and on about the archaic European economies. You have short memories.
RoO: I doubt many people even know what the 100 years war was about… do you?
And by the way, I live in Australia … I am not responsible for governments in England or the US. Anyone with half an eye could see that both countries were building their ‘success’ on paper and that it had to collapse – but I’m not sure that anyone could have convinced the eighteen year old who was (and probably still is) being allowed virtually unlimited credit that his debt was part of a world-wide problem. Don’t you think that we are just as ‘p..d’ off with the US and the UK financial shenanigans as anyone else? I just don’t hold the people of those countries personally responsible for what a bunch of greedy financiers and irresponsible politicians did.
As for living in a ‘democracy’, what sort of ‘democratic’ government goes to war when the majority of its people don’t want to? I’ll pick up the responsibility for what the government here has done on that account, even though I’d like to take the lot of them and put them in court. And that’s where ‘democracy’ falls down – we vote them in, they do what they like, and we have no right to call them to account when they don’t do as we want.