Cartoon from London Times
Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Britain. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Thatcher and Kohl clashed over unity after Fall of the Berlin Wall
Former Chancellor’s memoirs offer an unsparing account of a Prime Minister revealing her prejudices about an old enemy
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Declaration of Independence found in British Archives
This item appeared in the current (7/8/2009) American Libraries Direct:
Declaration of Independence found in British Archives
A copy of the American Declaration of Independence has been discovered in Britain. The document, which is in perfect condition, is believed to be one of only 200 printed and was stumbled upon among files at the National Archives in Kew, southwest London, by an American doing research. Printed on July 4, 1776, it brings the total of known surviving copies worldwide to 26. The first official printings of the Declaration are known as Dunlaps because the name of the printer, John Dunlap, is given on each copy. A copy can be downloaded for free from the Archives site....
And I already downloaded a copy.
Declaration of Independence found in British Archives
A copy of the American Declaration of Independence has been discovered in Britain. The document, which is in perfect condition, is believed to be one of only 200 printed and was stumbled upon among files at the National Archives in Kew, southwest London, by an American doing research. Printed on July 4, 1776, it brings the total of known surviving copies worldwide to 26. The first official printings of the Declaration are known as Dunlaps because the name of the printer, John Dunlap, is given on each copy. A copy can be downloaded for free from the Archives site....
And I already downloaded a copy.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Queen Elizabeth Is Fuming
Queen Elizabeth is not amused.
As Dorothy Parker might have said, how can you tell? Kidding.
Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.
The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.
While serving, she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and developed a fondness for him, according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned in June 1953, to say in later years that he was the American president with whom she felt most at ease.
How the queen came to be excluded has become entangled in a thicket of diplomatic missteps, or misunderstandings, depending on whether the account is given in London or Paris. The French have said officially that they regard the commemorations in the American sector of the landings as “primarily a Franco-American ceremony,” and that it was up to the British to decide who should represent Britain — in other words, that Mr. Brown was at fault for not seeking an invitation for the queen.
He did it. As if Brown needs any more problems.
In Britain, commentators have suggested that Mr. Sarkozy did not want to share the telegenic moment when he hosts Mr. Obama. This was all the more so, the British commentators have said, because the queen’s presence might risk turning the occasion into a celebration of the Anglo-American alliance, whose troops carried out the landings, losing about 37,000 men in the battle for Normandy.
Sarko never has met a camera he didn't like.
As Dorothy Parker might have said, how can you tell? Kidding.
Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in Britain’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.
The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.
While serving, she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and developed a fondness for him, according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned in June 1953, to say in later years that he was the American president with whom she felt most at ease.
How the queen came to be excluded has become entangled in a thicket of diplomatic missteps, or misunderstandings, depending on whether the account is given in London or Paris. The French have said officially that they regard the commemorations in the American sector of the landings as “primarily a Franco-American ceremony,” and that it was up to the British to decide who should represent Britain — in other words, that Mr. Brown was at fault for not seeking an invitation for the queen.
He did it. As if Brown needs any more problems.
In Britain, commentators have suggested that Mr. Sarkozy did not want to share the telegenic moment when he hosts Mr. Obama. This was all the more so, the British commentators have said, because the queen’s presence might risk turning the occasion into a celebration of the Anglo-American alliance, whose troops carried out the landings, losing about 37,000 men in the battle for Normandy.
Sarko never has met a camera he didn't like.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Impromptu Farewell: Britain’s Salute
Soldiers’ hearses, en route from the Lyneham Royal Air Force Base to a hospital morgue in Oxford, slowly made their way down the main street in Wootton Bassett in March.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Masters and Commanders
The other new book on the New Book cart at Information Desk today that intrigued me:
It looks at FDR and Churchill (masters) and George C. Marshall and Alan Brooke (American and English generals, commanders). Interesting viewpoint considering the four as principals in the war effort. The author, of course, has his own website.
Why, when the most direct route from Britain to Germany was through north-western France, did the western allies first launch assaults on North Africa, Sicily and Rome? Why, if D-Day was intended to be the start of the Allies’ great thrust into Germany, did four hundred thousand men land five hundred miles to the south, in southern France, two months later? Why did the Allies not take Berlin, Vienna or Prague, and allow the Iron Curtain to descend where it did?
It looks at FDR and Churchill (masters) and George C. Marshall and Alan Brooke (American and English generals, commanders). Interesting viewpoint considering the four as principals in the war effort. The author, of course, has his own website.
Why, when the most direct route from Britain to Germany was through north-western France, did the western allies first launch assaults on North Africa, Sicily and Rome? Why, if D-Day was intended to be the start of the Allies’ great thrust into Germany, did four hundred thousand men land five hundred miles to the south, in southern France, two months later? Why did the Allies not take Berlin, Vienna or Prague, and allow the Iron Curtain to descend where it did?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Stoopeed? Yup. Stupid.
Britain Finds Drugs on Plane; Crew Arrested
LONDON (Agence France-Presse) — The crew members of a South African Airways plane were arrested Tuesday after about $450,000 worth of cannabis and cocaine were found on a flight from Johannesburg to London, customs officials said.
Border agency officials found 110 pounds of cannabis, worth about $210,000, and 9 pounds of cocaine, worth about $240,000, in three suitcases, said a spokesman for Britain’s revenue and customs agency.
All 15 members of the plane’s flight and cabin crew — 10 women and five men — were arrested after the plane landed at Heathrow Airport at 8 a.m.
Customs agents found the cannabis in the suitcases when the crew members passed through a customs clearance point, said Bob Gaiger, the spokesman.
Additional searches revealed a white powder that tested positive for cocaine.
“Interviews will be taking place and will probably go into tomorrow, and then we will decide whether we are going to charge anyone,” Mr. Gaiger said. The pilot was among the crew members who were detained, he added.
Mr. Gaiger underlined how seriously British customs took such cases, saying that it was committed to playing “a vital role in the fight to prevent illegal drugs from entering the U.K. and in protecting our communities from the violence and corruption that always accompany this hideous trade.”
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Atheists Send a Message, on 800 British Buses
The advertisement on the bus was fairly mild, just a passage from the Bible and the address of a Christian Web site. But when Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, looked on the Web site in June, she was startled to learn that she and her nonbelieving friends were headed straight to hell, to “spend all eternity in torment.”That site is Jesussaid.org: at the bottom of its web page, this nugget appears: Proclaiming Truth in London, P O Box 408, Twickenham, TW1 9FJ
That’s a bit extreme, she thought, as well as hard to prove. “If I wanted to run a bus ad saying ‘Beware — there is a giant lion from London Zoo on the loose!’ or ‘The “bits” in orange juice aren’t orange but plastic — don’t drink them or you’ll die!’ I think I might be asked to show my working and back up my claims,” Ms. Sherine wrote in a commentary on the Web site of The Guardian.
I agree. Her website has a link to the Atheist Bus Campaign site.
Inspired by the London campaign, the American Humanist Association started running bus advertisements in Washington in November, with a more muted message. “Why believe in a god?” the ads read, over a picture of a man in a Santa suit. “Just be good for goodness’ sake.”Here, hear.
In 2003, when an interviewer asked Tony Blair, then the prime minister, about religion, his spokesman, Alastair Campbell, interjected, snapping, “We don’t do God.” After leaving office, Mr. Blair became a Roman Catholic.
We don't DO God? Geez.
More recently, Nick Clegg, a member of Parliament and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, announced that he was an atheist. (He later downgraded himself to agnostic.)
Better downgraded than downsized.
An interesting element of the bus slogan is the word “probably,” which would seem to be more suited to an Agnostic Bus Campaign than to an atheist one. Mr. Dawkins, for one, argued that the word should not be there at all.
Spin is important.
But the element of doubt was necessary to meet British advertising guidelines, said Tim Bleakley, managing director for sales and marketing at CBS Outdoor in London, which handles advertising for the bus system.
For religious people, advertisements saying there is no God “would have been misleading,” Mr. Bleakley said. “So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a gray area,” he said.
Believe this? Misleading? Oy vay. But this is neat:
But Mr. Bleakley said he had no problem with the atheist bus ads. “We do have religious organizations that promote themselves,” he said. “If somebody doesn’t believe in religion, why wouldn’t we carry an ad that promotes the opposite view? To coin a phrase, it’s not for us to play God.”
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Camp Forestia
Saw article about Peter Doig in current issue of New York review of Books. HWPL, of course, owns a book on him, Works on paper.
One image I like is entitled Camp Forestia. Doig is British-born; this work is in MoMA. The painting looks better in the book: the house and the reflection are full -- and there is no red. The neat thing is that if one turns the page, the house looks (almost) exactly the same, except for the refelction having some black.
One image I like is entitled Camp Forestia. Doig is British-born; this work is in MoMA. The painting looks better in the book: the house and the reflection are full -- and there is no red. The neat thing is that if one turns the page, the house looks (almost) exactly the same, except for the refelction having some black.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Peace of Amiens
Beginning to read "Gladstone" by Roy Jenkins. Peace of Amiens mentioned.
Signed in 1802, the Peace of Amiens marked the end of the French Revolutionary War. For the British, it brought respite from conflict abroad. As part of the peace treaty, Britain, isolated from her allies, agreed to return recent territorial conquests to France, Spain and Holland. These terms were heavily resented and the British, worried about Napoleon’s plans, refused to withdraw from Malta.
Also mentioned is the Battle of Coruña (Corunna)
Signed in 1802, the Peace of Amiens marked the end of the French Revolutionary War. For the British, it brought respite from conflict abroad. As part of the peace treaty, Britain, isolated from her allies, agreed to return recent territorial conquests to France, Spain and Holland. These terms were heavily resented and the British, worried about Napoleon’s plans, refused to withdraw from Malta.
Also mentioned is the Battle of Coruña (Corunna)
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