“On my order, unleash Hell.”

There is a scene in the film ‘Black Hawk Down‘ in which Josh Hartnett’s character, Sgt. Eversmann, is asked what he was trained to do. He replies “I like to think I was trained to make a difference.” This is a notable sentiment chiefly for its staggering and wilful misunderstanding. The soldier who posed the question says “I was trained to fight”. Put simply, he is right and Eversmann is wrong, despite that Hartnett’s is more sympathetic a character.

I raise this because I have had a number of conversations recently in which I have talked about the role of the armed forces. Those with whom I have had these conversations have come from various walks of life, with political perspectives from all points of the spectrum (insofar as Britain, as a liberal Western democracy, has a spectrum), but the common thread is that all have broadly agreed with the sentiment expressed by Hartnett’s Eversmann. In agreeing, they too are wrong.

The purpose of the armed forces is to generate violence, and then to inflict that violence. To say otherwise is folly. Worse, it is self-deluding folly. It is striking to compare the combat effectiveness of the armies fielded by the major belligerents in World War Two. The basic conclusions to be drawn from such a comparison are these: willingness to accept sacrifice makes an army effective in achieving its goals; aggression does not go unrewarded; and an army lacking in aggression and willingness to accept sacrifice must perforce content itself with smaller or no gains albeit at the price of fewer casualties if possessed of sufficient technological means to wage war. Without those means, defeat is its only recourse. I draw these conclusions based on the following facts: of the Allied armies, by far the most effective was that of the Soviets. The Red Army absorbed the vast majority of the casualties suffered by the Allies in the course of the war. However, the Red Army also distinguished itself as the most brutal and barbarous of the Allies in its conduct, which it justified – at least internally – as revenge for the conduct of the Wehrmacht upon Soviet territory. The armies of the Western democracies, meanwhile, refused to accept the level of privation regarded as routine by the Soviets, and more importantly refused to accept anything like the number of casualties. (Nor did their governments expect them to: another fundamental difference). It was only in the most technologically sophisticated areas of the forces, and the areas separated at some remove from the immediacy of killing, that the Western Allies displayed martial competence equal to that of the Axis. The average British foot soldier was no peer of his German equivalent, but British Artillery was reckoned excellent by both sides. The RAF’s Bomber Command, and 2nd Tactical Airforce, were effective agents of destruction. So too were the carriers of the American Pacific fleet. But by and large, the average rifleman was no great soldier.

There is an important exception to this rule of thumb. The elite forces – the US Army Rangers, British paratroopers and the like – excelled in the field and punched well above their weight. This was partially a reflection of the intensity of their training, but more importantly there was a marked mental difference in the attitudes of their footsoldiers. This could be boiled down to the difference between “success is up to me” against “someone should really deal with that”. One sergeant, of a regular regiment, said of man under his command who went on to win the Victoria Cross: “he was the only soldier I ever met who seemed to regard winning the war as his personal responsibility.” On Omaha beach, for instance – the most contested of the invasion beaches at Normandy, and immortalised with varying levels of accuracy in the film ‘Saving Private Ryan‘ – American success came mostly at the hands of US Rangers, whose determination eventually overcame the defenders and secured the beachhead for the remainder of the American forces coming ashore. The Rangers indeed ‘made a difference’, but only because they recognised – more so than the regular infantry – that they were trained to fight.

The generation and infliction of violence is achieved in two ways: mass and precision. The Soviets achieved the former: in April 1945 they attacked Berlin with 2.5 million men and 6,000 armoured vehicles. The USAAF was notable, in its public pronouncements at least, for its emphasis on the latter: unlike the RAF’s Bomber Command, which was unapologetic in its continuation of area bombardment, the American bombers claimed to target precision objectives such as the ball-bearing manufacturing facility at Schweinfurt. In practice, of course, the claim to precision was little more than a fig-leaf to cover area bombardment conducted not as a matter of policy but certainly as a matter of fact: the USAAF was little more accurate in its bombardment than the RAF despite the advantage of flying in daylight. It has been claimed, not without justification, that the RAF precision-bombed area targets while the USAAF area-bombed precision targets. Arthur Harris, the commander-in-chief of Bomber Command, remained until the end of the war obdurate in his belief that bombing German cities must bring about the collapse of the Reich. In this he was proven wrong, but more importantly that proof was available before the end of the war: the Germans’ Ardennes offensive at the end of 1944, the so-called ‘Battle of the Bulge’, failed primarily due to acute fuel shortage – the result of largely American bombing of oil refineries serving the Reich. What damns Harris as far as posterity is concerned is his insistance on continuing the air offensive he had designed despite the fact that it had been shown to be ineffective: the bombing of cities, even industrial ones, could in no way compare to the disruption of the war machine brought about by destroying what he had dismissed – and continued to dismiss – as ‘panacea targets’. Fundamentally, he demonstrated no understanding of the nature of strategic bombing. A newspaperman had defined it thus: “Tactical bombing is the equivalent of knocking over the milk pail every morning: strategic bombing attempts to kill the cow.” Harris, in his relentless pursuit of the destruction of German cities, might be said to have committed to destroying the farmer’s house and forcing him to relocate, in the hope that in so doing he would prove unable to take the cow with him. Such hopes proved unfounded, not least due to Albert Speer’s genius in maintaining German industrial capacity in the face of such relentless aerial assault.

All that aside, it is perhaps a reflection of the social attitude which then became widespread – the one that has been demonstrated to me recently – that the aircrew of Bomber Command received no campaign medal at the end of the war. Harris’s aims and objectives may have been far from laudable, but they were a matter of national policy and refusing to recognise the grim determination required of aircrew in order to carry them out (55,000 – more than half – the aircrew of Bomber Command perished in the conflict, a survival rate lower than that of infantry officers in World War One) seems both unfair and unwarranted.

‘Making a difference’ is not the preserve of the armed forces, otherwise we would even now be discussing the weaponry available to (for instance) UNESCO. Armed forces are required to be violent. The sooner we recognise that, and understand its implications, the more accurate will be our expectations of them, and the less likely we are to be disappointed at their relative ineffectiveness in other spheres of endeavour. It is a romantic fallacy to expect them to be able to operate effectively as aid agencies, humanitarian workers or police forces, however useful they might prove in such capacities.

Note that I am not passing any moral judgement in recognising the primacy of violence in their nature. On the contrary, I recognise the appropriateness of it. When a nation finds itself in armed conflict it must have a reserve of force it can call upon to wage war effectively. Moreover, the considerations of the application of this force must be primarily the responsibility of those best placed to recognise both its limitations and its capabilities. For that reason I find myself annoyed at those who cite the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano as part of combat operations in the 1982 Falklands War as somehow unfair. I, among others rather more qualified to suggest such things, would argue that the sinking was not only justified but essential to the maritime security of the British Task Force. It is a fact that as a result of the loss of the Belgrano the Argentinian aircraft carrier Veinticinco de Mayo, along with the rest of the Argentinian fleet, returned to port, considerably alleviating the threat posed to the British fleet; it is also a fact that both the captain of the Belgrano and the Argentinian government, in 1994, acknowledged the attack on the cruiser as legitimate and legal. The recommendation to attack was made by those who understood the military necessities of the situation, and the order to attack was given in full cognizance of them. That truth may seem unpalatable to those possessed of more liberal social sensibilities, but its palatibility or otherwise has no bearing on its fundamental and inescapable relevence to the discussion.

I make these points not because I am wedded to the morality of conflict. Having recently finished reading Max Hastings’s excellent new book, ‘All Hell Let Loose: The World at War, 1939-1945‘ one thing that is manifestly apparent is that while the Allied cause claims unquestionable moral superiority against the repugnance of Axis convictions, it is by no means an uncompromised claim. It would be very foolish to assert that there are no discreditable episodes in the wartime histories of even the Western democracies: the conduct of the Allied armies in Italy, and the treatment afforded to its colonial properties by the British, were frequently disgraceful. However, the fact remains that those efforts which shortened the war, and thus more quickly brought to an end the sufferings of those caught up in the conflict, were those in which violence was most effectively applied to those who needed to be stopped. If military history teaches us anything, it is that wars are won by those who most efficiently generate violence. I do not know if Sgt. Eversmann’s words about making a difference were an invention of a Hollywood scriptwriter. I rather think so. But it was another scriptwriter who better understood the essential nature of warfare when, in the film ‘Gladiator‘, he had a Roman general say to his men: “On my order, unleash Hell”. We do not like, in a liberal democracy, to think of such things. That does not mean, however, that we are right in ignoring them. And ultimately, whatever our sensibilities may be, we need to acknowledge as fundamental the nature of the armed forces. It’s right there in the name.

My Favourite Sketches

Hi all

No real rhyme or reason to this: these are just my personal 20 favourite comedy sketches that have appeared on tv down through the years, the ones which never fail to make me smile. Enjoy!

#20: Rowan Atkinson, ‘The School Master’

Rowan Atkinson is one of very few people who, like Peter Cook or Eric Morecambe, is just funny in the way that other people such as myself are just tall: it is an indivisible part of their nature. Atkinson is, however, almost unique in the way that he sees the comic potential not in the use of words but in the words themselves. This sketch is hysterically funny, not despite but because half of it consists of Atkinson simply reading out a list of names. There is literally no other comic who could achieve this. It’s brilliant.

#19: Peter Cook, ‘Biased Judge’

Peter Cook was, according to Stephen Fry, almost supernaturally funny. Quite apart from his near-perfect partnership with Dudley Moore (an example of which we shall see later) he was quite capable of producing startlingly memorable monologues, as this example demonstrates. Cook was the original owner of the magazine ‘Private Eye’, and he had very little time for Establishment figures – especially those who abused their positions, as this diatribe demonstrates. It was written with reference to the Thorpe Trial, and was written and first performed the evening of the day on which the real Judge made his not-entirely-fair-minded recommendations to the jury…

No embedding available, sorry, but here is the link: http://youtu.be/Kyos-M48B8U

#18: Monty Python, ‘The Fish Slapping Dance’

Monty Python was and remains the prime example of very very smart people being very very funny by being very very silly.The Fish Slapping Dance demonstrates precisely this. The sublime moment, for me, is John Cleese’s momentary examination of the alignment of his fish: it is this apparent checking to make sure everything is ‘just so’ that elevates the sketch from mildly amusing to side-splittingly funny.

#17: Armstrong & Miller, ‘Blue Peter – An Apology’

Cheekily, this video is a compilation of three sketches, but since they feature the same characters in the same situation, I think it’s permissable. I love these three sketches. They are perfectly constructed. Everything about them – the set, the clothing, the accents, the hairstyles, the poses adopted by the three characters (there’s something about the determined innocence of ‘Tina’s’ expression that absolutely cracks me up), and finally the syntax and lexicon, are so painfully accurate that it is entirely possible to believe that these are real apologies from a parallel universe…

#16: Mitchell & Webb, ‘I’m a Brain Surgeon’

We’ve all been there. We’ve all met someone ghastly at a party and wished that someone would, in some way, deal with them. This sketch is all those who have made that wish.

#15: Rowan Atkinson, ‘Welcome to Hell’

I may be over-analysing this, but there is something almost classical in the way this sketch is constructed. It clearly owes a debt to Dante Alighieri, with Atkinson’s devil, ‘Toby’, putting the French in with the Germans and the looters, pillagers and thieves being joined by the lawyers. That kind of contemporary analysis defines El Infierno, and by drawing its strength from the same kind of observations Atkinson’s sketch is damnably funny as a result.

#14: Not the Nine O’Clock News, ‘Constable Savage’

There are times (and we shall see this again with my selections for #13, #10 and #8) where sketches perform a function of social commentary and, indeed, indictment. The racism displayed by police forces in Britain at the time, and the attempts to weed it out, form the basis of this routine. A lot of it depends on Atkinson’s pitch-perfect delivery, but Griff Rhys Jones’s too-thick-to-even-know-he’s-thick ‘Constable Savage’ is a fantastic creation, and serves as the perfect foil to Atkinson’s verbal pyrotechnics.

#13: Mitchell & Webb, ‘Homeopathic A&E’

For anyone wondering why homeopathic remedies are regarded with skepticism bordering on contempt by those who, you know, think, this sketch provides all the answers. It also seems to be a favourite amongst the doctors I know.

#12: Rowan Atkinson, ‘Fatal Beatings’

There ought to be no way this sketch should work. Write it down in black and white and it seems just too dark and too sad ever to be funny: “This is a comedy sketch about informing a parent that their child is dead”. And yet…the sketch works because we all have a preprogrammed set of responses to make to a statement like that, and these are the responses that Rowan Atkinson’s character completely ignores. The sketch is funny (and it really is funny) because Atkinson is such a monster, and the parent’s (Angus Deayton) reaction is not so much grief as total bewilderment at Atkinson’s headmaster’s prioritising…

#11: Carol Burnett, ‘Went With The Wind!’

The first of the two big ‘set-piece’ sketches to appear on here, this is an epic parody of an epic film. Carol Burnett is just hilarious, and she would need to be to pull this off: hers is the central performance, and everyone else supports it. A little trivia: the ‘dress in the window’ appearance earned the most sustained laugh in the show’s – and indeed the station’s – history.

#10: Mitchell & Webb, ‘Are We The Baddies?’

Like ‘Fatal Beatings’, this is a sketch which takes a deeply unfunny subject  – namely, the question of complicity in the Holocaust – and somehow manages to make the existential musings of two SS officers deeply funny. It’s a very difficult sketch to analyse, but it’s wellworth watching – especially for the ending, which suggests a moral awakening of sorts.

#9: Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, ‘One Leg Too Few’

The late great Peter Cook was fortunate enough to find a partner equal to his comic genius in Dudley Moore. While Cook specialised in lugubrious establishment figures (it’s not hard to see why John Cleese so idolised him), Moore could provide the kind of ebulliant cheekiness that could be guaranteed to create sparks between the two. In this sketch, Moore’s manic energy is exactly the right counterpart to Cook’s elegantly awkward and delicate circumlocutions.

#8: Saturday Night Live, ‘Word Association’

Richard Pryor delivers an almost Zen performance (look out for his transition from finger-tapping amiability to lip-trembling apocalyptic rage) in this 1975 sketch, which dealt with racism through the policy of head-on confrontation. It is – and I choose my words advisedly – shockingly funny, and deserves to be better known this side of the Atlantic.

#7: The Two Ronnies, ‘Crossed Lines’

The Two Ronnies were the absolute masters of verbal tricks and tics, but their best sketches depended on near-perfect miscommunication. Their dazzling verbal gymnastics depended on the flexibility of language itself, and for that reason I – an English student – adore them.

#6: Morecambe & Wise, ‘Andrew Preview’

Andre Previn had no time to rehearse with Morecambe and Wise, and he learned the script on the way to the studio. Eric Morecambe’s “Pow! He’s in, I like him, I like him!” was the only ad-libbed line in the whole thing, and was an expression of relief as he realised Previn’s comedic timing was every bit as excellent as his musical timing. Do please enjoy the infamous Morecambe rendition of ‘Grieg’s Piano Concerto By Grieg’.

#5: John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Tailor, Marty Feldman; ‘Four Yorkshiremen’

The original and best version of one-upmanship, as seen on “At Last the 1948 Show”. Eventually not only do modesty and common sense go out the window, but so too do the very laws of time and space themselves.

#4: The Two Ronnies, ‘Mastermind’

This is one of the most fiendishly complicated sketches ever written. But it doesn’t look like it is. I discovered this the hard way, since I tried to write a new version of it for a newspaper article. The gags, oddly, aren’t the hard part. The hard part is the structure, and in particular the progression. In other words, it’s very difficult to move from a ‘what’ question to a ‘who’ question to a ‘why’ question and still have everything make sense, never mind be funny. For me, this was the Two Ronnies’ crowning moment in sketch comedy – more so than ‘Fork Handles’, which, while it may be funnier the first time you see it, doesn’t stand up to repeated viewings. This does.

#3: Monty Python, ‘Dead Parrot’

Do I really need to say anything about this epitome of absurdist humour?

#2: Morecambe & Wise, ‘Antony and Cleopatra’

A play what Ernie wrote. Not only was this probably the best of Morecambe and Wise’s longer dramatic sketches, it was also a revelation for Glenda Jackson, who prior to this had not been considered a comic actress. After appearing in this she was asked to playVicky Allesio in the romantic comedy ‘A Touch of Class’…for which she won an oscar (her second). After receiving the award she received a telegram from Morecambe and Wise, saying “Stick with us, kid, and you’ll win a third!”

#1: Abbott & Costello, ‘Who’s on First’

Widely – and deservedly – considered the best sketch of all time, this masterclass in timing, delivery, writing and physicality is my favourite sketch. It is, again, perhaps not so widely known on this side of the Atlantic, but it remains unsurpassed. Have fun!

Investigating Squalor

I’ve never visited a prostitute, but I’ve had coffee with one or two and I’ve listened to their stories. They are desperately sad, and I have never been able to make the imaginative leap to understand the people who make use of the services that prostitutes offer. How could you be that exploitative and selfish? How could you cope with the sense of inescapable moral degradation you must – if you are self-aware at all – experience afterwards? How could you meet your own eye in the mirror? I don’t understand it. Although I now believe I may have the first inklings of awareness, because I have found an equivalent experience.

If you want to feel the same moral squalor, crawling self-loathing, squirming hypocrisy, and even the tawdriness of exchanging money for goods and services unacceptable in civilised society, the answer is very simple: buy a copy of The Daily Mail.

It’s all very straightforward. If you want to experience the visceral thrill of doing something you know to be absolutely indefensible, you are hard-pressed to beat reading The Daily Mail. There’s the delicious transgressive shame of either purchasing it at a newsagent (and the attempt not to meet the vendor’s eye); or you can look it up online having first ensured that you have put Firefox on to the ‘private browsing’ setting that will not subsequently damn you with your reprehensible browsing history.

There are so many things to feel bad about when you read The Daily Mail. The reporters, for instance. If at any point you become bored with the asinine posturing of Christopher Tookey, a man who understands ‘film critic’ to mean ‘moral guardian’ and who fails in both capacities, you can refresh yourself in the deep and ever-flowing wells of poison that fuel Jan Moir, restaurant critic and homophobe extraordinaire. If the attraction of professional bile palls, there is always – at least in the online version – amateur commentary available beneath the articles. Tookey’s columns offer particularly good mileage on this. There is, in fact, a clash-of-the-titans -style debate between the aforementioned Tookey & Moir on the subject of the film ‘Bridesmaids’ that offers exactly this. Maldwyn, of Carmarthen (and can I just say how much I love the name ‘Maldwyn’?) says

The last time I attended a cinema was to see Raiders Of The Lost Ark and do you know something, it had a story. No exploding cars, no depositing of stomach contents and other fluids…

I am a huge fan of the Indiana Jones films, and particularly Raiders Of The Lost Ark. And so I say to you with some confidence that that film features two exploding lorries and an exploding aeroplane (not to mention several vehicles run off the road in an excellent chase sequence), and that while there are no visible stomach contents there are certainly other fluids on display as Belloq’s head explodes and the heads of Major Toht and Colonel Dietrich melt like wax (which isn’t surprising, since that is exactly how that special effect was accomplished).You can depend on The Daily Mail and its readers to steer you clear of all efforts towards accuracy. (Incidentally, do we know when the paper’s self-imposed mission to categorise everything in the universe as either carcinogenic or cancer-preventing is ever likely to finish? It’s just that this is one case – among many, the Mail not having a good track record on medical stories – where accuracy would seem to be somewhat important.)

In addition to specialising in a very particular mission of disinformation, The Daily Mail also has a mission of manipulation. Consider the phrasing of these online poll questions:

“Can parenting lessons reverse Britain’s ‘moral decline’?”

“Does the creation of jobs justify wrecking the countryside?”

And my favourite:

“After its success during the riots, are you in favour of CCTV?”

What I love about these are the presumptions they bring to the framing of the question. In order for you to engage with the first question, for example, you have to accept that there has been a ‘moral decline’ in the first place – a position with which I strenuously disagree. The second uses the nuanced and non-inflammatory word ‘wrecking’; and as for the third…well, what can you say? You would be hard pressed to dig up a more loaded question anywhere online.

Then there’s the hypocrisy in which The Daily Mail so readily indulges. Are young children becoming more sexualised? Why don’t you look at all these pictures we’ve provided ‘in order for you to decide’? Is Britain ‘dumbing down’? Probably – but we’re still going to talk at tedious length about reality television.

Of course, none of these criticisms address the big and obvious problems with the paper: its parochialism, its rampant xenophobia, the Middle England sensibilities that enable it to include, as yet another online poll, the question “Are you in favour of independence for England?” But in a sense these don’t matter. They’re the window dressing designed to lure you in, to seduce you with the offer of giving you a place where the baser prejudices of your nature can be allowed to roam free.

Just so long as you’re not a gay muslim out to lower house prices, obviously.

I LOVE YOU RANDALL MUNROE

 

And now mine, as a perfectly-themed moment of zen:

As Princess Coronation 'City of Lancaster' crosses the suspension bridge with the down Queen of Scots sleeper service, Royal Scot 'Royal Inniskilling Fusilier' leads a postal service over the viaduct. A 4F shunts coal wagons on the quayside beneath.

World, Starlingford; Starlingford, World. Why don’t you introduce yourselves?

Hello hello hello, Dear Reader, and welcome to these, the Starlingford Chronicles.

Why, you ask politely, ought you to be persuaded to care that yet another yahoo is cluttering up the aether with drivel? It is a fair question, though perhaps you were overly judgemental in considering me a ‘yahoo’. Never mind, I forgive you. So, in answer, allow me to introduce myself.

I, like Mephistopheles, have gone by many and various names. Some of you who have met me before may know me as ‘Indy’. We’ll get to why that is the case in a moment. Others, who have only met me in the pages of the Aberdeen student newspaper The Gaudie, may know me as The Heckler, which was the pseudonym I adopted for several years as I wrote a scurrilous but diverting weekly column in which my spleen was refreshingly and invigoratingly vented. Or you may know me in person, going simply by the name Gavin. I answer to all of these names (and have been called many more over the years, most of which are unprintable, because frankly I very seldom have need of such words and can’t remember how to spell them).

Some of you, I know, require faces or at least images with which to associate names. Very well, Dear Reader, here is one of me:

De Niro only had to say 'You lookin at me?' to a mirror...

I’m the one in the hat.

Ah yes…the hat. Well, this is the explanation – at least partially – for the ‘Indy’ nickname I mentioned earlier. There are other, interesting reasons for it, which no doubt we will get to in some other post, but for now the hat will suffice. I love that hat. It may, in certain circumstances, look downright silly (I am willing to concede this as a theoretical possibility), but it’s warm and cosy and keeps the rain and snow out and the rest of the mocking world can, as far as I’m concerned, take a flying gander at a Rolling Stone for all I care.

While we’re on the topic of explanations, activities, and the world’s opinion of them, allow me to explain ‘Starlingford’. I have a model railway. It is called Starlingford. There, I suppose, the explanation could cease, but there’s more to this than meets the eye (even though what meets the eye, such as myself, is clearly very pleasing). ‘Starlingford’ is, as I said, a model railway, but for me the word means more than the label of what is, essentially, an overgrown toy. (I know it’s a hobby, and I know it’s one in which I have invested considerable time, effort and money, but it is, fundamentally, something to play with – I may return, in another post, to this theme, because it’s considerably more complex than the previous statement would suggest). ‘Starlingford’ is totemic. That is to say, ‘Starlingford’ is a place in my head.

Before you dive for the nearest pharmacist to find out about what over-the-counter anti-psychotics to recommend, allow me to develop my thesis here a little bit. Everybody – everybody – has a Starlingford. It’s the niche we carve in our psyches to relax and be. You might call going there ‘clearing your head’. When you take some ‘me time’, that’s where you go. People who take time out to ‘find themselves’, inevitably find themselves in their personal equivalent of Starlingford. (I do wonder about that phrase though: when people go to find themselves, who do they think is doing the looking?)

So what should you expect from this blog? At its most bald, the answer would be ‘my thoughts’, but that’s so vague (never mind that it’s correct) as to be meaningless. From time to time I might mention my model railway (though I might not do so as alliteratively as I just have). But there are other concerns that impinge upon my ‘Starlingford’, my head-space. I attend St Columba’s Church of Scotland (the minister of which, Louis Kinsey, has a blog at www.coffeewithlouis.wordpress.com) where I drum on a Sunday morning; I’m a PhD student with the Research Institute for Irish and Scottish Studies at Aberdeen University, writing a thesis on the representation of violence in the poetry of Paul Muldoon; I’m an aspiring novelist (two written, with 50,000 words of the third of the trilogy written – which sounds like a lot, until you learn that the projected word-total for this particular endeavour is 350,000…); I have written, and continue to write, various other articles including updated Screwtape Letters that I might, from time to time, post on here; and I, like everybody else, get frustrated with the modern world, and I may need to rant on occasion. I promise I will at least try to make them funny…

Anyway. That’s almost all I have to say by way of introduction. But in conclusion, I will leave you with a short film of my reified Starlingford (the model railway). Enjoy!