OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Here Comes the Rain Again.....

St Swithin’s day I awoke to incessant rain. That’s us bollixed for the next 40 days then. It’s going to be wet if the old fairy story adage is to be believed. I don’t believe it though. It was one of those bits of information you’re given as a kid that you quickly realise is pish. In fact in my particular case I would probably go so far as to say it it helped sow the atheist seed. We were told the tale by Mr Hadfield on the very day and, on the very day, it rained. The day after that it rained also. The entire junior school was resigned to washed out summer holidays.

On the third day the clouds evaporated and the sun scorched the earth – as it did for most of the next 38 days.

Mr Hadfield never managed a satisfactory explanation and the kernel of doubt took purchase. A Saint was fallible. No ifs, no buts. By the time I went to Grammar School I had no belief.

It makes me wonder what would’ve happened if Mr Hadfield hadn’t told the story or it had rained for 40 days during that sixties summer? Would I be a regular at Evensong? A happy clapper at the church of the groovy Father? A man of the cloth even? Who knows, but isn’t it funny how little episodes in life have such an influence whereas others that, at the time, you would’ve thought more portentous, come to nothing?

By ‘eck He moves in mysterious ways dun’t ‘e?

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I watched a crackin’ drama/doc type thing on iPlayer the other night. It was about the French Revolution and specifically Robespierre. Intermingling dramatised scenes, snatches of an early silent movie, documentary footage from wherever dictators lurked and talking heads, the programme advanced the idea that Robespierre was the father of state terror and that Stalin, Mao and the rest were his natural heirs. I love the whole period and I especially love the way ‘enlightened’ Maximilien hangs on to the notion of a ‘Supreme Being’ and treats Rousseau’s ‘Social Contract’ as his Bible. I love the way he gradually becomes more despotic as his logic effectively creates the notion of ‘thought crime’, denunciation and the extermination of the ‘enemies of the Revolution’.

Erstwhile colleagues like Danton were eventually dispatched. Camille Desmoulins – Robespierre’s friend since childhood – also. Eventually the ‘People’ have their fill of the man who loved them so much he had to kill so many and he was shot during arrest. One of the shots smashed his jaw and he could no longer use his most powerful weapon…speech. “Who would have thought it? He's outlived his mouth?” commented Carnot.

His near-dead body was dragged to the Guillotine where he embraced the Supreme Being forever.

Watch it while it’s available but if you miss it I can thoroughly recommend a fabulous novelisation of the period: ‘A Place of Greater Safety’ by Hilary Mantel. It’s so good I bought it twice!

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All the latest comings and comings at Eastlands have me dizzy. It seems like the Tevez signing could be the catalyst…a tipping point may have been reached. I certainly think the likes of Carlos, Adebeyor (maybe) and Barry have been good signings and are likely to attract others. Just watch us lose the first four five games now. It wouldn’t be City if we didn’t.


Local School


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