The Lincon Memorial and the Fat App

I took my daughter on a mini vacation to D.C. recently because the need for a cultural injection can get overwhelming when you live in a place known as Tidewater.

I'm not quite sure that's what we got, though, thanks to the fat app. Some time ago Zara was given an iPod. I'm not sure if this is the right term. It's like an iPhone that you can't make calls on but you can do some kind of face time as well as playing the obligatory games.

I didn't think much about it as we left the camp ground and prepared to get our culture vulture wings out. It's funny because I have backpacked around Europe in the harshest of circumstances but as soon as I go sightseeing again I revert to being the worst kind of tourist. The middle aged, efficient woman at the camp ground explained meticulously how to use the bus passes which were also train passes and handed me a leaflet giving clear instructions on how to get into D.C. Still I found myself switching into tourist mode - a pose which involves one hanging out tongue, a slight lisp and cricked neck and obvious questions such as "Is that the bus?" while pointing to a stretchy out sort of vehicle that looked very bus-like.

Once we got to D.C., Zara got all excited about the first monument she saw - some general on a horse on a big plinth and proceeded to take 100 pictures of it and then lost interest.

Undeterred, we pressed on to the Natural History Museum. Zara was briefly interested by the Sponge Bob letter box before disappearing into iPod world. The pouncing stuffed tiger and giant whale got her off it for a short time - not so much the talk about evolution which explained how humans are descended from a rat-like creature called Morgie. The narrator may not have realized the profound effect of that unfortunate name of our great grandmother x million years ago. Morgie was the name of the small girl who released Zara's prize balloon at her fifth birthday and was hitherto shunned for the rest of her existence. Just the mere mention of the name was enough to reawaken ancient horrors - a bit like Palestine. But different, really.

Still there was plenty of time for us to realize that the Washington Monument is a lot further away that it looks and the Lincoln Memorial is even further away than that. The memorial held some interest until Zara found the fat app.

As we are ascending the escalator she is saying : "fat, fat, fatty fatty fat." into the microphone and playing it back into am image of her face with an extra 200 pounds and a wagging tongue in a small mouth hole in the vast expanse of errr fat.

"If you upgrade you'll get another 400 pounds with pustules and break-outs," she is telling me.

"No thanks. Let's save the dwindling account for Starbucks."

A woman at the monument looked less than impressed at the prospect of pustules. Lincoln himself looked rather stony faced, although I am guessing that's the way he looks anyhow.

Still we pressed on against the odds. At the National Museum of American History I tried to describe the significance of the Greensboro lunch counter but by this time Zara has got hold of the old person booth and was proceeding to give herself extra lines and gray hair.

On the way back we sat on the subway train next to a woman who was probably pushing 400 pounds, albeit minus the breakouts. Zara reached for the IPod. I broke into a nervous sweat.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial - A Monument to Hubris

I had always wanted to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial because it strikes me as being one of the most moving legacies to the futility and mass sacrifice of war.

Just as there is a long and twisted saga to the Vietnam War there is a tale behind this stark wall that contains 58,272 names on reflective stone from Karnataka in India.

It was designed by Maya Lin, who won a design competition as an unknown 21-year-old architecture student, and immediately stirred up controversy.

James Watt, a Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan, even denied it a building permit initially. James Webb, initially a supporter, said: "I never in my wildest dreams imagined such a nihilistic slab of stone."

The strength of the opposition led to a more conventional memorial - The Three Soldiers - being placed near to the Memorial Wall. Lin objected to an idea to place it near the entrance to the wall and a compromise was reached.

Like many other projects that are controversial at the time, the Wall has since become accepted as an institution, and is as integral part of the D.C. landscape as the Eiffel Tower - another project that caused an outcry - is to the Paris skyline. It evokes many feelings including starkness and solitude and there is much that is poignant about the reflections of trees and passing clouds on the names of the vanquished.

The Vietnam War is still is less comfortable fit. For a while I read widely about the Vietnam War in the vain hope of finding a justification. It became clear this was less a war of design and ideology than a slippery slope - as smooth as the wall itself - that dragged hapless American presidents deeper into the mire - leading to unspeakable horrors on both sides.

The veterans paid twice over - both in terms of the physical and psychological trauma they faced and the fact they were shunned and mistreated when they returned home from the misplaced war that America lost. The wall is stark but its most powerful aspect is the sheer volume of names in small type that run away to a distant vanishing point. This is less a monument as a warning about futility, the dangers of stubbornness and why we should always question the motives of those in the faceless offices and big mansions before heading blindly into the jungle.

The Terrible Great War is Remembered in Ceramic Poppies

It's hard to imagine today when war remains a far off concept aired on CNN in dusty and dry places. It's hard to imagine the feeling on August 5, 1914 when Lord Liverpool announced how war had broken out with Germany.

While the wars of the 19th Century had been bloody, few people could have realized what was in store for them. In fact many expected a swift victory. Yet by 1914 mechanism had marched faster than the hooves of cavalry forces to the point when it could tear armies apart with impunity.

The new dynamic became obvious as the Germans marched into France. Germany was acting on a plan drawn up in 1905 called the Schlieffan Plan in which General Count Alfred Von Schliffen had concluded Germany could not fight a war on two fronts and to be decisive it should deal a decisive blow to France in the west.

Germany invaded west through Belgium setting the scene for the First Battle of the Marne from September 6 - 12, 1914 in which the Germans were repulsed from capturing Paris. Less than a month into the war it was apparent how flesh was no match for shells and the French lost 250,000 men at the Marne, the Germans a similar number and the British more than 12,000.

As it became apparent that the Germans would not easily knock out French, both sides stated to dig trenches and the four years of mud and blood and abject terror that characterized trench warfare ensured.

Now and again the combatants would try to break the deadlock with costly offensives. During the Somme offensive from July to November, 1916, Britain lost more than 350,000 men, France more than 204,000 and Germany more than 465,000 men. The figures fail to convey the full horror of the battlefield, of men cut to pieces on wire, or lacerated by guns, suffering agonizing deaths in shell holes in no mans-land. Few battles in history have so aptly summed up the futility of war. The Somme secured the Allies a few hundred yards of blood drenched soil.

While we associate World War One with the trenches of the western front, there was an equally bloody war going on between Russian on one side and Germany and Austria Hungary on the other in the east. Indeed the Russians suffered higher casualties than any other army, serving as a catalyst for the Russian Revolution.

In the south the Italians were fighting the Austrians in the mountains and there was a bloody war in the Balkans while the bloody and abortive attempts of the allies to attack Turkey at Gallipoli, was one of the most tragic episodes of a war steeped in tragedy.

It's hard to imagine such horror in retrospect and a war that was fought for no real purpose. Once while driving through France, I came across the River Somme and a dark curiosity came over me. Then I remembered Uncle Charlie who rocked in his chair and talked about nonsense, never once recalling his days as a stretcher bearer at the Somme. It was true for much of the country that those who came home seldom recalled the horror that was the Great War. Some were driven mad by the sound of shells and disappeared into homes to die in obscurity 70 years later.

Yet I was filled with a curiosity to see the plain white crosses spreading across these bare hills and the massive memorial that rises from the bones of the ground at Thiepval to those missing who never came home from the Somme, hideous and heavy with the weight of the names on its sides.

We should never forget the War to End All Wars, which held the seeds of another war every bit as horrible 25 years later, but I have seen little publicity about the anniversary of the First World War, given its significance.

However, in London a beautiful exhibition at the Tower of London called Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red by Paul Cummins is a poignant reminder of what was lost. It will be officially unveiled on the anniversary of the declaration of war on August 5 and features 888,246 ceramic poppies planted in the moat of the tower, each one representing a British military fatality in World War One.

Lest we forgot.

Woman Spends $30,000 to be Like Kim Kardashian - And She's British!

Let's admit it we have all wanted to be someone else at some point in their lives. What guy has never wanted to have the star appeal of George Clooney and the fortitude of Winston Churchill.

I can't speak on behalf of women but there are clearly women I can't imagine any women wanting to be like such as Joan Rivers, Rosie O'Donnell and Kim Kardashian.

All of which makes the tale of Claire Leeson doubly horrifying. I don't use exclamation marks lightly for the record.The 24-year-old has just spent $30,000 trying to be like her air headed role model, reported the New York Daily News.

Claire Leeson

The worst thing thing about this very sad tale is that Claire happens to be British. Pause for a moment of sad and quiet reflection.

"I'd love to be able to market myself the same way that Kim has," she told the Daily News. "Even if I had half of the fame Kim has, I'd be happy."

The original

Becoming Kim entails getting hair extensions, a boob job, teeth whitening and extensive tanning treatment; in other words everything you need to be 100 percent fake. It also involves running up massive credit card debts to finance the massive transfer of weight from brain to bum.

I'm not sure what to make of this because after what seems like decades of seeing images of Kardashian in magazines and on the TV, I still have no idea who or what she is; and what she does apart from tacky. She doesn't even seem to have adopted any African kids to my knowledge; yup Kardashian is famous for being famous - a sort of more famous version of Katie Price (AKA Jordan). This is apparently the sort of woman who has a kid called North West. OK I'm bored now and rather upset that Brit girls can't adopt better roles models such as Nora Batty.....

Belgium Fan Wins Modelling Contract from World Cup

Belgium may be out of the World Cup but the fun is just beginning for one fan whose iconic Viking image was spotted by a modelling company that signed her up.

Although Vikings didn't come from Belgium when I last looked, Axelle Despiegelaere may not care much after she was spotted in Brazil and signed up by L'Oreal.

As someone who is always being contacted by modelling companies who want to photograph me in gray sweater vests or trash can liners, I know how it feels.

Not all of the fans at the World Cup have been having quite such fun as the 17-year-old from Belgium. The famously glamorous Brazilian supporters were looking a bit down in the mouth after their 7-1 defeat by Germany.

Efforts to ward off Mick Jagger clearly failed. The Rolling Stones frontman has a legendary curse in which every team he supports falls on its backside. In the Germany v Brazil game he was supporting - you guessed it - the team in yellow.

Now the Brazilians have to face the prospect of seeing their arch rivals Argentina playing in the final of a World Cup that cost so much it threatened to push their economy under.

After the game against Brazil, it's hard to see anyone stopping Germany but Argentina are likely to put up a stiffer contest - let's face it a group of boy scouts would have. When it comes to the coolness of fans Argentina might well edge this one.

Argentina

um Germany

If they want to find a silver lining the Brazilians might want to look north to Honduras. The most violent nation in the world, outside the obvious war zones, finished the World Cup with 0 points - yes that's even less than England - and, judging by this picture - they also have the world's ugliest fans.

As a bit of a post script Axelle Despiegelaere apparently lost her modeling contract after a picture of her on a hunting trip emerged...rendering this post rather meaningless. Go Argentina..

My Blog is Monty Python's Dead Parrot

I try not to check the stats on my blog too much because it tends to resemble John Cleese's parrot. A combination of infrequent postings and lack of interaction has indeed turned my blog into the Norwegian Blue.

At least as it's flushed down the toilet, somebody might remark on its beautiful plumage. You never know.

In past years I have had a three pronged strategy to counter blog disaffection. Namely:

1 Blog more about Justin Bieber
2 Blog about Bieber
3 Blog about that annoying little Canadian s...

I fear the wisdom of the strategy has now deserted me as nobody even cares about Bieber these days as he slides into an icky pool of whatever Lindsey Lohan slid into years ago.

We were fond of whatshername from a Fish Called Wanda

Real talent is enduring and it's seen in characters such as John Cleese and Michael (not Sarah) Palin. Recently I bumped into an ardent Fish Called Wanda fan, which reminded me of how I had forgotten much about the film apart from the bit where a concrete block falls on a small dog and Palin's stutter.


All of which reminds me I must be fundamentally sick.

The reality is Cleese and Palin can make most things funny, even dead animals. Enjoy.

Team USA Takes on Belgium - Five Random Facts About Belgium

Every four years - assuming they are in the World Cup - Americans get all excited about the game with the iniquitous 's' word.

Team USA colors

America has an ambivalent relationship to the game Brits call football, preferring the odd game with shoulder pads and numerous stops. But with Team USA on a roll, America is again getting all excited about proper football.


It's sobering to think that the Americans do this as a sideline but still seem to be more successful than England at the World Cup with a motley collection of players who would be fighting for a first time place in your average Premiership side. American pubs fail to rival the fervor of those back in the England when a game is on, but maybe that's not bad thing.

So today it's on to the mighty Belgium - a team I know little about but are apparently fifth favorites to win the World Cup.


It's a bit hard to get worked up about Belgium in the same way as one can get worked up about the Geermans and the gnashing Uruguayans, although Waffle House is doing its bit by stating it doesn't believe in Belgium waffles. Well I don't believe in Waffle House - except as a last resort when everywhere else is closed.


The few times I have  been to Belgium I have loved the architecture and the beer, less so the inhabitants who tend to shun deodorant.


Here are five little known facts about Belgium.


1 - Brussels Spouts really do come from Belgium where they have been grown for 400 years. They also acquire the texture of snot if cooked in a certain way. They tend to taste worse.


2 - Belgium produces 22 kg of chocolate for every person in the country. And it's a lot better than Hershey's.


3 - Belgium has enforced compulsory voting. If you fail to vote you are dragged out of your home and pushed under Jean Claude Van Damme's arm pit.


4 - The highway system in Belgium is so brightly lit it's the only man made structure on the earth that's visible from the moon at night.


5 - Belgium has the oldest shopping center in the world - the Galeries St Hubert in Brussels which opened in 1847 for the buying of top hats.

Ernest Hemingway Reprise

I hesitated briefly as I saw the reassuringly thick spine in the library and finally grabbed it from the shelf. Hemingway to me feels like an old friend who can piece together the disparate pieces of my life, who I had half forgotten about long ago.


The first book I read by Ernest Hemingway was Islands in the Stream when I was in my teens. The thick tome seemed to be about drinking and boating and more drinking and boating and generally sucked and made me think of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

I was staying with an uncle who thought he was clever with his quips, like the time we stood in the men's room on the ferry and he whipped it out and proclaimed: "This is where the big boys hang out" to the disgust of the elderly man in the next urinal. Well the uncle is now the old man and if he was on the ferry the old man and the sea. His kids are adults with their own lives and Hemingway is still the big boy of a certain kind of literary genre, his hunting, fishing, shooting presence looming large over swathes of Florida and Cuba.


Hemingway was a man's man perhaps but he eludes pigeon holing. My next read was For Whom the Bell Toll and nobody who reads about the smell of pine needles and the night the earth moved with passion, can ever write him off as literary red neck.


For Whom the Bell Tolls is in many ways Hemingway's finest piece of work, harking back to the days of the Spanish Civil War and a half-imagined idealism we thought we had left behind. The book is devoted to Martha Gellhorn, the reporter Hemingway left his wife for to embark on another torrid and ultimately failed marriage.


Still there is something alluring about the idea of passion amidst the ruins of an under siege Madrid hotel frequented by the press corps. In the days when the news mattered and no longer rose and fell on the latest Tweet, the Spanish Civil War represented a clash of ideologies and as well as a testing ground for the terrible weapons of war that Adolf Hitler was about to unleash on Europe.


Hemingway's idealism may have been misguided but there is no giant of his stature around today to raise Cain as ISIS unleashes a Medieval barbarity on the land Abel's brother was vanquished to.


Next came A Farewell to Arms, a Secondary School text about Hemingway's exploits in Italy in World War One. The novel is laced with a deep pessimism but is an iconic as the image of a soldier and his girl alone in the rain against the massive ornate eaves of Milan Cathedral.


Years later I introduced A Farewell to Arms to a class of 10th Graders and felt the pessimism of the novel wash over me at the failure to see it induce any spark of interest in the computer game infected eyes of the young.


So perhaps that was it. Hemingway is an anachronism with no value to the modern world. He's a passing fancy and a reason why men wear false beards in Key West.


I also read The Sun Also Rises as it moves from Paris to Spain, laced with booze and the existentialism of the Lost Generation, but curiously alluring and fascinating. I cannot read the novel without yearning for Paris or Pamplona and the warm breeze and smell of the Mediterranean.


The other brushes with Hemingway were non literary such as the brief visit to La Floridita bar in Havana where he sobered up on daiquiris after a morning of writing and chain drinking whiskies.


Hemingway blew his brains out in the end in Idaho of all places - far from the Tropics and far from Spain. He is long gone but not forgotten like my memories of his prose. I'm looking forward to revisiting For Whom the Bell Tolls.

How the Message of Born in the USA is Lost 30 Years On

It's hard to believe the iconic Bruce Springsteen song Born in the USA is 30 years old. The year was 1984 and I distinctly remember the powerful riff and belting lyrics along with a image of blue jeans and the American flag that seemed to make this a tub thumping, jingoistic song that made me feel distinctly uneasy.

In 1984 female protesters were chaining themselves to the gates of RAF Greenham Common in protest at the arrival of American cruise missiles, while miners were fighting pitched battles in the streets of northern towns as the Conservative government sought to dismantle the mining unions. It was tempting to see everything in terms of black and white and left and right and to believe Britain was on its way to becoming the 51st state of the USA.

Springsteen's song appeared to be more of the same, a none-too-subtle celebration of American triumphalism.

One of the song's biggest fans was George Will, a conservative columnist who hailed it as a "cheerful affirmation" of all of the good things about America. His pal Ronald Reagan who happened to be President at the time was impressed and he referenced Springsteen and his song of hope during his re-election campaign.

In reality Reagan was fooled by the upbeat nature of the song. If you delve into the lyrics, it quickly becomes apparent that Born in the USA is ironic and about the emptiness of the American dream from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran.

Down in the shadow of penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't nowhere to go
Born in the USA

A BBC article pointed out Springsteen's song isn't the only one to be misinterpreted. You may not want to play Every Breath You Take by the Police at your wedding because it's about the stalkery kind of love. Nor Does REM's The One I Love go down in the annals of top romantic songs as it contains the line: "This one goes out to the one I’ve left behind/A simple prop to occupy my time."

Richard III Comes Home to Leicester Of All Places

You have to spare the odd thought for King Richard III. Demonized as a scheming hunchback by Shakespeare, and found with his skull smashed in, the King now has the ignominy of being laid to rest in Leicester cathedral.

England has a lot of fantastic cathedrals but I do not believe Leicester is one of them. Apparently it looks like this; still better than those makeshift places that they call churches in the US, but even so...

When we last caught up with Richard he was not doing splendidly at the Battle of Bosworth field in 1485 when he was offering his Kingdom for a horse but ended up with his head staved in anyway.

In 2012 the remains of the king, with a curved spine and the previously mentioned bashed in head, showed up under a parking lot in Leicester. If you have not been to Leicester you may not appreciate what an un Kingly resting place this is. Parking lots in Leicester are generally for having fights and throwing up curries in.

Richard was dug up and a legal battle began over where he should be buried.

a group calling itself the Plantagenet Alliance, argued it was the medieval king's wish to be buried in the historic northern city of York -- the city they claim was closest to his heart. Not only is York pretty but it has more of a kick ass cathedral than Leicester.

 

York Minster

On its website, the Alliance -- reputedly made up of people who are distantly related to Richard III, and headed by Stephen Nicolay, his 16th great nephew -- set out its argument to have him reburied in York.

 

"We believe that the proposed location of Leicester is wholly inappropriate for the burial of King Richard III, who had no connections with the town beyond his horrific death, bodily despoliation and appalling burial in a foreshortened grave," it said.

 

 

Lovely Leicester

 

Eventually they were unsuccessful and Leicester won. The folks at the University are even saying it might bring more visitors to the city, although that would involve them ignoring its abject ugliness.

 

Maybe I am jaded by my horrendous night at the Park Hotel when a drawer fell on my feet and prostitutes were tumbling down the stairs.

As well as all of the bad publicity about being general evil and killing the Princes in the Tower, Richard III falls foul of that joke about the Irish guy who goes to the library and demands a book called "Dick Shit."

The librarian is confused until he explains: "Richard the Turd."

The Most Annoying Song of the Year = # Selfie

It's only April (I think it's still April); which is, of course, the cruelest month boasting the sinking of the Titanic, the Hillsborough tragedy, the Boston marathon bombing and the capsizing of a South Korean ferry, not to mention the A to Z Challenge. Have I smugly mentioned how I did not do it this year? Only 20 times, right.

Also by April I already have a winner for the most annoying song of the year. This one is a radio channel changer, one that makes me jerk my hand to the dial - or as my local radio station states "Put your Nob on Bob," and desperately switch channels as the car veers across lanes.

The song is #Selfie by the Chainsmokers and it sums up all that's wrong with our gadget, Instagram, Twitter, selfie obsessed society: "She's such a fake model. She bought all her Instagram followers." I also suspect it's something of a satire.

OK. Whatever. I don't have time to write anymore. I have selfies to take. Enjoy the video.