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Lil is a bad person
I just wanted to make that clear for the record because I don’t really feel enough has been said about it. Last week myself, Oli, George and Lil headed out for a night out which ended when Lil got...
View ArticleVenerating the military
The Humanist Society of West Yorkshire recently had a discussion about whether we should participate in an official remembrance service, as many faith groups do and the BHA had encouraged local groups...
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Armistice Day
I’ve never really done much for Armistice Day since entering the world of work. However, given the opportunity to get out of work for five minutes, we headed down to the war memorial in Headingley for...
View ArticleRemembrance Day
I’ve suddenly found myself becoming a prolific anti-war blogger and I didn’t really mean for this to happen. But, I have a severe tendency to play Devil’s Advocate and with it being Remembrance Day as...
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The trouble with war
Following on from yesterday’s post about Remembrance Day and my recent thoughts about venerating the military, I thought I would expand a bit on the subject based on some of the conversations I’ve had....
View ArticleCollateral murder
I recently washed a Channel 4 documentary on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. While I had heard all about the exposing of the Iraq War Logs and a lot of the surrounding fall out, I was somewhat shocked at...
View ArticlePacifism
At the rather delayed meeting of the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire which had to be moved back to accomodate term times at the Swarthmore Centre that took place recently, Gijsbert presented a talk...
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Armed Forces Day
Today is Armed Forces Day. A event that I am sure we will all agree to be a very important one. After all, it’s easy to overlook the armed forces. Too often we think about heros who save likes, likes...
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All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To
“Out of 193 countries that are currently UN member states, we’ve invaded or fought conflicts in the territory of 171.” Or so the book’s description reads. The author, Stuart Laycock, begins by talking...
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War Horse
A friend recommended I read War Horse. I sounded quite a good idea at the time, because I thought they said “war whores”, and thus assumed it was about sex workers from 1914 to 1918. In fact, even when...
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All Quiet on the Western Front
I had seen the film a decade or so ago (probably on VHS, that is how long ago it was), but with the 100th anniversary of theGreat War arriving, I decided I would read the original novel by Erich Maria...
View ArticleYou can’t handle the truth!
In the film A Few Good Men Colonel Jessep speaks the often quoted, though perhaps not very well understood, “the truth? You can’t handle the truth.” I used to consider myself more right-wing in that I...
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War and Peace Volume 1
I have not posted about many books recently. Not because I haven’t been reading, but because I have been tackling the Leo Tolstoy epic, War and Peace. I have not finished it, but I have reached the end...
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War and Peace Volume 2
Pin a fucking medal on me, I have finished War and Peace. As Mark from Peep Show would say, I am not directly comparing my struggle reading it to the French invasion of Russia and subsequent retreat,...
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Catch-22
Anyone who does not want to fly combat missions is sane enough to fly combat missions. That is the ironic narrative of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, a novel set during the Second World War. I found it...
View ArticleThe Man Who Won The War
This is my Toastmasters speech for Project #5 of the Storytellig manual ‘Bringing History To Life’.
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A Woman in Berlin
Let it never be said that I do not listen to my wife. Elina said I should read A Woman in Berlin and I did. And I’m glad because it is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. It reads like a...
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The Book Thief
I confess that I have not fared well with Markus Zusak’s novel The Book Thief. It is certainly a well-written book and interesting story. Who doesn’t love death as a narrator? However, it has not...
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