A tug boat is to haul an oil and gas exploration rig from a Highlands deep water port on a 62-day journey to the Falkland Islands…. From BBC News. Full story

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A tug boat is to haul an oil and gas exploration rig from a Highlands deep water port on a 62-day journey to the Falkland Islands…. From BBC News. Full story

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The second day of April marks the anniversary of Argentina’s invasion of the Islands in 1982, and in 2009 it fell upon an overcast Thursday – a strange public holiday falling in the middle of the week.   There were all kinds of strange collisions on this day.  The President of Argentina, Queen Cristina, was at the G20 summit in London, of all places, meeting the Queen(a real one) on the anniversary of Argentina’s invasion of the disputed islands.  The war that followed brought down the regime that had initiated it, the Argentine military government.  They were replaced by President Alfonsín – whose funeral it was on Malvinas Day, 2009.

So, Cristina was spending the day in the palace of the royal family whose crown still hangs over the islands, while the funeral procession of the first President after the war went through the streets of Recoleta, near the British embassy outside of which a few pockets of war veterans were gathering to protest.  The two events were totally separate however, with the funeral procession full of noise and emotion and the protest subdued and sullen under the drizzling clouds – the either side of Pueyrredon avenue and the high wall of the cemetery.

In past years there had been angry demonstrations, for that reason there were police vans ready with metal barricades.  But the peaceful war veterans stood in small groups a block away, and the police had nothing to do but drink mate and talk about football.  The glass face of the British embassy gazed blankly over the street, the passing clouds tumbling through its eyes.  My friend and I walked away from the embassy, enjoying a day off work with a few take-away empanadas and miniature bottles of white wine with straws bobbing in them.

A few blocks away huge crowds massed outside the famous Recoleta cemetery, where the mausoleums of many Argentine presidents are to be found, with the most famous resident being Eva Perón.  Many chanted, many wailed, others clapped and some waved flags of the Radical Party, while thousands of others just watched the carriage carrying Alfonsín’s coffin pass by.  Roses were hurled through the air, bouncing off the top of the coffin or nestling in the sides of the carriage.  Ceremonial horsemen of San Martin’s grenadiers regiment in red and blue tunics and tall hats passed in ranks four or five abreast, taking up the whole of the street, the Argentine flags on their lances almost reaching those hanging from the balconies above, where families camcorded the event.

The crowds poured into the street behind the horses and the carriage, joining the procession and following it to the gates of the cemetery.  The muddy field outside the cemetery overflooded with bystanders.  My friend and I beat a retreat to a nearby restaurant, and watched the rest of the ceremony on the big screen with another fast-food lunch accompanied with beers.  Helicopters above and camera crews on the street outside, just several metres away, were recording the footage on the screen.

We went home, passing the damp gathering of Malvinas veterans on Pueyrredon Avenue, only recognisable with the pins and badges on their jackets and hats.  It’s a miserable day for everyone apparently.  The shots of the G20 meetings make London seem a world away – seeing Queen Cristina with QEII turn the bizarre into the surreal.  The clouds over Buenos Aires seem to drop lower and the drizzle feels heavier as the afternoon darkens.  It is autumn after all, and the coffee in my friend’s hostel seems to compound rather than relieve my fatigue, and the curtains make the shrinking day feel like an autumn Sunday in South London.  Instead of Monday, Friday comes as the next day – everything turns to a trap door, everything is a false compartment, falling through a magician’s pocket, a burst of petals fluttering over the procession, with only the stamp of a hoof to lick and send to you – wish you were here.

Monday, 19 October 2009, The Sun

I started my work experience at the Times going through the News International papers. I quickly browsed through the Sun, a paper I read about once or twice a year when I find it lying around, when page 23 caught my eye: The article Forgotten Heroes commemorated the soldiers who fell in Northern Ireland and the short list on the sideline surprised me:

According to that list, the death toll of “The Troubles” is higher than the casualties of the Falklands War, both Gulf Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan combined. With the media coverage growing over the last decade, it has given us - society, the public, the audience – the impression that we are surrounded by war and terror and that times are harder and worsening, especially since 9/11. This little stat summary showed the contrary.

I did my own bit of research after that revelation and checked out the Ministry of Defence’s records of army casualties. I found slight discrepancies between their figures and the Sun’s list, but the main factor remained that Northern Ireland has cost most dearly of all conflicts put together.

It was worrying to read the drastically rising tendency of Afghanistan’s death toll in the last couple of years though. This year alone, more army personnel have died (81) than in the first six years of the conflict (2001-2006, 44 casualties), nearly double. Iraq meanwhile has settled down, from 172 deaths in the first five years to five casualties in the last two years. That explains the media’s change of focus over the last year or so, away from Iraq.

But just because there are conflicts at present and we cannot get away from their coverage in the daily news, it does not mean the situtation is worse than ever before. We are not allowed to forget the past, that there have been much costlier conflicts that have been resolved and harder times we have come through, just less cameras and reporters to cover them.

Please click on an image for more information.

Encontré chusmeando por youtube estos fanclips de guerras modernas con musicalización insertada por el editor de los videos.

Antes que nada aclaro (porque nunca falta un tiquismiquis y no esta demás aclarar) que no es a modo de hacer un post pro-bélico ni pro nada. El único fin es disfrutar de clips copados hechos con éstas marchas militares y temas musicales utilizadas para el espectáculo común y silvestre.

Voy a hacer una mención especial a uno de ellos: el que homenajea a los Héroes de Malvinas que tiene el tema musical de Hans Zimmer. Fue realizado a pulmón y es el primer video que hace un amigo mio de toda la vida y al cual no se le nota que es hecho en estado de virginidad videoaficionada xD.

• Ejercito Germano (2da Guerra Mundial) – Tema Musical: Marcha Imperial (AKA Imperial March por John Williams para Star Wars)

• Ejercito Ruso (año 1945 fin de 2da Guerra Mundial) – Tema Musical: Hell March (de Frank Klepacki para Command & Conquer Red Alert)

• Ejercito Chino (actualidad no hace mucho ) Tema musical: Hell March (el mismo que el anterior con otro video… recomendado)

• Guerra de Malvinas/Falklands (1982) – Tema Musical: For Whom the Bell Tolls (interpretado por Tren Loco)

• Guerra de Malvinas/Falklands (1982) – Tema Musical: Gortoz a Ran (interpretado por Denez Prigent & Lisa Gerrard, dreado por Hans Zimmer)

• Spestnaz en Acción – Tema Musical: No lo conozco (por ahora)

• Clip Compendio que pasa por los conflictos armados mas relevantes del siglo 20 hasta la actualidad (Autor Elchinoek) – Tema Musical: The Turbulent Years (John Williams para la película Nixon)

Y eso por el momento y no sobrecargar el post

I started a second handspun seaman’s cap yesterday afternoon, and I’m very close to beginning the decreases. I’m using AVFKW falklands in The Silent Undergrowth.

The greens are very subtle, and I’m not sure if you can tell from this picture, but there is a soft green stripe right at the base of the turned up ribbed band. I’m learning quite a bit about the connections between my spinning choices and how the yarn knits up. This hat looks a bit more rustic than the first seaman’s cap, in part because my spinning isn’t totally even, but mostly (I think) because this is a 2-ply, and my first seaman’s cap was a 3-ply. I need to start making some choices about my holiday spinning and knitting, so this comparison is giving me a lot to think about.

Also, check this out. I really think Boh misses our guest. For much of the morning, Boh stretched out on the floor and  pouted exactly where our houseguest had been sleeping. It is so hard to be a dog.

…or is it just a penny…?

Previously in The World According To Me: “Over time some insurgents will tire of the constant harassment in the face of growing public confidence in government forces and disdain for the insurgents… encouraging THEM one by one to consider coming to the talking table…”

I picked this up on my way through Singapore last month, thinking that with Admiral Sandy Woodward of Falklands War fame as an advisor, it would be pretty good. Not only is it not, but I could also see why other commanders in the fleet were worried that Woodward, with limited aviation or amphibious experience, be the wrong guy for the job:  once the plot puts to sea the whole premise is based on the ‘fact’ that the US Navy is the only service in the US DoD which helps the story along by skipping gayly around inconveniences like AWACs…I also think that the three unnamed Special Forces officers who allegedly advised on the story need to hand back any beers they received for ‘advice’ as the SF side is pretty weak as well. So the connection with COIN is…?

Without spoiling what story there is, a key assumption in the book is that the way to win an insurgency is to out-exasperate the opposition, i.e. harass them to the point of just giving up and going home…at the time of reading the book, these seemed like a great recipe for success for insurgents and difficult to beat from a COIN perspective – until I I reread the piece on the Information Militia this afternoon…could initiatives like Crimestoppers in a COIN/Stability campaign actually be the start of the Death of 1000 Cuts for an insurgency? Turning The War of the Flea on its head and subjecting the insurgents to an endless series of pinpricks and mossie bites until they have just had enough and start to consider their options…?

One thing I did like about Barracuda 945 is that the ending is not the righteous vengeance that one might have been expecting. Instead it presents a very left-field scenario which strikes at a core issue and not just a symptom – does that sound like something that might be drawn from FM 3-24 – even if the story does use major elements of national power to achieve the effect…?

I’ve commented a lot, as have many other commentators, on the apparent lack of strategic objectives for the war in Afghanistan. This summary came off one of the distribution lists I’m subscribed to; it states pretty clearly that al-Qaeda is still the primary raison d’etre for the war from a US point of view but one wonders how logical that really is…some things to think about:

• The Taliban are not AQ; they may have supported and hosted them prior to 9/11 but are now probably not that impressed with all the attention that has drawn.

• AQ are probably well-established in many other locations are the globe – where next after Afghanistan for the GWOT?

• If there is any lesson to be learned by insurgents (as opposed to simple terrorists) from 9/11 and the London Tube bombings it is that such actions are more counter-productive for the ’cause’ – as Yamamoto feared, once you wake the sleeping dragon, it is damn difficult to put it back to bed…so AQ cells around the world are probably more discreet than to parade themselves openly in training camps as once was their wont.

These things being the case, then perhaps we need to reread FM 3-24 and ensure that such fundamentals remain in the 2010 version, and start to focus the campaign on ending the insurgency…if the aim is an AQ-free Afghanistan, then maybe we need to be casting off the dream of democracy for all and realistically start to look at ways of bring the Taliban to the table…carrot and stick…turn the war of the flea back on them…out-exasperate them until talking becomes the way better option to fighting. It is unlikely that we will be able to bring the Taliban (or any other significant Afghan group) to the table by force – didn’t work for Alexander, didn’t work for Victoria, didn’t work for Mikhail, and it wouldn’t have worked for Napoleon either if he had strayed in this direction….

Could we live with a stable Taliban in Afghanistan if that meant an al-Qaeda-free Afghanistan?

Over the past few months there has been a heightened profile of disability in all forms of the media – newspapers have been carrying front page stories about disabled people, TV channels have been running programmes during primetime viewing about disability and its impact on those who have become disabled.  Particularly about those who have been injured in the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

The reason for the heightened profile on disability is quite simply – war.  War and disability are inextricably linked.  The war that our country is currently engaged in (whatever the rights and wrongs) has created a new generation of disabled people.  During any conflict, this has been the case.  For my generation, the first real insight into the horror of war came with Vietnam.  Images of badly injured American soldiers being flown back home from Vietnam filled our living rooms during the early 1970’s.  Then in 1981 we in the UK, lived through the Falklands conflict and experienced the terrible impact that burns injuries and limb loss had on people from the baby boom era of the 1960’s.

Modern history provides an interesting link to the connection between disability and war.  With injured soldiers returning from the battlefields, it was necessary to treat them in the best way possible.  Following World War One, major advances were made in plastic surgery.  The problems of limb loss during the Second World War were dramatically portrayed in the film “Reach for the Sky” telling the story of Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader and his return to active war service following the loss of his legs in a flying accident.

However, advancements in the development of prosthetics following the First and Second World Wars weren’t great.  Artificial limbs were, and remained for many years, no more than tubes of metal, hinged at the knee or elbow providing a crude way of replacing lost limbs. 

When my generation of Thalidomide children were born, we found ourselves in an archaic system that failed to recognise that as children, we needed limbs which worked for kids and not by using rehashed limb designs for (as they were called in those days) limbless ex-servicemen. 

The limbs that were provided for Thalidomide impaired children were often ill-fitting and uncomfortable, unsightly and unreliable and wholly inadequate for the needs of a generation of children who had specific impairments that did not “fit the norm”. 

In my case, and in an attempt to make me look normal, I was encased in a metal jacket, given heavy and unwieldy limbs, a gas cylinder was strapped to my back, and just for good measure I was given a crash helmet to wear on my head!!  I’m sure you’ll agree that this was hardly the stuff that makes a three year old look “normal”, and if you are interested, there are some photographs of me in this “genre” in Four Fingers and Thirteen Toes.

This scenario was repeated the length of the country as the limb service struggled to cope, and continued until many of us rebelled against the use of our prosthetics, in favour of making the best use of the small limbs that we had.

The visibility and impact of limb loss could not be hidden after Thalidomide.  Whilst some children were left in hospitals and institutions many of us were embraced by our families and enjoyed a full family life – going to school, having non-disabled friends and playing an active part in our local communities.

Disability was now no longer a “taboo” subject.  Consequently, when the Falklands war maimed and injured so many, those returning soldiers were embraced by their communities.  Simon Weston (with whom I have shared speaking platforms) was a typical South Wales “valley boy”.  However, when the Sir Galahad was bombed Simon’s life changed forever.  It is hard to forget the documentaries that charted Simon’s recovery from some of the most horrific burns that war has ever produced.  Not only did life change in a very physical sense for Simon, it also led him on a journey of discovery, ultimately making him into the motivational speaker that he is today.

Now we are witnessing another generation of disabled people maimed by war, coming to terms with their impairments.  Perhaps the real difference for this generation is the major advancement in medicine and rehabilitation. 

Quality of life will be enhanced for these honourable soldiers, and the Government has made it clear that it will continue to provide the highest standard of limbs, in line with those which are presently available to servicemen, even when they retire.

Currently, returning soldiers are provided with differing limbs dependant upon usage – computerised limbs for walking, limbs for swimming and limbs for exercising.  The cost of even a basic artificial limb runs into thousand of pounds and so it is quite reasonable to assume that the cost of limb provision for our returning soldiers will amount to tens of thousand of pounds.  One therefore has to wonder whether the NHS can sustain this commitment without affecting the level of service for other limb users.

No-one should begrudge this provision, but it does beg the question as to whether a two-tier system of limb provision is beginning to emerge.  The way impairment is acquired may be different, but decency and fairness requires that the treatment afforded to amputees should be the same irrespective of the cause of impairment.

Disability arises in various ways – through accident, illness or old age.  The basis of Aneurin Bevan’s National Health Service was the provision of help at the point of need.  Sadly, for those who have already gone through the NHS limb fitting service, its failings are well known.  It all comes down to a question of resources.  The resources currently made available for limb provision are wholly inadequate, even without the extra pressure of caring for those young men who have been so terribly injured in the name of international peace.

In saluting their bravery and determination, I hope that when these young service personnel return to a world outside the regime of the armed forces, they will benefit from the campaigning and commitment of people such as the parents of Thalidomide impaired children and other disability groups, who have done so much to make life more inclusive, and more meaningful for disabled people generally. 

Out of the horrors of war, positive changes can come to the way disabled people are treated and portrayed.  Firstly by Government realising that extra resources are needed to make life easier and more equal for all disabled people.  This will then be followed by an acknowledgement by the whole of society that respect and courtesy, and not pity and sympathy, are what disabled people seek.  Ultimately then, the long and sometimes tortuous road to disability equality will have been worthwhile.

Polly Toynbee is the Guardian’s most hysterical (in every sense) apologist for Labour. As far back as the last General election, she was already pleading for readers to vote Labour despite having to recognise the likely distaste they would feel.

Back in 2005 the big crime was the Iraq war, and more egregiously, the alliance of Blair and Bush. The misery of this for Labour supporters was the way it stacked up against the Falklands war, which had been mythologised by the left into a criminal act engineered by Thatcher to help her win an election, kill a few foreigners and British servicemen, and shore up the weapons trade.

The only problem with that theory was that Argentina’s invasion of the Falklands was not Thatcher’s idea. Having got a victory it is undeniable that Thatcher milked the situation politically, but that doesn’t imply that she engineered it all; there is such a thing as dumb luck.

Iraq was different; it was a war we and the US loudly called for. By 2005, perhaps a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians had already been killed, and it had become quite clear that there was never a plan in place to bring a peaceful end to the situation and leave Iraq better off than we found it (or even leave at all). The whole thing had been mindless political tub-thumping from the very start, using fabricated intelligence reports as an excuse for playing a grown-up game of soldiers. What was the motive? I doubt if we’ll ever know the whole truth, but what is clear is that Blair could not possibly have been unaware that his own spin machine was faking the evidence about Iraq’s weapons stockpile (some donkeys and a man with a sharp stick).

So in 2005, Blair was… whisper it… worse than Thatcher.

Toynbee therefore had her work cut out for her. There was one really simple (in every sense) strategy handed to her by Michael Howard. The Tories had run a poster campaign that included the slogan “It’s not racist to want to control immigration”. Toynbee, in a slightly different version of the nose peg column, said:

The “It’s not racist to control immigration” poster reeks of racism when you see a crowd of black people waiting at the bus stop beside it. I asked them what they thought: disgust was unanimous. This is the lowest, nastiest most racist campaign I can remember and it’s high time Labour got genuinely angry.

It’s interesting that she looked for black people, isn’t it? Because at that time, the big issue was immigration of white people from eastern Europe, mostly Poland.

Also, in 2004 Darcus Howe made an extraordinary documentary called Who You Callin’ a Nigger, about racism between ethnic minority groups in the UK. He wrote about it in the Guardian.

I journeyed through Woolwich and Plumstead, where thousands of Somali refugees are settling. The Caribbean community is mostly unwelcoming. Some visit on Somalis the same kind of racial abuse we suffered in the period of early migration. Dissenters to this reactionary view are few and far between. “They are taking our houses. They are getting social benefits which are denied to us. Their children are overcrowding our schools.” And more.

Given such insights, for Toynbee to walk up to a group of “black people” at a bus stop and ask them “What do black people think about that poster?” must be placed somewhere on the scale between endearingly naive and offensively stupid. If they happened to be recent Somali immigrants, they might have found the poster personally discouraging. If they were West Indian, there would have been a good chance that they would have regarded the poster as a bit soft, and would have been much keener on one that said “Send these Somalis scroungers back where they came from”. In other words, there are some thoroughly British people (even in the worst possible sense) who happen to be black, and certainly do not view themselves as immigrants, but as victims of immigration.

Since then of course, New Labour has woken up to the threat of the BNP, and is noisily attempting to re-brand itself as the party of homeland defence. Every single achievement it now claims in this area is a restriction on immigration:

In 2007, we removed an immigration offender on average, every 8 minutes.

But not in a racist way, you see.

Back in 2005, Toynbee had another trick up her sleeve. As well as having identified the secret vein of white-supremacist dogma running through the Tory campaign, she also had a long list of achievements by New Labour.

One of these achievements was:

a pledge to abolish all child poverty by 2020

Now that is impressive. I know, because I’ve achieved many similar things myself. In 1976 I pledged to tidy my bedroom, and keep it tidy forever, from then on. It’s not easy making pledges – you can’t just say something ridiculous. You have to really sound like you mean it. Although I suspect is considerably easier if you pledge to something that cannot be verified until about a decade after your political career will have ended.

Another one:

universal child care soon

Soon! Not even a ballpark date on that one. And fortunately so, because here we are getting ready for an election in 2010 – doesn’t the time fly. And what has Gordon Brown pledged this time?

free childcare for 250,000 two-year-olds from poorer families

Clearly there is no incentive for Labour to actually deliver any significant improvements to childcare – if it ever became “universal”, they’d have lost their favourite election pledge.

1986, I remember watching some footage before the World Cup, he was scoring some weird goal for Napoli, Greavsie said something like “look what we might have to face” and I shivered, knowing even then we lacked someone with that type of character, a superman if you will, someone who would shape the future in his image.

So, as an Englishman what does Diego Maradona mean to me now?. My first impression was a childish opinion, my 11-year-old self did not know that the Hand-Of-God game would drag the England Football team to the centre of one the most infamous matches in sport history, I never realised how lucky I was to have Maradona sticking it up us.

I watched powerless as the little number ten 10 our giant number 1 to the ball, and watched hopeless as the ball bounced into the net, he peeled away, something was not right, I saw, then felt it, the award-winning act, the shit eating grin, the beckoning over of his somewhat stationary slightly nonplussed what-do-we-do-now? teammates to plump the performance up, really sell it to the ref and the crowd. I did not see the hand at the time, the players were the only ones doubly sure, I saw Fenwick holding his arm running after the referee, our boys just dont act like that unless they mean it. The reaction by our team was obvious it was hand-ball. The immediate T.V. replays seemingly made nothing clear to this young man other than something shifty had gone on – and that it was an irreversible goal. At the time and for many years I could not forgive Maradona for that first goal or Argentina’s cheeky picking of our pockets, I never saw it as legitimate. I had no context to put this into, it was my first summer of playing football, it was in the summer between junior school and high school, it was my first full world cup, a peak for my fanaticism, a full Mexico 86′ sticker album, my indoctrination into the history of the game and my country’s part in it.

The country knew for sure the next morning, all the papers had that photo (below) on the front page as large as the paper itself, like a declaration of war, unbelievable!, it was like finding out a magicians secret. The level of indignation we all felt was unifying, it gave us a glorious smug defeat. The picture of that Argentinian Artful Dodger reaching for the sky, left arm above head, knees bent (eyes closed as if to make the lie that little bit more believable for himself) and Peter Shilton with his Superman charade was stuck on the wall above the stairs for a few months afterwards. I wanted and needed revenge, the anger and the hate taught me a good lesson for when revenge came with Maradona’s later misgivings in his career and in his private life, it didnt feel good, it felt like the world was taking the piss out one of my childhood memories, someone who shaped the world in his image.. stay away from him .. leave him alone.. you aint fit to talk about him in that way you fucking scumbag giggling square boring cock sucks.

When Maradona scored the  ’Goal Of The Century‘ second goal, in his and his country’s mind, he was making up for the cheekyness of the first. He blew us away, he was never gonna be remembered just for that hand ball never. By pure force of will he swept past our boys with the ball stuck to his toe with a short piece of elastic. I and my country and our players were the victim of the closest thing to a supernatural presence I have witnessed, an immovable unbeatable force, just pack up admit defeat and go home. Robson’s England didnt give up though, they made a fine fist of it after John Barnes came on, and Lineker (What a dull BBC pious bore he’s turned out to be) got his golden boot with ten minutes to spare to make it 2-1, and should have scored an equalizer (how did he not?). I cried when we lost I’m sure.

The Boy me had no understanding of any political background surrounding the game, barely understood anything about the Falklands War (Guerra de las Malvinas/Guerra del Atlántico Sur).. never understood what it meant to a people to lose a war (almost a thousand dead on both sides), I never understood that the way the Argies beat us must have been so much sweeter for them. Not only did they (he) thumb they’re noses at us with a stolen goal, but they (he) scored ‘The Goal Of The Century’ too, just to prove how superior they were to us (at least on the football pitch). Respect you know? Hats off and that

yes I “get” it now.

Now I sit here as a soon-to-be 35-year-old man I look back and admire Diego so much. To all those pricks under the age of 45 who say Pele was the greatest?, well they’re immediately chatting SHIT, they never would have experienced the peak Pele, they’re just saying what they’re told to say by they’re daddies or by the idiotic press. I want some of my heroes to be crazy, flawed genius, prostitute-fucking, coke-snorting, mafia-associated, opinionated-shit kickers, and when I see a fat Maradona or a Diego with health problems, I just want to sit with him and have him laugh and tell me all the crazy shit he got up to over the years…

and thank him.

A short video with some DJ Shadow..

By Cara Sulieman

A POETRY competition designed to raise awareness of Remembrance Day among children was launched with the backing of Britain’s own modern day soldier poet.

Lieutenant Colonel J.B. Brown attended the launch of Poppyscotland’s poetry competition today (mon) to inspire school kids to write about war and remembrance, so others never forget.

Lt Col Brown has been in the army for 22 years – serving in Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War, the Falklands and Iraq.

He is currently commander of the 7 Regiment Royal Logistic Corps based in Germany, and says it is the variety of places that he has been and things he has seen has helped inspire his work.

“Resonance and memories”

And he said it was those real life experiences that inspired his writing, saying: “My second tour of Northern Ireland in 1993/4 has to be the one that has impacted the most on me.

“It was mainly because we lost a soldier, Private Edwards, and had a lot of men injured by direct IRA action.

“But to be honest with you any operational tour has its own resonance and memories that stick with you.

“In terms of inspiring me to write, the tour I did in Baghdad last year when I was embedded with the American army really sparked my poetry and I wrote a lot about what I saw and what I experienced.

“Since then I have written a lot more generalised war poetry.”

“Run wild”

He is keen to get children involved in poetry from a young age, and thinks it is important for them to start to think about war and the impact it has on servicemen and women across the country.

He said: “The kids are using photographs of Iraq by Robert Wilson to spark off their poetry. I don’t think that you need to visit somewhere to write about it, just let your imagination run wild.

“Paint the picture in your mind with the words and it will take the reader to wherever you want them to go.

“I am in some of the pictures so Poppyscotland asked me if I wanted to get involved.

“When I heard it was all about promoting the understanding of Remembrance I knew I wanted to get involved – Poppy Day is a part of my life and something I believe strongly in.

“And anything that gets kids writing and reading and sparks their imagination is something I want to be involved in.”

“Painting a picture”

He added: “I write about life; about love and religion, and to me war is part of life.

“I feel I can only write about what I’ve seen and done and war moves me to write about it and capture the emotions that come from it.

“My grandfather had me reading and writing poetry from a young age and really inspired a love of poetry in me.

“It is a way of painting a picture for people who cannot be there.”

Lt Col Brown will be on the panel to choose the winner of the competition which is open to schoolchildren from primary and secondary schools across the country.

Creative

The main aim of the project is to highlight the importance of Remembrance Day and to make the kids realise that war isn’t something in the past; it is still going on today.

Ian McGregor, Chief Executive of Poppyscotland, said: “It is vital that young people know about conflicts, remembrance and the role of veterans in their communities.

“The poetry competition will enable pupils to learn in a way that is both creative and engaging.”

Prizes for the various winners include a digital SLR camera, compact cameras and a poetry workshop.

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

106 yards of 2-ply, light worsted, from 2 oz. of pinky-purple falklands fiber from AVFKW in the hollyhock colorway.

Despite what you’ve seen here lately (Mara, this baby sweater, lots of pink spinning), pink is not my favorite color in real life, but I am always really happy with the pinks in my fibery projects. I hated pink as a child, and as soon as I headed off to college, my parents painted my bedroom what I like to call “pepto bismol” pink. (That pink is still not okay.)

I’m loving how this is knitting up, but I’m getting to that place where I’m concerned I may run out of yarn. With this in mind, I stopped the sleeves at 4 inches, so these will be 3/4 length, rather than full length. I even caught myself knitting faster last night…fingers crossed!

I’m not exactly sure why — maybe because it is early enough in the semester that I don’t quite have a routine yet, maybe because getting back into this particular mode of being is a bit of a struggle — but last night I felt just plain antsy, like I should be getting things done, even though I was tired. I think one of the reasons there is such crossover between the land of knitters and academia is that knitting is a way to see what you are producing, to hold it in your hands. Sometimes, even though there is a pile of reading staring at me, I just need to really see my own progress on something slightly more tangible.

Hence, my baby belle. I just have the sleeves and the button band left to do, and I love how this is turning out. Also:

I plied the bobbins of the green falklands fiber in the hollyhock colorway together, and set the twist.

110 yards of 2-ply, from 2 oz. of fiber. You may recall that the other half of this bump is pale pinks and purples. I may have spun up the remaining 2 oz. before bed last night…

I’m taking a class that is exciting to me, although it is out of my field — and out of my comfort zone. I may ply the rest of the hollyhocks falklands fiber this morning in preparation  — the fibery equivalent of a few deep breaths?

Monday.

Tuesday.

18 rows to go. I was intending to work on it tonight, but I accidentally (?) had a few beers after class today, and really should not work on it.

Late last night, after doing substantial work on the shawl, I decided that while I could no longer look at lace charts, I wasn’t quite ready for bed. So I spun a bit of luscious falklands fiber.

This is the first of four ounces of lovely falklands fiber in the hollyhock colorway from A Verb For Keeping Warm. There are two ounces of this green, adn two in a lovely pinky-pale purple. I’m spinning each color separately into a 2-ply, with the thought that I’ll make something stripey…eventually.

This is what Boh looks like right now, and I’d say it accurately conveys how I feel at this particular moment — and it is only Tuesday. Hello, September.

LOVE.

238 yds. of squishy 2-ply worsted weight yarn, from 4 oz. of falklands wool in five plum pie from Hello Yarn.

I navajo plyed what didn’t fit on the first bobbin — so here’s 28 more yards of practice yarn. This is still overplied, but I’m getting into a rhythm with this technique. It is really hard to slow down my feet!

Also, zucchini pickles! I made these on Thursday, but the recipe said they’d turn a lovely shade of chartreuse after a day in the fridge. I know the green of my kitchen is tough to beat, but the zucchini really is absorbing the color of the brine. I’m taking these to a backyard bbq later today!

First off, if you clicked through from Joy the Baker’s site because you, too, wondered if roosters wear shoes, welcome! I don’t have any pictures to prove it, but I did use my oven continuously yesterday (zucchini bread, granola, roasted potatoes). And I was barefoot.

(I won an awesome set of Baggu bags, and I can’t wait. In fact, I’ve been doing some serious winning lately, as I was the lucky commenter selected in Jodi’s blogiversary contest over at A Caffeinated Yarn. Yay!)

Amidst all the oven use yesterday, I did manage to get a lot of spinning done. I finished both bobbins of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club falklands wool in Five Plum Pie, and late last night, I decided to do a little bit of plying.

Which turned into A LOT of plying. That bobbin is so full that it no longer turns independently of the flyer. I’ll have more pictures of this 2-ply when it is done drying, but I’m really happy with how nicely the colors lined up. Instead of breaking the roving into 2 pieces, I stripped this in half lengthwise, and was carefully to spin them the same way to keep the color progression. In a lot of places, the colors match exactly, and the transitions between colors seem gentle and subtle. Also, not that it needs to be said, but this stuff was incredible to work with — smooth, even, and solid without being compressed. I fully understand the HY hype.

Public Service Announcement: Have you seen this navajo-plying video over at Spin-Off? I found this link through the Spunky Club on ravelry, and I feel moved to share. For folks new to navajo-plying, this video makes it really easy to see how it works and what it looks like. For old pros, the video demonstrates a particular way of holding the yarn and pulling out the loops that is easy on the shoulders and very rhythmic.

For those following my bat saga, Boh and I were winged-visitor-free last night. Here’s hoping it stays that way!

(Hint. Only one of these things is actually in the kitchen.)

These are hands-down some of the prettiest peppers to ever grace my kitchen with their presence. Everything else from this week’s share (carrots, beets, potatoes, tomatoes, dill, basil, cilantro, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, endive, lettuce and garlic) went right into its place in the kitchen, but these needed to be photographed.

And here is the plum pie. Five Plum Pie, to be exact. This is the first colorway I received as a new member of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club in May 09 — 4 oz of falklands wool. I finally feel like my spinning is consistent enough to start playing with my slowly growing HY stash. I’m aiming for a squishy 2-ply, probably a dk to light worsted in weight, and right now I’m thinking that I would love a new cowl and/or set of mitts for fall…

It was too humid to do much of anything during the day yesterday, but once the evening arrived, Boh and I went over to see dog and people friends, eat delicious pizza and farm veggies, and take a lovely evening walk. (We also polished off a whole jar of dilly beans. I couldn’t wait any longer, so I opened one of the pints a few days shy of its 2-week pickling period. I need to pick more beans!)

Three more pints of dilly beans on the shelf.

Boh, worrying about something. (What’s new?)

166 yards of light worsted 2-ply falklands wool from 3 oz. of the silent undergrowth colorway from AVFKW. This stuff is soft, squishy, shiny, and all-around delightful.

Off to pour another cup of coffee…

Do you have those days that seem to take forever to progress? Yesterday was that kind of day. I tried to fill the hours, but the time refused to pass.

All of that changed just before evening, when I ran into a friend on the street, finally started another book, met friends from out of town for a great dinner, relaxed with the dog, and (wait for it) chased our friend, the bat, out of my apartment with a broom around midnight.

An incredible lightning storm and the ruminations of my brain kept me up quite late last night, so the morning’s cup of coffee must again feature prominently in today’s post.

More glimpses of yesterday:

I finished spinning and plying the AVFKW falklands fiber in the silent undergrowth colorway, but I couldn’t capture the depth of the browns and greens with yesterday’s overcast sky (even with the change of background.) The skein is still hanging to dry — I’ll try again tomorrow.

A bit more of the toe of my second vanilla sock, and a particularly concerned Boh. It must be Monday…

My morning ritual, the first falklands bobbin, starting a second toe, the aging sunflowers with their pile of pollen: pieces of a Sunday morning.

Boh and I took a walk through the campus arboretum yesterday, accompanied only by the sound of the wind and the hum of bees conducting their business.

A collection of nut trees lines the road to the central part of the sprawling, manicured landscape. Tucked into a string of walnut trees, this particular cluster caught my eye. This tree, like the others, had a small tin tag pegged to its trunk: Japanese heartnut. The name made me smile.

When we returned home (our muscles sufficiently stretched), it was time to start a new spinning project, and this fiber seemed appropriate to the moment: The Silent Undergrowth, 3 oz. of Falklands from AVFKW. The colors are hard to capture on camera, but there is a lovely depth to the range of browns and greens in this fiber.

Also, here’s an update on my alpaca test-knitting:

I’m approaching four inches on the body, and while this will not be a quick knit, I love how this feels in my hands.

Also:

I love this dog.

Happy weekend, all.