Dans notre précédent article sur les Flash Mobs, nous avions analysé la tendance comme un phénomène social « récupéré » dans des publicités. Rappelez vous ces foules dansant en rythme avec des mouvements simples et saccadés. Désormais, il semblerait bien que la mouvance se matérialise … sous la forme d’un jeu vidéo.

La console Wii va accueillir un jeu de danse qui nous fait fortement penser à notre bon vieux flash mob : mêmes mouvements, même rythmique, même philosophie de groupe.

La tendance dépasse alors le phénomène socio culturel et publicitaire, elle devient un élément physique : un produit. Nintendo aurait pu nommer ce jeu « comment se préparer à un flash mob » tant les similitudes sont frappantes. Ainsi, le milieu du jeu vidéo contribue au développement conscient ou inconscient de la mouvance (les gens peuvent danser sans connaître les flashs mobs ! Eh oui ;) ).

Au-delà de cette matérialisation, le secteur vidéo ludique démontre une nouvelle fois ses capacités à adapter les tendances réelles du marché, qu’elles soient musicales ou autres. Pour ne pas citer, Guitar Hero et Wii sports sont les exemples les plus marquants d’une société désirant s’amuser sans un apprentissage long et massif de la discipline (comparez la prise en main de guitar hero à celle d’une vraie guitare ;) ) et tout cela sans bouger de son salon.

Philippe ROUSSELLE – Directeur associé

Double XL – Conseil en Marketing

President Obama has traveled extensively overseas in his first ten months in office.  During some of these visits he offered a reoccurring apology for America’s past sins.  His approach is perplexing and is probably an attempt by the President to gain cooperation from other governments for his foreign policy agendas.  This is misplaced diplomacy.  Countries pursue policies that are good for their interests and the personal re-election needs of the politicians, not because of niceties expressed by another country’s politician.

The President’s approach requires a view of America’s history from a distorted lens.  While American has not been without sin, it is the country that the world has turned to when there have been catastrophes and wars.  It is the place that immigrants have sought to escape the oppression of their native lands.

Before the President takes his next trip to Europe he should review the history of America’s roles in World War I and World War II.  In both cases, American came to the aid of a Europe ravaged in total war when America was geographically isolated from those conflicts.  When Europe was in shambles after World War II, it did not seek reparations that certainly were due it.  Instead, America came up with the philanthropic Marshall Plan and rebuilt Europe.

Financial cost aside, the true measure of America’s commitment to Europe can be seen in cemeteries that dot the continent.  Over 100,000 families of fallen GI’s chose to leave their soldier’s remains in the countries where they fell.  The list below includes those cemeteries and the lost of American lives.  For those that have distorted lenses, this sobering review is a great cleanup tool.

• American Cemetery at Aisne-Marne, France.  WWI.  2,289
• American Cemetery at Ardennes, Belgium.  WWII.  5,329
• American Cemetery at Brittany, France.  WWII.  4,410
• Brookwood American Cemetery & Memorial, England.  WWI/II.  468
• Cambridge, England.  WWII.  3,812
• Epinal, France American Cemetery.  WWII.  5,525
• Flanders Field American Cemetery & Memorial, Belgium.  WWI.  368
• Florence American Cemetery & Memorial, WWII.  Italy.  4,402
• Henri-Chapelle Cemetery, Belgium.  WWII.  7,992
• Lorraine American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWII.  10,489
• Luxembourg American Cemetery & Memorial, Luxembourg.  WWII.  5,076
• Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery & Memorial.  WWI.  14,246
• Netherlands American Cemetery & Memorial, Netherlands.  WWII.  8,301
• Normandy American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWII.  9,387
• Oise-Aisne American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWI.  6,012
• Rhone American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWII.  861
• Sicily American Cemetery & Memorial, Italy.  WWII.  7,861
• Somme American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWI.  1.844
• St. Mihiel American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWI/II.  4.153
• Suresnes American Cemetery & Memorial, France.  WWI/II.  1,541

Back from the land of work and nothingness – I work a job in a political field, so the end of October and the beginning of November are busy times.

That is unimportant, though. I sit here on Veteran’s Day watching a Victory at Sea marathon. It is a fantastic piece of propaganda – totally dominated by the allies, but it is also pretty educational, and some of the film footage is amazing.

Also, the theme to it is delightful. I watched this as a kid quite a lot – we had no cable, so I got to watch a lot of PBS (and I got to watch the Bean television series. Totally underrated. But I digress).

It is Veterans Day here and all, and I am happy to see that nobody has flipped out and made the day over-dramatic and fake, but at the same time, it is a little somber how regular of a day this is. Granted, it began as Armistice Day and the end to World War I, which America avoided the worst parts of; but thinking about what the day commemorates – the end of a bloodbath, a disaster of a war, of poor leadership and the destruction of a generation in Europe – this isn’t a regular holiday. It commemorates something real.

I’m almost done with Laffin’s Jackboot and I also can’t help but think of the German side of today. World War I has, on some level, spun from the romantic notion of war, which it was before men went off to war, to the romantic notion of tragedy. Reading through the poetry of the soldiers at the front as well as about battles such as the Somme or Verdun, where immense amounts of men were killed, the tragedy is made clear. Not that World War I needs to be viewed totally in another light, but the stigma of tragedy is empty without an understanding of what that tragedy means.

Today is a day to honor veterans, and to also take a small step to understand the nature of war and why we honor those veterans – because they do deserve it.

On that note, I’m learning about Jeep Carriers and Destroyer Escorts. Serving on a DE seems like an awful job.

One of the largest battles of the First World War, was one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded.

It lasted from the 1st of July 1916 until the 13th of November, 1916.

My Grand-dad, barely 19 and  a volunteer in the East Lancashire Regiment was there as a telephone operator and would have witnessed what the poet, John Masefield, did after a seven-day preliminary bombardment by the British, firing 1.7 million shells and detonating 17 giant mines, the sound of which rattled plates 130 miles away.

Masefield wrote : “The hands of time rested on the half hour mark and along that old front line of the English, there came a whistling and a crying. The men of the first wave climbed up the parapets, in tumult, darkness and the presence of death and, having done with all pleasant things, advanced across No Man’s Land to begin the battle.”

It was in one of those waves that my Grand-dad was injured. All he remembered was his companion falling next to him with his head blown off.

By the end of the first day alone, the British had lost 19,240 dead, 35,493 wounded and there were 2152 “missing” with all the horrors that the word can imply.

By the end of the Battle of the Somme the British had gained about two miles and lost 420,000 soldiers.

It has been estimated that every CENTIMETRE of ground cost two lives.

A German officer, Friedrich Steinbrecher wrote” “SOMME. The whole history of the world cannot contain a more ghastly word.”

My Granddad, Ernest Moore, was a Private in the East Lancashire Regiment and was one of the “lucky” ones to receive a wound serious enough for him to be returned home, more or less intact.

For his services, he was awarded the Silver War Badge with his number engraved on the back which showed that he’d served and been invalided out . I have a copy of his War Records to that effect.

As far as I know he, like so many, never received any further public recognition on any of the Rolls of Honor of the “gallant” survivors .

The locally recruited regiments, often known as “The Pals” suffered massive casualties. Particularly cruel to bear because they came from the same small towns.

The pages of the local newspapers filled with names and photographs of the dead, missing and wounded.

The brother of one of the “Accrington Pals” said: I don’t think there was a street in Accrington and the surrounding district that didn’t have their blinds drawn and the bell at Christ Church used to toll all day.”

It has been written of those local regiments:

THEY WERE TWO YEARS IN THE MAKING AND TEN MINUTES IN THE DESTROYING.

Sorry for the delay in blogging, I have had trouble trying to connect with hotel wi-fi systems…

We set off from Albert early doors and headed north across the old killing grounds of 1916. The mist was heavy on the ground and gave an eery atmosphere as we crossed the open fields and pock-marked ground of the Somme. Our first stop was the Lochnager mine crater which was just awe inspring. It is still about 40 metres wide, almost 100 years after being made…Next stop was even more inspiring. The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. This monument is 45metres high and is simply jaw-dropping in both its sheer size, and what it represents: 73,000 soldiers and officers killed during the Battle of the Somme but who were denied the dignity of having a known grave…

We carried on north through the battlefield..the mist finally cleared and the sun came out to say hello…we made good progress and saw many memorials and cemeteries along the way..the hills kept coming and we saw lots of shells along the roadside..Steve picked one of these ‘le bombs’ up and strapped it to his bike to take home.

We finally came into Lens  via a motorway which we really shouldn’t have been on…imagine cycling on the M4 and you get the idea, it wasn’t a good experience! (Lens is a shit hole by the way..terrible place full of immigrants) and luckily found our hotel without too much trouble, without any more motorways…

By the way…still got pins n needles in my arm from that ruddy car!!

A relatively hassle free day upto Lens…next stop Ypres!!

I am writing this after an act of remembrance in our little town centre. It was a large turn out this year, perhaps because Afghanistan and those in danger there were at the forefront of peoples minds. Filey is a retirement town and many of those around the memorial gardens also had memories of other wars. There has only been one year since the end of the second world war when no British lives were lost in conflict. I also have a long memory, even though I am a bit younger than many of those who were there this morning, and this is why I will be back there in a few days time to commemorate armistice day, the day when the biggest slaughter of a generation of men that has ever been seen finally stopped. Great efforts were made to mark the passing of each of the men who died, whether at the front or afterwards on one of the war memorials which scatter our towns and villages, but this did not prevent Wilfred Owen’s words being horribly true. “What passing bells for those who die as cattle?” I stand there each year and think of him.

When I was a child the elderly men who stood around the memorial in my village were those who had come through that carnage. My grandfather was one of them. Each armistice day (and that is most definitely what it was for them) he would shine his boots and his medals (discs to make eyes close, Owen said) and put on his best black coat and hat. The old Haig Fund poppies came in pairs in those days, they had silk petals and foil stems, delicate and pretty. Each year a new one would be bought and kept pristine for the day itself. His friends would arrive at our house and they would sit together sharing memories, all ready in good time because the thought of being late was intolerable. It was the only time that there was any talk of the first world war in our house, even though a huge black and white photo of my grandfather and his comrades had pride of place in the front room, along with an engraved artillery shell. Nobody went into that room for the first time without that shell being pointed out. He claimed that he had stolen it from a German officer and I believe him. He only went abroad once in his life and that was to fight on the Western front, looking after the horses in his Royal Artillery battalion who worked alongside the men and died in their tens of thousands. What their suffering must have done to a dedicated horseman I can only guess. He never spoke about it and being young and foolish I never asked.

The act of remembrance itself has changed little since then. Today the vicars surplice still flapped in the wind, the legion flags were dipped, the words of remembrance were spoken and the trumpeter played The Last Post and Reveille under a clear blue sky. It was a heartfelt and romantic scene, as far removed from the chaos and suffering of war as could be imagined, perhaps an attempt to make sense of something which is essentially wasteful, tragic, and senseless. Those touched personally by the sufferings of war have to fight to believe that there is a meaning in their suffering in order to carry on.

We used to sing a beautiful old hymn, O Valiant Hearts:

“O valiant hearts who to your glory came
Through dust of conflict and through battle flame;
Tranquil you lie, your knightly virtue proved,
Your memory hallowed in the land you loved.”

Somehow I managed to believe that sentiment alongside Owens bitter and more truthful version, when he calls “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (it is sweet and right to die for your country) “the old lie.” I did this for my grandfather’s sake, and I still do. He spent the rest of his life remembering his one trip abroad and as long as I am here I shall stand in his place each Armistice day even if it is Owen’s words rather than the comforting sentiment of a hymn in my heart. He would want me to.

Although the trip so far has been great, it is now, as we approach the Somme region and the areas of British involvement in the war that things start getting really interesting (for me at least). So, I was excited at the prospect of cycling upto Albert today. Albert is practically in the centre of the Somme battlefield and is synonymous with the British Tommy.

We set off at about 10am after a nice petit-dejuner the rain threatened but stayed away and we made good progress..After about 10 miles Steve asked me if he had a buckled wheel, to which I said yes, about 50 yards later his back wheel exploded with a loud bang! That was the end of the wheel, we were about 10km from the next town (Peronne) so we walked and hoped that we would find a supermarche that stocked innertubes and wheels.

The walk was long, and, ironically it was flat..the first 10miles or so out of St. Quentin had been hilly and tough going…  As I was minding my own business walking by the side of the road (county lane with no pavements) I got hit by a Fiat Panda. It’s wing mirror smacked into my elbow and I will be honest…it hurt like hell. The car stopped 20 metres down the road and out hobbled some old Frenchie with a bad limp and no teeth. Now, I dont mind old peeps, but it is my opinion is that when you get to a certain age you should stop driving, for the good of your fellow people…and this guy was way past this age. I was pretty pissed off and started shouting at him asking him in very plain anglo-saxon what the blazers he thought he was doing driving into me…He obviously didnt speak a word of anglo-saxon as none of my insults made an impression. So I just shrugged him off after he said ‘pardon monsiuer’ and trudged off down the road cursing. To be fair though, it was probably difficult for him to see me on the road, it was a dead straight road, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and I was only wearing a white high-visability jacket…so I do feel sorry for the old git. Sorry, French, garlic crunching, old git. I have still got pins and needles in my arm…

After a couple of hours we got to Peronne and found a huge supermarket which stocked what was needed, and within half an hour of arrival we were back on the firm. We had 20 miles or so to go and a couple of hours of daylight left, so we needed to get a wiggle on.

We made good progress and as we got nearer to Albert there were more and more signs of fighting…a few shells scattered along the roadside, various pieces of land that were still visibily scarred with shell craters – even after 90 plus years, and then eventually we found a British military cemetery along the side of the road. Seeing those graves is a humbling experience and brings home why we are doing this trip. The next few miles on the bike were quiet, the  fact that there were still loads of hills didn’t really matter anymore…

The nearer were got to Albert the more cemeteries were saw, we stopped off at another one – the Devonshire Cemetery where we saw the grave of a VC winner: 12639 Pte J MIller, Royal Lancaster Regiment. While at this cemetery I checked my bike over to make sure everything was ok, and found that I had another spoke broken…not good news.

We road a few more miles, but to save the bike I walked the last couple to the hotel. Tomorrow is a rest day in Albert, the plan is to take a hire car and visit a few of the memorials and museums, as well as try and find a bike shop! Should be an interesting day…

With crossed fingers we set out at 9am from Reims with St. Quentin, and the British sector of the line, in our sights. We set out at a steady pace and I kept a close eye on the bike to make sure it was in good shape…however, today it wasn’t my bike that began to play up…Just 4 miles down the road a link came apart on Steve’s chain…another blow to our chances of finishing. He had a go at fixing it by the roadside but was not confident that the fix would last the trip. We needed a bike shop or a large supermarket to pick up supplies.

We carried on at a steady pace to save both bikes..there was neither supermarket or bike shop anywhere in sight. So we kept on. Mercifully the sun was shining and it was dry with only a light wind, however the rolling French countryside kept throwing damn big hills in our way and the Frenchie lorries were doing their best to push us off the road..so the first 30 miles were not the easiest.

We managed to find a Carre-Four but, guess what, it was closed…well it was 2pm, of course it was closed, it was stupid of us to even think a major supermarket would be open in the middle of the afternoon..We waited patiently for the nice manager to finish his stinky cheese and vin rouge and bowled in for a) some lunch, and b) some bike kit…we managed to get lunch, but no luck on the bike front…so we carried on.

The hills kept coming, the curses were getting louder and louder…why is France so bloody hilly! Finally we enjoyed some downhilliness and picked up our average speed, we were going to struggle to get to St. Quentin before dark. Eventually the route did flatten out, which was a good thing as it was less stressful on the bikes and slightly easier to pedal..we just kept moving on, ticking off the little villages as we passed them, stopping at a few memorials to take some pictures until finally we saw the magnificently impressive Basilica of St Quentin on the horizon. It really was a majestic site, lit up like a Xmas tree in the night sky, dominating all around. It was 75 miles to St Quentin. Thats a long way, in case you were wondering.

St. Quentin is a pretty place, it is easy to imagine it fully of British Tommies enjoying some precious time out of the line..it was very lively with lots of traffic buzzing around. Our hotel is right opposite the Basillica which is great. One thing is odd though, it is Friday night and yet it is completely quiet and empty..what do the Frenchies do on a Friday night? They dont go into town thats for sure..

Tomorrow is a shorter (hopefully) trip to Albert…bang in the middle of the Somme battlefield…can’t wait to finally cycle through the British sector of the line…

In case you were wondering, we are doing this cycle trip in aid of the Royal British Legion’s poppy appeal. You can donate online at www.justgiving.com/cyclingtheline

Bjöd precis Samuel på banan. Man måste ju prova för att veta.

Och, han tuggade med sina små söta nedre framtänder. Nästan högg. Ett par smulor banan. Och, gott tyckte han det var!

Jeg har længe gået og hentydet til min chef, at det nok snart kunne være på tide med en firmafest. Det er ikke KUN fordi jeg er festglad, der blev nemlig slet ikke holdt nogen firmafest sidste år fordi vi skulle spare. Så jeg tænker selvfølgelig, at vi så skal fyre alle pengene af i år med et brag af en firmafest. Desværre synes chefen af være lettere uening med mig, men jeg har nu fået lovning på, at firmaet holder en sommerfest for alle ansatte til sommer. Om de kun har lovet mig sommerfesten for at lukke munden på mig, ved jeg ikke, men jeg skal nok holde dem op på det. Om jeg så personligt skal arrangere det, skal vi nok få den fedeste sommerfest næste år

Marco, du är slut nu. Finito.

Marco Personi: – “Snälla Don Samuel! Skona mig! Det var ett misstag. Skall inte hända igen. Jag lovar och svär på min familjs heder”.

Don Samuel: – “Sent ska syndaren vakna. Det är över för dig nu. För gott. Basta!”