Quotulatiousness

March 13, 2020

“The Price of a Mile” – The Battle of Passchendaele – Sabaton History 058 [Official]

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Media, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published 12 Mar 2020

So tell me what’s the price of a mile? The Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 is often remembered as a dismal and dreadful campaign. Fighting over endless mud, waterlogged shell-holes and unrecognizable, bombed out ground, the battle became a slog where everybody was just miserable. Hundreds of thousands of men became casualties for the advance of a handful of miles.

The Art of War online: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~enoch/Read… [PDF]

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Listen to “Price of a Mile” on the album The Art of War:
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iTunes: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWariTunes
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Google Play: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarGooglePlay

Check out the trailer for Sabaton’s new album The Great War right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZP1…

Listen to Sabaton on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/SabatonSpotify
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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Edited by: Karolina Kosmowska
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory

Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Sources:
– Imperial War Museum: Q 20705;Q 45462;Q 5989;6Q 2890;Q 3117 Q 3008;Q 2712;Q 23779;Q 7806;Q 5937;Q 5726;Q 2902;Q 2713;Q 57299;Q 57247;Q 45390;Q 51569;Q 1426;Q 540;Q 17868;Q 50237;Q 47725;Q 45382;Q 2639;Q 29088;Q 42251;Q 5714;Q 2868;Q 5938;Q_005935;Q 2625;Q 5723;Q 2627;Q 29090;Q 52862;Q 88098;Q 88017;Q 2706;Q 5936;Q 5904;Q 5940;Q 5941;Q 5902;Q 47741;Q 3001;Q 5947;Q 6458;Q 3252;Q 29088;Q 5767;Q 45461;Q 42251;Q 2682;Q 20705;Q 6346;Q 6223;Q 11688;Q 2708.;Q 47719;Q 3103;Q 2679;;Q 2640;Q 2858;Q 2735;Q 2707;Q 2757;Q 5901;Q 3006.;Q 5904;Q 5928;Q 3104;Q5903;Q 29089;Q 5865;Q 11668;Q 3002;Q 2978;Q 3121;Q5706;Q 47741;Q 2755;Q 55558;Q 3012;Q 5874;Q 5888;Q 7806;Q 6327;Q 54408;Q 2866;Q 56567;Q 6047;Q 6049;Q 3252; 3140;Q 2868;Q 61034;Q 42250;Q 3025;Q 7814.;Q 2893;Q 2737;E00777;Q 3029;Q 2763;Q 5773;Q 2756;Q 47741;Q 45369;Q 2707;Q 6327;Q 5902.;Q 3006;Q 5871;Q 5733; CO 1757;CO 2241;CO 1757;CO 2252;CO 2241;CO 1757;CO 2246;CO 2252;CO 1763;CO 2241; E(AUS) 941;(E(AUS) 719);E(AUS) 1233.;(E(AUS) 719),
– Art IWM: ART 1921; ART 1150,
– The Australian War Memorial: E00693; E04678; E01912; E00874; E00807; E00874; E01229; A02653; E00927
– National Army Museum: 1952-01-33-55-391; 1985-04-48-412; 2001-02-256-96;1997-12-75-81; 2010-01-56-40; 1994-12-31-1; 1978-11-157-24-36;
1965-10-209-27; 1972-08-67-1-40; 1917-07-31,
– Canadian War Museum: CWM 19930013-511;CWM 19890222-001;CWM 19930013-464;CWM 19930013-511;CWM 19710261-0093.;
165-BO-1503,
– Library and Archives Canada: 040139

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

March 11, 2020

Carton de Wiart – A Man For All Seasons – WW2 Biography Special

Filed under: Africa, Britain, Europe, History, Italy, Military, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 10 Mar 2020

Carton de Wiart was a remarkable figure in World War One, but his story continues in World War Two, where he rolls from one adventure into the next.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Keith Kevelson
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski

Colorizations by:
Julius Jääskeläinen – https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

Sources:
IWM Q 101768, Q 82958, Q 15472, Q 53680, Q 92257, Q 4511, Q 11429, Q 92207, Q 92214, N 228, N 110, N 68, H 7393, HU 128168, E(MOS) 1315, SE 3547, A 31225, A 20588, Q 92218
Skull by Mahmure Alp from the Noun Project
foot bone by Maxicons from the Noun Project
Ear by Vectors Market from the Noun Project
Hip Bones by ProSymbols from the Noun Project
Collection of Auckland Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, 2001.25.480 Brent Mackrell Collection
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Picture of Combe, Carton de Wiart, Todhunter and Gambier-Parry in Vincigliata Castle Prison, courtesy Michael Todhunter

Soundtracks from the Epidemic Sound:
Hakan Eriksson – “Epic Adventure Theme 3”
Jo Wandrini – “Dawn of Civilization”
Rannar Sillard – “March of the Brave 4”
Johannes Bornlof – “Death And Glory 3”
Farrell Wooten – “Blunt Object”
Philip Ayers – “Trapped in a Maze”
Phoenix Tail – “At the Front”

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
40 minutes ago (edited)
This episode was made thanks to our research volunteer Keith Kevelson. It is also the first of its kind, being the first proper Biography Special of our World War Two series. We will do one of these every other week, so be prepared to get to know the main protagonists of the Second World War up close and personal. Please support us on Patreon so we can continue making these. Sign up at www.patreon.com/timeghosthistory or https://timeghost.tv.

Cheers,
Joram

A Bridge Too Far | Military History Book Review

Filed under: Books, Britain, Germany, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

TIK
Published 22 Feb 2016

The classic history book looking at the battle of Arnhem and Operation Market Garden. Cornelius Ryan’s A Bridge Too Far.

Have you seen my popular Operation Market Garden Documentary?
https://youtu.be/vTUC79o4Kmc

Also, if you haven’t done already, follow me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/TIKhistory

March 10, 2020

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy turns 42

Filed under: Britain, History, Humour, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 05:00

In The Register, Richard Speed notes a significant anniversary:

The weekend marked the 42nd anniversary of the first broadcast of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the hugely influential BBC radio show.

42 is a significant number for fans of the innovative series by Douglas Adams so (carefully) pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, wrap yourself in a towel and join The Register for a trip back to 1978, when the BBC decided to do something quite different.

Writing in the introduction to the Pan Books’ 1985 publication of the radio scripts (which differ from the books, which differ from the television series, which differ from the film …), series producer Geoffrey Perkins described his first meeting with the author. Adams was giving a speech despite being aggressively heckled by the cast members of the Cambridge Footlights show he’d just directed.

He’d also elected to stand on a rickety chair to deliver the speech.

“Here,” recalled Perkins, “was someone prepared to stick his neck out further than most people, someone who would carry on in the face of adversity, and someone who would shortly fall off a chair.

“I was right on all three counts.”

Perkins went on to join the BBC, while Adams worked with the Monty Python team as well as contributing to Doctor Who as the 1970s went on. He pitched the idea for a science-fiction comedy radio series to radio producer Simon Brett. Brett recommended Perkins to the BBC as a potential producer and the series was given the go-ahead on 31 August 1977 (after the first episode was commissioned on 1 March 1977).

“We both owe him an enormous debt,” said Perkins of Brett.

Thought-saving inventions

Filed under: Britain, History, Science, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In the latest issue of his Age of Invention newsletter, Anton Howes considers the innovations that helped provide short-cuts for thought, rather than labour:

The world on Mercator projection between 85°3’4″S and 85°3’4″N, such that image is square. 15° graticule. Imagery is a derivative of NASA’s Blue Marble summer month composite with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast. Image created with the Geocart map projection software.
Image by Strebe via Wikimedia Commons.

When we think of labour-saving inventions, the kind of labour that springs to mind tends to be manual. We think of machines replacing the muscle of limbs and the dexterity of fingers, and we worry about their effects on unemployment and unrest. But there’s a subset of labour-saving inventions that rarely gets discussed. They might best be called thought-saving.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the introduction of mathematical techniques to navigation. Before the mid-sixteenth century in England, pilots very rarely even knew how to calculate their latitude, let alone their longitude. But over the course of just a few decades, England became one of the world leaders in navigational improvements. A handful of mathematicians saved pilots the trouble of calculation, by coming up with tables, instruments, diagrams, and rules of thumb. In the process, they improved navigation’s accuracy, and ushered in an age of English dominance of the high seas.

The historian Eric H. Ash gives a few great examples. In the 1590s, the explorer John Davis shared a way to calculate the time of high tide, without requiring multiplication. Likewise, William Bourne, a self-taught mathematician and gunner, in the 1560s provided an easy means of calculating the linear distance in one degree of longitude, at any given latitude. He provided a diagram — really an instrument, even if it wasn’t made of wood or brass — which with just a simple piece of string could be used to derive the answer without needing to understand cosines, or really any trigonometry.

The mathematicians did the same with maps, too (after all, aren’t all maps thought-saving?) The sixteenth-century cartographic innovations simplified the pilot’s ability to chart a route, for example by taking away all need to worry about the curvature of the earth. The famous 1560s map projection of Gerardus Mercator stretched the distance between the lines of latitude as they got closer to the poles, so that charting a course on such a map was a simple matter of drawing straight lines rather than complex trigonometry. The Mercator projection may well make Africa look smaller than Greenland — it’s actually almost fifteen times as large — but it made life significantly easier for mariners. For similar reasons, the mathematician John Dee designed a special chart — what he called the “paradoxall compass” — to aid the English explorers who in the 1550s went in search of a northeast and northwest passage to Asia. Conventional charts made navigating high latitudes confusing, as the north pole was a straight line — the map’s top border. Dee’s map made things easier by putting the pole at the centre, as a point, with the lines of latitude as concentric circles.

March 9, 2020

One of the economic effects of the Coronavirus outbreak might actually be bottom-line positive

Filed under: Britain, Business, Europe, Health, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Tim Worstall explains:

“Trade Show Portfolio – Guy Lewis Photography” by Guy Lewis is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

One notable thing about tech events is that they tend to be in interesting places like Amsterdam and Barcelona, and you don’t get many self-employed attending. Because someone self-employed loses days of paid hours, has to pay for the flights and the tickets. And they can get the same stuff from YouTube or various learning sites like Lynda.com. Tech events are mostly a jolly for employees in bloated companies. You get 3 days out of the office, have some fun and the boss picks up the tab. Losing this will probably improve the bottom line. And “business conferences” are mostly the same.

For people working more from home, that’s a good thing. Reduced travel costs (time and petrol), less tiredness. This is gradually happening anyway, but Coronavirus has given it a boost.

And maybe everyone realises that a system of education inherited from the time before Gutenberg, when books were a scarce resource, is perhaps in need of reform. OK, you probably need to be at a university for cutting up cadavers in medicine, but for history or computer science you can probably do most of it from your parent’s spare room.

One thing about the way people work is that they often fall into habits. Change often comes from startups and small businesses because they don’t have habits. Sometimes, they’re even anti-habit. Someone in a large company sees something as wasteful and scraps it in the new company. Microsoft let their people wear what they wanted for work, rather than suits. And gradually, those new businesses replace the old. But there’s also sometimes crises that break habits. Someone is forced to do something and gets their eyes opened. They perhaps realise that the alternative works fine, or maybe better.

British Submachine Gun Overview: Lanchester, Sten, Sterling, and More!

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 12 Mar 2017

Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in this video, don’t miss the ARES companion blog post:

http://armamentresearch.com/british-sub-machine-gun-development-an-overview/

Great Britain was one of the few countries that went into World War Two with virtually no submachine gun development. Not every country had an issued SMG by 1939, but virtually everyone had at least been working on experimental concepts — except the British. It was only with the outbreak of hostilities that the need for such a weapon suddenly became apparent and its acquisition became a military priority.

This was solved by acquiring and copying the German MP28/II, which was quickly followed by a simplification program that would lead to the MkI, MkI*, and ultimately MkII and MkIII Sten guns. The Stens were truly exceptional studies in simplification, getting down to a mere 5.5 man-hours of production time. Only after the threat of immediate German land invasion had subsided was the Sten allowed to become a little bit user-friendly, in the MkV guise.

At the end of WW2, the British were finally able to scrap the Sten (known to be a compromise gun all along) and replace it with something with more finesse. Tests were run on the MCEM series, on BSA guns, on interesting prototypes like the double-stack-magazine Vesely V42 — but it was George Patchett’s much improved Sten which would be chosen and come to be known as the Sterling SMG (named after its manufacturer).

A couple of corrections to the video:

— The MP28 was designed by Schmeisser, not Bergmann.

— The MCEM-2 was designed by Polish engineer Lt. Jerzy Podsendkowski. The -2 version of the MCEM was completed during WW2; it was the -4 and -6 versions that were post-war.

— George Lanchester was chief engineer at Sterling and ran the Lanchester project, but was not actually the lead designer himself.

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March 8, 2020

Britain’s Post-WWII Naval Decline

Filed under: Britain, History, Military — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Sal Viscuso
Published 1 Dec 2013

Max Hastings describes the declining British post-WWII role in global affairs.

March 7, 2020

The death of Prince Imperial, The Last Napoleon

Filed under: Britain, France, History, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
Published 14 Jul 2017

The History Guy remembers when the hopes to restore the Second French Empire die in South Africa with Prince Imperial, the last Napoleon. It is history that deserves to be remembered.

The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheHistoryGuy

The History Guy: Five Minutes of History is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen minutes long. If you like history too, this is the channel for you.

The episode is intended for educational purposes. All events are presented in historical context.

#worldhistory #thehistoryguy #militaryhistory

History Buffs: Lawrence of Arabia

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Middle East, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

History Buffs
Published 17 Apr 2016

BIG THANK YOU TO THE GREAT WAR CHANNEL FOR COLLABORATING WITH ME AND MAKING AWESOME VIDEOS!

Check out their T.E. Lawrence video here –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqvcjL6ObH0

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And thank you History Buffs so very much for being patient whilst I was in Ireland working on the Vikings podcasts for the History Channel and moving house at the same time. I sincerely hope you guys enjoy this review!

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________________________________________­­_________________________________

Lawrence of Arabia is a 1962 epic historical drama film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. It was directed by David Lean and produced by Sam Spiegel through his British company Horizon Pictures, with the screenplay by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson. The film stars Peter O’Toole in the title role. It is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential films in the history of cinema. The dramatic score by Maurice Jarre and the Super Panavision 70 cinematography by Freddie Young are also highly acclaimed. The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won seven in total including Best Director, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Picture.

The film depicts Lawrence’s experiences in the Arabian peninsula during World War I, in particular his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus and his involvement in the Arab National Council. Its themes include Lawrence’s emotional struggles with the personal violence inherent in war, his own identity, and his divided allegiance between his native Britain and its army and his new-found comrades within the Arabian desert tribes.

In 1991, Lawrence of Arabia was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.

March 6, 2020

Some of the early influences on Terry Pratchett’s writing

Filed under: Books, Britain, Media — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

That is, the books that made him love reading and how he incorporated those early works into his own style. This is from a very late interview with Tom Chivers published after his death in 2015:

“I wasn’t particularly interested in books,” he says. “And my mum, God bless her, she rolled up her sleeves and gave me a penny per page, and it worked beautifully. I think she only gave me about thruppence, because the third book was The Wind in the Willows.” He was so enthused after this, she no longer needed to pay him. Indeed, Pratchett got a job in Beaconsfield library. “You’re talking to a man who thinks, mostly, that his school days assisted him not at all, but the library did, in spades.” He looks at me sharply. “You, when you were young, read lots of books, didn’t you? A –” he pauses, and chooses his next word carefully – “a —-load, I believe?” I did, I reassure him. “A library boy. I recognise the kind. I was the same.” He had an indifferent time at school – he grumbles about the “death or glory” nature of the 11-plus (he passed easily), and about old teachers who had a grudge against him at the High Wycombe Technical High School (“sort of half a grammar school. A big woodwork place”). But the fire kindled by Kenneth Grahame, and Ratty, Mole and Badger, grew, and blazed.

The cover of Discworld Imaginarium by Terry Pratchett’s “artist of choice”, Paul Kidby.

Pratchett’s own sense of humour, a sort of gentle, English, observational thing, stems from this period. “Wodehouse, obviously, but also I tore my way through the Just William books. Richmal Crompton was a very good writer. I think it was from her that I learnt irony. It took me a while to work it out.” Do you think you could define irony, I ask him. “Sort of like iron.” I deserved that, I acknowledge. “When you get hit on the head with it, you know it.”

He also fell in love with RJ Yeatman and WC Sellar, authors of 1066 and All That (“in the Thirties, when the middle classes were getting richer, the two of them really got as much fun out of that as you could. The Thirties were an awful lot of fun. Or at least until the end. Bad ending, the decade, admittedly”) and fell out with his headmaster for “bringing in a copy of Mad magazine. How horrible! And a copy of Private Eye. Seditious.” But it was the now defunct satirical magazine Punch which really formed the comic voice in which he now speaks. “I read my way through all the bound Punches. It was the best way to read history; you got it without granny looking over your shoulder, and it was just astonishing.

“And just about any writer of distinction, anywhere in the English language, worked for Punch. Mark Twain. Jerome K Jerome. And they spoke with the same voice, which opened the door for me – the same kind of slightly satirical, people-are-rather-silly-but-they’re-not-that-bad voice, friendly about humanity, fond of its foibles.” Apart from the books, the other influences of his youth are clear in his own writing – especially the later Ankh-set works, in which he frequently extols the virtues of the poor-but-respectable people living in tiny, tidy terraced houses, and of the self-made men and women. “There used to be a sort of dignity in labour,” he says. “I don’t think there is now.”

He has spoken, often, of how his time on local newspapers made him. He started at 16, in high dudgeon at his headmaster: “On my last day at the school, I left all my stuff behind and phoned up the editor of a local newspaper. He actually used some cliché like, ‘I like the cut of your jib, young man’, or something.” It is the stuff of legend that he saw his first dead body the next day, “work experience really meaning something in those days”, as he put it in his author’s bio in his books.

“Truthfully, without over-egging it, as I often do,” he says, “the library and journalism, those things made me who I am. Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism. London journalism can p— in someone’s face and they can’t do anything about it. Try that in local journalism, and someone’s down to complain. Everyone should have one local journalism job in their lives, especially if they’re a nosy parker.” He talks of local journalists in the same way he does his parents, with a sense of quiet heroism. “I interviewed an elderly journalist who’d worked in a small town for a very, very long time. I asked: is it boring? And he said: over there, that’s where a couple pushed their daughter into the attic because she’d had a black baby. And over there, that’s where a man was caught in flagrante delicto with a barnyard fowl. And he’d said to the magistrates, ‘Well, it was my fowl’. Even those small moments, they make you realise the world is not as you thought.”

March 4, 2020

Sir Philip Rutnam, former civil servant and new hero of the resistance

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Government, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Brendan O’Neill on the unlikely new hero of the British bien pensant classes:

The liberal-left and even some on the supposedly radical left have a new hero: Sir Philip Rutnam. Yes, they’re now worshipping functionaries. They’re now falling at the feet of starched, bureaucratic civil servants. Worse, they seem to have completely forgotten about the Windrush scandal and the hostile environment policy – both of which were overseen by Sir Philip in his role as permanent secretary at the Home Office – in the rush to make him the hero of the hour. Why? Because Rutnam has crossed swords with Priti Patel, and the EU-pining, Boris-hating, populism-fearing left loathes nobody more than Priti Patel. Genghis Khan could have a pop at Priti and they’d be calling him a legend, such is the depth of their dislike for that “nasty woman”.

Official portrait of the Right Honourable Priti Patel, MP.
Photo by Richard Townshend.

The speed and obsequiousness with which leftish people canonised Rutnam following his resignation on Saturday was alarming. Most of them probably hadn’t heard of him prior to his flounce, but suddenly he was a cross between Mother Teresa and Winston Churchill, the bestest civil servant of our time, the steady, wise, clever counter to the rabid ideologism of the Boris mob. A breathless Guardian editorial likened Boris Johnson’s government to the Jacobin terror, with its use of “studied recklessness” to “disrupt [and] demoralise” representatives of “the ancien regime“, like Sir Philip, the People’s Civil Servant, the Bureaucrat of our Hearts. Steady on, Guardianistas: Rutnam has only lost his job, not his head.

The rash, highly political beatification of Sir Philip hasn’t only airbrushed out of view the various screw-ups he has overseen, from fairly mundane screw-ups (while he was in transport) to truly immoral ones (like the Windrush scandal while he was at the Home Office). No, it also turns a blind eye to the unusualness and the cynicism of his extravagant resignation. Civil servants have been falling out with governments for as long as both have existed. But normally the civil servant in question would take it on the chin, slink off into obscurity (or maybe the Lords), and live out a plush retirement. Not Rutnam. He made his resignation into a political weapon. He seems to be out to undermine the elected government. That is more scandalous than Priti Patel allegedly asking civil servants why they are all so “fucking useless”.

The Patel / Rutnam clash is more than a personality problem. It’s about politics, and democracy. According to reports – and we must wait to see how true all this is – Rutnam “obstructed” Patel. He reportedly thought she wasn’t up to the job of home secretary and allegedly tried to hinder some of her priorities. If this is true, it looks like the unelected wing of government – the machinery of the civil service – seeking to block the wishes and programme of the elected wing of government. And now Rutnam is threatening to sue the government for constructive dismissal, which would further weaken Patel’s position, potentially hamper her Home Office work, and posit the bureaucracy against elected ministers.

England’s Secret Weapon: The Two Million Ton Megacarrier Made of Ice

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Technology, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Today I Found Out
Published 16 Feb 2018

If you happen to like our videos and have a few bucks to spare to support our efforts, check out our Patreon page where we’ve got a variety of perks for our Patrons, including Simon’s voice on your GPS and the ever requested Simon Whistler whistling package: https://www.patreon.com/TodayIFoundOut

This video is sponsored by World of Warships

In this video:

Britain was taking a beating from the German ships and submarines and were looking for something to build a ship out of that couldn’t be destroyed by torpedoes, or at least could take a major pounding without incurring a fatal amount of damage. With steel and aluminum in short supply, Allied scientists and engineers were encouraged to come up with alternative materials and weapons.

Want the text version?: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.p…

March 3, 2020

Arnhem by Antony Beevor Book Review

Filed under: Books, Britain, Germany, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TIK
Published 18 Jun 2018

Antony Beevor’s book Arnhem is good — but it contains a flawed argument. So flawed, that there’s a ton of counter evidence that shows it doesn’t work. Here, I will explain the events of the Nijmegen battle, what Beevor’s incorrect statement is, why he has to say it like he did, and how he could have done things differently.

Check out the pinned comment below for more information, notes, links, and sources.

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From the comments:

TIK
1 year ago

Selected Bibliography/Sources

Brereton, L. The Brereton Diaries: The War in the Air in the Pacific, Middle East and Europe, 3 October 1941-8 May 1945. Kindle, 2014.
Frost, J. A Drop Too Many. Kindle, 2009.
Hastings, M. Armageddon. Pan Books, 2004.
Robert J. Kershaw, It Never Snows in September. Ian Allan Publishing, 2007.
Mead, R. General Boy: The Life of Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Browning. Kindle, 2010.
Middlebrook, M. Arnhem 1944: The Airborne Battle, 17-29 September. 2009.
Neillands, R. The Battle for the Rhine 1944. Kindle, 2014.
Poulussen, R.G. Lost at Nijmegen. Kindle, 2011.
Ryan, C. A Bridge Too Far. Kindle, 1974
Urquhart, R. Arnhem. Kindle, 1958.
Sosabowski, S. Freely I Served. Kindle, 1982.

Links

My “REAL Operation Market Garden” documentary https://youtu.be/vTUC79o4Kmc
“The BAD BOY of Operation Market Garden” A video on General ‘Boy’ Browning https://youtu.be/Dvv8GQIRYVU
The “Who to Blame? John Frost on Operation Market Garden’s Failure” video https://youtu.be/7C_HoMVhKAI
My discussion of Market Garden’s True Purpose using Monty vs Eisenhower’s Memoirs https://youtu.be/f79KgQVL3MM
A video on Kampfgruppen where I talk about some of the Market Garden Kampfgruppen https://youtu.be/zKWczZkQ130
My Book review of It Never Snows in September https://youtu.be/-RRdWCyHpG8
My A Bridge Too Far Book Review video https://youtu.be/D6vDlbsOkQE

Add me on Twitter @TIKhistory

Thanks for watching, bye for now!

QotD: Public service and competitive private enterprise

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Business, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Anyone who deals with the general UK public (coercive) sector regularly, knows it is a cesspit of laziness, incompetence, arrogance and corruption, riddled with civil servants that are neither civil nor servants.

And I’m not suggesting that the levels of corruption and incompetence are comparable to those found in third world hellholes. A local official in your county council is very unlikely to demand a bribe and then have your daughter raped by his buddies if you decline. He’s especially unlikely to get away with it, and then douse your family in petrol and burn them alive if you complain – those are the levels of corruption found elsewhere in the world, so we need to retain some perspective here.

But those countries have not benefited from a thousand years of sacrifice to earn us a culture that has learned through bitter experience how to run a country. Our civil servants should be performing at the highest standard and be the best in the world, because what they inherited was a culture that conquered that world, and brought civilisation and progress (often at great cost) to every corner of it.

That they have fallen from these heights and now occupy such low places should be a matter for great national shame. And yet they continue to lord it over those they pretend to serve – try calling your local planning department if you want instruction in how supercilious a local functionary feels able to be when speaking to those he claims to serve. If you just want them to do their job, you better be prepared to beg.

Whereas on the flip side, we might agree that the private (voluntary) sector is largely filled with honest and hardworking people and entrepreneurs, but there are crony capitalists out there too.

Your local butcher and baker (those that have survived the regulatory avalanches under which the crony capitalists have begged their pet politicians to bury them) remain staunch servants of their customers (through regard to their own interests), whereas oligoplists (supermarkets, telcos, insurance companies, banks, energy suppliers or transport companies) deliver to us just what the monopolists of government do – an icy contempt that would soon turn to withering small arms fire if the laws allowed it.

Alex Noble, “Corruption In The Coercive And Voluntary Sectors: Rotten Apples? Or The Tips of Icebergs?”, Continental Telegraph, 2019-12-02.

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