Glory Is The Story

Yes, I'm Still Continuing From That Earlier Intro

There was so many entries in my 'Brewer's' that I couldn't resist coming back to them, especially as regards a very particular term.  Don't worry, I haven't forgotten architectural follies or the entries that include 'War', we shall most definitely return to those.  Art!

     No, I've no idea what it is, either.  If you want an in to Finnish hard sci-fi, this is your best bet.

     Why is it here?  O I thought you'd never ask!  Conrad remembered reading a blurb about a sci-fi book years ago, possibly 15 years, where the antagonists were described as ' - the insane 'Glorious'.  Not much to go on, is it?  Still, it was enough for me to eventually identify TQT, which sounds like an interesting read.  The Glorious are described as: "an antagonistic, post-human collective that has embraced extreme nano-engineering and insanity" so definitely not people you'd bring home to meet the parents.  Art!

     The 12th of August, that is.  Which is when the official grouse season starts, unless it's a Sunday, which is not permitted to be a gunday, so it falls on the Monday.  Thus people with shotguns popping off at grouse until the season ends on 10th December.  Why the 12th?  Because the 1773 Game Law forbade the consumption of red grouse meat before that date, and they didn't have fridges or freezers.

Art!

     Yes, another 'Starry Trex' episode.  Conrad can let spill the info that the planet in question is dubbed 'Omega', but is unsure quite where or when the 'Glory' bit originates.  This is the ludicrous Cold War In Space With Humanoid Aliens Whom Are Completely Human episode, which fans of the original obscure series are delighted to hate upon.  One cannot blame them.

Art!

     Ah yes, the 'Glorious Fourth', the 4th of July, which is when This Sceptred Isle celebrated getting rid of the backstabbing, treacherous, disloyal colonial ingrates of South Canada.  Whom also celebrate it for reasons obscure to me.  Also, don't mention the French.

     Art!

     This is, of course - obviously! - the 'Glorious First Of June", where the Royal Navy delivered a right shoeing to the French Revolutionary fleet on the first of June 1794, capturing six of their warships and sinking a seventh.  

Art!

     A riposte from the wargames of WW1 that BOOJUM! recently reviewed, and the box art nicks from a photograph of 1916.  

Art!

     ANYWAY this Intro isn't about the box-and-counter wargame, but rather about the Stanley Kubrick film 'Paths Of Glory', released in 1957, which Your Humble Scribe has seen.  

Art!

     Don't be fooled into thinking this is a standard war film; yes, there is a long scene in which the French infantry attempt to storm Teuton field fortifications, but the film's second half concerns the judicial response to said failed attack.  Before the assault French generals calculate what casualties would be inflicted during the attack, confident that the residuum would be sufficient to  enable the capture of a target zone.  Art!

     Their calculations are incorrect, the attack is a failure with heavy casualties, and subsequent waves refuse to leave their trenches, which not un-naturally enrages their senior officers.  One has their trenches shelled by French artillery to try and force an attack, possibly hoping for an Iron Cross Second Class.

     Colonel Dax, played by Kirk Douglas (handily a defence lawyer in peacetime), volunteers to defend three men picked at random to be court-martialled and then shot and then found guilty and shot and then found guilty.  The trial is a farce and the three soldiers are executed.  Art!

     Predictably, the film was banned in France until 1975, as Stanley must have foreseen: undermining 'La Gloire' and by a South Canadian to boot, was seen as unsupportable.  When it comes to the Glorious Fourth, don't forget the French.  It was filmed in West Germany as the French - you may be ahead of me here - were not at all sympathetic about accommodating the production. 

     We're not done yet.  Art!

     This is the 1935 novel that Stanny adapted for the film, written by Cobb as an acute portrayal of war and betrayal.  He'd served in the South Canadian forces in France during 1918 at the sharp end and so had a good idea of what he was writing about.  The title comes from Thomas Gray's 'Elegy In A Country Churchyard' - 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

It wasn't made up from whole cloth, either, because as a Yank in France Cobb would have been well aware of the 'Souain corporals affair' which dated from 1915.  In that case French troops refused to continue to go over the top to attack a Teuton position that had already massacred a previous assault.  Their general, Reveilhac, ordered his divisional artillery to fire on his own men to force them to attack; the senior artillery officer refused to do so unless issued with written orders to that effect.  Reveilhac chickened out of that one.  Art!

     Reveilhac ordered a total of 24 men to be court-martialled to 'encourage les autres', which is more likely to do the complete opposite.  Four corporals were chosen at random from the 24 and executed.

     Cue 20 years of ceaseless campaigning from the relatives of the inglorious dead, which eventually got that travesty of the court-martial sentence overturned.  There is a copious literature in French on this miscarriage of justice.

     Reveilhac?  He continued to be a bottomhole until February 1916, when he was forcible sent on leave for three months and, on returning, sent to command reserves where he couldn't inflict any further mischief.

     So much for glory!

     Time to bring up pictures methinks.

Behave Or Else

We recently did 'A Little Musical Critique' on the lyrics to 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway', which prompted Conrad to have a nosey in his stack of CDs and what do you think I found?  Art!

     Yes, the CD, and, what's more, the CD insert that contains all the verbiage Peter Gabriel wrote for the inner sleeve of the original LP, not to mention all the lyrics, too.  I think this needs a lot of strong coffee and sugar-free biscuits to study, in order to see if it makes the album any more comprehensible.  Or not.  Only time will tell.

Further To The Above

For at least a year Conrad has been wondering where that collection of DVDs of 'The Great War' had gotten to.  I think they came free with the 'Daily Mail' during the centenary of the Great War, and one enterprising person collected all of them, and then put them up on e-bay, and I bought them.

     They weren't in any of my DVD collection boxes, nor knocking around in the set of 'To Be Watched' or 'Just Been Watched'.

     But what's this next to CDs ending in 'F'?  Art!

     Yes, all 26 disks, totalling over 17 hours of content.  I've watched them through once, and now feel it's time to go for a second time.  There was also an incomplete collection of 'World War One In Colour', a load of CDs missing their box - probably for the old Focus CD player - and a pirate set of 'Thunderbirds' that I bought sight unseen without realising they're verrrry naughty indeed.  Probably another 17 hours worth of watching there as well.

What A Farrago

Conrad is unsure if other nations put forward the bizarre and potty candidates that the UK does when it comes to elections.  The Monster Raving Loony Party has been around long enough to be considered mainstream.  Today we have - Art!

     I doubt he appears in Debrett's, and why not a Baron?  Sounds more effulgent.

     ANYWAY ANYWAY look at the time this has been up: one month.  With over 1 million views.  Conrad suspects The Nasty Little Man Farrago is going to have a much harder election than he ever expected, especially since no other parties have put up a candidate.

Finally -

I'm currently listening to 'Cosmic Desert Road - Psychedelic Planet Chill Mix' in the background.  Much more pleasant than one Youtube channel that is not really selling itself.  Art!

      Signing off before the metal death-ray squad shows up.