Artillery Platform

The navy world changed on this day in 1501 at the first battle of Cannanore between the Portuguese and Calicut in the Indian Ocean.

Before Cannanore a Naval Vessel was a delivery system for soldiers. All the way back to the days of the Roman Republic battles on the sea were won by infantry boarding enemy vessels. Navy battles were won by hand to hand fighting on the deck.

By the 16th century gun technology was improving in leaps and bounds. Ships were also evolving. The cumbersome Carrack or Nao was being modified to the lower, sleeker, faster and more maneuverable Galleon. At Cannanore the Portuguese showed that a naval battle could be won by artillery power alone. The battle is seen as the birthplace of the “Line of Battle” and the “Ship of the Line”. In the new philosophy the ship was designed to carry as many artillery pieces as possible.

The culmination of this philosophy came about under Admiral Nelson in the Napoleonic Wars. The British eschewed accuracy of gunnery in favour of rate of fire. The gun crews practiced loading and firing to increase the rate of fire. The job of the Commander was to put his ship as close as possible to his enemy where the guns could not miss. He stated that  “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy“.

This philosophy prevailed until 1914 and the age of the Dreadnoughts. Admirals Milne and Troubridge were in command of Mediterranean squadrons charged with intercepting the German dreadnought Goeben. They realised that the 11 inch guns of the German ship could sink the British cruisers before they could even bring their 9 inch guns into range. Furthermore, should they get within firing range it was doubtful they could penetrate the 11 inch main armour belt of the German ship.

The British Admirals were labelled cowards, court marshalled and denied senior command as a result of this action. But as time passed and the science of the Dreadnought equation played out in subsequent engagements it became clear that they had made the correct decision. The “line of battle” was made obsolete for mismatched vessels. The strategy that lasted 413 years was over.

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Ghosted

Claire Foy as Anne Boleyn in Wolf Hall

Royal courts are famous wrecking grounds for discarded lovers. Objects of obsessive desire become awkward reminders when the lustful passions have burned away. The Tudor Court of Henry VIII is most famous in this regard. Six wives and many mistresses, Henry had an affair with Jane Boleyn, older sister of Anne, before he threw away all caution for the younger sister. Not content to be another discard Anne succeeded in having Henry divorce his wife and lose his place in the Catholic Church in the process. He literally imperiled his immortal soul for the woman who gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth. When she failed to deliver a son she lost her place, and her head.

Many people believe that Thomas Wyatt had an affair with Anne and that he wrote the poem below when he fell from favour. He was of the Thomas Cromwell faction in court and he rose and fell on the fortunes of Cromwell. He was imprisoned on a charge of adultery with Anne and was saved by Cromwell. But he was also saved from a charge of treason by another beheaded wife of Henry, Catherine Howard.

They Flee From Me; by Sir Thomas Wyatt

They flee from me that sometime did me seek
with naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
that now are wild and do not remember
that sometime they put themself in danger
to take bread at my hand; and now they range,
busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
twenty times better; but once in special,
in thin array after a pleasant guise,
when her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
and she me caught in her arms long and small;
therewithall sweetly did me kiss
and softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
into a strange fashion of forsaking;
and I have leave to go of her goodness,
and she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.

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Age of the Ironclads

There are moments in time when a change in technology has a massive impact. HMS Warrior was launched on this day in 1860. She was the first fully Iron Hulled warship and had a role in changing what a warship looked like. Warrior was constructed by Britain in response to the French launch of Glorie. The French ship was an iron skinned traditional wooden hulled ship, but was the first ocean going iron warship. Although steam and screw powered the Royal Navy was not yet prepared to fully dispense with the sails.

Two years later in 1862 the world witnessed the strangest naval battle in living memory as the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia clashed in the battle of Hampton Roads in the US Civil War. Two iron clad, mastless, steam powered vessels, one of which replaced gun ports with a turret that could swivel.

By 1871 the Royal Navy had launched HMS Devastation, the first fully ironclad ocean-going, screw driven, mastless warship with gun turrets. The age of sail was no more.

Soviet Swan Song

On Christmas Eve 1979 the Soviet Union 40th Army rolled into Afghanistan. What followed was a decade of death and destruction with up to 2 million casualties. Millions of Afghans became refugees in neighbouring countries.

Money, military training and support flowed into Afghanistan from the USA via Pakistan with assistance from a coalition of NATO aligned nations. Afghan and Muslim fundamentalist groups used these resources to fight the Soviets in a guerilla war, but also to promote their own ideals. Local warlords took control of the inaccessible remote areas of Afghanistan, where many of them remain in power to this day.

Amongst the groups funded by the USA were the Taliban, who created a brutally oppressive fundamentalist Islamist regime after the war, which was subsequently ousted by American military intervention. Another group born of the Soviet-Afghan war was Al Qaeda who later mounted the 9/11 attacks on the USA.

In Russia the war resulted in the collapse of the Soviet system and the dissolution of the Soviet Union into its constituent states.

Because the USA boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics in protest at the invasion the 100 Meters Sprint Gold was won by Alan Wells of Scotland, the last white man to win this medal.

Streisand Panic Buy

Telling people not to hoard or panic buy can have the effect of causing a shortage.

The Streisand Effect is a social phenomenon whereby an attempt to suppress information can have the opposite effect. When people learn of the suppression attempt they broadcast it. The information that was being suppressed then comes to the attention of people who originally would have paid no attention to it. The effect is named after Barbara Streisand. She attempted to suppress a photo showing coastal erosion at her Malibu estate. Before the suppression attempt the photo was downloaded 6 times, two of which were by Streisand’s legal team.

After the suppression attempt the image was viewed over 420,000 times in a single month.

Boris Johnson advising the British public not to panic buy during a pandemic, following the outbreak of a new virus strain, in Christmas week and when there is a logistics crisis on the French border is going to have only one result. Anyone who was NOT panic buying is now aware there is a supply problem and they will nip down to the shops and pick up a few extras. All those few extras equate to panic buying. Eventually you will have someone take the law into their own hands, remove toilet rolls from someone else’s trolley, a scuffle will ensue and the media get the money shot. Rioting in the aisles! Panic buying escalates.

Politicians should NEVER comment on essential supply except in the most tangential sense. Give the public assurance that the retailers have assured you that the supply chains are functioning normally. Allow the retailers to impose their own controls, they know their job. Boris Johnson on the other hand does not appear to know his job. He will lead the nominations for worst British Prime Minister of all time.

On panic buying: by Miroslav Sandev

The images of working people
fighting each other over toilet
paper shouldn’t fill you with
feelings of contempt
or superiority because
you’re not ‘stooping’
to that. It should fill
you with a profound
sadness at what capit-
alism can do to people
when alienation over-
whelms us. A profound
sadness, but also a rage
at the system that produces
this behaviour, & a desire to
smash it. Don’t laugh at those
people. Don’t call them stupid.
Think about what you’re doing to
build a system in which scarcity
is no longer an issue.

Anachronism

Chronos is the Greek for time. Something that is ordered in time is chronological. Something that is out of time is anachronistic. Painting Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon riding a tank is anachronistic because the Tank was not invented. Using Adobe Flash Player to view media in 2020 is also anachronistic. Worse still, it creates a vulnerability on your system that can be exploited by hackers. This is why you are being advised to uninstall all Adobe Flash Players from your device

Edwin Arlington Robinson knew all about being out of time, in his poem below. Robinson himself was very much a man of his time. He won three Pulitzer prizes for his poetry and was nominated four times for a Nobel Literature prize. He was born Dec 22nd, 1869, so happy birthday Edwin.

Miniver Cheevy; by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
he wept that he was ever born,
and he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
when swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
the vision of a warrior bold
would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
and dreamed, and rested from his labors;
he dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
and Priam’s neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
that made so many a name so fragrant;
he mourned Romance, now on the town,
and Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
albeit he had never seen one;
he would have sinned incessantly
could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
and eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
he missed the mediæval grace
of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
but sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
and thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
and kept on drinking.

A Christmas card for 2020

In Tenebris; by Donal Clancy

I see the dead leaves swarm
out there in the dark and cold.
The fire of my life grows old
though the embers are still warm.
My Christmas prison shining bright;
a beacon in a year so dark,
I long to be a lark in spring
singing free in the sunlight.
A plague on this year gone!
Tear these heavy curtains wide,
brace against the cold outside
and step into 2021.

Tenerife in Tenebris

This year for the first time a video link will be installed in the Passage Grave in Newgrange, Ireland. Weather permitting it will be possible for many more than the normal select few to experience the wonder of sunrise at Winter Solstice.

The turning of the year and the rebirth of the Sun is a universal theme across many religions. The Christian placement of the Nativity near to the winter solstice was not an accident of birth, it was a calculated symbol. Symbols are important.

The darkness “in tenebris” is a symbol not only of long nights and short days. It is a symbol for many things, the shriving of the soul and body, survival of a lean season and the promise of return to better days. The Christina Rossetti Poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” is well known as a Christmas Carol set to the music of Gustav Holst. Hers is a purely religious hymn.

Ford Maddox Ford was born this day in 1873, two years before the publication of Rossetti’s poem. Better known as a novelist here he has taken inspiration from Thomas Hardy. Maddox Ford employs the darkness as a symbol for love, begging his lover to bathe him in her glow.

Hardy’s poem of the same name equates the winters bleakness to the emptiness of his heart left bereaved by the death of a loved friend. Indeed he laments that the winter’s pain is not enough to reclaim in full the memory of his loss.

As 2020 draws to a close I’ll go with Maddox Ford and yearn to hear the lark. I miss Christmas in the Canaries, I long for Lux in Lanzarote and Tenerife in Tenebris.

In Tenebris; by Ford Maddox Ford (1873 – 1939)

All within is warm,
here without it’s very cold,
now the year is grown so old
and the dead leaves swarm.

In your heart is light,
here without it’s very dark,
when shall I hear the lark?
When see aright?

Oh, for a moment’s space!
Draw the clinging curtains wide
whilst I wait and yearn outside
let the light fall on my face.

In Tenebris by Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)

“Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum.” —Psalm 102.
(My heart is smitten, and withered like grass)

Wintertime nighs;
but my bereavement-pain
it cannot bring again:
twice no one dies.

Flower-petals flee;
but, since it once hath been,
no more that severing scene
can harrow me.

Birds faint in dread:
I shall not lose old strength
in the lone frost’s black length:
Strength long since fled!

Leaves freeze to dun;
but friends can not turn cold
this season as of old
for him with none.

Tempests may scath;
but love can not make smart
again this year his heart
who no heart hath.

Black is night’s cope;
but death will not appal
one who, past doubtings all,
waits in unhope.

British Sovereignty and Red Herring

Boris Johnson says EU open market rules are a threat to British Sovereignty. This is a lie and here is why.

At the Micro-Economic level if you are the owner of a firm you produce to rules. If you make shirts and you want Marks & Spencer to sell your shirts you go through a rigorous rulebook and inspection process. Marks & Spencer has standards and you must meet their minimum standards to gain a rack in their stores. You have no right to demand that they sell any old rubbish you choose to turn out. They own the shop, they decide who gets in.

Nobody suggests that Marks and Spencer is trying to undermine your company. Nobody suggests that Marks & Spencer is trying to take over your company and tell you how to run it. They aren’t bothered. They just demand you play by their rules. If you don’t like their rules, go sell your shirts somewhere else.

If Marks & Spencer update their rules they will issue you a rule change in advance, and you are expected to change your production to meet the new standards. You have no entitlement to floor space in their shops because you used to meet their rules last year.

When you bring economics to the Macro level of national economies things become more complex. Instead of a firm trying to sell in a retail outlet you have a nation trying to sell all its products in another country. The book of rules is bigger, It covers a multitude of products. Nigel Farage made a big issue of the rule book in his Leave campaign. He droned on and on about page after page of regulations for making a pillow. Not one pillow manufacturer complained. They are just rules. You read them, you meet them, or you don’t have market access.

Farage tapped into something important. The British voting public are clueless about economics. If you throw a big book of rules at them they run a mile.

Boris Johnson has tapped into this insight. He is using the “Big Book of EU Standards” as a rod for his own back. He is telling the British voting public “these rules are too hard – and they change at the will of the EU”. He is conflating trading standards with government interference.

The UK has long manufactured drugs for the US market. All drugs produced in the UK must meet stringent US FDA regulations to secure approval for sale in the USA. Is the USA threatening UK sovereignty?

Annibyniaeth i Gymru

The last prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd died on December 11th, 1282. So it is no accident that this is the day selected by Adam Price, leader of Plaid Cymru to demand a referendum on Welsh Independence.

The timing of the demand places further pressure on a Westminster parliament which has long ruled on behalf of England. The English people remain uneducated and uninformed of the history and politics of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Boris Johnson has more interest in protecting the 10 English families who control the majority of the North Sea fisheries than he has in serving the people of the devolved regions.

The Netflix series “The Crown” captures this perfectly as the young Charles prepares for his investiture as Prince of Wales. Over dinner with the dons of Aberystwyth University they toast him as the new Llywelyn in response to which Charles asks if ap Gruffudd is a poet.

Senior English politicians time and time again demonstrate an almost practiced blindness and deafness to the interests of the smaller regions of the UK. Scotland refused the fence at the last referendum. With the UK crashing out of the European Union the Scottish horse is odds on favourite to take that fence in a single bound.

Northern Ireland as of January 1st will have a border with the rest of the UK down the Irish Sea. Nationalists see this as placing a foot in the unification with the Republic of Ireland.

Today Adam Price sets out the stall for his party. A victory for Plaid Cymru in the next election is a vote for independence! Watch this space.

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This site is available for free and I make no money from any ads you see here. If you would like to show your appreciation feel free to leave a comment or you can buy me a coffee! http://buymeacoffee.com/DonalClancy