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The whole world is against Iran now with the UN taking up the case and trying to negotiate the release of the captured 15. It seems that Iran's little plan has backfired badly as no one believes Irans' lies that those 15 soldiers strayed into its territorial waters.
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after reading about my mad diplomacy skillz in my dream, the British embassy in Iran contacted me and asked if I could have a word with old Mahmoud. Yesterday we chatted over MSN and managed to work things out over a game of justin timberlake themed Uno. Honestly, he's alright. I also told him that he needed to treat bitches with a bit more respect, but he just gave me a cheeky , so we'll see.
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quote:Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles: That's a bit like stealing your little brother's Action Man and then wrapping it up for his birthday present, isn't it?
Its a bit like refusing to admit you were wrong. "we will give you those people back, but we were right to take them in the first place."
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Benny, write to be at twistnotpush. If you want (by some strange turn of events) I could hook you up with Felix. He's been working on paid independent British films and I'm sure you could help each other out. Bit of a hustle that business.
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Well a few things went wrong. The innocent civilians being murdered. The friendly fire. The illegality. The sexed up documents. The bombings in london. Ken Bigley. Yeah there were a few fuck ups, but overall I reckon it was a splendid outing.
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This whole incident has turned out to be a great news story actually. It's a brilliant example of how easy it is to put a spin onto a situation and make any side of it look good or bad. I can imagine it being studied in future by, I dunno, Politics students. Sociology students maybe.
In fact, the more I read about it, the more I think that the people who have come out best are the British sailors themselves. A lot of Have Your Rant type contributors are calling them pussies and sycophants etc, but what they appear to have done (and I've obviously no idea if this is because of training) is to be politely apologetic, showed gratitude for being well looked after, kept smiling and generally acted in a completely non-confrontational way.
Perhaps this is because they, unlike much of the British and American public it seems, are aware that we aren't actually at war with Iran.
I say I'm not sure if the way they acted was down to training, but I think it's a fairly well-known technique for hostages to try to interact with their captors, to get the old "we're human too" vibe going on. I hope they get some sort of acknowledgement for this. At the moment a lot of people seem pissed off that they didn't at least top a few Iranians during the original incident and then spend their whole time in captivity screaming obscenities like a drunk in a police cell on a Friday night.
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Wait a minute, Attachments was on 7 years ago?
Darryn - I've been meaning to ask - is the place called The Moon Online as an allusion to George Orwell's notion of the perfect pub being called "The Moon Under the Water"?
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Wow I never knew that. There's a Weatherspoons bar in MK called the moon under the water. How cultured...
In other news, today I'm feeling particularly Eastery as the first thing I'm having to do today is scrape the remains of a rabbit off the passenger side door of my car. Hope the kids still get their eggs!!
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: Wow I never knew that. There's a Weatherspoons bar in MK called the moon under the water. How cultured...
I'm sure Mr Orwell's spinning in his grave in Bromley or wherever he is - Weatherspoons have a few of these, but the ideal pub they ain't - unless cheap beer, dead inside, smoking, curry club, cheap coffee and fry-ups and constant sports news coverage is someone's idea of heaven.
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The Moon Under Water was a 1946 essay by George Orwell. In the essay, which was published in the Evening Standard, Orwell provided a detailed explanation of the perfect pub, the Moon Under Water. The essay became the basis upon which the Wetherspoons chain of pubs were built and a number of them still carry the name.
Orwell stipulated ten key points that his perfect London pub should have (his criteria for country pubs being different, but unspecified).
1. The pub's architecture and fittings must be uncompromisingly Victorian. 2. Games, such as darts, are only played in the public part of the bar; the saloon bar, ladies' bar, bottle-and-jug bar, and upstairs dining room. 3. The pub is quiet enough to talk, with the house possessing neither a radio nor a piano. 4. The barmaids know the customers by name and take an interest in everyone. 5. It sells tobacco and cigarettes, aspirins and stamps, and lets you use the phone. 6. There is a snack counter where you can get liver-sausage sandwiches, mussels (a specialty of the house), cheese, pickles and [...] large biscuits with caraway seeds. 7. Upstairs, six days a week, you can get a good, solid lunch -- for example, a cut off the joint, two vegetables and boiled jam roll -- for about three shillings. 8. [...] draught stout with it [...] It is a creamy sort of stout, and it goes better in a pewter pot. 9. They are particular about their drinking vessels at "The Moon Under Water" and never, for example, make the mistake of serving a pint of beer in a handleless glass. Apart from glass and pewter mugs, they have some of those pleasant strawberry-pink china ones. 10. [...] You go through a narrow passage leading out of the saloon, and find yourself in a fairly large garden.
He wrote that he did not know of any pubs that had more than eight of these combined in the one location.
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Two. You can get cheap food, and they don't have musicI like the sound of this Orwell character. i think we'd have gotten along well.
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I'm enjoying this story more and more. Everyone has an opinion, but rarely two are the same. People on the radio and on forums are openly saying that they don't actually believe the sailors were even mistreated, even though they (the people that were actually there) have clearly said that they were. Have Your Say is on the verge of organising its own lynch mob by the look of it.
There's also this amazing outrage that one lot are celebrating their relatives' release while another lot grieve because their relatives have been killed. By this logic I suppose no one should celebrate getting good GCSE results because every year a few children kill themselves over the stress of exams. And so on.
No one seems to have particularly given a shit about the soldiers being killed in Iraq so far anyway. Maybe this will draw attention to it. Mind you, it's easy to get the impression from the news that a soldier gets killed at least every day. In fact the British total stands at 140 in over four years, which is pretty amazing really. Especially as the current Iraq Body Count of civilian deaths is well over 60,000 (minimum).
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The American death count is far higher too at over 3,000 combat deaths in just over four years. Plus tens of thousands of serious injuries. But then American troops are in the more volitile Sunni triangle and Bagdad. While British forces are stationed mostly around the relatively peaceful area of Basra.
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That's very true, but I was referring to the hysteria over the British hostages being paid for their stories while dead British soldiers don't get anything.
I was listening to a radio phone in last night and there was relentless loathing for the 15, many referring to the "cowardly" way they "surrendered" to "the enemy" and the way they acted as "lackeys" while in "captivity".
It's really scary how many people seem to think that we are at war with Iran (i.e. that they are "the enemy"). I still maintain that the sailors acted impeccably throughout and it seems like they are continuing to do so. I only saw a clip of the Tonight programme though.
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I saw a review of the papers on News 24 the other day. The Sun's cover was splashed with quotes from Faye Turney about how she was stripped to her knickers and thought she was going to be raped. That must have sold some papers - Sun readers love a bit of military-grrrrrl in undies / dirty I-rape-nian action.
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, so we'll see.
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