Some Christmas Thoughts

On the evening of 24th December 1914 hundreds of thousands of British, French and German soldiers left their trenches and came together in No-Man’s-Land to celebrate Christmas. That night a ceasefire was observed across much of France and Belgium, in blatant disregard of the official German and Allied policies of non-fraternisation. It was a time for men to swap cigarettes, food and souvenirs; to mingle and sing carols; to collect and bury the dead.

The First World War had been raging for 5 bloody months. It would continue for another 47. What had begun as a nationalist movement in Serbia finished as the world’s first global industrialised conflict. By the end of hostilities on 11th November 1918, nearly 20 million people had been sacrificed to the fallacy that war ends war.

Viewed in such a context the Christmas truce becomes a defining moment in human history. Men, who in November had been hacking each other to pieces for control of the Belgian town of Ypres, risked everything to wish each other a Merry Christmas just one month later.

When I reflect upon those extraordinary events, I am reminded of a line from John Sullivan Dwight’s carol, ‘Oh Holy Night’ – “A thrill of hope; the weary world rejoices.”

The world is weary, now as it was then. There is hate and there is violence; this may never change. Yet there will always be a case for hope.

So as we celebrate Christmas this year, perhaps we might spare a thought for the soldiers in the trenches, who somehow found a sense of fellowship in the bitter depths of war. Perhaps we might remember 24th December 1914, and rejoice that the guns of the Western Front fell silent, at least upon the night the Angels sang.

Merry Christmas everybody.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around this past year and I hope to get back into blogging soon.

Ed

They Called It Mametz

To my loyal fans,

It has been a while. I must apologise for my silence; with my time divided between work and work, there is currently no time for play.

I imagine your fingers are trembling as you read this post. Unfortunately, it is my sad duty to inform you that I will not be announcing my return at this juncture. I am writing to you today to alert you to the fact that one of my short stories ‘They Called It Mametz’ has been published and is available for your enjoyment on Amazon. Who knows, some of you might want to see what all the fuss is about.

The story follows a group of soldiers from the 9th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, as they prepare for the Battle of the Somme. If you do give it a read, please let me know how you get on.

Whilst I am on wordpress, I should inform you that I have decided to hang up my typing gloves for now. If you wish to stay in touch, please do follow my exploits via my podcast, www.thethirstpodcast.com.

I hope you are all well.

Love, Ed

‘They Called It Mametz’ at Amazon.co.uk

‘They Called It Mametz’ at Amazon.com

The Pokémon Drinking Game

The other night, my friends and colleagues over at The Thirst Podcast Studios (check the podcast out, if you haven’t already – it’s a doozy) had a team bonding session with an aggressive round of the Pokémon Drinking Game. That’s right, there’s a drinking game. And it’s epic. There’s only one rule: you gotta chug ’em all.

Sorry about the pun. You might say it was shocking. Like Pikachu’s thunderbolt attack… I need help. Anyway, look at the pretty picture.

These are the counters we used for the game. From left to right: Charmander, on a yellow post-it note, by Robert Horwood; Squirtle, by James Crosse; Bulbasaur, by Edward Fraser.

By means of comparison, here are the Pokémon as they appear on the television series.

You can visit this website for details about how to play the game.

And finally, here are some other Pokémon related goodies:

An A Cappella version of the Pokémon theme tune

Pokémon Apokélypse: Live Action Trailer

Pulling Someone’s Leg

The idioms are back again, hurray! Today’s instalment is all about the naughty side of tomfoolery. That’s right, although the phrase ‘to pull someone’s leg’ now denotes a friendly bit of banter, meaning something like ‘to make fun of somebody by making them look foolish’, it actually used to have criminal undertones.

There are many proposed origins for the phrase, but my research suggests that pulling someone’s leg was originally a method used by thieves to entrap their quarry and thereby relieve them of their valuables. One thief would be assigned ‘tripper up’ duty, and would use various instruments (usually a wire) to knock the target to the ground. Whilst the hapless victim crawled about on the floor, the other members of the gang would rush in to complete the robbery.

It is not difficult to see how the comical effect of somebody being tripped over during the course of bit of skulduggery might have given rise to today’s meaning of the phrase.

I am not American (praise Jebus) but I gather that ‘pulling someone’s leg’ in American English retains a sinister edge, alluding to an element of trickery or deception in the part of the leg puller. Perhaps this might be a lingering connotation from the idiom’s less than Christian origin.

 

Why does it have to be like this, Mr Fly?

It’s early, and I’m awake. Such unusual occurrences invariably have causes, and as I stare fuzzily around my room, the reason for my unhappy predicament slowly becomes clear to me. There is a faint buzzing noise coming from over there, somewhere by the curtain. An intruder, of the flying kind.

All thought of sleep is quickly forgotten. In a trice I’m on my feet. My family are prepared for these eventualities. We are in the possession of all manner of fly killing machinery (what honest household is not?) including several spray cans of RAID and a heavy duty fly swat for the more hands on assassin, but the equipment is all the way downstairs and I am not inclined to make the journey in my current state. In hindsight, of course, that would have been the sensible thing to do…

So I seize the book from my bedside table. It’s a big one, the kind with pictures. Perfect for the task at hand.

The intruder is wandering around the top of my bookshelf. I spot him lurking in between a couple of Enid Blyton books I can’t bring myself to throw away. My eyes narrow. It’s far too early for subtlety and so I hurl myself into the fray with reckless abandon, bearing down upon my foe and screaming with the thrill of battle.

My enemy takes to flight immediately. The chance for surprise lost, we become locked in a deadly struggle. For several minutes I pursue him violently about my room, swinging my book this way and that as I attempt to dislodge him from the air.

He dodges all of my flailings with contemptuous ease.  I tire of the conflict before he does. Mid-swipe, the book falls through my sweaty hands. My foe returns to his perch on my bookshelf, wherefrom he surveys me, naked and bested, with an unkind mixture of scorn and derision in his many eyes.

I crawl into my bed. Things are looking desperate. I know I haven’t got the stomach for another fight. But I can’t back down. Otherwise he will perform a victory dance intermittently on my back for as long as I remain in bed. I reason that man and beast must be able to strike some sort of accord, such as sometimes exists in war between worthy opponents. I am the first to set conditions. ‘Take my bedroom, it’s yours,’ I cry. ‘Only refrain from making your landings upon me.’

The winged tormentor does not care to bandy words with me. Territorial trivialities are of no concern to him. As he understands things, the skies of my room are his domain. And if I am too weak to defend myself, then that’s shame, to be sure, but he does not see it as a reason not to use me as a resting place in between his aerial forays. As if to prove his point, he buzzes over to me and brushes my arm. Instinctively I beat him away, but he’s already gone. He’s got what he came for.

Utterly defeated, I curl up into a ball, trying to expose as little of my vulnerable flesh as possible to the mischievous hunter. ‘Maybe he will take pity on me,’ I think.

He doesn’t. For the next hour we play a game, he and I. The rules are simple. First he waits for me to fall asleep, at which point he lands on me, so as to startle me awake, before retreating to survey his handy work. He repeats the same procedure over and over again until I get up and go downstairs.

Why? Because why not? That’s why.

Well played Mr Fly. You’ve won this round. Now I’m going to get my RAID. If I were you, I wouldn’t be here when I get back.

I don’t believe it – he’s only gone and made a podcast!

Yes, the rumours are true; eager as ever for more glory, I have indeed made the decision to try my hand at podcasting, so I’m afraid that I’ll soon be bothering you across another medium. This is the reason for my prolonged absence on theedexperience. It has been a wrench for me, being away from you all, but I think it was worth it, because now you get to listen to me too!

Basically, from now on I will spending a lot of my spare time on the podcast’s website – www.thethirstpodcast.com – so if you want to follow my ramblings please take a little look.

In terms of the podcast itself, the idea is that I teach my friend Rob philosophy. Sounds simple enough, but it isn’t. Trust me.

The podcast is on iTunes (just search for ‘the thirst podcast’), or you can listen to it here. Do give it a listen and let me know what you think. And if you enjoy it, why not show the world (which is all that seems to matter these days!) by giving it a rating and/or a review on iTunes, or by getting involved on twitter or facebook?

Fear not if podcasts aren’t your sort of thing, I will continue to post on here whenever I can. Anyway, thank you for your time!

For you, as always.

Ed

Roger (as used in radio commands)

So my sister set me this challenge. Actually I knew it already, so ’twas no biggie.

Roger is used on the radio to mean ‘message received’. But why? Was there some larger than life radio control man called Roger? Sadly not. Well there might have been, but it certainly was not he who sired the phrase.

The use of Roger  comes from military pilot radio transmissions in the Second World War. In 1941, before the now internationally accepted alpha, beta etc.  both British and American phonetic alphabets used Roger as the standard abbreviation for R, as in Received.

Incidentally, if you ever find yourself on a US military radio channel, do not say ‘repeat’ unless you want to see ash and brimstone fall from the sky. Repeat is only used to request additional artillery fire (you would say ‘say again’ if you wanted somebody to repeat their last message). Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Meet The Family & A Soldier’s Declaration

I think it’s time you met the family.

There are six of us Frasers. We are led by T.M. – which stands for ‘the mother’, not ‘the monster’ as people tend to presume. She is a stout and uncompromising lady with a firm sense of right and wrong.

Ever at her side is her devoted husband (my father), ‘Dadda’, a surgeon with a keen appetite for real ale and a lusty singing voice, whose out of doors antics have earned him the nickname ‘Randy’ – i.e. Stan’s father in Southpark – amongst my friends

The eldest of the children is your humble narrator about whom you already know enough.

There follows a procession of sisters, the first of which is called Lotti, or ‘Del’ to me. She is currently living her dream in Thailand.

Next there is Hannah, aka ‘Nurdy’. The Nurd is at university, plugging away admirably at a classics degree which will surely be of little to no service to her in the outside world.

And finally there is young Catherine,  ‘The Rin’, who is about to take those most taxing of exams, A-Levels, worry free in the knowledge that she can probably afford to spell her name incorrectly and still receive an A*. [Face it guys, children are not getting cleverer, exams are getting easier.]

As you can imagine, with 4 children all close in age, family dynamics could get a little tense at times when we were younger. In a bid to resolve certain issues, my parents came up with the wonderful idea of holding ‘Family Councils’ once a month. In order that you might have some insight into the process, I have provided below a letter of grievance, which I like to call ‘A Soldier’s Declaration’, that I submitted before the council on 11th January 2003.

Needless to say, I did not recieve a sympathetic hearing.

Note – the writing at the bottom refers to a drawer I broke in my burst of rage against the injustice of my situation.

A Fantasy Review: From The Lord Of The Rings To A Game Of Thrones

I am currently 2/3 of the way through an epic re-watch of the Lord Of The Rings. My band of brothers and I have escaped from out of the very bowels of the Mines of Moria. We have stood, bloodied and yet unbowed, before the Uruk Hai at Helms Deep. We have risked the black fury of Barad Dur itself. And we have taken the hobbits to Isengard.

In case of my death, let it be remembered that with each and every waking breath, I worshipped the Lord Of The Rings, both the books and the films. Let it also be recorded that I loved Tolkien as if he were my own son.

That’s right – Tolkien’s world is so immersive, his characters so complete, and quite frankly his dialogue stirs my loins. The great man is surely the yardstick against which all writing, especially fantasy, must be measured. As one critic puts it, all fantasy writers subsequent to Tolkien must content themselves with shaping the world that he revealed. On a side note, Peter Jackson and co. deserve credit for recreating so spectacularly the monstrous saga on the big screen. Each film is a stunning spectacle, which is nothing less than Tolkien’s genius merits.

Yet in spite of my rather more than casual adoration for Tolkien, there is a crucial element to his work that I believe is sadly lacking. This element is tension. My only problem with The Lord Of The Rings is that the (main) characters are so cool that at no point do you worry about their safety. The one exception to this rule is Gandalf. Fair enough, when he dies you are all like ‘oh no!’ but his dramatic return, unexpected as it might be, only serves to reinforce the growing suspicion that Tolkien has constructed his characters so well that he will not be able to handle killing them off. Indeed, the only characters that do end up biting the dust are characters who have displayed some sort of boorish flaw – e.g. Boromir, the louty yet loveable Gondorian scamp, or Theodin, the feckless leader of a rabble of random horseman.

I have some sympathy for Tolkien here. In my first book I was an absolute mess when confronted with the fact that my favourite character simply had to die. It was only a whole day’s worth of writing under the influence of a firm hangover that allowed me to push through to the end of my story without him.

The unhappy consequence of Tolkien’s (and my own, apparently) unrivalled ability to construct a character is that his books take on the attitude of a carefree jaunt, when really they should be nothing of the sort. It simply isn’t that ‘life or death’ that Aragorn has been surrounded by his enemies, because you know he will be able to fight his way out of it; that’s just how much of a man he is.

Fortunately for those adrenaline junkies out there, modern fantasy definitely has a ruthless edge to it. I defy anybody to watch an episode of Game Of Thrones (for example) comfortably – i.e. without sobbing softly whilst snot drips down their face, having been thoroughly overcome by the whole excitement of it all.

I should confess right now that I have not read George R. R. Martin’s series ‘A Song Of Ice And Fire’ (on which the TV series of Game Of Thrones is based). I acknowledge that this is a gross omission for a man who professes to be a fantasy writer, but there we have it. What can men do, eh? To be honest it is probably a good thing I haven’t read it, because I would be a state.

Anyway, my point is this – Tolkien is a hero, of that there can be no doubt. Modern fantasy writers would do well to learn from him. Heck any writer would, (what is this whole disrespecting of the fantasy writer about anyway? Leave us simple folk alone, bra.) But if there is one thing that modern authors do have over their old mentor, it is the savage unpredictability of their plot lines. Some stuff is going down. There will be consequences.

If you haven’t been watching Game Of Thrones, by the way, then where have you been? Sort it out. Honestly.

On a final note, Theodin’s much pondered over question (see the top right of this fantastic post) was finally answered by my dear friend Roberto (like Mancini but more man and less cini) the other day. His response? ‘Little to nothing.’

Fun Friday Fact #18

Due to an oversight at the end of the First World War, Andorra found itself engaged in two world wars at the same time.

The tiny Pyrenean state’s name was omitted from the Treaty of Versailles (1919), meaning that the 11-man national army remained technically at war with Germany. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 placed too much of a strain on the Andorran resources. The beleaguered country hastily signed a private treaty with Germany, finally concluding the First World War and confirming its neutrality in the Second. In benching itself for the second global conflict, Andorra joined a long line of heroes including Ireland, Switzerland and those once mighty empires of Spain and Portugal.

Note: neutral status provided no guarantees from attack. For example Britain invaded the neutral Iceland, whilst Hitler was quick to take over the low countries and add them to his treasure chest.

That was fun now, wasn’t it? I’m sorry to inform you, my beloved readers, that this will be my final Fun Friday Fact. It’s been real, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey, but I want to turn my attention elsewhere. I know you’ll understand. Goodbye, friends, goodbye.