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‘BBC History’ strikes again On the BBC Radio Four News at 18:00 tonight, there was a story about a ceremony in Spain marking the two hundredth anniversary of a ‘liberation struggle’.
The listeners were informed that this was a struggle against the Empire of Napoleon and it had helped create ‘modern Europe’ where everyone works together. Of course it was actually Napoleon who was working to ‘get all of Europe working together’ (it was called the Code Napoléon and Continental System). The words ‘national independence’, what the Spanish were actually fighting for, were not mentioned. And although it was mentioned that the British call the conflict ‘the Peninsula War’ the name “Wellington” was also not mentioned.
Sometimes I suspect that even North Korean radio presents a slightly less distorted view of the world than the BBC does.
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Gosh, I wonder how long before WW2 is only mentioned in Euphonisms- Churchill’s Leadership got the country into full production by stimulating the defence sector of the economy- that sort of thing? After all, the germans are now our neighbours, and we don’t want to upset anyone, do we?
By ill chance I heard this show just a few hours after I had paid my television tax.
Of course, even people who do not own a television get endless demands for the television tax.
And it is not just a question of threatening letters. Over the weekend a barrister in Wales told me of a case where a man had been convicted of not paying his television tax – even though he does not own a television.
An inspector thought he saw a “light” through the letter box and this was enough for the magistrates – although the case will go to appeal.
Hopefully, a jury will not be fanatical worshippers of the B.B.C. and collectivism generally. But with a British jury one can never be very confident.
On a similar note, Robin Cook (God rest his soul) once spoke of reuniting Europe:
“….. by 2010 we shall be well on the way to reuniting Europe. With up to a dozen new member states, the EU will have become the whole of the Continent, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and from the Black Sea to the Atlantic.”
Reunite? What did he consider to be the previous triumph of European integration?
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/nov/13/eu.foreignpolicy
Most of Europe was briefly united in 1942-1943, with only a few hold-outs, but the awkwardness of the german tongue meant that the project was not a success, even though the germans brought engineering excellence with them. Some anti-Europe bastard, first name Winston, really hated the whole idea. a pity- it would have put the french in their place.
On the BBC Radio Four News at 18:00 tonight…
Very off-topic, but does everyone use the 24-hour clock but the U.S.? We always use the 12-hour clock, even for TV listings, theater times, bus/train/airline schedules, you name it. The only, only Americans who regularly use and are comfortable with the 24-hour clock are fully-time military personel (in fact, we usually refer to the 24-clock as “military time”).
I didn’t realize until this post that, just like the Continentals and the Asians, the Brits used the 24-clock too.
Is this like using the metric system or thinking soccer’s exciting? Are we Americans the world’s only hold-outs with our ubiqitous 12-hour clock? Someone tell me it isn’t so!
Err, that should’ve been “full-time military personel.”
And I’m prett sure there’s a u after that q in “ubiquitous.”
Sigh.
Laura – both the 12 and 24 hour clocks are commonly used in Britain (just as both the imperial and metric systems are [or were?]).
By the way, soccer is correctly spelled f-o-o-t-b-a-l-l and pronounced accordingly but it does not in any way resemble the 24 hour clock or the metric system. 🙂
I remember only listening to BBC Radio 4 for Melvyn Bragg’s ‘In Our Time’ series – which was often interesting, and the history series he also ran (the name of which I forget). I’m not sure whether they appeal (appealed?) to Mr Marks, but I really ought to see if I can download some of those old history programmes – at the very least they serve as an example of something on Radio 4 that was not utterly ridiculous or loathsome. Unlike the Today programme, and James Naughtie in particular.
Laura, ignore Mike; ‘soccer’ is correct as it eliminates the requirement to specify which of the many codes of football you mean, ranging from the exciting (Aussie rules), through the ‘often interesting but not so much these days’ (Rugby), via the ‘OK but better on TV after editing’ (gridiron), to the terminally dull (Association). (Gaelic is not included in this continuum as it’s less a game, more a form of warfare.)
(Mike, no offence intended.)
Paul, good point; the depressing thing is, even supposedly educated people might know that Wellington narrowly won Waterloo (with a lot of help from the Prussians and some terrible mistakes by Boney), but haven’t a clue about the Peninsular campaign, or have heard of Sir John Moore, or the terrible privations of the Spanish, etc.
I believe the word “guerilla” originated in the Peninsula campaign.
Here’s to the memory of the victor of Vittoria, Salamanca, Toledo, etc….
It should be pointed out that the omission of the British role in this is not entirely the fault of the BBC – the Spaniards tend to completely forget it themselves. The topic came up recently during the presentation of this paper:
http://www.bsecs.org.uk/bsecasp/abstractForTopicPapers.asp?paperID=952&topicID=385
Of course, the BBC would probably not be very keen to correct them.
Is this like using the metric system or thinking soccer’s exciting?
…and drinking beer at room temperature, yes.
I suspect these things are related. Unfortunately, I have been unable to convince anyone around here that finding out how much room-temperature beer must be consumed before soccer becomes interesting has scientific merit.
It is a shame, I suspect this could be the key to a major breakthrough in understanding the european mind.
Laura,
I am one of the few Aussies I know, apart from the military, who uses the 24 hour clock. It is nothing to do with the metric system, or soccer.
And as a person who has no interest in football whatsoever, I really do recommend a quick read of the Aussie Rules rule book and a couple of hours watching a game.
A friend of mine from school, who was just a fair player, when his parents took him to the US for a year was grabbed as a star kicker at his US school and written up in the local paper.
Even I am fascinated by watching the big men fly to take a mark.
And I am almost ashamed to admit I understand that last sentence.
A. Sommer: the only reason American beer is drank cold, is because cold numbs the taste buds:-P (Note to Sunfish: home-brewed stuff not included).
Paul: if this show was ran on a different station, would it have been any more accurate/less biases?
Paul,
You bugging me or something? Yesterday afternoon I explained the continental system and the peninsula war to my wife. I did though mention the Iron Duke (me dun euro-bad). I always thought the channel tunnel railway ought to have been called the Napoleon Line because he did at least think of tunneling to England and because it would terminate at Waterloo. Now, St Pancras so the joke would fall somewhat flat. Kudos btw to John Betjeman for preventing St Pancras being “Eustonised”.
Laura,
We use the 24 hour clock on bus and train timetables. Interesting note, the RN always, wherever they are in the world runs on Zulu Time which is essentially GMT expressed 24hr-wise*. We are middling on metric though I prefer it – specifically SI metric. A great many astrophysicists still use cgs and it’s a major pain.
As far as the BBC tax is concerned – I prefer that term because it’s the BBC that gets the lot (and more) and everyone else has to muddle through on their merits and advertising. Anyway, the swine can now clamp your car for not paying. Is this not disproportionate?
*Still hasn’t got Arthur Batchelor’s IPod back though. Those Persian Swine!!!
Actually the real reason why the BBC didn’t mention Wellington is because then they would have had to mention Sharpe and that’s an ITV production.
May I just say, in respect of the sporting aspect of this comment thread, that there is only ONE sport and that is Association Football (otherwise and absurdly known as “soccer” among you colonial chappies). It is God’s Own Game.
All the rest are merely nerdy minority activites involving ..oh who cares?
nick g above:
Is this the same Winston who proposed an Anglo French Union and who called (Link)in 1945 for a “United States of Europe,” a federation of European states to promote harmonious relations between nations, economic cooperation, and a sense of European identity?
Talking of not paying the Licence fee…
There used to be a columnist in the Sunday Times a few years ago whos name I cant remember.
He wrote jokey little pieces about his buying property in France. Referred to as his starter Chateau.
He was also preparing to go to court for not paying the Licence.
Now he’s dissapeared. Anyone know who I’m talking about and what happened to the Court case?
Is he in Guantanimo or sumpthin?
Thaddeus Tremayne: Amen!
Ian:
Winston Churchill made it clear that he did not want the United Kingdom to be part of this “United States of Europe” (a point that Euros like “Ken” Clarke tend to leave out).
Alisa:
No the B.B.C. is not wildly worse than the other British broadcasting organizations – they are all “liberal left”, indeed the government administration structure means they have to be. If the “fairness docrtine” comes back in the United States the same thing will be the case there – all stations will be “unbiased” i.e. leftist.
However, had the absurd misreporting been on a commercial station at least I would not have been paying a tax to support it.
For relentless old Soviet style propaganda,
Euro News is the one to watch, if your blood pressure can take it.
Everything but everything is filtered through a Eurocentric point of view. I was in Italy when Marlon Brando died, and Euro News was the only english speaking channel I could get.
They announced the news thus:-
Marlon Brando the famous Hollywood actor died today.
His latter years were troubled and he died owing several million Euros…
EUROS!! He never laid eyes on a Euro!
Those were Dollars he owed, you asswipes!
Paul:
from the same source –
Churchill did not attempt to get Britain to join in the negotiations for European unity which were going on during his second premiership. When Harold Macmillan was negotiating for British entry into the EEC Churchill opposed that too.
We can all chery pick ian, from your own source …
“in July 1949 …, he addressed the intergovernmental-federal debate …At his own party conference in October he left Britain’s relationship with a united Europe undefined”
“Though he never expressed unqualified support for a federal Europe, favouring instead an intergovernmental approach, he fully exploited his status while out of power to avoid making hard choices”
At best he was ambivalent and certainly wouldn’t have supported the current stricture
Ian:
As I have already said, Winston Churchill was against the United Kingdom being a State of the United States of Europe.
The British Commonwealth was to be a bridge between Europe and the United States. If it was a State of a country called Europe it could not be a bridge to anything – something that “Tony” Blair and co do not understand.
Of course it was possible, although Winston hoped very unlikely, that some terrible dispute would come between them.
In which case, as Winston Churchill told De Gaulle, the Britain would side with the United States against the United States of Europe.
With the “open sea” over “Europe”. De Gaulle remembered this.
As for my own position:
I am quite open in holding that Winston Churchill was mistaken is supporting the creation of a United States of Europe (although I understand the reasons he did so at the time).
However, to say that Winston Churchill was a traitor to Britain who wised to turn an independent nation (the heart of the English speaking world) into a state of a European Union, is wrong.
The idea itself isn’t bad at all, and I don’t know why you all oppose it so much.
True, a socialist EU is no good, but the EU doesn’t have to be socialist. It just happens to be so because it is the spirit of the times. Britain, too, is not one iota less socialist (on it’s own) than the EU, and the US goes the same way.
It’s socialism that is bad, not the idea of a EU. It’s THIS union that is bad, not the principle of having a EU. And the EU as a whole is less socialist than some of it’s components (Italy, Greece, Norway), so maybe it exercises a good influence on these countries. It also has a stabilizing, and calming down influence. It helps, a little, in acheiving it’s main purpose: to prevent another European war.
Maybe Winston was right and Paul is wrong.
In a pigs eye!
Thanks, Paul. another question, re that guy who’s name RAB forgot: has the BBC license issue ever been taken to court?
. And the EU as a whole is less socialist than some of it’s components (Italy, Greece, Norway)
Norway isn’t a member of the EU.
Norway isn’t a member of the EU.
Norway signed on to the European Economic Area. While technically it isn’t part of the EU, it participates in the European Single Market and is required to adopt a great deal of EU legislation.
Jacob, I feel “the EU doesn’t have to be socialist. It just happens to be so because it is the spirit of the times” is mistaken. The very nature of the European “project” (for “every closer union” just in case your in any doubt) demands that supranational institutions such as the Commission and the Court of Justice create whole rafts of new rules, regulations and rights so as to supplant the regulatory and law-making authority of national governments, with the aim of state-building in Brussels. To me, this seems the epitome of big-government socialism – why have just one form of government when you could be lucky enough to have another, more remote, wasteful, undemocratic form of government hanging over your head?!
Furthermore, your right in saying that in some respects, the EU is no more or less socialist than the governments of its constituent parts. Big business is very partial to the competitive advantages EU regulation can throw its way, a key reason why big business is generally pro-EU. The views of smaller businesses are of course, somewhat different.
Capitalism and socialism can make great bed-fellows – to the detriment of liberty.
Anyone silly enough to still use the BBC as a news provider deserves the dumbed-down bias they get. Remember, we are only compelled to pay for BBC news, not to watch or listen to it.
News items like this just make me thankful every day that my parents left Europe after WWII for the USA.
I live in Madrid. The local TV station covered the various celebrations and TVE1 did an item from a museum that houses old military uniforms from the various participants. Both channels mentioned Wellington and the British. We were also shown a dinner set (complete with tea cups and china plates) that Wellington used during the campaign, that’s now housed in a glass case in the museum.
I can just see The Iron Duke taking elevenses in between skirmishes on the plains outside Salamanca.
Winston opposed a GERMAN-LANGUAGE Europe, but he was a franco-phile (the Country France, not the man Franco). He would not have worried if the French language had been the dominant one. More fool him. Still, i suppose the dominance of the English language was the sort of thing that nobody anticipated. Is French still supposed to be the second language anywhere now?
I don’t know about you, but I always get a thrill out of saying “English is now the World’s Lingua Franca.”
Alisa:
I do not know.
Norway:
E.U. regulations do not tend to control goods and services that are sold in Norway or to people in nations outside the E.U. – they control goods and services that are sold to people inside the E.U.
It is much the same with good and services produced in the United States and sold to people in the E.U. – and the United States is not a member of the “European Economic Area”.
Jacob.
I hope you are not confusing NATO with the E.E.C. – E.U.
It is NATO that prevented war in Western Europe – by deterring Soviet Attack (Germany being a shadow of its pre war self – in both population and land area, and following more classical liberal economic policies).
Whether the E.U. will lead to war has yet to be seen – but it certainly does nothing to make war less likely.
Jacob:
“Why are you so opposed to the E.U.?”
Let us start with the fact that E.E.C. was a customs union (not a free trade area) right from the start in 1957.
Also the aim (again from the start) was for the E.U. to be additional layer of government.
At first the subsides and regulations mostly concerned farming – but in recent decades E.E.C. – E.C. – E.U. powers have grown.
Today E.U. desires are responsible for about 80% of all new regulations. It has even introduced American absurdities such as “anti trust” on top of all the various European absurdities.
Plans for E.U. spending and control in various other areas (such as tax “harmonization”) continue to be worked upon.
“But if they E.U. was different”.
And if cats barked.
Besides it would still be an extra layer of government on top of all the rest.
“The idea itself isn’t bad at all, and I don’t know why you all oppose it so much.”
Well, Jacob, the concept of the EU, socialist or otherwise, inevitably leads to big government and I cannot see how it could be any different. The existence of individual nations acting as interest groups makes evermore regulation unavoidable. This regulation is imposed from above in a fundamentally undemocratic fashion with national parliaments becoming mere rubber stamps.
For those who believe in minimal government, accountability and liberty, bondage to the bloated EU Eurocracy (which has not had its accounts signed off by the auditors for 13 years) is an anathema.
“After all, the germans are now our neighbours, and we don’t want to upset anyone, do we?”
That the Germans were on the wrong side has already been airbrushed from history, apparently we were at war with some country called ‘Thenazis’. Seemingly no Germans were involved.
Is French still supposed to be the second language anywhere now?
Canada, and (I think) certain bits of Africa.
Absolutely.
You see, the true Germans were just going about their own business, and weren’t involved in any way. Moreover, they even did not know what was happening. Or so every German was saying after the war.
Was it also true that every Frenchman was in the Resistance, if he wasn’t in De Gaulle’s army?
Why do we Brits dislike the EU?
Hmmm, could it be we don’t like the fact that they don’t like us much? That they think we aren’t really truly European like what they are? Not worthy of being taken seriously.
I voted in the referendum in the ’70s in favour of joining the Europeans, as it was sold to as a way of improving trade – so who could be against that? No mention by the way of more government, more cash going out, more immigrants coming in. Not a mention of more socialist interference.
Oh well, it helped screw up the Bristish parliament no end, and pretty well buggered up any chances of us having another referendum.
The EU is demented and thoroughly out-dated. If I do web-design work it’s easier for me to work for an American or an Aussie than a Frenchman. I’m hardly unique in this respect. Hell, my wife translates for a living and she works for people everywhere! She does it in England but frankly anywhere with broadband would do.
So why are we in a union based purely on geographical proximity? I can be anywhere in the world within two days, I have ADSL, several computers and a webcam. The EU is stuck in the sodding C19th. They are obsessed with the idea of being some sort of bizarre “counter-weight” to the USA. Why? What exactly do I get from such pointless posturing? If the EU was in any way, shape or form into the idea of free trade wouldn’t they be considering making trade with the USA etc. easier? Surely that would make more sense than endless trade spats over bananas?
Here’s an alternative which makes at least as much sense. Why not an Anglospheric Union? The markets of London, NYC, LA, Sydney would be a joint market upon which the sun never sets.
Now, I’m not suggesting that but surely it makes at least as much sense as the bloody mess we’re in right now. So why is that almost unthinkable whereas the EU is seen as inevitable?
That’s what I hate about it. The fact it’s fans see European Union as inevitable almost in a sort of Hegelian way. Why? Isn’t the whole idea of a club of any description that membership is voluntary and an active choice. I mean hell’s teeth there’s a golf club just up the road from me and I’m not a member. By the EU way of thinking my membership should be inevitable. Even if I don’t like golf, which I don’t.