Ancient Wit 155

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It is my birthday! I had a celebratory dinner last night in the home of very dear friends from student days. whom I had not seen for decades. We regaled each other with stories of those long ago times, and for a while were young again.

I heard again how I forgot about one of my finals and had to be helped, too drunk to walk, into the examination room but still got a first. Absolutely true but I had forgotten it until reminded. I did remember the tales of Clement Freud’s sleaziness while Rector in his advances on female students. There was one story in hearing which I took a shamelessly big-headed delight, of when we were at a Clement Freud speech in a formal university occasion. Rather pompously, he said: “You know when you are doing the job of Rector properly when the University Court thinks you are on the students’ side, and the students think you are on the Court’s side”. I interjected loudly “Two-faced bastard” and brought the house down.

If you live long enough you will make some jokes worth retelling.

But I haven’t changed in one respect. Just as I managed to miss the start of a final exam, I managed today to miss my speech to SNP conference by not being in the hall when called. I simply misread the programme, though to be fair to myself the programme is not plain whether the resolution would be in the 10am resolutions session or the 11.30am session. I am annoyed with myself nonetheless.

The motion was on the BBC Charter and I had wished to move a reference back on the grounds that it was not radical enough in its treatment of the BBC. SNP activists are continually accused in the media of being against journalistic freedom in their “attacks” on the BBC. I intended to say that, after a great deal of professional experience monitoring state propaganda organisations around the world, I know one when I see one. To oppose the propaganda output of a state propaganda organisation is not to oppose media freedom, it is to promote it. I missed out on the applause this would have got in the hall. You can applaud now.

I was fortunate in that for the whole of my twenty years in the FCO I had staff working for me who could organise me. Tell me where I was supposed to be, take me there, and make sure I didn’t forget my coat, briefcase or wallet. Without this structure around me, life is a constant struggle against my own impracticality.

Oh well, I have got through 57 years of this. If the next forty are even slightly as enjoyable, I have much to look forward to.

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155 thoughts on “Ancient Wit”

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  • John Spencer-Davis

    Mary
    17/10/2015 5:22pm

    Hey, no, not me! My birthday’s May 1, International Labour Day.

    Kind regards,

    John

  • Why be ordinary?

    I had not before thought of Craig as a cross between Pope John Paul and Evil Knievel – but it might explain a lot.

  • Mary

    SNP delegate accuses BBC of producing more ‘lies’ than Nazis in heated conference event
    BBC coverage compared to Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda as event descends into heckles of “shame” and walkouts http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11937498/SNP-delegate-accuses-BBC-of-producing-more-lies-than-Nazis-in-heated-conference-event.html

    Is the Torygraph strapline true or false?

    ~~~

    Q What is a warier?

    ‘Another criticised the BBC for not bidding to create Outlander, a television series about a Highlands warier that was bought by American online broadcaster Netflix.’

  • Lance Vance

    @Tony M:

    You may have forgot to mention- I’m sorry I haven’t a clue. That is still a very funny show.

  • Courtenay Barnett

    HAPY BIRHTDAY – MY HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE FRIEND – CRAIG MURRAY,

    You fight in your internationally large way. I fight in my small way.

    http://www.tciaffairs.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Correspondence-in-relation-to-inmate-Alvin-Stanford.pdf

    http://www.tciaffairs.net/news/attorney-courtenay-barnett-replies-to-the-governor-of-the-turks-and-caicos-islands-on-the-issue-of-imprisoning-mentally-ill-persons-at-her-majestys-prison/

    http://www.tciaffairs.net/news/response-from-harvard-law-school-on-the-use-of-her-majestys-prison-for-the-confinement-of-mentally-ill-persons/

    AN OPEN LETTER TO PM DAVID CAMERON
    http://www.pambazuka.net/en/category.php/features/95671
    http://williambowles.info/2015/10/08/pambazuka-news-745-8-october-2015-celebrating-the-joys-and-costs-of-resistance/

    You,as I am,are an “October man”. I am your senior Craig (i.e. in age that is). I turned 61 this past October. My friend, Lord Anthony Gifford ( another fighter for justice, had graced me with his presence at my sixtieth last year. I had said to my daughter, who insisted that I have a party – “I am getting old – what do I have to celebrate?” – “Someone should be commiserating for me.”

    Fortunately young chap – you have a few to go to catch me up.

    All the best to you and keep up the good work.

    I do appreciate what you have done – are doing – and hopefully shall continue to do.

    Again – HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

    Courtenay

  • Courtenay Barnett

    See: I am getting old – just noticed after posting that I forgot how to spell the word “Happy” – as distinct from “Hapy”.

    When you get to 60 you will feel my pain as well Craig.

    Again – have a great one.

  • lysias

    Reinforcing the story that Libya was responsible for Lockerbie will keep attention away from potential Iranian responsibility, and thus, among other things, for the fact that the U.S. Navy had shot down the Iranian Airbus.

    I well remember how, when I was working in the Pentagon, my boss, one of the chief civilian lawyers in the Department of Defense, told me of how Captain Rogers, the skipper of the U.S.S. Vincennes, had a reputation for being trigger-happy. And, after the shootdown, the U.S. government proceeded to lie its head off about the incident, among other things, claiming that the Vincennes was in international waters. Vice President Bush said something like, “I don’t care what the truth is. I will never apologize for the United States.” And the U.S. media went along with the lies.

    Just as they went along with the lies of the Warren Commission. As I have just been reading in David Talbot’s new book about Allen Dulles The Devil’s Chessboard.

  • Tony M

    Lance Vance @7:28pm. I’ll grant you that, it has its followers, it had its moments, Humphrey Lyttleton swearing like a trooper unashamedly amongst them, though it’s not something I would pine for and there is the back catalogue. Which is really all they have, present output somewhere always overtly or smuggled in has fawning nods to their masters’ narratives. The establishment, with a few supplicant outsiders who’ve crawled under the wire, landing soft punches on the establishment, gets wearing after a while.

    Before someone mentions the aqueducts, that wasn’t the BBC, it was ITV, I think. Still we have got the world’s (crooks) favourite financial regulators and a stupefied population perpetually on the hook for the money-changers’ mighty losses.

  • lysias

    That’s what Italians say too: “Cent’ann'”. You can hear it in one of the Godfather movies.

  • Ben-Outraged by the Cannabigots

    Rogers, like loose-cannon-Patton ostensibly have handlers to regulate outcomes from psychopathic passion and over-eager XO’s just inches from the red button. I would love to know who at Command gave him the ‘good to go’.

  • Hoss

    Happy Birthday Craig.

    Don’t worry about your speech to conference. You can always do it next year – the BBC will still be pumping out their anti-independence propaganda.

  • RobG

    https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/

    In early September, David Cameron gave a much touted speech about the refugee crisis, in which he said that the UK would accept 20,000 refugees during the lifetime of this Parliament (about 4,000 a year, compared to tens and hundreds of thousands that other European countries are taking in). Cameron then followed this up with a statement that caused an intake of breath in the Commons:

    “Today I can inform the House that in an act of self-defence and after meticulous planning Reyaad Khan was killed in a precision air strike carried out on 21 August by an RAF remotely piloted aircraft while he was travelling in a vehicle in the area of Raqqah in Syria.

    In addition to Reyaad Khan who was the target of the strike, 2 ISIL associates were also killed, 1 of whom – Ruhul Amin, has been identified as a UK national. They were ISIL fighters and I can confirm there were no civilian casualties”.

    https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/syria-refugees-and-counter-terrorism-prime-ministers-statement

    The UK now routinely carries out extra-judicial killings, and no one raises a breath against it.

    It’s terrifying stuff.

  • RobG

    Clark, a happy birthday to Craig also from me, and best wishes to you as well, and I hope you keep on posting.

    Human existence is just one big lunatic asylum.

    It always has been.

    Nothing new.

    But every one of us can make a difference.

    Really, we can.

    Just stand up to these feckers.

  • John Spencer-Davis

    Clark
    18/10/2015 11:57pm

    A warm welcome, Clark, very glad to see you back.

    If you feel you want to stay, I for one will be very pleased. And I know I’ll be far from alone (as RobG has just demonstrated).

    Kind regards,

    John

  • craig Post author

    Thanks to everyone for all the kind wishes on my birthday, and best wishes to those that share it! Happy Clark is back. Clark you have been an invaluable support to me and my family for several years now.

  • Clark

    That’s very kind of you Craig; I feel sure that it has been you, your family and many people in Scotland that have been supporting me. If I have been of help I’m very glad of that. The referendum result was heartbreaking. I mustn’t let myself think that way; nearly half supported radical change, but over a year on I still feel haunted by the atmosphere in Glasgow that weekend.

  • Clark

    RobG and John, thanks. I think I’ll probably be too busy to follow the comment threads for a while. I know that many others here will offer me kind wishes; thanks to them in advance, and my apology to all that I don’t always hold together very well.

  • glenn

    Rather belated, but happy birthday Craig!

    Clark, it’s nice to see you here. I actually met with Brian Haw a couple of times, did an interview with him and so on. Remarkable fellow. A few scrotes on bikes came along and threatened us, they didn’t have a clue what the sit-in was about. I thought we were in for a spot of ‘bovver’, if you know what I mean, but within moments Haw had them chilled, listening to him, and they actually apologised for their earlier behaviour. My interview was done by that point, so I left him explaining why he was protesting to an increasingly large group of interested youngsters.

  • Jives

    Lovely to see you back Clark.

    You have many friends here-and other places too..

    My very best wishes to you bro…im really happy youre back posting!

    =)

  • Canexpat

    Happy Birthday Craig.

    As my adopted nation Canada continues its slide to the status of Neocon colony/puppet I appreciate all the more your sanity in a world of lies. Thank you.

    B.T.W. I was never a fan of Clement Freud and love that his name became rhyming slang for arse cherries – it seems so appropriate somehow.

  • Silvio

    Many happy returns, Craig. Speaking of Canexpat’s reference above to “neocon colonies and puppets”, a new documentary has just been released which examines the neocon movement and its influence on US government policy. The video makes the case that the influence of the neocon philosophy on US foreign policy is the driving factor in today’s cold war revival.

    There is a short trailer posted on vimeo with a link underneath to the website to download or order the full video on DVD. Warning the trailer video does contain an episode of rather loud swearing, so adjust your volume appropriately for your surroundings. The trailer video is embedded at the link below.

    A Very Heavy Agenda

    Post-9/11, the War on Terror had outlived its usefulness. The minds behind the think tanks that drive America’s interventionist foreign policy decided that the U.S. needed a new enemy, so they chose an old one — Russia.

    Part 1: A Catalyzing Event 1hr 25mins

    Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were ubiquitous in the news media as they took every available opportunity to market to America an aggressive preemptive war policy. But from where did their ideas originate? The answer is a tightly knit and eminently well placed group of neoconservative thought leaders, chief among them Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan. Part 1 begins in the panicked weeks after 9/11, as Kagan et al. seized upon the hysteria surrounding the anthrax letter attacks to further shape America’s perception of reality, planting the seeds for endless future military engagements. George W. Bush may have been understandably perceived as an idiot, but watching these wonks and academics drive the ideological engine for his administration belies a much more sophisticated strategy at play.

    Part 2: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The New Neocons 1hr 35mins

    After the Cold War, the US-NATO reach expanded significantly to take in most of the old Soviet Union clients in the Warsaw pact. Neoconservative darling Robert Kagan and his diplomat wife Victoria Nuland played key roles inside and out of various administrations and think tanks as they greased the skids for a US-sponsored coup in Ukraine. Part 2 shows the resurrection of old cold warriors from beltway depths to deliver blatant propaganda with techniques reminiscent of a red scare era that had only just faded from memory. US-funded outfits like Radio Free Liberty are pitted against Russia’s RT as each nation accuses the other of waging an ever more desperate and transparent “Information War”.

    Part 3: Maintaining the World Order 1hr 30mins

    “When the Berlin wall fell, our work wasn’t finished”. — Victoria Nuland, November 2013

    “Fuck the EU” — Victoria Nuland, February 2014

    While stage managing the American empire has undoubtedly proved to be a more difficult task now than in the bipolar world of the cold war era, it is not for lack of greed or hubris that the Kagans and others continue to sell their vision. Did they create these ideas because they truly believe in America’s right to be the dominant force in the world? Or, do these ideas help sell weapons and control resources like oil and rare minerals? Part 3 shows interview footage of an obscure PNAC member (Thomas Donnelly) taking credit for the ominous “New Pearl Harbor” phrasing in the notorious ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’ document. But the evidence shows the genesis of the concept to be patriarch Don Kagan, in conjunction with his son Fred, in prior op-eds that call for ‘a catalyzing event’. Other newly sourced footage shows the pair advocating for a US military ground invasion of Palestine on September 12th, 2001 and displaying an unnerving prescience about the 9/11 attacks themselves.

    https://vimeo.com/140415359

  • Mary

    How wonderful to hear from you again Clark. Best wishes.

    RIP dear Brian Haw. Remember how they persecuted him even towards his end.

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