nunoncastors

It’s been naughtily hot recently hasn’t it? I say naughtily hot as ladies always seem to wear less and have “more upfront” in this sort of heat; a strange phenomenon but a welcome one. Yes indeed, naughtily hot.

Anyway, I’ve been rather rubbish on the whole blog front recently haven’t I? I’ve given up writing about Spain, as it is impossible to do so without complaining at least twice about my family. I don’t want to do that, it seems somewhat churlish all things considered, ungrateful almost, and I don’t wish to present a contrary view of an enjoyable jaunt.

A Welshman ran the local bar though, a bit strange that.

I’ll meander around to the theme of this post in a moment, I’m sure I will. In fact, here we go. July, it would seem, is a very busy month in terms of events worth considering. Least of all is the exit of England from the World Cup not, as would be apposite, in a blaze of glory, but to the accompaniment of a whimper. Barely a whimper if the truth be told. I thought I’d be more upset, I probably would have been were it not for other factors. I’m so inured now to my home nation failing miserably in all endeavours sporting that it scarcely registers a fleeting despondency. I was more upset to find out that the sandwich van that visits my work had run out of iced buns on Tuesday if I’m honest.

Moreover, when you think about it, really think about it, it is only a game and games are about fun. Well, not The Running Man, that’s about a clumsy analogy regarding the power of the media, but most games. However, if you think about it enough and are given to flawed comparisons you’ll notice that the day England lost to Portugal, the first of July, is the same day that the Somme offensive started. Now that is something worth getting upset over.

I admit I spent Saturday the first in a pub enjoying myself. I only took one minute out of my day to consider the countless thousands who died on the bloodiest day in British military history. One minute to consider the monumental waste of life hardly seems enough does it. Men, many younger than myself, marched forward into chattering machineguns to be cut down in their thousands. In the space of a day the British and Commonwealth forces lost 57,470 men around 19,240 of which were killed. Over the course of the battle, over one million men would become casualties.

I’ve a tendency to entertain romantic visions of war; I admire heroism and selflessness because I lack both. Themes such as courage and defiance in the face of terrible odds enthral me and sometimes I lose sight of the terrible truth; that war is nothing but waste. It is a horror beyond imagining, the most futile endeavour to which the human race has ever turned. There is no glory in it, no virtue, only pain and misery. That I sometimes forget this irritates me, as does the fact that I can never bring myself to dwell on the subject overlong before I find myself growing teary-eyed like some overwrought romanticist. It’s strange the things that affect you and how.

One day I’ll finally get ‘round to going back to France and Belgium to visit some of the cemeteries. Specifically, I want to visit the German cemeteries, I feel I should. I used to view them as some sort of evil bogeyman, less than human in a way, but with the benefit of an education and more maturity than I possessed aged eight, I understand that they were no different from our own troops. Just someone’s son or husband, following orders, doing what he felt he must.

Why does my train of thought always get derailed?

Oh, and obviously the fourth of July is quite important too if you don’t like tea or the British. It’s always struck me as a little bit odd that it’s always the English who get the stick about the American War of Independence when the Scots, Irish and Welsh were involved as well. No one ever mentions that.

I was going to post some photographs wasn’t I?