Thoughts of a Depressive Diplomatist

No-one should expect to be able to contact me tonight...

As most have you will realise by now, these days my blog tends to be reactive - something strikes my fancy and it sets me off down a path of further research or (more likely) a stream of consciousness.

So, if I'd been around to blog last week what would you have been reading?

When Franz and Sophie Met Gavrilo


I had intended to mark the centenary of the Sarajevo assassination by doing profiles of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Duchess Sophie and Gavrilo Princip.   Well, frankly, you'll have read all that elsewhere if you'd wanted to.

In an aside, the BBC kept referring to the assassination as 'the shot heard around the world'.  Well it might have been, but it jarred with me: the phrase was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson to describe the first shot of the American War of Independence at Concord, MA.  It's that kind of pedantry which you missed...  Oh what fun we would have had!

Flying Saucers to Mars...


NASA tested its saucer-shaped 'landing system', the Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD).  They did this by attaching it to a stadium-sized balloon and dropping it 180,000 above Hawaii.  The idea is to use this system to deliver robotic missions to Mars in advance of human exploration.

But Are Chas and Nailbrush Included?


Plasticine hero Morph returned from the dead, albeit on a YouTube channel, following a Kickstarter campaign.

Damn, Big Ship!


HM Queen Elizabeth wasted a single malt launching HMS Queen Elizabeth, a very fine looking aircraft carrier.  Unfortunately there aren't any planes to go on it and without a decent destroyer screen it's nothing but a very large target.  It seems HMS Prince of Wales will be mothballed before she (yes, she) is launched.

Told You So!


It was announced that Nurse Edith Cavell will be commemorated on a new £5.00 coin to be issued next year.

You Scratch Mine, I'll...


Famous tennis dress sold for £15,500.  Who would buy something like that?  I have my own theory.

This week we have some wonderful eccentricity and a tale full of interest to those wargamers out there who like to run Alternate WWII or VBCW...

Clarissa Dickson Wright (d. 15 Mar 2014) Cook and eccentric Daily Telegraph obit, 17 Mar 2014 Guardian obit, 17 Mar 2014 Independent obit, 18 Mar 2014

Bob Millard (d. 15 Mar 2014) Wartime 'auxilier' Daily Telegraph obit, 21 Mar 2014

Mike Parker (d. 23 Feb 2014) Font designer Daily Telegraph obit, 21 Mar 2014

Trevor Grills (d. 11 Feb 2013) - singer of sea shanties.
BBC 12 Feb 2013
Guardian 13 Feb 2013
Independent 14 Feb 2013



Reg Turnill (d. 12 Feb 2013) - journalist; the BBC's space man.
BBC 12 Feb 2013
Daily Telegraph 13 Feb 2013
Guardian 13 Feb 2013
Independent 18 Feb 2013

Nichole, Duchess of Bedford (d. 7 Sep 2012), French résistante who married into the British aristocracy and helped save Woburn Abbey










Tarbu the Parrot.  Final words - 'Cheerio!'
Daily Telegraph 15 Sep 2012

Neil Armstrong,  of course.  Use the label to see my entries and links to the obits.


















Jerry Nelson (d. 23 Aug 2012), muppeteer.
Daily Telegraph 27 Aug 2012
Independent 30 Aug 2012




















Ron Stephens, the last surviving crew-member of HMS Tarana, a vessel used during WWII for MI9 operations.
Guardian 28 August 2012









 








And should we mention the man who, wanting to fake Bigfoot sightings, put on a camouflage suit and stood in the middle of the road?  Yes, I think we shall.   'He probably would not have been very easy to see at all,' said Trooper Jim Schneider of the Montana Highway Patrol.

One for the Darwin Awards, I'm sure.







Not yet obituarised, but 'the Welsh Rosa Parks' died recently.  If nothing turns up next week, I'll blog.

One of the things about obit pages is that you get fortuitous juxtapositions.  Here we have a Muppeteer ('Nelson had a hand in Rowlf') and a V&A arms and armour expert.

What more could you ask for to read over your cornflakes?

Jerry Nelson

Tony North

Neil Armstrong died yesterday.

I think I'll do a more considered post about him later in the week, once I've digested the tributes and press coverage that we'll have.  But first my own thoughts before I've read any of them.

I was too young for the Apollo Missions - my own interest in the Space Programme was inspired by Viking and Voyager and the amazing pictures we had of Mars and the Outer Planets on John Craven's Newsround which pulled me into The Sky at Night.  Perhaps because of that, I tend to side with the probes and robots in the Manned/Unmanned debate on space exploration.  However, Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gargarin have always stood out to me as inspirational characters.

Although Armstrong shared the fighter-pilot background with the other Gemini and Apollo astronauts, he comes across as different - less brash, more considered.  This might not be fair on his colleagues, but it was certainly how he was presented at the time and since.

Armstrong's position as the odd man out among the moonwalkers can be seen in Andrew Smith's excellent book Moondust: In search of the men who fell to Earth - a major part of the book is taken up with whether Armstrong is actually going to let Smith interview him.  First Man, the authorised biography by James R Hansen, paints a picture of a modest, reserved man happy to be regarded as a geek and who would rather be a professor of engineering - inspiring and informing youth - than lead the celebrity life.  Hansen's book is rather turgid in its detail, so I can't unreservedly recommend it.  But perhaps it's worth the detail to read the story of the Eagle Scout who stepped out onto the Moon's surface...

Last week the BBC aired The Best of Men, a very good docu-drama about Sir Ludwig Guttmann (1899-1980) starring the always-excellent Eddie Marsan.

I'd never heard of Guttmann, but he was a very interesting character.  A Jewish refugee, he was invited to establish the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1943.  Recognising the importance of sport therapy, in 1948 (to co-incide with the opening of the London Olympics) he established an annual sporting competition for paraplegics.  By 1952 the Stoke Mandeville Games had attracted more than 130 international competitors, and in 1960 they were held alongside the Olympic Games in Rome - those are now recognised as the first Paralypic Games.

Hopefully, Guttmann is going to be featured prominently in the London Games and will become better-known.