"Christmas Truce" supermarket ad causes kerfuffle in UK

[Occam's Banana]

h/t Travis Holte @ LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/...n-capitalists/

How Dare Those Rotten Capitalists
make a television ad for Christmas that shows the absurdity of War?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM


Complaints flood in over Sainsbury's Christmas in the trenches advert: Viewers' anger over use of WWI to promote supermarket
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-company.html
Jack Crone (14 November 2014)

Hundreds of viewers have reacted angrily to the new Sainsbury’s Christmas advert - released just two days ago - for its 'cynical' use of First World War imagery to promote the supermarket's brand.

A total of 240 people have registered complaints with the advertising watchdog with the majority of those objecting to the supermarket's distasteful use of the conflict's 1914 Christmas Truce.

The watchdog has not yet launched an investigation but says it will continue to assess complaints over the dramatic three-minute recreation of the famous truce - when British and German soldiers laid down their weapons and met in no man's land.

The controversial advert has so far divided opinion - being branded both 'cynical' and 'wonderful' - and one expert has even claimed watching the clip left him feeling 'unclean' and 'upset'.

Britain's third biggest supermarket maintains the commercial is a 'sensitive' recreation of the moment British and German soldiers laid down their arms to exchange gifts and play football, and said the response has been 'overwhelmingly' positive.

After receiving 240 complaints, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) today told MailOnline it has not yet launched an investigation but will continue to assess people's calls.

Sainsbury's reconstructed the trenches scenes with the help of a war historian to celebrate the supermarket's 20 years of support for the Royal British Legion, which runs the annual poppy campaign.

While some called it moving and brilliant others were saying it was an 'exploitative' way for a big business to advertise itself.

Neil Kelley, an advertising expert at Leeds Beckett University told the Mirror the advert made him feel 'unclean' adding: 'It’s a lovely story from history but I find it upsetting they’ve used the First World War as a vehicle to promote a supermarket.

[... more at link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...e-company.html ...]

[oyarde]

What is the basis of complaint ? Who is making them shop there ?

[Suzanimal]

'People are saying that it's not clear from the outset that this is an advert.

What'd they think it was? A news report?

Just a thought...
I wonder if they would be in a "kerfuffle" if it had been produced by the government or royal family instead of a *gasp* supermarket.

We haven't yet launched an investigation. We will carefully assess the complaints to establish grounds for further action.'

Well there ya go, the watchdogs at the ACA are on the case. I'm sure they'll get this whole "kerfuffle" straightened out before Christmas - or not but it's good to know they're keeping an eye on the situation.

Neil Kelley, an advertising expert at Leeds Beckett University told the Mirror the advert made him feel 'unclean' adding: 'It’s a lovely story from history but I find it upsetting they’ve used the First World War as a vehicle to promote a supermarket. 'The sentiment behind it, sup*porting the RBL, is sound, but there’s something that doesn’t sit right with the use of the war. It doesn’t bring home any of the horrors... I think there’s a possibility veterans may be aggrieved too.'

I guess Neil Kelley preferred the penguin ad.

The founders of clothing company Holroyd and Pickles tweeted: 'How do you think my great great grandfather would feel knowing his bravery had been reduced to advertising Sainsbury's?'

Who knows? Maybe that was the one thing that happened during that awful war that made him feel like a human being. Maybe he liked candy bars. I guess we'll never know because he's dead. BTW, a lot of real $#@!bags made money off your great great grandfathers bravery. I hope you saved some outrage for them.

On a side note...
I'd be more worried about what your great great grandfather thinks of the clothes you sell at Holroyd and Pickles, cuz' I visited your website and they're hideous. How do you think my great great grandmother would feel knowing her femininity had been reduced to wearing gray sacks with words like "revolting" stamped on them? Who do I call to register a complaint?
http://www.holroydandpickles.com/hp-shop/

Juliette AdAstra added her concerns, saying: 'If there's anything more tasteless and cynical than the Sainsbury's Christmas advert, I've yet to see it'.

Juliette AdAstra lives a sheltered life. Bless her heart...
I can think of a million trillion things more "tasteless and cynical" than that ad.



My opinion...

I liked the ad and the word "kerfuffle".

One more thing...

If these folks are so worried about exploitation, they should really be in a "kerfuffle" with the MIC, their cohorts in the government and the propagandists in the media pushing for the next/current military engagement(s). *Sigh* Now I'm in a "kerfuffle" and I want a candy bar.

[pessimist]

My opinion...

I liked the ad and the word "kerfuffle".

One more thing...

If these folks are so worried about exploitation, they should really be in a "kerfuffle" with the MIC, their cohorts in the government and the propagandists in the media pushing for the next/current military engagement(s). *Sigh* Now I'm in a "kerfuffle" and I want a candy bar.

Haha. me too! me too! <removed smilie> *too coquettish*

"kerfuffle" is an awesome word AND I also want a candy bar

[Suzanimal]

Haha. me too! me too!

"kerfuffle" is an awesome word AND I also want a candy bar

LOLZ at your edit.

[GunnyFreedom]

Put me in the 'moving and brilliant' camp.

So let me get this straight, these people are OK with advertising relating to Christmas, cheapening the alleged birthday of the Messiah with a commercial endeavor (alleged because He was actually born in September, on Tabernacles), but God forbid they cite WW1?

So these people seriously think WW1 is holier than GOD???

[pessimist]

LOLZ at your edit.

How observant of you <removed smilie>

[mosquitobite]

I *loved* the ad!!!!

Me thinks it makes the Christians FF despises uncomfortable!!

[jmdrake]

Put me in the 'moving and brilliant' camp.

So let me get this straight, these people are OK with advertising relating to Christmas, cheapening the alleged birthday of the Messiah with a commercial endeavor (alleged because He was actually born in September, on Tabernacles), but God forbid they cite WW1?

So these people seriously think WW1 is holier than GOD???

It's worse than that. These idiots are upset about an ad promoting peace to celebrate the Prince of Peace. I bet if the ad showed modern British soldiers stationed around the world and ended with a "Thank you for keeping us free" there wouldn't have been any complaints. The complainers are evil. That's all I will say.

[Pericles]

Put me in the 'moving and brilliant' camp.

So let me get this straight, these people are OK with advertising relating to Christmas, cheapening the alleged birthday of the Messiah with a commercial endeavor (alleged because He was actually born in September, on Tabernacles), but God forbid they cite WW1?

So these people seriously think WW1 is holier than GOD???

"Whatever you do, don't mention the war." is often heard in the UK. I think it is a terrific Christmas message. It works because both sides in the conflict shared a common culture and is impolite today, because it illustrates that conflict today is between different cultures that can not be reconciled.

[FindLiberty]

IMO, conflicts today are ORCHESTRATED BY or between GUBERMINTS.

[helmuth_hubener]

conflict today is between different cultures that can not be reconciled.

I disagree profoundly.

[pessimist]

"Whatever you do, don't mention the war."

***

[phill4paul]

Should become a full length feature film. Honestly. Along with the high commands moves to dismantle this humanity in the midst of their war. And the subsequent use of gas. And tied all in and wrapped around Wilfred's "Dolce et decorum est."

Dulce et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.





A grand film that would be.

[Suzanimal]

How observant of you

I read everything. The reasons for your edits are usually quite witty.

[pessimist]

I read everything. The reasons for your edits are usually quite witty.

<removed sheldon cooper pic>

[Anti Federalist]

I remember reading about this when I was just a boy, and it brought a tear to my eye then, just as it did now.

I agree.

+rep

Put me in the 'moving and brilliant' camp.

So let me get this straight, these people are OK with advertising relating to Christmas, cheapening the alleged birthday of the Messiah with a commercial endeavor (alleged because He was actually born in September, on Tabernacles), but God forbid they cite WW1?

So these people seriously think WW1 is holier than GOD???

[pessimist]

this thread is....weird.

you have an hilarious and entertaining reply to the article which sprung some weird back and forth banter full of flattery, jokes, and smilies- mixed into that was serious replies about war seemingly unrelated to the ad in the OP.

to add to the confusion you have a fawtly towers clip, a sheldon cooper sarcasm pic, and a post demonstrating a profound disagreement over something. what a kerfuffle!

[georgiaboy]

Should become a full length feature film. Honestly. Along with the high commands moves to dismantle this humanity in the midst of their war. And the subsequent use of gas. And tied all in and wrapped around Wilfred's "Dolce et decorum est."

...
A grand film that would be.

You mean like this? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

[green73]

I remember reading about this when I was just a boy, and it brought a tear to my eye then, just as it did now.

I agree.

+rep

I have to admit it did the same to me.

[Suzanimal]

The UK's advertising regulator has not found grounds to investigate this year's Christmas ad from supermarket Sainsbury's, despite the commercial sparking 727 complaints claiming it was "offensive" because it uses a World War I tale to promote the brand, and separate allegations that it was "misleading" because it was not clear from the outset that the spot was an ad.

The ad, created by agency AMV BBDO, depicts the remarkable true story of real events that took place on Christmas day 1914, when troops on both sides of the conflict downed their weapons, emerged form their trenches and exchanged seasonal songs and gifts. The two armies also played friendly games of football to mark the festive occasion, an image also featured in the ad.

The Advertising Standards Authority assessed the complaints received, but has decided there are not grounds for investigation and is closing the case.

In a statement the UK ad watchdog adds: "While we recognize that some have found the use of the First World War for advertising purposes to be distasteful, the ad is not likely to break the rules surrounding harm or offense. We also considered that the ad is obviously distinguishable from editorial content and is therefore not likely to mislead."

Alongside the TV campaign, Sainsbury's has partnered with the Royal British Legion to sell the vintage-looking chocolate bar that appears in the ad in stores for £1, with 50p of each purchase going to the charity.

Sainsbury's told Marketing Week earlier this month that it was selling 5,000 of the chocolate bars every hour.

The ad has been viewed more than 12 million times on YouTube, although many of the comments below the video are critical of the choice of storyline. One user, Beckie02, writes: "I wish this wasn't an advert... :/. The motivation behind it’s [SIC] creation sullies it. It feels a bit tasteless/wrong...As a video on it's own, it's good."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/asa-w...#ixzz3KY6McEJG

[osan]

Put me in the 'moving and brilliant' camp.

So let me get this straight, these people are OK with advertising relating to Christmas, cheapening the alleged birthday of the Messiah with a commercial endeavor (alleged because He was actually born in September, on Tabernacles), but God forbid they cite WW1?

So these people seriously think WW1 is holier than GOD???

Any time that, in my depression at what I see around me in this land, I get to feeling America is the most stupid nation on earth, I remind myself of the UK and all is sunny and bright once again.

Honest to God, the packing density of sheer imbecility qualifies the UK as a new form of black hole.

I would not be worried about the effects of the LHC. I'd be far more concerned that whatever it is that's infecting the UK will somehow spread. The black plague has NOTHING on the Brits. They are now, in fact, the most profoundly stupid people in the universe.

[osan]

Something like this would never be produced today. The PC NAZI-phaggs would be on you like stink on rice.

[Occam's Banana]

You mean like this? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0424205/

h/t LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/no_author/1914/

"Merry Christmas" - a film about the 1914 truce (France, 2005)
http://thelibertarianalliance.com/20...e-france-2005/
Sean Gabb (03 December 2015)

I personally find the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front remarkable for the following reason: using the famous image about the lamps going out across Europe, the Christmas truce can be viewed as the very last flickering of the dying pre-WW1-era. An era when borders were just lines on the map, when passports were limited to autocratic societies such as Russia (or rather, when autocratic societies were limited to places such as Russia). When money was worth its weight in gold and not in paper. When a word of honour still had weight. When the only contact most people in Britain had with the state was when they entered a post office. And when there still was – despite the rising nationalism and chauvinism – a strong sense of common European heritage. A large chunk of which being Christianity. Without it, the truce would not have happened.

Now, Sainsbury’s have discovered the power of this story – and that’s welcome news. It’s a good sign that a part of the ruling class is using images and ideas that run contrary to their beliefs and aims. It means they and their current religion of state idolatry are running out of steam. But I don’t want to talk about the advert. I want to talk about an earlier cinematic rendition, and about the truce itself.

In 2005, a feature film about this event was produced, entitled “Merry Christmas”, directed by Frenchman Christian Carion. It is of course not a precise record of what took place that evening and the following days. The narration has condensed, into one setting, events that took place at many parts of the front simultaneously. Altogether it is an adequate and fitting tribute to those soldiers who, defying orders and manipulations from above, and probably remembering the promise that it would all be over by Christmas, fraternised with the enemy, exchanged presents and even services such as haircuts.

As the film begins, three poems are recited, each by one schoolboy aged about 10. One French, one English, one German. The French poem talks about fetching back “the children of Alsace”. The German boy declares that Germany has “one enemy alone”, that being England. It is the English poem however that is really spine chilling and blood curdling. Here it is in full:

“To rid the map of every trace
Of Germany and of the Hun
We must exterminate that race
We must not leave a single one
Heed not their children’s cries
Best slay all now, the women, too
Or else someday again they’ll rise
Which if they’re dead, they cannot do.”

(See also this YouTube [or see below - OB])

I have found no references to this poem other than in connection with the film. However, it looks authentic to me. It fits the propaganda, which in England was miles “better”, more effective, than anyone else’s in demonising the enemy. It’s also the kind of thing people said at the time, across Europe. “Gott strafe England” and all that.

Anyway, back to the film. I wouldn’t call it a great film. Neither is it bad though. If not great art, it is still the work of expert craftsmanship. It has a stringent story line. It has much good acting by good actors. It – mostly – avoids slipping into soppiness. Considering the subject matter, tragedy is balanced by some well placed doses of comedy that never tip into flippancy. It has a good score and fairly realistic images (although the mud is too dry) and sound. It is spoken in three languages: French, English and German. Actually, there is a fourth language, spoken by all during the Midnight Mass: Latin, which symbolises the dying common cultural/religious heritage. By the way, it is fitting that near the end a British (Roman Catholic) bishop preaches a very belligerent sermon (one which, according to Carion, was actually given in Westminster Cathedral in 1915). Outwardly a representative of Christianity, he is actually spouting chapter and verse of another religion, one that equates the state with God.

The film is well researched. In order to create more of a story, the narrative had to be exaggerated. But most elements are based on fact. For example in the film a woman opera singer has come to visit the German trench. She is the girlfriend of one of the soldiers, who himself is an opera singer. In the post-film interview available on the DVD, the director claims that some women, driven by love, actually made it to the fighting zone to meet their men (though not necessarily at Christmas). Also, there really was a famous – male – German opera singer (called Walter Kirchhoff) who visited the trenches that Christmas Eve and when he sang a French officer recognized his voice and applauded. The singer then went into No Man’s Land which is how in that section of the front the truce began.

Having said it is not a great film, it is so far the only feature film exclusively about the Christmas truce. Regardless of its qualities, it has one great merit: it brought the knowledge of this spontaneous peacemaking to modern day France and Germany.

It was the Germans who “started it” (the Christmas truce that is, because Christmas Eve is the big Christmas event over there), but – apart from the few participants who survived – they soon forgot about it, as did the French. It was the British who preserved the memory. And there is a very interesting reason for this, one pertaining to libertarianism. In the early months of the war, the press in Britain was not yet censored, and the soldiers’ letters were not spied upon by their superiors. (Or rather, in the words of film director Clarion, the British army was “not so efficient” in controlling the soldiers’ communication.) So, word got out. But only in Britain. France and Germany did not have a comparably strong liberal tradition and therefore found it easier to quickly drop any vestiges of it. So they forgot. The letters home to Britain, reporting the Christmas truce, were not intercepted. Once the families had received them, many got passed on to the papers, which ran the story.

So it was the Germans who set the truce going, rekindling once more, through ancient tradition, the extinguished lights of a more liberal, peaceful and civilised Europe. It was the British who preserved the memory of it, largely because it was here that liberalism lingered the longest. And it was a Frenchman who, with an entertaining and engaging film, opened up that memory to the world.

Some quotes from the film.


Joyeux Noël - opening warmonger poems
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C24ww7GoFLA

[osan]

In case anyone has not perceived/conceived the deeper element of this Christmas truce thingy, I will bring it to the fore just for the sake of it.

The ad portrays a real event that happened in the midst of the world's first largely mechanized war. It was a brutal affair where the tactics of the Old World ran face-first into the Maxim, tanks, and aircraft. Nobody really knew what to do, so they dug trenches in order to avoid being cut to ribbons by the unfeeling machines that cared no whit for where their handlers caused them to spew their messages.

Consider what must have gone on in the minds of those young men, most of whom arrived at the front all fueled up with the youthful lust for adventure and glory, and who had been raised on the romanticized stories of endless ranks of soldiers facing one another at range and taking their volleys in turn. Can you imagine the shock they must have suffered when they ended up in those sopping wet, cold trenches? Can you imagine the compounding of their bewilderment and horror as they watched entire legions of their fellows cut to bits by mechanized enemy fire? The comparatively insignificant Battle of Arras alone, a mere 4-day event, left over forty thousand soldiers slain. If you want a first-hand account of one man's experiences in shock, surprise, depression, and the fall into hopelessness, I strongly recommend the tome, "War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator" by John McGavock Grider. But I warn you that it may make you cry by the end. His last diary entry is heart breaking. He was killed one or two days later.

Now to the point: look not only at what happened, but bear in keen mind the context. The chain of obedience was broken! How many times in human history have we seen this? Not too many and fewer still of this particular nature. This event has to be very nearly unique - certainly so in modern history. The soldiers simply stopped. Halt yourself for a moment and do not proceed any further. Now go back and read that four-word sentence again and perhaps even a few more times. As you do so, let your mind penetrate deeply into the significance of the event - its sheer and utter simplicity and perhaps even more shockingly, the immediacy with which the choice was at hand.

Why did it happen? Because a young man stepped away from the noise of the orthodoxy in response to the silence that had descended upon that theatre, in that moment. Then, hearing the voices of his German brothers, that young man was illuminated by the Divine and he saw. This seeing is sight that is perfect and penetrates everything. Nothing can hide from it and no truth can be obscured. When so gifted, during those moments anything is possible, and at that very moment something which seemed to everyone else to be completely and insanely impossible became real. Imagine the nerve it took to poke one's head out of the trench in that "three on a match" world! Snipers everywhere, ready, waiting, and willing to end anything moving within their field of fire.

I do not for a moment believe that that first young soldier did what he did with the intention of breaking command discipline. Rather, he did so because of his newfound sense of perception, coupled with I am sure was his weariness of the fear he carried with him day in and day out for his very life. And then, upon hearing those divine voices carried on the still air as they chanted plainsong that I am sure was sacred to most of those men in ways that perhaps many of us cannot fully understand, that boy fell into the courage that only the most profound and divinely sourced inspiration can bring. Even though his fear was almost certainly alive and well within his bosom, the courage that had come to well up within him pushed it aside and impelled him forward into that uncertain night. Try for a moment to imagine what must have possessed him. An act so surely suicidal was chosen because he no longer feared enough to cower. A desire for the love of his fellows was so compelling that he would brave death itself in order to have it at that moment with his "enemy".

Call it what you will - and many stricken with the timid, bitter, and frail cynicism of the "modern" atheist will find this all a great yawner - but I see the hand of the Divine at work. There was NO reason for anyone there to do what they did, yet they did it despite the apparently raving insanity of the act. Those men needed COMMUNION and they would have it, all risk be damned to hell. They acted in the tradition of man's finest bravery, and in so doing gave the world a precious lesson in the deeper truths about human relations.

Think of the simplicity of it. One merely stops. No effort required, save the drive to halt and see. Friction abounds everywhere and therefore when one takes his foot off the gas pedal, the vehicle eventually comes to a halt. And that is what happened here. They removed the mental energy and the war ceased IMMEDIATELY. That was all it took. Another of the deeper lessons here is that the entire deal resides in but one place: the mind. War as we see it in its boundless rage is but a symptom of the state of mind of those engaging in it. War exists nowhere but in the mind. What we experience outwardly is merely the external by-product. Remove the cause and the symptom vanishes instantaneously. Stop shooting and nobody gets shot.

And so it is with most of the "collective" things in our lives, the differences between those voluntary and those compelled being the consequences of withdrawal. If I volunteer my time to the Salvation Army and one day decide I have other things to do instead, men with guns on their hips and mindless obedience in their minds do not show at my step with the will to demand I continue as I had, ready and perhaps even eager to do violence to gain my compliance or punish me.

Remember Nancy Reagan and "Just say no!"? It seemed silly, but there was a deep truth to it. And note how in those words there is no threat of violence. It is an appeal to will; to voluntary action; to free choice.

The video "Chain of Obedience" is endlessly valuable IMO. It strikes to the heart of these political matters and exposes the fraud on the one hand, and the power on the other. Theye are frauds, up one side and down the other. We are powerful. And yet...

Can you imagine the shock and rage the higher level commanders must have experienced when news of this came to them? That particular truth of just stopping what you're doing is one of those very special items at which Theye work tirelessly to suppress from the awareness of everyone. The power in it is staggering and it is one of the few instruments that I believe Theye fear and regard with the most venom-laden hatred. In numbers, passive withdrawal stands to undo Themme completely, which is yet another reason they have been so passionately forwarding the notion of interdependence in explicit favor to that of independence. The more completely self-contained people are, the less they depend upon others for what they need. The less dependent, the fewer the levers Theye have over others. The less you need, the less you have, the less you covet - the less Theye can threaten you and the more blatantly unjust the threats remaining to them have to become.

If you fear losing your cell phone, you will comply with unreasonable demands. If you do not fear losing it, Theye have one less string attached to you. Driver's licenses, work permits, business licenses, parade permits... the list is long. Theye have been endlessly diligent in corralling the obedience of the masses through this usurpation of power and we have meekly toed Theire lines every single time. All we have to do is stop; withdraw; turn our backs to them, breaking the chain of obedience and Theye are undone.

That is the shocking truth revealed in that sweet little TV ad. Good on Sainsbury for what they have done. God knows the world needs to see more of this. To all those half-blind half-wits who foamed their outrages at a company who made a tastefully conceived and beautifully executed, oblique reminder that they exist and what a certain holiday was supposed to embody, you should take a moment to walk away from your unbridled lust to be offended and make some attempt to put yourselves in a saner, kinder, and more practically rational state of mind. I promise you as God is my witness that you will benefit endlessly from so simple and act. But as always, the choice is yours; yet know you this: you injure not only yourself with the bitter poisons of ill-founded anger and hatred, but those around you as well, for it spreads like a cancer to most, helping nothing better than to aid in perpetuating the manifold diseases with which the Tyrant Class has infected the world at large. Is that really what you want?

[osan]

h/t LRC: http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/no_author/1914/

"Merry Christmas" - a film about the 1914 truce (France, 2005)
http://thelibertarianalliance.com/20...e-france-2005/
Sean Gabb (03 December 2015)

I personally find the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front remarkable for the following reason: using the famous image about the lamps going out across Europe, the Christmas truce can be viewed as the very last flickering of the dying pre-WW1-era. An era when borders were just lines on the map, when passports were limited to autocratic societies such as Russia (or rather, when autocratic societies were limited to places such as Russia).

The absurdities humans contrive for the illusions of self-aggrandizing power never ceases to amaze, or nauseate me.

One of the few things in my life for which I am grateful was the fact that I had a foot in the old world through the agency of my grandma, who was a countess, in her late teens, married, had given birth to my uncle during that idiotic war, ran an aristocratic house of means, and lived long enough to show me what constituted a decent human being.

Most people alive today have no idea what the old world was about. Heaven knows it was far from perfect, but in many ways it was far and away better than that to which we have been subjected today. People are now so bottomlessly stupid that they actually believe that having a cell phone is more important than their freedoms.

Now, Sainsbury’s have discovered the power of this story – and that’s welcome news.

For about three minutes, thereafter to be re-forgotten.

It is the English poem however that is really spine chilling and blood curdling.

That should not be surprising, given what they English are: the most self-loathing, bitter, frustrated, vicious, evil race on the planet, save Muslims and most of Black Africa.

Here it is in full:

“To rid the map of every trace
Of Germany and of the Hun
We must exterminate that race
We must not leave a single one
Heed not their children’s cries
Best slay all now, the women, too
Or else someday again they’ll rise
Which if they’re dead, they cannot do.”

Typically English. Revoltingly so.

[Aratus]

DOCTOR WHO will have no X-mas Special at all this year.

Last Christmas, Peter Capaldi's doctor visited 12/24/1914

[AZJoe]