Britannia Radio

19 January 2011 3:20 PM

Rome II: Nigel Farage goes global

I should add to my last post about Rome that I was there to meet up with a pack of paleo-conservatives gathered by Chronicles Magazine in America.

Things were going pretty smoothly, until one of the group, a classical scholar and noted political writer, got caught by security as four of us went into the spectacular Palazzo Farnese.

The palazzo was designed in part by Michaelangelo. It is now the French embassy and possibly the finest palazzo in Rome. My scholar-friend had forgotten he was carrying a knife. We were all very embarrassed for him because, with his politics, he should not have been carrying a knife: he should have been carrying a gun.

Later at a big dinner up on the Gianicolo, I was at a table where a retired US Marine Corps officer, an artillery field commander during the first Gulf War, was playing host. Last time we'd met we were in Paris, where he'd been visiting the battlefields of the Hundred Years War ('The thing about Joan of Arc was, she really knew how to place her artillery.')

This time the ex-Jarhead was sitting next to a very tall exotic looking man in his twenties, a green-eyed Asian. It turned out he was a half-Chinese, half-German America conservative. He called across the table to me: 'I understand you cover EU affairs from Brussels.'

'Yup,' I replied.

'Tell me,' he asked in some excitement, 'Do you know Nigel Farage?'

Before I even had a chance to say 'Yup' again he was already quoting lines from Farage's

speech in the European Parliament, when the UKIP leader demanded of Herman van Rompuy ('you have the charism of a damp rag') soon after his appointment as permanent president of the European Council: 'Who are you? I'd never heard of you. Nobody in Europe had ever heard of you. Sir, you have no legitimacy.' And on through the whole Farage rant.

'Next time you see Nigel,' said the Chinese-German-American, 'tell him he has fans in America and a waiting audience.'

The UKIP leader it seems, has gone global. Youtube may have a lot to answer for.

22 January 2011 4:58 PM

Rudyard Kipling on the courage of 'our fathers of old'

Following my post on the courage of Prince Hal -- if you missed it, the post was an account of the way the future Henry V endured an arrow shot through his skull at the 1403 Battle of Shrewsbury, and the way ancient medicine saved his life -- Dan Peterson, a Northern Virginia lawyer specialising in firearms law, has sent this. It is a Kipling poem, new to me, called 'Our Fathers of Old.'

'Despite the degeneration we now face,' writes Peterson, 'let us have "excellent courage" and "excellent heart" as Prince Hal did, and go into the fight "nobly bold," as, without question, did our fathers of old.'

Reading Peterson's note it occurs to me, and not for the first time, that certain Americans have a better idea of the worth of Britain's history than do the British themselves; and perhaps, too, a better idea of the dangers Britain now faces.

OUR FATHERS OF OLD

EXCELLENT herbs had our fathers of old -

Excellent herbs to ease their pain -

Alexanders and Marigold,

Eyebright, Orris, and Elecampane -

Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue,

(Almost singing themselves they run)

Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you-

Cowslip, Melitot, Rose of the Sun,

Anything green that grew out of the mould

Was an excellent herb to our fathers of old.

Wonderful tales had our fathers of old -

Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars -

The Sun was Lord of the Marigold,

Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars.

Pat as a sum in division it goes -

(Every herb had a planet bespoke) -

Who but Venus should govern the Rose ? Who but Jupiter own the Oak ?

Simply and gravely the facts are told

In the wonderful books of our fathers of old.

Wonderful little when all is said,

Wonderful little our fathers knew.

Half their remedies cured you dead -

Most of their teaching was quite untrue -

"Look at the stars when a patient is ill

(Dirt has nothing to do with disease),

Bleed and blister as much as you will,

Blister and bleed him as oft as you please."

Whence enormous and manifold

Errors were made by our fathers of old.

Yet when the sickness was sore in the land,

And neither planets nor herbs assuaged

They took their lives in their lancet-hand

And, oh, what a wonderful war they waged !

Yes, when the crosses were chalked on the door -

(Yes when the terrible death-cart rolled!),

Excellent courage our fathers bore -

Excellent heart had our fathers of old.

None too learned but nobly bold

Into the fight went our fathers of old.

If it be certain, as Galen says -

And sage Hippocrates holds as much -

"That those afflicted by doubts and dismays

Are mightily helped by a dead man's touch,"

Then be good to us, stars above !

Then be good to us, herbs below !

We are afflicted by what we can prove,

We are distracted by what we know.

So - ah, so!

Down from your heaven or up from your mould,

Send us the hearts of our fathers of old !

21 January 2011 12:04 PM

The Martyr-King Louis XVI: this blog remains in mourning

Today is the 218th anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI by the butchers of the French Revolution.

Here is an account of the moment, from Simon Schama's 'Citizens':

'At ten o'clock the procession arrived at the scaffold. Beneath the platform Sanson [the executioner] and his assistant prepared to undress the King and tie his hands, only to be told by the prisoner that he wanted to keep his coat on and have his hands free. He evidently felt so strongly about the last matter that it appeared for a moment he might even struggle, and it took a remark from Edgeworth [the priest who accompanied the King] comparing his ordeal to that of the Savior for Louis to resign himself to whatever further humiliations were to be heaped on him.'

'The steps to the scaffold were so steep that Louis had to lean on the priest for support as he mounted. His hair was cut with the professional briskness for which the Sanson family

had become famous, and Louis attempted finally to address the great sea of twenty thousand faces packed into the square. "I die innocent of all the crimes of which I have been charged. I pardon those who have brought about my death and I pray that the blood you are about to shed may never be required of France..." At that moment Santerre [a Jacobin leader] ordered a roll of drums, drowning out whatever else the King might have to say.'

'Louis was strapped onto a plank which when pushed forward thrust his head into the enclosing brace. Sanson pulled on the cord and the twelve-inch blade fell, hissing through its grooves to its mark. In accordance with custom, the executioner pulled the head from the basket and showed it, dripping, to the people.'

Today ought to be a day of mourning in France. Instead it is largely ignored. The French, led by the likes of Nicholas Sarkozy, wait until July 14th and then celebrate the slaughters, tortures and rapes of the revolution. Draw your own conclusions about what kind of principles such Frenchmen have introduced to Europe.

20 January 2011 4:04 PM

European Commission pictures Ashton: the resentment is delicious

Over at the on-line journal EUobserver.com, the excellent Bruno Waterfield has been blogging about Baroness Ashton's bad record of attendance at commission meetings. It is a good story; but what really caught my eye was this picture of the £313,000 a year EU foreign policy boss. Waterfield's caption tells us it was provided 'courtesy of the European Commission.'

Which makes me ask: just how much must the commission hate Ashton to release a picture like this?

And by the way, that is the noble baroness on the left. Apparently.

Strasbourg: an Irish Socialist shows British Tories how it ought to be done

Cheers for my colleague, Joe Higgins, an Irish Socialist member of the European Parliament and fellow-columnist for the Irish Daily Mail. Yesterday in Strasbourg Joe ripped into José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy in the way the wimpish British Cameron Tories should be doing but don't.

You can see the clip of Joe's attack below, and Barroso's reply.

Now, Barroso is always emollient, like a greasy headwaiter rubbing his hands together. This apparently-angry reply by the commission president is getting some mileage as a 'rare moment' when he was moved to 'visible anger.'

I don't think the anger was genuine. Check the first time the Portuguese ex-Maoist-turned-Liberal pauses for breath. He gives a fleeting little grin, a kind of signal to his mates of 'Watch me now, chaps.'

Still, Barroso's fakery has helped call attention to Joe's attack, so I'm delighted about it.