Wikipediaphile: Split S

So it’s half four in the morning, I’ve got a documentary on in the background (People’s Century episode 6, ‘1927: Great Escape’), and I’m idly stroking threads of human knowledge…

Bonus Army > General MacArthur > Billy Mitchell > Hap Arnold > USAAF > P38 Lightning > Split S

The Split S is an air combat maneuver mostly used to disengage from combat. To execute a Split S, the pilot half-rolls his aircraft inverted and executes a descending half-loop, resulting in level flight in the exact opposite direction at a lower altitude.

So now you know.

Pronouncing ‘Ossetia’, and a history of cous-cous

Hats off to languagehat once again, for kicking off another fascinating discussion on linguistics (by way of food).

And American pronunciation norms do work hard to avoid a profusion of schwas, unlike AusBrit norms. British in particular takes collapse into schwa as a mark of refinement and high culture.

However, Restniks do not typically say a schwa in Marcos and the like, and do not do that lengthening you speak of. This might give us pause. We use the “short” o of our on, got, and often, or of everyone’s for (which in fact M-W Collegiate equates with the vowel of law, in its reading of American pronunciation). The question that exercises me concerns this difference between Americans’ and Everyone Else’s practice with foreign words. Is it because our “short” o (quite near to many foreign vowels written as o) is more salient to us and somehow more available, while the nearest equivalent in American speech (the vowel of for and law) is somehow less available to them, and their more available “short” o is disqualified as confusible with the way foreign a is sounded? Perhaps. Strictly, though, length itself seems less relevant. So is stress, per se, less relevant.

And then there’s couscous, still unaccounted for.

(Noetica gets into her/his stride in the comments.)

Wikipediaphile: The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

The other night I watched a documentary called The Lost Legions Of Varus. It was about how the eastward expansion of the Roman Empire across the lands we call Germany was checked by a tactically imaginative ambush by local tribes coordinated by a Romanified Cherusci nobleman called Arminius in 9CE.

The programme posits the idea that this single event laid the foundations for the division of much of Europe into two camps – those of the Romance nations and those of the Germanic – and all that entailed for the next two millennia. Whilst this is something of a sweeping assertion, it’s still a fascinating story. The battle saw the Romans lose three whole legions, and subsequently they withdrew to a boundary west of the Rhine and south of the Danube.

Wikipedia on the actual battle:

Varus’s forces included three legions (Legio XVII, Legio XVIII, and Legio XIX), six cohorts of auxiliary troops (non-Roman allies) and three squadrons of cavalry (alae), most of which lacked combat experience with Germanic fighters under local conditions. The Roman forces were not marching in combat formation, and were interspersed with large numbers of camp-followers. As they entered the forest (probably just northeast of Osnabrück [show location on an interactive map] 52°24′38″N 8°07′46″E / 52.41056, 8.12944), they found the track narrow and muddy; according to Dio Cassius a violent storm had also arisen. He also writes that Varus neglected to send out advance reconnaissance parties[citation needed].

The line of march was now stretched out perilously long — estimates are that it surpassed 15 km (9 miles), and was perhaps as long as 20 km (12 miles).[1] It was then suddenly attacked by Germanic warriors. Arminius knew Roman tactics very well and could direct his troops to counter them effectively, using locally superior numbers against the spread-out Roman legions. The Romans managed to set up a fortified night camp, and the next morning broke out into the open country north of the Wiehen mountains, near the modern town of Osterkappeln. The break-out cost them heavy losses, as did a further attempt to escape by marching through another forested area, with the torrential rains continuing, preventing them from using their bows, and rendering them virtually defenseless, as their shields too became waterlogged.

They then undertook a night march to escape, but marched straight into another trap that Arminius had set, at the foot of Kalkriese Hill (near Osnabrück). There, the sandy, open strip on which the Romans could march easily was constricted by the hill, so that there was a gap of only about 100 m between the woods and the swampland at the edge of the Great Bog. Moreover, the road was blocked by a trench, and, towards the forest, an earthen wall had been built along the roadside, permitting the Germanic tribesmen to attack the Romans from cover. The Romans made a desperate attempt to storm the wall, but failed, and the highest-ranking officer next to Varus, Numonius Vala, abandoned the troops by riding off with the cavalry; however, he too was overtaken by the Germanic cavalry and killed, according to Velleius Paterculus. The Germanic warriors then stormed the field and slaughtered the disintegrating Roman forces; Varus committed suicide.[1] Velleius reports that one commander, Ceionus, “shamefully” surrendered, while his colleague Eggius “heroically” died leading his doomed troops.

Around 15,000–20,000 Roman soldiers must have died; not only Varus, but also many of his officers are said to have taken their own lives by falling on their swords in the approved manner.[1] Tacitus wrote that many officers were sacrificed by the Germanic forces as part of their indigenous religious ceremonies. However, others were ransomed, and the common soldiers appear to have been enslaved.

As a longtime lover of Asterix, I found it most interesting to hear about these non-Gothic tribes in the German lands. (The Asterix books are set around sixty years prior to the events in the Teutoburg Forest; in reality the Gothic tribes did not play a significant role in history until the third and fourth centuries.) Of course, all this leads on to a perpetual hunt through Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Huns, Vandals, Burgundians, Theodoric, Alaric and all. Frankly (ahem) it all gets rather confusing.

Wikipediaphile: Brčko District

An administrative oddity in Bosna i Hercegovina.

Brčko District (Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian: Brčko distrikt (Брчко дистрикт in Cyrillic)) in northeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina is a self-governing administrative unit under the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina; it is formally part of both the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska.

Brčko District on Wikipedia

The parable of Freedom River

Tip o’ the titfer: Shadowplay

The glamour of war illustrated through the medium of Gori imagery

Arkady Babchenko is a Russian journalist who himself served as a soldier in Chechnya.

Recently he accompanied a column of Russian troops on their counterattack through Ossetia into Georgia. This photo is one of many he took along the way.

Tip o’ the titfer: Blood & Treasure

Headline Of The Day: ENTER THE DRAGON FRUIT TO BRISTOL

Or, ‘Bristol first to sell dragon fruit’:

With fuchsia-pink skin and green scales, the dragon fruit is unlike anything else in its appearance.

And Bristol Fruit Sales, which is selling the fruit wholesale for the very first time, says it has proving a roaring success with customers.

When the exotic-looking fruit is cut in half it reveals an opaque white flesh dotted with small black seeds.

The unusual looking and pretty skin resembles a flower and is inedible. To eat the fruit, the slightly sweet flesh, which is low in calories, high in vitamin C and a good source of calcium, is scooped out.

David Foster, sales manager at Bristol Fruit Sales, at the Fruit Market in Albert Crescent, St Philip’s, said: “It’s been around since the 13th century and a product that has been grown and sold for many years now.

“Before we would get it in by request on special order and air-freight, taking about three or four days.

“We would sell 10 boxes containing 10 fruits a fortnight.

“Now we have done a deal with a Vietnamese co-operative and our first order of 1,260 boxes, containing 10 fruits each, sold within a day. It was really fantastic.

“They are a very versatile fruit. You can use them in salads, they make great sorbets, they are great served with other fruits – some people scoop them out and stuff the skins with a mix of fruit including the flesh. You can even ferment them to make alcohol, which isn’t as healthy, but tastes lovely.

“The world is changing the way we eat – celebrity chefs and cooking programmes use much more unusual ingredients. It’s a healthy, versatile and unusual fresh fruit and we are happy to be promoting that.

“We have sold them mainly to independents, so they will probably retail at about £1.29 each.”

Kate Odey, 50, from central Bristol, sampled the fruit and said: “It’s a bit like melon. It’s very refreshing.

“It’s got a bit too many pips for my liking. I could eat it but don’t know if I would go out and buy it.”

Native to Mexico and Central and South America, the dragon fruit is also cultivated in south-east Asian countries, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

They are also found in Okinawa, Israel, northern Australia and southern China. Also known as the strawberry pear, pitaya or pitahaya, it is the fruit of several species of cactus. Other varieties come with a yellow skin or can have a red flesh with black seeds.

The flowers of the cactus are large and fragrant and only bloom at night.

Is Marc Cooper the new William Boot?

My Twitter has a new follower, one Marc ‘Coops’ Cooper*.

Coops appears to be a scoophound for local rag the Bristol Evening Post.

Coops has filed an astonishing seven stories on his Twitter in just under three months, including thrillers such as

Sorting out stories from paper to web, scratching my, not sure if i liked the new Indiana Jones film i saw last night

Hatching a plan to avoid sitting in traffic in my car twice a day. It really gets me down. How can I escape Bristol traffic hell???

and

I reckon life’s too short to worry, except when it comes to family. What to do?

He even manages to squeeze in four mentions for the Post (one slightly oblique)!

Coops is an anagram of Scoop. Need I say more?

* Amended 29/5/9 from @BristolCoops to @CoopsMarc

Bristol filth in lying, wrongful arrest bullshit shocker!

The shocker being that the truth came out and apologies have been proffered…

A Bristol man was arrested after he took a photo of a police officer who had ignored a no entry road sign.

Plumber Andrew Carter, of Bedminster, has since had an apology from the officer and Deputy Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset police Rob Beckley.

Mr Carter, 44, was walking his two dogs when a police van reversed into South Road, Bedminster, ignoring no entry signs.

The van stopped near a fish and chip shop in the street and two officers went into the shop to look at CCTV footage relating to an earlier incident.

Mr Carter said: “I had nearly been run over the previous day by a car going through the no entry signs so I was a bit miffed when a police van did the same thing.
Click here!

“He reversed into the road rather than going round the block and coming in the other way, like the rest of us have to.

“I pointed at the sign and said “no entry” to the driver who swore and said ‘police business’.

“I went home and got my camera. I took a photo of the van and then a picture of the officer, through the window of the chip shop.

“He came running out, smashed the camera from my hand. I was put in handcuffs and he said I had ‘assaulted’ him with my camera and that I was also being arrested for resisting arrest and being drunk and disorderly.

“This was complete nonsense. They bundled me into the back of the van. I offered to delete the photos but the male officer was having none of it.”

Mr Carter was taken to Broadbury Road police station in Knowle where he was kept for five hours until a doctor examined him. He had very high blood pressure and was freed on police bail.

When he returned to answer bail the following week, with his solicitor, he was kept at the station for another five hours.

Mr Carter, who was not charged with any offence, made a formal complaint about the wrongful arrest by PC Aqil Farooq who faced a disciplinary tribunal in July, seven months after the incident in January.

PC Farooq apologised to Mr Carter and later he received a letter from Deputy Chief Constable Rob Beckley, who chaired the disciplinary tribunal.

Mr Beckley said in the letter: “I know that PC Farooq apologised personally to you but I would also like to add my apologies on behalf of Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

“We expect the highest standards of our officers and PC Farooq fell below what was required. I know that his colleagues feel he let us down and he has learnt a difficult lesson.

“As you know, he was spoken to by the Head of Professional Standards Department immediately after the hearing.

“I am told he realises his actions were totally unacceptable and he could and should have apologised to you much earlier.

“I have also ensured that his line manager is aware of the issue of his judgement on this occasion and that aspect of his performance will be monitored in the future.”

Mr Carter said he was happy with the apology but was pursuing a claim for compensation for wrongful arrest.

Avon and Somerset police declined to make any further comment.

From the Bristol Evening Post

Not that coppers routinely make up charges and then back each up up with false statements cooked up in the canteen as a matter of course, oh no. A few rotten apples, etc.

Police amiability outreach programme spreads across the nation?

Anyone idly perusing IndyMedia of late cannot fail to have noticed the spate of friendly police officers offering all manner of friendly things, from lifts to lunch dates, to political activists.

Here’s one from today, posted by an anti-fascist:

They could pick us up early on Saturday morning, what was our home address…? My brother kindly said we wouldn’t be picked up from our address and he would get me to ring the guy back. So he left his number… 0151 709 6010 to which a kind voice replied Merseyside police how can I help you…

Just thought I would let everyone know in case of lift offers. Watch out because the fash might be offering lifts also…

And here is another heart warming story, as related by an animal rights campaigner:

The First Call [19/6/08]

During the Kent gathering police from at least 11 forces across the country where present, the furthest anyone had travelled was a female police officer from central Scotland, see pic above.

A few days after the gathering on the 19th of June 2008, I received a call (on my personal mobile phone) at approx midday, The call was from a Scottish lady, yes that’s right, the one that was present at the gathering. She asked me if I was alone and was okay to chat, I said yes and I signalled to the few other people in the room to come closer. She then told me she wanted to travel down from Scotland to talk to me about the animal rights movement in the UK. I asked her what she wanted to know and she avoided the question saying how it was best to meet up in person. All she seemed willing to say was she was prepared to travel from Scotland to meet up, she would be bringing another officer with her and that she thought we could ‘help each other’ I cut the call short asking her to ring me back tomorrow as I was a little busy at the time but would consider her offer. As soon as I was off the phone I rang a few key activists to let them know she had rang and to ask them to pass the message on to other activists so everyone knew about the call.

The Second Call [20/6/08]

Around midday Tracey, the Scottish police officer rang me again, she asked if I had thought about what she had said during our previous phone call, I told her I had but still had some reserves, every time I asked she seemed to reply with, how it would be best to answer that in person, things like what’s in it for me and what did she want to ask me were answered with “if we meet up I can discuss these things with you properly” the most she said was that if we met up it would not be local and they would arrange everything. She told me another officer, I had never met before, would be coming with her from London. I told her it sounded okay and that I would need to have a bit more of a think before confirming for certain and she told me she will ring back next Thursday to arrange a meeting. The only thing I am thinking now is how to fuck her over.

The Third Call [30/6/08]

Tracey rang me off her mobile (07508810540) to arrange a meeting, I have told her I am busy and that I will ring her next week to confirm a date.

After this phone call I decided I had had enough of talking to the filth and have not been in touch since. They seemed desperate to talk I think they are getting very desperate.

So remember to always be aware of who is around you in your group and if anyone may of been asked and is keeping quiet. It’s time to let the cops know if they want to insult our loyalties by asking us to be informants, they must be prepared to be humiliated like our good mate Tracey.

So are these random acts of kindness by individual officers, offered on their own initiative, or are they participating in some sort of Rotarian-style police philanthropy programme, designed to reach out to protesters in order to share a common humanity, despite pesky things like beatings, fit-ups and harassment?

Kid Carpet’s Olympic meddle

My only concession to the Olympics – ‘Failed World Record Attempt’ by Kid Carpet:

A sas birtokol leszállt (még nem…): The Hungarian Eagle-reading refugees story, part 2

Time for a brief update on the Hungarian-refugees-read-Eagle story I mentioned the other day. I’ve been in and out and rather busy the past week (including going to the rather spiffing Endorse It In Dorset festival with the wonderful ladyfriend at the weekend), so I have been a little remiss in following all this up.

First off, thanks again to Steve Holland at Bear Alley for blogging it, and to John Freeman at DownTheTubes for sounding out Eagle enthusiasts.

On the downside, after wading through the much vaunted BBC Archive system, I drew no clues – the BFI’s Screenonline website surrendered far more information and proved much more user-friendly – so I used a standard ‘contact the BBC’ form to try and glean some information about the film footage used in the programme. Unfortunately all this yielded was a breezily polite yet thoroughly empty declination:

Dear Chris

Thanks for your e-mail regarding ‘The Rock N’ Roll Years’.

I understand that you’re interested in a particular piece of film from the 1957 series.

As the BBC is committed to ensuring that we derive the best possible value for all Licence Fee payers, we can no longer justify researching some of the unique, individual enquiries we were previously able to handle. We regret that your request falls into this category and are sorry that we are unable to supply the information you requested on this occasion. We hope that you will understand the reasons why.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

Sarah
BBC Information

Whilst I have no personal grievance with Sarah from BBC Information, this did somewhat tickle my complaining bone, so I am currently considering various approaches in order to prolong this avenue of investigation, drawing heavily from the school of persistent irritation. This will likely entail requests for details on the criteria employed to discern whether an enquiry should be assisted; a contextual hint that this might relate to a copyright issue; the suggestion that this refusal will lead to a range of official complaint procedures which themselves would take up more resources than simply looking at a file card or microfiche to find out where film for this episode came from; and an insistence that the factual error in the response means that I wish to resubmit the query. Frankly I’m embarrassed at myself, but the ends justify the means.

On a far more positive note, I’ve noticed that a Hungarian comics blog, Panel, has now covered the story. My Magyar is a little rusty, but through the power of InterTran I believe it’s a straightforward pick-up of the original.

I suspect help in resolving this little mystery will ultimately come from either comics fans or from those tapped into Hungarian folk memory – emigrés from that time, their relatives or even historians – so I am especially grateful for this mention.

Köszönöm!

Ticked off by Council Tax

Today I got a reminder from Bristol City Council for Council Tax arrears. It claims that I owe them £71.85, and if I don’t pay within a week, I have to pay the whole whack outstanding for the year – £309. And if I don’t pay that within a further week, it’s back to court, with £103 costs loaded on top.

Seeing as I’ve already had to go to court over Council Tax, I’d rather not go through the whole rigmarole again. That time it was because they fucked up the Direct Debits and took two full monthly payments out within a week, throwing out my budget and costing me money. I cancelled the DD because there was every likelihood the numbskulls would try and take another payment from me and impoverish me yet further. Doing that earned me a place before three self-important JPs with faces like slapped arses and not a little supercilious air about them. Apparently my being poor meant that I had no right to be articulate, or else my articulateness meant I had no right to be poor. They were a little muddled on that finer point of jurisprudence (not case law I had ever encountered before, I must confess), but they composed themselves enough to tie me into some ridiculously inflated payment plan which consigned me to the cheaper brands of biscuits for many months.

Anyway, this time round I got right onto the council straight away to try and sort things out. As far as I know, I’ve paid the right amount or more every month this year; the right amount involved odd pennies, so I tend to round up to the nearest £5. That way I’m never in arrears. How sensible! Well, perhaps not.

I ring up Local Taxation on 0117 925 0981. I negotiate the menu system. I learn that there are long queues, and opt for an automated callback (estimated to be a wait of between 20 and 32 minutes). A mere 38 minutes later, the phone rings, and I am back in the system. Only another two minutes of robot voices, and I am connected to a real person. Her name is Lucy. She sounds weary, but is polite. I explain my concern over the letter. I give her my account number. She checks. “Yes, it does seem that you have paid for this month.” But what about the arrears it says I owe? It’s such a strange amount, especially as I should be in credit. “Well, because you pay more than you should, the system gets confused, and misallocates the money. If you pay the exact amount in future, there won’t be a problem. But if you pay more, just phone us to let us know and we can make sure the system knows that you are all paid up.”

How reassuring!

Bristol City Council – Beacon Authority.

Internet coup! NETCU anti-protest guide hits the public domain

Oops! Police at the Climate Camp in Kent have dropped a clanger – or more specifically a copy of their demonstrators=turrists handbook, the NETCU Policing Protest Pocket Legislation Guide (“For Police Use Only”).

NETCU? Who they? Well, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit “forms part of the national policing response to domestic extremism”, and gives advice to individual police forces and other ‘enforcement agencies’ relating to this. There’s even a handy little biography on the inside page of Policing Protest (with even handier contact details):

NETCU provides tactical advice and guidance on policing single-issue domestic extremism. The unit also supports companies and other organisations that are the targets of domestic extremism campaigns. NETCU reports through the National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism (NCDE) to the Association of Chief Police Officers Terrorism and Allied Matters – ACPO(TAM) committee.

National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU)
PO Box 525, Huntingdon, PE29 9AL
Tel: 01480 425091
Fax: 01480 425007
Email: mailbox@netcu.pnn.police.uk
Web: http://www.netcu.org.uk

Freedom of Information
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to public authorities in England and Wales. Under the Act, organisations listed in Schedule 1 to the Act – either by name or by description – have to provide public access to information they hold. NETCU is not a public authority as defined by Schedule 1 and therefore there are no obligations on NETCU to disclose information under the Act. Police forces are advised not to release this guide following freedom of information requests.

Edition 2 – November 2007

It could be seen as a successor to projects such as ARNI, the Animal RIghts National Index which was subsequently rolled out to encompass a wide range of environmental and social activists.

One can also see it in the context of the ‘Green Scare‘, the post-COINTELPRO pursuit of the ELF and others in the United States.

And let us also consider NETCU’s targeting of groups it considers to be engaged in ‘tertiary terrorism’ (most notably animal rights campaigns such as SHAC).

From creating databases which log the activities of entirely lawful groups and individuals, through to the arbitrary casting of politically-motivated behaviours beyond the spheres of the lawful, unlawful or criminal into the less rationally-bound romper room labelled terrorism (with all its attendant emotional responses); that is the nature of the NETCU game.

In other words, through bureaucratic manoeuvring, artless sophistry and ideologically-motivated authoritarianism, NETCU shifts the goalposts for what passes for legal protest. Thus a terrorist is not defined by her or his actions, but by having been labelled a terrorist (by way of ‘domestic extremist’). Thus terrorism is not “the systematic use of terror, esp as a means of coercion” (Penguin Pocket English Dictionary, 1990), it is any activity undertaken by those previously defined by the new terms of reference as ‘terrorists’.

That the NETCU website is liberally sprinkled with pictures of yogurt-weaving peace marchers, clowns(!) and, erm, the Countryside Alliance should give an indication of exactly whom the organisation considers a ‘domestic extremist’ – that’s right, pretty much anyone who ever dares dissent from the Westminster-approved script.

So read the Policing Protest book and find out how you should behave in future lest you accidentally become a dangerous terrorist.

Links:

• Policing Protest story on IndyMedia (part 1)
• Policing Protest story on IndyMedia (part 2)
• Policing Protest (PDF) (v1)
• NETCU Watch (anti-NETCU blog)

DoS attacks!

So I’m rather behind on, erm, pretty much everything, and I *still* can’t find those books I put on eBay before ensconcing myself at the lady friend’s, but hey-ho…

I’ve spotted some right nice stuff lately, but I’ve also been settling in with the warm, familiar tones and enthusiastically open-minded music policy of Tangerinebreem on the Density of Sound podcast, which is now in its fifteenth episode.

If you’ve not heard it before, it’s simply a show drawing together tunes by very much lesser-known artists from around the world, thanks to the magical healing powers of the interweb. Sometimes shows are themed, but mostly they are not. See, all pretty painless.

So go listen!

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