Little known histories

There are so many stories from history. To many to ever be remembered. But here's a fascinating piece of maritime history I read about today. This extract from Wikipedia says a lot:

At 9:04:35 AM, the cargo of Mont-Blanc exploded with more force than any man-made explosion before it. The ship was instantly destroyed in the giant fireball that rose over 1.9 kilometres (1.2 mi) into the air, forming a large mushroom cloud. 

The force of the blast triggered a tsunami, which rose up as high as 18 metres (60 ft) above the harbour's high-water mark on the Halifax side. It was caused by the rapid displacement of harbour water near the blast, followed by water rushing back in towards the shore.

Captain Haakon From and most of the crew that were on the bridge of the Imo and on its decks were killed by the tsunami. A black rain of unconsumed carbon from the Mont-Blanc fell over the city for about 10 minutes after the blast, coating survivors and structural debris with soot.

Canoe Man!

A couple of years ago, when the story of John Darwin hit the headlines, it was with fascination that the truth of his 'disappearance' was discovered.

Three years on and I came to watch a dramatisation staring some actory types in the roles of John and Anne Darwin in which Anne was shown to be somewhat of an unwilling victim in the scheme, caught between love of her husband, and the despair of the situation, aware of the crime they were perpetrating.

It was a fascinating story at the time, and it still remains so. They planned it so well, fooled their own sons ("that's the part the public will despise you for" a journalist told Anne in the story), and then, at the last, fell apart when they agreed to be photographed and didn't look into the visa situation of Panama.

If this story were told as straight up fiction people would enjoy it but sigh, "well, what nonsense" but it's even more incredible that these things happen all the time. Trying to think of other amazing stories along these lines, any suggestions?

H is for...

Heathrow

I was in Heathrow just last night, waiting at a baggage carousel for my luggage. They call it a carousel but it's not fun or brightly lit or anything like that. I've never seen a fake horse come round on one anyway. That would be a weird sight.

Alain de Botton just had his book about spending a week in the Heathrow published but I bet he doesn't make any observations as good as the above. Interestingly I did see in The Guardian that in his book he notes that on average two people die a week per terminal at Heathrow. Deathrow more like.

It's not a bad idea actually. Airports are huge yet you only ever see the same bits each and every time. The bit standing below the departure boards, the bit where you check in, the bit where you strip off belts and watches, and then the bit where you wait to be called. But beyond that ordered route there must be a huge maze of rooms and buildings all contributing, non-stop, to the airports life.

They should do a documentary on airport life actually. They could call it Airport. It would star a short, bespectacled man who's voice would be higher pictured than his slightly portly frame would suggest, which would make some of his exasperated comments more hilarious than they were. He would be called Jeremy Spake and he'd move into the lime light for a little while, then fade away again.

I think that would make a good story.

Where was I?

Talking about planes. That's what I was doing. Sounds made up but it's true. Just about how great it would be to own a private jet so you could fly to London from Cornwall, rather than taking the train. Why we were actually talking about this though is beyond me now.

Then a call from across the common room and on to an entire afternoon of confusion, bewilderment. And this was for people in Cornwall so far removed from the epicentre. Yet the same reaction for people in Times Square, Beijing, Kiev, no doubt.

There were so many ridiculous things that happened that afternoon. We had to go to geography and on arriving I informed the teacher of what was taking place. He was disinterested and refused to put the television on. I urged him this was massive news, we should watch, so he relented and put it on silent. Half-way through learning about central business districts we noticed that the Pentagon had been hit too. Still nothing registered on the geography teacher.

The next day, as confusion still reigned, our English teacher scrapped his lesson plan to look at the Iraq war, and poetry inspired by it, to give us some context of maybe why the day before had happened. His understand was stark contrast to that of Mr Geography.

Strange days.

Walking past the future

Having now been moved in to my new house for, ohhh, four days, I’ve been thinking about how often I must have walked past it before, without knowing it would become my new home. Probably not a great number of times, maybe 10 at most, and, of course, on those occasions I was utterly oblivious - it was just another house. But now it’s my home.

Where else am I walking past on a daily basis that could become part of my life? Or who else? Maybe nothing and no-one, maybe something massive. It’s intriguing to think of all these people and places you walk past that, barring some tragic accident, could well become part of your life in the future – or could cause the tragic accident. But right now we’re all just walking around oblivious to the potential future(s) in store – although for some today will be that day. The job interview, the date, the car crash.

War: what is it good for?

Two things yesterday:

1) DSEi: This show is known to some as the Death Show and is not popular with those of certain moral view points. Entry was Kafkaesque, involving several queues to be placed in queues, much anger at how slow the entire process was, and even a bag search before you could go in, to the Excel Centre. Felt utterly bizarre. Once inside I saw many tanks, guns, rocket launchers, an Apache helicopter, and various Asian generals wandering around in full military regalia.

On one side of an aisle you've got weapon manufacturers or suppliers with posters and literature proclaiming their weapons can 'pierce the strongest body armour on the market!' and on the other you have body armour manufacturers and suppliers saying 'can stop the strongest weaponry on the market!' And all beneath the brightly lit, air-conditioned, Subway sandwich franchised Excel Centre. Last time I was there was to collect my marathon entry number. Very different indeed.

2) Frontline Club: Access Denied. A talk about reporting from war zones and the implications for journalists. With Richard Sambrook from the BBC, Adrian Wells from Sky News, Jean Seaton and chaired by Tom Fenton.

It was a very interesting chat, and the floor contributed a great deal too, with those in attendance ranging from Al Jazeera reporters, to the London press official for the Dalai Lama. They discussed the use of Twitter, the difficulties of getting certain stories on the news agenda when they cease to have a news currency, and the challenges of trying to get in to areas you're banned from. Wells told us that Sky News tried to access North Korea by asking to cover the North Korean karate championships (and then do some other things on the side) but were politely refused entry. Darn.

It seemed though, due to the most recurring point, that war coverage, or conflicting reporting, is impossible to cover in a way that will ever please everyone, or cover all the necessary angles. Nothing is ever two-sided and war is surely one of the hardest things to pin down as to the causes, the rights and wrongs, the outcomes and so on - almost all wars are debated hotly by historians to this day, despite years of time passing, collation of huge numbers of documents, and even access to the leaders' writings. What chance do news reporters have, often embedded with military staff who take them where they want them to go, have of getting a 'true' story out? Have they ever been able to?

Twitter and the like may give the populations a chance to present views from inside but, again, it just adds more voices that conflict, disagree, present different ideas, to a picture that is already completely confusing and impossible to view in full, objectively. It seems hard to believe war reporting will ever move to a time when 'black holes' of information don't exist, especially when authoritarian regimes like Iran, North Korea and so on, are so staunch in their position on allowing foreign news teams in.

A few people introduced themselves, when speaking from the floor, as 'news consumers'. So you watch TV?

Sunburst

Sad news that Les Paul died yesterday, at a fair old innings of 94. The man invented the best guitar ever seen. Look at it. It's the coolest, most rock and roll guitar ever. I have an epiphone and bloody love it. It's a bit heavy, and finger picking on it is basically pointless, but who cares. If you want to do that you can get an acoustic. You can see me in action on mine here (sound not amazing as on my brother's puny amp and recorded on a digital camera - but otherwise pretty good I think).

We can be heroes

Do you have a hero? Someone you look up to? Who you'd follow to the end of the earth? Whose words you take as gospel? Wait...

Is that what a hero is? What is a hero? Someone who runs into burning buildings, putting life on the line, in an effort to rescue others, unknowns? Or is it an individual thing, in which that person, whoever it may be, inspires you, uplifts you, seems to speak to you - through words, paintings, or music speakers?

I don't have a hero. There is no one person I believe holds the key to life, or can offer solace in times of despair; of course there are persons - be they famous, family or friends, who I admire, respect, listen to, take comfort from; but not one of them would I consider a hero. I think the word has lost all meaning nowadays. I think it's better to accept that everyone is a shade of grey and that really, you'd be best of taking a pinch of everything and everyone you admire or are inspired by, mixing it around a bit, adding your own personality (as the main ingredient) and then go off and try and leave people with the best impression of you that you can.

This all came from a mini-debate I had with a good friend on Twitter who said it was mean that people made jokes about Michael Jackson after he had died - because he's some peoples' hero. But what can you expect? Jackson was the perfect person to fall into hero or villain roles and so was clearly likely to be the butt of jokes from the off. Bobby Robson died today. Why not the same treatment, my friend asked? Well, I would suggest that there is little-to-nothing to joke about. A long, normal life spent playing, then managing, football that ended at a good age surrounded by his wife and family. That's all.

Ultimately, I don't even believe making jokes about people after their death is inherently a bad thing - it strikes me as a very natural and very good coping mechanism. But that's probably a topic for another blog.