Remembrance and Other Animals

Which sounds a bit of a strange title, doesn’t it?

But I’m making a bit of a nod to Gerald Durrell, there, so …

At any rate …

Did you like the Teaser, this morning?

I’m hoping it’ll provoke a few thoughts; bless her, Andrea, as lyrical as ever, has put a poem about it on her MySpace page. And, whatever you think of the Afghan or the Iraq wars, I think she does raise a point. I think many who serve in the various Armed forces do so because they feel they’re serving Queen and country; and trying to do some objective good.

Whether that’s the case is a whole other argument.

But it’s something we shouldn’t forget that, I think.

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Actually, talking about not forgetting …

Did I tell you my Mum came over to say ‘Hello,’ this morning?

Oh, and to whinge about the state of my flat, but that’s parents for you … !

But one thing she did drop off was the photo’s I’ve put in at the top of the post; her grandfather — and my great-granddad — was one of the troops whose body was never recovered, after the Battle of Passchendæle.

Which, from what I’ve read, was …

Well …

Bonkers …

Really bonkers …

With World War Two, we could at least say we were fighting the Nazis; we were taking a stand against an evil régime.

That’s almost applicable to the first Gulf war, as well; we were helping repel a notoriously aggressive régime from a smaller country.

The political mess surrounding the invasion of Iraq, though … ?

I could talk for hours, but maybe here’s not the place.

But World War One?

World War One, from what I and many others learnt in school?

Was truly senseless, I think; a senselessness that I always thought that was far better summed by Wilfred Owen.

But part of that senselessness is quite simple to explain.

I don’t know where my great-grandfather is buried.

Or where his body is, at any rate. I don’t think any of my Mum’s side of the family does; I do know that my cousin Dean, actually has the medal’s themselves, as the oldest member of my generation of the family.

But not knowing where one private is?

Or even where his name gets a mention, as one of the Missing?

I’ve looked online.

And I’m blowed if I can find him …

Here’s hoping Private Arthur Richard Richardson’s at rest.

But his death does kind of seem to be in vain, when you remember that, until 1939, the First World War was known as ‘The War To End All Wars’.

Ninety-Two years later, that only adds to the senselessness.

•••••

Phew …

I can still feel the anger behind those last few lines …

Oy!

But I think me pontificating about it, anymore, for now, will only make me feel angrier.

So I’ll leave that there, for now; but I’ll probably sound off about it, later.

Let’s move on, shall we?

Yes, let’s … !

•••••

I do know I’ve got to say a BIG thank you to both Tim and Sarah, as, bless, they’ve both managed to find some two-button mice for me! Both of which work perfectly!

Bless you both, and a big ‘Thank You!’ to the pair of you!

As it mean’s I’ve a mouse that work’s better with Xubuntu, than the Hockey Puck mouse, supplied with the iMac; and a phone that, as I told Dave, earlier this evening, just plug’s in and is — as with OS X — immediately recognised.

I’ve the vintage Graphite iMac, running the Dapper Drake version of Xubuntu.

Dave — after a lot of persuading from Tim, and me repeatedly pointing out he’d be saving himself £70, if he used Ubuntu, rather than Windoze 7 — finally decided, tonight, he’d go for Ubuntu.

On the (roughly) five year old Packard-Bell desktop he has.

Tim, we’re going to have to get Dave a new connection cord for that monitor of his, we really are; it’s a VGA, so it should be easy to find … !!

But that’s a side issue; Dave, you’ll find that your Nokia — much like my Sony-Ericsson — will show up on a Ubuntu derivative — or a Unix based OS, like Mac OS X — as what’s called an exterior drive.

You know, like the little flash-memory stick I used to back your files up to?

So … safe to say, I’ve managed to install Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, with Tim taking Dave home and finishing up the job, by talking him through installing Flash, and — knowing Tim — the various other bit’s that will turn it into a functioning alternative to the version of XP he was using.

About the only problem we do have is the one we were semi-expecting; the Mikomi M6607M doesn’t quite sit well with aMSN. Which is a shame, as that’s one of the better open source Chat clients around.

Actually, if you know of any walk-through’s for that, feel free to let me know … !!

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