CHAPEL END CHARLIE

I had tried my level best to get over the point that although I have my reservations regarding both the morality and the effectiveness of the RAF's Area Bombing campaign during WWII, I have nothing but admiration for the aircrew tasked with carrying out this policy. It seems I have failed in that ambition. A great many wartime British citizens thought exactly like you do regarding the justification of inflicting so much suffering on the wartime German civil population - what Sir Arthur Harris memorably described as "reaping the whirlwind". But even during the war some did dare to question the morality of this policy, so this debate is as old as Area Bombing itself. I put it to you that the reason we have waited six decades for a proper national memorial to Bomber Command to be approved is because the bombing of civilians - by either side - is not just a matter for moralizing "idiots" such as myself, but a questionable concept that this great nation has felt distinctly uncomfortable with ever since 1945. I've reached a stage in my life when arguments that amount to 'well they started it' seem better suited to the playground that a discourse among adults. Had area bombing shortened the war appreciably then that would have been a justification (of sorts) for what happened. But the consensus of historical opinion is that the policy failed - so where does that leave us? The young men flying bombers over German targets were no more responsible for the horrors of area bombing that the young women in the aircraft factory who made the bomber, the sailor on the oil tanker who risked his life to fuel it, or anyone else who participated in the war effort for that matter. But nothing should stop us remembering that terrible things are done sometimes in even the most noble of causes.

I for one won't rest easy until Mark Lawrenson confirms that we will certainly be relegated again.

Yes my friend Nazi war criminals deserved everything they got and more if that were only possible. But I don't find it quite so easy to condemn a whole nation on a 'they had it coming' basis. What about the people who never voted for the Nazi party (the majority of the German nation as it happens) or even more so the many thousands of utterly innocent children who weren't even born when Hitler came to power but were immolated in the Hamburg, Dresden, and Kassel firestorms anyway? Did they deserve their terrible fates more or less so than the children of Coventry or those condemned to the horrors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp? I suspect none of us reading this thread has or ever will be called upon to do anything nearly as momentous as flying a operational bombing mission over occupied Europe during WWII, but I hope I've read enough harrowing accounts from those who did to gain the smallest of insights into what they went through. These were mostly ordinary young men called upon to perform extraordinary tasks. The stress and danger they lived with on a daily basis hardly bares thinking about, it's certainly more than I could cope with. Their prospects of surviving a operational tour of duty in Bomber Command were shockingly poor in truth, and yet the vast majority of them carried on flying anyway. More than 55,000 of them paid the ultimate price for that level of devotion. But did the results obtained by the strategic bombing campaign justify that enormous Human sacrifices made? How should surviving Bomber Command aircrew had felt about their war service when it was all over knowing that they may well have killed people who had done nothing to deserve it? Proud, ashamed, both maybe? These questions are lost in a moral maze and there are no easy answers that this poor student of history can see. Perhaps that is the greatest pity of war, in order to resist your enemy ... you must become like them.

Dell have had a terrible reputation for many years, but you can't blame a van driver for refusing to take responsibility for a unpackaged computer ! Whoever advised you not to box up a delicate computer during transit was a idiot - you should have ignored them IMO.

First off I'll state here and now that my admiration for the men of Bomber Command knows no limit. I've spent far too much of my life studying the history of WWII in general, and that of the strategic bombing campaign in particular, to ever dare question the level of courage and dedication - in the face of horrendous casualty rates - displayed by these predominantly young bomber crews. But there is another hard historical truth at play here. The technology available to the RAF in the early 1940's meant that it was a practical impossibility to accurately target German war industries in bad weather or at night. So we had little choice but to instigate a policy known as 'Area Bombing' instead, which - truth be told - amounted to little more than a brutal attempt blast and burn whole German towns & cities, to dehouse and/or kill so many civilians that their war economy and 'will to resist' might eventually collapse. Well the terrible truth is that Area Bombing failed to win or decisively shorten the war, and German civilians were no more likely to suffer a moral collapse under bombardment then the British people were during the horrors of the Blitz. Instead of destroying the Nazi war economy the record shows that armament production actualy greatly increased as the bombing offensive escalated. Furthermore the vast strain imposed on our economy constructing all those thousands of technically complex Lancaster, Halifax and Stirling four engined bombers was without doubt detrimental to our wider war effort. So let us remember and honour the awesome 55,000 man sacrifice of RAF Bomber Command during WWII, but we should also remember the innocent men, women and children killed during the bomber offensive too. But above all let us remember that war is the greatest of all Human follies.

Ummm Not to my tastes I'm sorry to say - on the red version the white backing to the AAP logo looks horribly cheap while the white shirt makes us look like a bunch of Leeds Utd wannabes. I'll stick with my ancient Flybe.

I'm pleased to say that this DVD comes complete with its period CSO (Colour Separation Overlay) "special" effects still present in all their unadulterated 70's glory - and what a sight they are! The DVD extras inform us that the special effects company the BBC employed on this serial went out of business shortly thereafter - and if the quality of their work on 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' is any guide you can easily see why. Once you get past the comical dinosaurs however there is the kernel of a pretty good science fiction yarn here. A group of what we might now call extreme eco fanatics have decided that in order to save the Earth from the ruinous effects of mankind they will quite literally erase Humanity from existence (with the exception a small elite group of course) and return the planet to its pre industrialised state, free from both human overpopulation and all the pollution that entails - a Garden of Eden almost. In order to complete their radical plan they must first clear London of its population so they can gain control of a secret government nuclear power station buried underneath a tube station - hence the use of the 'time scoop' to extract dinosaurs from prehistory and deposit them in 1970's London. All good fun but viewing this as a adult now I can see the fascistic overtones of this sinister scheme that quite escaped me as a child, and the fact that the normally reliable Captain Yates of UNIT joins in with the conspiracy (and actual betrays the Doctor at one point) lends the story a unexpected level of sophistication and moral ambiguity. The writer of this story - Malcolm Hulke - seems to have been a man well ahead of his time.

In all honesty I found John Carpenter's 'The Thing' to be offensively gross and utterly charmless compared to Howard Hawk's atmospheric 1951 original, but he also made the enduringly wonderful 'Dark Star' and his 'Halloween' is 30 years after its release still one of the most effective fright machines I've ever seen. Such a shame that its memory has been sullied somewhat by quite so many inferior 'slasher' imitations. As for my headlong dive into classic Who, I've just started on Jon Pertwee's 'Invasion of the Dinosaurs' - now if you thought that the computer generated special effects in Jurassic Park were good then rest assured you ain't seen nothing yet .....

It took Virgin Media 4 months and numerous visits to deal with a very simple wiring fault on my land line, but that problem pales into insignificance compared to the aggravation I've experienced over the years surrounding the tiresome necessity of insuring a car. It has been my experience that this industry is without doubt the very worse offenders when it comes to poor/abysmal customer service. For just one example from many, the last time I changed my car not only was I was charged a outrageous £50 'admin fee' for next to no actual work, but the company concerned then decided to add insult to injury by posting urgently needed documents using a 2nd class stamp ! Car Insurance providers and wheel clamping company's = the last bastions of organised crime.

We can argue about the merits of this young keeper but the real significance behind this story is that the club are (reportedly) prepared to spend this kind of money on any player. If anyone on here, or in the English game generally, still doubts just how serious this club now is about becoming a firmly established PL club then they need to think again. The next few months look set to become a exciting time for Saints fans everywhere.

I (like Doctor Who itself) was born in 1963 so I'm only just old enough to remember any Troughton - I have just a vague memory of Yeti's in the underground so Jon Pertwee is my first real Doctor in truth. I take it my friend you have seen 'The Invasion' where the two missing episodes of this rather good eight part Troughton serial have been recreated using a mixture of new animation and the original soundtrack ? I so wish 2/Entertain would do more of this because the results are worthwhile. As for the method employed to replace Frazer Hines in 'The Mind Robber' - this is as audacious a piece of TV improvisation you will ever see, I doubt non Who aficonardos on here would even believe us if we tried to explain it. I must say the Robots in Mind Robber were so bad you just have to laught at them, but the 'toy' soldiers on the other hand I found somewhat unsettleing for reasons I can't fully explain.

Of all Gene Roddenberry's many children I've always considered DS9 to be the runt of the litter frankly, not worthy to be mentioned in the same breath as Star Trek TOS, Next Gen, or even Voyager. But I must admit I bailed out after the first two seasons so perhaps it matured with age - it sure as hell needed to in this space cadet's view. As for what 'Sci-Fi' (by which we often actually mean 'Fantasy') I've been watching lately, I've reverted to my childhood and started to collect 'Classic' Doctor Who DVD's - mostly from the 1960's & 70's. This week I've been much enjoying a 1968 Patrick Troughton story called 'The Mind Robber' which illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of early Who perfectly. It's a brilliantly conceived and skillfully written tale concerning the Doctors attempts to escape from Non Space - a void outside the realm of normal reality where a alien machine intelligence employs the imagination of a captured human author to create a world populated entirely by fictional characters. A ripping yarn full of period charm I thought, but a younger audience more used to modern standards would probably find the relatively crude production values and the general cheap and rushed nature of the production unacceptable. Nevertheless, for my money I consider the fact that so many William Hartnell & Patrick Troughton serials are now irredeemably lost due to the short-sightedness of the BBC to be something of a minor tragedy.

Fair comment. Andy Carroll very obviously won the ball in the air very effectively and he might well have posed a big problem (pun intended) for the Italian defence had we still possessed any remotely mobile striker up front to reap the benefits. By that time however Rooney's legs were gone. Lumping it up to the big man is a unsophisticated - stone age almost - way of playing, but as every man and his dog can plainly see our real problem is that we just can't keep retention of the ball adequately. Running hard to regain possession virtually all the game will eventually wear down even the fittest of players. It was ever thus with our National team. As for comparing Sir Ricky with Andy Carroll, well only time will tell who is the more effective this coming season. However if Liverpool where to come knocking on our door tomorrow with a player swap proposal then I must say I'd probably take it. Not that I believe for one second any such thing is at all likely you understand.

So it turns out that both cat ****e and excessive weed growth are probably the result of my innate idleness and resistance to the tyranny of lawn mowing - I can't help but think I've ended up with the disgraceful lawn I deserve. My thanks to all those who have been so kind as to take the trouble to reply. Although I like the idea of Lazylawn and getting somebody else in to sort it out, I suppose I shall just have to make a bigger effort and mend my wicked ways I suppose.

As the most unenthusiastic and incompetent gardener I find myself in need of some good advice from our more 'green fingered' forum members. My lawn has become infested with weeds for some reason (it seems to be more weed than grass almost) and I was wondering which is the best way to deal with them. I tempted to get one of those clever Frisker weed pullers you see advertised on TV, but this looks suspiciously like hard work so would it be better to treat the lawn with chemicals instead? While I'm on the subject, does anyone one know of a really effective way of stopping bloody cats from fouling the lawn ? Shoot the bastards was my first idea - but this option has been ruled out by 'she who must be obeyed'

It's aways a mistake for the older generation to drone on endlessly about the folly of the young - a mistake I fully intend to repeat now. I know couple in exactly the situation we are discussing here with 4 children to support, crippling debts, no savings, and left seriously vulnerable to any unexpected financial setback every single month. Yet instead of living as economically as humanly possible (as I undoubtedly would) they have SKY Sports TV, I never see the slightest indication that wanton electricity or heating use is ever a issue, even silly luxury's like new computer game consuls are often to be seen. Speaking as a (very) low paid working class chap form a older generation who grew up in relative poverty, I would find living like this now impossibly stressful myself. But before I go any further in condemning our reckless youth, I must also add that the young Father in question works very hard to support his family and has just been rewarded with a decent pay rise as a result - this pay rise has tipped him over numerous benefit threshold traps and means that he is actualy much worse off now that he was before. The truth is that for a great many ordinary working parents in this country work just does not pay. Yes for some reason I can't fully understand many of our young generation feel they are entitled to a lifestyle they can neither afford nor justify in all honesty, but the social security system that millions of our fellow British citizens depend upon is a utter nonsense as well. So much reform is needed I don't believe that any political party has the guts to really tackle the problem.

The 'mesh' effect on the exterior is very clearly a anti-RPG measure intended to foil any serious attack from disgruntled Pompey fans. As a welcome bonus it will also help to keep bird sh1t off the heads of visiting dignitaries such as Sir Alex Ferguson or Joey Barton. I have it on good authority that the club also plans to dramatically increase the number of toilets at St Marys, due to the fact that Tommy Forecast will now be our first choice keeper this coming season. You heard it here first.

Interesting. I shall seek it out in the hope that this author is more than just a latter day Erick von Daniken.

While we are on the subject of local crime fiction, does anyone else remember 'Target' - a hard hitting late 70's TV police series also set on Southampton's implausibly mean streets ? Considered controversial in its day because of the (high) level of violence portrayed, it could have been the BBC's answer to 'The Sweeney' I suppose, but unlike that true classic it only ran for one series and has (to the best of my knowledge) never been repeated for some strange reason. The teenage version of me found it highly entertaining, but there again I was also into Terry & June so I may not be the most reliable judge of what is good 70's television.

Post of the day. Whatever happens to team & manager during the first few (very hard as it happens) games of the season we should all remember that those results alone won't decide anything much come May 2013. As for the question of whether NA is up to the challenge of pitching his wits against the best in the business ? Well only time will tell of course, but it seems a fair enough question to ask when we've been discussing the exactly the same about our players for months now.

Last season was a injury hit disappointment, but in the main he did well here and obviously this player still has a lot to offer. However you'd struggle to make a convincing case that he's Premier League quality, and in any case he's well down the pecking order here now. So this transfer (or one like it) would seem like a good deal for both club and player.

I was very pleased to see that much underestimated US police series 'The Closer' make a unheralded, but very welcome, return to our screens last night. Deputy Chief Brenda-Lee's Major Crimes Unit was back in the thick of the action investigating a brutal mass murder in LA's notorious gang/rap music sub couture, while simultaneously coping with the political fall-out of the new chiefs appointment. The scene when Brenda manipulated a 'gang banger' into confessing to the murders was really quite something - the young black actor concerned delivering one of the best portrayals of sheer explosive rage this TV addict has ever seen. A truly 'gob smacking' ending to this episode as well. So a great big Brenda style "thank you sooo much" to the lads and lasses at More 4 for continuing to broadcast this excellent series.

The left might be making a comeback in Scandinavia with this brave 'stand' against bourgeois male chauvinism, but back in the birthplace of State Communism a new generation of politicians are making a decisive break with the past - in the most symbolic way imaginable. http://rt.com/politics/parliamentary-majority-favors-reburial-809/ Burying the moldy corpse of Communism's secular saint seems a perfectly fitting analogy for the fate of his failed political ideology does it not ?

Interesting to read that someone on here seriously thought that Jack Cork was "poor" this season! I on the other hand would be more than happy to see a Saints midfield built around a core of Lallana, Schneiderlin and Jack Cork in place for years to come because all 3 have a real chance of becoming established Premier League players methinks - that's a chance not a absolute certainty until the 'acid test' of a actual Premier League season has been completed. It seems to me that in a ideal world we could still do with another wide player (better than SDR or Guly) and a midfield enforcer type (better than either Hammond or Chaplow) ... but a fan can't always have everything he wants can he?

Why thanks for this show of concern - but I was feeling perfectly calm anyway.