CHAPEL END CHARLIE

I mixed in (somewhat uncomfortably I must admit) with the teenagers today and saw 'Catching Fire' - the latest installment of what is rapidly becoming Hollywood's new 'The Hunger Games' franchise. Although the Iron Law of diminishing returns applies to a degree, to be fair to it this sequel is not a bad film by any means. But why the lovely Katniss should be so determined that no harm should come to Peeta remains a bit of a mystery because let's face it, he's a bit of a dope isn't he? A more substantial criticism is that this decent film could have been a rather better one had at least 15 minutes been edited out of the first hour. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keT5CRhhy84

I left this thread at 10.30 this morning. I've just got back in, and I see the same people are still having the same bloody argument 8 hours later! This seems excessive. Indeed, I'm starting to wonder if some of you lot are actually Vampires and you're waiting for dark before you dare venture out of the house today?

A entirely different type of Helicopter involved in this incident I understand. Whatever happened to this police helicopter it must have happened very rapidly indeed because photos of the site show there is a large (largely empty) car park only yards away from this pub, a obvious landing site I strongly suspect the pilot would have tried to make if he could have. For that matter a proper heliport is only a mile or so away I believe.

Proper preparation prevents p1ss poor performance they say - a credo Don Cortese obviously subscribes to. I don't know if I find the meticulous level of attention to detail the club is now applying to all aspects of the game to be deeply impressive, or rather frightening. A bit of both perhaps. In any case, of all the press links we've seen posted on this site lately THIS is surely the one every Saints fan should bother to read if they really want to understand what is happening at our club. I've always taken the Chairman's stated ambition to transform little Southampton Football Club into a real force at the posh end of the Premier League with a 'pinch of salt' as it were. Now however, well if the Liebherr cash keeps flowing then maybe ... just maybe.

Some thoughts on the question of moving UK nuclear weapon facilities out of a newly independent Scotland. It seems to me there are all sorts of potential security/health & safety/planning difficulties associated with relocating the Scottish based UK nuclear facilities. For instance, wherever we might choose to relocate these facilities (Devonport/Portland/Portsmouth?) you can rest assured that many locals will object vehemently to having nuclear weapons placed in their 'backyard' as it were - and who can blame them some might say. Okay there are provisions for the MoD to 'short cut' the normal labyrinthine planning process in this country, but that itself raises ethical questions re the validity of riding roughshod over the democratic process in order to protect it. HMG can't just force this through in a matter of months - they will need to win the argument both in Parliament and with the people. Those familiar with submarine operation may consider it tactically undesirable for our SSBN force to be operating in the highly congested (and hence acoustically noisy) waters of the English Channel/Western approaches. I'm not a believer in the case for a UK nuclear deterrent anyway, but those who are may be concerned about the operational security of these boats when departing/returning from patrol. For that matter what about the seven old decommissioned nuclear submarines currently rusting away quietly at Roysth? Being true believers in a non nuclear Scotland I can't see the SNP being very interested in participating meaningfully in the disposal process (when we finally get round to deciding how we are going to proceed with that difficult problem that is) so all those old hulks might be heading south to Devonport sometime soon I can only presume. Is there even room for them there? The only estimate for the cost of all this major disruption I have seen is the (suspiciously round) £20bn+ number published in the press a year or so ago. But surely the IRON LAW of defence procurement is that as soon as you attach the word 'Nuclear' to any project then the costs go through the roof and any delivery date slips into the distant future at a rate of knots. Ten years and £20bn might end up being wildly optimistic estimates. Those who doubt any of that would do well to take a quick look at the record of the 'Valiant' nuclear submarine jetty at Faslane and think again. For what it's worth, I both hope and believe the Scottish people will ultimately decide to maintain the union in the coming referendum.. a happy outcome that would render this whole point moot of course. Should they vote otherwise however ... well we would have a big problem on our hands then wouldn't we?

Thanks for the info my friend - it would be a proper downer if nothing came out of all this speculation now wouldn't it? As for The Dalek's Master Plan, naturally like any proper Who fan I've seen what is currently available on the 'Lost in Time' DVD and - fun as seeing the demotic little buggers with Flame Throwers certainly is - I'm not really sure the general public is ready yet for a 12 part Dalek epic. Getting to see the wonderful Kevin Stoney chewing the scenery again would however be a most welcome development. Funnily enough I was showing my (Who and Saints mad) Godson 'The Moonbase' only last week and as you may well know we briefly catch a glimpse of the fiendish 'Macra Terror' in the final back in the TARDIS scene. I spun the boy a line on how utterly nightmarish this fearsome crab-like beast is - so it may not be a entirely good thing for my reputation if he finally gets to see this serial and the truth is exposed!

Sad news, I liked him. His career is a object lesson in the dangers of 'type casting' I suppose - I sometimes wonder how his 'The Professionals' co star Martin Shaw managed to avoid the same fate ... a more versatile actor perhaps. Time takes its inevitable toll on all flesh of course, but I shall still think of them both as young men because TV offers a kind of tenuous immortality the real real can never allow. Speaking of which, I understand both Bodie and Doyle's infamous 3.0 Capri's have been restored back to rude health - if only cancer could be as easily cured as rust is ...

My cup runneth over .... It's been a fantastic time to be a Doctor Who fan recently what with the anniversary celebrations and the rediscovery of two missing Troughton stories, but it seems there might just be more to come. The rumor mill is again buzzing with tales that a completely missing seven part 1964 William Hartnell serial 'Marco Polo' has been rediscovered in its entirety. http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/doctor-who-missing-episodes-seven-2839102 You have to wonder just how good the quality can possibly be when someone literally films their small (very low definition) early 1960's TV screen, but thanks to modern technology the restoration team can do wonders these days with even the poorest base material to work with. I see the BBC has issued one of those 'we can neither confirmed nor deny' type statements regarding this news - which I'm taking to be a strong hint there may well be something to this story. Here's hoping anyway.

Going to the trouble of seeing 'Day of the Doctor' on a 3D cinema screen was well worth the effort I thought - there was a special atmosphere in the room you seldom get to experience when seeing a ordinary movie with a general audience. I can confirm that the (mostly younger generation) fans present certainly seemed to have enjoyed and appreciated this unique opportunity to see the Doctor in such a grand setting. We really must do this again sometime methinks. As for my take on it, I thought it exhibited all the strengths, and many of the weaknesses, of the Moffat era. Matt Smith is such a endearingly quirky, believably alien, Doctor that I strongly suspect we'll miss him terribly when he goes in a few weeks time. Peter Calpadi has a tough act to follow. Backing this prodigiously talented young actor with established stars of the caliber David Tenant and John Hurt results in a cast list any drama director would surely die for. The script sparkled with inventiveness and humour too, so much so that it's been many years since I've heard a audience laugh out loud quite so often in a cinema. The problem with Steven Moffat is that being both Series Producer and Script Writer he could use a strong (Terrance Dicks like) Script Editor who might dare to whisper in his ear on occasion and tell him when his storylines are becoming too complex, too unfocused, and too adult perhaps. While Day of the Doctor was billed as the story of the cataclysmic 'Time War' between the Dalek's and the Time Lords (a conflict that has haunted this series ever since it was resurrected in its modern form back in 2005) instead of concentrating on that devastating struggle much of the script was devoted instead to this Zygon Invasion/Elizabethan subplot that did little to advance the main plot. But I don't want to be too critical because on the whole 'Day of the Doctor' was a notable success I thought. Indeed, I'm not at all ashamed to admit that the unforgettable moment near the end when (quite impossibly!) the sound of Tom Bakers wonderful old voice echoed from the screen brought a tear to the eye of this aged Whovian ... ... oh and tears being another experience you seldom see in a cinema.

I know it's sloppy thinking but if I may be forgiven for engaging in a spot of national stereotyping just this once, a arguable case can perhaps be made that the British (as a race) are somewhat given to treating their young in a rather hostile/indifferent manner on occasion. For example, the cruelty the upper classes once routinely inflicted on their children by sending them away to bordering school at a very young age and (at the other end of the social spectrum) the manifest wickedness of putting children barely ten years old of trial (as if they were adults) being just two exemplars of this behavior. But there again we really don't treat our older people all that well either do we?

I saw Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey star in 'The Butler' last weekend and on the whole I was much impressed with it. Based (rather loosely I understand) on the story of a actual White House butler, Whitaker plays 'Cecil Gaines' a black man learning to survive, and eventually prosper, in what was then very much a white man's world. Gaines is butler to eight presidents - from Eisenhower to Reagan - but this is not really a 'West Wing' style look at the internal workings of that remarkable building, but rather a film more interested in the wider Black civil rights struggle of the late 20th century. While Cecil works within the system in a non threatening subservient position (indeed the highest praise for a White House butler is that no one notices he is in the room) his eldest son 'Louis' (David Oyelowo) goes the other way completely and actively engages with the emerging civil rights movement of the time - much to his straight laced father's disgust. It is this question of how best black America might emerge from behind the shadow of white domination/oppression that lays at the heart of this fine movie. A interesting film this that has much to say and says it well. A great script and strong performances from its ensemble cast too - especially from Whitaker and Winfrey. So I'd have thought any discerning film goer should find plenty to satisfied them here. However I must add that if you want to see this in the cinema then you better get a move on because when I went there was about half a dozen of us in there at most - all just as gray haired/balding as I am. The lesson is if you want to win Oscars then make quality films like this. If you want to make money ... well you'd probably better off churning out yet more comic book adaptations that will pack the teenagers in. 'Twas ever thus I suppose.

As a keen student of early Doctor Who you can probably tell there was no way on (or off) of Earth I was ever going to miss the Beeb's new drama about the creation of Gods Wonderful Sci-Fi Series back in November 1963 - 'An Adventure in Space and Time' (BBC2 Thursday). As this was written by long term Who fan and all round good guy Mark Gatiss I was expecting this to be good television. But the programme I saw last night somehow managed to exceed any (high) expectations I may have had for it - indeed so very impressed was I with it that I thought is was close to being a bloody triumph. Bravo to all concerned. With the bar already set quite this high unless tomorrows 50th anniversary episode turns out to be something really rather special then methinks a spirit of revolution may start to build among the massed ranks of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society. Will it be a case of down with Moffat and Via Gatiss I wonder? I'm off to the cinema tomorrow to pay good money to find out ... watch this space, watch the skies, just watch!

The above blog is an elegantly put example of a philosophy sometimes termed 'Moral Relativism' - IE Human behavior is relative to, and conditioned by, our environment (war in this case) therefore questions surrounding the existence of our 'Free Will' and the moral choices we make, or even the very validity of ideas such as good/bad/right/wrong are all subjective. Where a moral choice is made impossible by our environment, then there can be no true guilt or innocence. If we absolve a young man from a war crime because of the combat stress he has surely endured on the battlefield, then should we also absolve another young man who has committed murder here on our streets because of the terrible abuse he may have suffered from during childhood? Our prisons are full to bursting point with damaged and dysfunctional people, do they all truly deserve that fate? A question easier posed than answered methinks. But not every traumatized soldier decides to execute a hapless enemy prisoner, for that matter nor does every abused child go on to commit a serious crime. So perhaps our environment goes only some of the way towards explaining our behavior ... and explaining Human behavior is not quite the same thing as excusing it.

I too saw this programme 'JFK's Secret Killer:The Evidence' (C5 Tuesday) and I must say it was rather interesting. For those who missed it, the central tenant of the programme is that while Lee Harvey Oswald did indeed shoot and hit the President that black day in Dallas fifty years ago, the actual final 'kill shot' (a shot that cause massive damage to JFK's skull) was it is argued the result of the accidental discharge of a Secret Service agent's AR-15 assault rifle from a following car. There is actually some circumstantial evidence to back this up. Several witnesses traveling in the presidential motorcade report seeing a agent holding the rifle at the time and at least one of them also testifies that he could smell gunpowder in the air - a smell it seems reasonable to conclude that could not possibly have emanated from the distant Texas School Book Depository. Crucially the round that struck the President's brain seems to have shattered into small fragments while the slightly earlier (Lee Harvey) round that had already hit JFK in the neck and gone on to wound Governor Connolly remained intact. This last point, and unresolved questions surrounding the caliber of the kill shot, are key. There are needless to say some problems with this theory, not least of which is that fact that - despite there being hundreds of witnesses present - not one of them seems to have noticed his bodyguard shooting the President of the United States in the head! I also understand that the accused Secret Service man (George Hickey) sued the author of this claim back in the 1990's - he won the case. Nevertheless, what we might call the 'cock-up' theory of history often seems to offer a more convincing explanation of Human behavior than the conspiratorial one, and one can certainly see why the US Secret Service would want to cover up such a cataclysmic example of Human error. http://www.channel5.com/shows/jfks-secret-killer-the-evidence/episodes/jfks-secret-killer-the-evidence

A few years ago now, being particularly impressed at seeing a fine example of the defenders art, I did shout out at the very top of my voice "well played Mills" only to then realize that actually it was Dan Harding I was directing my praise at. No one in the Chapel was so impolite as to said anything ... but I well knew what they were thinking!

You just have to respect Punch for opting to give up a pretty safe berth here for a guaranteed relegation scrap at Palace. This displays a good attitude towards the game if you ask me. After all, at his age a real player will want to play. Having said that I do sometimes wonder if he's still happy with his decision.

He is displaying a truly saintly attitude then because we've given him nothing but dogs abuse every time he came back as a player ...

Correct, and it has been shown that the WWII Italian army rifle in question - in trained hands - is capable of firing the number (3 or 4 I can't remember) of aimed shots in the time available. Now no one says it's easy, - but crucially it is possible.

It seems to me the evidence that Lee Harvey was an intensively trained and qualified USMC 'Marksman' or 'Sharpshooter' is beyond all dispute. Both those terms are surely self explanatory - IE one of the worlds elite fighting forces considered him to be capable of handling a rifle with a degree of competency well beyond that expected of a ordinary infantry soldier. He had the benefit of a telescopic sight of course and in any case the target range criteria required to pass the aforementioned USMC exams are within the recorded distances involved in the JFK assignation.

Most, if not all, the mainstays of the JFK conspiracy theory has been pretty comprehensibly debunked over the years, from the so called 'second gunman' on the infamous grassy knoll to the claimed impossibility of Lee Harvey Oswald firing the recorded number of aimed shots in the time available - Oswald was a trained USMC sharpshooter by the way and the Mannlicher-Carcano a perfectly adequate bolt action rifle. The trajectory of the 'magic bullet' turns out to be not quite so mysterious once you understand the ballistics of the matter and examine the seat layout of the Presidential Lincoln in close detail. Even the Zapruder footage showing the President's head recoiling rearwards by no means amounts to evidence that he was shot from the front, or side. Now I don't live and breathe conspiracy theories, I've got better things to do, but as far as I'm aware all the reputable evidence of what happened that fatal day on Dealey Plaza is consistent with Lee Harvey Oswald being responsible for this terrible crime. The truth very often is that life is just a hell of a lot more mundane and banal than you'd think it should be sometimes.

Well he hid this back problem pretty well because you'd (well I would anyway) never have guessed - good lad. However although it seems churlish to voice any criticisms after such a fine performance, with midfielders of the quality of Jack Cork and Steve Davis available on the bench perhaps VW should have been subbed earlier. Be that as it may, the one thing you could never accuse MP of is not knowing his best team because PL selection has been remarkably consistent this season. MP is obviously the type of manager who is loath to change things unless he is forced into it. Seeing the results he's getting, who on here would dare say he's wrong in that? Everyone in the stadium could see that VW was clearly at fault for their goal, but as he has surely played a big part in getting this team where it is tonight methinks - just like Artur last week - we can forgive him the odd mistake now and then. Success is funny thing, it brings a unprecedented sense of magnanimity along with it.

As I understand it - and I'm no expert - according to the convention the guerrilla fighter should fight under a recognized chain-of-command. He should wear a military uniform (or at least some kind of emblem) that identifies him as a combatant. The fighter must also carry his weapon openly in order that he should not be confused with a civilian. Crucially he should 'obey the rules of war' as defined by custom and the convention. In reality of course very few guerrilla groups have historically complied with those (highly unrealistic in practicable terms) set of rules. For instance, most guerrilla fighters are simply not in a position to accept EPW's - even if they desired to do so. Therefore you could argue that the Royal Marine involved in this case did not actually violate the Geneva Convention because the Taliban do not technically fall within its provisions. However, this Marine was not charged with breaking the GC - he was charged with an offence under the provisions of UK military law.

Combatants fighting undercover or out of uniform have often been subject to summery execution in the past, but so called 'Guerrilla' fighters do have Geneva Convention rights depending upon whether the armed conflict is international or internal. Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, a person fighting in irregular forces, such as the Taliban, is considered a lawful combatant in an international armed conflict provided that he fights under certain specified conditions. The importance of being a lawful combatant is twofold. First, if captured by opposing international forces (not by his government), he may not be prosecuted or punished for taking part in combat. Second, he must be treated as a prisoner of war under applicable international rules.

What a sheer joy it is to see one of 'ours' come so far in the game and play so brilliantly at the highest domestic level. Adam has always been blessed with an exceptional attitude, energy level, and ability to control a football at pace. Last season it may have taken him a little while to adapt to the burden of captaincy and not always being the best player on the pitch anymore. Injury may also have hampered him. But I never thought for one moment that he was nearly as bad as some on here - yes I'm thinking of you Roger - claimed he was. The next big step of course is international football. Playing so well (quite literally) right in front of Roy Hodgeson today he could not possibly have done his case any harm at all. Indeed, if the collective will of St Marys could help him force his way into the national side then he'd already be there.

When I listen to the audio tape of this awful incident it strikes me that all those fictional accounts of murder we are constantly surrounded with where the killer has a deeply damaged and/or atypical personality, a person who often suffers terrible stress as a consequence of their violence is in fact a gross misrepresentation of the real world. Although they were clearly not under fire at the time, I don't know what these Marines went through before that fatal day. However, listen to how 'matter-of-fact' they apparently find killing to be, hear how easy and amusing they seem to find the experience ... It seems to me that many perfectly ordinary Human Beings find the act of killing other Human Beings to be a remarkably casual business. No more serious a matter than a slaughterman might find killing a pig to be you might say. As far as I can tell many of these 'natural born killers' living among us seem to suffer from little (or no) sense of remorse or consequence for their actions afterwards. Now I first glimpsed this dark truth about Human nature half a lifetime ago when as a adolescent I developed a interest in war, in particular Germany's long descent into barbarism under Nazi rule. I've learnt that war has much to teach us about ourselves, a 'theater' where all the many aspects of our Human nature are laid bare for all to see. But away from the hard truths of history and back into the comfortably safe world of fiction, my favorite film - Clint Eastwood's 1992 masterpiece 'Unforgiven' - is as you may know a work where the director is careful to ensure that actions are always shown to have consequences and that the act of killing changes a man fundamentally. That style of serious film making is how I personally prefer to see violence depicted in fiction. But I've come to think that maybe I'm wrong here and that the appallingly casual way younger filmmakers (such as Quentin Tarentino) portray deadly violence in their work actually represents a much truer depiction of how people are. Truer perhaps, but not more edifying.