What a Wonderland We Inhabit ?

WIKIPEDIA : "Alice in Wonderland is a 1966 BBC television play, shot on film, based on Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It was adapted, produced and directed by Jonathan Miller, then best known for his appearance in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe."

WOW! That's some card. Thanks for taking the trouble to send it. In a moment of weakness I mentioned it, as 75 is a round number at which most of my male ancestors seem to have given up the ghost. It's becoming an ever closer reality yet at the same time quite a seemingly impossible concept. The topic has been in the forefront of my mind since my earliest days. It now seems ever present, all enveloping and imminent. There is a strange quality about all the spaces left by those who have gone before, having left the room without closing the door, with just remnant memories. How they flood back when we get together with thosed that shared our past? Both life and death have a chimeric unreality about them, that our rational minds never really get a handle on. Generally speaking we cope with the topic by converting demise into statisics, just as the numbers and dates we affix to our lives. But of course, they are poor and ineffective substitutes for living and the inner life, for representing the loss of being - of ourselves and others. So on we go, notching up the numbers, until time's equation ends with an 'x' or a 'y'. Apologies for this late night drivel and thanks again for your good wishes for this, my most insignificant three-quarter century.

Blur - Tender (Official Music Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaHrqKKFnSA

Billy Joel - Turn the Lights Back On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOf6CMbHPuA

20.2'2024: Today I heard the report of an American doctor back from Gaza. He worked 16 hour shifts in a hospital there amputating children's limbs without anaesthetic. He saw multiple cases of small children shot in the head by israeli snipers. Now what sort of sick society produces soldiers so dehumanised and indoctrinated that that they systematically target and murder innocent children? Shame on America for vetoing calls for a ceasefire. Shame on Britain for calling Gaza a 'humanitarian crisis'. This is massacre of a defenceless people. It is genocide. It is war crime. It is inhuman jewish barbarism - and the world just looks on and discusses the finer points of the law which Israel ignores. If Israel does not stop its homicidal madness, it too should be threatened with military intervention - but who will do it? The world is sick of Netanyahu and his henchmen. The only thing that will stop them is some of their own medicine - kill or cure.

19.2.2024: If the American government believed what it preached, instead of backing Israel, they would have had troops on the ground by now, protecting Gazan civilians. Their 'freedom' and 'human rights' rhetoric is a hollow lie, and if it wasn't obvious to the world before, it must be now. It is the principal backer of a remorseless and merciless artificial State, that is hell-bent on the total subjigation - and yes irradication - of a whole population, whilst both 'Western Christian' and 'Arab Muslim' governments, look on apparently impotent. I am against war, what sane person isn't? - but when faced by a unrestrained, one-sided, evil entity like Israel, only resisting force of arms offers protection and victory. It is a basic human right to protect oneself against aggression and threat, both individually and corporately. The question is where will it come from if not from Palestinians themselves? How will it be achieved unless other great powers in the region back them. If they do, how will it not escalate into another devastating world conflict, in which no nation will be spared? Israel has torn up the moral rule book. It has taken provocation to record extremes. It has demonstrated total disregard for human life and property. It has encouraged, justified and exhonerated the most inhuman and bestial behaviour by its troops and citizens. Its flagrant lies have been hung out to dry like the skins of animals. It has for ever lost the moral high ground and shown itself to be devoid of reason or wisdom, let alone empathy for the rights or status of others. It has brought Judiasm into such disrepute it unlikely ever to recover, and condemned the State of Israel itself to internation opprobrium and the seeds of its own destruction. Israel's leaders and members of its armed forces have been shown to be despicable war criminals and Western apologists of them as pusillaminous quislings of a foreign power, a hidden agenda, a secret state. What will it take to stop this madness and institute the changes necessary to allow Palestinians to live in peace and safety? Will thousands upon thousands of Israelis also have to die before it is achieved? https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2024/02/

Britain actively assisting Israel in brutal and illegal GENOCIDE? Does Sunak have blood on his hands?

Why Are Israeli War Planes Landing in Britain? Matt Kennard Investigates.

DECLASSIFIED UK. 43,485 views Premiered Feb 8, 2024

Nine Israeli Air Force flights have landed in Britain since the war in Gaza began, Declassified has found, but secrecy surrounds what was on these planes. With tens of thousands of Palestinians dead, Matt Kennard investigates whether these transits have deepened Britain's complicity in the slaughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lONcBFlOTTs

Claude Baesens

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@edouardhusson :
This little girl is name Hind Rajab. Her body was just found near Gaza City along with those of five family members. Their car was targeted by the Israeli army. An ambulance and a nurse who tried to help them were also killed. I give the example of this little girl to a broken destiny. She is one of 30,000 Palestinian civilians dead since Israeli reprisal against October 7 attack began. 30,000 dead out of which one third are children, like Hind. 70,000 injured. Not counting 20,000 missing. Nothing justifies this Israeli brutality. Neither does military humiliation suffer on October 7, 2023. Neither thirst for revenge for the 1200 Israelis who died that day - we mourn their memory as much - no more, no less - as the Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian victims of the war that began and is threatening to embrace the Middle East. Nothing justifies the inaction of the international community to stop the massacre. Nothing justifies my government's complicit silence while killing in Gaza - shame on him. Nor the apathy of the French political class (with rare exceptions) - in the face of this mass violence. South Africa has bravely opened a loophole before the International Court of Justice; but it is not supported enough - and the Netanyahu government appears to have intensified its violence since the ICJ verdict, to mark that international law is powerless before its force to he. That's why it's urgent to put pressure on an otherwise weak government in Israel itself. When will the US get out of double language (criticizing Israel while delivering bombs)? When will EU member states follow the Irish, Belgian and Spanish governments - who saves honour? When will Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies come out of their double language of mourning the death of their co-religious people in Gaza while continuing their trade relations with Tel Aviv? When will the powerful voice of a new Jaurès or a new de Gaulle rise from France, to speak the truth and assemble the UN Security Council behind a unanimous and binding resolution? How can one be a French leader and sleep soundly when over a million Gazans are stuck in Rafah and victims of the abominable blackmail of a Netanyahu in the abyss, who attempts one last bluff and threatens to bomb and attack Rafah refugees? How can we lead a country that gave the Declaration of Human Rights to the world and accept that men, women, children are dying of hunger and disease in the Eastern Mediterranean? It is true that in the government palaces you can quickly lose contact with the real thing. There are so many people who are there to help and advise you, and whose primary concern is that you never have pictures like Hind under your eyes. Goodbye little girl! Many of us carry you in our hearts, you and all the children of Gaza who died in this abomination. And know that we are rising up in numbers to claim your people's right to live in peace with all their neighbors (including Israel). Goodbye princess! Pray for us from Abraham's bosom! https://twitter.com/edouardhusson/status/1756461946851754191?s=12&fbclid=IwAR35HA9Zw0TP8K2hQQ4sqGvifco6USJPxKXJ068EosxQsFwuTTccPFLZ5Eg

I am not only disillusioned by our government but positively disgusted with it. When we are unable to condemn mass destruction and massacre of thousands of innocent women and children, in fact defend and apologise for the Israeli government, we know we have reached an utter nadir of self-esteem and morality. When not even the Churches appear to condemn it, what a moribund state we are in. Paradoxically, leaving aside Muslims, the only sect that appears to have been outspoken in opposition to zionism and its barbarism, has been orthodox Jewry. Where is the Christian condemnation? Where are the ethical, human rights-loving political parties? Are they all so terrified at being labelled 'anti-semitic' and 'terrorist-supporters' that they are struck dumb? Parliament is packed out with 'Friends of Israel'. That is in the same category as defending and providing succour to a serial killer. We know how the criminal law regards those. https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/

Kay Jo Jo

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Alice in Wonderland BBC4 11.25 to 12.40am.

The most bonkersly charming version there is; with plentiful hints of the sinister implicit.

Involves Peter Sellers and is adapted, produced & directed by Johnathon Miller. 1966.

Catch it if you can

"The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll (or Charles Dodgson)

How doth the little crocodile

Improve his shining tail,

And pour the waters of the Nile

On every golden scale!

How cheerfully he seems to grin,

How neatly spreads his claws,

And welcomes little fishes in,

With gently smiling jaws!"

Kay Jo Jo

Ann-Marie Mallik as Alice is exactly as Alice ought to be.

20h
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Edited

Tim Veater

Kay Jo Jo

Tim Veater

Yea I watched it last night. A rather interesting feature I noticed was the embroidery on her dress. Did you? Even more interesting, it is missing on the above photograph. What could be the explanation?

Kay Jo Jo

Tim Veater She does appear to wear two different dresses but haven't a clue haven't a clue why..

Tim Veater

Kay Jo Jo I presume to mark a distinction between the projected hypnotic/narcotic/psychotic state and her 'normal' perceptual one. I was interested in the symbolism of the embroidered decoration on the latter one.

Tim Veater

My sister in law used to swoon over Jonathan Miller in the sixties. He was a bright young thing who qualified as a medical doctor and then moved into theatre and television. He did a series on the body at one time I remember. I envied his effortless effortless eloquence.

Tim Veater

It's partly visible in this shot:

Kay Jo Jo

Tim Veater Beyond The Fringe. A very talented group. I've always thought Dudley Moore sadly underrated. I hadn't even noticed before that Alan Bennett was Mouse at the tea party. Excellent cast. Louie chose to study the book for his A-Level English Lit & made a good job of it. It inspired me to read it again & loved it even more as an adult. Miller said his adaptation was about children but not for them.

2h
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Edited

Tim Veater

Kay Jo Jo It's very much an allegory of post empire upper-class Britain that Miller emerged and benefitted from, but which in the '60's, with a select and famous group, he spent his time satirising, which marked both a dissollution of the old and evolution a new social mileau that continues, often in bizarre forms, to this day.

Tim Veater

Ahhhh gottit!