The Winston Churchill Effect

In Auntie's War: The BBC during the Second World War, Edward Stourton drops a bombshell.

He's talking about how radio – the original electronic medium – transformed Prime Minister Winston Churchill from a simple politician to a national fetish by bringing him into the sitting room of every British family. Hence all who are old enough can tell you exactly where they were when they heard him transmit these timeless words:

…we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

So indelible was this rallying cry that in Way Back Home – his 2015 anthem to his wartime childhood – Rod Stewart included a clip of this gravelly, defiant BBC broadcast.

That never happened.

It's not unusual for people to remember things wrong. "Play it again, Sam", "I am your father, Luke", "Elementary, my dear Watson!" "Beam me up, Scotty," and enough ersatz Mark Twain quotations to double his shelf, have all entered our collective knowledge. Or properly spoke, belief.

But this case isn't just a few transposed words. An entire nation has literally hallucinated a seminal event, complete with deep affective context and a whole range of sensory cues.

I'm not old enough to remember (or misremember) this broadcast, but reading Stourton's documentation of its nonexistence, I was absolutely floored. I grew up hearing that speech! Old people wouldn't shut up about it! I've entertained/annoyed others with my impression of that Churchill broadcast since high school!

But as it happens, Churchill only ever read out this text in Commons. It was reprinted in the papers next day, and doubtless some BBC presenters quoted it in their segments. But the PM, yea though he frequently addressed his people over the national service, only spoke these particular words into a microphone in 1949, when he was asked to cut the recording we incessantly hear in historical documentaries.

This is just the latest – if most dramatic – instance of the Winston Churchill Effect that I've encountered. Another is the pretty hippy girls who spat on returning Vietnam vets in the 60s and 70s. Many of us remember reading about this in the papers, or seeing it on TV. And in his excellent, highly-recommended autobiography, hermit monk Claude AnShin Thomas relates in some detail the time it happened to him personally.

Except it didn't.

This urban legend is a little easier to bust, given the logistics such an assault would demand. The attacker would have to gain access to a military airbase; loiter around the terminal unnoticed for hours; divine who in the crowd was a returning combat veteran; then approach very near said young man without attracting any attention, even from the target.

All while harbouring jarringly unhippy convictions.

These inconsistencies have bothered me since I was a kid, but I was still dumbfounded to learn no such event has ever been confirmed. Ever. Anywhere.

To be clear, I don't believe AnShin is lying. Rather, he's as certain of this memory as I am that at age 11 I read a front-page story in the local newspaper about a kid – named Richard, wearing a striped collared shirt in the photo – dying from heroin-injected Hallowe'en candy. He gobbed a treat upon returning home, then fell sick. His parents sent him to bed, but when he got worse they rushed him to the hospital, where doctors, little suspecting the cause of his condition, were unable to save him. Later, the candy wrapper was found to be pierced by a hypodermic needle.

You're probably already there. No such crime has ever been reported.

Ever.

Anywhere.

This disturbing bug in our OS has serious implications for our survival. It also vindicates the fundamental tenet of Zen: "don't-know mind". This is the state Zenners cultivate, to the best of our ability, because those opinions we call "facts" are very contingent, and much – perhaps most – of what we remember is inconsistent and imprecise.

And every so often, complete rubbish.

In the state of don't-know mind, we remain open to further data. In this position we stop sorting input into yes, no, and maybe, and just catalogue it. Because the need to respond ethically to external stimuli arises far less often than we think. And "making up your mind" about the rest amounts to shutting off your intelligence.

By not becoming attached to discrete data, we avoid the hysterical blindness it engenders. And, with a little luck and continuing sincere practice, the insanity that leads to.

As for Churchill, he'd get another shot at posterity, as the peroration of his famous Battle of Britain speech would soon be cast in bronze:

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

And this time he really did broadcast it, having first received tremendous acclaim in Parliament. Prevailed upon that evening, he re-read his masterful "finest hour" speech, against his will, pouting and mumbling, from the BBC desk.

At 10PM.

To very few listeners.

And critics who universally panned the whole transmission as lacklustre and forgettable in the next day's papers.

Nevertheless, a great majority of British subjects would forever recall how their hearts quickened and their spines stiffened to Churchill's electric performance, as they listened to him that afternoon.

Or after dinner.

There's some disagreement on that point.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Swamp

(Though most people sneer the word, I've loved swamps since I was child. They promise discovery and adventure.)

WW: Longwire block v.2

(Almost exactly a year ago I posted a Wordless Wednesday entry on my longwire block invention. The prototype in that photo was cumbersome and overbuilt, as prototypes are prone to be, but through a year of successful service it allowed me to understand how to make it more efficient without sacrificing performance.

And here's the next iteration. As you can see it's much smaller, lighter, and simpler than the first one, to say nothing of improved convenience and aesthetics. But it's been through rigorous trails and works just as well.)

WW: New Year's Day

a good world
even from the quince thicket:
"Happy New Year!"

Issa

In Which Marley Carries the Day

I've been a huge Dickens fanboy since a Christmas in high school when I decided to read his most famous story. You know, from an actual book. The kind with no battery.

That was the initial infection. By the end of my undergraduate years I'd read every novel, travelogue, and short story Dickens ever wrote. Followed, in the throes of detox, by several biographies and critical essays, including Orwell's succinct and brilliant analysis of Dickens' place in British culture.

But since those student days I've wanted to write a sequel – more properly, a conclusion – to his most famous work. Because the man left A Christmas Carol unfinished.

In it, as you will recall, bitter old miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by four ghosts – or one ghost and three bodhisattvas – who convince him to lay off being a bitter old miser. (Note that in so doing, Dickens invents psychoanalysis fifty years before the fact. Further proof of his visionary genius.)

The story closes on that catharsis, as Scrooge becomes slightly foolish and a lot nicer to those in his circle, and, we're assured, faithfully keeps Christmas to the end of his days.

And there Charles Dickens abandons his greatest novel, leaving us with nothing more than this uplifting but ultimately anæmic introduction.

And they call Edwin Drood a tragedy!

Because what Dickens takes to his own grave is the story of how Scrooge's overdue rejection of the scarcity model went on to raise a swelling wave of economic and social development, the force of which was still carrying, not just Tim Cratchit, but indeed Tim's great-grandchildren, generations thence.

The belief that greed and stinginess are good business was coin of the realm in Dickens' day, as it remains in ours. But there's no evidence that this pat excuse for egotism is exact.

Fact is, having this reality abruptly kicked up his backside by his business partner and three unrelenting enforcers, my man Ben (who was, lest we forget, uncommon sharp) re-entered the world on the day after New Year's and started ploughing wealth into the neighbourhood: creating infrastructure, developing resources, improving standards, and generating something vastly more valuable than simple jobs: opportunity.

And that's not all. He also straight-up turned Queen's Evidence, plying his legendary flint and synoptic command of commercial law to defend the exploited from the predators he used to ride with. Soon those former homies just stood down when they learned Scrooge and Marley Ltd had the account; you don't win against those odds. Because S&M (you thought that name was a coincidence?) will bulldog you on every point until you never even recoup your losses, let alone profit.

And the ironic part is that Scrooge actually got richer for all of this. Probably a lot richer. Because a lot of competent people who'd only served to keep him in gruel prior to that haunted Christmas Eve were paying their rent and thinking bigger.

If the Ghosts of Christmas had thought it through, they would have added some economics to that field trip through his life. Asked him how his amiable and generous old employer Feziwig got so prosperous; shown him what a waste of earning potential were all those ruined present lives; and especially, how rich he totally wasn't by the hour of his death. Scrooge dies in the same crappy flat, surrounded by the same paltry rubbish. If he'd made more money, it hadn't accomplished anything. Not even for him.

In the end, it's just a total waste to have a guy like Scrooge simply stand down.

Because if it's true that the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging, it is as well that in that moment you find yourself standing beside (or beneath) a pile of soil, holding a shovel.

My thoughts this holiday season; may they be worth the penny.

Wishing us every one the happiest of Yules, and a fruitful new year.


(1915 Arthur Rankham illustration of Jacob Marley auditing Scrooge ["Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"] courtesy of William Pearl and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Workbench

(Last month I knocked this together, my opening salvo in a bid to carve out a modest workshop in my mom's tiny, cluttered garage.

Bench-building is one of those outwardly simple pursuits that amounts to a lot more than meets the eye. To begin with, the job always turns out to be more complex than one assumes, even with lines and lumber this primitive.

But even on a deeper level, there's just something revitalising about providing oneself the basis to build things. Any maker will tell you that a good bench is really a ship of war. From this platform I will execute brilliant feats of resourcefulness.

Or at least I will when I've refurbished my dad's old vise. [Stay tuned.])

Hermitcraft: Sourdough Coffee Cake

During the holidays we frequently entertain, including in the morning. The season is also particularly associated with the scent and flavour of cinnamon and cloves, and here in the Northern Hemisphere, with hot beverages.

That's why I'm sharing this favourite treat, which I developed several years ago, though like chai and sourdough devil's food cake I enjoy it year-round. In the interest of full disclosure I also dislike coffee, but as tea cake is a whole 'nother thing, Sourdough Coffee Cake it is.

For best results, follow the instructions in order.


Sourdough Coffee Cake

Ingredients:

Cake:
1 cup sourdough starter
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon CORRECTION: 1/2 teaspoon soda mixed into 1/4 cup flour

Topping:
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon minced orange peel
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1.) In a medium mixing bowl, beat together all the cake ingredients except the soda and flour mixture.

Set the batter aside to work while completing the next steps.

2.) Grease an 8-inch cake pan.

3.) In a small mixing bowl, stir together the topping ingredients.

4.) Stir the soda and flour mixture thoroughly into the batter.

5.) Heat the oven to 400°.

6.) When the oven is ready, turn the batter into the greased cake pan and sprinkle the topping mixture evenly across the top.

7.) Bake for 20 minutes, or until brown and a pick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

8.) Serve hot with your favourite hot beverage.


Notes:

o  Since I don't care for things that are over-sweet I tend to short or omit spurious white sugar, but in the topping mixture it matters. I haven't tried to bake the cake itself with brown instead of white, but it might work.

o  Thick-cut rolled oats work best if you can get them. In any case, the "instant" type are least desirable. (For anything. Pardon my Scottish expertise.)

o  This is one of those recipes in which finely-minced orange peel works better than orange zest. Especially if you've got those thin-peeled clementines (Christmas oranges).

o  Like other soda-raised sourdough goods, Sourdough Coffee Cake is best eaten hot. It's still enjoyable after it cools, but the difference is telling. However, a cold day-old piece plus 30 seconds in the microwave equals a warm fresh piece.

Best of holidays regardless of where you live, which one you celebrate, or how.