THE BRITISH THREAD II

Anyone hear the programme on Kitchener, with Ian Hislop?

x

Behaviour of Brits, very poor, nay criminal.

Behaviour of Brits, very poor, nay criminal.

smorgs wrote:

Anyone hear the programme on Kitchener, with Ian Hislop?

x

Okay I'll respond to your post, even though nobody responds to mine.......

No.

I saw a TV programme last Tue about Islam (I mentioned this before) and it was about Khartoum, General Gordon and Gen Kitchener.

Behaviour of Brits, very poor, nay criminal.

McTag wrote:

Behaviour of Brits, very poor, nay criminal.

You're not alone in that thought McTag.

Mac wrote-

Quote:

Behaviour of Brits, very poor, nay criminal.

Not at all Mac. You're making an error of judgement based on your need to look kind and considerate.

They were men at war a long way from home. They were scared. They were young. They were mostly illiterate. They hadn't had the benefit of a liberal education. They were scared of the officers too and the officers were scared of them. Not so much of dying or even getting injured as being captured. The others were dancing in the salons having a gay old time. Not a care in the world.

What would you expect? They didn't underestimate their enemies. And it's no good saying that they shouldn't have been enemies. They were enemies. What should and shouldn't be was decided in London and they didn't have mobile phones. They were out on a limb. They had heard of expeditionary forces never been seen again.

Do you think you would have been much different in all the circumstances?

It was hot. No white ladies for 5000 miles. No beer. Sand in your crack. Roasting game on a twig fire. Water shortage and what there was had been pissed in by a range of furry creatures. Funny noises all night. Mites in the hard-tack. Mosquitos. Spade strapped to your back plus another 80lbs. Boots chafing. All day- all night. Non-stop. At the ends of the earth.

And you are taking your opinion from off a cut and paste job off telly which has an agenda. The people who made it have never been in such situations as those they were at some pains to try to depict. Sifting through the juicy bits to find the juiciest and get the Titchmarch whine going and all of a sudden you and dadpad are angelic little tweeters.

Go and have a blow-wave in the unisex.

Anyway- it's libel to call somebody "criminal" until after they've been convicted. Suppose you met a wrestler who is the great grandson of one of those guys and had all his medals in a showcase on the sideboard and his letters home in a drawer.

That sounds scary, steevie.

Glad you're okay.

Were you pissed?

x

Oi! You cork-hatted hypocrite! x

Remembered as a hero

Joy's portrayal of Gordon's deathThe manner of his death is uncertain but it was romanticised in a popular painting by George William Joy - General Gordon's Last Stand (1885, currently in the Leeds City Art Gallery) - and again in the film Khartoum (1966) with Charlton Heston as Gordon.

Gordon's School[2] in West End, Surrey near Woking was dedicated to his memory. Gordon was supposedly Queen Victoria's favourite general, hence the fact that the school was commissioned by Queen Victoria.

Gordon's memory (as well as his work in supervising the town's riverside fortifications) is commemorated in Gravesend; the embankment of the Riverside Leisure Area is known as the Gordon Promenade, while Khartoum Place lies just to the south. In the town centre of his birthplace of Woolwich, is General Gordon Square.

In 1888 a statue of Gordon by Hamo Thornycroft was erected in Trafalgar Square, London, removed in 1943 and in 1953 moved to the Victoria Embankment. An identical statue by Thornycroft is located in Gordon Reserve near Parliament House in Melbourne, Australia (a statue of his relative, Adam Lindsay Gordon, lies in the same reserve). Funded by donations from 100,000 citizens, it was unveiled in 1889.

The Corps of Royal Engineers, Gordon's own Corps, commissioned a statue of Gordon on a camel. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890 and then erected in Brompton Barracks, Chatham, the home of the Royal School of Military Engineering, where it still stands. Much later a second casting was made and installed at Khartoum. This is the figure which now stands at the Gordon School. The Royal Engineers Museum adjoining the Barracks has many artefacts relating to Gordon including personal possessions. There are also memorials to Gordon in the nearby Rochester Cathedral.

In addition to the above memorials, an imposing statue of General Gordon (looking suspiciously like Charlton Heston) can be found in Aberdeen outside the main gates of The Robert Gordon University.

A rather fine stained-glass portrait is to be found on the main stairs of the Booloominbah building at the University of New England, in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.

The Fairey Gordon Bomber, designed to act as part of the RAF's colonial 'aerial police force' in the Imperial territories that he helped conquer (India and North Africa), was named in his honour.

The City of Geelong, Victoria, Australia created a memorial in the form of the Gordon Technical College, which was later renamed the Gordon Institute of Technology. Part of the Institute continues under the name Gordon Institute of TAFE and the remainder was amalgamated with the Geelong State College to become Deakin University.

The suburbs of Gordon in northern Sydney and Gordon Park in northern Brisbane were named after General Gordon. An elementary school in Vancouver, British Columbia, is named after General Gordon. Gordon Memorial College is a school in Khartoum. A grammar school in Medway, Kent, England, called Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, has a house named in honour of Charles George Gordon, called Gordon.

In Gloucester there is rugby union league called Gordon League which was formed in 1888 by Agnes Jane Waddy. The club plays in Western Counties North. The Gordon League Fishing Club uses the rugby club as it home. Members fish on the nearby Gloucester to Sharpness Canal and in national competitions. Gordon's Boys' Clubs were organised after General Gordon's death and the Gloucester Gordon League may be the last remaining example.

Nice to see spendeauxballet being corrected by Muckty, isn't it?
x

Where was that? I never noticed.