Nigel Gordon

I thought Chapter 5 was good but Chapter 6 has been outstanding. The description of the invasion of Crete is well done and historically accurate. It is the small details that make Solticeman's telling of the story so gripping, his observation about North African Coffee, the question whether the spoon would stick up in it, is a small thing but provides colour to the scene setting which makes it work. It also reminded me of the description of good coffee: It should be as black as the night, as hot as hell and as sweet as sin. I suspect Gott is going to check how sweet the later is.

No, Nazism was a logical position drawn from a false premise, in this case the position is not even logical as the action suggested is totally contrary to one of the ten fundamental laws of the religion it is claiming to represent - namely 'Thou shalt not kill."

There are times when I feel that it is our duty to assist some who claim to be Christian on the path to meet their God.

Unfortunately, given the general tendencies of humanity for war, cruelty and general tendency to violence, the logical action of any alien civilization that finds us would be to wipe us out before we infect the rest of the galaxy. There was an interview on BBC 1 many years ago when a scientist was asked if there was any reason to believe that an alien species was intelligent. His reply was 'yes they have had the sense to stay well away from us.'

Thanks Cole, for providing the link to this story, though at two this morning I was heartily cursing you, having read the story in one sitting and passing my bedtime by a considerable amount. It was well worth it though. A totally delightful story.

There is a simple answer to this, you have non-gendered bathrooms.

If you want to understand the events of the Battle of Britain then reading chapter 5 will give you one of the best descriptions of events that I have read. Many years ago I had to write a dissertation on it, which took just under ten thousand words and left me dissatisfied with the explanation of events, Solsticeman has captured the essence of the events in less than a couple of hundred precisely hitting the mark, and done so within the context of well told story that is getting more and more interesting as it goes on.

Personally I think that publishers and promoters are too quick to slap a category on a book. It seems that every book nowadays has to be slotted into a specific category, there now seems to be no General Fiction around, its either Young Adult, Adventure, Chick Lit., LGBT or Science Fantasy. Recently in a local bookshop I saw Orwell's 'Animal Farm' on the Young Adult shelf. Fortunately those who love to read know that the classification put on a book is not always a sign of what that book is about. If something is good people we read it no matter what classification it is given. I was ten when I first read 'On The Beach' and it has always been one of my favorite novels. When I got to secondary school at eleven I was told it was not a children's book. Maybe not but it was a good book.

Back in the mid 1960s there was a badge available which read Be Weird, it's Cool maybe somebody could bring them back into production.

No, he is just copying Charles Dickens and Conan Doyle, they used to serialize their novels and left each chapter with a cliff hanger.

I was positive this topic existed at one time, as I am sure I posted to it, however I have been unable to find it, so maybe it got mislaid in the move over to the new server. Anyway if you are not reading this followup to Leopard Skin Cover, you should be, it is a great story and it is well told. One thing I would seriously recommend is that you follow the links at the end of Chapter 29, thanks Graeme for putting them there, they were very informative and very interesting, I just hope people follow them. Oh, almost forgot, you can find Leopard Spots here: http://awesomedude.com/graeme/leopard-spots/index.htm

Sorry Chris you've got that wrong, cats don't think they are superior, they know they are.

Stephen Fry has launched a petition requesting the pardon of all gay men who were convicted under the England's Gross Indecency laws. A pardon has been granted to Alan Turing, but why should he be a special case. If it was wrong to convict Alan Turing under these laws it was also wrong to convict all the other men who were convicted. If you want to read more about this or to sign the petition follow this link: https://www.change.org/p/british-government-pardon-all-of-the-estimated-49-000-men-who-like-alan-turing-were-convicted-of-consenting-same-sex-relations-under-the-british-gross-indecency-law-only-repealed-in-2003-and-also-all-the-other-men-convicted-under-other-uk-anti-gay-la-2?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=242951&alert_id=VYpXlQTDsg_OeCCwOA2enlQYr5Z8jfeYUu1RutXHsUIKB5wPnvjXlJGv6S4HPhJd1LesLPvn5Jv This has a particular interest for me, a friend and his partner were convicted under these laws when they were 17. They both spent a period in prison. After their release and once they had got their life back together my friend went on to university and got a First Class Degree and then a DipEd. He spent nearly thirty years teaching and during the whole of that time he was openly living with his partner. When CRB checks were introduced for teachers, his check showed he had been convicted of a sexual offense in 1967, as a result he was unable to get work. He has also been prevented from undertaken any voluntary work with young people, even though he had been actively involved in youth work for over thirty years with no adverse reports, in actual fact he had been given an OBE for his services to youth work. You may wonder what was the nature of the act which resulted in this, him and his partner were seen kissing in the privacy of their flat.

This is the second time I have started this topic, for some reason my last posting on the 14th did not get through. So now I am trying again because I really like this story. Those of you who have read Leopard Spots will be familiar with the event in this story, don't let that put you off. Here we get a retelling of the event but from a slightly different perspective with a lot more background information. It also gives us a different view on the motivation of Tony in Leopard Spots. This is an enjoyable story, well written, that whilst totally stand alone is also a useful insight into the events in Leopard Spots. You can find it here: http://awesomedude.com/graeme/to-catch-a-leopard/to-catch-a-leopard.htm

Great photograph an astounding image which is full of meaning. I have seen Mads' work before but this must be amongst his best.

Thanks Chris for reminding me of Paul Sussman, I read a couple of his books years ago and intended to read more but forgot the name, your posting just clicked with me now I am going to the library to find if they have any in.

One thing I admire about Solticeman's writing is the historically accurate detail he puts into his work. I thought I had a reasonably good knowledge of Nazi Germany but I had never come across Napola before, or at least not under that name. Having looked them up I find the detail described here to be very accurate. This story keeps getting better and it is one I can see is going to be very enjoyable. If you are interested in the Napola there was a film made about them, Before The Fall, there is a trailer on YouTube:

There is a certain inevitability to this story, from the start you sort of sense where it is going to lead but without knowing how it is going to get there. You are taken down a path that has an inevitability about it but none which is obvious until the end where it all fits into place. This is a great story, well told and well worth reading. You can find it here: http://awesomedude.com/dabeagle/motel-67/motel-67.htm

This 'Letter from Europe' is worth listening to, don't be put off by the French at the beginning, there is an English translation which takes up most of the programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05289wc It is a response to the attack on Charlie Hebdo from a Muslim living in France.

From what I know of Anonymous, which is very little but probably a bit more than the general public, if they are going after ISIS I think the Jihadists might find they are up against a group who are more fanatical for what they believe in than they are.

Some of you who have been following this thread might find the following of interest: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/religion-and-conflict?utm_source=FL_DB&utm_medium=crm&utm_campaign=10_02_2015_FL_newsletter It is a free course run by the University of Groningen on Religion In Conflicts. Should be interesting, the course takes six weeks and requires about 4 hours a week, it starts in April.

Cole, I was taking the meaning of contentious to be 'that which caused argument or discord', I think it is fairly clear to anyone who has seriously studied Middle Eastern history that one of the primary causes of discord in the middle east has been the establishment of Israel.

Cole, I don't know what Chris's position is but I would definitely call the establishment of Israel contentious - Jewish settlement in the Holy Land was contentious even before the creation of Israel, it was the prime reason behind the Arab revolt of 1933 to 1939, With respect to the Arab backing of Nazi Germany this is very much a case of my enemies enemy is my friend. The Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was a leader of the resistance against British and French Imperialism instigated under the Sykes-Picot treaty. To criticize him for allying himself with Hitler, is rather like attacking Churchill for allying with Stalin. From statements that the Grand Mufti made in private it is fairly clear he had no particular liking for Hitler, and actually rather distrusted him fearing that once he had conquered Britain and France he might decide to take over their Middle East possessions as his own. In all likelyhood that would have happened. In understanding the Arab actions one has to realize that there had been an effective war against Britain and France with their Middle Easter possession since 1933. Israel is a major element in the current state of things in the Middle East but it is not the only factor and may not be the most important factor. A constant thread running through a lot of Muslim thought at the moment is that they always come off second best and always are discriminated against. If we are going to deal with the situation we have only one of two options. Either we totally destroy the Islamic world and essentially wipe Islam off the map, and this is a view that I have heard some people express, or we find a way to bringing about a fair and equitable solution to the problems of the Middle East, including the status of Israel and of the Kurds, which will not only require some fairly hefty reparations to be made but will also need some re-arrangement of national boundaries which will result in some states ceasing to exist and a number of new states coming into being.

The fact that something is centuries old does not mean that it is not relevant today - look at Magna Carta. It is eight hundred years old this year, yet it is a key constitutional component in the Anglo Saxon legal system. In fact it is more important in the United States than it is in England where it originated. One thing that most people do not realize about Magna Carta is that most of the Barons who forced John to sign it were crusaders, as was William the Marshall who was the driving force behind the re-issue of the charter after John got it annulled by the Pope. Many of the ideas that are expressed in Magna Carta, such as the King being subject to the Law, arise directly from ideas that were present in Islamic society at the time. The Crusades resulted in Islamic ideas and values coming into Western Europe and can be seen as leading directly to the Renascence and the Reformation. The idea of the Bible being the actual word of God itself becomes a prominent theological concept after the third Crusade, directly influenced by the Muslim view of the Quran. Also the concept of the abstraction of the Law, that the law exists as a entity that should be applied in its totality, not something that is the will of a particular person. Those ideas and influences are still with us today and are the foundation of what we regard as Western Liberal thought. At the same time the Crusades introduced into Islam a concept that was not there before, that Islam was under attack and that it had to be defended. Many of the hadiths that are used by the Jihadists to justify their actions and theology first come to light during the period of the Crusades, especially during the third Crusade. Over the centuries whenever Islam has felt itself to be under attack we have seen the rise of the theological concepts that first arose in response to the Crusades. From the perspective of the Jihadists, the West in general and the United States in particular is conducting another Crusade to destroy Islam. They see themselves as defending true Islam, no matter how misguided that understanding may be it will not go away until it can be shown that the West is not trying to destroy Islam. The idea that the West is trying to destroy Islam may seem totally absurd from the position of the average European or American, however, if you look at the history of the world since 1945 from a Muslim perspective, it makes sense. So if you wish to solve the problem of the Jihadist movement in Islam you must address the question of the Crusades and their legacy, no matter how long ago they were.

The connection between the Crusades and the current Jihadist movements is actually stronger than many people realize. Many of the theological arguments cited by the fundamentalists for their Jihadist activities today arose in direct response to the Crusades. One only needs to remember when the Muslims took Jerusalem they allowed the defenders to surrender without penalty, and Christian, Jews and Muslims lived in the city in harmony. When the Crusades retook it, they massacred everybody, no matter what their religion. That's where the example was set.