This hit (Patsy Kensit/ Bill Oddie) and miss (Jeremy Clarkson/ Boris Johnson) show last night produced one of those Must See TV hours that only the good old BBC can produce, when Jerry Springer traced his family roots back only two generations to the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of his grand parents and a large number of close relations.

I confess to a certain amount of snob base prejudiced ignorance regarding Springer and his lamentable genre of trailer trash exploiting telly, but a recent appearance on Question Time unveiled a thoughtful, liberally minded and erudite communicator so the aarrgh factor was somewhat negated, and by the end I had an admiration for the man, which makes his career moves seem all the more baffling.

This appalling story of random cruelty and twists of fate put me in mind of my experiences with two Holocaust survivors, Paul and Joe who came to work with the kids when I worked at RMS.

You might wonder about all this but I passionately believe the only way we can make kids aware of what went on is by getting them to hear it first hand. I could rattle on endlessly (and frequently did) about all these issues but to hear it first hand is unbeatable and I'm still so proud of what we did.

It was at the height of the Yugoslav Civil War and John Major's craven stand off approach, which allowed the genocide in Bosnia and the siege Of Sarajevo.

A medieval and disgraceful period in European History and Thank God the Blair and Clinton were prepared to come to the rescue of Kosovo when they had nothing to gain. They did it because it was right. Period.

This makes the Iraq thing even more confusing when you put in this context.

But the slaughter in Bosnia was result of the same processes that produced the unbelievable thing that was the cold blooded industrial murder of 6 million Jews and 2 million others such as disabled, gays, gypsies, Slavs and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Paul was a Trade Unionist and in 1990 he was awarded the OBE for services to his local community through his Union work. The local press did an interview and within five questions had told them he was a Holocaust Survivor.

One problem, his wife and kids had no idea so that night he told his story for the first time and it all went from there as he felt ready to go public and relate what happened so that no one could use the excuse that they didn't know.

As it happens this coincided with the release Of Schindler's List (Richard was coming out of the cinema, head bowed along with everyone else, shocked by what he had seen. Two girls were in front of him. One turns to the other; “What did you think”. “Hmmm.. OK but not as good as Mrs. Doubtfire!) and the growth of what some cynics call the Holocaust "Industry".

There is a school of (stupid) thought that says this interest in the Holocaust is encouraged by Jews in order to excuse the excesses of the Israeli Government in their brutal and inhumane treatment of the Palestinians.

Bollocks. I’m sure there are a few Jews who do this. But we have to disentangle attitudes to Israel from what happened in Europe.

Personally I think the foundation of a Jewish State in Palestine in the way it was handled was plain wrong.

You have to see it as a Euro/American Colony in the Middle East and take it from there.

The fact is that Israel exists and ain’t going away so we have to deal with that reality, BUT something MUST be done to stop the Israeli’s disgusting and humiliating treatment of the Arab people’s who are regarded as a conquered nation who are getting uppity and treated as such on an everyday level.

It goes without saying that terror and suicide bombings are equally evil acts and are in fact counter productive as they provoke greater repression and plays into the hands of the hardliners like Sharon and his successors.

But WHY are they happening?

Bugger reality ,it’s all about perception. The Palestinians have seen their country occupied by rich Euro/American people who have stripped them of nationhood and made them poor. And the State of Israel is in receipt of huge US subsidies and has armed itself to the teeth including Nuclear Weapons. So it’s no wonder that Israel is seen as a Bad Thing in the region.

There is a strong argument that the Jews who wield the power in Israel are suffering from a collective dose of Abused becomes Abuser.

Now I bet people like Nick Cohen would want to see me strung up as a Nazi sympathiser for saying this. In SOME Jewish people’s view you are automatically a Holocaust Denier if you air such views.

It is well recorded that kids from marriage splits are four times more likely to have a failed marriage, twice as likely to suffer domestic violence as adults (low self esteem being the main reason), have poorer educational outcomes, are more likely to “suffer” from dyslexia and AHDD and are three times more vulnerable to drug addiction.

Sad but true. Now take that and extrapolate it to the Jewish Experience.

Just go with me here. Such trauma has to affect the Collective Psyche of any group of people so the evil vested on them is now channelled towards the Palestinians and behind it all is “we were victims. It’s not fair”. So they lose the ability to empathise with the Palestinian people.

So the chain has to be broken somehow.

The Israelis have to stop seeing themselves as victims and reach out to the Palestinians from a position of self-confidence.

Rabin started this process by saying “We have nothing to fear or feel ashamed about” and he and Arafat brokered a way out. Until he was assassinated by a fellow Jew who said he had “sold out”. Then retreat back into “everyone hates us” territory by Sharon. Cue Intifada Two.

Paul told us of his experiences which saw him lose both his parents and all four of his grand parents. He was born in Germany in 1926 but fled to Holland when the Nazis came to power and ended up in the same class as Anne Frank.

His life followed hers in parallel until she died in Belsen and he survived.

What I found amazing was that a small old guy with a weedy Brummie accent could hold 240 16 year olds rapt attention for two hours.

 It was incredible and powerful. He broke down when describing his mother’s last hours in Belsen but they went with him. But not in a mawkish way. You often find with teenage girls that they enjoy it if something like a car crash happens and they spend ages crying even if the had no connection with the person. Hormones I suppose. Or just immaturity. There wasn’t any of that and when I encouraged them to write about it, the analysis was spot on.

Paul is an old fashioned Socialist and he described in class as well as racial terms. And he made direct parallels with Rwanda and Bosnia so it wasn’t seen in isolation.

Joe Pearl. What a guy. I met him at a book launch by Terry Waite for the new Anne Frank Diary in 1995. I asked him if he knew Paul. “Lightweight! He was only in Westerbork and Belsen. Holiday Camps!”

I discovered there is a distinct hierarchy of Holocaust seniority and if you weren’t in an Extermination Camp such as Auschwitz then you had an easy war. He meant it as well.

Joe came to RMS in 1996 and his talk was the most harrowing thing I’ve ever heard…all told in a matter of fact cockney way.

He was with his family and forced to dig a trench in a forest. The Germans went along the line. A bullet in the back of the head and into the trench.

He watched this happen to his three sisters and his Mum. Just as they got to his brother all hell broke loose, as there was an air raid. He legged it into the forest with his brother. They went to a farmhouse but heard the guy alerting the authorities so had to run off again.

They were lucky to meet up with the Resistance who tried to help them but in the end they walked at night across Europe and eventually ended up being caught and put into the Camp run by Goethe of Schindler’s List infamy (Ralph Fiennes played him).

Joe has a scar on his face as he was slashed across the face by the Commandant for not throwing himself on the floor in supplication. He would have been shot but the gun jammed.

Then Auschwitz. Hideous.

I can’t get my head around how people can behave in such a depraved way. Just the casual nature of the violence. Doing it for kicks.

Joe escaped when Auschwitz was evacuated by the Germans in December 1944 and lived rough until they made contact with the Americans in Austria.

He discovered his eldest brother had survived and was living in Russia in 1990.

What I find unreal is how he could switch off from this and lead a normal life and raise successful kids.

 It was the same for the Nazis. Eichmann (if you do spell check it comes up with henchmen weird eh?) lived a normal life as an office clerk and his colleagues were absolutely flabbergasted when Mossad caught up with him and his past as the architect of the Final Solution came out.

They simply couldn’t believe it. He was deferential to the bosses, mild mannered, didn’t dominate in social events so how could he be one of the most powerful Nazis, part of the inner circle?

This is the sociopathic behaviour demonstrated in the Sopranos and in the real world by the Sinn Fein/IRA.

 You dehumanise your opponents so you can’t empathise with their suffering.

Whilst every vote cast for the Labour Party in the next Election should be a positive one, those who are of the opinion that being out of Office will do us good, and focus minds would do well to consider what a disaster a Tory Government would be for real people, the ones that we are meant to be “for”.

David Cameron has announced that regarding the spreading of wealth “redistribution has reached the end of the road”, and that money would only be shared around via “sharing the proceeds of growth and cuts in Public Expenditure”.

Have the mass media gone deaf? Or are the heavy political scribes just on holiday?

Cameron has been clever with this, as August is traditionally a slack time in politics.

Thus the Tory Leader can get his “dog whistle” statements to the hard-core head banger Conservative reactionary brigade out via the Mail and Telegraph without any real analysis from the mainstream media.

Having got this crowd on board he can then go on to be all Touchy Feely and a Man Who Understands Our Pain when the Conference season begins.

Cameron also proposes to give a £20 a week tax break to married couples.

Sounds great to the faux wannabe Middle Classes and Daily Mail land.

How will it be funded?

By abolishing the £30 a week hardship maintenance grant to Sixth Formers, which would hit just the demographic of kids that I taught, many who have gone on to train as teachers, doctors and other professions which previously been out of reach as they would have been expected to be out earning rather than go on to do A levels due to financial imperatives at home.

Same old Tories.

Labour MP’s have GOT to realise that it won’t be them that suffer if we lose the next election, take their fingers out and rally behind either Gordon Brown, or if there has to be a change the new person and make sure we get our message over.

We can’t just rely on portraying the Tories as the bogeymen.

 It is lazy, will alienate the electorate and end in defeat.

 The Internet Movie Data Base is a fantastic resource for researching, commenting on and reading about film and TV, especially when you get the dreaded “What were they in?” moment.

 Easily solved by this superb website which exhibits the internet at it’s best.

There is however, a major error when you look up the fantastic Adrian Shergold film “Pierrepoint”, as the writing credits go to the poor mans Danny Baker, Bob Mills, famous in the 90’s for his “hilarious” David Seaman’s Football Bloopers, and even worse, Phil Tuffnell’s Cricket Nightmares. Just horrible.

But it’s true. Counter checking proved that the Lard Man so called Comic, was indeed responsible for the brilliant, understated and chilling script, so sensitively played by Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson, two better performances you will be hard pressed to find on TV this year. Yes. It’s ITV. Suprising but that’s life.

Pierrepoint was the most prolific hangman of the 20^th Century, notching up 608 executions between 1933 and the mid 50’s when, racked with doubt, and having been turned from popular hero executing 47 Nazis, to hate figure of the Abolitionists who were beginning to take the ascendancy in the wake of the Ruth Ellis and Timothy Evans cases, he decided to retire.

Both cases were notorious, Evans a clear cut miscarriage of justice and Ellis shown no mercy by a barbaric and inhumane system. Add in the unbelievable execution of the mentally incompetent Derek Bentley, (Let Him Have It is one of the best British Films of the 90’s) meant that the groundswell for abolition became a tide and in 1965 Capital Punishment was suspended for a five year period, and once the evidence showed it’s futility Parliament voted for permanent abolition in 1970.

This film is not, however about the Capital Punishment as an issue in which the makers want us to take sides, more about Pierrepoint’s struggles with himself.

Delivering groceries, being a pub comic and eventual ebullient mien host in his own hostelry on the one hand, to developing into Britain’s number one hangman due to the efficiency and humanity in which he was able to dispatch his victims.

He took pride in the speed that he was able to execute people due to his fastidious study of the practice and although able to detach himself from the victim, he showed compassion by executing the youngest woman first in the Nazi series as “she will be most frightened”.

Indeed he was incensed when they were a coffin short after one day of dispatching organisers of Belsen, being told to “dump it in with the others”, that he threatened to walk of the job.

“They’ve paid the price and the slate is clean”, was his motto as he prepared the bodies for burial with the utmost dignity and respect bringing humanity to a grisly process.

 And it was his inherent humanity that caused Pierrepoint to question what he was doing when a particularly personally harrowing execution is performed.

I have to admit I’m sceptical about this particular incidents reality as it seems far too coincidental and contrived but it does give the writers the vehicle to develop the story as we see the hangman finally break, receiving no sympathy from his oddly cold wife (Juliet Stevenson), who seems more capable of denial than her husband.

I made a detailed study of the Holocaust when I worked at Robert May’s School, and talking to survivors it comes across that it is somehow easier for them to deal with the horrors than those who inflicted them, as for the Jews there was no choice, whereas the perpetrators were often racked with guilt and many committed suicide in the years following the war as there was some element of deciding whether to actively participate or to be a passive onlooker.

And I suppose the same is true for Pierrepoint, as he chose this trade and eventually playing the two parts became too much to bear. A stunning film and one that questions why we do what we do. This is a must see picture which for me, is right up there with the likes of The Shawshank Redemption in the existential stakes.

Another Autumnal night in the teeming rain at Wembley. Another stodgy, error strewn and clueless performance from an England team woefully low on confidence and coached by a guy with, it seems little touch or feel for how our national team should play.

Nothing has changed since the dog days of Steve McClaren’s stunningly inept reign and it seemed somehow appropriate that it should be another eastern European side, strong on technical ability but who should have been rolled over easily enough, that showed up just how bad things have got for this generation of England players.

I fully admit that I, along with many others are given to wild fluctuations of emotions regarding England, but that is the lot, and indeed the right of the fans as we have experienced far more let downs than highs over the years.

Italia 90 and Euro 96 apart it been a tough slog and if you support a lower ranked domestic team the England set up is your only realistic chance of sharing the glory of a trophy with, so it takes an inflated importance unlike fans of the so called Big Four.

Wayne Rooney summed up what ails England at the moment, as his commitment to the cause is misused by the Coach who plays him out of position leading to frustration, and more mistakes and lack of structure to his game.

We were abysmal last night, Capello’s fist pumping relief when Joe Cole snuck an injury time equaliser betrayed the sorry state of the Coach’s convictions about how well he has handled matters in his first season at the helm.

The talent is there. Too much faffing around with micro tactics that began in the latter Sven era restricts the natural exuberance and passion of players such as Lampard, Gerrard and Joe Cole.

When was the last time we played with any joie de vivre, some smiles and laughs? No wonder the midfield can’t play together. They are too depressed.

Pick 4-4-2. Let the players sort themselves out re the Gerrard/ Lampard conundrum. They should go out for a few bevy’s and decide who does what during the game.  If they fail to agree have a drinking contest to decide it.

Well, it seems every other avenue has been explored by three successive Managers, so why not?

The Under 21’s impressed at Walton Street on Tuesday and a healthy crowd of around 10,000 saw an entertaining, and above all purposeful display from a team who knew their roles and played with good technique, pride and passion in the likeness of their Manager. They kept it simple. Get the ball, pass to a red shirt and move to a position where you can support the guy with the ball, or close an opponent down. Football is not, after all that complicated a game.

 Stuart Pearce take a bow. Crapello out.

There is one fatal flaw with the very readable account. The author, despite having been a Labour MP and member of the Wilson/ Callaghan Government, quite clearly hates the Labour Party and his vitriol is spread liberally throughout the book.

Thus; “The Wilson (1964/70) Government failed…. It was hardly Socialist and failed in the management of the economy…. It was only trusted by the electorate to halt the march of Socialism”… Which is why the gap between the rich and poorest in Society was at it’s narrowest in history under Harold Wilson.

And; “James Callaghan’s greatest service to the British people was to lose the 1979 Election”.

Mind-blowing stuff. Try telling that to the 3 million unemployed by 1981, and to the victims of the strangulation of British Industry as output fell by a staggering 20 in the first two years of the Thatcher Government despite the Treasury pouring a record amount of cash into British Leyland and all the other Government funded businesses that had been shackled to the State by Ted Heath’s bonkers National Enterprise Board, which even Tony Benn never managed to out spend when he was Industry Secretary.

Not to mention eye-popping inflation which averaged 18% in her first term, and the beginning of the plan to deliberately run down the NHS and to provide education that “would teach people to know their place” (1986 leaked Cabinet Office memo from Thatcher to Ken Baker).

Dell, however does elaborate in depth the successes of the Atlee Government whilst explaining to the reader how it was only US cash that allowed Nye Bevan to get the NHS up and running in the first place, a fact that those within the Labour Party with an anti American default setting would do well to remember.

Another strength of the book is Dell’s analysis of the 1981 Deputy Leadership Election which encapsulated why we unelectable throughout much of the ‘Eighties due to an obsession with talking to ourselves and ignoring the real world, and the damage the Tories were doing to the weakest in Society as well as the nation as a whole.

But Dell’s biggest lazy and yawn worthy effort is portray Thatcher as “the Mother of New Labour”.

Yes. Absolutely. She was all in favour of doubling expenditure on Health and Education, a windfall tax on the private utilities to fund the New Deal, which in turn helped to create record levels of employment. And she cared deeply about the fractured and chaotic lifestyles abroad on sink estates that it was HER idea to set up SureStart and invest in record police numbers.

And I forgot that she really wanted to introduce the National Minimum Wage, abolish hereditary peerages and give equality to gay and lesbian people.

Silly old me.

It makes me go absolutely ballistic when I hear stupid, lazy comparisons between Tony Blair and the Tories. I accept that his belief in the perceived advantages of the market and the private sector are grossly misplaced but to make such an odious comparison is totally ludicrous.

My final beef with Dell is the short shrift that he gives to Tony Crosland, dismissing the Foreign Secretary as an “unsatisfactory Socialist”.

If anyone can lay claim to being a visionary and inspiration for Tony Blair it is Crosland with is seminal book “The Future of Socialism” in which he argues that the nature of post war capitalism is not simply a question of the Left V the Market, but that it is possible, and indeed desirable to use the capitalist system as a means to an end, making the wealth of Britain work for the many, and not just the few.

This excerpt, courtesy of Wikipedia, sums up what we should be aspiring to in the 21^st Century as well as doing what we do best, which is to Govern for everyone and not just a narrow tranch of Society.

“We need not only higher exports and old-age pensions, but more open-air cafes, brighter and gayer streets at night, later closing hours for public houses, more local repertory theatres, better and more hospitable hoteliers and restaurateurs, brighter and cleaner eating houses, more riverside cafes, more pleasure gardens on the Battersea model, more murals and pictures in public places, better designs for furniture and pottery and women’s clothes, statues in the centre of new housing estates, better-designed new street lamps and telephone kiosks and so on ad infinitum”

I would recommend Dell’s book as a good “revision” of post war Labour history as it is a good, entertaining read but it falls down due to the author’s inherent bitterness towards a Party that he feels always somehow manages to let everyone down.

 Sometimes, I know how he feels but deep down the passion still burns for me, but the 10p tax fiasco really strained matters, as we seemed to just dump on the people we are meant to protect.

The sobriquet “Genius” is oft bandied about, and is de valued for it but when referring to this collision of the ideas and lyrics of Matt Johnson, and the musicianship of Johnny Marr that occurred in the Autumn of 1988, it seems genuinely appropriate, and flows naturally into the thoughts of the listener of this, The The’s fourth studio record Mind Bomb.

The true genius of "Mind Bomb" isn't just that phrase or just that one song; it's the overall context into which the album descends. "Mind Bomb" reaches into God, Religion, Politics and Love with a frankness that is almost mind numbing.

These songs are not for the uninvolved, and I have always used The The as an example of how my generation "got it" with respect to the direction our society was taking.

Well, how could we not? The Cold War, the Miners Strike and going into the second decade of the most wretched and cruel Government even by Tory standards defined my life at the time, freshly graduated when it really meant something, just married and about to embark on a career in teaching. It was clear to me, even it wasn’t to Ruth Kelly, which way things were going and we could either be ambivalent or fight back whichever way possible through the Labour Party and groups such as Youth Against Racism in Europe and the Stephen Lawrence campaign.

It easy to be cynical and say we were wasting our time. But I disagree and believe the agenda for so called New Labour was set in those times as we woke up to the fact that we would have to box clever regarding the Tory Press, and if that meant taking into regard the Middle Class Daily Mail demographic then it was a good thing, as Socialism is about delivering for the many and not just the few be it the elite for the Tories or the urban working class poor for the Labour Party.

But it often felt like we never get the Tories out again, and successive defeats in 1987 and especially 1992 were a real kick in balls as I just could never understand how anyone, let alone 14 million people could ever vote Tory.

The The encapsulate those times and Infected (1986) with the sweeping post industrial cityscape that is evoked by Heartland, where “the heart is being cut from the Welfare State” and “It ain’t written in the papers but it’s written on the walls, the way this country’s divided to fall” made a particular impact on me, but in Mind Bomb Johnson’s true skill is to blend geo political issues with the depth and intensity of human relationships in a collage of sweaty sexual desire and poignancy, against the backdrop world upheaval.

This from The Violence of Truth,

What is evil? What is love?
What is the force that possesses us?
Where is the beauty? Where is the truth?
Where is the force that watches over you?

And while the niggers of this world are starving
with their mouths wide open
What is it that turns the coins we throw at them
into worthless little tokens?

But it is the stunning prescience of Johnson’s vision of the clash of Islam with the West that takes the breath away. Whilst the USA and Britain were busy doing dodgy deals with Saddam and funding Bin Laden and his fanatics is Afghanistan due to the obsession with Communism, Matt was looking to East and not liking what was on the horizon, whilst at the same time recognising the culpability of the West for creating the economic situation that allows extremism to take root.

Islam is rising
The Christians mobilising
The world is on its elbows and knees
It's forgotten the message and worships the creeds

The lyrics however, are set to Marr’s quintessential upbeat jangly sound to produce commentary laced with hope.

 If the real Jesus Christ were to stand up today
He'd be gunned down cold by the C.I.A.
Oh, the lights that now burn brightest behind stained glass
Will cast the darkest shadows upon the human heart
But God didn't build himself that throne
God doesn't live in Israel or Rome
God doesn’t belong to the Yankee dollar
God doesn't plant the bombs for Hezbollah
God doesn't even go to church
And God won't send us down to Allah to burn
No, God will remind us what we already know
That the human race is about to reap what it's sown

This record, bare in mind was penned in 1988. TWENTY YEARS AGO! Matt Johnson must be George Orwell re incarnated as this song may as well have been about the Israel’s squalid and murderous butchery during the ill-fated 2006 Lebanon War.

But the “Beat(en) Generation” is the icing on the cake regarding prophecy.

And our youth, oh youth, are being seduced

By the greedy hands of politics and half truths

We're being sedated by the gasoline fumes

And hypnotised by the satellites

Into believing what is good and what is right"

Watch status quo election campaigning, a failed foreign policy and our staggering dependence on oil and explain how this album is still not relevant almost 20 years later.

The The have been infuriatingly inactive and I assume the band is now dead, having only released a very limited amount of material since 1992 and the Dusk album.

Please come back again, Matt Johnson, you still have a lot more to share. 

The Tigers will line up against Fulham tomorrow and our first ever season in the top flight will be up and running.

I haven’t a single clue how we will do.

I veer from depressing Derby re enacting scenarios (as during last weeks embarrassing performance against Osasuna) to the conviction that we can emulate Ipswich, which largely depends on whether or not the Hull Daily Mail think we are close to re signing Frazier Campbell on that given day.

That’s the beauty of sport. It’s sheer unpredictability and despite 34 years following City I often think I know less now than when I walked through the gates of Boothferry Park for the first time in 1974 as a six year old against…. Wait for it…. Fulham. We won 2-1. I’d take that tomorrow for sure.

“Hull City will play with great endeavour and commitment but what they will lack is quality. If they can finish fourth from bottom it will be a magnificent achievement but I think they will finish in the bottom three.”

Written off by the London based media BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson, who will never have seen City play, let alone have deigned to find out about the Club or visit the city. Suits me just fine.

I have never liked the bloke anyway. He is one of those Plastic Paddy types, who despite being British would cheer for a Pol Pot/ Hitler/ Stalin Invitation XI with a forward line led by Saddam Hussein providing they were playing against England.

All the old clichés apply to City now. One game at a time. Don’t get carried away. Keep it tight at the back. Make Walton Street a fortress. Nick a goal and defend away from home.

 It’s in the lap of the Gods now. I’m just going to savour and enjoy every single darn minute of this season. We’ve earned it, and it will mean so much more to us than the fans of Manure and the such like who will look on with patronising disdain whilst being secretly jealous that we have something special. Something they will never have due to seeing it all and still being there cheering our team and by extension our Community and our City on.

The British Press enjoy nothing better than absolutism and certainty when reporting about Johnny Foreigner.

Thus the Portuguese Police are rendered as being hopelessly incompetent in the McCann case when here we have the grotesque treatment of rape victims, the miscarriage of justice against Barry George and the British led bungled investigation into the death of Bob Woolmer.

Then there is the way that we must have goodies and baddies in any overseas conflict. Thus Croatia was always the victim during the 1990’s Balkans War, whilst Serbia always bore the brunt of negative press in the West.

Not for one minute however, am I going to act as an apologist for a nation that was inexorably mixed up in atrocities such as the massacre at Srebrenica, and the siege of Sarajevo but it has to be borne in mind that during the Nazi occupation of the region in the 1940’s many Croats were less than ambivalent towards their conquerors as repression of the Serb Slav ethnic community suited their aims, and indeed it was the Serbs who were in the vanguard of the feted Partisan resistance and it is to the credit of the Slav part of Yugoslavia that recriminations regarding this era were, at least in public largely absent until the collapse of the Communist regime and the cessation of various parts of this unusual union in the ‘Nineties.

So to the Ossetia War, which enters its third week with considerable loss of life.

To the British media this is an example of Russian brutish behaviour reminiscent of the Soviet era, and lets face it the Kremlin has form for this kind of things as exemplified in Chechnya via it’s hammer fisted interventions in the last decade and into this century, which we in the West shamefully connived in through turning a blind eye. But as in Bosnia Muslims were on the receiving end, and had no worthwhile resources so it didn’t matter.

Georgia has decided to cash in its chips with the USA gleaned via its enthusiastic participation in Iraq whilst Bush is still in office, by attempting to annex the autonomous Russian-speaking region of South Ossetia.

This move smacks of cynical opportunism as they probably reckoned that an Obama White House, committed to getting out of Iraq would view such an “ally” with suspicion and have played the We Are A Small Democratic Nation Standing Up To Tyranny card, but the expected US backing has failed to materialise, not even the prospect of a Security Council Resolution (token as it would be) has been offered. Bush, as expected has condemned but not acted. There is nothing it for him as his Presidency winds down, and another complex foreign policy foray is the last thing he wants on his lazy enough agenda, so a few weasel words and some film of planes with humanitarian aid will suffice.

In addition Georgia reckoned that Putin’s presence at the Olympics would prevent any serious retaliation as they banked on the former President turned Prime Minister would baulk at the prospect of bad publicity.

But when had that ever bothered Russia? In fact domestically it has done Putin a power of good with today’s Guardian carrying strong support and justification from none other than Nobel Peace Laureate Mikhail Gorbachev who casts the Georgians in the role of aggressor and Putin as protector of the South Ossetian community whom in 2006 voted in record numbers (96% on a 42,000 turnout) for the secessionist

Government to press for international recognition.

 This vote to me however, sounds reminiscent of ‘Thirties Plebiscites, but whatever the arguments the Press should report without the obvious bias of recent times, and the UN should be more proactive in securing a ceasefire, to be followed by round table talks to thrash out a compromise as it is precisely these sorts of conflicts, marginal to all but the protagonists on a global scale, that could easily ratchet up the possibility of a return to Cold War posturing and the potential for nuclear disaster to occur.

 One last point has been raised by this war. Where is Gordon Brown? We hear Prescott saying it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t smile (true), but surely this is a good opportunity for the PM to sound statesman like on an issue that most people at home know little about, and if you are being cynical it could show him as a World leader of some importance and act as a distraction from the intercine warfare within the Party and give Brown something to get stuck into which the Cabinet would have to support.

What if Jules Verne’s classic novel turned out to be true….

The 3D is the thing with this film. And it is mightily impressive, enhancing what is essentially a series of fantastic action sequences marred with cruddy dialogue and a creakingly predictable Uncle Bonding With Orphaned Teenage Nephew Whilst Getting The Girl Despite Being a Geek scenario.

3 D films used to be rubbish as witnessed by this correspondent in Belfast at a showing of one of the Freddie Kruger films in the ‘Eighties, but thanks to new, radical technology it becomes a real experience and is totally convincing as the viewer recoils or winces as appropriate.

 I look forward to seeing a proper film such as Batman or Wanted in such a format assuming it’s possible to combine the 3D affect with CGI.

Adrian, Sean and I were sitting on the beach in Kilkee shooting the breeze, talking mainly bollix ranging from structural engineering to the possibility of the existence of multiverses, when Adrian said; “Well lads, sure it doesn’t get much better than this!”

He wasn’t referring to the depth of our conversation, far from it, but sitting on Kilkee Strand watching our kids frolic about in the sand and sea whilst the adults all chatted away kind of epitomised the importance strong extended family ties play in all our lives. Witness the photos opposite and all that we got up to that week.

 No matter what shite has pervaded my life, it has never polluted things because having the tightest family offsets all of it. Every man jack of trouble is erased, or at least dealable with….

I spent the duration of the last Test in Ireland, and having decided to just rely on close of play texts from Birmingham I hoped for a stress free break from the game that if truth be known, I love the most despite being saddled with Yorkshire and England as my teams for life.

Not a chance, especially as Flintoff’s first innings blast with both bat and ball, put England in with a decent chance of levelling the series.

When I heard late on Friday night that Collingwood had come good with the bat, and in a situation where it really mattered I was absolutely delighted, a sentiment that was elevated to manic joy and fist punching “come on!”s whilst watching the Proteas collapse to 90/4 at Donagh’s house in Ballina courtesy of Sky Sports.

I had absolute confidence we would win. Monty was making the thing talk and at the other end Anderson was steaming in at 90MPH, and then there was Freddie…

Thus news of defeat, delivered to my Limerick hotel room confounded me and led me to reflect on my calls after the Lords Test that Vaughan’s time was up.

Michael Vaughan was the best batsman in the World in 2002, bar none. He then went on to be England’s greatest Skipper since Brearley, making the dreams of the nation come true during that incredible Ashes summer of 2005 and allied with his supreme dignity Vaughan became the ultimate role model as a pro, and as a man.

I watched his resignation on YouTube and Hemmingway’s definition of Grace Under Pressure sprung to mind. He loves the game, he loves England and he loves his wife and kids. Perfect.

As for what happens now, I fear we are into the pantomime season four months prematurely.

Pietersen plays for himself and it works, by and large, but his dismissal in the last match when he was in a position to put the tourists away epitomised why he should not be Captain as the whole reason that he got himself to 94 not out came about because he was un encumbered by the Captaincy.

Swings and roundabouts, and I refer to previous stints by Botham and Flintoff as to what happens when your talismanic figure is elevated to odious responsibility.

Strauss, Strauss and if in doubt Strauss regarding the Test Captaincy, but I fear being passed over again will be the nail in the Middlesex man’s long term international career.

But one thing is for sure. With KP at the helm boring is not a word that will ever be associated with English cricket.

Tantrums, but hopefully some tiaras to follow….

One last moan at the selectors for the road…

Ravi Bopara. No one is denying the bloke is a talented larker. But he is a one-day specialist, as his figures show and it is unlikely that he will make a top order batsman in the Test arena.

 But he can bowl a bit. And I mean a bit. 85 wickets at 43 ain’t gonna scare Test class batters so once again this obsession with so called multi dimensional cricketers sees the talent of Owais Shah pushed shamefully into the shadows.