Sorry, But This Takes The Fucking Biscuit AB

I'll explain at the start that Biscuits AB, officially Biscuits Vitamins A&B, but since time immemorial colloquially known as Biscuits Arse Blocking because of their eponymous side effect, are the biscuits that for as long as I, my father and probably my Grampa could remember, are the hard-tack biscuits that take the place of bread in British Army Compo rations.

I'm also not accustomed to apologising at the outset of a post and since all my friends know me as a big, soft shyte I also very rarely get angry. However I am angry, very angry and this post will be written in demotic Jockinese, the language of a (former) Scottish soldier and officer. It may well not be a post you would wish your maiden aunt to read, and if you are a maiden aunt, I'd look away now.

From the start, I had my doubts about that wankstain Cameron's plans for the first time in history to commemorate the start of a war. And not just any war, the greatest clusterfuck ever to befall Europe and the World, for not only was it the great obscenity that was the Great War, but without it the even greater calamity of the Second World War would probably never have happened.

I was even resigned when I read the arsehole's plans, introduced in the following terms:

"Our ambition is a truly national commemoration worthy of this historic centenary. A commemoration that captures our national spirit in every corner of the country, from our schools and workplaces, to our town halls and local communities.

"A commemoration that, like the diamond jubilee celebrations this year, says something about who [we] are as a people."

It really was blindingly obvious that what he envisaged is a jingoistic Britfest to coincide with the Referendum on Scottish independence, why else would we be not commemorating, but celebrating for the first time ever, the start and not the end of a war.  However, I was prepared to write it off as the arsehole having perhaps just said the wrong thing.  After all, to that twat 303 would be a slightly late afternoon tea, SLR a fancy camera and Gimpy merely a description of the boudoir accoutrements of one or more of his MPs.

I only saw the following quote from the the character Guy from The Quarry, the last novel by the late Iain Banks last week and regular readers will know that it was just the kind superficial Sleb nonsense he refers to that kicked off this blog. 

It will therefore come as no surprise that the plans to hold a Sleb football match between England and Germany, including the archetypal Vacuous Sleb - David Beckham - have me bealin' and left in no doubt whatsoever that what is planned for 2014 is indeed a jingoistic Britfest celebration of the start of the Great War.

Organisers hope the star will add his firepower to a recreation of the England-Germany match in no man’s land.

 

DAVID BECKHAM is to be called out of retirement to lead England in a final game against Germany — but this time in the name of reconciliation.”

Sorry, recreation of the England - Germany match in no man's land?  Were not the Generals shitting themselves because just about every front-line swinging dick (Officers & Men, German and British Empire) not involved in burying the dead on 25 Dec 1914 was singing, pissing it up and playing football?

As if that wasn't bad enough, a few token people from the "home countries" (Jocks, Taffs and Micks), Blacks, Asians and even current Servicemen may be invited to join the England team. How jolly fucking condescendingly decent of them. No mention of Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders or the many other British & French Empire troops that took part. 

To top it off, they want to spunk away £1.25M on a football pitch and stadium on the Flanders Peace Field near Messines on which to stage the tasteless match. Fuck it! Why not go the whole hog and let Stuart Hall out of fucking jail to compère a Jeux Sans Frontieres / It's a Fucking Knockout-Style  Corpse-Burying Competition? A shitload more of that happened on 25 December 1914 than playing of football.

The rationale for this crass circus? 

"Beckham, who with Prince William and David Cameron led a bid to bring the 2018 World Cup to England, could ensure that the commemorations will involve people who might be unmoved by memorials to bloody battles."

Of the 557,000 Scots who enlisted in all Services in WW1, 26.4 percent were killed. This compares with an average death rate of 11.8 percent for the rest of the British Army between 1914 and 1918. Of all the combatant nations, only the Serbs and the Turks had higher per capita mortality rates, but this was primarily because of disease in the trenches rather than a direct result of losses in battle. The main reason for the higher than average casualties among the Scottish soldiers was that they were regarded as excellent, aggressive shock troops who could be depended upon to lead the line in the first hours of battle. No great mischief indeed.

World War One only ended 95 years ago. My Grampa fought in it and I'm not particularly ancient. I would be hard pressed to think that any family in Scotland has an adult in it that did not either know a combatant directly, or whose parents did not know a combatant or a relative who lost someone dear to them. The notion that anyone could not be moved by a simple commemoration service or ceremony of such slaughter is beyond me.  The notion that we should even consider pandering to the needs of any such insensitive soul by staging a crass, celebrity circus is even further beyond my comprehension.

I've had cause to say it once before in this blog, and then in an article about the death of a soldier.  But that this proposal is even being entertained in Westminster shows that we in Scotland now really are another country. I can only hope that any Scots, Welsh, Irish, Commonwealth and indeed German footballers who are invited to take part in this crass Slebfest have the dignity to decline.

I apologise once again for swearing like a Trooper, but perhaps that may make the message hit home. Honestly, do the arseholes in Whitehall nowadays not understand that Oh! What a Lovely War was cutting satire and not just a jolly jape musical?

 See also: Trench Foot in Mouth - The First Casualty of the WW1 Commemorations?

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