Peter O'Toole, RIP

I liked Peter O'Toole, star and actor. He made great films.

One of his quotes has been doing the rounds:

Born in County Galway in 1932, O’Toole wrote in a notebook as a boy: “I will not be a common man. I will stir the smooth sands of monotony.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/a-hero-and-a-hellraiser-film-and-theatre-icon-peter-otoole-dies-at-81-9006273.html

Initially I took this at face value and assumed that O'Toole had written it. However Lee Randall  pointed out that it was a quote, and led me me to an interview  by O'Toole with Talese in 63:

“I do not choose to be a common man…it is my right to be uncommon—if I can…I seek opportunity—not security…I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed… to refuse to barter incentive for a dole… I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopias….”

http://longform.org/stories/peter-o-toole-on-the-ould-sod

So the later quote is an addition, obviously, the Lawrence of Arabia meme played heavily in O'Toole's life. I suspect he may have been trapped by it, and somewhat like Orson Welles, he played his career in reverse.

But where does the original quote come from? Searching Google for the O'Toole augmentation only comes up with O'Toole. Instead, I searched for some words in the second half of the Talese quote, and came up with a poem by Dean Alfrange:

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/82410-my-creed-i-do-not-choose-to-be-a-common

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Dean Alfange > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“My Creed

I do not choose to be a common man,
It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,
I seek opportunity … not security.
I do not wish to be a kept citizen.
Humbled and dulled by having the
State look after me.
I want to take the calculated risk;
To dream and to build.
To fail and to succeed.
I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;
I prefer the challenges of life
To the guaranteed existence;
The thrill of fulfilment
To the stale calm of Utopia.
I will not trade freedom for beneficence
Nor my dignity for a handout
I will never cower before any master
Nor bend to any threat.
It is my heritage to stand erect.
Proud and unafraid;
To think and act for myself,
To enjoy the benefit of my creations
And to face the world boldly and say:
This, with God’s help, I have done
All this is what it means
To be an Entrepreneur.”

Bingo.

One question remains. How did Peter O'Toole, an itinerant worker in Leeds at the time, come to know about this piece? Dean Alfrange's wikipedia entry is interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Alfange

His poem, "My Creed" appears in the Reader's Digest, 1952 and 1954. I like to think that somewhere in Leeds, 1952, a young go-getter of Irish extraction, a Billy Liar figure, read those words and, eventually, went for it. 

 

Mind-dump about the horse-meat crisis

The problem, to me, isn't Labour, Tories or LibDems per se. Rather, it's the Randian neo-liberalism - itself a worm from the Free Trade nonsense of the 19th Century - that's the cause of our problems. The idea that we would be better off if business had completely free-hand.

I'm not anti-business - I'd like to rent a studio for my music but it's usually too expensive - however I can see a level of enforcement is necessary. Bacteria like a really open free-market; people cut corners, and I can see no recourse but to apply the law. If as a consumer I'm faced with a wife or a daughter or son who's been poisoned by a negligently made product, my only recourse is to stop buying from that source? What a great punishment for someone who's defrauded me, and killed my kith and kin. As in everyday life, people who defraud others should be punished.

As it stands, we still have plenty of regulations - stack-loads - but our over-lords, in an attempt to be business-friendly, and to make it appear as if they have an economic policy that works, refuse to enforce most of them until a crisis like this arises.

The same thing happened with the 2008 crash. Mervyn King falling asleep in the Financial Stability Committee meetings is emblematic of a heap load of farragoes past and present. Until the virulent strain of neo-liberalism that infects all parties has worked itself out, we'll be continuously faced with such situations as the horse-meat problem.

The Sinking of the Belgrano

My interest in the sinking of the Belgrano was re-awakened by a recent Guardian article. The article wasn't that interesting but a comment below it mentioned that the Belgrano was part of an overall attack by the Argentinian fleet and air-force. I had watched a few documentaries and read a few books on the Falklands War so I thought I knew a lot about it. It turns out, I did not so I looked up the Wikipedia article and found this map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ARA.Belgrano.sunk.svg

which shows the Argentinian attacks from the North and the South,  as well as a time-line.

T1: Dawn 1st May
T2: 5am 2nd May
x: 17:57 2nd May

The first thing I noticed was that the Belgrano was clearly heading towards Argentina when she was sunk, even though she was zig-zagging. One of the main reasons for a ship in a war-zone to zig-zag is to avoid a submarine. The zig-zagging accounts for the controversy and claims, counter-claims about the exact heading of the Belgrano when she was sunk; what cannot be denied is that her overall direction of travel is towards Argentina.

The second, more crucial aspect, is the timing. Thirteen hours between the abortive attacks and the Belgrano being sunk. The reason that this is crucial is because the narrative promoted by Admiral 'Sandy' Woodward sees the sinking as the result of a tactical decision, his decision and his alone, in response to an immediate and mortal threat to the UK fleet around the Falklands.

Thirteen hours is a long time, particularly in modern warfare or even in the context of naval warfare. An immediate and mortal threat means that guns and weapons are trained and locked, that both sides are committed to killing each other. The Belgrano was 200 miles plus from the UK fleet, heading homewards after an abortive mission, with no air-cover, in bad weather. She might have had the UK fleet on long-range radar, but she was too far away to shell the fleet; she carried no missiles.

Could the Belgrano have made a last ditch-attempt at attacking the fleet with just her and her two escorts? Possibly, but I think not. It would have been suicidal. The Sea Harriers would have intercepted her well before she got within shooting range. No air-cover is fatal for any naval mission.  The best contra-indication of a threat is her crew's behavior on perceiving a threat. My guess - and at this stage it's only a guess given my data-source - is that they had spotted the Conqueror and started zig-zagging. One of the claims about the Belgrano is that she had up-to-date ASW kit, however, she failed to use it and worse,  behaved like a merchant ship when threatened. The Belgrano and her two escorts could have turned and fought the Conqueror, at the very least, depth-charging the hell out of the South Atlantic. At the very least, it would have made the Conqueror's job a lot harder. At best, they could have sunk the Conqueror. The behaviour of the Belgrano group at this point shows they had no stomach for fight, let alone a suicidal dash at the UK fleet.

So, she was no immediate threat. Was the decision Woodward's alone? The Rules Of Engagement that the British had at the time of the sinking said that these sort of decisions had to be radioed to Northwood to get confirmation. The commander on the spot could not sink a ship at his own behest. There were suspicions - accusations - that Thatcher had ordered the sinking but this was strenuously denied. However, the Guardian had an article about the latest release of state secrets under the 30 year rules. From this it is clear that Thatcher and a cabal of ministers had a meeting at about midday, GMT, on the 2nd May. At this meeting they ordered the destruction of the Belgrano.

A fuller time-line looks like this:

T2: The Belgrano calls off the mission
The Conqueror discovers the Belgrano, more than likely through satellite pictures.
C phones home, Woodward asks if he can sink her, cabinet permission is given.
B spots C and starts zig-zagging.
The Belgrano is sunk.

Some of the time-lag can be accounted for by the time the Conqueror takes in phoning home, a meeting is arranged, and a reply is sent. Still, the immediate threat is lessening by the second.

If the threat is not immediate, then why sink the Belgrano? The only considerations at this point are strategic.  The Belgrano is, indeed, a strategic target: sink it and the Argentinian Navy would never venture out of port again, so I suspect the reasoning went. I have no qualms with that decision, if the decision was straightforward and clear.

The problem - from Thatcher's and Woodwards' POV - of framing the decision as strategic is that, unlike a tactical decision, a strategic decision involves larger and woolier concerns. More alternatives can be fielded - a blockade, for instance. I suspect at this point, the lawyers and No 10 spin-doctors went into over-time, with much muttering about war-crimes. We will never know. A lot of the discussion has been red-lined, crucial pages from the Conqueror's log have gone missing.

The problem with the tactical threat narrative is the cover-up. It's telling that Woodward's language when talking about the tactical threat is abstract and wooly, when he comes to discussing the strategic threat that the Belgrano posed, his language is far more precise. It's also clear, from my analysis, that Woodward is being economical with the truth. The missing pages from the Conqueror's log. We now know, courtesy of the Guardian, that Thatcher was involved in the decision to sink the Belgrano, contrary to what she said in her autobiography. If they have nothing to hide, why the cover-up?