endlessrarities | Teetering on the Brink of Madness...

According to that illustrious bastion of Truth and Unbiased Journalism, the Daily Record (J reads it, not me!), one of the Cenotaph hoodlums was none other than the son of Pink Floyd musician, Dave Gilmour. Sorry, folks. Incensed as I am, I'm not going to engage in a mass burning of my Pink Floyd CD's. Though I can't help wondering why young Master Gilmour is demonstrating over cuts in student income. I'm sure he's not exactly impoverished...

Friday night is Lousy Television Night, so we opted for a film from the DVD collection. It was a sober choice- the film 'Downfall' which chronicles the closing stages of World War II as seen by the ruling elite of Nazi Germany. This film is a serious Must Watch - it's truly gripping stuff. The setting is claustrophobic, the acting marvellous. And what makes it all the more remarkable is that it manages to portray its characters as real people, who have found themselves in a hell of their own making.

It's impossible to be sympathetic to their plight. If you engage in mass murder on an industrialised scale, sooner or later your evil deeds are going to catch up with you. It's a lesson that dictators throughout the world would be wise to bear in mind before they give full rein to their excesses. As Hitler unravels, becoming more and more unstable and making increasingly ridiculous demands on his generals, you can't help wondering how these seemingly sane, rational men got into this mess in the first place. You get the distinct impression that most of the characters are wondering this self same thing, too. But they're still too afraid to speak out. In the cloistered space of the bunker, people react in different ways. There's a group of senior soldiers who are always drinking themselves into a stupor, while others, like Albert Speer, slip away to try and embark on a damage limitation exercise with the enemy while they still can.

The only people with any integrity in all this are the practical military personnel, who show genuine concern for their soldiers, and for the beleaguered civilians, too. They come traipsing into the neat spotless world of the bunker in their soiled uniforms, but their practical suggestions are always met with contempt. The view held by Hitler, and his chief remaining 'yes' man, Goebels, is that the German people failed in their duty to their leader and that they deserve everything they get. The country's infrastructure should be left in ruins in true fire and sword manner, and if the civilians starve or die through disease as a result, well, that's nature, isn't it? The survival of the fittest, etcetera, etcetera.

It's a chilling film. It portrays the utter madness of war and tyranny in stark clarity. And because it manages to portray Hitler's inner circle as flawed, but human, it serves as a sharp reminder that the price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance. An unwary population got dragged into a colossal mess entirely of its own making because of its loyalty to an unhinged megalomaniac, and it paid a terrible price as a result. To think it could never happen again is sheer naivety - it's yet another reason why we should never turn our backs on the harsh lessons learned by our ancestors throughout history.

Watching a cheerful piece of cinema like this on a Friday night, does, however, have its advantages. We may think we have plenty to moan and whinge about in the modern world, but everything's relative. However bad things get in dear old Blighty, they're going to have to get a whole lot worse before they're anywhere near the miseries experienced by countless people in mainland Europe during the 1940s...

Incidentally, because I haven't been on any exciting jaunts to any exciting places (like Crete, or Yorkshire, or even South Ayrshire!) just recently, I haven't got any exciting new photos to show you. I could, in the meantime, regale you with some more pretty pictures of random places that I've visited on my travels. Anyone fancy Iona? Or Lincoln?? All suggestions on an electronic postcard, please...