"The end of all hope is the birth of all freedom"

***

Seen: 'nature abhors a vacuum. so does my dog.'

At one time, I swore that half my ICQ list was invisible at any point of time. With MSN the proportion is probably at a third now; the sole saving grace is that there's no visible list.

It is good to be resigned to fate because if you try to fight it, you just end up more miserable than you would have been if you had accepted it - just look at Greek mythology.

The webcam on some laptops can be flipped around to face the direction the user is facing. This is good for taking spyshots (the light indicating it's on notwithstanding). Unfortunately my laptop's webcam cannot do that.

'Problematic' is a very problematic word.

"If a Western scholar is interested mainly in Western subjects, he's ethnocentric.
If a Western scholar is interested mainly in non-Western subjects, he's Orientalist.
If a non-Western scholar is interested mainly in Western subjects, he's been captured by the dominant Anglo-Saxon paradigm."

It seems more girls than guys are attached. Just as with how men report having sex with more women than the number of men women report having sex with, you can imagine how this goes.

Weird YR join request: "Hi, My name is *** and looking for the information on the best girls schools in Singapore."

According to California Girl, Black Women are big and fierce, which is diametrically opposed to the ideal of a woman (the same way Asian Men are the opposite of an ideal man). Furthermore, they only want Black Men (a comparison can be made with Asian Men here). I postulated that there should be extensive literature on their marginalisation, since this was double marginalisation (they're both Black and Women).

Data entry in Barclays can pay $3.8k. Wth.

Since bladder size is the same in both sexes, frequent toilet visits cannot be due to differential physical endowments and other causes must be found.

Someone was saying before slavery her guy friends were okay with Malays, but on coming out they all hated them. Indeed, NS is a social distillery for ethnic cohesion.

It's amazing how unfriendly poor people can be. I thought it was just Singapore, but the richer people are more receptive and less suspicious.

Race and religion only become flashpoints when they are exploited for political purposes, so maybe we should censor politicians and not normal people.


Some scholars advocate a critical approach to the Sunna and Hadith. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing, but if one critically examines them, there is no reason why one should not do the same for the main revealed text, and one must be prepared not to make a priori assumptions about it. Appealing to Faith sometimes and Reason at others is most inconsistent.

Seen: 'The Fountain. A magazine of critical, scientific and spiritual thought.' It's time to play: "Which of these words doesn't belong?"

***

I once heard an American complaint about how in France, the male toilets were always located before the female toilets, the urinals were located near the doors and the doors were left open, so women walking to the toilet would see men urinating.

(I swear this was in my July France travelogue, but I can't find it for some reason)

July Trip
24/7 - Bayeux

There were also 3 Scottish boys. One was only 17, in his last year of high school. They brought the Scottish flag down to Bayeux with them and one of them draped himself with it and walked around. Later they asked us to sign on their flag, on the same table used for The Distribution of the Keys.

Breakfast that morning at the youth hostel was very good. Someone averred that it was the best complimentary youth hostel breakfast that one could find. There was baguette sections, Nutella, hard boiled eggs, yoghurt, honey, vile juice, coffee, milk, golden honey balls (like Honey Stars but a different shape), cold cuts and croissants (still quite flaky).

Someone in the hostel said that a week before, it had been 42 degrees in Sorento. Wah.


M4A1 Sherman


M10 tank destroyer.
I like the serial: USA 12345678.


Char Churchill Crocodile
The serial was more imaginative: T17325857

Bayeux was the only town in Normandy to be totally spared from damage in the battle.


Place Charles de Gaulle. Where he re-established the republic.


Alain Chartier, poet

woman: popee. wife of rollo, 1st duke of normandy


I saw this symbol on all the streets and pavements. Maybe it was from the tapestry, I was not sure.

There were funny signs in the TV area in the hostel: 'destred (?) for video casettes', 'don't steal' (someone said the latter probably sounded right in French). This was because the videos shelf had a lot of 80s Schwarzenegger movies.

A sign in the hostel said if you helped clean the kitchen you might get a free bed/lunch. Heh.

I saw what must be the cheapest moules et frites in the world - €9. And this included a drink. A pity I didn't have that much time before my train, or I'd have had it.

If the French don't want to pronounce all the letters in their words, why do they include them in the first place? Gah.

Lay's BBQ in France was labelled 'Saveur Barbeque". The packaging was the same colour, but there was a picture of 2 kebabs on a grill.

bfast, lingual, pommes

When I tried to buy a ticket to Brussels, I found that the 2nd class youth tickets were sold out. I had the choice of getting 2nd class normal tickets for €74,50 or 1st class youth tickets for €59, so I obviously pounced for the latter. In all I think I lost a few Euros on my French rail discount card. Pity.

If Eurostar (Paris-London) return tickets can be cheaper than one way tickets, why would anyone buy the one way ones?

The French using the same word ('pommes') for both apples and potatoes is annoying. I bought a pain aux pommes one time and expected a savoury filling, but bit into a sweet filling. I'm sure there're situations when the context won't tell you what they're called - apple chips might be called 'pommes frites', for example. And if they combine apples and potatoes, do you get 'pommes et pommes'?


On the way to the Gare

The date/time of my journey were printed on my Bayeux-Paris train ticket, but on top the words 'Utilisable du 24/07 au 22/09' were printed. Maybe the date/time was printed just for convenience.

'Welcome to our liberators' - sign on the door of a cafe in Bayeux just outside the Gare. Above were the US, UK, Canadian and German flags. Wth.

Half the French trains I took were 5-10 minutes late. But then after Italy, who cares?


French progress - exhibition in Bayeux Gare

In Paris, while I was travelling between train stations, there was a traffic jam, so I got off the bus and walked. I entered the station with <20 minutes to spare and got ripped off at a concessionaire stand because I needed a drink. And the can wasn't even cold, grr. This also meant I had no leisure to browse the magazine racks and make more snide remarks, but I did notice another men's magazine in a price war (€1,95) with FHM (€1,90). Travelling to Brussels by Thalys First Class was an experience. Each seat had a power socket, newspapers (in English!) were provided and we even got dinner.
'Farmhouse' menu: Roast pork, Turnips carrots & leeks, Lentil salad dressed with Herb Vinaigrette, French cheese, Apple tart, Spa mineral water and coffee/tea. I was offered more bread later, but the best part was probably the cote d'or mini bouches. This is (was) the life. Though I'd rather save the difference and have moules et frites.

Once again, I smelled the piss smell in Brussels. And this was summer time too. Uh oh.

The signboards in the Brussels metro are very smart. They show you not only when the next few trains will arrive but which stations they are currently at. Lights also show you when the trains are in the tunnels between the last 2 stations and the current one.

I was very happy to see that my hostel had a fee for sheets. This was because for the second time, I would get to use the sheets that I brought. Unfortunately the fee for sheets was compulsory (deceptive pricing!). !@#$.

The card reader in the lift was also spoilt, so I had to swipe my doorcard 10 times. Stupid security measures. Even more infuriatingly, the lift was only one way - you could take it up, but not down. Presumably they were trying to coerce us into upgrading to their gold class hostel.

Reviewing my options for the next day, there was an interesting-looking city tour. Unfortunately the English speaking guide was on holiday.

I doubt that, past knee length, short skirts are really that much cooler. Summer heats things up in more ways than one.

I doubt that, past knee length, short skirts are really that much cooler. Summer heats things up in more ways than one.

Someone: and anw, short skirts do get cooler the shorter they get, even past knee length hAhAH
nv tried?

MFTTW: they aren't cooler lah. hello. you wear and try. it's annoying to not have anything absorb the sweat from your thighs.

i think the skirt mat3erial makes more differene

July Trip
24/7 - Bayeux

I never took the contacts of people at youth hostels, but one person took mine. Maybe I'll hear from her in 10 years when she visits Singapore.

Admission to the tapistery was €7,60 for adults but €3 for students. No wonder there's a big market for fake ISIC cards.

The tapistery (where they kept the Bayeux tapestry) was really silly. They had lots of moronic writeups, like so:

A stupid writeup glorifying the French: "Guy behaved properly: neither drawn by the lure of a reward nor compelled by force, he came himself to the castle of EU, and brought before the Duke a man whom he was at liberty to torture, slit the throat of or sell"

On William and friends attacking Conan of Brittany: "Conan, the Count of Brittany, who refused the protectorate of Normandy, had actually risen up against Duke William. Renewing his father's rebellion, [Conan] memta (?) be the enemy, not the vassal, of Normandy.

Yes, the underlines were in the original writeups. Maybe they took a leaf from Wo-hen's webpage.

"William made Harold a Knight
The Duke was indeed very much aware that chivalry did not exist in England. No doubt he hoped that he could make Harold - who must have been impressed by Conan's submission - realise the deep meaning of the dubbing [of himself as a knight]"

Harold's supporters were called wicked and the man himself "the enemy of justice and law".

Other silly writeups kept stressing the rightful claim of William to the throne of England, but didn't talk of the coercion of Harold and how he was tricked into swearing his oath on a Saint's relics. Bloody French (unless these were quotations from Norman French chroniclers, which I doubt, but if that is the case - Bloody French of 1000 years ago].

boastful words chroniclers. no say in english part. but yes in french (?)

As a counterpoint, a video screened before the entrance to the tapestry room showed Harold's wife arguing (and providing the English point of view) with some guy called "Odin" (a knight of William's, IIRC), who was clad in chain mail.

The stupid audioguide could not be paused - it turned on automatically on entering the chamber. It could not be replayed either It's probably a scam to get you out of the place ASAP.

The tapestry was in surprisingly good condition, especially given it's 900 years old. The colours were surprisingly vivid.

Just like the Pont du Gard museum, photography was nominally forbidden, but there was no gestapo inside.


Horses on a ship, laughing when it sets out for England.


Harold being tricked by the evil Normans


I spy with my little eye, something starting with "A"


Charging the Anglo-Saxon shield wall


William is alive

I have 2 T-shirts with tapestry scenes on them, but neither were sold in the shop. They change their stock often.


Mill of Bishop of Bayeux, on river Aure (l'aure)


Bayeux Cathedral. They built it in only 17 years!


Portal


Nave


Pulpit


Altar


Chapel of St Michel and St Blasse


Tomb in the crypt


Ceiling design

Next I went to a D-Day museum (Museum for the Battle of Normandy, IIRC). They had the same funny no entry signs as in Italy. Maybe it's an EU directive.


Beach tetrahedron

They dressed up one mannikin as a soldier. With a tie. People go into battle with ties?!

There were lots of information panels and photos in the museum, but the artifacts weren't labelled.

The Canadians fought their way through Caen and the French gave them roses and wine, but they weren't allowed to drink it. Aww.


Medals


Short range artillery (?)

Montgomery named his dogs Hitler and Rommel. Gah.

There was a very long and amusing Patton quote which I wanted to take a picture of to save me the writing, but a staff member finally came along. Grr. Of course, this time they didn't even have the excuse of conservation (the stuff being 60 years old at most). Maybe they were leery of spies from the tons of other D Day museums in the area. Or they just wanted to increase the profit they could reap from the death and destruction of 62 years ago. Reprehensible, especially since some of these veterans are still alive.

I'd learnt my lesson after being unable to find hilarious Sissy poetry online (at least in English), and wouldn't have bought a book on Patton even if it'd been sold at the bookshop, so:

"Don't worry about your flanks. We must protect them, okay, but not to the point of doing nothing else. A damn fool once said that flanks must be protected, and since then every the (sic) idiot in the world thinks of nothing but protecting his flanks. We want none of that in the 3rd Army. The enemy can worry about his flanks. Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything, we'll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy. We're going to hold onto him by the nose, and we're going to kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time, and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose." - Patton in his first speech to his troops

Incidentally, I am vindicated, since I couldn't find this quote on Google.

Allied propaganda was very funny.

There was a lot of information on the battle of Normandy, but no conclusion. A summary of the rest of the war, or even one of the rest of the war for France would have been very welcome. A commentary on the role the battle for Normandy played in the war, or even 'The battle was won. Now the war continued' or some such would've been nice, but none of this could be found at the museum.

July trip
23/7 - D Day Beaches

There was supposed to be a summer D Day bus line, but it only ran from Wed-Fri. Wth.

After the Commonwealth cemetery, we visited the location of Pegasus Bridge, the capture of which was portrayed in the 1962 film - the Longest Day. The place was originally called Benouville, but it was renamed Pegasus Bridge (the codename) later. The thing is that the locals actually call it that, as opposed to terms like "Omaha Beach", "Sword Beach" etc, which are only used by the locals.

There was a museum there and the owner was present and gave us a lot of information.


The original Pegasus Bridge. They bought it for a symbolic price of 1 Franc (never actually paid) when it was replaced in view of heavier traffic (and not due to bullet holes). The restoration cost 200,000 pounds.

They used gliders to capture the bridge because planes would've been too noisy. There were 30 people per glider, and 3 gliders per beach (?), so that made it 6 gliders in all. The reason for using gliders rather than jumping from planes was so they wouldn't get scattered like the Americans.

Landing the glider was basically crashing rather than landing, especially in the terrain they had:


Marshland. Apart from the red houses in the background it looks the same as it did in 1944, even with the electricity pylon.

The Germans placed explosives on Pegasus Bridge, a key point, in the day, but took them out at night (since they were afraid the French resistance would take the explosives and use them to blow things up). When the British landed there were 15 Germans faced by 90 Brits. Most of the former fled, and the rest surrendered within 10 minutes.

In less than half an hour they'd liberated Benouville, just before midnight on June 5th.


Remains of an actual glider


Reconstructed Horsa glider (only 1 was left in England and they copied it). Only the tyres are original. They bought them off a farmer who used them for his tractor or something.

A Scottish general who never moved off without his bagpipes (wth) led the attack on Sword Brach; when they heard his bagpipes, they knew the reinforcements were coming (in the Longest Day, the fella played the bagpipes while walking across the bridge. The bagpiper told the owner of the museum that he was 19 at the time and running across the bridge). His reinforcements came to secure the bridge, 2 minutes late (2 past noon), and he apologised. Gah.

The British were extremely proud of their glider pilots' accuracy - the first glider landed 57m from the bridge and the other 2 only a bit behind. So they placed markers where they landed. The Commander-in-Chief, Allied Expeditionary Air Force called it the "probably the finest piece of precision flying in the whole of World War II".


Improvised bridge (Bailey bridge)

2 years ago, 10 of Major Howard's men were at the memorial ceremony. This year only 2 were.


More shots of the bridge. Maybe you can see the bullet holes.


M3 A1 half-track and quadruple 12.7mm AA gun mounting

We were dropped at the museum for 1 hour, but after the movie screening and a very enthusiastic guided tour we had less than 10 minutes. Oh well.


Mark where the first glider landed, and a bust of John Howard. In the background you can see where the third glider landed, and further back the second.


Looking at the bridge from the mark.

There were very funny plaques in the settled area nearby saying that that one location saw the "first Allied victory", another was the "first house in France to be liberated" etc. Gah. The Pegasus Bridge was also touted as the "first bridge liberated in Continental France". !@#$%^&*() (I'm not sure if this was on a plaque, though)


Avre tank. This was the Commander's tank, ergo the graduated markings, so troops could see where he was shooting.

Dog tags were introduced after World War II because there were too many unknown soldiers in that war. Too bad, as I recall from the Berlin tour, that in the bombings of Berlin a lot of records were destroyed, making the tags useless.


Command post at the Hillman position


Garage

A sign said the capture of the Hillman position was the first achievement in the liberation of France. Gah - they might as well erect a memorial where the first paratrooper liberated the first square inch of occupied France.


Sword Beach. It was low tide and the last buoy could be seen. There was also the low tide smell (rotting seaweed). Ugh.

There was a couple walking down the road and the guy held a dog in his arms. The dog's tongue was sticking out. The people in my minivan commented that the dog was tired.

The guide was telling someone that before William the Conqueror got Papal endorsement to invade England (based on perjury over the bones of a saint), his nobles had been reluctant to pledge their help. So much for religion being irrelevant, and always a byproduct of or controlled by politico-socio-economic realities, as fashionable reductionism might have it. Ideologies both shape and are shaped by politico-socio-economic realities, so the chain of causation is not one way.

We were told that there were 2 maple trees at the Canadian cemetery. Maybe they should've imported some bald Eagles for the American one.


Remains of the British mulberry (artificial port) at the beach. No one was paying for either the maintenance of destruction of it, so it was just left to rot.


Former German defence position

The binoculars at the mulberry beach were provided by Euroscope, and they were the most expensive ever, costing €0,50 or €1 (I hope €1 got you twice as much viewing time).

Returning to Bayeux, I walked down a big street and got the shock of my life on seeing:


Malaysian Mannikins
FRANCE, HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO ME?! I HAD FAITH IN YOU!!!1OMGWTHBBQ~!


The establishment to boycott for eternity


Timber-framed house. Oldest, biggest in Bayeux (14th century)

2 Danes were eating spaghetti with ketchup in the hostel because they were too lazy/stingy to get read food. Uhh.

The chainsmoking old man running the hostel who spoke absolutely no English at all was also the most unfriendly French person I met in France in July - when I bonjoured him he didn't bonjour me in return. At least his wife was slightly more conversant. (Review of the place: "The owner knows little English and will be much more friendly if an attempt is made to speak in French. Possibly because of this, there is little information provided upon check in on breakfast time (starts at 8 a.m.) and dinner time (7:30 p.m.) and it is not clear as to whether an indication needs to be made for one's presence at dinner.; Apart from the owner who is a bit strange and doesn't always confirm reservations, the place was awesome.")

It seems there's a quota that 3/5 of the songs played on the radio in France must be in French. Somehow I'd always thought it was higher.

One Dane said he thought 60 minutes was a good show to watch, and then one episode talked about Denmark and everything was wrong.

One person complained about the positioning of French public restrooms - he said the Men's washrooms were always placed first, the urinals placed near the door and often the doors were left open so girls would walk by and see.

One US girl on a study abroad tour said she ate more McDonalds in Europe than in the US because it was open late and cheap.

Apparently in Poland and Russia TV dubbing sucks - one person does all the voices and they dub in a monotone voice. Perhaps the worst bit is that you can hear the English audio channel softly in the background.


You always hear about Singaporeans who, when they go overseas, get questioned about their country and don't know what to say. The day before, there had been an American at the hostel choke-full of the weirdest questions. I felt like I was under cross-examination and on the witness stand.

Among other things, he asked what the penalty for possessing pot was (I only knew about the penalty for having 1 kg, what got you the death penalty in Singapore besides murder and drugs (he asked about attempted murder and rape, and I had no idea). What took the cake, though, was asking if you could be charged in Singapore if you went to China and bribed someone (I have since found out that the answer is yes). My reply was that: "I'm not sn expert on the finer points of extraterritorial legislation", and someone commented that it was a good rejoinder.

This person also commented that the Bayeux Family Home had a very good atmosphere and that there were lots of friendly people there, which was why he'd extended his stay.