Missiles

[seamus finn]

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[RSL]

A symptom of tragedy, Seamus: None of our children have seen war or been taught about it, so they haven't a clue what it's like. But THEIR children have been taught that it's no big thing. In the end, this growing ignorance may mean the end of our civilization -- perhaps a return to the 7th century. General Sherman, whom my great grandfather Stearns served under, said it best: "War is Hell." Maybe it's worse than Hell, because if you're in Hell, at least you're already dead.

[GrahamBy]

Indeed. It occurred to me recently that none of the current Western European or American political leaders have any direct memory of a real war: wars are just things fought in other countries while life goes on at home, according to regular budgetary allocations.

[Rob C]

Indeed. It occurred to me recently that none of the current Western European or American political leaders have any direct memory of a real war: wars are just things fought in other countries while life goes on at home, according to regular budgetary allocations.

Yes, it is partly an age thing. Also, different people react to it in different ways.

David Bailey enjoyed it insofar as he got to play around in ruins etc; Keith Richards can hardly speak about it, whilst many people (kids) spent some of theirs in 'evacuation' which is nothing to do with bowel movements, though perhaps if you hadn't been evacuated, your bowels would move the freer. For Norman Parkinson, it gave the freedom of Vogue, as it did for a couple of American snappers who found themselves kicking around London at the time. My own memories? Gliders. Towed by powered aircraft on their usually one-way trip across to the Continent. I also remember summer's evenings, watching distant flashes and burnings over London; also do I recall the devastation bordering the railways on the journeys we sometimes made into town. But fortunately for us, London's magnet attracted all the metal and we had next to none, beyond the passing doodlebug.

Oddly, whereas most people who could fled the south, we moved there... I have to wonder, now and again.

I'm not sure if politicians have no concept of war; I am certain the usual ban-the-bombers do not. They live in a world of imaginary good-guy rules, where as long as you don't say boo, then the other guy won't either. Sadly, that only works when he knows that your boo can blow his ass off. And vice versa, keeping you honest too.

Rob C

[RSL]

Exactly!

[GrahamBy]

Funny that in the brief auto-bio at the front of Sumo, Newton completely glosses over the fact that he spent his first few years in Australia in an internment camp... and was vaguely lucky to do so, leaving Singapore on one of the last ships. Then of course he got out of Germany by a similar skin-of-teeth margin. I've never read what happened to his family.

Hardly surprising that his photo of Le Pen is so quietly murderous.

More cheerfully... the credit is to Sharon Tate, I don't know if she is the model, or the photographer...

PS: oh, that Sharon Tate. Shit 

[Rob C]

AFAIK, he never saw his family again after he escaped Germany. Being Jewish it wasn't a good place to live (no sick pun intended)...

I believe he did work for Vogue in Oz and didn't enjoy it much, the same experience repeated in his brief British sojourn, and only after hitting Paris did the pearly gates 'open wide' to him.

This was also the way for David Hamilton, who came into his own, really, after leaving the shores of the UK. I find it all a bit confusing: London, after all, spawned the Black Trinity, gave Feurer his big break and Peccinotti made his name there too, along with heaps of other snappers who did the same. It's perhaps a matter of personality: different flowers grow better in distinct environments, different types of soil.

Sharon Tate. What a waste. And on a very superficial level, what a crime against pulchritude. Bailey has a beautiful image of her. Can anyone wonder that Roman went a little strange after such a loss? Come to think of it, the Bailey image echoes one of Sieff's with Jacques Fath's son holding a topless wife in his embrace (coolish). (I say echoes, but don't know which made the original bang.) It, too, was doomed to end as relationship.

Life in photographs.

Rob

[GrahamBy]

Apparently Newton won some sort of competition that awarded him the job at British Vogue: that was life in the colonies, there was this sense that the best you could do for someone outstanding was to give them a leg-up to the mother country. See Clive James, Richard Neville, Germaine Greer, MacKerras, Rolf Harris...
Mine was probably the first generation where the US was seen as a legitimate alternative, or maybe even to stay home. Part of that was due to the UK entering the EU and so no more automatic visas for colonials.

I know the Sieff photo, will see if I can find the Bailey/Tate one.

added: ah, yes.

http://www.polyvore.com/sharon_roman_photographed_david_bailey/collection?id=948514

[Rob C]

Apparently Newton won some sort of competition that awarded him the job at British Vogue: that was life in the colonies, there was this sense that the best you could do for someone outstanding was to give them a leg-up to the mother country. See Clive James, Richard Neville, Germaine Greer, MacKerras, Rolf Harris...
Mine was probably the first generation where the US was seen as a legitimate alternative, or maybe even to stay home. Part of that was due to the UK entering the EU and so no more automatic visas for colonials.

I know the Sieff photo, will see if I can find the Bailey/Tate one.

added: ah, yes.

http://www.polyvore.com/sharon_roman_photographed_david_bailey/collection?id=948514

Maybe it was also to do with the home country coming out doing its own thing rather well? Lot's of Brits envied/envy the Oz lifestyle! Anywhere that can produce an Elle MacPherson can't be that bad... beauty with muchos brains, too.

Rob

[Otto Phocus]

I found my eyes drawn to the "FCUK" sign.     What was the rest of the word?

[GrahamBy]

There was/is a chain of clothing stores in Australia called just that: FCUK. Don't know if they were also in the UK, and in any case the sign-writing was a bit down-market.

[Dale Villeponteaux]

FCUK (French Connection in the UK) is a clothing chain in England; I've seen some of their stores in London.

Regards,
Dale

[RSL]

Unfortunately it looks like a spelling error.

[James Clark]

A symptom of tragedy, Seamus: None of our children have seen war or been taught about it, so they haven't a clue what it's like. But THEIR children have been taught that it's no big thing. In the end, this growing ignorance may mean the end of our civilization -- perhaps a return to the 7th century. General Sherman, whom my great grandfather Stearns served under, said it best: "War is Hell." Maybe it's worse than Hell, because if you're in Hell, at least you're already dead.

My contemporaries and friends, several of whom served or continue to serve in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, would strongly and correctly disagree with you.

As for the image at hand, I believe that there is a vast livable space between "we have enough armaments to destroy the world a hundred times over, so keep spending even while people starve" and "Kumbaya!  Let's all be friends! If we're nice to them, they'll be nice to us"   

As always, I find images of people expressing their strongly held beliefs to be worthy of viewing.

[RSL]

I spent 26 years in the Air Force, James, and went to war three times. I'll stand by what I said. It's a lot more likely that the world will be destroyed a hundred times over if we have people with no idea of what war really is like making our political decisions.

[James Clark]

I spent 26 years in the Air Force, James, and went to war three times. I'll stand by what I said.

Well, you're wrong.  And you do a great disservice to the men and women who have fought for us in the multiple conflicts since Vietnam. Conflicts initiated, by the way, by representatives of the generations you seem to believe have all the best answers.

It's a lot more likely that the world will be destroyed a hundred times over if we have people with no idea of what war really is like making our political decisions.

..but you're right about this.  But not to worry - we seem to be sadly incapable of living without war, so I doubt we'll ever have a generation that actually has no understanding of human conflict and the dangers contained therein.

[Jeremy Roussak]

Unfortunately it looks like a spelling error.

That's as it was intended, of course. It was a long-running but distasteful advertising campaign, reflected in T-shirts and the like which were quite popular among silly teenagers: slogans such as "too busy to fcuk" and so on. I confess to a considerable degree of satisfaction when I see a closed former-French Connection shop.

Jeremy

[RSL]

Based on what you say, Jeremy, I'll join you in feeling that satisfaction.

[Rob C]

That's as it was intended, of course. It was a long-running but distasteful advertising campaign, reflected in T-shirts and the like which were quite popular among silly teenagers: slogans such as "too busy to fcuk" and so on. I confess to a considerable degree of satisfaction when I see a closed former-French Connection shop.

Jeremy

Clash of cultures, Jeremy... wish I'd photographed some of their stuff now. A nice little time capsule. Like Chuck Berry.

Rob