Not much to report today. I still haven't written the essay.
After skipping Monday's lecture because it was the sunniest bank holiday everrrr, I was glad I took the trouble to watch the recording of it last night because at this morning's tutorial the first thing the lecturer said to me was, "Did you manage to watch the recording of Monday's lecture?"
This afternoon's lecture was the war memorial man again. Once more he started out with eight people in the audience and ended up with half that.
Because he's an engaging speaker with a deep gravelly voice and a mellifluous Welsh accent, I could happily listen to him talk for hours about anything. Today he talked today about the Cenotaph, and the Thiepval memorial and Menin Gate, and about the politics and personalities involved in the WW1 commemoration process, which was riveting.
I've visited many WW1 sites, and they never fail to move me. It sounds stupid, but before seeing it for myself in France I hadn't realised 'Trench Warfare' was literally that - big old ditches - and 'The Western Front' was also just ditches. The material mundane reality of seeing ditches snaking across a field at Beaumont Hamel made the Somme's dizzying loss of life even more terrible.
Even more shocking were the two signposts along the Albert-Bapaume road. The first marks the spot of the front line on 1 July 1916, the first day of battle. And the second, a heartbreakingly short distance away, shows where it was by September:
A million dead in three months for seven miles.
I was so absorbed by the lecture I even got involved:
I dropped a comment in the chat (mentioning there are a handful of German soldiers buried at Tyne Cot) and he reacted with genuine excitement, like he was amazed anyone was out there listening at all.
He couldn't remember the name of the man who wrote Tarka the Otter so I googled it for him. Again, gratitude and excitement.
And at the end I asked a question - about how the writing of Siegfried Sassoon was received at the time - which is the first time I've asked a question in a lecture I think.
Looking for the photo of the Albert-Bapaume road sign, I unearthed a memory of one of the happiest, most fortuitous events of my life. Driving back to my base in Calais that evening, on minor roads through countryside dotted with silent villages, emotionally wrung out by what I'd seen, and absolutely starving, randomly in the middle of nowhere I came across the pinnacle of humankind's creative achievement, an automated pizza booth:
Even better, it was right next to a field where cows stretching to guzzle olives from a tree kept me entertained while I waited for the robo-pizza to emerge:
La pizza était délicieuse, naturellement.
I miss France.
Today's Photo: Magpie Munchies
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