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The Flashing Blade
http://theflashingblade.wordpress.com/
I am a forty-something Englishman living and working in Strasbourg, eastern France. My interests are fencing, progressive politics, democracy and human rights World wide, football, cricket, music, cinema, books, discovering Strasbourg and France, visiting the Capital cities of Europe, Germany, good food and wine, I love life and people. My blog is about this.
41 articles
Never again
From The Flashing Blade, 2 weeks ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
Yesterday hundreds of victims of the Srebrenica massacre were burried. The BBC reports:
“More than 7,000 Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb troops. The massacre was the worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War. Hundreds of victims of the massacre were buried at a ceremony outside the town on Sunday.”
Its about time that the strong statements by people like Barrack Obama, the UK Prime Minister, The Secretary General of the Council of Europe were made...
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And another one's gone
From The Flashing Blade, 4 weeks ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
Sometime in the early 80′s my father returned from somewhere with a collection of singles which had been taken off an old jukebox. I played all the singles to see what we had got. I say what we had got although I appropriated them, I was the eldest child they belonged to me right, and they became mine. What had I got' The usual mixture of fantastic music – Dylan, Lay Lady Lay – and the less inspiring down to the downright unknown. One of the latter was a track ‘The...
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Chris Sievey
From The Flashing Blade, 1 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
Died on 21st June 2010. He was someone I never knew or met apart from through his Frank Sidebottom alter ego. I saw him play at the Cricketers pub behind the Oval, now sadly empty and squatted, in the mid 80′s. I’d been led to Frank by a colleague who was a big fan, who, together with half the football team he played for, came to the concert. I still have his début double LP in a gatefold sleeve featuring the hit single ‘Mr Custard; and a warning that it features...
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Who remembers the Armenians'
From The Flashing Blade, 2 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
On last Friday in the middle of the day at Place Homme De Fer, the main tram interchange, in the centre of Strasbourg two men stabbed a Jewish man twice. The stabbed man was taken to hospital where he later died. The Police said that one of the assailants was the main aggressor and that he had psychological problems and that he claimed that everything that had gone wrong with his life was “the fault of the Jews”.
The picture (courtesy of Direct Strasbourg) shows around 300 people...
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April revisted ? St Malo
From The Flashing Blade, 2 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
Despite hardly writing anything last month it doesn’t mean there was nothing to write about and, having written about the election recently I’m going to cover some of the events from the last month for the rest of this week, a sort of April rediscovered. There were plenty of things I’ve thought about during the month to write about but the ones I feature here are the ones I have pictures of.
The first event, which was widely trailed here, was the visit to St Malo. JTO and I...
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On the money
From The Flashing Blade, 3 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
I long ago gave up on the Guardian. As a self-proclaimed progressive paper it seemed to me to spend too much time opposing the actions of the Labour Government and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for not being left wing enough. Far too many public schoolboys attacking people working for real progressive change for everyone rather than the dilettante shouting from the comfortable armchairs of the middle-class intellectuals. So I do not feel the anger and betrayal of the paper for supporting...
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She's back & why its good to talk
From The Flashing Blade, 3 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
As previewed earlier, a week in St Malo enjoying Easter in the sunshine at the seaside followed by a week with a computer too slow to be able to write anything before I deleted programmes from the hard disk to get it usable again and then a weekend at Niederbronn-Les-Bains mean that I have experienced more of France and Alsace and have items to post in the coming week. Before I get to those there a couple of things I want to get off my chest.
Sadie‘s back having survived working for...
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the Brotherhood of Asparagus
From The Flashing Blade, 3 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
The Confrerie de l’Asperge, a group of chefs, growers and others dedicated to picking and eating the Alsacian speciality, the white Asparagus (more here). Across the road from where I earlier pictured the snow in January and where therewas snow but now you can see the rows of asparagus out being planted. My first experience of white asparagus came when I visited Strasbourg for work, before living here. On the Monday night we always went out for a meal. For the April meeting we went...
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Never go back II
From The Flashing Blade, 4 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
This follows the first post titled never go back a couple of days ago highlighting that, contrary to the title of the post, it can be good to go back. This is because I am looking forward to visiting St Malo next week despite having been there thirteen years ago. That visit was to get away after a long period of hard work with very little rest. To take time out and recover. Little was done other than eat, sleep and read and wander around. Similarly then I didn’t know what I know now...
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Strolling in Strasbourg
From The Flashing Blade, 4 month ago, Read 0 times. Similar articles
Beautiful Summer like evening after not much of a day and I get to my last job of the day to find its cancelled. Even better, I get paid but don’t have to work. I walk some of the way home and come to the park shown above with blossom on the trees where a fortnight ago there was snow on the ground.The park contains a memorial to the French Forces of the Interior, the resistance, in Strasbourg during the Second World War. It was good to see some people nearby enjoying the weather,...
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