The greatest speech ever made?

I think that everyone has their “go to” video, song or book. I myself have many of them, in fact I have a “go to” library when I think about it. There is however one video that always draws me to it. I could write about it but nothing that I put into words could ever do it justice and so instead I’m just going to leave the video here.

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….

!/images/photos/0000/0874/Great_Dictator_Pub_140-6_normal.jpg! The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women, and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Warrior

They always say that you should make the most of life because you never know when it’s going to end. I don’t think that’s ever been more true than in the case of one of my childhood heroes over the weekend, the Ultimate Warrior.

My first real memory of wrestling is watching Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan one Saturday morning while my mother was doing the weekly ironing. I have no idea whether it was the full match or whether it was just highlights from Wrestlemania but that’s the first image that I have in my head from wrestling. I remember turning to my mum and asking her “Do you mind if I watch this” to which she replied “no”. At that age, I didn’t understand the question that I had just asked and so her telling me “no” caused me to take it that I couldn’t watch. I remember sulking until she explained to me what it meant and so with renewed happiness I turned back to the TV to continue watching and have been captivated ever since. Ultimate Warrior not only got me hooked on wrestling that day but also helped me learn something new, he was a man of many colours.

Over time the Ultimate Warrior slowly faded from public conciousness and it wasn’t unexpected, many old school wrestlers do fade away from the public eye. However, Warrior never stopped putting his name out there and with regular YouTube posts and tweets in recent years, it was easy to keep up with what the legend was doing.

For many Warrior fans, the dream was to see him inducted in to the WWE Hall of Fame but for many many years, that looked like nothing more than a pipe dream. WWE and Warrior had seemingly destroyed all bridges and there appeared to be no chance of rebuilding them. It was sad but many of us came to terms with the fact that we would never see Warrior anywhere near WWE again. Then something magical happened, in 2013 WWE released a trailer for their new video game WWE 2k14 and right there, right in the trailer, was Warrior promoting the game, dressed in full Ultimate Warrior gear. It was one of those rare and unexpected moments that just was so exciting that I don’t think I’ve ever watched a trailer as many times over in my life.

Earlier this year WWE announced that FINALLY the Ultimate Warrior would take his place in the WWE Hall of Fame. If ever there was a collective cheers from a group of fans heard around the world then it was at that moment. There are a lot of people who don’t have a lot of good things to say about Warrior but he was a legend and he deserved to be there.

This past weekend came and on Saturday the Hall of Fame aired live on the WWE Network. Being in the UK it didn’t start airing over here until 2am (yes I know it’s not launched over here, but I wasn’t going to wait until next year for it so I had to be sneaky sneaky) As I do with most wrestling events I sat up late waiting for it to start, I then sat through all the speeches, not complaining about it because all the inductees deserved to be there but the one I was waiting for was Warrior. At around 4.45am he finally took to the stage, walked out arm in arm with his daughters and the man looked happier than I think he had ever been. He gave a speech that at times bordered on rambling but it was still fantastic all the same.

On Monday he appeared on RAW for the first time in almost two decades. As soon as that music hit, I felt chills going up my spine and excitement pulsing through my body. Ultimate Warrior was back in a WWE ring and I was as happy as any other Warrior fan. The obligatory rope shake occurred and at that moment, I looked at Warrior and thought to myself that he didn’t seem the same but then I chalked it up to his age and his not being an active competitor any more so I brushed it off. As he spoke I felt like a child again, Ultimate Warrior was in a WWE ring and I was watching it and it wasn’t a repeat, this was happening and this was happening right now. As he left the ring I found myself looking forward to his next appearance, he had recently said he signed a multi-year deal with WWE, and I couldn’t wait to see him again. However, there wouldn’t be another appearance.

Yesterday morning I woke up to a Facebook message from a friend which just read    

It was a crushing blow, like being punched in the gut. I never met Ultimate Warrior, I didn’t know Ultimate Warrior but I was inspired by Ultimate Warrior. Without him I doubt that I would have been as captivated that Saturday morning all those years ago, I doubt that I would have discovered my love of wrestling at such a young age. I’m a grown man and I know that wrestling is pre-determined and there’s no competitiveness to it but I also know that I don’t care about that. I watch it because the storytelling that can be done in the ring is tremendous. I watch wrestling because a very young me sat cross legged on the floor watching a man in face paint captivate my mind.

Load up the spaceship with rocket fuel Warrior because wherever you’re going there’s a ring set up waiting for you with all the greats. You will have one more match and your legacy will live on forever.

One Less Gruff Billy Goat

The idea of fairy tales is one full of intrigue and mystique, almost all of us will have read a fairy tale at some point in our lives and without question every one of us knows of a fairy tale character. With the smallest amount of legerdemain the entire premise of a story can change, heroes can be either unlikely children or charming princes, villains can be witches or trolls. The possibilities within fairy tales are endless and the message is always one of hope.

The very first fairy tale that I can remember from my childhood was ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’. The premise is that three goats, discovering that where they live no longer has any grass for them to eat, set out to find new pastures so that they can become fat. However, their journey must take them across the river, where dwells a troll under a bridge. The first goat passes over the bridge but gets stopped by the troll who threatens to “gobble him up” (gobble him up is one of those lines that makes me laugh for no apparent reason) however the goat persuades the troll to wait for the second goat because he’s bigger and more of a meal so the troll lets him pass. The second goat comes along and the same thing happens as before and so then the third goat enters. I’ll stop it there, because I think that most people know how ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ ends, if you don’t then go and Google it.

Of course all fairy tales end with the standard “happily ever after” although recently I read “Arabian Nights” which is a collection of Asian fairy tales and they end with “they all lived happily until there came to them the One Who Destroys All Happiness” which I found odd yet poetic. ‘The One Who Destroys All Happiness’ meaning Death, the Grim Reaper as he’s also known. I was slightly taken aback at first, here were some fairy tales full of hope and suddenly they were cementing the fact that nobody lives “happily ever after” because death catches up to everyone.

The very first fairy tales are attributed to Aesop who lived in Ancient Greece around 620–564 BCE (slightly before our time I imagine). The power of fairy tales is so strong and so resilient that over two thousand years later some of Aesop’s’ tales are still being told to this day. I’m sure you will have heard of at least one of them, the main one that I can think of right now is ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. That story became so popular that two hundred years after it was written it became one of Zeno’s paradoxes (Google them, extremely interesting and thought provoking, the Arrow paradox is my personal favourite)

The Brothers Grimm famously wrote some of the most celebrated fairy tales in our history. Two German brothers, who were academics and even lexicographers, crafted some of the worlds greatest imaginary and magical characters. Although The Brothers Grimm did centralise their fairy tales on more darker hues they still resonated through the years with so many different people, even psychologist who felt the need to analyse them.

The fairy tale is an escape from reality, like most forms of entertainment. I do believe however that fairy tales give more power to the reader and open the imagination slightly more than any other form of literature and I’m saying that as an avid science-fiction fanatic. Whether it’s something written by Alexander Afanasyev or Hans Christian Andersen, fairy tales have the power to take you to a place where good almost always wins. The fairy tale is a door to the unknown world of endless possibilities where life feels good, Walt Disney realised that and that’s why he cashed in on so many popular fairy tales.

Nowadays people don’t write fairy tales, it’s somewhat a thing of the past which saddens me. My Dad used to make up fairy tales for me each night and they always made me so happy. They were tales of a young boy called Billy who lived in a house with a green roof. Billy went swimming with sharks and had magic powers, he loved ice cream and was my hero. My Dad doesn’t remember how any of those stories went and I was too young to retain the proper memories of them which is a crying shame because I would love to remember them in full.

The power of fairy tales will live on because they should live on. Albert Einstein once famously said “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” Can anyone really disprove that? Fairy tales are more than just true and not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. Every fairy tale has meaning and every single one is based on the same idea, the idea that peace and happiness can exist no matter what stands in your way.

“In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected.” – Charles Dickens

The pondering coffee cup…

As I dropped the ground coffee beans from the silver spoon into the bottom of my “With all due respect, fuck off” mug this morning I stared out in to the ocean of passing children making their way to school. I saw a plethora of things walking past but the main thing I noticed were the smiles.

Was I ever that happy to go to school? Especially on a Monday morning?

It then occurred to me that those were just childrens natural smiles. A child hasn’t yet been corrupted by the wickedness and ungodly nature of the world. While they may be unhappy to go to school, they’re not unhappy with life.

That coffee was to try and awaken me from both a mental and physical slumber. For it was one of those mornings where I just couldn’t shake off  the fatigue, even after a lengthy sleep. I then discovered that I was not alone in this, so I refer you to my post from a few weeks ago where I described a Science Fiction plot which lulled the country into a fatigued state before aliens invaded. It is the imagination of one who is currently writing a novel that devised this theory. In my normal “reality” I simply put it down to either the moon cycle or the late night for the Superbowl.

I often wonder what my normal reality is. Is it the world that I’m currently living in, with my flat and my newly shaven head or is it the world that I create with magical trees and passages created by temporal physics? The truth is, I know that it’s the shaven head reality but that doesn’t prevent me from wishing that occasionally I could cross through the void and into the fictional reality that started in my head. If, like so many others, you subscribe to the “many worlds theory” then you may agree that my fictional reality does in fact exist in another dimension.

Of course I realise that everything I have just written makes me seem a little bit  unhinged. I however would argue that point, owing to the fact that I am perfectly aware of what exists and what doesn’t exist.

I know that at this moment and for most of this year, there exists a battle of wits for Scottish independence. In this battle, for many months, I refused to take a side. However as I posted previously I have now woken up and smelled the coffee in my “With all due respect, fuck off” mug. I will be voting ‘Yes’ and I will be doing so for a number of reasons.

If we become independent then we would officially be one of the world’s richest countries – ranked 6th in the OECD compared to the UK’s 16th place. There are  twenty four billion barrels of oil remaining in the North Sea, according to industry body Oil and Gas UK. That’s roughly around £1.5trillion in today’s prices – half as much in value as has been taken out.

The truth is that an independent Scotland would prosper. We would become a self sufficient nation. The above reason is but one of many reasons why we should be independent.

For me, this has nothing to do with the Scotland/England divide. Anyone who looks at this as a battle of the nations, should have their right to vote revoked. This is about the future of our country and not about past relationships.

As I stood there this morning staring at the waves of children making their way to school, I wondered what they’re being taught about the referendum. I realise that they are too young to vote but this concerns their future just as much, if not more, than ourselves.

On 6 May 1999 there was an election to decide on a Scottish Parliament. When I was at school, we were taught nothing about that. It was mentioned very briefly but we were never really taught about what it meant. I just hope that with something as huge as the referendum, the schools are educating their pupils accordingly.

On another, semi related note. While I was doing my research, I discovered that there are approximately 1036800 cans of Irn-Bru sold per day. I find that extremely impressive. Irn-Bru is a wonderful drink and even though I have refrained from drinking any carbonated juices for the last 7 weeks, it still holds a place in my heart.

Before I take my leave for today, I urge any of you who haven’t yet watched it to sit down and watch The Musketeers on BBC One. It is so refreshing to see a portrayal of The Three Musketeers which isn’t overly camp and high on comedy. The original novel by Dumas was never written that way and so I’ve never understood why that’s how it was portrayed in film. However BBC have nailed it in my opinion. While it may not be Doctor Who, it is most definitely worth a watch.

The age old question………

When speaking about Doctor Who amongst friends there’s always one question that comes up. The answers are always interesting and varied. The question is of course “Who is your favourite Doctor?”

For some it’s Tom Baker, without a doubt the icon of the Classic Series and possibly Doctor Who as a whole. A 7 year run as the Time Lord with various companions, a variety of stories and of course the Key to Time arc. Baker was the essence of Doctor Who for so many years and his following hardly wavered after his subsequent departure from the show that transformed him into a household name.

For others, they’ll say that their Doctor is David Tennant. DT’s recent trip in the TARDIS arguably took Doctor Who to heights that wasn’t dreamed of when it was recommissioned back in 2003 and returned to the screen in 2005. Taking over from Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant is commonly voted as the most popular Doctor in polls by fans all across the world.

Many people will tell you that their favourite Doctor is William Hartnell, the man who started it all. They might tell you that it’s Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker, Eccleston, Jon Pertwee or even Paul McGann with his very short screen time but with his amazing audio adventures. Or they could be swayed in the direction of the more recent incarnation of Matt Smith who without a doubt has brought a crazy and childish persona and made it work in such a wonderful way.

If you were to ask me that age old question however, I would tell you without any hesitation that Patrick Troughton is my Doctor. The original childish persona, the original crazy Doctor. His storys are fantastical and energetic and his portrayal of the Doctor opened the door to the possibilty of the 9 actors (soon to be 10) who followed him. He was the first regeneration and the greatest of them all. Getting to finally watch “Enemy of the World” only cemented that for me. I will argue until I am blue in the fact that Patrick Troughton is greater than any other Doctor and I will refute any evidence that you can show me that says otherwise. Tom Baker may have been the most iconic but without Troughton he wouldn’t have had that opportunity, none of them would have.

It’s an interesting concept, that the same character divides so many of us. A lot of people forget that essentially all those wonderful and talented actors were portraying the exact same man. So I suppose the question “Who is your favourite Doctor?” should be made redundant because technically there is only one Doctor it just so happens he’s had 11 different faces.

A touch of the Man Flu

Today I appear to have been afflicted by that terrorising illness known only as man flu. As I type I can feel it attacking my nervous system and creating weakness in every part of my body. It’s at times like these when I wish I had some form of super power to protect me from illness. Nobody likes being ill but I absolutely hate it. If I get ill in the middle of the year I can normally cope, I just battle through it and get on with what I’m doing, hell this year I battled through it and went to a festival. When I get ill between October and February my body just shuts down, it’s a horrible feeling and I get annoyed at the slightest of things. 

On a plus side, being ill today allowed me to catch up on the New 52 Justice League. I had previously only reached issue 6 but I’m now all caught up and as much as I’m looking forward to the next issue I’m not impatient about it. Again that’s probably just my lack of enthusiasm for anything from DC or that involves Superman. The JLA comics have had some pretty good stories in them so far and the art work is just striking, I’ve actually found myself just staring at some pages and admiring the pencil work on a number of pages. If I’m totally honest though I was much more into the “Shazam” stories that were added at the end of each issue. I always did like DC’s Captain Marvel so it was good to have that thrown in and have it as an origin story, although I don’t like this total change to the name Shazam. Granted it’s what he was known as before but up until 2012 he was always officially Captain Marvel. 

One reason I do like the Justice League is for Green Lantern, and I don’t know why. I wouldn’t exactly call him a favourite of mine but I hold a soft spot for him. Green Lantern was my first ever introduction to comic books when I was a toddler so I always look at him as my gateway. All-American Comics #16 is my dream comic to own but truthfully I will probably never have the cash to buy a copy unless somewhere down the line I either win the lottery or write a best selling novel, both of which are as likely as Spider-man showing up in the Justice League Watchtower with cakes and Ribena.

Of course the other thing that could get me enough money to own a copy of All-American Comics #16 would be to write a best selling Comic, but alas my drawing skills are non-existent. So for now it looks like I shall have to be resigned to lying on the couch with the man flu, a bottle of Irn-Bru and Bill Bailey DVDs.

 

Sorting out my collection…

Over the last couple of days I’ve decided to sort out my DVD collection. It was on the shelves and it was just a mess, nothing was in order and I didn’t know what I had and what I didn’t have.  I’ve been building my collection for quite some time so I felt that I should give it some sort of love and devotion. 

My original plan was to go through it all and try and clear it out, get rid of some awful DVDs and make it look much neater……….that however, did not turn out to be the case.

As I sat in the middle of my living room floor I found myself surrounded by endless DVDs and try as I might I just couldn’t deal with the idea of parting with any of them. After the first few hours I had finally categorised and alphabetised the television side of the collection. It was at this point I noticed that I didn’t have certain box sets that I thought I did have. So naturally, as this was a DVD clear out, I took myself to Amazon and purchased the missing box sets. Instead of whittling down my collection, here I was adding to it.

The exact same thing happened when I got around to the film side of the collection. I didn’t have full trilogies or origin stories and so I just had to take myself to Amazon and add these as well.

My DVD spring clean turned into an expansion of the collection and a shrinkage of my bank balance. As I sit here now, typing this, I am awaiting the postman to come and hand me the boxes of DVD’s that I’ve ordered whilst he gives me that “do you have order so much from one place and make me carry it” look that he so often sends my way.

At least I know that tonight I will be able to sit down with a chilled can of lager and watch “Watchmen –Tales of the Black Freighter” content in the knowledge that the Watchmen section of my collection is now complete. Then tomorrow when I wake up I will go to the shelf and realise that I’m missing something important and no doubt end up back on Amazon.