Poem

Where once deciduous gowns were worn

One single leaf clings limp and torn

A lone crow pecks at ploughings petrified by Arctic air

Sounds of silence are gathering everywhere

Last night a gibbous moon sailed west

Kissing the earth as she progressed

With fragile light from long ago

Reflected from our first real snow

That in slow motion spiralled down

Softening the contours of this town

To leave a lithographic scene

And footprints where a fox had been

Warm in our beds we count in seconds

Though days are short the solstice beckons

Weather reports are imbued with gloom

Springtime cannot come too soon

Hacktivists

"Hacktivists". That's a new word on me. I've been aware of hackers and self-interested purveyors of spam. I think of such people as the lowest of the low. Instead of riding with the thrilling internet wave, they've been actively trying to spoil our journey. But "hacktivists", well they're something different.

It's all to do with "WikiLeaks", founded by Australian whistleblower, Julian Assange. It seems very clear that the American government have been applying a range of behind-the-scenes pressures to discredit "WikiLeaks" and seriously hinder its functionality. The founder of "PayPal" even admitted that the reason he had severed links with "WikiLeaks" was because of arm-twisting overtures from Washington. It wasn't that he wanted to disconnect but realised that his company's well-being would be harmed if he did not comply.

Then "Mastercard" and "Visa" withdrew their services from "WikiLeaks". Remember that these are companies that happily service porn websites and sites that promote the use and sale of guns. The two card companies have previously shown no inkling of corporate morality. They have always been ruled by their hunger for profit.

Little did they appreciate that out here in the real world, skilled computer-savvy individuals were preparing to launch cyber-attacks on their own functionality by hacking into their websites and databases in protest at their clearly politically-inspired efforts to divorce themselves from "WikiLeaks". So such computer geeks are not just plain mischief-making "hackers" or political activists, they are a mixture of the two - "hacktivists" - using their technical expertise for political purposes.

It seems to me that truth is a healthy thing and that "WikiLeaks" has been on a mission to reveal truths of which the rest of us were unaware. Some of these truths are uncomfortable or embarrassing - especially for the government of the United States but truth is something precious. The world needs more truth, not less.

I don't know what happened in Sweden with regard to the sex charges against Mr Assange. Apparently, one of the the women concerned is saying that Assange did not wear the condom she'd requested before they had consensual sex. Is that rape? And why did that London judge deny Assange bail when he had voluntarily presented himself at a police station and why did the Swedish authorities fail to present any significant evidence for their assault claims?

The whole thing stinks. If I had the technical know-how to engage in "hacktivism", I would happily be targeting "PayPal" and "VIsa" right now. It's something new. Hitting where it hurts. Not with swords or grenades, machine guns or IED's but with some clever computer codes and the simple click of a mouse. We don't need to run to the barricades any more, we can just sip cups of tea as we press buttons on our laptops.

Names

The following indigenous residents of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were injured by Chilean special forces over the weekend:-

Marco Antonio Tuki

Claudio Tuki

Pía Vargas Saavedra

Rodolfo Hito

Pedro Hito

Enrique Tépano

Benjamín Cadinali

Teresa Tuki

Moisés Tépano

So Araki

John Tuki Huke

Mata Atan

Manuel Riroroko

Maori Pakarati

Leviante Araki

Ricardo Tépano

Gaspar Tepihe

Rodolfo Hito

Sita Hito

Homes have been ransacked by the Chilean "visitors" as they seek to crush the legitimate protests of the inheritors of one of the most unique cultures on this planet. In miniature, the protesters' story mimics the historical plights of native Americans, Australian aboriginals, Amazonian indians and the great tribes of central Africa but this is happening today! Right now! And of course the Rapa Nui activists have nowhere to run to but the ancient caves and volcanic fissures of their ancestors for the island is small and 2,000 miles from anywhere else. The remotest inhabited place on Earth.

Resolution

Last week on Easter Island

The recent history of Easter Island has been tragic for its indigenous inhabitants. At the start of the twentieth century, there were only around four hundred islanders left and they were treated like some kind of dispensable lower caste by sheep farmers, whalers, and a Peruvian mining company that herded up boat loads of islanders against their will. With imperial ambitions, Chile took control of the island even though the majority of islanders either had no idea what such a union might involve or were vehemently against it from the outset.

A year ago, I talked with a native of Rapa Nui (The Polynesian name for Easter Island) down by the little harbour at Hanga Piko. He could trace his ancestry way back in time and was passionate about his island's unique heritage and its future. He'd had a good day's fishing from his little motor boat and had already enjoyed a few beers in celebration. I bought him a couple more. He told me about the invaders from Chile who were quietly and cunningly buying up land, building new homes, setting up little businesses. My new friend saw it as insidious and though he loved to see visitors from foreign lands, he was suspicious of Chile, its people and its motives.

The flag of Rapa Nui with its red reimero image

I was already aware of discord. Over some island homes, the Rapa Nui flag flew and in the main street of Hanga Roa, there was a permanent display calling for independence from Chile. Ironically, back in Chile itself there are many visual reference to Easter Island. At the airport in Santiago, big fibreglass moai statues stand sentinel in the duty free souvenir shop and on the wide Alameda in the centre of the city there is even a fake moai made from concrete. Chileans are proud of their little Pacific island territory.

This past week, there has been unrest in paradise as the Chilean authorities seek to force a small group of Rapa Nui militants from their ongoing occupation of a building in the main street that coincidentally I passed by several times. A representative of the Save Rapa Nui group described the behaviour of Chilean security forces: "They injured at least 23 of our brothers and sisters, three of them seriously. One was shot in the eye with a buckshot pellet from just a metre away."

Maka Atan, a Rapa Nui lawyer, told the Associated Press that police had been "shooting to kill". He said he was shot in the back by pellets. "It seems like this is going to end with them killing the Rapa Nui."

So the tragedy of Easter Island continues. Once it was home to the moai makers. Far from anywhere else they created a new, unique culture and probably had no contact with the outside world for a thousand years. There were trees and seabirds and the ocean was bountiful. They lived, by all accounts, in happy obscurity until all the trees were gone and the population had grown too large. Then internecine conflicts occurred that ended with the toppling of the moai so that when the first European visitors arrived - Roggeveen (1722) and Captain Cook (1774), the old culture was already becoming a distant memory.

The descendants of those old Rapa Nui people remain. They have their own unique language, songs and folk tales even though their children are taught in Spanish. Before World War One, the native inhabitants were driven off their lands to the east, south and north of the island and made to live on the west coast so that vast flocks of sheep could be grazed without interference. Stealing sheep resulted in death for several Easter islanders though these killings tended to go unrecorded. The Chilean takeover has been - and continues to be - less obviously uncaring, disrespectful and downright cruel but its effects are just as devastating. Sadly the history of this planet is littered with similar tragic tales of how economic might rides roughshod over the defenceless.

Last November - seen in Hanga Roa

SAVE RAPA NUI WEBSITE

N.B. Connection to the website may be more problematic than usual owing to a small airborne invasion by Chilean security men late on Saturday Dec 4th to quell "the trouble"!

Angels

In nearby Ecclesall churchyard, with snow up to my knees, I saw two angels and thought you might like to see them too. I loved the first one as soon as I saw it, the snow embracing her like a blanket. I crept up on her, waited for a long thin cloud to slide past the sun and then clicked a dozen times. As I've said before, that's one of the beauties of digital photography. You can take as many pictures as you like and if they're all rubbish you can just delete them. The angel was placed there for Malcolm, the only son of Norman and Ena Proudlock. How long ago I have no idea and I don't even know who the second angel memorialises for the words were hidden by snow.

Juvenilia

The Pudding brothers: Paul, Yorkshire, Simon and Robin in 1967

Following the summer of love, in the autumn of 1967, "Baby Now That I've Found You" by The Foundations topped the singles charts, soon to be overtaken first by Long John Baldry's "Let The Heartaches Begin" and then The Beatles with "Hello Goodbye". Meanwhile, in East Yorkshire, a thirteen year old boy was reading Robert Falcon Scott's Diary of his fateful and blundering attempt to lead the very first expedition to the South Pole in 1912. Not only was he narrowly beaten by Norwegian competitors led by Roald Amunsden but his ill-conceived organisation led to the tragic deaths of all in the lead party.

Soon after my fourteenth birthday I created a poem inspired by that diary. To be honest, it was a task set by my bearded student English teacher - Mr Spratley. I rediscovered it while rooting around in our attic yesterday afternoon. Here's the first page:-

In honour of that fiercely independent yet sensitive lad of long ago, the boy from whom I grew, I give you the poem in its entirety. Frankly, I'm quite pleased that all those years ago I could produce a poem of this quality though I cringe at my juvenile patriotic chauvinism...

___________________________________________

And Now, The South!

Five Englishmen, five men of honour,

Wrestled with the elements.

Wilson, Scott, Oates, Evans, Bowers,

Five Englishmen, five men of ours.

And the land was white

And the sky was grey

As they struggled up that icy way

And they pulled that sledge though thick and thin,

Those honourable Englishmen.

With half a hundred miles to go

They spied dogs' footprints in the snow.

Alas! The men from the fijord land

Had beaten Scott's weathered little band.

So to The Pole they trudged along,

To lose that prize they'd done no wrong.

And a canvas cairn appeared in sight

Amid the never-ending white.

Despondent, back the Britons walked

And still of "Merry England" talked.

Old Titus' foot was pretty bad,

To watch him dying was so sad.

The food was scanty, cold and rare

Their stomachs moaned for they were bare.

The oil had long since petered out

No help for Soldier's crippling gout.

The end seemed not so long away,

Came closer every freezing day

And so to keep the rations well,

Old Titus marched into the hell,

And to his death the hero ran

That honourable Englishman.

With miles to fight for the next depot

Scott's men lay ill and full of woe.

In such a little tent they sat

Such a little tent, such a little band

In such a huge unthanking land

The pride and joy of the lion's face

Had lost the South Pole's gruelling race

But from mankind they won acclaim

Acclaim for the honourable English name.

And at the South they died in peace

With blistered, sore, untended feet,

They died as heroes always should

They died without a drop of blood.

For the weather claimed those English lives

From their Tilbury friends

And their Tilbury wives:

Wilson, Scott, Oates, Evans, Bowers,

Five Englishmen, five men of ours.

________________________________________

I remember handing my exercise book in, believing that this poem would attract the teacher's praise and perhaps an elusive A grade. Instead, Mr Spratley had simply written "See me" in the margin. I stayed behind and basically he accused me of cheating. It wasn't my poem. Where had I got if from?

I was angry and upset. I told my father and he telephoned our fearsome headmaster to complain. A couple of days later, the snivelling Mr Spratley amended his comment, grudgingly writing "Quite good" with a B grade. He'd been ticked off. I have sometimes wondered what Mr Spratley's first name might have been. Ebenezer, Silas, Reginald? If perchance you are reading this Reginald Spratley, you'll be pleased to know that forty three years after the event, you are now officially famous!

Scott and the "Terra Nova". He sent this postcard before departing New Zealand in 1911.

Snowbound

Layers - view from our front room window this morning

No one can remember such a heavy snowfall so early in the winter. Nobody can remember snow quite as thick as this. On Radio Sheffield, a litany of school closures is read out, including one of the two secondary schools I have been visiting as a one-to-one tutor. Yesterday, I emailed the other school to say: "As I am not an eskimo with huskies and a sledge, I will not be with you today."

As she's a nurse, Shirley has gone out into the silent snowbound streets dressed like Scott of the Antarctic. I'm still in my designer dressing gown but after a shower and other intimate bathroom activities I will also be venturing out into the white wonderland. I need to feed my little feathered friends and I need to fight with other supermarket shoppers for the last tin of corned beef.

All my pictures were snapped from inside our house just after eight this morning. It's still snowing. This may be my last ever post before the whiteness engulfs me. It's hard to believe how lovely and snowfree it was just last Friday.

The back garden - see our table and chairs to the right.

The blue Shirleymobile. I cleared all the snow from it yesterday afternoon.

Over the hedge view down our exclusive suburban street