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We tore up a lot of cool German stuff, too. But they started it!

I guess we got lucky when we were there, I didn’t notice anything newish. But then our guide kinda dropped us off right at the cathedral and it was to freaking hot to wander anywhere else.

and um, yeah…. Dresden comes to mind. But they did start it!

So, you dressed up like a nun and uncle B like a monk and you made a pilgrimage to Canterbury telling dirty stories along the way? Cool!

I’d like to visit Ewelme.

(And they DID start it!)

When England won the Battle of Britain it drove Hitler berserk, because it damaged Germany’s sense of inevitability and all powerful aura. He wanted the nation to pay, and pay horribly for its resistance to the Reich.

Alas, here in the States, the History Channel no longer reports history, they show us Pawn Stars, Ice Road Truckers, Axemen, and that ilk. I have given up on TV.

Hanover, Germany is like that. There are a few bits and bobs here and there, but everything else is post-war construction.

Here’s a pretty good read I found today:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-closing-of-liberal-mind.html?showComment=1362476870720#c4049505896904034736

Frankfurt am Main as well. The city center is full of those mirrored-glass skyscrapers; it looks like downtown Houston.

Würzburg (in southern Germany) was bombed flat by the RAF on 16 March 1945, but when the city was rebuilding after the war, they hunted up all the original plans they could find and re-constructed almost every building the way it had been.

Most tourists don’t realize that those gorgeous medieval-looking houses and shops were built in the 1950s and 60s, but if you look carefully most structures have a small plaque on the front that shows the floor plan of the original and the date the “fake” was completed.

(I used to live in Würzburg; it took me about a year to realize why everything in the “old” city center looked so new and well-constructed).

http://www.lostimagesofww2.com/photos/places/wurzburg.php

Wonder why they didn’t do that in Coventry or Canterbury…

We used to play King’s Canterbury at cricket when I was in the 2nd XI at school (no doubt still do.) The cloisters are pretty amazing. The rest of it is basically just a medium-sized Kentish town like any other. A friend of mine here in CR is from Canterbury and has a fascinating map from the British Bombing Survey showing every bomb that fell there durung WW2. The Baedeker raids were not considered to be strategically important, causing ‘minimal’ damage and really offending British amour propre more than anything. The German raiders suffered heavy losses and pressure on men and materiel from the Eastern Front meant the campaign petered out. Having said that, it’s interesting to see how attitudes have changed as to what constitutes minimal damage: 3,400 killed and wounded, and 50,000 houses destroyed.

That was good, Scott. Scary but good.

Stina, I don’t know how to tell you how utterly hungry and broke and ruined Britain was after WWII. We collectively smashed Germany and Japan, and then the US rebuilt them in its image (which is how they ended up the second and third leading world economies). But our allies were left to pick up the pieces on their own. It took Britain years to patch things up even to a pretty crappy standard and I think it was just in the last few years they actually finished paying off what they borrowed from Uncle Sam during the war.

There is still a hell of a lot of “make do and mend” burned into the British psyche.

Drudge Report says Hugo Chavez is dead.

Yay, three cheers, Piggy Chavez buys the farm.

The WSJ agrees…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203458604577265460960140008.html#articleTabs%3Darticle
As soon as she-who-must-be-obeyed gets home, that scotch is goin’ down.

Yeah, Venesuela finally admits that Chavez is Muerto… Sean Penn hardest hit

Yep, Hugo is no-go. People will be happy here in Costa Rica. Everyone hates him.

So, they’ve finally admitted that Red Chavez has snuffed it!
2313 hrs 5 Feb 2013.

He would die between dead pools.

There’s a pub in San Diego called Shakespeare’s. It’s the major hangout for Limey ex-pats, of which there are a few in SD.

Anyway the men’s room there is papered in those naughty cards.

Incidentally, they have an attached shop stocking comfort food for the expats. You could get dick there. I could probably phrase that into a joke, but no way am I going to even try it.

Shakespeare’s was known to have Neptunus Lex drink there. Thursday marks the one year anniversary of his loss.

Everybody likes postcards.

Everybody.

Let’s all raise a Guinness to Lex on Thursday. (In my case it will probably be an iced herbal tea, because I can’t drink and walk….)

We collectively smashed Germany and Japan, and then the US rebuilt them in its image (which is how they ended up the second and third leading world economies). But our allies were left to pick up the pieces on their own.

Not actually true. The U.S. gave out $13.3B in Marshall Plan aid, of which $3.3B went to Britain, and only $1.4B to Germany.

$1.2B went to Italy, $2.3B to France, $1.1B to the Netherlands, $0.8B to Belgium. $0.9B to Ireland(?), Portugal, Sweden(?), Switzerland(!?), and Turkey.

Of course none of this showed up until 1948-1949, while the very abrupt cut-off of Lend-Lease in 1945 is bitterly remembered.

I think it was just in the last few years they actually finished paying off what they borrowed from Uncle Sam during the war.

I’m pretty sure that all the Lend-Lease exchanges were written down to zero at the end of the war. However, ISTR reading a few years ago about Britain making the final payments on some debts incurred during World War I.

Speaking of the Great War, the next few years will be in some ways traumatic, as the centennial of that calamity passes. It won’t be a big deal for Americans, I think, but for Europeans from the countries that fought, it will revive a lot of bad memories and feelings.

I have some idea of the feeling in Britain, but I wonder how it will be taken in France, and in Germany (both of which suffered worse than Britain).

This probably makes me a horrible person, but thinking about that makes me feel sicker than all the WWII carnage and human misery we see endlessly on the History Channel.

I know what you mean. There is something gut-clenching and tragic about the wanton destruction of irreplaceable antiquities – beautiful things that have survived for centuries. (The Baedeker Raids were pure vandalism, with no military value.)

About a quarter of old Canterbury was flattened, leaving the rest virtually untouched. A great deal of further damage was done by the City Fathers in the 60s. The saddest feature of Canterbury today is that admission to a quarter of the area inside the walls is now by ticket, instead of, as it used to be, freely open to all.

Canterbury: recommended reading, humorous:

Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), 1889, Jerome K. Jerome

To Say Nothing of the Dog (How We Found the Bishop’s Birdstump At Last), 1997, Connie Willis

Okay, it’s already Thursday where I am, so I dedicate my Asahi Super Dry to Neptunus Lex.

Hey, I’m in Saipan. Try finding Guinness here.

*raising a pint* Here’s to Neptunus Lex…RIP.

The blog skies have been mighty empty without my two favorite aviation reads, but Capt Dave and Flight Level 390 is back online.(FL390 archives are here)