What the papers say…

…or, at any rate, the Daily Telegraph.

As noted below, I read the DT from cover to cover today, something I seldom do with any newspaper these days. Consequently, I read a number of things I would usually miss which piqued my interest.

Firstly, the obituary of Major John Timothy, who I'd never heard of, and who died aged 97. He won the Military Cross…three times! First, in Tunisia, he captured an enemy machine gun post single-handed. Second, in Italy, he operated behind enemy lines to conduct escaped PoWs to safety. Third, at Arnhem, he led a platoon of six in a bayonet charge that captured entrenched positions within 1000 yards of the bridge. And there are plenty of other exploits in there that read just as heroically. It's hard to convey the admiration and gratitude with which everyone must feel for him; though the commenters on the online version have done their best.

Strangely, I found the last sentence most arresting. He never married. An educated, practical, leader of men and war hero, tall and handsome it would seem from the picture, and in an age when the ranks of young men were sadly depleted. It seems to me that it is at least a possibility that he was homosexual. Which would raise a question for those who oppose gays in the military. Who would you rather share a trench with: a man such as Major John Timothy or aged new father and noted lothario Hugh Grant?

Secondly, a story from Ledbury in Herefordshire. Ledbury is a small town with wonderful Tudor buildings that nestles under the Malvern Hills. A sublime place in a sublime setting. I lived for a couple of years on the Malvern Hills (when I was building systems for the Ministry of Defence), just on the Herefordshire side of the ridge line. That got me a vote in the referendum that ended the ludicrous fake county of Hereford and Worcester imposed on the people by Whitehall fiat (the same reorganisation that decided I hadn't been born in hard-as-nails Lancashire but effete Cheshire). Anyone standing atop the Malverns can see far below the flat, intensively farmed Worcestershire on one side, dotted with largish towns leading to the suburbs of Birmingham and, on the other side, the sparsely populated rolling hills of Herefordshire before the Black Mountains over the border in Wales. A magical vista—I'm humming Elgar even as I type.

Back to Ledbury. I used to play squash and sink pints with the local farmers at the Feathers. As the article notes, it's like all towns used to be, with plenty of local traders selling everything from game to cartridges to shoot your own. And, of course, Hereford beef! Now, Tescos and Sainsburys are angling to build superstores on the edge of town. I don't know what I think about that. On the one hand, it cannot fail to ruin the landscape and will likely destroy many local businesses. On the other hand, should the locals actually want to buy cheap produce 24/7 brought from all corners of the globe to their slice of heaven on earth, who am I to complain?

Plenty of other stuff of interest in the paper. The guilty verdicts on the Pakistani cricketers for instance (I would have read about that anyway, of course). They had what was coming. Already earning the kind of money 99.99% of their countrymen can only dream of, but wanting a little more. Imagine too being Stuart Broad: there will now always be a question mark over his brilliant 169 when the opposition were paid on certain prearranged outcomes. There are plenty of ways to get yourself out in cricket whatever the bowlers are doing, so for a non-recognised batsman to do so on 169 rather than 16 is still a tremendous feat in my opinion. I hope Amir is able to resume cricket at some stage. He was only 18, and one imagines easily bullied. He's also a wonderfully talented bowler who could have been way up there in the test cricketing pantheon. Finally, cricket is just about the only thing that keeps Pakistan connected to the rest of the Commonwealth. Already no teams will tour there, and England play them next in the UAE. It could have geopolitical implications if that link were severed.

The Greek stuff is changing too fast to keep up. I'll probably blog about that at the weekend.