Those special relationships

Here's a picture of one of the recent additions to the seafront-furniture at Antibes.

ed: for full screen enlargement, just "point and click" on the photo

It really speaks for itself. It's a weather-resistant reproduction of a painting by Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier , dated 1868. The plaque (see close-up below) reads "Antibes, la promenade à cheval, l'artiste et son fils Charles.

How's that, then, for a self-portrait ? To put yourself in centre picture, astride a horse, and then to fit in two family members as well . Yes, two: his son, who's also mounted, and his pet dog, by the looks of it, leading the way . It could be someone else's dog, I suppose. Or a private family joke !

But from a casual tourist perspective, the genius is in the siting of the picture. Not only is Antibes' fortified headland in the background, with those two iconic Saracen towers, but the picture is sited at or very close to where the artist must have sat when he painted it. Even for a first time visitor, it's fascinating to do a before -and- after comparison.

For local residents like ourselves, there's the extra interest from seeing precisely what used to be there, before most of the ramparts were knocked down in the late 19th century. It was felt, probably correctly, that Vauban's fortifications were a noose around the town, acting as a stranglehold on development.

It's fascinating to think that when it was painted, some 138 years ago, the hills behind Gourdon and Grasse were visible. They are now blanked out by the 20th century apartment blocks.

Sometimes pictures that I post to this blog enlarge when one "points and clicks" . Sometimes they don't, and I haven't yet figured out why. If this one enlarges (and I can't tell until I hit the Publish key) then you'll probably find that with this one, there's a real sense of being there.

ed: Glory be, the first one does indeed enlarge ! But not the second. Weird ..... But the second was dragged and dropped. Maybe that's the explanation .... Any ideas, you Blogger techies ?

That's despite the non-designer clothing etc. Some artists just have that knack, would you not agree, of making their pictures forever fresh and immediate ?

There are now at least 5 (and allegedly 6) of these repro' art features in Antibes. There's another just a few feet away which is by Claude Monet (1888, Antibes, effet d'après midi) , and almost identical to the one in my margin display, and from the same series.


Others include the charming and whimsical Raymond Peynet (1985, Les Amoureux aux Remparts), again, strategically sited to reproduce the artist's vantage point, with his behatted delicate-looking shoulder-length hair hero and bride in the foreground. His work, which is perhaps a little dated now ( that clothing again) is displayed in a dedicated museum in the centre of Antibes). And there's a pure town/seascape by Eugène Boudin, 1893, Le Port d'Antibes.

Further along, near where the pétanque is played, there's another by Henri-Edmond Cross , 1908, in pointilliste style, called simply Antibes . I used to be a dab hand myself (literally) in that genre, when marker pens first appeared on the shelves at WH Smith, but my work from that era, done during long and often boring biochemistry lectures, has now been sadly and irrevocably lost.

For the reasons mentioned earlier, I shall hold back from posting all the pictures now. If the present ones "enlarge on demand" then I'll try cautiously adding others later.

All are of the same design: enamelled (?) on to a sturdy lava base. Or maybe the artwork is a modern baked resin. Irrespective, one just hopes it will be spared the attentions of the spray-can vandals, whose handiwork is visible on the neighbouring public safety notices etc. How I wish the media would drop the term "graffiti artist". Anyone who blights the environment does not deserve to be dignified by the term "artist".


How good it is to see this civic pride, in what is admittedly an exceptional location that has captivated artists and vistitors alike for centuries. If Antibes can't get it right, who can ?


One of the things I like about France is the way in which art is integrated into everyday life. One sees it so many different ways - street furniture, such as lamps, fencing, barriers, things that in Britain would be seen as utilitarian, and done in the cheapest way possible.

It's the small details that make all the difference - bevelling an edge here, decorative perforation there, angling instead of boring right angles, out-of-plane alignment of slats, hexagonal setts in retaining walls, and so it goes on. Loving detail, and realization that there's more to life than keeping proletarian noses pressed against grindstones. even if that does ensure a continuing flow of billions into Treasury coffers, occasionally to be spent wisely, but as often as not, squandered upon one misguided pet project after another .

Note a touch of disillusionement with UK politics creeping in there. Beware, there's more of that to come. It 's possibly the imminent coronation of Gordon Brown which has a lot to do with it. I made my views on the brooding hermit of No.11 a while ago in a submission to the Times's debate

I used to think he ought to get out more. Well, now he's out, in Africa, India, promising to underwrite their education and infrastructure problems with UK taxpayers' money.
One hesitates to remind Gordon that charity begins at home. But his munificence with our money will sooner or later rebound on him. How long before we hear the inevitable charges of neocolonialism again ?

Visiting my old haunts in the Home Counties there's a roundabout that's been planted out, but the whole effect is destroyed by a collection of hurdle-like, foot-high advertising signs. They were installed presumably at the behest of the local insurance firm that paid for the so-called enhancement. But why be so crass as to advertise their sponsorship in situ, largely counterproductive in terms of aesthetics ? And why use private money anyway for something so public ? Just to save a miserable fraction of a penny on the rates when vast amounts disappear elsewhere into blackholes, (eg like my index-linked public service pension ) ?

Heathrow Airport is not Britain's greatest national asset, but at least it used to greet one, with a sign over that tunnel entrance (next to where the Concorde mock-up is parked) . The sign "Welcome to Heathrow Airport" disappeared sometime in the aftermath of the Thatcher era, and is now replaced with some smug self-satisfied advertising, again, for some financial services company, like Quickfleece and Partners (Bishopsgate).

Driving up the M1 over Christmas , it was depressing to pass under the same old concrete bridges that were there in my student days, en route to Birmingham on that pre-Honda but nevertheless nippy, BSA motorbike. Except those bridges used to be fresh grey concrete, not pretty, but at least new-looking . Now they are dirty yellow-grey, reminiscent of those wartime pillboxes, some with graffiti old and new. Those mean, penny-pinching bridges, totally devoid of grace or style (unlike the later ones on the M6) , just add to the monotony of having to grind up and down that dreary stretch of highway.

So why don't they replace them ? Where does all the taxpayers' money go, apart from the obvious, like machine-gunning Afghans in their own country. Oh, but one musn't be cynical : you see, they are the wrong kind of Afghans. They're the ones of a traditional mindset who have yet to grasp the subtleties of the western democratic process, like having to be governed by someone you didn't vote for.

But we don't normally go into countries that have what is now referred to in media-talk as an "insurgency campaign" . But this one is special : it's to do with GWB's misdirected and ruinously expensive War on Terror. And it goes without saying that we're expected immediately to spring to America's side. A post-9/11 loyalty test , to stand four square with America, Stars and Stripes fluttering, in her hour, correction, decade (or maybe century ?) of need, because we owe the Americans for coming in on our side in WW2 .

Well, yes, but only after the fall of France and the Low Countries. And only after the Dunkirk evacuation. And only after the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. In fact they waited until after Pearl Harbor, and Japan and Germany's formal declarations of war on the USA. That's when our so-called natural allies suddenly remembered that "special relationship" (if you'll excuse the anachronism, given that the term was not coined until Churchill's post war Fulton speech) .

So Britain became America's springboard for Europe. A kind of offshore aircraft carrier. How convenient. And kindly Uncle Sam gave us long -term loans that allowed us to spread the cost of Anglo-American victory over 60 years (the last instalment having just been paid). No wonder my father had to decline even a few weeks of ruinously expensive home-help in 1951, immediately after my mother died, and my grandmother was subsequently robbed of her retirement. And (back to topic) having to settle for those cheap and nasty bridges on the M1 in 1959.

Special relationship ? The only thing special about it is that we're supposed to be feel privileged and honoured having these back-slapping, arm-twisting , gold-reserve gobbling, long term loan shark -providing , other folks' future-mortgaging cousins as our friends and allies.

Frankly I don't care who wins the next Presidential election. The so-called special relationship will remain what it has always been: a marriage of convenience. America's convenience.

Just think, if we weren't so dewy eyed about the special relationship, we could pull a few battalions out of Afghanistan, and replace all those M1 bridges, and allow the Afghans to decide their own destiny by their own means, even if it meant having the" wrong bunch" in power from time to time.

But from an admittedly hard-nosed military perspective, isn't it a lot easier to let the wrong bunch in, and then target that country's military, all conveniently ensconced in their cosy barracks, than to deal with hit-and-run insurgents, sleeping rough under the stars ?

As for that lost cause called Iraq , well, I just hope the roofs of the US and UK embassies are strong enough to take those helicopters, needed for Saigon style evacuations when the time comes.


Here and there, along the M1, there's been some belated planting of saplings , presumably areas deemed to be environmentally sensitive for one reason or another. It'll be years before a softening effect is achieved, but it will be worth it when it comes. Why is this not more widespread, perhaps as part of a carbon -offsetting project ? But that's a subject on which I have mixed views, certainly different from those voiced on some linked blogs, and one on which I shall be posting shortly. In the mean time, I recommend Anatole Kaletsky's recent tour de force in the Times, which got some backs up, though not mine, as I made clear in some two or three comments.


PS Some may wonder why I have a "meegle" link in the margin, ie Google search for "Dreams and Daemons" . Well, there's some narcissism there , obviously. No sense in denying that. But it's also interesting to observe the new entries, and changes from one day to the next. Thanks to it, I discovered an update in the Guardian's OrganGrinder on Toby Harnden's brush with the wild men of the blogosphere.

More fascinating is the sudden appearance of two posts written weeks ago, one on our "Britannian heritage" the other on the struvite deposit that builds up in loos, often called "limescale" by those keen to sell harsh cleaning agents.

Why those particular posts should have re-surfaced is anyone's guess, but I like to think that at least a handful of folk coming to this blog , following links to my Toby Harnden "scoop" ( in saving to hard drive part of the Telly's blog before they pulled it) roamed around in the archives before moving on.

That was always the intention: to build up some serious content that would always be there, accessible via search engines etc.

I continue to be taunted on Colin Randall's Salut by the intelligent but belligerent citizen/journalist blogger Bill Taylor, a self-confessed wind-up merchant. It's for what he sees as the limited interest in this blog, based on an alleged paucity of comments. Yes, you guessed it. There's history, and it goes way back. And the backbiting continues, despite my abandoning Colin's blog in despair. More about that another day ( if it doesn't stop).

As mentioned before, comments, while generally welcome (provided they are courteous and constructive), are not the be-all and end-all of a blog, certainly not one in its early days.

There is probably no scientific yardstick for measuring the success of a blog, but interlinking with other blogs, as measured by Technorati, is a start. On that criterion, D&D is progressing nicely. Two weeks ago, it had more than a million more highly-ranked (ie linked) blogs. But that is currently down to 340,000, and dipped briefly below 250,000 last week, when the reaction to Toby Harnden's journalist's candour was at its height. Well, thanks Toby ! Your comments may not have done you any favours, given the amount of naivety that's out there about how the dead-tree press operates against deadlines. But you've certainly helped put D&D on the blogosphere map, albeit the equivalent for now of Easter Island. BTW, I know you weren't altogether happy about some of my wording, but the furore seems to have died down now: it's what my grandmother used to call a 9 day wonder.

What Toby Harnden actually said....

ed: Wed 11th April 2007: if you have arrived here from Bryony Gordon's blog ( more correctly, Toby Harnden's comment), then there's a better link. Here's the blog - or rather the incendiary comments it attracted- that the Telegraph later decided to remove. Link to blog



(ed: go to end of post for last update: added Monday Jan 22) .

If you are a return visitor, and simply wish to add a comment, don't waste time scrolling down. Simply click on this green LINK.



Yes, following an email from a clearly beleaguered Toby Harnden this morning, I am pleased to reproduce here a verbatim report of what he filed initially.
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(afterthought added Tue Jan 16 am : to avoid giving any wrong impression, I should perhaps add that Toby and I have previously exchanged emails , long before this present business arose. One was briefly mentioned at the end of a previous blog post. In fact, I'm presently toying with the idea of writing a blog post called "We're all journalists now", inasmuch as private citizen bloggers have the ability now to generate secondary news by what they say about journalists and their reporting !)
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I may tack something on later as to why this document, so crucial to his reputation, has been slow to surface, and which, up till now, has been difficult to locate (though it has to be said that Toby has not done himself any favours in this respect). But first things first. Here's what the guy said:





ed: Warning: with all the copying and pasting there have been formatting conflicts. Thus the empty box symbols where there should be quotation marks etc. I shall complete the spring-cleaning later...











"SADDAM Hussein will spend his last moments hooded as he is led up the steps to a steel scaffold and a waiting hangman who will order him to stand over a hatch above a 15-foot drop.



The former dictator's final hours will begin with him being transferred from American custody at Camp Cropper outside Baghdad to the aegis of a panel of three of four judges who will tell him of his right to make a will and pen letters to bid farewell to his loved ones.
American officials indicate the hanging could take place at Camp Cropper itself rather than the Iraqi prison complex where about 90 condemned prisoners have met their end since Saddam's regime was toppled. Flying him there by helicopter could prompt an insurgent attack.



According to Iraqi officials, after being given the opportunity to beg forgiveness or confess to his crimes he will be led to a special cell, bare except for floor cushions, where he can pray, read the Koran and drink water as he prepares himself for the end.



He is expected to be dressed in green prison overalls rather than the traditional Arab dishdasha robe he was allowed to wear in prison.



He has already issued a letter to what he still considers to be ' his' people of Iraq.


"I call on you not to hate because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking," he wrote. But he added: "Long live jihad and the mujahedeen."



At the appointed time, a black cone-shaped hood will be placed on his head and will be taken to the gallows chamber by several Iraqi guards. Iraqi and American officials were due to be witnesses and the hanging was to be videotaped. It was unclear when, if ever, the footage would be broadcast.

Once on the scaffold, the hangman will place a noose made of one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick hemp rope around Saddam's neck before pulling two heavy levers that will pull the trap door open.

The clang of the metal door will be accompanied by a clunk as the weight of the tyrant's body pulls the rope tight, breaking his neck and killing him instantaneously.

A doctor will then listen for a heartbeat to establish that the former president is dead before his corpse is lowered, covered with a white cloth and taken away.

A degree of American supervision is likely because not all Iraqi hangings have gone smoothly. In September, when the 13th or 27 condemned men were hung the rope snapped and the prisoner landed on the concrete floor and shouted: "God saved me!"

He lay on the ground praying and shouting while prison guards and the hangman discussed whether there had been divine intervention and the execution should be halted.
Eventually, they agreed that a new rope should be rigged and the man was dragged wailing up the steps once again. The second time, the rope held.

It is not known where Saddam's body will be buried. One possibility is beside his sons Uday and Qusay, who were laid to rest in the family's tribal cemetery near Tikrit after they were killed in an American military raid in July 2003.

Iraqi officials contemplated holding a public hanging at the Shaab sports arena in Baghdad, allowing tens of thousands of Iraqis to attend and satisfying the public demand for revenge as well as certainty that the mass murderer's demise was final.

But such an event would be extremely vulnerable to attack by Sunni insurgents who still swear fealty to Saddam as the rightful president of Iraq. American officials also believed it would inflame the Muslim world and prompt unfavourable comparisons with the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.

When the hood is placed over his head, it will be the fist time Saddam has experienced darkness for many months. His whitewashed cell at Camp Cropper has been kept lighted 24 hours a day so that he can be monitored via the video cameras placed in each corner. Each wall of the cell measures 15 feet � the length of the rope from which he will hang.

Known as prisoner HVD-1 � High Value Detainee One � Saddam has slept on a narrow metal bed and been allowed to choose from a traditional Arab breakfast of yoghurt, toast and tea or American cereals.

According to soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard who guarded him in 2003 and 2004, Raisin Bran Crunch was his favourite cereal but he objected to the sickly sweet Froot Loops."



Toby Harnden at 10 Jan 2007 18:55



Posted to the Guardian's Organ Grinder (see Links at right : "Quick Escape Routes") by "Handyblogman "on January 12, 2007 05:28 PM.
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Update Monday 08:00 London time : Read what Stephen Glover of the Independent had to say on the subject (whose sub has clearly decided not to compete for Best Headline 2007 award ) :
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Not so much a case of Harnden as hard done by


Extraordinary - and very damaging - items appeared last week in diary columns about Toby Harnden, The Daily Telegraph's US editor, who is based in Washington. They claimed that Mr Harnden had written a blog confessing that he wrote a story about Saddam Hussein's hanging (published in the issue of 30 December) before he was hanged.

In something of a panic, The Telegraph has reacted to the Media Guardian story by removing Mr Harnden's "confessional" blog, as well as comments from readers, some of them vituperative, from its website.

Case proven? I don't believe so. The original piece is very clearly written before Saddam's death. It begins: "Saddam Hussein will spend the last moments of his life hooded as he is led to a steel scaffold where a hangman waits with a noose." The word "will" appears very often in the piece. He "will be led to a cell". He "will be led along a corridor".

Why, then, did Mr Harnden (whom I have met once, but do not know) half-apologise in his blog for this story, which was plainly written before the event? Perhaps he is a man of honour, and regretted saying that Saddam would be hooded, which he was not. But for the most part it was an accurate forecast of what happened at 3am our time on the morning of 30 December. Final editions of The Daily Telegraph carried the news that Saddam was dead, with Mr Harnden's name as one of two above the story.

Mr Harnden's error was to write in his blog that the first story was not his "finest hour". This suggested that he had done something of which he might have cause to feel ashamed. He hadn't. Unfortunately, by removing the blog The Telegraph has added credence to the idea that he had. "
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Update Monday 10:05 (London)
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Haven't we been here before with those Telegraph bloggers, and the near-invisibility of their so-called 'back-up' editors when things go wrong ? I refer to the occasion back at the end of August when Melissa Whitworth, the New York-based Society blogger, found herself in a predicament that now seems uncannily similar to that of Toby Harnden's.
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It's what she described at the time as "A Terrible Misunderstanding", and probably won't thank me for reminding her of it. But if I tell her that the "James " in the comments who sprung quickly to her defence was a pseudonym for this blogger, then she'll understand perhaps that defending journalists is not something that I normally do for a living: it's a response to seeing a fellow human being instantly pre-judged and found guilty on the basis of unproven charges - which in in Melissa's case were indeed shown quickly to be spurious, but not before a lot of damage had been done, for some weeks at least, to her credentials.
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(In passing, some of you reading this may wonder why a blogger feels the need occasionally to adopt a pseudonym. If you read that Whitworth thread carefully, especially towards the end, then you will get a clue. Switching, if only temporarily, to a pseudonym is a defence against a certain type of PITB that stalks the blogosphere, about which nothing has yet been done - at least not on the Telegraph, where there's no simple facility for reporting abuse. Nuff said on that score for now. )
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Anyway, here, from recollection, is what happened: (details to follow)
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Update Monday 14: 30








It began we are told with Melissa being sent a spoof "blog". It had been written by Claire Zulkey, she of the mischievous sense of humour, and was a send-up of an all-too familiar example of the blogging genre - rambling, aimless, unstructured- we've all met it (indeed, some of us have even contributed to it on off-days).

Anyway, she thought her colleagues in London would be amused, and forwarded it. I don't suppose we'll ever know how it happened - since London has maintained a grim silence - but it was assumed to be her blog post for that week, and given the house-style treatment , eg the usual eye-catching graphic etc. But Zulkey's original title "Five Signs Your Blog Post is Going Horribly Wrong" was dispensed with. In its place went "On blogging and cucumbers". Which is a rather like replacing a Stop sign with one that reads "Expect Some Light Traffic".

Shortly after "Cucumbers" appeared, some aghast individuals ( including myself) who had taken it at face value began bemoaning the terminal state of popular culture in the USA. I posted a comment to the effect that Melissa had been too long in New York, and had "gone native" in the worst sense of the term.

But things suddenly took a differerent and sinister turn. The word plagiarism began to appear on American blogs and websites, and amazingly ( in retrospect) the charges began to appear on Melissa's own blog.
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Was this the Brave New World of MSM blogging, one wondered, where one's alleged sins not only find one out, but result in a welter of recrimination appearing under one's own byline? In the meantime, all that individual could do was watch helplessly from the sidelines, wondering whose side their London colleagues were on, and how long their savings would cover rent or mortgage repayments. Thinks: I'm starting to get into my stride: maybe I should start a Society for the Protection of Ethically-Impugned Journalists. I think I've got at least one subscription so far.

Anyway, to end this story, Melissa's "Cucumber" blog post suddenly disappeared from our screens (yes, we've been there before) and in its place came her brief apology, under the title
" A Terrible Misunderstanding " explaining how something she had intended as an office joke had terribly misfired.

Some of us accepted that immediately. There was no other rational explanation. Surely no-one, least of all an on-line journalist, would imagine that 3000 miles of ocean would allow them to get away with plagiarism on the internet. But other less -charitable souls refused to accept M's apology, leaving me to wonder about the mental state of that fringe of Internet users which always looks for, and finds the Dark Side.
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Why am I relating the story of Melissa's Grey August, when it's Toby's Black January that is the topic of the day? Because I think there are some close parallels between the two that need to be explored, in particular the fact that in both cases the journalist has been left to fend for themselves. Curiously, the only visible gesture on the part of the editorial bosses has been to withdraw the post, without explanation, serving only to increase the fever of speculation.
Why this reticence to spring to the defence of their staff, especially given their high-profile, and consequent vulnerability ?
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Well, time to break off and raid what's left of the Christmas goodies (that's my prerogative, since no one pays me to write). But expect another free-wheeling instalment later, possibly about 20.00 hours London time.

Update: 20.15 London time.


Yes, isn't it odd how the tailored shirts at the Telly's Victoria/Canary Wharf suddenly go to ground whenever their protegés find themselves in the firing line ? Isn't it a given of good management that while you expect high standards from your staff, you rally to their side when things go wrong ( as they tend to, from time to time, even in the best run organizations).

And you really didn't need a Nobel prize in rocket science to forsee that signing up your liveliest journalists to the blogging A-team was a risky step into the unknown, full of challenge, adventure, excitement, all those things, but equally fraught with peril.

Any reasonably sentient organization would have put in place a contingency plan for dealing with pear-shaped scenarios.
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By the same token, any seasoned observer/reporter of this wicked old world of ours would have appreciated the need for safeguards before signing up to so risky an enterprise, putting their reputations and careers on the line .
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So where are the safeguards, they should have asked ? Where are the lifeboats if our magnificent Titanic-full of nouveau blogging celebrities should suddenly up-end ?
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Strange, isn't it, how that most hard-nosed of professions should have allowed itself to be sweet-talked into taking so exposed position in the blogosphere, where there are no rules, no respect.
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Especially when all you have behind you, at least where the Telly is concerned, is a passive referee, at peace with the world, prepared to avert his or her rose-tinted gaze away from one foul after another, operating on the precept that the key imperative is for the punter to go home feeling they have seen a good fight, with real blood, and had value for money. Welcome to the 21st century.
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Update Tue 16 Jan 08:15 The splendid Technorati trawl that runs day and night in the background has just thrown up a blog called The Goss, with a real pro look about it. Here's what it has to say that strikes a chord or two with this private citizen blogger:

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Telegraph US editor Toby Harnden better still have that badass flak jacket. He's enjoying a flurry of abuse after an article he filed about Saddam Hussein's execution appeared to describe details of the scene that never happened -- particularly, Saddam wearing a hood on the gallows. After the obvious inaccuracies in the December 29 article were called out by readers, Harnden obtusely admitted on his Telegraph-sanctioned blog that the article had not been his "finest hour." This pseudo-admission of kinda-guilt inspired a bloggy uproar among the gotcha crowd, which in turn caused the Telegraph to panic and yank Harnden's blog entirely. But it appears the real culprit in this teapot-tempest might be Harnden's editors.
The Dreams and Daemons blog claims that Harnden sent them a copy of the story as originally filed. It's written in journalistic future tense, i.e. "Saddam Hussein will spend his last moments hooded" etc. The barely unstated accusation turns round on Telegraph editorial, making it seem as though they rehabbed Harnden's article into authoritative past tense, complete with inaccurate headline ("Humiliated and hooded, the tyrant faces his fate on the steel scaffold"). Rather than answer resulting questions, the Telegraph instead issued a memo instructing staff not to blog about the paper or their jobs. Unfortunate memo phraseology alert: "Think carefully before blogging about journalistic 'tricks of the trade'." It's a little gauche to file a forward-looking "this will happen thus" story just to beat a deadline, but it's naive to think yanking an "incriminating" in-house blog post looks any less contemptible than yanking the actual news story that spawned it."
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ed: Anyone know what the etiquette is re reproducing someone else's blog post on one's site ? Should one merely provide a link, or restrict oneself to quoting selectively ?
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More to follow
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Comments are always welcome, but I realise that is not easy when the system is set up to accept Registered users only. So, for an experimental period, the block will be lifted, as of now, but if the Tedious Time-Waster comes back, then regretfully it will have to be reinstated.
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Latest update ( Jan 16th 13:30): amazing, isn't it, how these howling dust storms erupt in the blogosphere, and a day or two later, it's as if nothing had happened.
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Toby Harnden is now blogging away again on the Telly about whether Condi Rice is being written out of the script as a possible contender for the Presidency on what seems to be sexist grounds, although given Laura Bush's comments, patrician grounds would seem a more apt description.
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I myself have posted a contribution to that thread entitled "Bushocracy". Ugly word for an even uglier scenario: one Bush after another pops up on the time-line creating a kind of stroboscopic Royal family.
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Ardent followers of this blog (my wife mainly) will know that I announced before Christmas an intention to ration future posts here. It was with a view to escaping a self-imposed treadmill, and getting some other projects underway.
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Just a quick word, then, about the immediate future, to spare you unnecessary returns to this site. There will be a potboiler tomorrow about today's recent artistic additions to the promenade at Antibes, which I spotted this morning, and photographed.
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But the real effort will go into Friday's post, probaby to be entitled : "The so-called obesity epidemic". The idea came to me as I strolled along that promenade this morning, enjoying what must be one of the planet's most stunning panoramas.
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Whenever I'm short of ideas, I walk the walk, and it has never once let me down. And I mean never. Ideas (whether good or bad) just start tumbling out when I look across that Baie des Anges towards Nice, against that stupendous winter alpine backdrop. So remember that, all you budding writers: Antibes works better than any mood-enhancing substances - and no after-effects either.
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It's not just the view that put "obesity" into my head. It's the comments at the end of this post from an individual who initially, at any rate, put me on the defensive (apologies for the coarseness) but who finally helped my thoughts to crystallise on the question of obesity. Some of those, to appear here in "print" , are likely to be controversial. Please return Friday.
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Update: Friday Jan 19. See Jemima Kiss on Organgrinder on the strange, some might say, wooden response by Canary Wharf/ Victoria (wherever) to Toby Harnden's difficulties.
Here's what I added to the Comments thread:
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"What's curious about the whole Harnden business is the behaviour of the Telegraph's moderators, which mirrors precisely what happened last August when Melissa Whitworth found herself in a similar situation.
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What makes the parallels even closer is that in both cases, it would appear that it was the editorial team in London who failed to spot the little giveaway lights that warned of an approaching express train. But that's by the way. It's what followed that matters.
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In both cases, the moderators then allowed the most defamatory comments to appear on the journalists' own blog, effectively hanging them out to dry. They then set alarm bells ringing across the blogosphere by the sudden withdrawal of the blog. But neither Shane Richmond nor Ceri Radford stepped in with any word of explanation:it was left to the journalist to do their own explaining on their next blog post as best they could. Melissa went for the direct approach (sorry folks, there's been a bit of a cockup, or words to that effect). Toby seems to be adopting a more subtle approach by choosing topics, whether by design or accident, I wouldn't care to say, that have a whiff of allegory.
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Somewhere recently I read an industry-insider comment to the effect that it's high time that Shane Richmond took a leaf from the BBC and created an Editors's blog to do the firefighting. His own IT blogs are cutting edge and informative, but he could easily delegate that and start to look less like a techie, more like a manager, to us outsiders. Personally if I were a Telly blogger I'd be demanding it right now. Or is it the Telegraph's policy to let its bloggers carry the can whenever something goes wrong ?

Thanks, by the way, for the credit in your intro. "
§
§

Colin Randall has also alluded briefly to the Toby Harnden furore in his latest (Jan 18) post, but my own difficulties with one of the two resident rottweilers have now rather taken centre stage. So much so, that as a change of plan ( see above) my next post will catalogue my own Melissa Whitworth/Toby Harnden experience at the hands of journalist/citizen blogger Bill Taylor (Toronto Star).
§

The difference is that MW's and TH's torment lasted just a few days . In my case, I've been used as an Aunt Sally on and off for for several months now, and this goes on whether I'm contributing to the blog or not. So advice from well-wishers to simply walk away does not wash. I've tried it (since before Christmas) and still the snide remarks continue.
%
§

I didn't plan or intend for this blog to be used for getting back at people. But Bill Taylor has now been asked several times to retract his latest insinuations that I am a liar, and a serial liar to boot. Even in the no-holds barred blogosphere, that kind of slight on one's character cannot be shrugged off, not when one operates under one's real name . The whole question of Internet free speech/character defamation will be the subject of my next post.
%


Update Saturday Jan 20 09:31 London time ; 03:31 Ontario (Eastern Standard)time
%

This post has been up for some time now. Some of you may be thinking it's time to tackle a new topic. Indeed, yes, I could not agree more. But the recent intervention by one "Anne Gilbert", a regular on Colin Randall's blogs, and occasional one here, has created a bit of a side-show. But it's one that impinges on the serious matter alluded to in yesterday's update, namely character attacks. For latest developments, go the end of my comments section here, and then to the comments on Salut, presently standing at 4, the last two of which I have just added.
§

So what's this guy burbling on about, you might well ask ? Well, there's a lot more to "Anne Gilbert" than meets the eye. But then we have suspected as much for some months now .......


Update Jan 22nd Toby has put up a new post in the Telegraph entitled "Hillary Dreams".
I sent the following at 13:51 today, London time:

It begins with a verbatim quote of Toby's introduction (bolded):

**********************
"Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton announced she was pregnant. After the press conference, I rushed over and quizzed her about her progeny's sex........ "

Oh my, you do like to live life on the edge, don't you Mr.Harnden ?

Assuming, that is, you're aware that Technorati and the other feeds give just the opening words of a blog as a taster.

As I'm sure you are !

********************


What's the bet that it won't appear ?

One can't but help wonder if Toby's not trying to pack his midlife crisis into a couple of weeks, just to get it out of the way ..........

Update 15:15 London time: my comment has just appeared !

Telegraph pulls Toby Harnden blog

ed April 11th 2007 : scroll down to brown font to read the comments placed on Toby Harnden's "Hoodgate" blog post



Update:Sunday 14 Jan Dreams and Daemons has been described by Suw Charman on her Corante site as the blog "the Telegraph does not want you to read". Her remit for that highly-ranked blog of hers: "Picking out the patterns from the chaos that is the blogosphere" .

ed. Oops. One has overlooked Corante's co-author, Kevin Anderson, featured lower down the home page, who is described as the Guardian's blog editor. Thought I to ought mention that, since I had already decided to do a "Be nice to the Guardian week" (having dipped a toe in its blogging waters recently, and been pleasantly surprised) .

But before readers assume that I have been frozen out of a favourite (if currently problematical) haunt, see Shane Richmond's most recent post to his Telegraph blog. There you will find a friendly difference of opinion between the two of us on the matter of IT jargon, with welcome reinforcement coming from none other than Sarah Hague. The matter of creeping jargon-blight had been raised by me earlier with Ceri Radford, the Telly's literary aficionado whose day job is acting as Chief Moderator on readers' comments. Poor kid.

Re jargon, congratulations are in order for Blogger, our host, for this message that one sees when logging on:

"We're already moving some lucky people, but you can cut the line and switch now".

Although clearly written by someone in California (please, can someone explain to this Brit what's meant by "cut the line" ?) note that he or she was content to use the simple "moving".

Not so the geeks who supply the Telegraph's IT software, who currently inflict this monstrosity upon anyone who still tries accessing Toby Harnden's now-withdrawn Saddam execution blog post (see below):

"We have recently migrated some content over from an old blogging engine, so it's possible that we haven't migrated the item you were looking for."

Ouch !

Update: Saturday 13 Jan There's a must-see article in today's Guardian, entitled "Telegraph gets tough with bloggers" That's a reference to the Telegraph's own bloggers, needless to say.

Shane Richmond, the online News Editor, has been reading the riot act to his team of bloggers (some 38 at the last count), warning them against getting too matey with the likes of us, or revealing too much about journalistic "tricks of the trade". Now who did he have in mind, one wonders ? Toby, or not Toby ? That is the question.


Update: 19:50 London time. Hello. This will be the fourth or fifth time today that I have tried to update this report. Every attempt so far has been frustrated by Blogger's buggy software that throws up supposed faults in the html code when I try to publish (after, say, 20 minutes of editing or more), meaning I have to abort and lose the lot. So this is entered now as plain text, not formatting as bold, or italics, or coloured font, purely to see if this time it's accepted. Even as I type, text is inserting into previous sentences and paragraphs. Is this really the 21st century ? If so, bring back yesterday , and my Amstrad 1512 with its Edline text editor. Anyway, I shall stop here, now things are quietening down (traffic from OrganGrinder on the Guardian) with this simple addition, and see if it "sends" without suffering sensory overload or going into a big sulk. If it does, I'll return later with a backlog of updates.

Come back, Alan Sugar. All is forgiven (especially as I've just had to delete/paste your surname from the end of the sentence to its proper position). Is it just me, or is everything just ..... ? (just had to relocate that question mark as well...)


NB This blog post has now been reorganized to make it more user-friendly. Toby Harnden's comments now come first, followed by the first 35 or so comments, when I then stopped saving. These are followed by 4 of my own comments, sent after I had stopped saving everything that appeared.

For a complete transcript of the blog post, go to OrganGrinder (see Links in margin), which appeared the following day. In fact Handyblogman kindly gave "Dreams and Daemons" first refusal, which was politely declined, for fear of making this post unwieldy, although there were other considerations that need not bother us now.

************************************************************************************

Want to know what Toby Harnden said in his withdrawn blog, and some of the initial reader reaction ?

Start here, but it may be disjointed in parts, or repetitious, as a result of first recording events as they happened, and then ( hurriedly) re-organizing in logical time-sequence.






20:55 Thursday The graphic at the top of this post shows what was visible on our screens just 45 minutes ago. It was the opening of Toby Harnden's latest blog for the Daily Telegraph. It then suddenly disappeared, without any word of explanation, having accrued some 84 Comments, most of them irate. It would appear that the Telegraph has pulled it, perhaps on the advice of its lawyers, given the acrimony and accusations of impropriety and professional malpractice flying back and forth.




Here is Toby Harnden's now-withdrawn blog post :

"So there I was the other morning, checking my Inbox. Amongst the offers of cheap Viagra and financial deals with dodgy Nigerians nestled an email from a dear reader, offering a remark about my work. That's the thing about this brave new world. Want to say what you think? Post a comment below. Reach me direct? Click on that email address over there to the right. Feeling forward? Call me on my mobile. Hey, the number's out there. "An appalling s*** of a man", read the subject line of the message. A verdict on George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld? An epitaph for Saddam Hussein, or John Kerry's career? No, apparently this was a reference to me. "Harnden - you were a total c*** in the Royal Navy, and you continue to be one even today," the email went on - and I quote verbatim, apart from the asterisks, misspellings and all. "How on earth you ever were accepted by the Telegraph as an alleged 'journalist', the Lord only knows." "Your piece on Saddam Hussein's execution (full of inaccuracies and made-up background) had me and my colleagues chortling for hours. No wonder the foregn desk pulled the piece shortly after its appearance. "Why don't you take up window-cleaning or something more suited to your meague abilities? Sincerely, Ian Black". Well, thanks for that Ian. Jolly nice of you to be back in touch, though my memory of our purported previous meeting has sadly faded. Glad I was able to provide some mirth. You're right that writing about Saddam's hanging before it happened was not my finest hour. It was one of those tricky journalistic challenges when no matter how much you hedge and speculate, the reality will always mischievously diverge from the finely-turned piece one filed. Thankfully, my industrious on-line colleagues helped me out and history now records an updated version, though the doomed dictator remains forever hooded in the headline. Hey, ho. I Googled Ian using his email address and it appears he is a "Scotsman living in China". A couple of years back, he wanted us "all to know that the courage of the Canadian forces in WW2 will never be forgotten and always appreciated. Thank you and God Bless." Nice thought, Ian. For some writers, like Joel Stein, all this interaction can be a bit much. Not me. Really, some people have said much worse. As Colin Berry reports, there can be the odd snafu with comments - but please, stick at it. I even emailed Ian back. Strangely, he hasn't been in touch again. Maybe he thinks that feedback only works one way. Update: The situation with the Saddam hanging illustrated that "old media" difficulty of the fixed newspaper deadline and the complications of writing across time zones. It was 5am on the morning of Friday December 29th in Washington, 10am in UK and midday in Baghdad when it began to look like Saddam was going to hang imminently. By our deadline of 6pm London time (1pm Washington, 9pm Baghdad), we had to finalise the stories for a paper that many people would read after - possibly - Saddam had hanged. Or by then Saddam might have been given a stay of execution. Or he might have been just about to hang. Another possibility was he would have been hanged but no details at all would have been released. Clearly, whatever happened this was a huge story that everyone would want to know every detail of. Much of the interest would focus on on the ghoulish procedure for the hanging. The Iraqi authorities had already carried out dozens of these and there had been briefings from US and Iraqi officials on what would happen - he would be hooded, dressed in a boiler suit, probably hanged at Camp Cropper etc etc. One of the three pieces the foreign desk asked me to write was on how the hanging was likely to happen, based on the briefings and the previous hangings. That's what I wrote, making crystal clear that the piece was written before the hanging. Saddam hanged just before dawn in Baghdad on December 30th, the early hours in UK and the evening of the 29th in Washington. Of course, we now know from Saddam's YouTube moment that the hanging was a shambles, that almost every normal Iraqi practice was departed from and virtually every aspect of planned procedure was violated. And there was my before-the-event piece being read on the morning of Saturday December 30th in UK illustrating just how differently things had turned out. "


Posted by Toby Harnden at 09 Jan 07 08:49


Toby Harnden: biographical details: Toby Harnden has been The Daily Telegraph's United States Editor since October 2006. He lives in Washington DC with his wife Cheryl and their dog Finn, a native of Belfast. Toby was previously Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph. He first joined The Daily Telegraph in 1994 and has been its Ireland Correspondent, Washington Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent. He is the author of Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh (1999). An archive of his work is at http://www.tobyharnden.com/, and he can be contacted at toby.harnden@telegraph.co.uk.

ed: Here are the first 35 or so comments:

Ian Black's comment shown in red.

Well done!!
I totally agree with Mr Black's earthy comments about you!! I have, thankfully, never had the dubious pleasure of meeting you, but the pomposity displayed in your blog indicates that your head is, as the Australians are apt to say, clearly buried deeply up your arse.I, too, read the appalling story you filed (by your own admission) even before Saddam had been executed. I don't think many people (if any) would take your jottings seriously henceforth.
Dr Jane Devonport at 09 Jan 2007 09:53

Your neck on the block
Dear Mr Harnden: I am sitting on the train fron Tunbridge Wells heading for central London, idling away an hour or two until I reach my office.Ir would appear that your somewhat waspish, vindictive response to a reader has stirred up a veritable hornet's nest, one that has sent you springing into action on defensive mode grade one!!I did not see the report referred to by the readers above (although two fellow travellers say they did read it and they tell me they do remember it well because of its apparent shortcomings).Did you never hear the phrase "If you can't take a joke, don't join" during your National Service in the navy?When you get something wrong, as you apparently did, caution should be the order of the day.Wind your neck in Sunny Jim, and pray that the boss has had a good New Year or else the noose that sent yon Saddam to his doom may tighter round YOUR rubber neck.Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Gregory Kemp at 09 Jan 2007 10:52

I know how you feel Toby
As a published writer myself, I know full well that for every fan that writes to tell you they love your work, there are five unhinged idiots ready and waiting in the wings to make your life hell. The world is full of loonies with nothing better to do with their day than fire off idiotic comments to other people, such as "Dr Devenport" in the previous post. If she doesn't take your "jottings" seriously then why is she reading your work in the first place?Don't despair Toby. There are lots of people out there that enjoy reading your work. Don't let the lunatic minority ruin your day.
Thomas Bosch at 09 Jan 2007 11:05

Missing the point
Mr Bosch appears to miss the point. Your earlier respondents seem to have been complaining about the flagrant inaccuracy of your offerings. Is Bosch suggesting that he expects other Telegraph readers to accept any slipshod workmanship which might appear in your newspaper's columns too?
Enzo at 09 Jan 2007 11:30

Ref good journalism
I am a comparatively old hack, having been in the newspaper business for some 40 years. I do not recall having seen - ever - such a pitiful response as the one Toby Harden had the gall to publish on his blog today.Not only did he fail to justify his having filed a story riddled with half-truths and downright errors.He had the temerity to defend it by referring (in his reply to Mr Black)to the story thus, and I quote:"You're right that writing about Saddam's hanging before it happened was not my finest hour. It was one of those tricky journalistic challenges when no matter how much you hedge and speculate, the reality will always mischievously diverge from the finely-turned piece one filed".Tricky journalistic challenges? The only "tricky challenge" I ever learned as a cub reporter on the Dundee Courier was this one - GET IT RIGHT!!We don't want hedging and speculation in the stories we pay for when we buy out Daily Telegraph each morning.We were not ALL born yesterday, Mr Harnden, and you'd do well to remember that your audience is both wide and experienced and unwilling to tolerate poor work.As you say in truth - "not your finest hour".
Stuart Knight at 09 Jan 2007 11:59

Surprised
Mr Harnden - you seem to be earning yourself an unenviable reputation for below-par reporting since you arrived in the USA a few weeks ago.I was most surprised to see your admission today that you had apparently made up or otherwise manufactured the account of Saddam Hussein's execution which I read online on the day he died.
Carlos Riccardi at 09 Jan 2007 12:07

Saddam's death
I do not usually write to newspapers, but I have to say I was very disappointed to read your message referring to reader Ian Black.If what you write about his message to you is correct, then you ought to have kept that information to yourself.By publishing his comments on the blog (did he give you permission to do so) you have exposed yourself to ridicule.If he did indeed refer to you by these rude epithets, Mr Black may have been incautious.But the fact that your initial story on Saddam Hussein's hanging in Bagdhad was wrong in significant detail does you absolutely no credit.Like your correspondent Enzo, I do not understand what Mr Bosch was talking about.If I want to read fiction I will go to John Le Carre - and not to the news pagers of the London Daily Telegraph.Most sincerely, F. L. Nitzsche
Frans at 09 Jan 2007 12:17

Your blog
To: Toby Harnden From: Helmut JohannsonDear Sir - it brightened my morning to read the contents of your blog today.Did you really make up all that descriptive detail of the Iraqi dictator's last moments?I agree with Mr Nitzsche's comments about fiction a-la-John Le Carre and what we expect from Telegraph reporters in the field.Where did you learn your craft (if I may call it that?).Maybe you ought to go back to night school or spend more time with your dog and less in front of the computer screen.
Helmut Johansson at 09 Jan 2007 12:38

Ho Ho Ho

I rest my case, Harnden, and stand by everything I said (and which you quoted without permission - always a risky line of attack as you are now discovering to your cost).Happy New Year and bon voyage on your journey home from the USA, which should not be long in coming if there's any journalistic justice left.People in glass houses should never throw stones - something else you seem to have forgotten, if ever you learned it.
Ian Black at 09 Jan 2007 12:45

Your blog
I'd prefer a grovelling apology to your inadequate (and snide) justification for the story from which you are now attempting to distance yourself.I know little about journalism.But I do know that Saddam's execution had massive international interest.But the fact is that you broke every rule in the book by filing something riddled with holes without either checking its veracity or having it held back for confirmation.The fact that you are now trying to blame your foreign desk staff holds no water with me, old fruit.Did you not have the guts to tell them to wait until you had all the facts at your fingertips?
Arthur Leonard Port at 09 Jan 2007 13:01

Mr Ian Black
Dear Mr Toby Harnden - I would like to have the e-mail address of Mr Ian Black. I believe he is a very experienced British foreign correspondent now working in China, where I now live and study.I met him at a seminar on international relations in Beijing two years ago, but have lost his address.If this is the same gentleman, he is a Scotsman who has been visiting my country for over 30 years and who has an excellent reputation in the People's Republic of China.We read the Daily Telegraph on-line here very often, and like very much the work of Mr Richard Spencer.But I must say many of us are sorely ashamed of the fact that you wrote lies in at least one of your reports.Shame on you Mr Toby!!
Lin Bin at 09 Jan 2007 13:24

Grubby Grub Street
May I say how heartened I am to read the comments addressed to Toby Harnden in today's blogs.It has not gone un-noticed in our officers' mess here in Baghdad (I am a Special Forces officer and Grey Thompson is therefore not my real name) that your so-called Washington Editor lied in his work.But I speak for many of my colleagues of all ranks when I say that Harnden's admission justifies our total rejection of the claims of accuracy and impartiality in the reporting of many American and foreign journalists working in Iraq.
Colonel Grey Thompson at 09 Jan 2007 13:39

Also ashamed
Mr Harnden - I am also a student in China (Inner Mongolia) and I, too, am ashamed that you have written lies in a well-respected newspaper.We not always believe what we read in the People's Daily, but we have come to depend upon the foreign press for the truth.You have done much to disillusion us here.
Penny at 09 Jan 2007 13:47

Ian Black's comments
From: Martin Allison in HanoiI am delighted to see that many of your readers are hitting back at Toby Harnden for his totally unacceptable explanation.You asked for us to "make your day", and by golly I imagine you've had much more than you bargained for.As another of your correspondents said, we were not born yesterday and are both experienced AND discerning when it comes to judging what we read.How many other Brtish nationals made the same gaffe as Harnden, if any?
Martin Allison at 09 Jan 2007 13:56

Take heed

I am a journalism student currently travelling in Asia, and have just come across this man's blog.Mr Harnden would seem to have an awfully high opinion of himself, one that is wholly unjustified, in my humble opinion.He should take heed of what readers say about him.
Serena McKenzie at 09 Jan 2007 14:01

Doggy style
Talk about dog eating dog!! Nothing like the feathers of a bumptious journo being ruffled.Cool it, Harnden. You can dish it out but it seems you can' take it (criticism, that is).You're not in the navy now, you know!!
Alastair Wilson at 09 Jan 2007 14:12

In agreement
From the Reverend Marcus SchultzWhilst I may deplore (mildly) the language your correspondent Ian Black is said to have used in writing to you, I must tell you that I agree with his sentiments wholeheartedly.
Marc Schultz at 09 Jan 2007 14:41

Commiserations
I feel sorry for you Mr Harnden - you must feel awful to read these messages of condemnation.But remember this - you brought their ridicule down on your own head, not just by lying in print, but by then boasting about it on today's blog.Let that be a lesson to you.
Martin at 09 Jan 2007 15:01

Good Grief!
Dear Readers - get a grip,PLEASE! To listen to your comments, you would think Mr. Harnden caused an innocent man to be hanged!! Journalists, it appears are not allowed to make mistakes, much less to own up to them. The personal attacks on Mr. Harnden seem to be coming from some sort of a nasty readership that makes me wonder who these mean-spirited souls are. Accusing Mr. Harnden of being pompous? Projection, perhaps....?
Cynthia Stone at 09 Jan 2007 15:08

Back! Back!
I sense a braying mob here, rounding on Mr Harnden. As with any should mob, they should disperse and regain some grip on their reason and personal conduct.I saw the Saddam story online while in Iraq the morning after Saddam's execution and thought, 'Whoops!'. It was inaccurate and left TH with some egg on his face. There was a lot of other rubbish written, the result of frenzied speculation by Iraqi and international media.But before we all put the boot in, let's ask whether any of those contributors with any journalistic experience can genuinely say they never got caught out in print. I think not.The personal nature of Mr Black's attacks on TH suggest a sour, dour individual who should get out more.I have met Toby Harnden, seen him at work, reviewed his writing against what I have witnessed myself and read a large volume of his work from N. Ireland, Iraq and the US. I rate him very highly as a journalist and will continue to read his work with as much good faith as one should invest in any report.If you don't like his writing there's plenty more to read elsewhere.
Cyrus Williams at 09 Jan 2007 15:23

Nasty vindictive readers
This illustrates why reporters should not be required to do blogs. They are honest about the limits of their trade and this is what happens.
Chris Fielding at 09 Jan 2007 15:36

Grow Up Mr Black
So Mr Black and his team of cooperative cohorts clearly don't like Mr. Harnden...Roger that! Now can we please get back to some legitimate opinions, or is this just going to be a forum for Mr. Black to vent old naval rivalries?
Jamie at 09 Jan 2007 15:38


What exactly did he do wrong?!

This is a reporter who is feeding the beast, as reporters call their newspaper, and described events as they stood when he when he was writing.I don't think he had any need to apologize.The problem he had is the age-old one of deadlines. And now the new one of foul-mouthed embittered old soaks resentful of their lot in life being able to vent online.
Benjamin Ambrose at 09 Jan 2007 16:01

No need for blogs
I do tend to agree with Chris Fielding that, in the case of Mr Harnden certainly, the use of blogs has backfired very badly on him.Harnden's assignment is to investigate and report the news from the USA (accurately) and to spend less time airing his views in blogs such as the one which has caused him such embarrassmment today.
Carnation at 09 Jan 2007 16:03

The way one expresses oneself...
...Reveals ones true colours. Mr Black's use of the c-word says all I need to know about the man.
Ari W at 09 Jan 2007 16:11

Consider the source
The accusations here against Mr. Harnden, seem to be that he 'lied'! In fact I believe he made it clear that the article on Saddam's execution, was written before the fact. By admitting his error, was this "boasting"? These personal attacks on the journalist, are to me, lower, than Harnden's journalistic error.
M. Shannon at 09 Jan 2007 16:15

sad
so sad that Britons think this abuse is justified. I read Mr Harnden regularly and he is as honest and insightful as they come.
JIM SNYDER at 09 Jan 2007 16:18

"lying"
The word I most object to is "lying" - bandied around willy nilly these days. This is a person who is telling us how, for reasons outside his control, an article was not as good as he would have liked. That shows he is conscientious and I find it interesting to hear about how newspaper errors can come about.
Margaret Broadbent at 09 Jan 2007 16:26

Fair comment
Has Mr Benjamin Ambrose (if that is, indeed, his real name) ever spent an evening in the company of journalists at any watering hole where the species congregates? Foul-mouthed language and a tendency to violence as the witching hour approaches is par for the course as your older staff members will doubtless remember.To accuse any of the correspondents who have contributed to this current debate of bad language, bad taste or of being "embittered old soaks resentful of their lot in life" is, to put it mildly, rather stretching a point.Let us not forget that if Toby Harnden had kept his mouth firmly shut in the first place we'd have all forgotten that he filed a story full of more holes than the proverbial watering can.
Donna Krupa at 09 Jan 2007 16:27

Profanity!!
Regardless of what anyone thinks of Harnden, I find it indefensible to send emails using profanity as a way of relaying personal opinions about the media. Black's crass manner of expressing himself says it all, really.
Alex Rathbone at 09 Jan 2007 16:30

phew
Most of you should be reading "Lunatics Today" instead of the Telegraph. Have any of you read T.Harnden's book or his Spectator articles? He is one of the most prolific and clever correspondents on Fleet Street.
Farmer Ged at 09 Jan 2007 16:49

His point is proved!
The point is that in this electronic age this is the type of thing journalists now have to deal with. Toby is man enough to bring it out into the open and then the nutters go and prove the point he was originally making.
You vilifiers totally miss the point at 09 Jan 2007 17:06

Take them on!
Good to see a reporter engaging with critics and showing them up for what they are. An email like that is totally indefensible.
Jan Volk at 09 Jan 2007 17:20

Saddam
Can we please return to the subject of Saddam and whether he deserved the manner of his demise? Mr Harnden actually highlights here how bizarrely it turned out in relation to how we had been told it would be done.
John Taylor at 09 Jan 2007 17:27

Substance please!
Mr Taylor is right. Whenever there is a serious, thoughtful subject on a blog everyone ignores it. Yet then gangs of people rush to defend someone as potty mouthed and vicious as Mr Black, who made no contribution at all to the sum of human knowledge (or kindness).
Karen at 09 Jan 2007 17:43

Dishing the dirt
How refreshing to see readers taking the opportunity to let newsmen (and women) know what we think when they screw up on a story!!Some of you seem to blame Mr Black for this whole debacle, when it seems to me his initial correspondence with Harnden was, if I am not mistaken, of a private nature in the form of an e-mail. Perhaps as a "prank" the recipient decided to make this correspondence public on his weblog, with disastrous results for Mr Harnden.What's so special about journalists, anyway? We are daily exposed to their opinions and stories which, as we know all too well, are not always based upon truth.So good on ya, Ian Black, lay into the blighterand let's have a lot more of this kind of reaction to mealy-mouthed hacks like the Telegraph's man in Washington!!
Summer at 09 Jan 2007 19:46

Copying stopped at this point ( having got interested in posts on the Apple iPhone).


ed: the entire 84 comments, including those not shown here, as well as Toby Harnden's original piece ( produced belatedly as a comment) were posted by handyblogman on the Guardian's OrganGrinder blog. I had alerted this site earlier in the day to the fact that Toby Harnden's blog had been "pulled". They were grateful for the tip, and in their news update provided a link to this site, which set the hit counter whirring. In fact over 1000 hits were recorded in the subsequent 12 hour period, from midday to midnight, over 6 times the peacetime figure.


But I decided to enter the fray later, under a pseudonym ( Non-blown-away sceptic) chosen earlier that day. Odd name, you might think, but it was related to the title of another post on the subject of Apple's iPhone, entitled "iPhone blows even the sceptics away" (Catherine Elsworth).

Here are my four main contributions (there were some later minor ones too). The second one resulted in Tony Harnden finally releasing the text of his initial "preview" story, which for reasons best known to himself he had withheld at the beginning, making it difficult to judge whether or not Ian Black had a case.


First posting : Separate issues

Why can't we just accept there are three entirely separate issues here, each of which is important.

1. Toby Harnden's reporting of the Saddam execution in the past, instead of the future tense .

2. Ian Black's lying in wait for years for a fellow journalist to make a mistake before revealing himself as someone from Harnden's previous existence. An unpleasant individual, with unpleasant language, confirming many of our worst stereotypes of the journalist's craft/trade (once called a profession).

3. Harnden's extraordinary decision to use his blog in a quality paper to "out" someone who had the temerity to send an unflattering email.

Why could Harnden have not started his report with " In a few minutes, if all goes according to plan, and barring any last-minute reprieves, Saddam Hussein will step onto the gallows ..... Thus will end the life of one of the world's most notorious ..... Will he be allowed to decline the customary hood .... ?

My own belief, for what it's worth, is that neither individual comes out of this with credit, but for entirely different reasons.

But it's the first which is the crucial issue: the reporting an event as if it had already taken place, when it had not.

What has happened here has served simply to compound the initial error, bringing it to the attention of everyone, when previously only a small observant minority might have spotted it.

Was the previous generation of naval officers taught how to shoot themselves in the foot ?

ed. The Telegraph moderators deleted the final sentence !

Second posting: Clarification still needed

Deanna. I did read Toby's original blog, in which he refers to the original report that caused him such embarrasment, but to which he gives no copy or link, merely to say he never used the past tense.

Two points: why would Ian Black have been so scathing if it had simply been a case of the Telegraph's deadline being before the execution? Are executions in China always coordinated with newspapers' deadlines ?

Where's the sin in writing about a likely scenario, ahead of the actual event, as long as that's made clear ? Has Ian Black never been called upon to do that ? Does he perhaps live in an ideal world, out there in China ? If so, why does he need to use gutter language ?
Second point: if you go to the end of the later updated report that Toby does cite, there's a link to another report that reads like an earlier version, under the byline of Toby Harnden (Washington) and Graeme Baker

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AH2ITOROFYMQLQFIQMFSFGGAVCBQ0IV0?xml=/news/2006/12/30/wsaddam30.xml

Title: Saddam: the end

"Hussein was hanged early today for his crimes against humanity.

The former dictator of Iraq was led to the gallows in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, which houses his former presidential palace, before being executed without ceremony in front of Iraqi and American officials...... "

Is this the report that the Man- with- the- Score- to- Settle read, replete with its past tenses ? Or is there, as Toby said, an even earlier one that avoids the past tense. If so, why doesn't Toby provide a link or copy, and enlighten us on why's he supposed to have egg on his face (apart from the incorrect reference to a hood) ?


Third posting : Clear winner, unsavoury contest

Where are the "inaccuracies", Ian Black ? Or do you use that word loosely to mean differences in detail from events which the writer was attempting to visualise ?

If you were "chortling for hours" over a fellow-journalist being compromised by the clock and time-zones - through no fault of his own - then it shows you up for what you are. You are a petty-minded individual, harbouring a long term grudge, unable to move on, unable to make your point eloquently.

But Toby Harnden was perhaps out of order in using his blog to hit back in the way he did, divulging the contents of a private email without permission. As it happens, I had one from him shortly before Christmas. There was a standard message at the end from the Telegraph's legal department, warning against unauthorised publication of its contents, which I naturally respected.

Match to Harnden, despite throwing away a game or two, and antagonising spectators with his tactics.


Fourth posting: When was the future tense abolished ?

Seriously, some of you folk, is this really the first time in your lives that you have encountered one of those " Here's how it's likely to happen stories" ?

Did you really fail to spot the future tenses ?Does every article in this genre of reporting that tries to visualise an event that clearly hasn't yet happened - a fact of life, born of the rigid newspaper deadline - need to carry a health warning ? Like: "Stop. Read on at your peril. Beware concealed future tenses. Because actual events, when they occur, may not correspond with every detail you see here."

Sorry about the sarcasm, but if anyone knows of a better way of dealing with those unable to grasp what is self-evident, do please let us know.


Some afterthoughts from this blogger:

Having followed the thread closely (and contributed under a pseudonym) it seems to me that it's all a storm in a teacup, and that whilst Harnden's handling of criticism has lacked finesse, his professional credentials as a reporter at the time of of Saddam Hussein's (then) imminent execution did not seriously depart from normal journalistic practice. To meet his deadlines, he had to visualise the likely sequence of events, based on precedent and intelligent guesswork. It's what has been called a preview report.

Telegraph "moderation": a pattern emerges

Yes, a fourth instalment. No doubt some of you must be getting bored by now. But I'm not, as gradually a pattern emerges. Here's a comment I have just sent off this moment to Peta Thornycroft's Zimbabwe blog, although it is clearly intended for the Telegraph's moderators, rather than poor beleagured Peta in Harare, who's got a lot more immediate problems on her mind right now.

ed: see STOP PRESS at end !


When I logged onto this site three days ago (7th Jan) the first comment to appear was Andre Milner's (Let them eat ...rice).

I have only just spotted Swatantra Nandanwar's rousing call to arms, which is now, and only now, the lead comment. But that only happened as a result of puzzling Ped's reference this morning to "Swatty" and then working back.

So how long was his comment held back, one wonders - hours or days ? I suspect the latter, having had similar experiences with some of my own submissions in recent weeks. This seems to be the pattern now with Telegraph blog moderation - not so much outright censorship (although it too happens) as a kind of time-management, such that those deemed as perhaps a touch too strong or intemperate are held back for hours or even days before being allowed to appear. The effect is then to blunt their force and to slow or delay any rapid ripostes. And because when they do finally appear, the delayed comment appears in its correct time-sequence of sending (as distinct from being approved and cleared), it's as if nothing had happened, and there may well be those who miss the comment altogether if they merely follow new ones being added to the end of the thread.

So has "moderation" now taken on an entirely new meaning, to mean calming of the entire thread, as distinct from pruning or censoring of individual comments ?

I am presently addressing these issues on my own blog:

www.dreams-and-daemons.blogspot.com

I shall naturally be posting this comment as further grist for the mill - whether it appears here or not, and, more to the point, whether immediately or delayed......

So who thinks the Telegraph will publish it ? Watch this space for further developments ......

STOP PRESS 08:55 London time : my comment has just appeared as Number 8 in the thread, AND in it's entirety !

Well, I take my hat off to you, Daily Telegraph, for allowing my speculations into the public domain as to what goes on in Victoria and/or Canary Wharf behind all those screens, ashtrays and coffee mugs. Next question: will you "own up" to moderating by use of delaying tactics ? Any predictions on that one, anyone ?

10.30 am But two new blogs have gone up already this morning, one of them on the unveiling of Apple's iPhone ( which Shane Richmond has already covered). With just one more new blog added to the top, Peta Thorneycroft's will disappear off the bottom of the Telly's main blogging page into the pre-Cambrian layers. So there's little chance, then, of any of these observations getting noticed, far less acted upon, unless, UNLESS, the Telly decides of its own accord to ditch its present moderation policy, and devise something that is fairer and more transparent.

Tomorrow, I will be reporting on my recent flirtation with another newspaper's way of running an online readers' forum. It would be hard to imagine an approach more different from the one described here. Can anyone guess which paper I'm talking about ? Clue (if you're into old chestnuts): it's not the Inpedantend !

Peed off with Telegraph blogs

This is my third and final post on the subject of those Telegraph blogs.

ed. Update now added (in red): go to end of post

Here's what happened when I tried responding to Shane Richmond's blog posting entitled:

The Most Read Blog Posts of 2006


This was his ranking:

1. Shane Richmond: Singalong-a-Shearer (4 July)
2. Hilary Alexander: Posh's short sharp shock (3 August)
3. Anton La Guardia: Slip of the tongue (1 April)
4. Shane Richmond: Altered images (4 August)
5. Kate Connolly: Europe's biggest brothel (17 May)
6. David Rennie: The cartoon row goes on (1 February)
7. Anton La Guardia: How has this cartoon crisis come about (2 February)
8. Hilary Alexander: Hilary vs Hugh - fashion week fighting (19 September)
9. David Rennie: On the trail of the extra cartoons (6 February)
10. David Derbyshire: Peter Gabriel interview (27 October)

Are some of you regulars thinking what I'm thinking ? So off went the following Comment:

Popularity contests

Whilst not wishing to detract from your top ranking, Shane, might I take issue with you on one point. These are not necessarily the "most read blog posts". They are the post titles, with accompanying graphic and first sentence or two, that have attracted most interest to make folk want to click and read further .

It is perhaps not surprising that titles that mention celebrities occupy the top two positions, and others, with words like "brothel" and those cartoons look equally click-worthy. A more balanced survey would take account of other factors, whether measurable (eg number of comments) or perhaps not, such as time spent reading before moving on to something else.

The largest number of comments on a blog was for one of Colin Randall's (some 180 as I recall), but some of his faithful followers - myself included- did show an occasional tendency to stray off-topic, or even invent the occasional new visitor to enliven the proceedings.

But then the blog is essentially a branch of showbiz, would you not agree ?


That was sent 3rd Jan at about 6pm. Nothing appeared that evening. In fact, nothing appeared the whole of the next morning. Yet other comments, received after mine, went up. But I could not immediately protest. Why not ? Because I learned recently that when the Telegraph moderators go to work on a backlog of Comments, they deal with them on a " Last Come, First Served Basis" . Or "First Come, Last Served". Yes, that's official: it's from the horse's mouth (email from Shane Richmond).

So, to put down a marker, I sent the following short Comment to the same thread, which went up almost immediately:

A proper audit ?

Afterthought to the comment sent yesterday, Shane (although not as yet displayed !).

Does your league table include posts from that renowned, but sadly erstwhile blogger, Colin Randall ? Or Alec Russell, for that matter ?


That one went up quickly, thus making it abundantly clear to Telegraph readers that an earlier one was missing !

It took quite some time, though, for the earlier one to appear - hours, not minutes.

There was a similar performance today (see Comments on previous post). Comments received at the Telegraph this morning went up immediately.

One of mine, sent Saturday, only appeared 8 hours later. Yes, 8 hours !

ed : note added 10 Jan - it was held back, in fact, nearer two days in total !

And another sent the same day, to Toby Harnden's blog hasn't appeared at all. And even Toby is finding replies he sends to his own blog fail to appear (see Comments, previous post). Toby thinks it's an IT fault in the system. Personally, I think it's a human fault - failure to clear backlogs, exacerbated by the perverse policy of moderating in reverse chronological order. Whatever the explanation, it's not being dealt with.

Hell, what am I doing, documenting all this stuff ? Anal-retentiveness was not part of the New Year's resolutions ( except for cleaning that model ship on a monthly basis).

Let's not mince our words: those of us who post comments to Telegraph blogs are seen as a sad little bunch of individuals who can be treated in the most casual offhand fashion.

So the comment was sent two days ago - and is still waiting to be "moderated". "So what ? Let 'em wait. Show 'em who's boss. And if they moan, well, we can just ignore their comment altogether. No, that's not censorship, 'cos we won't even bother reading it. We'll just consign it straight to that good 'ol virtual dustbin. "

Well, I'm reading you loud and clear, Daily Telegraph. So here's me, blogging off. You can go find yourself another mug.

Update: Toby Harnden is in deep s***. I'm keeping quiet ( one doesn't kick a man when he's down). And Ben Fenton has once again got backs up by mixing up astronomy with astrology, at Patrick Moore's expense. It's not on his blog this time, for which I took him to task on a previous occasion, but a main article, inviting comments. Here's something I bashed off quickly, which has yet to appear at the time of writing:

" This is not the first time that Ben Fenton has used his privileged position on the Telegraph (or his blog) to introduce an astronomy topic, and then proceed to trivialise it with references to astrology. This might be understandable (though not forgivable) in a red-top tabloid.
Does he have any idea of the insult that he causes to readers who thirst for the latest scientific discoveries concerning our planet, the Solar System and the Universe ? Does he not realise that there are many among us who have astrology mentally bracketed with seances and tarot cards, and consider it a pollutant in any discussion of astronomy ? "

14:00 London time: The Telegraph has recently added a batch of extra comments to Ben Fenton's story. Yes, you guessed correctly: mine is not among them. It has clearly been censored.
Mental note: there's no point wasting any more time in sending comments to either the Telly's blogs or its main stories. The new Victoria HQ has become the Kremlin for Conrad Black's new empire.

But somebody else makes a similar point to my own, in slightly toned down language, and questions why a "quality paper" allows Fenton to publish his trivial down-market guff.

And the s*** just keeps getting deeper for Toby Harnden......

Telegraph critique: Part 2

x
x

This is a prequel to the previous post, in which I logged in real time the trouble I have been having in getting comments onto Telegraph blogs.
In fact, this has been going on for a long time, far too long, but I don't intend to bore you with a long litany of complaints. Instead, I will describe here events in the 48 hours that preceded the most recent problem re Ben Fenton's blog, and which finally made me realize that the time had come to make a stand against the Telegraph's continuing perverseness over the matter of readers' comments.

There have been some ill-considered editorials in the Telegraph in recent months ( OK, so that's a personal view, but that's what a blog is for). None was more misjudged than the line taken in the Jan 3 editorial entitled " Time for Prescott to go". Prescott you may recall gave a TV interview in which he condemned what happened at the Saddam execution. The Telegraph described this as wading into a "delicate diplomatic issue", and called (not for the first time) for his immediate sacking.

Some of us might feel that Prescott should have been stripped of his Deputy Premiership as well as departmental responsibilities a long time ago, well before his much-publicized shenanigans with the lady civil servant came to light.

The man is not just predatory, but downright incompetent. But on this particular issue, namely the disgraceful scenes at Saddam's execution, captured on mobile phones, Jabba the Hutt seemed finally to have got something right.


So the Telegraph's spotlight on his angry responses, given in a live interview with aggressive inquisitors, and using them to attack his state of mind, indeed his sobriety, seemed like a bit of seedy political opportunism.



Given that Blair & Bush invaded Iraq ostensibly to get rid of Saddam, or merely his illusory WMD, how come the fate of that dictator has suddenly become a delicate diplomatic issue ?

There are no prizes for guessing what would have happened to the present Shia-dominated government in Iraq if Saddam had ever been able to wangle a release, and rebuilt his Sunni/Baathist power-base. The Telegraph totally misrepresented the issue as one involving walking on eggshells. Living with a human time-bomb would seem a better analogy !

So here's the response I sent under Comments at about 17:00, London time, on 3rd Jan :


I didn't see the Prescott interview, but I did see your headline yesterday in which you referred to him "wading in". That was after your own editorial condemnation, so it left me wondering if there was a new irregular verb in the English language, namely "to condemn" (I condemn, you create, he wades in).

I hold no brief for Prescott: he is unfit for public office. But on this occasion, his instincts were right. This is more than a delicate diplomatic matter, as you describe it. It's an issue that goes to the heart of our concept of justice and human dignity. The obscene taunting, the use of mobile phones to capture a man's responses in the last degrading seconds of his life, have cheapened Iraq's judicial process. Reluctantly, I formed the view some time ago that the Iraqis for the most part deserved to have Saddam Hussein as their leader, and the events at those gallows simply confirms that view.

PS For the record, I believed it was right that in this exceptional case Saddam should have been executed (to remove the fear that he might one day return and exact terrible revenge). But I also considered that his request for a "soldier's death" by firing squad should have been respected.

A string of new comments appeared, abruptly terminated mid-afternoon (before mine was even sent) with one by "Jerry" at 15.01. Many shared my view, namely that the Telegraph had got it seriously wrong . Maybe the Editors then decided they had taken enough flak for one day.

But that same leader is still accessible, inviting comments, which will now fail to appear. In other words, the Telegraph editors have decided enough has been said, but are too squeamish, apparently, to put up a notice to the effect that correspondence is now closed.

Thanks heavens for the personal blog, then , where one's ignored or rejected comments can be placed into the public domain. My present readership is probably too small to have an immediate effect, but casual googling has shown that things that one wrote about weeks or months ago can resurface through someone researching a particular issue or grievance.

I had intended to end this by relating the experience of posting to Shane Richmond's blog, also on the 3rd Jan, which might be of interest to those of us who followed Colin Randall from the Telegraph into the blogging wilderness. But this post is already long enough as it is. Expect a third and (for now) final report on the Telly's erratic moderators by tomorrow at the latest.

PS Still no reply from Ben Fenton or Shane Richmond to my emails, alerting them (as a courtesy) to these unflattering comments re the Telegraph's so-called moderation.

PPS Monday 8th Jan: Is this the most redundant headline of all time ( from today's BBC homepage):

Trial to resume without Saddam

The genocide trial of six former Iraqi officials is due to resume in Baghdad without their co-defendant Saddam Hussein, who was hanged on 30 December.

So what's going on at the Telegraph these days ?

Piton post: needs to be read in reverse, starting at the end ! Colour -coded for convenience.

Update 1350 London time . It's finally appeared, my comment to Ben Fenton's blog, would you believe it ! Not the original, sent yesterday, but the duplicate sent a short while ago (see below). So what happened to the original, one may ask ? And why has the sequence of events described here happened time and time again in the past, with no satisfactory explanation ?

My next step is to email Ben Fenton and Shane Richmond, suggesting that they take a glance at this blog, and perhaps offer, if not an apology, at least an explanation.

Update 13.45 London. Despite sending a duplicate some 45 minutes ago, there are still no Comments on Ben Fenton's Saddam posting.

The Telegraph's main page for blogs (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/) now shows the latest 15 postings - an improvement on the past. But the window for seeing a particular post on that main page is now down to a couple of days or less, as new blogs flush old ones off the bottom, so to speak, into the archives.

Ben Fenton's is now 8th in the list. How long before it disappears from view, without my comment, possibly without any, for that matter ? So, to repeat the title, what IS going on at the Telegraph these days ?

I shall resubmit my comment a third and final time at 14.00 London.

Update 13.00 London time. Comment resubmitted under new title "Justice or Revenge ?". Original comment sent yesterday had still not appeared, needless to say.

Update: 12.56 London time. Still not appeared. In the past when this had happened, like yesterday for example (details later) one's first reaction is to think that the Comment was never received. But that has rarely if ever been the case. When one persists, by sending complaining emails etc. the Comment is always found, and does finally appear. But why was it held up in the first place ? Is it an attempt at half-hearted censorship ? If so, of the particular Comment, or the individual who sent it ? Does anyone else have this experience ?

At 1300 I will re-submit the Comment to see what happens !



This is what I previously called a "piton post". It's one that appears in instalments in real time. Updates, as they appear, will go at the top.

The starting point is the following Comment that I sent yesterday (4th Jan) at 19.00 hr approx London time to Ben Fenton's latest Telegraph blog post. It's entitled "We've played into Saddam's hands".



http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/ukcorrespondents/benfenton/jan07/saddammartyr.htm

Here's what I wrote, which I consider relevant to the topic, and which makes a serious point at the end.

It begin's by quoting a line from Ben's post:

"To others, the only good that can come from a bad deed is by the careful and judicial exercise of revenge."

Judicial exercise of revenge ? Is that not a curious juxtaposition of the sublime and ridiculous ? Since when has justice, and the entire apparatus of courts, been about revenge ?

The whole point of having proper legal channels for prosecution of crime is surely to prevent a relapse into a lynch mob society in which everyone feels it necessary to take the law into their own hands. Justice and subsequent punishment are about holding wrongdoers accountable for their actions, so that the victims of crimes, or their surviving relatives, do not suffer the added insult of feeling that criminals are allowed to get off scot-free.

Wanting revenge is natural, and some may indeed gloat over the imposition of a heavy sentence, but that is surely not the purpose of the punishment: it is to bolster confidence in the rule of law, and hopefully (but not assuredly) deter others from committing the same crime.

There are many, myself included, who in general oppose the death penalty for even the vilest of crimes. That can be for any number of reasons - on grounds of principle (all human life is sacred), or to avoid acting as God, or merely out of recognition that judges and juries occasionally get it wrong.

But in the case of Saddam Hussein, there were special, almost unique, circumstances. Given the man's track record in exacting the most terrible revenge on entire communities - women and children included, it could be seen as a gross injustice to Kurds, Shias, Marsh Arabs, Kuwaitis and others to have allowed that monster to get off with a prison sentence. It would have left open the possibility, no matter how remote, that he might one day have been released, say as a result of terrorist blackmail, to return to power as Mr.Invincible, only to initiate a whole new cycle of revenge.

I believe, reluctantly, that the death sentence was appropriate. What I do not understand is why he was denied his stated wish to die by firing squad, instead of a hangman's noose. Is it not enough that someone forfeits their life? Why inflict the added ignominy of selecting a particular form of capital punishment deemed appropriate for a common criminals (hanging) ? And with the wisdom of hindsight, admittedly, a firing squad gives less opportunity for sadists to surround the condemned man at the moment of death with their taunting and gloating.

On a final technical note, is it not time that we dropped the use of the "hanging" as a generic term. Saddam Hussein died by virtually instantaneous cervical dislocation , ie severing of the spinal cord in the neck, which is altogether different, and more humane, than hanging as carried out elsewhere, eg Iran, where the condemned are hoisted up on cranes. That type of hanging does not involve a drop, and so causes an unspeakably brutal, protracted death by slow throttling. Sorry to end on such a grim note.

At the time of writing ( 13.40 London time today, 5th Jan) my Comment has still not appeared, despite the latest crop of comments starting to go up at about 11.00 hours London time .

Now why is that you may ask ? Watch this space for further developments !