#Telfer Wall

[scotianostra]

Castle from top of Vennel.

One of the most popular photo spots in the capital, but most people stop at the top of the steps leading from Grassmarket, this is a bit further up as you get to Keir street/Heriot Place, which lead up to Lauriston Place.

📸paul_watt_photography on Instagram 

[captaincrusher]

A comment on room design. I like the design for Uhura's room, which I assume is for the lowest ranking people on the ship.

The design of the sleeping pods feels in keeping with the overall design of the time. It has that clunky, thick feeling that gives it an air of 60's futurism, while also being clearly modern. The curved walls suggest the beds could be placed near the outer hull where the starship itself curves, which make it have the same kind of utilitarian feel as it would on an actual ship or submarine.

The use of enclosed pods also make more sense than the traditional bunk beds we see in Enterprise, since it gives you more privacy. Crewman Daniel's seemed to share his quarters with one other person.

Voyager also seemed to have more traditional bunk beds, as seen in Telfer's room in "Good Sheperd". Both Telfer and Tal had at least one roommate. We see very little of their rooms but we are shown they have separate beds with no privacy aside from covers.

In Undiscovered country they have rooms with at least 6 beds that look terrible to sleep in. Your pillow WILL fall out. You WILL hit your head on that pillar. Neither top or lower bunk are at a comfortable height. Atrocious design, 0/10.

The Strange New Worlds beds are more like a version of the Ds9 bunk beds, that have privacy screens. This is on the Defiant, so usually we see a lot of beds in a small space and even Sisko doesn't get a fancy room without the bunk beds. (From Past Tense).

This is clearly a reflection of cost, as much as intention in design. Telfer's and Daniel's rooms weren't going to be featured a lot, so they didn't create new set design pieces for those scenes. The cabins on the Defiant are featured a lot so they built those and I guess the same with Uhura's room.

This became an accidental deep dive into bed design for lower decks people so here you go I guess.

[ebay-19]

The DAYS recap for Tuesday, December 27, 2022, backs up the theory that there’s really no such thing as coincidence. DAYS Recap Highlights In this episode, the walls close in and collap...

[rockislandadultreads]

Non-fiction titles about Serial Killers, for any murderino

The Kill Jar: Obsession, Descent, and a Hunt for Detroit's Most Notorious Serial Killer by J. Reuben Appelman

Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977, their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was six years old at the time the murders began and had evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. Autopsies showed the victims to have been fed while in captivity, reportedly held with care. And yet, with equal care, their bodies had allegedly been groomed post-mortem, scrubbed-free of evidence that might link to a killer. There were few credible leads, and equally few credible suspects. That’s what the cops had passed down to the press, and that’s what the city of Detroit, and J. Reuben Appelman, had come to believe. When the abductions mysteriously stopped, a task force operating on one of the largest manhunt budgets in history shut down without an arrest. Although no more murders occurred, Detroit and its environs remained haunted. The killer had, presumably, not been caught. Eerily overlaid upon the author’s own decades-old history with violence, The Kill Jar tells the gripping story of J. Reuben Appelman’s ten-year investigation into buried leads, apparent police cover-ups of evidence, con-men, child pornography rings, and high-level corruption saturating Detroit’s most notorious serial killer case.

Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson

London was still recovering from the devastation of World War II when another disaster hit: for five long days in December 1952, a killer smog held the city firmly in its grip and refused to let go. Day became night, mass transit ground to a halt, criminals roamed the streets, and some 12,000 people died from the poisonous air. But in the chaotic aftermath, another killer was stalking the streets, using the fog as a cloak for his crimes. All across London, women were going missing--poor women, forgotten women. Their disappearances caused little alarm, but each of them had one thing in common: they had the misfortune of meeting a quiet, unassuming man, John Reginald Christie, who invited them back to his decrepit Notting Hill flat during that dark winter. They never left. The eventual arrest of the "Beast of Rillington Place" caused a media frenzy: were there more bodies buried in the walls, under the floorboards, in the back garden of this house of horrors? Was it the fog that had caused Christie to suddenly snap? And what role had he played in the notorious double murder that had happened in that same apartment building not three years before--a murder for which another, possibly innocent, man was sent to the gallows? The Great Smog of 1952 remains the deadliest air pollution disaster in world history, and John Reginald Christie is still one of the most unfathomable serial killers of modern times. Journalist Kate Winkler Dawson braids these strands together into a taut, compulsively readable true crime thriller about a man who changed the fate of the death penalty in the UK, and an environmental catastrophe with implications that still echo today.

Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men by Harold Schechter

In the pantheon of serial killers, Belle Gunness stands alone. She was the rarest of female psychopaths, a woman who engaged in wholesale slaughter, partly out of greed but mostly for the sheer joy of it. Between 1902 and 1908, she lured a succession of unsuspecting victims to her Indiana “murder farm.” Some were hired hands. Others were well-to-do bachelors. All of them vanished without a trace. When their bodies were dug up, they hadn’t merely been poisoned, like victims of other female killers. They’d been butchered.

Hell’s Princess is a riveting account of one of the most sensational killing sprees in the annals of American crime: the shocking series of murders committed by the woman who came to be known as Lady Bluebeard. The only definitive book on this notorious case and the first to reveal previously unknown information about its subject, Harold Schechter’s gripping, suspenseful narrative has all the elements of a classic mystery—and all the gruesome twists of a nightmare.

Mad City: The True Story of the Campus Murders That America Forgot by Michael Arntfield

In fall 1967, friends Linda Tomaszewski and Christine Rothschild are freshmen at the University of Wisconsin. The students in the hippie college town of Madison are letting down their hair—and their guards. But amid the peace rallies lurks a killer.

When Christine’s body is found, her murder sends shockwaves across college campuses, and the Age of Aquarius gives way to a decade of terror.

Linda knows the killer, but when police ignore her pleas, he slips away. For the next forty years, Linda embarks on a cross-country quest to find him. When she discovers a book written by the murderer’s mother, she learns Christine was not his first victim—or his last. The slayings continue, and a single perpetrator emerges: the Capital City Killer. As police focus on this new lead, Linda receives a disturbing note from the madman himself. Can she stop him before he kills again?

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History by Tori Telfer

When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are likely Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, and Kate Bender? The narrative we're comfortable with is one where women are the victims of violent crime-not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally male that, in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared that There are no female serial killers. Inspired by Telfer's Jezebel column of the same name, Lady Killers disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Although largely forgotten by history, female serial killers rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different female serial killer and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her. When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are likely Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, and Kate Bender? The narrative we're comfortable with is one where women are the victims of violent crime-not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally male that, in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared that There are no female serial killers. Inspired by Telfer's Jezebel column of the same name, Lady Killers disputes that claim and offers fourteen gruesome examples as evidence. Although largely forgotten by history, female serial killers rival their male counterparts in cunning, cruelty, and appetite. Each chapter explores the crimes and history of a different female serial killer and then proceeds to unpack her legacy and her portrayal in the media as well as the stereotypes and sexist cliches that inevitably surround her.

The Spider and the Fly: A Reporter, a Serial Killer, and the Meaning of Murder by Claudia Rowe

In September 1998, young reporter Claudia Rowe was working as a stringer for the New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York, when local police discovered the bodies of eight women stashed in the attic and basement of the small colonial home that Kendall Francois, a painfully polite twenty-seven-year-old community college student, shared with his parents and sister. Growing up amid the safe, bourgeois affluence of New York City, Rowe had always been secretly fascinated by the darkness, and soon became obsessed with the story and with Francois. She was consumed with the desire to understand just how a man could abduct and strangle eight women—and how a family could live for two years, seemingly unaware, in a house with the victims’ rotting corpses. She also hoped to uncover what humanity, if any, a murderer could maintain in the wake of such monstrous evil. Reaching out after Francois was arrested, Rowe and the serial killer began a dizzying four-year conversation about cruelty, compassion, and control; an unusual and provocative relationship that would eventually lead her to the abyss, forcing her to clearly see herself and her own past—and why she was drawn to danger.

[gacougnol]

Laurence Winram Telfer Wall in Heriot Place in the Fog Edinburgh 2014

[weavingthetapestry]

Plague Projects, 1568: George Bannatyne and His Books

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley” seems like a phrase which really sums up this past month, and also says something about my altered plans for this blog this year. After all, with the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath coming up, I had hoped that the next time I’d be posting, it would be about nation-defining fourteenth century documents, not sixteenth century cultural treasures. Indeed, I should probably apologise to those of you particularly interested in earlier periods for publishing what I believe is my fourth or fifth lengthy sixteenth century post in a row- and it IS horrendously lengthy. But as many of us will be keeping to our homes for the foreseeable future, it seemed apt instead to consider taking a leaf out of George Bannatyne’s book. 

In autumn and winter 1568, plague once again raged in Edinburgh. Confined to the family home “in tyme of pest, / Quhen we fra labor was compeld to rest”, 22-year old George Bannatyne whiled away the hours compiling a massive collection of Old Scots poetry. His book, containing works from such famous names as Chaucer, Dunbar, Henryson, Lindsay and others, is now known as the Bannatyne MS (or, to give it its less snappy title, Adv. MS. 1.1.6). It is widely acknowledged as one of the most significant books in the history of Old Scots literature, preserving some of the very best works of the age for later generations. So, since I have the time and the ink (metaphorically at least), I thought it might be a good opportunity to explore the history of this vital manuscript, the life of its author, and the circumstances in which it was created. 

George Bannatyne was neither the son of a great noble nor some powerful churchman, but he did come from a reasonably well-off family with an important network of acquaintances. Thanks to the survival of a ‘Memoriall Buik’ which he began compiling around 1582, we are able to trace some of his background with more ease than might otherwise be the case. In it, we find that George was the son of James Bannatyne of the Kirktoun of Newtyle (born 1512) and Katherine Taillefeir (or Telfer or any number of variant spellings; she seems to have been born c.1523). James Bannatyne belonged to the legal profession and played a not insignificant role in public life, acting as a Writer to the Signet and Deputy Justice Clerk among other things. He also had mercantile interests and, despite originally hailing from Angus (a region he would maintain links with for the rest of his life), he was admitted as a burgess and guild brother of Edinburgh in 1538. It may have been around the same time that he married Katherine, who appears to have hailed from a prominent Edinburgh merchant family herself, and their first child, Laurence, was born in September 1539. The couple would go onto have twenty-three children between 1539 and 1565, of whom eleven were still alive at the time of their mother’s death in 1570, and eight were still living in their father’s house, “unput to proffeit”.

George was the seventh child, born on 22nd December 1545, and his memorial book notes that his uncles, George Taillefeir and William Fisher* acted as his godfathers, and Mavis Fisher as his godmother. Not much is known about his early life, but he does appear to have attended the University of St Andrews for a time, being incorporated at St Mary’s College in 1558 (aged about twelve) and listed as ‘baccalaurei’ in 1561. Unlike some of his brothers, however, there isn’t much evidence that he followed his father into the legal profession and we can ascertain little about his early career (beyond the basic details) before the age of forty.

(Bannatyne house near Newtyle, Angus. This property was purchased by George’s father James Bannatyne and the house built by Thomas Bannatyne in the late sixteenth century. Despite their Angus roots however, the family’s main business was in Edinburgh. Not my picture.)

The year 1568, when he was 22 years of age, would later serve as a major landmark in the young George Bannatyne’s life. Indeed, it was to be an eventful year for the kingdom of Scotland as a whole. In May, the deposed queen Mary I had escaped from captivity in the Kinross-shire castle of Lochleven, and soon raised an army to challenge the men who governed Scotland in the name of her infant son James VI. Defeated by the forces of her half-brother, the Earl of Moray, at the Battle of Langside, she then fled across the border to England, seeking the help of their cousin Elizabeth I. With the plight of the ex-Queen of Scots now an international incident, the affair would rumble on throughout the autumn and winter of 1568 and the publication of the notorious Casket Letters did nothing to diminish the scandal. Back in Scotland, meanwhile, the events of 1568 precipitated a major civil war between the supporters of the exiled Mary and the ‘King’s Men’ who fought in the name of her son. Even in August, Edinburgh had a scare when it was rumoured that the lords of ”the south and north and west countries” might attack before the next parliament, and as a result the burgh’s defences were reinforced. 

And then, just to make things worse, that same autumn a vicious bout of plague broke out in the merry town. The Diurnal of Occurrents claims that ‘the pest’ was initially brought to Edinburgh by a merchant named James Dalgleish on 8th September 1568. Whether or not this very precise account can be taken at face value, by the end of the month the situation was so concerning that, on 26th September, the Regent Moray wrote to the burgh council from Tantallon, requesting that the election of new magistrates be delayed. This was due to concern for “the publict ordour to be observit anent the plaige”, and in case the new officials, “throw laik of experience may omyt the maist necessar thingis that in sa strait ane tyme ar requisit to be done”. On 13th October the burgh council made further proclamations that nobody was to pass to the Burgh Muir (where the sick were quarantined in huts) without an official escort, and, a couple of days later, officers were appointed to clean the victims’ houses and take charge of burying the dead. Meanwhile it was ordained:

“that how sone any maner of persoun fallis seik within this burgh, in quhatsumeuir kynde of seiknes that ever it be, the awneris of the hous inclose thame selffis and cum nocht furth of thair houssis, nowther suffer ony to resort to thame unto the tyme thai aduertice the baillie of the quarter and ordour be taiken be him, under the pane of deid.”

[“that as soon as any manner of person falls sick within this burgh, whatever kind of sickness it may be, the owners of the house should enclose themselves and not come forth of their houses, nor suffer anyone to resort to them, until such time as they inform the baillie of the quarter and order is taken by him, under pain of death.”]

Plague was hardly unknown in the capital and a particularly serious outbreak had ravaged much of Britain, including Edinburgh, as recently as 1563. The burgh was therefore used to the strict measures which had to be taken (even though this didn’t stop the unfortunate William Smith and his wife Black Meg from breaking the rules, an offence for which they paid dearly). Nevertheless the periodic recurrence of the the disease struck terror into the hearts of the people, and with good reason, since the 1568 outbreak alone is estimated to have decimated a fifth of Edinburgh’s population. There were major economic consequences too, not least because of the stoppage of trade, and the Diurnal of Occurrents claims that, due to the outbreak in the burghs of Edinburgh, Leith, and Canongate, there were severe shortages in the country over the course of the following year. Little wonder then that the earliest known medical treatise to be printed in Scotland- “Ane Breve Descriptioun of the Pest” by the Aberdonian physician Gilbert Skene- rolled off the press in this year. 

[read more under cut]

(Edinburgh in the late 16th and early 17th century, according to the ‘Civitates Orbis Terrarum’. Not my picture.)

This was the wider context in which George Bannatyne compiled his famous manuscript, in the last three months of the year (according to his own explicit). But the entire MS runs to almost 800 pages and shows signs of careful organisation and so some modern commentators have naturally raised doubts about the claim that such a large project was completed in only three months, no matter how much Bannatyne may have been climbing the walls during a time of isolation. We also have to account for the 54 pages which make up the so-called Draft or Duplicate MS- draft pages which do not form part of the main Bannatyne MS but have been tacked onto the front of the surviving copy. This draft MS, currently made up of at least two gatherings, may have been larger at some point, as leaves which seem to have been part of the Draft are to be found slotted in at various points of the Bannatyne MS proper (the two MS use different styles of page number, and it may be possible to identify some of the Draft MS leaves from their Roman foliation). 

Meanwhile it was observed by J.T.T. Brown back in 1903 that one of the dates written into the manuscript as ‘1568′, on folio 290v., had originally been 1565, the last number having been altered at a later stage. Subsequently it was noticed that the year written as ‘1568′ on folio 298r. had initially been 1566, and it has been argued that the altered dates, as well as the obvious effort involved in organising and transcribing such a tome, suggest that the Bannatyne MS was the result of a much longer period of compilation than its author claimed. Not every commentator has been convinced by this- William, A. Ringler, for one, argued in 1980 that it was not impossible for George Bannatyne to have completed the work in three months, pointing out that he would only have had to spend about three hours a day on his project, and characterising the altered dates as mere slips of the pen. However most of the recent writers I’ve consulted seem to acknowledge that the MS was probably compiled in several stage, with the book only taking its final form in December 1568 after some months- possibly years- of intermittent work. The exact process of compilation is a matter of great interest to those attempting to establish a political and social context for the work. For example, Alastair A. MacDonald, asking the pertinent question of why Bannatyne might have wished to conceal an earlier start date (and assuming that the 1565 date was not a mistake), has argued that the Bannatyne MS could be seen as a Marian anthology. He has characterised it as a book which grew out of a collection of love poems associated with the poets of Mary I’s court (especially Alexander Scott), the nature of which had to be discreetly altered when the political winds changed. Whatever the case, the precise dating of the Bannatyne MS. and the manner in which it was compiled raises some fascinating possibilities and will probably continue to stimulate debate in the future.** 

(A reproduction of a page from George Bannatyne’s ‘Memoriall Buik’. Not my picture, digitisation by internet archive)

The Bannatyne manuscript itself is an impressive piece of work and Evelyn S. Newlyn is certainly justified in describing its author as, “neither a mere collector nor a passive scribe”. On top of copying out around 400 poems and other literary works (some of them quite lengthy), it is clear that George Bannatyne put thought into the organisation of the MS and its overarching purpose and literary nature. The results of his endeavours hugely impressed some later readers, not least Sir Walter Scott, but modern scholars have rightly cautioned against viewing the MS as the product solely of one young man’s ‘genius’. Bannatyne’s broad social and family networks were likely crucial to the success of his project. Several other members of his immediate family had literary and scholarly interests- his father James and possibly also his brother Thomas owned (and in the latter case compiled) notable legal collections, while a copy of the “Regiam Majestatam” owned by George’s grandfather John Bannatyne has poems copied into its pages. George’s father James was probably also the figure of that name who was referred to in Robert Sempill’s “Defence of Crissel Sandelandis” in the line, “Auld James Bannatyne wes anis a  man of skill”, and another lawyer Bannatyne, Patrick, appears elsewhere in the poem. On his mother’s side, George seems to have been related to Laurence Taillefeir, treasurer of Dunkeld, and proud owner of printed copies of Pleny and Seneca, who was also godfather to George’s eldest brother Laurence Bannatyne in 1539. Serving as the other godfather on that occasion was Henry Balnaves of Halhill, then a senator of the College of Justice, and perhaps already holding the strong Protestant views which would shape much of his career; he may be the ‘Balnevis’ listed as the author of a poem in the Bannatyne MS (“O Gallandis all, I cry and call”). 

These details regarding the godparents of the numerous Bannatyne siblings may be found in George’s “Memoriall Buik” and among the other family acquaintances listed there we also find John Bellenden of Auchnoule and his father Master Thomas Bellenden. Bellenden of Auchnoule was justice clerk (and James Bannatyne served under him for a time as deputy) but even more interest are their connections as nephew and brother respectively to John Bellenden, archdeacon of Moray. That John Bellenden was a poet at the court of James V and translator of the prose Scots version of Hector Boece’s ‘Historia Gentis Scotorum’, and the close social (and perhaps family) relationship between the Bellendens and Bannatynes may explain the prominent position given to his work in the Bannatyne MS. Meanwhile, if Balnaves of Halhill and others provided the Bannatynes with Protestant connections, there were also members of the Catholic clergy to match them, such as George Clapperton, provost of Trinity Collegiate Church, and a member of the Chapel Royal at the same time as the poet Alexander Scott (who features prominently among the love poets featured in the MS). The court connections of the above men may have proved a major asset to George Bannatyne during the compilation of his MS, although it may be going too far to describe the book, as some writers have, as a direct record of Stewart court culture. The Bannatynes also had connections to Henry Foulis of Colinton and his father James, the notable neo-Latin poet, as well as to the poet William Stewart through the Foulis family (it is also worth noting that George Bannatyne’s daughter would later marry Henry Foulis’ grandson). 

From documentary sources other than the memorial book, scholars have further traced the Bannatynes’ links to notable figures in Edinburgh’s printing trade, including King’s printer Thomas Davidson (who undertook work for the government in James Bannatyne’s company), and one of the city’s first printers Walter Chepman (both Walter and James were public notaries who witnessed some of the same transactions, and it might have been Chepman’s widow who stood godmother to George’s brother Thomas). The Bannatyne family’s connections to these notable individuals- and indeed many others whose histories we unfortunately don’t have space to trace- formed a hugely important social network of prominent lawyers, clergy, lairds, merchants, and courtiers, which must have proved immensely useful to George Bannatyne when he was gathering pieces for his MS.

(The arms of the Bannatynes of Corehouse in the Bannatyne MS, set beneath part of the story of Cokelbie’s Sow. Not my picture, property of N.L.S.)

The manuscript itself reflects this background and, although Bannatyne complained that he had to draw on sources preserved in “copeis awld, mankit, and mutillait”, he also seems to have used printed sources. Equally the high number of poems that Bannatyne was able to pull together does seem to indicate that the situation wasn’t always so dire and, as Sebestian Verweij points out:

“Bannatyne’s access to enormous numbers of manuscript and print exemplars is the best available testament to the extremely rich literary and scribal cultures in the Scottish capital.”

The list of authors whose works appear in the MS is a long one, but the most important should be singled out, if only to further demonstrate the scale of the work. The works of some of Scotland’s greatest writers before Burns are included, including pieces by William Dunbar (including the “The Thistle and Rose”, “The Golden Targe”, “The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy, “The Lament for the Makars”, and many more); Robert Henryson (especially worth noting are his “Morall Fabillis” and the apposite  “Ane Prayer for the Pest”); Gavin Douglas (including several prologues from his “Eneados”), and Sir David Lindsay (of particular interest is an abbreviated early copy of his play “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis”). As already mentioned the works of John Bellenden, Alexander Scott and William Stewart are well represented, while other authors include Richard Holland, John Rowll, Robert Sempill, and Richard Maitland of Lethington (who also compiled major literary collections contemporary to the Bannatyne MS). “The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour”, is also named ias the author of eight poems in the MS, though seven of these are inaccurately attributed (the other is the ‘Song of Troilus’ from “Troilus and Criseyde”). George Bannatyne seems to have included several poems of his own composition in his MS, although Theo van Heijnsbergen has suggested that two of the poems attributed to a Bannatyne which appear “more competent” than the others, might have been written by one of George’s family members instead. Numerous anonymous poems feature in the MS (and some have been given authors in annotations made by later hands), including some well-known titles such as “The Friars of Berwick, “Christ’s Kirk on the Green”, “Kynd Kittock”, and “Cokelbie’s Sow”. Bannatyne’s collection thus opens a window onto an impressive body of late mediaeval and sixteenth century Scots literature- and his achievement is all the more impressive in that around half of the 400 poems included in the MS are not known from any other source and would otherwise have been lost to us. 

Bannatyne also put a good deal of thought into the construction of the MS, beyond simply copying out as many poems as he could find. The main part of the book is divided into five parts: firstly, poems about “Godis gloir and ouir saluation” and other Christian religious subjects; secondly, poems with serious moral or philosophical content; thirdly, ‘mirry’ and comic works (some verging on bawdy), including political and social satire; fourth supposedly poems about love, but also including works criticising love and poems against the evils of both men and women (but mostly women); and lastly tales that have some kind of allegorical significance, from Robert Henryson’s animal fables to dream allegories like “The Golden Targe”. This level of editorial awareness has been said to demonstrate Bannatyne’s care and attention in compiling the MS. But some of his editing choices have been less popular with modern scholars, not least his discreet censorship of some the more obviously Catholic aspects of the pre-Reformation poetry, to suit contemporary political circumstances. His decision to include a hefty number of overtly misogynistic poems at a late stage in the compilation of the MS has also been seen as indicative of both the wider political context and also his own personal views. Most interesting though is the evidence that Bannatyne modernised- or perhaps a more exact term would be ‘anglicised- much of the spelling in the poems he transcribed, giving them a more ‘neutral’ language that might have been meant to render the work more accessible to readers of his own day in both Scotland and England. Despite these (sometimes quite major) alterations to the texts of some of the most famous works of Old Scots literature, Bannatyne’s versions of the poems of Dunbar, Henryson, and others have often been used as the basis of modern scholarly editions even sometimes when better alternatives might have been available. Regardless of accuracy, a lot of energy was clearly spent on the organisation and editing of the MS, and many authors have argued that Bannatyne intended that the book should be printed and published. As Alastair A. MacDonald wrote:

“It nonetheless remains that the only credible explanation for the care lavished on the MS and in particular for the concern with the formal appearance of the collection, is that Bannatyne had indeed entertained the hope of seeing the volume in print. It was doubtless with this purpose in mind that he made all the subtle accommodations to Protestant feelings which have been detected in manuscript.”

There is some debate over this however and others have suggested that the work could instead have been intended for circulation in manuscript form among Bannatyne’s social network. Whatever the case the result of George Bannatyne’s labours is a very impressive collection of great significance for the history of Scottish literature- and certainly worth the three months or more he is supposed to have spent working on it.

On 22nd December 1568- George Bannatyne’s 23rd birthday- the burgh council of Edinburgh noted with some relief that it finally seemed as if “God of his mercye and gudnes hes metigait the raige of the pest within this toun”. So the officers who had been appointed to keep the regulations enacted during the time of the plaque were discharged. Unfortunately, their relief was somewhat premature: the disease would return by late spring 1569 and continued to menace the city for much of the year. We have little further indication of how the Bannatyne family coped during this difficult time, but we do know that our protagonist survived and would live to a good age. Strangely though, other than his memorial book (which he began compiling around 1582), we have no evidence of any further literary activity on George Bannatyne’s part. Instead we must follow the rest of his career in his role as a prominent merchant active in family life. 

(The grave of George Foulis of Ravelston and Janet Bannatyne in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Picture from wikimedia commons.)

Until the death of James Bannatyne in 1583, aged 71, George was closely associated with his father’s activities. He was granted his first piece of property- a tenement in Leith- in 1572, and acquired others over the years. He also developed his career as a merchant (though we do not know what he dealt in) and was admitted to the merchants guild of Edinburgh in 1587, being described as a “merchand burgess of Edinburgh” the following year. Some time before this he had married Isobel Mawchan, the widow of an Edinburgh baillie, and the couple would go on to have three children- Janet, who was born on 3rd May 1587 (sharing her birthday with her late grandfather James), James who died aged eight in 1597, and a stillborn daughter. George was also stepfather to two children from his wife’s first marriage, Edward (b.1571) and Isobel Nisbet. George’s only surviving child Janet Bannatyne later married George Foulis, laird of Ravelston near Colinton (both now suburbs of Edinburgh) and later Master of the King’s Mint in Scotland- their gravestone can still be seen in Greyfriars kirkyard. Isobel Mawchan died in 1603, and her husband wrote of her that she “levit ane godly, honorable, and vertewis lyf all hir dayis. Scho wes ane wyis, honest, and trew matrone.” In his twilight years, George Bannatyne appears to have spent some time residing with his daughter and son-in-law at Dreghorn. We do not know the exact date of his death, although it has been determined that he must have died before December 1608. The last entry in his memorial book is for 24th August 1606, when he recorded another visitation of the plague:

“George Foulis, Jonet Bannatyne, his spous, my dochter, and I, George Bannatyne, thair fader, being dwelland in Dreghorne, besyde Colingtoun, the nureise infectit in the pest, being upoun ane Sounday and the secound day of the change of the mone, and Sanct Bartilmo his day; and scho deceissit upoun the Tysday nixt thaireftir, the 26 day of the same moneth. And efter ane clenging na forder truble come to our houshold, blissit be the Almichty God, off his Majesteis miracouluse and mercifull deliuerance.”

[“George Fowlis, Janet Bannatyne, his spouse [and] my daughter, and I, George Bannatyne, their father, being then resident in Dreghorn, beside Colinton, the nurse [was] infected of the plague, being upon a Sunday and the second day of the change of the moon, and St Bartholomew’s Day; and she died upon the Tuesday next thereafter, the 26th day of the same month. And after one cleansing no further trouble came to our household, blessed be the Almighty God, of his Majesty’s miraculous and merciful deliverance.”]

George Bannatyne’s two books survived their author, and both passed into the hands of his Foulis descendants. The Bannatyne MS remained in the hands of that family until 1712 (and several members of the family signed their names on the spare leaves of the book) and was donated to the Advocates Library in 1772. Over the centuries several notable figures have come into contact with the MS, not least Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore (author of ‘Reliques of Ancient English Poetry’) and Allan Ramsay (who used some of the contents in his ‘Evergreen’ anthology of 1724). Both men (Ramsay certainly) appear to have left their own marks on the MS, as have several anonymous hands, some of them adding extra poems on spare leaves. By the early nineteenth century, the fame of George Bannatyne’s compilation had secured for its author an eminent place in the eyes of Scotland’s literati, and the Bannatyne Club, which was founded in 1823 by Walter Scott and others to print works of Scottish historical and literary interest, was named for George. Strangely, though, at the time of the Club’s foundation, not much was known about George Bannatyne himself. It wasn’t until a few years later, when his “Memoriall Buik” was rediscovered among the papers of his descendant Sir James Foulis of Woodhall and published under the auspices of the Bannatyne Club in 1829, that historians were able to trace the story of Bannatyne and his manuscripts in any depth. The first printing of the Bannatyne MS in its entirety came quite late, with the Hunterian Club’s edition of 1896, but there have been other printings since, and the MS has lost none of its fascination for historians and literary scholars. For all its idiosyncrasies, the Bannatyne MS remains, along with the contemporary Maitland MSS, one of the most valuable literary compilations in Scotland’s history. Without the efforts of George Bannatyne and his circle of friends and family during those uncertain plague-ridden months in 1568, our knowledge of the state of literature in Britain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries would be much darker.

“Heir endis this buik, writtin in tyme of pest, 

Quhen we fra labor was compeld to rest

Into the thre last monethis of the year,

Frome oure Redimaris birth, to knaw it heir,

Ane thowsand is, fyve hundreth, threscoir awcht;

Off this purpoiss namair it neiddis be tawcht,

Swa till conclude, God grant ws all gude end,

And eftir deth eternall lyfe ws send.”

National Library of Scotland Digitisation

Hunterian Club Edition (x) (x) (x) (x)

Scottish Texts Society Edition

 ‘Memorials of George Bannatyne’ (includes extracts from the Memorial Book)

Notes and References:

* The actual word used for William Fisher is ‘eme’, in contrast to the word ‘uncle’ which is used for George Taillefeir. I may have to do some more digging to establish the exact relationship, but as ‘eme’ usually (though not always) meant uncle I had to go with that for now.

** Without wanting to bore the reader TOO much (and I am aware of how long the above post is) I also wanted to raise a question of my own about where the MS. might have been written in the hopes that someone might be able to help. This question may be the result of a gap in my reading but try as I might I can find no textual reference to the MS. having been compiled in a ‘country retreat’, as the N.L.S., Evelyn S. Newlyn, and others state. All I can find is William Tod Ritchie’s comment that a ‘local tradition’ in Angus claims that the book was written in the north-eastern turret of Bannatyne House, Newtyle. This property was obtained by George’s father James in 1562, but it’s not clear that the tower in question was actually in existence in 1568. Otherwise I’ve not been able to find a source for the statement that Bannatyne left Edinburgh for the country during the plague of 1568, though certainly this was something which those inhabitants of medieval and early modern towns who had the means did do (as in Boccacio’s ‘Decameron’). This did occur in Edinburgh in 1568/9 as well, as evidenced by a letter which the Bishop of Orkney sent to his brother-in-law Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston (father of the famous mathematician John Napier) in the same year. In it he recommends that due to Merchiston’s proximity to the Burgh Muir where plague victims were then quarantined, Napier should send his children north or west of the city into the southern Highlands:

“for, be the nummer of seik folk that gais out of the toun, the muir is abill to be ouirspred, and it can not be bot throw the nearness of your place, and the indigence of thame that ar put out, thai sall continewallie repair aboutte your roume, and throu thair conversatioun, infect sum of your servandis, quhairby thai sall precipitat yourself and your children in maist extreme danger; and as I se ye hef foirsene the same for the young folk, quhais bluid is in maist perrell to be infectit first, and therefoir purpois to send thame away to Menteith quhair I wald wiss at God that ye war yourself, without offence of authoritie, or of your band, sua that your housss gat na skaith. Bot yit, Schir, thair is ane midway quhilk ye suld not omit, quhilk is to withdraw you fra that syid of the toun to sum houss upon the north syid of the samin, quairof ye may hef  in borrowing quhen ye sall hef to do, to wit, the Gray-cruik, Innerlethis self, Weirdle, or sic uther placis as ye culd chose within ane myle; quhairinto I wald suppois ye wald be in les danger than in Merchanstoun; and close up your houssis, your grangeis, your barnis and all, and suffer na man cum therin, quhll it plesit God to put ane stay to this grete plage, and in the mean tyme, maid you to live upoun your penny, or on sic thing as comis to you out of the Lennos or Menteith; quhilk, gif ye do not, I se ye will ruine yourself”

In the absence of any evidence of the Bannatynes taking such measures, I would argue that it might still be possible that the MS was written in Edinburgh (in which case one has to wonder if Bannatyne ever witnessed a tenement’s inhabitants singing that popular hit ‘Ane Ballat Maid off the Tyme the Chefe put the Sunne schyne on Leith”). In any case, whether it was written in Angus or Edinburgh or somewhere else entirely, Bannatyne himself testifies that they were unable to go about their business as usual and so he may have found himself stuck in the house with parents, servants, and at least seven siblings- it is unclear whether this was conducive to his work on the manuscript!

Selected References:

- Obviously I consulted all three versions of the MS linked to above, as well as “Memorials of George Bannatyne”, printed by the Bannatyne Club (for the Memorial Book) and also linked above. 

- “Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1528-1557″, edited by J.D. Marwick

- “Memoirs of John Napier of Merchistoun”, by Mark Napier

- “An Urban History of the Plague: Socio-Economic, Political and Medical Impacts in a Scottish Community, 1500-1650″, by Karen Jillings

- “The Bannatyne Manuscript: A Sixteenth Century Poetical Miscellany”, J.T.T. Brown, in the Scottish Historical Review (link)

- “The Bannatyne Manuscript: A Marian Anthology”, A.A. MacDonald in the Innes Review

- “The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland”, Sebastian Verweij

- “The Interaction Between Literature and History in Queen Mary’s Edinburgh: The Bannatyne Manuscript and its Prosopographical Context”, by Theo van Heijnsbergen in “The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History, and Culture Offered to John Durkan”, edited by A.A. MacDonald, Michael Lynch, and Ian B. Cowan.

“The Wryttar to the Reidaris: Editing Practices and Politics in the Bannatyne Manuscript”, by Evelyn S. Newlyn

[kalluun-patangaroa]

SUEDE: THE FAN-ISH INQUISITION

www.nme.com, April 5-7, 1999

You asked and they answered. NME caught up with Suede and put your questions to them.

Day 1 (April 5)

What’s the worst insult anyone’s shouted at you? (Fred Telfer, London)

Mat: “‘Effete southern wankers.’ Someone shouted that repeatedly through our first ever Scottish gig.”

Simon: “I was in the toilet at that gig, and this bloke came up to me and said, ‘Have you seen Sede? I’m going to smash their teeth in.’ I just pretended to be from Scotland. The hard part.”

Brett: “Someone once shouted, ‘You sound like Rod Stewart.'”

Mat: “No, they said, ‘We remember Rod Stewart.'”

Brett: “Oh, that’s it. That was at a time when everyone was into bands like The Wonder Stuff, and we were playing ballads. I think the Scottish crowd thought we were old hat.”

Brett, did your arse ever get sore from hitting it with your tambourine? (Kieren Kelly, Ireland)

Brett: “I used to get a lot of bruising, that’s why I don’t do it any more. I put my aggression into singing these days rather than self-flagellation.”

Are there any songs you wish you’d never written? (Debbie Harding, York)

Brett: “‘Stay Together’. I don’t know why, it’s just not one of my favourites. It was the sole time in our career when one of our records has been successful because of hype. We’ve been accused of that a lot, but that was the only time when it was true. It was just style over content.”

Neil: “I’ve only written three, so I haven’t got much to regret.”

I read somewhere that after you moved out of one of your flats, the council had to have it fumigated. Is that true? And do you like vacuuming as much as Nicky Wire? (Gary Regis, Leicester)

Mat: “That was in The Mirror, wasn’t it?”

Brett: “That’s a bit of an exaggeration. What happened was we were in the middle of a tour, and we finished a gig and I had one too many shandies and a couple of other things, and I was moving house.

“Me and a couple of friends were sitting on my bed while these removal men went around my house throwing things in plastic bags while we were off our tits. It was a bit of a mess when we left, and I apologise to the people who moved in afterwards.

“These days I find vacuuming and washing-up quite therapeutic. I hate having a messy house, it makes me really depressed, so I try to keep my environment clean.”

Which one of you has got the biggest ego? (Softywat, West Sussex)

Brett: “Definitely not me, ha ha. I don’t think any of us has got a big ego, to be honest. It’s another popular misconception about the band. We don’t all need to be pampered, none of us are that fragile. Possibly a few years ago, I had a bit of one, but I think I’ve managed to chip away at that. I don’t feel particularly ego-driven any more.”

If you could stick pins in a voodoo doll of anybody on earth, who would it be? (Kirsty Irving, Grimsby)

Brett: “I don’t have any bad intentions to anyone really. I think when you have bad intentions to other people, you’re just looking for someone else to blame for where you’ve gone wrong with your life. It’s just a coward’s way out, and I try not to entertain thoughts like that. So, nobody.”

What were the first records you bought? (Emily Mugford, Chertsey)

Richard: “My first record was ‘Thriller’ by Michael Jackson. I think I was about six.”

Brett: “‘Never Mind The Bollocks…’ by the Sex Pistols was the first album I bought, and the first single was ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush.”

Mat: “I think it was ‘Abba – The Album’. The one with ‘Thank You For The Music’ on it, anyway.”

Neil: “Mine was ‘Another Brick In The Wall (Part Two)’.”

Brett: “Woah, what a record!”

Mat: “What a youngster!”

Neil: “I thought it was amazing.”

Brett: “I loved the video with all the kids and that. I used to have the sleeve painted on my wall. The headmaster.”

Simon: “Ever? David Bowie, ‘Low’. Shall I tell you why? I thought he was a punk, because he had orange hair. I then went out and bought ‘Never Mind The Bollocks…’ after that.”

Brett, were you good at games at school? (Clint Stone, Yeovil) 

Brett: “Yeah, I was actually. When you’re young, sport is really important, or at least it was at my school. I held the school record for the 800m for a couple of years. I was a good middle-distance runner. I used to play for the county at football as well.

“It was the only way to avoid getting beaten up. All the bullies tended to leave the kids who were good at sport alone, and not take them into the corner of the field and kick shit out of them. I fancied being an athlete when I was a kid, and then what happens, you get into cigarettes and girls and pop music, and you just end up a fat bloated fool.”

Which member of Suede can drink the most beer? (Mike Crisp, Brighton)

Mat: “Richard, probably.”

Richard: “I don’t think so.”

Brett: “Well, you’re the one who regularly empties their mini-bar wherever we go. Even if we’ve got day rooms. He brushes his teeth with vodka, he does.”

Richard: “Not really.”

Brett: “Well, yes. Who are you trying to kid? This is the man who has a bar in his bag. You sit in the back of a taxi with him and when you get out there’s glasses littered everywhere. That’s no exaggeration. After the pubs shut, you don’t try to find a dodgy offie, you just look in Richard‘s bag. That’s the truth, Mate.”

Simon: “He drinks anything, him.”

What do you say to NME’s editor, who recently included you alongside Ocean Colour Scene, Cast and Reef in a list of bands who “have nothing to say” (NME, April 3)? (Dave Thorley, Shropshire)

Brett: “I don’t think it’s true, to be honest.”

Mat: “There’s always this assumption that if you have something to say, you have to say it in terms of politics and social conditions.”

Brett: “I totally agree. When we’re in places like Germany, we’re always asked, ‘Why are you not political?’ and my answer to that is always the same. If you don’t understand the politics of the songs, then you haven’t looked into them. The songs aren’t flag-waving, they’re more subtle than that.

“I think I’m getting more interested in the music as I’m getting older, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I don’t think you lose that fire for life. As long as you’re inspired and have a real passion and rage for your music, that’s something to say in itself. That’s not a cop-out, that’s just how I feel about music and the band.”

Brett, you’re always photographed wearing a silver bracelet. Who gave it to you? (Samantha Jones, London)

Brett: “It was from a fan, actually. Someone sent it to me for my birthday. It’s just a cheap, silver-plated one, but I like it. I’m quite superstitious, and I wear a lot of my jewellery for that reason. This bracelet is a perfect example, it’s been quite lucky. I wrote lots of the album wearing it, so it’ll continue to be on my wrist until something goes wrong.”

When was the last time you cried, and why? (Gontie Tommy, Belgium)

Brett: “I think the last film that I cried at was Watership Down when I was young. The closing scene was really fucking sad.

“My sister used to read books to me, she liked reading to me so much she used to pay me 2p an hour to listen. She’d read stuff like Watership Down and Lord Of The Rings, and I’d cry at that too.”

Simon: “I don’t think I’ve ever cried while watching a film.”

Brett: “Neil?”

Neil: “Nah.”

Simon: “Oh, he’s a butch lad.”

Day 2 (April 6)

Have you dumbed down your lyrics to the point where they’re patronising to the listener? (Tom Stubbs, Dartford)

Brett: “I don’t think they are patronising. If you want to look for intelligence in lyrics, there’s a lot more of it in simplicity. I think the lyrics to our new album are a lot more intelligent than anything on ‘Dog Man Star’.”

Mat: “There’s a difference between dumbing down and being universal. The majority of people who buy Suede records aren’t English, their first language isn’t English.”

Brett: “When you go abroad people are just mystified about what the early stuff is all about. This is an interview for an English music paper, so everyone knows all the cultural reference points, but there’s a whole world out there and I think it’s important to communicate to them as well.

“As I’ve said before, the blueprint for a lot of lyrics on this album came from reading writers I really like, like Camus. His words are just like a simple painting of a triangle or a square or something. There’s nothing clever-clever about them, they’re just there. They describe a situation with a couple of simple brush strokes. That’s what I was trying to do on ‘Head Music’, and if that’s patronising, then sue me.”

What sort of cigarettes do you smoke? (Laura Pike, Aberdeen)

Brett: “Benson & Hedges. It’s always been the same. Mat smokes Silk Cut, but then he doesn’t count.”

If you could be any character in EastEnders, who would it be? (Sarah Glanville, London)

Brett: “I quite like Matthew Rose. I like the real ones P Matthew, Tony, people like that. I can imagine being one of them, they’re in the same sort of age-band. I really like the Mitchells as well.

“Actually, I think I’d be like Phil in the old days. He’s lost the plot a bit as a character since he gave up drink, but I used to love Phil. I’d regularly have dreams about hanging out with him and Grant, and committing various crimes.”

Simon: “I’d be Ian Beale, because I’ve always wanted to own a 50p/’1 shop.”

Brett: “Everyone hates him though, he’s the most hated man in the square.”

Simon: “Suits me.”

Neil: “I’d be Reg Cox (Reg Cox was found dead in the first episode after never speaking a word P EastEnders Ed).”

Richard: “I’d like to be Nick Cotton, but I don’t think I could pull it off. Every time he’s been in it, it’s been great. The time he tried to murder Dot was brilliant.”

Brett: “The best one was when he came back and pretended to be a Christian. That was really sinister. And I love Dot Cotton. Charlie was great as well.”

Tell us about your brown rice diet… (Johnny Robinson, Kettering)

Brett: “I still eat brown rice every morning. You get hooked on it, because it’s just so clean and good for you. I’m really looking after my body at the moment. I spent so many years abusing it, it’s time to give it a break I think.”

Mat: “I met someone at a Super Furry Animals gig who was such a Suede fan he’d started just eating brown rice. I was trying to convince him that you don’t have to do that to be a Suede fan. He should have seen Brett a few minutes earlier, he had a whole load of prawns stuffed into his mouth.”

Brett: “You’ve got to make sure you get the right sort of rice. It can’t just be brown, it’s got to be wholegrain. What I recommend to our fans is go to a standard Indian restaurant and have a fish masala. That’s very nice. I eat like a horse these days. Brown rice just gives you energy.”

Brett, did you ever want to punch Damon Albarn? (Paperback Rioter, Walthamstow)

Brett: “Punch? Nah, I’m not a violent person. Lots of people have had a go at me, but you just have to learn to deal with it because you’re always going to be a target for someone.”

Suede always seem well-groomed. How vain are you? (Jackie Long, Manchester)

Brett: “Personally, I’m pretty vain. You can only afford not to be if you’re really confident about yourself. If you’re always sticking your face in front of a camera and looking like a dog, you try to do something about it, don’t you? I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror just to iron the creases and get rid of stray bits of fluff.

“Simon‘s quite vain. The first thing he does when he gets into a hotel room is unpack his huge case of toiletries. He’s got five different sorts of aftershave, you name it. So actually, he’s the vainest member of the band, and probably the best dressed.”

Simon: “Yes, I’m glad you’ve noticed my Gucci shirt. Mat‘s got the best shoes, though.”

Mat: “They’re from Prada.”

Richard: “They’ve still got that revolting stain on them.”

Mat: “(Sheepishly) Yeah, someone was sick on them. Me, actually.”

Brett, are you still an eco-warrior (A reference to a recently unearthed school essay in which Brett complained about vandals defacing trees)? (Leonard Brown, Portsmouth)

Brett: “Oh God! I was eight years old. Listen, right, all that stuff from my past, anyone who wants to criticise that, I’d like to ask them what they were like when they were that age. When you’re eight years old you’re not boozing and injecting drugs into your eyes, are you? You’re just into stupid things. And no, I’m not an eco-warrior, it’s not something that keeps me awake at night.”

Neil: “He does live in a tree, though.”

Brett: “I have concessions to a green lifestyle, but it’s only buying eco-friendly washing powder. I’m not obsessive about it.”

Is it true you only listen to your own music and surround yourself with people who admire you in obsessive and fanatic ways? (Moa Ranum, Sweden)

Brett: “No, that’s bollocks. A lot of my close friends are into the band, but there are a lot of friends who’ve never heard a Suede song. A lot of our friends are ravers, and the music we make has no connection with their life at all.”

Simon: “My best friend in Scotland hates us.”

Brett: “I don’t think we’re that fragile that we need a load of people telling us we’re great. I think we’ve grown out of that to be honest.”

Day 3 (April 7)

Does Neil like antiques? (Purple Girl, England)

Neil: “I’m glad you asked me that. Not really, and I hate watching The Antiques Roadshow. It’s always shown in the winter on Sunday evenings, and it’s really depressing. It’s always dark outside. It’s so English, and it’s all part of that dreary idea of what it is to be English. It’s really parochial, seedy, it’s all about poking your nose into someone else’s business.”

People bully me at school for liking Suede. What should I say to defend myself? (Barry Beautiful One, Carlisle)

Brett: “Tell them they’re the cowards. If they have to persecute someone to make their own lives seem better then that’s pathetic. Tell them we’re going to go up to their school and get them.

“I don’t know, when you’re into music at school it says a lot about your identity and personality, and a lot of it was about getting into trouble with other people. You have to break an egg to make an omelette, don’t you?”

Your life depends on collaborating musically with either Damon Albarn or Bernard Butler. Which one do you choose? (Derek Brodie, Manchester)

Mat: “Well, we’ve done one of them, so it would have to be Damon.”

Brett: “What song would we do? We’d probably do a cover of ‘I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts’.”

Mat: “In a ragga stylee.”

Simon: “He’ll probably phone us up now and demand to know how we knew what he was working on.”

Have Suede become a parody of themselves? (John Rickleford, Kent)

Brett: “Not at all. Part of being in a band is being a parody. I don’t think anyone will listen to ‘Head Music’ and think it’s a parody of Suede. I think what we’ve done on it is develop the sound of the band, but keep to the heart of what Suede‘s all about.

“It’s true that there are certain constants in Suede‘s world that we go back to, but there’s a fine line between repetition and just having a lexicon of words to fall back on. Sometimes I fall the wrong side of it, but I like to have a palette of words that I use, like an artist has a style. That’s part of what makes Suede what they are.”

[onceuponaseriesrewatch]

Once Upon a Series Rewatch Press Release--5x6 The Bear and the Bow

5x6 The Bear and the Bow

Synopsis: In a Camelot flashback, a chance encounter with Merlin, David, Hook and Belle gives Merida new hope in her quest to save her brothers from the usurping clans of DunBroch. Unwilling to leave anything up to fate, Merida brings Belle along on a dangerous journey that culminates with an invaluable lesson in bravery. In Storybrooke, Regina, Mary Margaret and David discover the spell that would allow one of Merlin’s chosen to communicate with him, but when Arthur fails to reach the missing sorcerer the heroes grow suspicious. Meanwhile, Emma commands Merida to kill Belle in hopes of forcing Mr. Gold’s heroic transformation. With Merida unable to disobey Emma’s orders, Gold must find the courage to fight for Belle’s life or risk losing her forever.

Written by: Tze Chun, Andrew Chambliss

Directed by: Ralph Hemecker

Starring: Ginnifer Goodwin (Snow White / Mary Margaret Blanchard); Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan); Lana Parilla (Evil Queen / Regina Mills); Josh Dallas (Prince Charming / David Nolan); Emilie de Ravin (Belle French); Colin O’Donoghue (Captain Killian ‘Hook’ Jones); Jared Gilmore (Henry Mills); Rebecca Mader (Zelena); Sean Maguire (Robin Hood); Robert Carlyle (Rumplestiltskin / Mr. Gold)

Guest Starring: Liam Garrigan (King Arthur); Elliot Knight (Merlin); Amy Manson (Merida); Sinqua Walls (Sir Lancelot); Joana Metrass (Queen Guinevere); Paul Telfer (Lord Macintosh); Marco D’Angelo (Lord Macguffin); Josh Hallem (Lord Dingwall); Ingrid Torrance (severe nurse); Colton Barnert (brother #1); Jordan Olson (brother #2); Matthew Olson (brother #3); McKenna Grace (young Emma Swan); Tom MacNeill (peasant); Peter Marcin (Chief Bromden (mop patient)

The Bear and the Bow airs September 15 at 9:00 pm EST

[scotianostra]

Telfer Wall, Heriot Place

As you walk around the ancient city of Edinburgh you might notice several sections of a fortified wall that seem slightly out of place in relation to the other buildings that stand alongside them.

Most people only make it onto the steps at The Vennel to get the selfie pic with the castle in the background, I did that today too and will cover it in another post when I talk about the Flodden Wall.

This part of the wall is the "newer" section  was constructed circa 1628-36 to enclose land that had been acquired by the town council, including the land now occupied by George Heriot's School and land south of Greyfriars Churchyard, close to the old Royal Infirmary.

The Telfer Wall, named after its mason, John Tailfer or Tailefer, was essentially an extension of the Flodden Wall. The Telfer Wall was also built of a local sandstone, but the blocks used in its random rubble construction are of a different colour and tend to be larger than those used in the Flodden Wall.

The first Port (gateway) in the wall from Edinburgh Castle where the wall started, was the West Port the road from the west into the Grassmarket at the foot of the Vennel Steps. West Port is more famous, or infamous nowadays for it's strip bars nicknamed the "Pubic Triangle" It was also the area that Burke & Hare lived.

The second Port on the wall was the Bristo Port which stood at what is now Forrest Road a plaque denotes its position, the next gateway was Potterrrow Port which would have stood at the south west corner of Edinburgh University building across Lothian Street.

The next Port was the Kow gate (Cowgate Port) which stood from the pleasance to St Mary's Wynd (Street) at the end of the Cowgate. The Main Port into Edinburgh the Nether Bow Port was next at the foot of the High Street and the final port was Leith Wynd Port that stood next to Trinity College Church which was at the edge of the Nor Loch.  Below the Calton Hill in line with the Governor's House.

The most famous gate was at the bottom of The High Street and called The Netherbow Port. If you ever venture down there look for the brass plates on the road denoting where is was. The World's End takes it's name from this gate, for some, if you went out into Canongate it was the end of their world, as far as the people of Edinburgh were concerned, the world outside the walls was no longer theirs.

[newscheckz]

Former Rugby Sevens Captain Inducted Into World Rugby Of Fame

New Post has been published on https://newscheckz.com/former-rugby-sevens-captain-inducted-into-world-rugby-of-fame/

Former Rugby Sevens Captain Inducted Into World Rugby Of Fame

Former Shujaa Sevens Captain, Humphrey Khayange  will be inducted into Rugby wall of fame 2021. This has been announced today by the World Rugby.

The Hall of Fame for rugby recognizes the players who have made an outstanding contribution in the rugby game throughout their careers. This includes demonstrating rugby’s character-building values of integrity, passion, solidarity, discipline and respect on and off the field.

Kayange, who has been inducted number 150, became a history maker with his Shujaa teammates when they lifted their first ever Rugby Sevens Cup Final victory in Singapore in 2016.

He appeared in the commonwealth games of 2014 and 2010.

He finished his career on the World Series as Kenya’s third highest points scorer in sevens, was also part of the panel that helped Rugby Sevens become an Olympic sport.

The other five legends inducted alongside him are Osea Kolinisau (Fiji), Huriana Manuel-Carpenter (New Zealand), Cheryl McAfee (Australia), Will Carling (England) and Jim Telfer (Scotland).

[90jeduardo-blog]

https://www.thedodo.com/close-to-home/cat-tries-to-knock-down-tree-hanging-from-wall The Dodo Random Horse Wanders Into Guy's House And Makes Herself At Home No big deal 💅 BY STEPHEN MESSENGER PUBLISHED ON 12/05/2019 HORSESNEW ZEALAND The neighborly spirit is clearly alive and well in the town of Dunedin, New Zealand. Just ask this friendly local horse named Sharq. Ben Telfer-Hynes The other day, Sharq slipped away from her owner’s place to take a stroll around the neighborhood. What sort of adventures she had along the way is anyone’s guess, but we do know where she ended up. Sharq concluded her journey by strolling into a stranger’s house — where she quickly made herself at home. But what’s more remarkable, perhaps, is how casually Sharq was received. Here’s a Facebook post from the homeowner who suddenly found himself playing host to a horse: Imgur/geekgoat Despite having taken quite a few liberties as an uninvited guest, Sharq had found someone willing to make her part of his family if she needed one. Thanks to that post, however, Sharq's owner Ben Telfer-Hynes was alerted to what his horse had done. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that surprising. "She’s actually an inside horse, so it was no shock to me when I saw she was lurking inside this man's home," Telfer-Hynes told The Dodo. "I’m so glad that she was able to find such a lovely place to reside for a short while." Ben Telfer-Hynes The horse was safely returned to her proper residence without incident, but the story of her adventure that day isn't entirely inconsequential. It proves that in the town of Dunedin, New Zealand, a stranger is more like a friend you just haven't met yet. And the same holds true for neighbors who say "neigh." . . . . . #memes #meme #momos #cats #momos #fun #funny #dogs #dog #cheezburguer #lol #LMAO #cat #LMFAO https://www.instagram.com/p/B55yTJPFFuo/?igshid=17ojmg5e9dr3s

[cdmscotland]

Building firm fined £900,000 after fatal wall collapse

Building firm fined £900,000 after fatal wall collapse

A company has been fined £900,000 after the death of an employee who died from head injuries when a wall collapsed on a construction site at Lyme Regis.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how, on 2 June 2015, Thomas Telfer was working as a bricklayer employed by Capstone Building Ltd, when he was struck by falling masonry after a retaining wall failed as it was being back filled with concrete.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found that the company had failed to appropriately manage the work that was being carried out at the site at Chatterton Heights, Lyme Regis and failed to ensure the health, safety and welfare of employees on site, including Thomas Telfer.

Capstone building Limited, which is in administration, were found guilty after a trial to breaching Section 2 and Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc Act 1974, were £900,000 and ordered to pay costs of £60,336.99.

The firm’s sole director, Stephen Ayles, of Lomond Drive, Weymouth, was found not guilty of the same charges.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Ian Whittles said: “This tragic incident could so easily have been avoided if the appropriate measures were in place to provide a safe working practice.

“Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards.”

[prabs22]

Facts About Matt Damon

Find out more about Matt Damon, who is an actor, screenwriter, producer and philanthropist

Bio

Matt Damon was born on October 8, 1970. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. His parents are Kent Telfer Damon and Nancy Carlsson-Paige. He has an older brother named Kyle Damon.

Family Background

Damon’s father is a stockbroker and his mother are an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. His older brother Kyle is a sculptor and artist by profession. His father belongs to an English and Scottish Ancestry whereas his father belongs to a Finnish and Swedish descent. Damon lived with his mother as their parents divorced at the age of two years old.

Physical Stats

Matt’s height is 5 feet and 10 inches. He has an athletic build with weight around 84 kilograms. His chest size is 43 inches, waist size is 32 inches and biceps size are 15 inches. His Blue eyes and Brown hair make him even more attractive.

Wife and Kids

Damon’s wife is Luciana Bozan Barroso. He married Luciana in 2005 after dating for two years. The couple have three daughters. Furthermore, he also has a step-daughter.

Awards Received

Matt Damon has won 27 awards out of the 94 nominations he received. He won 1 Academy Award, two Golden Globe Award, one American Cinematheque Award, 1 Awards Circuit Community Award, two Berlin International Film Festival Awards, 1 Blockbuster Entertainment Award, 1 Chicago Film Critics Association, Two Empire Awards, 1 Florida Film Critics Circle Award, 1 Humanities Prize, 2 Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award, 3 National Board of Review and one Online Film Critics Society.

List of Movies

·         Mystic Pizza        

·         The Good Mother            

·         Field of Dreams

·         School Ties          

·         Geronimo: An American Legend

·         Glory Daze          

·         Courage Under Fire        

·         Chasing Amy

·         The Rainmaker

·         Good Will Hunting

·         Saving Private Ryan        

·         Rounders

·         Dogma

·         The Talented

·         Titan A.E.

·         The Legend of Bagger

·         Finding Forrester            

·         All the Pretty Horses      

·         Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back    

·         Ocean's Eleven  

·         The Majestic      

·         Gerry    

·         Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron    

·         The Third Wheel

·         The Bourne Identity        

·         Confessions of a Dangerous Mind            

·         Stuck on You      

·         EuroTrip              

·         Jersey Girl          

·         The Bourne Supremacy

·         Ocean's Twelve

·         Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

·         Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D

·         The Brothers Grimm      

·         Syriana Bryan

·         The Good Shepherd

·         Ocean's Thirteen

·         The Bourne Ultimatum

·         Youth Without Youth      

·         Running the Sahara

·         Che: Part Two    

·         Ponyo  

·         The Informant!

·         Invictus

·         Green Zone        

·         Hereafter            

·         True Grit              

·         Inside Job            

·         The Adjustment Bureau

·         Contagion          

·         Margaret            

·         Happy Feet Two              

·         We Bought a Zoo              

·         Promised Land  

·         Behind the Candelabra

·         Elysium

·         The Zero Theorem          

·         The Monuments Men    

·         The Man Who Saved the World  

·         Interstellar

·         The Martian      

·         Jason Bourne

·         The Great Wall  

·         Downsizing        

·         Suburbicon        

·         Thor: Ragnarok

·         Unsane

·         Ford v Ferrari

·         Jay and Silent Bob Reboot

[courtneytincher]

Check Out China's Alamo: How Just a Small Amount of Troops Took on a Japanese Army

The Sino-Japanese War of 1937 had begun in a haphazard manner. Throughout the 1930s the Japanese military, imbued with an aggressive “samurai” spirit and rabid ultra nationalism, gained the upper hand in Japanese politics. On October 27, 1937, the Zhabei district of Shanghai began to burn, an enormous conflagration that stretched for five miles and filled the northern horizon from end to end, almost as far as the eye could see. The orange-yellow flames greedily consumed buildings and their contents, finishing the destruction already begun after three months of intense fighting between the Chinese and Japanese armies. Thick coils of smoke reached 3,000 feet into the air, obscuring the skies of central China. It was a spectacle never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it—the funeral pyre of a great city.Some of the fires came from the fighting, but most had been deliberately set to cover the Chinese Army’s retreat. The outnumbered Chinese had resisted gallantly, but many units now were reduced to mere shadows of themselves. When word came that the Japanese had gained ground outside the city and were threatening the Chinese flank, there was no other choice but to withdraw.One unit was deliberately left behind, entrenched around a concrete warehouse just opposite the International Settlement. The officers and men of the 524th Regiment, 88th Division, knew only too well that their mission was suicidal, that they were being sacrificed to showcase Chinese courage, but they accepted their fate stoically. Their ordeal, which had started on October 26, would continue for another four days of brutal fighting, and the defense of Sihang Warehouse would rivet the attention of the world, with the American press quickly dubbing it “the Chinese Alamo.”Recommended: China's H-6K: The 'Old' Bomber That Could 'Sink' the U.S. NavyRecommended: Why an F-22 Raptor Would Crush an F-35 in a 'Dogfight'Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)The Impromptu Sino-Japanese War of 1937The Sino-Japanese War of 1937 had begun in a haphazard manner. Throughout the 1930s the Japanese military, imbued with an aggressive “samurai” spirit and rabid ultra nationalism, gained the upper hand in Japanese politics. In 1932 the Japanese seized Manchuria, China’s rich northern province, and set up an “independent” government under the last emperor of China, Henry Pu Yi. It was a transparent ploy, mere window dressing to cover naked aggression, and few nations in the world community were fooled by it. The major powers, however, particularly Great Britain and the United States, were too preoccupied by the deepening economic depression to do more than lodge a few feeble and ultimately ineffectual protests.China was in turmoil in the 1930s, torn asunder by Japanese aggression from without and internal dissension from within. The country was ruled by the Nationalist Party under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang was a pragmatic soldier-politician whose main obsession was the destruction of the Communists under Mao Zedong. To Chiang, Mao and his followers were like a deadly disease infecting the Chinese body politic. Chiang’s Communist preoccupation was a godsend to Japanese militarists. After 1932 there was a series of incidents between the Chinese and Japanese, with the Chinese usually granting concessions and territory to the aggressors. Having digested Manchuria, Japan was still ravenous, nibbling away at the rest of China throughout the decade.On July 7, 1937, a Japanese soldier went missing near Beijing. Eventually, the soldier returned unharmed (reports said he had been visiting a brothel). But local Japanese officers, always ready to find a pretext for open aggression, demanded restitution for the alleged kidnapping. If the usual pattern had held true, the Chinese would have granted more concessions, territory, or whatever else the Japanese wanted. But this time the Chinese flatly refused—a line had been drawn in the sand.Intense fighting between the two sides broke out and quickly escalated into a major conflict. The Japanese soon occupied Beijing and large parts of northern China. The 1937 war was entirely unplanned, but, once begun, the Japanese were confident it would be a quick one. They hoped so. More than anything, the Japanese military did not want to be drawn south, because just across China’s northern borders lay the Soviet Union, which the Japanese rightly considered a deadly enemy.The Generalissimo’s ArmyChiang Kai-shek had other plans. The great Yangtze River of central China nourished the heartland of the nation and the center of its developing economy. China’s economic and political capitals, Shanghai and Nanking, were located there. Chinese troops in Shanghai had fought the Japanese to a standstill in 1932; Chiang had every reason to believe he could repeat their performance. As a first step, he began pouring troops into Shanghai, including the crack 87th and 88th Divisions. German equipped and trained—they even wore the distinctive steel helmets soon to be familiar in World War II—the Chinese troops were elite forces who proudly bore the title, “the Generalissimo’s Own.”The Chinese Nationalist Army—formally titled the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China—was a juggernaut on paper, boasting some 1.7 million men. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Chinese Army was made up of of semi-illiterate peasants who were poorly uniformed, trained, and equipped. Only around 300,000 men, some 40 divisions, were sufficiently equipped and trained to have a fighting chance against the ramrod-stiff Japanese Army. Of these, some 80,000 were members of the Generalissimo’s Own.In the mid-1930s, Shanghai was the richest, most progressive, and most decadent city in Asia. The city’s core was dominated by foreigners, a legacy of China’s troubled past. The International Settlement was ruled by a British-dominated Municipal Council, hard-headed businessmen whose primary interest lay in making a profit. The nearby French Concession was ruled as an out-and-out colonial possession of France and generally conveyed a kind of Gallic aloofness. Greater Shanghai was ruled by Chiang’s central government. When the war broke out, it was Greater Shanghai that was to see the bulk of the fighting.The International Settlement figured prominently in Chiang’s overall plans. The Chinese could attack the Japanese garrison at Shanghai’s Honkou district, which was small and vulnerable. A success at the Settlement’s very doorstep would underscore China’s strength and resolution in the face of Japanese aggression. There was even the possibility that the western powers, particularly Great Britain and the United States, would intervene on China’s behalf. Accordingly, Chiang began pouring troops into the Shanghai region, including the elite 87th and 88th Divisions. Soon, there were upward of 50,000 Chinese soldiers in position. Consternation reined in the Japanese high command; they had no wish to be drawn into central China when northern operations were still in full swing. But the Chinese, as Chiang intended, had forced their hand.The Battle of ShanghaiOn August 12, Colonel Charles F.B. Price of the U.S. 4th Marine Regiment conferred with American Consul-General Clarence Gauss and British Brig. Gen. Alexander Telfer-Smollett about the looming Shanghai crisis. At the same time, the Shanghai Municipal Council mobilized the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and formally requested support from the British and American garrisons. Under a long-standing arrangement, code-named Plan A, British troops from the Shanghai Area Force and American marines would man a defensive perimeter along the Settlement’s borders. The Suzhou Creek border was of particular concern, because Zhabei, the Chinese district just beyond, had been the scene of brief but bloody fighting in 1932. Because the water table was only a foot or two below Shanghai streets, trenches could not be dug, and millions of sandbags had to be trucked into the area. Barbed wire was strung and sandbags stacked to form blockhouses, walls, and machine-gun emplacements. As marines and tommies moved into position, thousands of Chinese civilians poured over the bridges spanning Suzhou Creek, seeking refuge from the inevitable clash. Once the perimeter was manned, it was simply a matter of watching and waiting for the Japanese to appear.The wait proved to be a short one. Around 9 am on August 13, Chinese troops exchanged small-arms fire with Japanese units. The Japanese responded in kind, and the Chinese 88th Division retaliated with heavy mortar attacks. Japanese Admiral Kioshi Hasegawa’s Third Fleet vessels, which were on station in the Yangtze and Whangpoo Rivers, opened up with thunderous salvos. The Battle of Shanghai had begun.On August 14, the Chinese began a major offensive, an attack that was designed to push the Japanese into the Whangpoo River. They almost succeeded. The outnumbered Japanese were mainly bluejackets and marines from the Special Naval Landing Force. It seemed as if the modern-day samurai were about to be humiliated at the hands of the despised Chinese. To be defeated in battle, and to have that defeat witnessed by the Western powers, was too much for the Japanese to bear. Soon, massive help was on the way. The Shanghai Expeditionary Army, under General Iwane Matsui, was assembled and sent to China immediately. It was a powerful force, built around the 3rd and 11th Divisions and totaling some 300,000 men, 300 guns, 200 aircraft, and the powerful presence of the Japanese Imperial Navy. The expeditionary forces made successful amphibious landings along the northeast coast at Boashan and elsewhere, and in so doing lengthened the battlefront. It now extended from Shanghai’s city center, down the length of the Whangpoo, finally ending at the northeast coast area where the river emptied into the mighty Yangtze.The newly landed expeditionary force tipped the balance in favor of the Japanese. Because the battle front had widened, Chiang was forced to send troops to other locations. The Chinese offensive, poised on the very brink of success, ground to a halt. Superior Japanese weaponry also began to make itself felt, particularly artillery fire, tanks, and aerial bombardment. Ten Chinese soldiers died for every Japanese, but the Chinese refused to be broken. For some units, casualty rates of 1,000 an hour were not uncommon.A War “Between Races”The battle for Shanghai became a slaughterhouse, a stalemate that conjured memories of Verdun and the Somme. ”It was no longer,” a witness said, “a war between armies, but between races. With mounting fury the two giants sprang at each other’s throat.” The Chinese held out for the next three months, and the fighting was particularly heavy at Zhabei, just across from the International Settlement. The Settlement was a kind of neutral zone, where foreign reporters could observe the battle from relative safety. American journalist Emily Hahn and friends would go to the tower room atop the Cathay Hotel and watch the battle while sipping cocktails before dinner. Others congregated atop the Park Hotel and other such establishments, viewing the spectacle as if it were some Fourth of July pageant staged for their benefit.Guests were warned not to go onto hotel roofs because shrapnel and bomb fragments were always peppering the air. Since the Chinese still held Nantao, on the other side of the Settlement and the French Concession, Japanese artillery would risk an international incident by arcing shells over the foreign-held area, a distance of some four miles. Settlement residents became inured to the once-frightening sound of shells going over their roofs, which one woman likened to the sounds of a freight train.By the end of October, the Chinese Army was being bled white, but the stalemate continued. The Japanese concentrated their effort at Dachang, a little village six miles northwest of Shanghai proper and a key point in the Chinese line. Some 700 Japanese artillery pieces opened up, followed by massive air raids by 150 bombers. Smashed beyond recognition, the little “chicken village,” so named because it supplied much of Shanghai’s poultry needs, fell to the enemy on October 25.Fortifying the Chinese Mint GodownOnce there was a breach in the defense line, the Chinese flank was exposed. There was nothing to do but retreat in good order, withdrawing behind the south bank of Suzchou Creek as rapidly as possible. That meant abandoning the positions in Zhabei that had been held at such a huge cost in blood and treasure. Whole sections of the Zhabei district were in ruins, and shell-cratered streets and skeletal buildings reeked with the stench of smoke, cordite, and decomposing bodies.Chiang Kai-shek was a realist, but he was loath to abandon Shanghai. He knew that a Nine-Power Conference was going to convene in Brussels on November 6, and he still retained hope that Western interests would intervene. China had to show that it was worthy of help, so another sacrifice must be made. A rear guard would hold out as long as possible, simultaneously demonstrating Chinese courage and buying time for the main army to escape.His mind made up, Chiang ordered General Gu Zhutong to leave the 88th Division behind as a rear guard. Gu thought this was a terrible waste of one of China’s best units, which already was decimated by three months of fighting. Nor did General Sun Yuanliang, the 88th’s commander, want to see the whole division sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. It was finally agreed that a single regiment of the 88th would be left behind, while the rest of the division would be allowed to retire and regroup.The forlorn task was given to the 524th Regiment, which was posted near some of the heaviest fighting at the North Railway Station. Lt. Col. Xie Jinyuan volunteered to command the regiment in its suicidal mission. After some hurried consultations, it was decided that Sihang Warehouse would be the spot where the 524th’s last stand would take place. This was a six-story warehouse that had been a joint venture by four banks (in Chinese “Sihang” means “Four Banks”). Westerners knew the place as the Chinese Mint Godown.It was an ugly, strictly utilitarian structure, but its thick, reinforced concrete walls were perfect for defense. The warehouse was literally on the edge of Suzchou Creek, the meandering waterway that separated Chinese Shanghai from the foreign-controlled International Settlement. British troops sheltering behind their sandbagged defenses had a grandstand seat for the coming battle. The warehouse was on Tibet Road, which continued on into the International Settlement across the New Lese Bridge that spanned Suzchou Creek.Xie placed his troops with care. Makeshift fortifications were created just outside the warehouse building, consisting mainly of sandbags and sacks of corn, beans, and other goods that had been stored there. First Company took up positions on the left, along Tibet Road, while Third Company was stationed on the road to the right, just opposite the Bank of Communications building. Second Company fanned out to protect the warehouse’s other three sides. Two heavy machine guns were placed on the roof, and other machine guns were distributed among the defenders on the ground.The Japanese Launch Their First AssaultsWhen the Japanese realized the enemy was in full retreat, they cautiously probed forward. By 1 pm on October 27, advance elements were approaching the vicinity of the warehouse. After some preliminary exchange of fire, a Japanese company attacked the warehouse from the west. They were met by determined resistance from Third Company. At one point, some 70 Japanese soldiers took shelter in a blind spot just to the southwest. It was indeed a blind spot—but only to defenders on the ground. Chinese soldiers on the roof spotted the cluster of Japanese and lobbed grenades down on their heads. Seven Japanese soldiers were killed and another 20 wounded from this deadly “rain.” Captain Shi Meihao, commander of Third Company, was shot in the face during the fighting, but refused to relinquish command. Although blood was coursing down his face and soaking his uniform, he refused to withdraw until he was wounded again, this time in the leg.The first Japanese assault was a failure, but before calling it a day, they set fire to the northwest corner of the warehouse; the defenders managed to put out the flames. About 9 pm, Xie, believing there would be no more Japanese attacks, ordered the men to cook dinner and repair fortifications. Two defenders had been killed and four wounded, while Japanese losses had been about 20 killed and an unknown number of wounded. The Sihang defenders faced the Japanese 3rd Division, considered one of the best of the Imperial Japanese Army. They also had mortar teams, artillery, and armor—probably Type 94 Te-Ke tankettes. The battle on October 27 was just an overture to the coming symphony of destruction.The morning of October 28 saw the skies filled with the steady drone of aircraft engines—Japanese bombers flew overhead, but after a couple of aborted passes they were forced to return to their base. Sihang Warehouse was simply too near the International Settlement to risk full-scale bombing. The last thing the Japanese wanted was to blow up Western observers and cause an international incident. The Japanese also wanted to use mustard gas, but they were being watched too closely by Western newsmen and British soldiers to get away with it.At 8 am, Xie inspected the defenses and gave impromptu pep talks to his men. It was during one such roof inspection tour that a party of Japanese soldiers was seen creeping along Suzhou Creek. Xie interrupted his speech, grabbed a rifle, and took aim at one of the distant enemy soldiers. Drawing a bead, he pulled the trigger with a steady hand. A second later, a Japanese soldier fell into the rubble.The Japanese occupied the Bank of Communications building and launched a heavy assault on the west side. Chinese rifle and machine-gun fire sprayed lead into the oncoming brown-uniformed masses, but they refused to yield. The attack finally broke off after two hours. The Japanese had gained little, but did manage to cut off the warehouse’s water and electricity.The warehouse was now flanked on three sides, but the fourth side—the side that faced Suzchou Creek and the British Royal Fusiliers’ positions in the Settlement—was left conspicuously open. The British also kept the New Lese Bridge open, which was a possible escape route for the beleaguered defenders. When Japanese soldiers tried to creep in on the fourth side, British tommies on the opposite bank trained their Lee-Enfield rifles at them. The Japanese got the message; they withdrew, and the fourth side remained open.The “Lost Battalion”Normally there were over 1 million Chinese residents in the International Settlement, but their numbers had been swollen by hundreds of thousands of refugees. News of the heroic last stand was spread by radio reports and word of mouth. Soon, thousands of ordinary Chinese citizens, protected by the Settlement’s neutrality, could watch the battle unfold before their eyes. It became a kind of bizarre sporting event, with Chinese spectators crowding Suzchou Creek’s banks to cheer on the defenders. At times an estimated 30,000 Chinese joined British soldiers and other Westerners to watch the show. When the crowds saw a Japanese movement, they would pass on the information to the defenders via enormous message signs in characters large enough to be read from a distance.Whenever the Japanese had a setback or the defenders gained a temporary upper hand, loud cheers would erupt from the watching crowds. But support was more than visual. More than 10 truckloads of supplies were donated to help the men besieged in the warehouse. Food, fruit, clothing, utensils, and even personal letters were delivered under cover of night. Xie also arranged with British officers to evacuate the wounded to the safety of the International Settlement.Earlier, a teenaged girl guide named Yang Huimin had been instrumental in passing messages back and forth between the besieged warehouse garrison and the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in the Settlement. On the evening of October 28-29, the brave young woman brought over a national flag, emblem of the Chinese Republic. Because there was no flagpole, two bamboo poles were lashed together for the purpose. The red-and-blue banner was hoisted into place atop the roof, while thousands of Chinese spectators across the creek cheered and shouted, “Long Live the Chinese Republic!”The battle for Sihang Warehouse was fought on two fronts—on the battlefield and in the court of public opinion. It was clear that the Japanese were losing, even as they made gains elsewhere. Foreign journalists, scenting a good story, flocked to Sihang Warehouse to report every detail. The press romantically dubbed the 524th Regiment the “Lost Battalion.”At one point, Xie was asked to produce a list of every man in the garrison. In that way, should they fall, their names would be remembered. But Xie feared the information would eventually fall into Japanese hands. The wily colonel gave out a regimental roster that dated from the beginning of the war, when the regiment numbered some 800 effectives. In reality, the Sihang Warehouse was defended by only 411 men, including 16 officers.When Japanese Admiral Tadeo Honda was interviewed by foreign newsmen, he grudgingly called the defenders “more or less heroes.” Oddly enough, all the phone lines into the warehouse remained intact, and defenders could call out at any time. The Japanese issued an ultimatum: surrender or be wiped out. Xie was unimpressed. In a message to his superior, General Sun, he radioed defiantly: “Death is an unimportant question. The sacrifice of our lives will not be in vain.”“They Must Die That China Can Live”Infuriated by the continued resistance and particularly the flag-raising ceremony, the Japanese set October 29 as the day for an all-out assault. The eyes of the world were upon them, and they were losing face. They opened with a heavy barrage of light artillery, exploding shell after shell against the warehouse’s concrete sides. Soon, ugly craters appeared on the walls, smudged and blackened with smoke and jagged with twisted reinforcing rods. Concrete rubble was everywhere, and the air was heavy with the stench of cordite and dust.The west side of the building lacked windows, but Japanese shell hits had punched enough gaps into the wall to provide the defenders with loopholes. The Japanese, acting in concert with infantry, then brought forward tankettes. The fighting grew so heavy the Chinese Third Company was pushed back from its position and forced into the warehouse. Japanese infantry came forward with scaling ladders, a curious throwback in an age of mechanized war. The Chinese simply pushed the ladders off or peppered the advancing enemy with rifle and machine-gun fire. Xie personally lent a hand, fighting alongside his men. The Japanese seemed on the brink of success. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and one Chinese defender wrapped grenades around his body and jumped into the midst of a group of Japanese soldiers, detonating the grenades and killing himself and 20 of the enemy. The Japanese attack was beaten back.The Sihang defenders’ morale was high, but the foreign observers in the Settlement had had enough. Misaimed bullets and shell fragments were falling in their midst, and with the battle escalating by the hour, it was feared that the fighting would spill over into the International Settlement. The British offered to broker a peaceful settlement that would end the warehouse siege. General Telfer-Smollett was a key player in the delicate negotiations, but he found his proposals a tough sell. The Chinese flatly refused to withdraw the men. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, American-educated and a power within the Chinese government, said coolly, “They must die that China can live.” The “victory or death” rhetoric surprised and dismayed Western observers.The battle opened again in the early morning hours of October 30. This time the Japanese were not about to squander precious infantry in a headlong frontal assault—they were going to pound the “lost battalion” into submission with artillery. Japanese batteries opened up about 7 am and continued to fire throughout the day. At its greatest intensity, shells were coming literally every second, producing a cacophony that shattered the nerves and numbed the eardrums. Night fell, but the artillery barrage continued without letup. Japanese searchlights stabbed the sky, the probing beams fixing the battered warehouse to provide gunners a better target. The defenders grimly held on, helped by the thick concrete walls and the Japanese reluctance to use heavy artillery or bombs.Withdrawal Under British Covering FireBehind the scenes, Telfer-Smollett was still trying to convince Chiang Kai-shek to let the men retreat from Sihang Warehouse. The Generalissimo finally consented. The main Chinese Army already had successfully withdrawn, and the heroic stand had amply demonstrated Chinese courage to the world. There was no need to fight to the last man. The Japanese commander, General Matsui, agreed to the developing deal, which would allow the Sihang men to retreat into the International Settlement via the New Lese Bridge. There was to be a truce and cease-fire during the withdrawal, which was to start at midnight on November 1.The subsequent withdrawal was marred by bad faith on the part of the Japanese. As the Sihang men left the warehouse and crossed the bridge, the Japanese suddenly opened up with machine-gun fire and artillery, raking the bridge with a hail of lead and forcing the Chinese to run through a gauntlet of fire. This was too much for the Royal Fusiliers, who manned a sandbagged pillbox that anchored and protected the Settlement side of the bridge. The British tommies were emotionally on the Chinese side, and were also tired of taking misguided Japanese fire without a chance to defend themselves. Four British soldiers had already been killed and another six wounded by stray Japanese bullets.The British pillbox gave the Chinese covering fire, although this was strictly against orders and violated the Settlement’s official neutrality. A Japanese machine gun was put out of action by British bullets, and Xie and 376 of his men managed to escape successfully. Telfer-Smollett had been sheltering behind the Chinese Bank during the withdrawal; he now greeted the heroes as they crossed over into the Settlement. Xie was the last to leave the warehouse and the last to cross the bridge into safety. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he accepted accolades from the British soldiers. He had not wanted to leave at all, and only did so under orders. Telfer-Smollett, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, “I have never seen anything greater!”Political Fallout of the “Lost Battalion”Cheated of their prey, the Japanese quickly reneged on the agreement. The “lost battalion” would absolutely not be allowed to retreat though the Settlement and rejoin the main Chinese Army. The Japanese would only consent if the solders left as refugees, abandoning all weapons, including the light and heavy machine guns they had brought with them. Xie flatly refused. Instead, battalion members were forcibly disarmed and interned by the Municipal Council. There was little else Settlement authorities could do, since by the time some 300,000 Japanese troops completely surround the foreign enclave, and the threat of an invasion was very real.Japan engaged in diplomatic temper tantrums for the next week, refusing to attend the Nine-Power Conference and claiming that quantities of fresh food were found in the Sihang Warehouse after the siege. This, they said, was proof that Telfer-Smollett and the British were secretly aiding the Chinese. The British brushed off the allegations, but Japan’s relations with Britain and the United States continued to sour. A Chinese collaborationist government was established at Shanghai, and in April 1941, Xie was assassinated by four of his own soldiers acting as agents of the new government. After the war, an elementary school was renamed in his honor.This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.Image: Wikimedia

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The Sino-Japanese War of 1937 had begun in a haphazard manner. Throughout the 1930s the Japanese military, imbued with an aggressive “samurai” spirit and rabid ultra nationalism, gained the upper hand in Japanese politics. On October 27, 1937, the Zhabei district of Shanghai began to burn, an enormous conflagration that stretched for five miles and filled the northern horizon from end to end, almost as far as the eye could see. The orange-yellow flames greedily consumed buildings and their contents, finishing the destruction already begun after three months of intense fighting between the Chinese and Japanese armies. Thick coils of smoke reached 3,000 feet into the air, obscuring the skies of central China. It was a spectacle never to be forgotten by those who witnessed it—the funeral pyre of a great city.Some of the fires came from the fighting, but most had been deliberately set to cover the Chinese Army’s retreat. The outnumbered Chinese had resisted gallantly, but many units now were reduced to mere shadows of themselves. When word came that the Japanese had gained ground outside the city and were threatening the Chinese flank, there was no other choice but to withdraw.One unit was deliberately left behind, entrenched around a concrete warehouse just opposite the International Settlement. The officers and men of the 524th Regiment, 88th Division, knew only too well that their mission was suicidal, that they were being sacrificed to showcase Chinese courage, but they accepted their fate stoically. Their ordeal, which had started on October 26, would continue for another four days of brutal fighting, and the defense of Sihang Warehouse would rivet the attention of the world, with the American press quickly dubbing it “the Chinese Alamo.”Recommended: China's H-6K: The 'Old' Bomber That Could 'Sink' the U.S. NavyRecommended: Why an F-22 Raptor Would Crush an F-35 in a 'Dogfight'Recommended: Air War: Stealth F-22 Raptor vs. F-14 Tomcat (That Iran Still Flies)The Impromptu Sino-Japanese War of 1937The Sino-Japanese War of 1937 had begun in a haphazard manner. Throughout the 1930s the Japanese military, imbued with an aggressive “samurai” spirit and rabid ultra nationalism, gained the upper hand in Japanese politics. In 1932 the Japanese seized Manchuria, China’s rich northern province, and set up an “independent” government under the last emperor of China, Henry Pu Yi. It was a transparent ploy, mere window dressing to cover naked aggression, and few nations in the world community were fooled by it. The major powers, however, particularly Great Britain and the United States, were too preoccupied by the deepening economic depression to do more than lodge a few feeble and ultimately ineffectual protests.China was in turmoil in the 1930s, torn asunder by Japanese aggression from without and internal dissension from within. The country was ruled by the Nationalist Party under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang was a pragmatic soldier-politician whose main obsession was the destruction of the Communists under Mao Zedong. To Chiang, Mao and his followers were like a deadly disease infecting the Chinese body politic. Chiang’s Communist preoccupation was a godsend to Japanese militarists. After 1932 there was a series of incidents between the Chinese and Japanese, with the Chinese usually granting concessions and territory to the aggressors. Having digested Manchuria, Japan was still ravenous, nibbling away at the rest of China throughout the decade.On July 7, 1937, a Japanese soldier went missing near Beijing. Eventually, the soldier returned unharmed (reports said he had been visiting a brothel). But local Japanese officers, always ready to find a pretext for open aggression, demanded restitution for the alleged kidnapping. If the usual pattern had held true, the Chinese would have granted more concessions, territory, or whatever else the Japanese wanted. But this time the Chinese flatly refused—a line had been drawn in the sand.Intense fighting between the two sides broke out and quickly escalated into a major conflict. The Japanese soon occupied Beijing and large parts of northern China. The 1937 war was entirely unplanned, but, once begun, the Japanese were confident it would be a quick one. They hoped so. More than anything, the Japanese military did not want to be drawn south, because just across China’s northern borders lay the Soviet Union, which the Japanese rightly considered a deadly enemy.The Generalissimo’s ArmyChiang Kai-shek had other plans. The great Yangtze River of central China nourished the heartland of the nation and the center of its developing economy. China’s economic and political capitals, Shanghai and Nanking, were located there. Chinese troops in Shanghai had fought the Japanese to a standstill in 1932; Chiang had every reason to believe he could repeat their performance. As a first step, he began pouring troops into Shanghai, including the crack 87th and 88th Divisions. German equipped and trained—they even wore the distinctive steel helmets soon to be familiar in World War II—the Chinese troops were elite forces who proudly bore the title, “the Generalissimo’s Own.”The Chinese Nationalist Army—formally titled the National Revolutionary Army of the Republic of China—was a juggernaut on paper, boasting some 1.7 million men. Unfortunately, the bulk of the Chinese Army was made up of of semi-illiterate peasants who were poorly uniformed, trained, and equipped. Only around 300,000 men, some 40 divisions, were sufficiently equipped and trained to have a fighting chance against the ramrod-stiff Japanese Army. Of these, some 80,000 were members of the Generalissimo’s Own.In the mid-1930s, Shanghai was the richest, most progressive, and most decadent city in Asia. The city’s core was dominated by foreigners, a legacy of China’s troubled past. The International Settlement was ruled by a British-dominated Municipal Council, hard-headed businessmen whose primary interest lay in making a profit. The nearby French Concession was ruled as an out-and-out colonial possession of France and generally conveyed a kind of Gallic aloofness. Greater Shanghai was ruled by Chiang’s central government. When the war broke out, it was Greater Shanghai that was to see the bulk of the fighting.The International Settlement figured prominently in Chiang’s overall plans. The Chinese could attack the Japanese garrison at Shanghai’s Honkou district, which was small and vulnerable. A success at the Settlement’s very doorstep would underscore China’s strength and resolution in the face of Japanese aggression. There was even the possibility that the western powers, particularly Great Britain and the United States, would intervene on China’s behalf. Accordingly, Chiang began pouring troops into the Shanghai region, including the elite 87th and 88th Divisions. Soon, there were upward of 50,000 Chinese soldiers in position. Consternation reined in the Japanese high command; they had no wish to be drawn into central China when northern operations were still in full swing. But the Chinese, as Chiang intended, had forced their hand.The Battle of ShanghaiOn August 12, Colonel Charles F.B. Price of the U.S. 4th Marine Regiment conferred with American Consul-General Clarence Gauss and British Brig. Gen. Alexander Telfer-Smollett about the looming Shanghai crisis. At the same time, the Shanghai Municipal Council mobilized the Shanghai Volunteer Corps and formally requested support from the British and American garrisons. Under a long-standing arrangement, code-named Plan A, British troops from the Shanghai Area Force and American marines would man a defensive perimeter along the Settlement’s borders. The Suzhou Creek border was of particular concern, because Zhabei, the Chinese district just beyond, had been the scene of brief but bloody fighting in 1932. Because the water table was only a foot or two below Shanghai streets, trenches could not be dug, and millions of sandbags had to be trucked into the area. Barbed wire was strung and sandbags stacked to form blockhouses, walls, and machine-gun emplacements. As marines and tommies moved into position, thousands of Chinese civilians poured over the bridges spanning Suzhou Creek, seeking refuge from the inevitable clash. Once the perimeter was manned, it was simply a matter of watching and waiting for the Japanese to appear.The wait proved to be a short one. Around 9 am on August 13, Chinese troops exchanged small-arms fire with Japanese units. The Japanese responded in kind, and the Chinese 88th Division retaliated with heavy mortar attacks. Japanese Admiral Kioshi Hasegawa’s Third Fleet vessels, which were on station in the Yangtze and Whangpoo Rivers, opened up with thunderous salvos. The Battle of Shanghai had begun.On August 14, the Chinese began a major offensive, an attack that was designed to push the Japanese into the Whangpoo River. They almost succeeded. The outnumbered Japanese were mainly bluejackets and marines from the Special Naval Landing Force. It seemed as if the modern-day samurai were about to be humiliated at the hands of the despised Chinese. To be defeated in battle, and to have that defeat witnessed by the Western powers, was too much for the Japanese to bear. Soon, massive help was on the way. The Shanghai Expeditionary Army, under General Iwane Matsui, was assembled and sent to China immediately. It was a powerful force, built around the 3rd and 11th Divisions and totaling some 300,000 men, 300 guns, 200 aircraft, and the powerful presence of the Japanese Imperial Navy. The expeditionary forces made successful amphibious landings along the northeast coast at Boashan and elsewhere, and in so doing lengthened the battlefront. It now extended from Shanghai’s city center, down the length of the Whangpoo, finally ending at the northeast coast area where the river emptied into the mighty Yangtze.The newly landed expeditionary force tipped the balance in favor of the Japanese. Because the battle front had widened, Chiang was forced to send troops to other locations. The Chinese offensive, poised on the very brink of success, ground to a halt. Superior Japanese weaponry also began to make itself felt, particularly artillery fire, tanks, and aerial bombardment. Ten Chinese soldiers died for every Japanese, but the Chinese refused to be broken. For some units, casualty rates of 1,000 an hour were not uncommon.A War “Between Races”The battle for Shanghai became a slaughterhouse, a stalemate that conjured memories of Verdun and the Somme. ”It was no longer,” a witness said, “a war between armies, but between races. With mounting fury the two giants sprang at each other’s throat.” The Chinese held out for the next three months, and the fighting was particularly heavy at Zhabei, just across from the International Settlement. The Settlement was a kind of neutral zone, where foreign reporters could observe the battle from relative safety. American journalist Emily Hahn and friends would go to the tower room atop the Cathay Hotel and watch the battle while sipping cocktails before dinner. Others congregated atop the Park Hotel and other such establishments, viewing the spectacle as if it were some Fourth of July pageant staged for their benefit.Guests were warned not to go onto hotel roofs because shrapnel and bomb fragments were always peppering the air. Since the Chinese still held Nantao, on the other side of the Settlement and the French Concession, Japanese artillery would risk an international incident by arcing shells over the foreign-held area, a distance of some four miles. Settlement residents became inured to the once-frightening sound of shells going over their roofs, which one woman likened to the sounds of a freight train.By the end of October, the Chinese Army was being bled white, but the stalemate continued. The Japanese concentrated their effort at Dachang, a little village six miles northwest of Shanghai proper and a key point in the Chinese line. Some 700 Japanese artillery pieces opened up, followed by massive air raids by 150 bombers. Smashed beyond recognition, the little “chicken village,” so named because it supplied much of Shanghai’s poultry needs, fell to the enemy on October 25.Fortifying the Chinese Mint GodownOnce there was a breach in the defense line, the Chinese flank was exposed. There was nothing to do but retreat in good order, withdrawing behind the south bank of Suzchou Creek as rapidly as possible. That meant abandoning the positions in Zhabei that had been held at such a huge cost in blood and treasure. Whole sections of the Zhabei district were in ruins, and shell-cratered streets and skeletal buildings reeked with the stench of smoke, cordite, and decomposing bodies.Chiang Kai-shek was a realist, but he was loath to abandon Shanghai. He knew that a Nine-Power Conference was going to convene in Brussels on November 6, and he still retained hope that Western interests would intervene. China had to show that it was worthy of help, so another sacrifice must be made. A rear guard would hold out as long as possible, simultaneously demonstrating Chinese courage and buying time for the main army to escape.His mind made up, Chiang ordered General Gu Zhutong to leave the 88th Division behind as a rear guard. Gu thought this was a terrible waste of one of China’s best units, which already was decimated by three months of fighting. Nor did General Sun Yuanliang, the 88th’s commander, want to see the whole division sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. It was finally agreed that a single regiment of the 88th would be left behind, while the rest of the division would be allowed to retire and regroup.The forlorn task was given to the 524th Regiment, which was posted near some of the heaviest fighting at the North Railway Station. Lt. Col. Xie Jinyuan volunteered to command the regiment in its suicidal mission. After some hurried consultations, it was decided that Sihang Warehouse would be the spot where the 524th’s last stand would take place. This was a six-story warehouse that had been a joint venture by four banks (in Chinese “Sihang” means “Four Banks”). Westerners knew the place as the Chinese Mint Godown.It was an ugly, strictly utilitarian structure, but its thick, reinforced concrete walls were perfect for defense. The warehouse was literally on the edge of Suzchou Creek, the meandering waterway that separated Chinese Shanghai from the foreign-controlled International Settlement. British troops sheltering behind their sandbagged defenses had a grandstand seat for the coming battle. The warehouse was on Tibet Road, which continued on into the International Settlement across the New Lese Bridge that spanned Suzchou Creek.Xie placed his troops with care. Makeshift fortifications were created just outside the warehouse building, consisting mainly of sandbags and sacks of corn, beans, and other goods that had been stored there. First Company took up positions on the left, along Tibet Road, while Third Company was stationed on the road to the right, just opposite the Bank of Communications building. Second Company fanned out to protect the warehouse’s other three sides. Two heavy machine guns were placed on the roof, and other machine guns were distributed among the defenders on the ground.The Japanese Launch Their First AssaultsWhen the Japanese realized the enemy was in full retreat, they cautiously probed forward. By 1 pm on October 27, advance elements were approaching the vicinity of the warehouse. After some preliminary exchange of fire, a Japanese company attacked the warehouse from the west. They were met by determined resistance from Third Company. At one point, some 70 Japanese soldiers took shelter in a blind spot just to the southwest. It was indeed a blind spot—but only to defenders on the ground. Chinese soldiers on the roof spotted the cluster of Japanese and lobbed grenades down on their heads. Seven Japanese soldiers were killed and another 20 wounded from this deadly “rain.” Captain Shi Meihao, commander of Third Company, was shot in the face during the fighting, but refused to relinquish command. Although blood was coursing down his face and soaking his uniform, he refused to withdraw until he was wounded again, this time in the leg.The first Japanese assault was a failure, but before calling it a day, they set fire to the northwest corner of the warehouse; the defenders managed to put out the flames. About 9 pm, Xie, believing there would be no more Japanese attacks, ordered the men to cook dinner and repair fortifications. Two defenders had been killed and four wounded, while Japanese losses had been about 20 killed and an unknown number of wounded. The Sihang defenders faced the Japanese 3rd Division, considered one of the best of the Imperial Japanese Army. They also had mortar teams, artillery, and armor—probably Type 94 Te-Ke tankettes. The battle on October 27 was just an overture to the coming symphony of destruction.The morning of October 28 saw the skies filled with the steady drone of aircraft engines—Japanese bombers flew overhead, but after a couple of aborted passes they were forced to return to their base. Sihang Warehouse was simply too near the International Settlement to risk full-scale bombing. The last thing the Japanese wanted was to blow up Western observers and cause an international incident. The Japanese also wanted to use mustard gas, but they were being watched too closely by Western newsmen and British soldiers to get away with it.At 8 am, Xie inspected the defenses and gave impromptu pep talks to his men. It was during one such roof inspection tour that a party of Japanese soldiers was seen creeping along Suzhou Creek. Xie interrupted his speech, grabbed a rifle, and took aim at one of the distant enemy soldiers. Drawing a bead, he pulled the trigger with a steady hand. A second later, a Japanese soldier fell into the rubble.The Japanese occupied the Bank of Communications building and launched a heavy assault on the west side. Chinese rifle and machine-gun fire sprayed lead into the oncoming brown-uniformed masses, but they refused to yield. The attack finally broke off after two hours. The Japanese had gained little, but did manage to cut off the warehouse’s water and electricity.The warehouse was now flanked on three sides, but the fourth side—the side that faced Suzchou Creek and the British Royal Fusiliers’ positions in the Settlement—was left conspicuously open. The British also kept the New Lese Bridge open, which was a possible escape route for the beleaguered defenders. When Japanese soldiers tried to creep in on the fourth side, British tommies on the opposite bank trained their Lee-Enfield rifles at them. The Japanese got the message; they withdrew, and the fourth side remained open.The “Lost Battalion”Normally there were over 1 million Chinese residents in the International Settlement, but their numbers had been swollen by hundreds of thousands of refugees. News of the heroic last stand was spread by radio reports and word of mouth. Soon, thousands of ordinary Chinese citizens, protected by the Settlement’s neutrality, could watch the battle unfold before their eyes. It became a kind of bizarre sporting event, with Chinese spectators crowding Suzchou Creek’s banks to cheer on the defenders. At times an estimated 30,000 Chinese joined British soldiers and other Westerners to watch the show. When the crowds saw a Japanese movement, they would pass on the information to the defenders via enormous message signs in characters large enough to be read from a distance.Whenever the Japanese had a setback or the defenders gained a temporary upper hand, loud cheers would erupt from the watching crowds. But support was more than visual. More than 10 truckloads of supplies were donated to help the men besieged in the warehouse. Food, fruit, clothing, utensils, and even personal letters were delivered under cover of night. Xie also arranged with British officers to evacuate the wounded to the safety of the International Settlement.Earlier, a teenaged girl guide named Yang Huimin had been instrumental in passing messages back and forth between the besieged warehouse garrison and the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce in the Settlement. On the evening of October 28-29, the brave young woman brought over a national flag, emblem of the Chinese Republic. Because there was no flagpole, two bamboo poles were lashed together for the purpose. The red-and-blue banner was hoisted into place atop the roof, while thousands of Chinese spectators across the creek cheered and shouted, “Long Live the Chinese Republic!”The battle for Sihang Warehouse was fought on two fronts—on the battlefield and in the court of public opinion. It was clear that the Japanese were losing, even as they made gains elsewhere. Foreign journalists, scenting a good story, flocked to Sihang Warehouse to report every detail. The press romantically dubbed the 524th Regiment the “Lost Battalion.”At one point, Xie was asked to produce a list of every man in the garrison. In that way, should they fall, their names would be remembered. But Xie feared the information would eventually fall into Japanese hands. The wily colonel gave out a regimental roster that dated from the beginning of the war, when the regiment numbered some 800 effectives. In reality, the Sihang Warehouse was defended by only 411 men, including 16 officers.When Japanese Admiral Tadeo Honda was interviewed by foreign newsmen, he grudgingly called the defenders “more or less heroes.” Oddly enough, all the phone lines into the warehouse remained intact, and defenders could call out at any time. The Japanese issued an ultimatum: surrender or be wiped out. Xie was unimpressed. In a message to his superior, General Sun, he radioed defiantly: “Death is an unimportant question. The sacrifice of our lives will not be in vain.”“They Must Die That China Can Live”Infuriated by the continued resistance and particularly the flag-raising ceremony, the Japanese set October 29 as the day for an all-out assault. The eyes of the world were upon them, and they were losing face. They opened with a heavy barrage of light artillery, exploding shell after shell against the warehouse’s concrete sides. Soon, ugly craters appeared on the walls, smudged and blackened with smoke and jagged with twisted reinforcing rods. Concrete rubble was everywhere, and the air was heavy with the stench of cordite and dust.The west side of the building lacked windows, but Japanese shell hits had punched enough gaps into the wall to provide the defenders with loopholes. The Japanese, acting in concert with infantry, then brought forward tankettes. The fighting grew so heavy the Chinese Third Company was pushed back from its position and forced into the warehouse. Japanese infantry came forward with scaling ladders, a curious throwback in an age of mechanized war. The Chinese simply pushed the ladders off or peppered the advancing enemy with rifle and machine-gun fire. Xie personally lent a hand, fighting alongside his men. The Japanese seemed on the brink of success. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and one Chinese defender wrapped grenades around his body and jumped into the midst of a group of Japanese soldiers, detonating the grenades and killing himself and 20 of the enemy. The Japanese attack was beaten back.The Sihang defenders’ morale was high, but the foreign observers in the Settlement had had enough. Misaimed bullets and shell fragments were falling in their midst, and with the battle escalating by the hour, it was feared that the fighting would spill over into the International Settlement. The British offered to broker a peaceful settlement that would end the warehouse siege. General Telfer-Smollett was a key player in the delicate negotiations, but he found his proposals a tough sell. The Chinese flatly refused to withdraw the men. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, American-educated and a power within the Chinese government, said coolly, “They must die that China can live.” The “victory or death” rhetoric surprised and dismayed Western observers.The battle opened again in the early morning hours of October 30. This time the Japanese were not about to squander precious infantry in a headlong frontal assault—they were going to pound the “lost battalion” into submission with artillery. Japanese batteries opened up about 7 am and continued to fire throughout the day. At its greatest intensity, shells were coming literally every second, producing a cacophony that shattered the nerves and numbed the eardrums. Night fell, but the artillery barrage continued without letup. Japanese searchlights stabbed the sky, the probing beams fixing the battered warehouse to provide gunners a better target. The defenders grimly held on, helped by the thick concrete walls and the Japanese reluctance to use heavy artillery or bombs.Withdrawal Under British Covering FireBehind the scenes, Telfer-Smollett was still trying to convince Chiang Kai-shek to let the men retreat from Sihang Warehouse. The Generalissimo finally consented. The main Chinese Army already had successfully withdrawn, and the heroic stand had amply demonstrated Chinese courage to the world. There was no need to fight to the last man. The Japanese commander, General Matsui, agreed to the developing deal, which would allow the Sihang men to retreat into the International Settlement via the New Lese Bridge. There was to be a truce and cease-fire during the withdrawal, which was to start at midnight on November 1.The subsequent withdrawal was marred by bad faith on the part of the Japanese. As the Sihang men left the warehouse and crossed the bridge, the Japanese suddenly opened up with machine-gun fire and artillery, raking the bridge with a hail of lead and forcing the Chinese to run through a gauntlet of fire. This was too much for the Royal Fusiliers, who manned a sandbagged pillbox that anchored and protected the Settlement side of the bridge. The British tommies were emotionally on the Chinese side, and were also tired of taking misguided Japanese fire without a chance to defend themselves. Four British soldiers had already been killed and another six wounded by stray Japanese bullets.The British pillbox gave the Chinese covering fire, although this was strictly against orders and violated the Settlement’s official neutrality. A Japanese machine gun was put out of action by British bullets, and Xie and 376 of his men managed to escape successfully. Telfer-Smollett had been sheltering behind the Chinese Bank during the withdrawal; he now greeted the heroes as they crossed over into the Settlement. Xie was the last to leave the warehouse and the last to cross the bridge into safety. Tears coursed down his cheeks as he accepted accolades from the British soldiers. He had not wanted to leave at all, and only did so under orders. Telfer-Smollett, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, “I have never seen anything greater!”Political Fallout of the “Lost Battalion”Cheated of their prey, the Japanese quickly reneged on the agreement. The “lost battalion” would absolutely not be allowed to retreat though the Settlement and rejoin the main Chinese Army. The Japanese would only consent if the solders left as refugees, abandoning all weapons, including the light and heavy machine guns they had brought with them. Xie flatly refused. Instead, battalion members were forcibly disarmed and interned by the Municipal Council. There was little else Settlement authorities could do, since by the time some 300,000 Japanese troops completely surround the foreign enclave, and the threat of an invasion was very real.Japan engaged in diplomatic temper tantrums for the next week, refusing to attend the Nine-Power Conference and claiming that quantities of fresh food were found in the Sihang Warehouse after the siege. This, they said, was proof that Telfer-Smollett and the British were secretly aiding the Chinese. The British brushed off the allegations, but Japan’s relations with Britain and the United States continued to sour. A Chinese collaborationist government was established at Shanghai, and in April 1941, Xie was assassinated by four of his own soldiers acting as agents of the new government. After the war, an elementary school was renamed in his honor.This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.Image: Wikimedia

September 01, 2019 at 10:15AM via IFTTT

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Posthaste: ‘Violent’ markets’ warning, bully realty offers, and Ian Telfer’s gold-plated exit package

Good morning!

The Liberal government administered another self-inflicted wound by threatening to sue Conservative leader Andrew Scheer on the SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. issue, ensuring that the scandal will drag out longer. Oil is hitting a five-month high lifting even the apathetic Canadian oil sector. And Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. offers another reading on the country’s fast-cooling housing market.

Here’s what’s breaking this morning:

Conservative leader challenges PM to follow through on libel threat over SNC

China has stopped buying crude oil from Western Canada after record purchase in 2018

Knight Therapeutics activist denies proxy fight about taking over company and ousting CEO in letter to shareholders obtained by FP

Democrats try to smooth trade deal passage with labor proposal

Even Canadian banks are shunning U.S. pot firms

WTO defies Trump with historic ruling on national security

JPMorgan sees violent’ markets on volatility-liquidity loop

Ontario realtors advise government to end so-called ‘bully’ offers

Few students currently enrolled in e-learning courses: report

Maple Leaf Foods to build US$310M plant-based food processing facility in Indiana

Oil climbs to 5-month high on OPEC cuts, U.S. sanctions and Libya fighting

Canadian oil sentiment shifting to ‘modest optimism’ from ‘complete apathy’: NBC

Aramco’s international bond attracts strong interest as demand tops $30B

Barrick’s deal-making chairman awarded $12.9 million in 2018

May seeks to revive flagging Brexit talks with Corbyn

Pinterest sets IPO price range between $15-$17 per share

Lyft accuses Morgan Stanley of supporting short-selling: CNBC

Norway is walking away from billions of barrels of oil

Andrew Coyne: The real scandal in the Lavalin affair is Trudeau’s attempts to pretend it’s not a scandal

Canada ignored its gigantic money laundering problem for years — and lawyers fanned the flames

Growing Pains: Inside Canopy Growth Corp.’s bid to scale up at Aldergrove 

Wall Street private equity firm opens up shop in Toronto amid deeper push into cannabis

That investment fees are falling is a popular narrative, but it’s not the whole story

Why SNC’s 407 highway sale may do little to turn around its fortunes

Understanding the registered disability savings plan, from the basics to the budget’s new rules

Court hearing for QuadrigaCX in Halifax

The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights is convening a press conference in Ottawa to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda

Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, will announce support from the Government of Canada’s Low Carbon Economy Fund for climate action by Loblaw in Ottawa

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. releases preliminary housing start data for March

The Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project calls on Alberta party leaders to commit to tell the truth about the size and costs of orphaned oil and gas well cleanup

The Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources will hold a public hearing on Bill C-69 in Vancouver

After helping to build what was once the most valuable gold mining company in the world, Goldcorp Inc. chairman Ian Telfer is planning to exit on a low-note — albeit $12 million richer, writes Gabriel Friedman.

Equity markets may get violent, warns JP Morgan — are you positioned conservatively to withstand the coming volatility? Send your comments, tips and stories to Yadullah Hussain at yhussain@postmedia.com or @YAD_FPEnergy

  — With files from The Canadian Press, Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg

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