History of the Great War and the Stories Behind It

Yesterday was the 99th anniversary of the end of the Great War: Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, Poppy Day, Veterans Day. Whichever name and vernacular we apply to it, it remains that the ending of WWI summons questions around whether WWI should ever have been started in the first place. Does the official story not center around the assassination in Sarajevo of a mysterious Archduke nobody amongst the populace had ever heard of: Franz Ferdinand? Did we have to escalate this into a World War and sacrifice 41 million people in the process as some form of retaliation? Or was there actually more than meets the eye?

War journal of French soldier Louis Barthas (1879-1952)

Those four years stood as the biggest wipe-out humanity had ever experienced in its entire History. August, 22nd, 1914 was the bloodiest day in French History, with 27,000 French soldiers killed. WWI tolled the end of times and destroyed the courageous, patriotic, hard-working young able men and their families, neighbourhoods and countries at large. Those who survived would never be the same again.

WWI is no shrinking violet territory. It is utter brutality. The scope of its horrors defy the imagination of even the most seasoned amongst us.

Hell on earth in a way we, 3-4 generations later, find hard to fathom in our relatively cocooned existence. The Great War was a bloodshed beyond comprehension that the French poilus (WWI soldiers) described laconically as grande boucherie.

Journal of Jean Galpin (1892-1915), lieutenant at the 119e French Infantry Regiment

Holocaust on the battlefields, in the trenches, across the blitzed-out towns, out at sea and up in the skies. It was the first all-encompassing war: on land, off-shore, underwater and airborne. WWI catapulted the West into the XXth century and heralded the rise of the nefarious military industrial complex and the coming of age of ruthless dynasties which have been calling the shots in the shadows of world governments and banking institutions ever since: the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers.

One year short of the centenary, we can safely argue from the comfort of our homes whether we can find 99 reasons why there shouldn't have been a war. In no way though would this resurrect the dead and heal the injured. The best we can do is to keep on honouring the brave and hold a flower in our hearts for the fallen. Pledge not to forget them and draw lessons out of the meaninglessness of war and the abject cruelty it inflicts upon the innocent that the elites summoned to fight their game of chess out for real.

Illustrated science lesson on sea mines by school teacher Aimé Vincent (1867-1933)

It serves to have at least a rough understanding of the war, its battles and key dates, from a historical perspective. But what is of greater service, in my book, is the collective of individual, personal stories and snippets of insightful information gleaned out of those who lived and/ or survived the War, soldiers and civilians alike, and which they passed down. Our duty today is to ensure those accounts, anecdotes, letters and other memorabilia are preserved and shared amongst us, and especially to the younger generations. By doing so, we keep alive the memory of those ordinary folks with ordinary lives who extraordinarily got thrusted onto the geopolitical scene and put their lives on the line for all of us.
 

Their patriotism, nationalism, the pride they held in the Nation State, means we stand here today in pacified nations which we can still call our own.

Each one of my four great-grandads, Louis, Marcel, Antoine and Joseph, fought in the Great War. I do not hold a personal detailed account of their whereabouts during the Great War as such but I remember a number of anecdotes. Those stick in the mind. For instance, Antoine and his comrades being out of drinking water in the trenches at some point had no other option than resort to drinking their own wee... On the Chemin des Dames front, Louis and his comrades were forced to imbibe strong potato liquor as way of Dutch courage when they could no longer fight their way across trenches and minefields, a desolate landscape that resembled nothing more than the death planes of the afterlife.

Illustrated war account by Marius Astier, accomplished in 1927

To stop indulging in our self-importance is paramount. We owe our WWI elders the respect and remembrance they deserve. We owe it to them to have honoured and served our nation the way they did, with infallible pride and bravery. We must make it our mission to not allow for our history to be edited by the Ministry of Propaganda. Oppose the deriding of national pride and its bizarre amagalmation with fascism and white supremacy. Support those who seek the truth and fight corruption on our behalf, whether as private entities, public figures or members of the Alternative media.

Now caught as we are in our First World problems (sic), the European Union Ponzi Scheme and DC Deep State, Cultural Marxism and its institutions engineering the hostile take-over of our society through globalisation stealth of our once-sovereign, Christian, economically-solvent, industrial powerhouse Nation States — would we be able at this point to regain enough bravery and nobility of heart to stand up to a horde of flag-burning millennial brats, and serve our emperiled nations should a call to arms be deemed necessary tomorrow in order to save them? This is no chess game: the ball is in our court.


Further Reading: 

• Remember the Fallen
• Little People, Big Hearts
• La Der des Ders
• Lest We Forget

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this essay, we established that theoretically speaking whoever strives to defy time would be able to make a claim for immortality. Thus whoever claims to be immortal has transcended the timely restrictions imposed upon their life as a human. The notion of immortality takes us back to the catchy aliteration of the timeless timeline of Time. Timelessness evokes magnitude, amplitude, uninterrupted vastness in space and time. It expresses continuity, cohesion and stability.

The Ouroboros symbolises eternity. (Pict source)

Transience, on the other hand, sits precariously on the opposite end of the spectrum. Transience implies a notion of time that is fleeting, brief, truncated, interrupted, non-lasting, whimsical and ultimately unreliable and inefficient. This is about discontinuity. There is a sense of disturbance to it like an underwater current. Beware the underlying chaos!

Now referring to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the noun transience is defined as 'the quality or state of being transient.' Synonyms: Ephemerality, evanescence, impermanence, momentariness. Antonyms: Endurance, permanence.

The adjective transient is defined as 'passing especially quickly into and out of existence: transitory. [...] Passing through or by a place with only a brief stay or sojourn.'

Bearing in mind the immediate adversity imposed upon us by entropy and mortality, the human prerogative aims to make the most effective use of time within a competitive production model. For should it not to be the case, the process would ultimately lead to doom.

Detail of the Vault, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, Italy

However it appears that our production model has redefined efficiency under a new paradigm. Efficiency used to involve durability under a long-lasting good or service. This as a mission statement had a vision to it, to serve not only the present but the future too. Transience does not and cannot sustain durability. It does not build upon an impetus, it interrupts it. A society whose production model is built upon transience is akin to a transient (casual) friendship that you cultivate with somebody: it does not grow roots or leaves, it does not evolve and deepen because there is no commitment to it, no fire, no bond, no guarantee. It is a stunted affair that remains so until the transient element is corrected.

The faceless banking corporations and multinationals that govern us have cleverly refashioned efficiency since the industrial heyday - and have accelerated its process with the coming of age of mass-consumerism. We mostly have one person to thank for this, Public Relations spin doctor and business insider Edward Bernays - Simon Freud's nephew - and a top influencer in the world of advertising and consumer psychology. He used consumer profiling to serve private interests, using strong-arm tactics to influence purchasing decision. He is indeed the father of customer trickery.

Another representation of eternity. (Pict source)

Bernays was also a trendsetter who wrapped both corporations and consumers tightly around his little finger. He for instance encouraged women to take up smoking by glamourising the cigarette in post-WWI New York City by way of savvy advertising campaigns that centered around personal gratification and desire, concepts that still ring true to this day in advertising. He also engineered water fluoridation PR campaigns to get public trust. Apart from getting us into bad habits, Bernays also wrote a few influential books, including Propaganda, a PR treatise whose most fervent reader was Joseph Goebbels, that's right, Hitler's henchman and future Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Germany's Third Reich.

When efficiency used to be defined by the clever use of time in order to accomplish a task and deliver a good or service via a process that would bring a lasting effect in terms of quality (to stand the test of time according to our human proclivities), this is no longer applicable. In the third and final part of this essay, we will see how vested interests have corrupted the production model under a socio-political ideology in order to reframe and rephrase efficiency, with transience at the core. I will describe the areas which I have identified as being of a transient nature, under the remodelled paradigm of efficiency. (to be continued)

_________

Transience, Pillar of Modern Society is a 3-part series:  Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3

The Gumball Theory

In light of political events currently unfolding in the West, there is no more à propos video than the one I am sharing here right now, and which I describe as The Gumball Theory. Let's stay smart here: I invite you to watch it with an open mind and from start to finish (it only takes 6 minutes!) before casting judgement. From the outset, if viewing numbers are to go by, the video's 4 million views since its release in September 2010, proves this is a hot topic!

Baker Wardlaw's Vending Machine, via Designboom

Please do pay attention to the rationale and follow the logical process put forward by NumbersUSA founder, author and lecturer Roy Beck, through his ingenious and creative illustration of why full-scale, deregulated, open-door immigration (regardless of faith and ideology), promulgated on the basis of humanitarianism does not serve the humanitarian purpose. Put simply, it does not work for either the welcoming state or the state of origin. In fact none of the socio-economic problems (poverty, unemployment) at either end are solved, and no benefits are gained, contrary to what is being purported by the progressist (i.e. liberal) agenda.

This is no fantasist partisan presentation. Mr Beck's research is professional and factual, based upon data from U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Census Bureau, Population Reference Bureau and The World Bank. The presentation is not anti-immigration. It does however demonstrate that only sustainable levels of immigration - that is legal, controlled and managed - are to benefit both the new country of residence and the country of origin.



As a light-hearted note, you will never look at (or chew!) gumballs the same way after this!

P.S: NumbersUSA is an Education & Research Foundation, founded by Roy Beck and an advocate of lower immigration levels. It works in partnership with Moderates, Conservatives and Liberals. NumbersUSA describes itself as "a non-profit, non-partisan organization that favors an environmentally sustainable and economically just America and seeks to educate the public about the effects of high levels of immigration on U.S. overpopulation, the environment, jobs, and wages. We use government data to conduct research on the impacts of U.S. population growth, consumption, sprawl, and current levels of immigration and educate the public, opinion leaders and policy makers on the results of those and other studies."

P.P.S: Read the full PDF version (362 pages) of Roy Beck's acclaimed book, The Case Against Immigration, The moral, economic, social and environmental reasons for reducing U.S. immigration back to traditional levels, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1996.

Remember the Fallen

Hold Remembrance Day tight in your heart, high and proud, in your quiet moment of life. Do not let it fall off the wayside like a discarded wrapper. Do not allow for the vagaries of time to fade it away, trivialise it and ultimately engulf it into oblivion, to have it replaced by the false urgency, the false gratification offered by the trappings and lures of modern day, namely entertainment and other self-centred leisurely pursuits.

Find solace and fortitude in Remembrance for the Fallen shall have not fallen vainly. Make them proud like they make us proud. Hold the sanctity and dignity of their souvenir within you and pass it on to your children. Your great-grandparents history is your history and that of your descendants. Wear your poppy or your cornflower with pride.

'A Front Line Near St-Quentin' (1918), oil on canvas  by C.R.W. Nevinson (1889-1946), via Art UK

The Fallen fell for their Nation. They fell so you wouldn't have to. Therefore I plea that never under any circumstances shall you allow for the love of your nation, for national pride and patriotic values to be questioned, to be derided and to fall into disrepute. National sovereignty is sacred,  national identity is which cements a nation together and makes it whole, not fragmented.

May you not be fooled by the smarmy politicians and the snake oil salesmen who seek to mislead you off the path of progress, prosperity and integrity, by firing up dissent amongst their people, especially the misguided youth, allowing them to orbit off the moral compass of society, to trample their own flag rather than salute it. Deafen the brouhaha from the divisive media Medusa and keep to the legacy of those who made your nation great.

Whenever the dissenters seek for unity to be disbanded, urge for division to be pacified. Make your nation proud and it shall be proud of you. Work for it and it shall work for you.

(pict source)

Further Reading:

• Little People, Big Hearts
• La Der des Ders
• Lest We Forget 

Pink Poppy Day

If I had to describe where I live in three words, it would have to be: (1) Medieval. (2) Corsican. (3) Hamlet. It sounds like a statement although I don't mean it that way, as the obligatory envious clichés are invariably bound to jump off the page: vacational island, coastal living, Mediterranean climate, panoramic landscapes bathed in the wonder of blue yonder, nature on the doorstep, and ancient off-the-beaten-track dry-stone buildings.

Those three words forebode a sense of adventure, I agree. Yet adventure is to be found at the start of your state of mind. Adventure may be found in 'Salford studio flat' or 'industrial Dusseldorf complex' all the same. It's that old chestnut again: life is what you make it. You may want to play it safe and never investigate your surroundings and that is your decision.

Yet should you be seeking adventure in the mundanity of your surroundings, you are spoilt for choice. Any restrictions will be set by how far (or near!) you wish to expand your imagination and curiosity. In fact, the best way to turn anything into an adventure is to take nothing for granted because that Renaissance building that had stood the test of time till now might be gone tomorrow, because that noble cedar tree might be chopped down, because the sweet old lady down the road might sell off her bungalow and pack her bags before you've RSVPed her gracious invite for Pekoe tea and Bourbon biscuits. Because as it is, natural entropy is being accelerated by the planned obsolescence of our modern model, which puts us mere mortals at a disadvantage.

The transience of life expressed through our mortality needs to force us to be aware of every instant that is lived within the environment at large. To cultivate curiosity, be curious by nature about nature, and an explorer of life rather than a passive consumer fed by the media is what I recommend to young and old - especially the young ones - as the 'future-holders' of our world.

What is the relation of all that precedes with the Pink Poppy Day title, I hear you say? I haven't been on a diversion course; there would be no Pink Poppy Day post without this natural curiosity of mine and sense of adventure woven out of the mundanity of life. Now here is my story.

A couple of days ago, I went for a stroll up the hamlet and found that a beautiful wild poppy bush blossoming on an elevation by the side of the path had been pulled off the ground by a local landlord, and tossed down the path like a dirt bag. Sadly I encounter this attitude a lot around here, this total disrespect for nature's own floral gifts. Understand nature and the nature of wild plants: they come impromptu and spontaneous, like uninvited guests of sorts. But they don't come to burden you; rather they come to enliven your day, and their inflorescence - little bits of charm and beauty they scatter around their foliage - is free of charge. A big bonus if you want flower delight without shelling a dime! Yet instead of being left alone, the wild plants get pulled out or cut back or doused in herbicide, and this infuriates me!

I went on a poppy rescue mission there and then. I brought back home the pulled-out poppy bush, cut back its foliage and managed to fit the root system into an XXL jar with a little water in the bottom. In the next few days, I shall plant it in my parents' garden and we'll monitor its progress. Meanwhile I salvaged the blooms - which were looking sorry for themselves - and improvised them into a tabletop posy in an improvised vase, an empty glass jar! From that moment on, I witnessed the blooms gather strength and perk up.

I saved the poppies from their downtrodden state and they made my day in return with their charming blossoms that I couldn't cease to admire. Yet their place should have been out there in the wild rather than in a vase but I had to compose with the vagaries of the human mind, that interferes with nature because it wants to control it.

On the third day, my lovely poppies had scattered their petals by the time I was down for breakfast. I carefully picked those, and laid them flat inside a paper bag that I placed under a heavy contraption for a spot of drying before I use them in a paper collage at some point in the future.

This is how my Pink Poppy Day came about: a reversal of fortune for the wild flowers and an eleventh hour rescue from the ditch. The moral of the story is that nature belongs to itself and we are welcome to enjoy it, not tamper with it to the point of destruction. Yet you can bring positivity to a situation by turning the little drama around, and embracing it as an adventure in the everyday.



P.S: Jason Silva's Existential Bummer 'philosophical espresso shot' about entropy is bound to perk up your day and stimulate your thought! Three minutes of bliss!

Dairy Malaise

Not only are we talking dairy malaise but also a general malaise that has 'egg-xacerbated' the whole farming industry worldwide for years. It is just that dairy price wars have featured on the French and British news lately, and pork price wars are doing the headlines right now. Yet to begin with, we do not need to look further than the antagonistic words 'farming' and 'industry' forcefully sitting next to each other as in 'farming industry', in order to understand the roots of the malaise. And there is no word - nor book title - more eloquent than CIWF's Farmageddon, to sum up the disastrous consequences that a drive for cheap brings.

The Honest Farm Toy by CIWF

Farming was once a history of small family-run concerns and pastoral endeavours that helped families sustain themselves, look after the countryside, build closely-knit communities, be self-sufficient and economically-independent, albeit modestly. The Industrial Revolution lured millions of rural families to the city lights that engulfed them into the darkness of coal mines and textile mills. From the 1920s onwards, farming increasingly became mechanised, and as such, less labour intensive. After World War II, it shifted to a lean, automated, extensive and intensive (monoculture-based), chemically-pumped, figure-churning, competitive industrial model set to satisfy corporate demands for their ever-increasing profit margins at the expense of farmer and flock. This has been amplified since as farming is currently being forcefully channelled into the global one-size-fits-all model. Except that one size fits not.

"Animal and crop rearing were once a happy partnership. Industrialisation divorced them." - Philip Lymbery, Farmageddon

As faceless as industrial models are, the first thing that happened to farming was a faceless revolution in the 1960s as flocks, herds and cattle were moved en masse from their lush pastures to concrete pens tucked away from sunlight and our sight, into barren sheds and hangars. Away from sight means away from the mind of the modern consumer, who associates their pack of sliced ham to a sandwich rather than to the pig it belonged to. And animals in their millions to be farmed for slaughter yearly (currently 70 billion worldwide) have become just that: an obscene number that defies the human mind capacity to fathom them as a collective of individual animals. The number appears as a desensitised distant emotionless global mass instead. Faceless in the hangars and faceless on the mind. Faceless on paper too as numbers are being tweaked and crunched to squeeze productivity out of farm animals to exhaustion, before they end up on the abattoir's conveyor belt on their way out of a short, brutal, confined, loveless - and ultimately pointless - existence.

(Available to purchase via Amazon)

Industrial farming means a serving of pain on your plate, and cheap animal produce (dairy, eggs, meat) is an additional serving of hurt. Now you may think I'm serving you the obligatory activist spiel as a vegetarian, but don't forget that I was once an omnivore, and pretty much oblivious to the fact that the whole farm-to-fork line is nothing more than a series of productivity processes that use and abuse animals to death. I am not seeking to discourage anyone from a meat-based diet, I just want to set the record straight so you get the facts in order to make up your mind for yourself.

I was brought up on a meat diet by meat-loving parents born in the 1940s who underwent full-on the changing consumer habits of the post-war Western world with all the false truths that went along, and for whom a meat-based regimen was (is) a sign of healthy living, social success and a status symbol. To be honest, I never was that much of a meat lover, but peer pressure and preconceptions meant I didn't question my own carnivore habits until only a few years ago.

A lonely calf peeping out of a veal crate... Photography by Jo-Anne McArthur, from her book We, Animals

Just to show you how out of touch with the reality of farming I was, I used to believe (well into adulthood) that dairy cows just so happened to naturally produce milk, without any intervention! The stark reality of dairy farming is that cows are perpetually made pregnant (by natural means or artificially inseminated), then separated from their calves at birth (sending their maternal instinct into disarray) or a few days later, and their milk - that should be feeding their young - is pumped away from them in order to feed us, humans. To the strain of repeated pregnancies, you add the trauma of a mother's separation from her baby, plus the painful milking process, and a life behind bars that ends up in the slaughterhouse, to realise that dairy is dreary!

As multinationals are forcing down produce prices and controlling the commodities market, animals (the very commodities at the heart of the farming industry) are forced to produce more, while their living conditions deteriorate further. And if farmers refuse to comply with the demands or refuse to bow to the pressure of turning their middle-size dairy farm into a super-farm, they lose their concerns to the banks, and the multinationals move on to source out cheaper milk from countries like Germany, Serbia or Poland, where cows have a tougher life. Farmers are as much victims as their animals here. They live from hand to mouth, work extremely long hours for a pitiful wage. Pushed to the end of their tethers by those unscrupulous men in suits, they resort to suicide (one suicide every other day in France). Now pause for a minute and consider the irony of it all: those (animals and farmers) who feed us are the ones who starve and suffer!

La Ferme des Mille Vaches (1000 Dairy Cow Farm) is France's first ever US-style mega-dairy farm, est. 2014.

My purpose is not to condone veg(etari)an practice at the expense of another, or sound like the newscaster of doom and gloom at every article I write. La Baguette Magique being about Lifestyle with Attitude, I am not going to follow the herds down the well-trodden middle of the consumerist road to ukulele you a song about Happy Meals! Instead we'll take one step back in order to get a clearer vision and stay ahead. My purpose is to raise awareness and then leave it up to you, dear readers, to think it over, investigate the issue further if it resonates with you, and decide - or not - to review your consumption habits. Let us bear in mind though that only collectively through our changing consumer habits will we be able to impact the faceless powers that are ruling our food shelves and ruining our food chain. Will you take that stance with me?

P.S: Be sure to watch CIWF's Farmaggedon - The True Cost of Cheap Meat. On a happier note, watch Karma the cow being finally reunited with her calf at The Gentle Barn sanctuary, after a life of misery. Who said cows have no feelings? Therefore no matter how well looked after dairy cows may be at David Homer's farm, they will still be missing their babies...

Further Reading:

• We Can Make it Possible - Together
• Sunny Side Up with Origami Hen! 
• Meat Free Monday
• On and Off the Magic Milky Way
• Walled Gardens in Stone Silence
• The Reckoning 

[25-Sept-2017 Update]: For a quick and snappy visual idea of the cruelty of the dairy industry, please watch this French documentary preview, showing a cow and her calf who she had given birth to only a few hours prior. The farmer unceremoniously takes her calf away in his van while the mama runs after the vehicle in desperation for her baby! The calf is taken into a hangar where (if a male) he will be fattened up for the veal industry, or (if a female) fattened up to become a dairy cow. A dairy cow will be expected to produce milk for 5-6 years before being slaughtered for meat.
 

@baguettemagique @CIWF_FR Thank you so much for helping to raise awareness of #factoryfarming and #YOURFARM. Great to have you on board :)

— Compassion (@ciwf) August 20, 2015

Marching Down the Champs-Elysées

On foot, horse-back, motorbikes, in camouflaged tanks and other combat vehicles, on fighter planes and helicopters short of a supersonic bang, French troops and allies will be marching down, driving past, flying over, and jumping off aircrafts down the Champs-Elysées for their yearly military parade, on 14th July, otherwise known as Bastille Day. The super-mediatised military event packs a punch and raises the goose bumps, but do we still feel grand and patriot in a fractured nation within a fractured Europe within a fractured world?

The foreign legion marches on! (14 July 2013)

First off, here's a little-known fact for our foreign friends: France is only one of less than half a dozen nations in the world to conduct military parades of the sort, alongside Russia, China and North Korea. Sounds a little, ahem, unsettling? Thing is, this is not just a military parade, it is a solemn and orchestrated showcase of our savoir-faire, technological expertise and prowess, and other tools of propaganda and self-promotion flaunted not just to France itself but also to the rest of the world, as a military power and potential belligerent to be reckoned with, alongside being a manufacturer of top-notch military engines, and re-affirming our services as an intelligence consultancy, and other 'peace-keeping' endeavours. Any warmongering undertone is channelled into 'Si vis pacem, para bellum' (If you want peace, prepare war). The Bastille Day send-off is a little like a fashion catwalk for military gear. Foreign nations watch the show, scratch their noses and fill in those order forms. The message sounds clear enough.

Yet not clear enough as to why we need to flaunt such an expensive and lavish operation in times of economic austerity and when so-called European unity dispenses us from any overzealous national pride. In terms of costs, the parade might have worked out at only 5 cents per French inhabitant back in 2013, it still added up to €3.3 million, no less! And the sumptuous firework displays that are partaken with later in the night are not accounted for. Besides I doubt that deep down the military feel like parading past the French president, when the government's cutbacks are drastically affecting their budgets.

La Garde Républicaine (14 July 2013)

Sadly, as grand and respectable as the parade is, I cannot help but see it turn more and more into some obligatory charade, not only because European rule and the worldwide banking system rule out any national spirit and pride and squash in the bud those Free Trade and entrepreneurship values that once gave an individual their chance at making it for themselves and for their nation, but also because what remains of national spirit and pride is either condensed into a national holiday, or channelled by the media into a political rally. It feels almost contrived and certainly out of context, almost discordant.

The irony of the Bastille Day parade goes even further. A few years ago, France landed a juicy military order from Russia: two BPC Mistral warships, Vladivostok and Sébastopol. With the French presidency being nowadays little more than Obama's labradoodle and Merkel's schnauzer, it bowed to the pressure and refused to deliver the goods to Russia in some sort of blackmail retaliation regarding the Ukraine and NATO. Problem is, the warships had been manufactured, they were ready to be delivered, and Russia had paid the bill. The ships are now stranded in a French port and their upkeep alone is costing us €5 million a month, notwistanding the hefty penalty charges. I doubt the US and Germany will help us with that!

Going over(board)? (14 July 2012)

When a government bangs on about employment, and bangs on about cost-saving measures, and bangs on about Bastille Day - virtually all in one sentence, and then in the next refuses to deliver a military order they originally honoured, they find no other response than to promise to create 8500 public service jobs in 2016! Forget about the logic, there is none.

The Human Paradox

The 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp a couple of days ago, 29th April, has brought back to the fore a thought that is never afar the fore for me: the duality paradox that inhabits Man, a Yin & Yang of frightening capabilities.

Life & Death, Love & Hate, Wealth & Scarcity, Creation & Destruction, Success & Failure, Order & Chaos, Heaven & Hell. The human capability for improving social welfare, saving lives from disease, nourrishing souls, inspiring minds, elevating spirits, and soothing hearts -- overshadowed by the human capability for their exact opposite, turning the earth into a purgatory. Man is Man's own best (worst?) friend and worst (best?) enemy. It wouldn't be far-fetched to report that: -

The greatest danger and fear on earth to Man is Man.

"Arbeit Macht Frei" (Labour Brings Freedom) at the gates of Dachau (also Auschwitz).

Inspire Aspire - As Time is of the Essence

No matter how much of a contraption or contraction time is to anyone who has developed a wide array of passions and interests, who cultivates observation skills and childlike curiosity, who is on an expansive inner-journey of spiritual and intellectual growth, the constraints imposed by our own mortality fuel us with the desire and urgency to cram in an extra experience, a new place to visit, another ponder and wonder.

To accommodate a spot of travel into the constraints imposed by timescales of our own device, and those imposed by work and social obligations. To contract space and time into a balancing act of a mutually-beneficial arrangement. Time-saving gadgets have come into their own to simplify modern life, yet with a curse attached. They keep life connected to the time-wasting curse of the social media vortex and those other internet distractions and temptations, thus turning time-saving procedures into time wasters to the soft-willed, easily-distracted and the unfocused - and even the more disciplined of us may lapse at times. Here's five pointers to keep in mind in order to stay on track:

1. Keep internet interactions to a minimum (i.e. no idle browse and/ or aimless chats). Time your time online if need be.
2. As a result of (1), streamline your online activities, including your blog reading list. Make sure to keep Lifestyle with Attitude on your radar!
3. Get a good clock, of the conspicuous kind (see below) and hang it where it will catch your eye, so as to keep track of time and make it resourceful.
4. Downgrade (Upgrade!) most of your online activities to offline, and rediscover the paper, design and lay-out experience of 'physical' books all over again! Put the keyboard aside and put pen to paper.
5. Make sure your booklist (4) will include books that help you make the best use of your time (see below)!

Source: (1) Concentric Flora Green Scalloped Porcelain Plate Clock by Angus & Celeste. (2) Teaser to (3) '36 Hours Latin America & The Caribbean', part of the 36 Hours collection by The New York Times, edited by Barbara Ireland and published by Taschen. (4) Citix60 Berlin, 60 Local Creatives Bring You the Best of the City, published by Viction:ary, and available to purchase directly from the publisher, or from selected retail outlets like Anthropologie.

The 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings

This year we are commemorating two major historical events. One tragic, as the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI, and the other, an ode to hope and promise, as the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, where Allied Forces (USA, Canada, GB and Captain Kieffer's 1er BFM Commando consisting of 177 elite French fusiliers) liberated France and neighbouring occupied nations from Axis domination. No doubt that every single one of us has a tale or two from our (great) grandfathers or uncles (and the grandmas) who were involved in the war(s) one way or another. I wanted to pay a heartfelt tribute to our lads. They displayed immense bravery - paid with their lives even - to pave the way for the modern Western society as we know it but which we tend to perhaps take too much for granted at times.

You might remember my moving tribute to my maternal grandad, Armand, who worked in transmissions for the French Navy, before joining the US Navy in the Pacific. Oh boy, my grandad, a Général De Gaulle supporter, was immensely proud to have teamed up with the Americans! My paternal grandad, Léon, was less lucky in that he was made a prisoner of war at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940 and sent out to the work camps of Germany - yet thankfully not the death camps!

'Into the Jaws of Death — U.S. Troops wading through water and Nazi gunfire', by Robert F. Sargent

When Americans landed in Normandy, they brought with them Showtime! Supplies aplenty, modern technology, Jeeps and GMC Trucks, Big Band music, corned-beef, chewing-gums, benzene, Lucky Strikes, cartoons... and Hollywood propaganda! Ask my star-struck dad, a toddler when US Troops liberated our Northern border town of Saint-Quentin in August 1944. "Quand les Américains ont débarqué... c'était l'Amérique !" (When Americans arrived... it felt like America had landed!). This American officer spotted my dad in a crowd of people queueing up for food. He asked my dad to come over, then lifted him up into his arms, tearfully called him 'baby' as he showed my dad a photo of his kids. Then he told my dad he could have whatever he wanted. My dad's eyes sparkled. He felt like a kid in a sweet shop. 'I want gum, Sir... and benzene too for the bonfires!'

Further D-Day Resources:

• D-Day Overlord
• D-Day by the Numbers - Operation Overlord (infographics)
• The D-Day Landings (BBC Animated Map)
• GI Veteran James Kelson, 92, from DC, is Reunited with His Millitary Dog Tag (France TV Info, 01-Apr-13, in French, no subtitles)
• Swing - The Best Of The Big Bands
• 06-Jun-14 Update: Check out Daily Mail's comprehensive review.
  

Lest We Forget

We had been given no choice. We were working-class lads who'd been taken off the factory floor or agricultural field and summoned to serve the powers that be for a war we had little or no understanding of.

Our infantry battalions marched on for days and nights and we fought as we were ordered, a horrid relentless raging battle that symbolises the absurdity of the human race. To kill or to get killed. Those who disobeyed military orders were simply shot down 'to set an example' to the rest of us.

'Stormtroops Advancing Under a Gas Attack' (1924), by © Otto Dix, via National Gallery of Australia

As much as the humanitarianism of our luminary counterparts (free thinkers, scientists, professors, etc.) had helped raise awareness and manifest, support, promulgate and protect all aspects of educational, philosophical, social, legal, political and technical progress and advancement aimed at bettering the life conditions of our peers regardless of their social origins, for the greater good of all individuals as the ultimate purpose, the abnegation, destruction and annihilation brought about by war came as a contradiction.

Our regiments were deployed to the front battlefields of The Somme, Chemin des Dames and Verdun to feed the heavy cannon-fodder artillery machines, while a clique of portly generals and high commanders watched from a safe distance, smoking cigars, clinking Cognac glasses and pushing clusters of batallion figurines across a battlefield map that might well have been a chessboard.

The irony of it was that we were sent to fight working-class lads who'd been taken off the factory floor or agricultural field from the other side of the border and summoned to serve the powers that be for a war they too had little or no understanding of.

Reality was stranger than fiction! 'Paths of Glory' (1957), by Stanley Kubrick, with Kirk Douglas

One day when the battle wasn't raging on in our neck of the woods, three of my comrades and I had a chance encounter with a couple of those lads on our way to the river, ordinary folks like us, with a wife and kids back home. We quickly realised they weren't out to kill us. They looked weary, sick with anguish like us, they too had witnessed the unspeakable horror of the front, and a part of them had died in the soggy trenches, across the desolate no man's lands, through to the muddy fields strewn with putrescent corpses and body parts, and agonising comrades begging to be shot dead as death was their only deliverance from this living nightmare.

We swapped a cigarette or two as an ice-breaker. Then we got those old crumpled family photos out of our pockets and we showed them to those guys. They did the same. We kept quiet for a moment, fighting back emotion, standing next to one another in silent dignity. Then we smiled, exchanged a few words, despite the language barrier we did understand one another. We knew the odd German word, "Krieg, großes unglück !", we used sign language, we nodded together empathetically. One of us even started humming 'Mademoiselle from Armentières' and we swayed along to the song.

Then a younger lad from their regiment - who couldn't be older than 15 - came up with a football and we all started kicking the ball around. We ran around like reborn teenagers and we cheered as each team scored. I couldn't remember the last time I had laughed. We played for 5 minutes, possibly longer, who knows? Then we patted each other on the back as we parted, wished one another luck and went our separate ways. The night after this encounter, each one of us prayed to God that we would stay safe, and that they too would stay safe, and that if we were to see them in person again by a curious twist of fate, it would be like today - as friends. To swap a word, a smile, a cigarette, and to kick a ball around. Like friends. The most human and humane act of friendship that comes to mind.

Product Review - Weleda Sage Deodorant

I wanted to write a review about this deo as soon as I came across it a couple of months ago, because it is in line with my quest for a simpler back-to-basics chemical-free life and fits right with the less-is-more kind life mantra. Chemical deos have had bad press in recent years as research has demonstrated their possible link to breast cancer, so if like I, you are getting increasingly weary of the chemicals you put into your body, then you are gonna make friends with this deo! 

It wouldn't be an overstatement for me to say (and I bet this applies to you too) that since my teenage years, I've used every deo under the sun, from the cheap run-off-the-mill supermarket products to the pricey packaged-up designer fragrance house labels, via French pharmacy niche brands. Deployed in all sorts of formats too: roll-on applicator, aerosol/ non-aerosol spray, or solid. From the gentle to the “anti-white marks” (did those work for you btw, cos they didn't for me?), via the aluminium-based (i.e. anti-perspirant) and aluminium chloride hexahydrate perspiration blockers that relieve hyperhidrosis, i.e. excessive perspiration (Driclor Solution). Some more natural, plant-based deos, some a pure chemical-based Molotov cocktail backed up by a flurry of technological-sounding ingredients and far-fetched advertising! Meanwhile in my quest for armpit perfection I'd even flirted with the idea of having botox injections in them in order to stop sweating altogether! What a health hazard this would have been! 

First things first. Perspiration is a natural process and shouln't be tampered with. Therefore perspiration blockers may be effective (in the sense of successfully combatting perspiration), yet they are not health-friendly, as we humans do need to sweat in order to regulate the temperature in our bodies, and to release toxins from our system. I only used perspiration blockers briefly, and circumspectly, until my sweat glands became painful to the touch and then I stopped it. Meanwhile none of the other deos did the trick for me. At work I suffered from stress-induced cold sweating, with sweat trickling down my underarms (no matter the weather and time of year), and this in turn triggered an odour which daily showers, lashings of shower gel, monthly salon waxing, constant deo top-ups throughout the day, and cutting down on spicy foods, didn't eradicate – or at least minimise. This undermined my confidence. 

Then I did two things. I left my deo at home cos I felt that the more I used it during the day, the worst it got. And I embarked upon permanent underarm hair removal sessions. The sweat was no longer trapped around hair follicles and it seemed to me that sweat became less “pungent”, shall we say, as bacteria that causes odour was no longer trapped in those now destroyed hair follicles. This alone increased my confidence. 

I carried on using my usual supermarket brands until that day I went round one of those parapharmacy stores in France and came across the Weleda Sage Deodorant, described as "neutralizing herbal fragrance with pure essential oils". Weleda is a reputed company established in Switzerland and Germany in 1921 as a drugs manufacturer, and in France in 1924. That same year it launched a range of health supplements and skincare products. Since then Weleda has been promoting its no-nonsense natural plant-based offering. I remember my mum buying their sun protection products, and vitamin-rich food supplements that would give us kids a kick in the morning. 

Until recently, I'd been of the opinion that plants are not as efficient as chemicals, and plant-based deos left me perplexed. But now I knew for sure that chemical deos were dangerous and that most didn't work. When I tried Weleda's deo, it completely changed my life! 

For starters we don't need a chemistry degree in order to work out the deo's ingredients list. Listen to this: Alcohol, Water (Aqua), Fragrance (Parfum)*, Salvia Officinalis (Sage) Oil, Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Oil, Ammonium Glycyrrhizate (Licorice Root), Limonene* (Fragrance from natural essential oils), Linalool* (Fragrance from natural essential oils), Geraniol* (Fragrance from natural essential oils), Coumarin* (Fragrance from natural essential oils). By the way, do check out Weleda's fabulously illustrated ingredients database.

The smell is fresh, clean, crisp and tonic. Not the kind of adjectives we would use describing those supermarket sprays! The deo is presented in a see-through glass bottle with reusable spray and packaged up in a carton box. I would recommend to either keep the spray in its box or in the bathroom cabinet as direct light might alter essential oils. 

I still sweat, but as we know, sweat is a natural process that needs to be allowed to happen. What I've noticed though is that the astringent properties of sage and tea tree leaf oil + the other essential oils purify (disinfect) the skin and neutralise the smell by a comfortable 85%, I reckon. Much more effectively than your chemical deos out there that get your sweat glands in overdrive!

The Weleda deo is also available as Wild Rose Deodorant (for a floral note) and Citrus Deodorant (for a fresh note). 

Pluses:

• Unisex deodorant
• Fresh pleasant smell
• Non-aerosol spray
• No chemicals including no parabens, preservatives, stabilisers, colourings, or aluminium salts
• Doesn't stain clothing and no caking effect on fabrics
• No powdery marks on skin
• Economical as a little goes a long way (about 4 months' use out of a 100ml spray)
• Although more pricey (RRP US$14.00) than an average deo, it isn't as pricey as you would expect from a niche brand!
• Reputable brand and honest product
• Simple yet not naff packaging

Minuses: 

• Weleda brand products may not be widely available round the high street, but you can order online! Check out Weleda (USA) and Weleda (UK) for details.

Let's Play the Stereo(type)!

True or false? Paris is the most romantic city in the world. - All Scots have red hair and freckles. - Germans have no sense of humour. - Russians drink vodka for breakfast. - Italians can cook. - Cowboys are the good guys and native Indians the villains. - It always rains in Seattle. - Brazilian girls look like Adriana Lima. - Rich people have no care in the world. - Indonesia will never run out of wood forests. - Nobody likes snakes. - (Huh, get the jist of it?)

To some degree and at least once in a while, we are guilty of turning a personal observation or a general perception of things, a flavour of the month, into an urban myth or universal statement of truth. Whether it be in private conversation behind closed doors or out in the media world at large (relayed mainly via the tabloid press, reality TV programmes, talk shows and fly-on-the-wall documentaries). We resort to the 'good old' cliché, cultivate the art of pigeonhole, attach stereotype labels to people, places and situations, be it willingly or as a slip of the tongue or in a bid to sound witty, cool and with it, with the risk of sarcasm taking over wit, to paraphrase wordsmith genius Oscar Wilde, as what might appear as innocent banter or good clean fun may not always be interpreted as such!

Generally though stereotypes are intended as a bit of an in-joke, sometimes loosely used as an ice-breaker at dinner parties to prompt a reaction. Bearing in mind that pushed to the limit, stereotypes have the power to be downright damaging - we get it!

On the lighter side of cyberlife, Yes But No encapsulates a few of those tongue-in-cheek statements. Gotta say I've had a field day going through them (!), and here's my 6 faves:

January 2012 - Five Random Faves (Part 2)

Fave #2: Accessorising your portable office with a Crumpler laptop bag!

The nomadic office lifestyle needn't be confined to the constraints of the box, with bog-standard tools of the trade and their one-size-fits-all laptop cases. La Baguette has long understood that the devil is in the detail and that the detail lays out the difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary, between the norm and the quirk. It's no leap of faith, just a way of thinking. La Baguette wasn't going to skimp on style for its brand-new 17" laptop, and German bag specialist Crumpler had the solution!

From the large collection of original Crumpler bags available, we chose the New Gimp with Moses Effect in red. It was decided that 39 Euros was going to be money well spent, justified by the high quality standards backed up by a 30-year guarantee (!), plus protection padding, and neoprene material with special 'Moses effect' (coating ensuring water resistance and protection against dust and dirt).

Crumpler sums it up admirably: 'I don't even need to say anything about The Gimp neoprene laptop wrap. People just look at it and already they've purchased one in their heads. You could have the crappiest laptop wrap in the world and you'd still buy it just because it looks so great.' Point taken! (to be continued)

Hot Summer Cool! (Part 3)

We know what you did last Summer, La Baguette! You discovered Brax via the German mail-order upmarket fashion company Peter Hahn, and haven't looked back since! Now dear readers, you may or may not be already familiar with the brand, yet either way it is highly likely that its tailored yet incredibly comfortable casualwear will become a favourite of yours in no time. Brax does for a flattering fit with a touch of exclusivity. The timeless appeal of the clothing ranges and the quality of fabric and stitch will allow for a look that lasts the distance, both in time and usage.

Part of the Brax Golf 'Essential Powder 2' look

With a brand like Brax that wears its feelgood factor on its sleeve, you can't really go wrong. We are talking also about a brand that you won't be at risk of spotting on every street corner, unlike the Mangoes and the H&Ms of this world... Rest assured, you needn't be a golf club member in order to achieve the preppy look on display here via the 'Brax Golf' collection. And Brax is not solely about conservative pastel colour schemes, it also likes to throw in the odd surprise party, with bursts of bright colour and even a last-minute fashion detail or two!

Part of the Brax Feel Good 'Laura' look

Now then ladies, this Summer you can either miss the boat by sticking to your LBD (little black dress) or high-street retail copycat fashion, or lead the way with Pain de Sucre, Little Marcel and Brax, amongst so many many other cool niche brands out there! Renowned for living the lifestyle with attitude, there is no doubt which road La Baguette will be travelling down! Happy shopping!

Part of the Brax Golf 'Green Sport 3' look

Part of the Brax Golf 'Sweet Pastels' look

Bye Ten, Hi Eleven!

Dear all, wherever you stand in the world right now, Happy New Year!

La Baguette Magique would like to take this opportunity to thank its followers from across all five continents for their continued support, in particular those from the U.S, Canada, U.K, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Russia and China (source: Blogger stats).

Thanks for making the 'magique' happen, and may 2011 bless your dearest wishes.

Source:

• Rio de Janeiro, Brasil - Partial view of Copacabana Beach (4km long), postcard published by Serena Card/ Colombo (CPS-101-08), part of La Baguette Magique's personal collection

A Week-End Wonderweb 11-12 (Nordic Style)

Gustavian-influenced painted furniture, duck-egg, teal, egg-shell, dusky-pink and mostly snow-white in colour, fresh but never cold, clean lines, understated, unfussy, a clever easy-living encapsulation of timelessness and eternal youth, light, airy and crisp interiors, a breath of fresh air indoors, and a touch of Spring in the midst of Winter, every day is a Northern Light moment when you live it Nordic Style.

Sources (top page down):

• Vintage Chic (Stines Blogg), 28/11/2010 - Norway
• Maison Interiør (Schibsted Forlag), Inspirasjon kjøkken (kitchen inspiration), photo by Yvonne Wilhelmsen, Dec 2010 - Norway
• Sofies Haus, 24/11/2010 - Germany
• Lilla Blanka, 21/11/10 & 17/10/2010 - Sweden ; photo montage by La Baguette Magique