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6. I Vow To Thee My Country

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49871456




I Vow To Thee My Country, for those who live off-planet, starts as follows:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,

Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;

The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test,

That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;

The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,

The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.




It is scandalous "my country right or wrong" jingoism at its coarsest, it is Boris Johnsonian from its roots to its eyeballs. It's what remains wrong with England. I'm horrified that it has just been voted sixth place in a poll to find the nation's favourite hymns. I'm horrified it even has a place at the Albert Hall every year.

The lyrics are adapted from a poem which is, to be frank, poor counterfeit Kipling. Kipling did this sort of thing much more equivocally, he actually considered his words. Here's Sir Cecil Spring-Rice's original:

I heard my country calling, away across the sea,

Across the waste of waters, she calls and calls to me.

Her sword is girded at her side, her helmet on her head,

And around her feet are lying the dying and the dead;

I hear the noise of battle, the thunder of her guns;

I haste to thee, my mother, a son among thy sons.




Anyone who reads that and fails to hear Kipling is tone-deaf. This is Kipling on the same theme with much the same rhythm:

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' lazy at the sea,

There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;

For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:

"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay! "




- which was, people might remember, just one of Boris Johnson's faux-pas while Foreign Secretary.

Johnson’s impromptu recital was so embarrassing that the UK ambassador to Myanmar, Andrew Patrick, was forced to stop him. The incident was captured by a film crew for Channel 4 and will form part of a documentary to be broadcast on Sunday about the fitness of the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip to become prime minister.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... mar-temple




You don't remember, but I remember. Once is enough.

Glad you said that I would be accused of being anti-english

Kipling 's apple and blackberry pies are gorgeous with spoonfuls of Devon clotted cream .

Kipling thought he was a poet , but did not know it .

He was a colonial bum and terribly twee .

Which is why I would never invite him to tea .

Publish please .

If you would like to discuss punctuation at any stage, do please ask.

Similarly regarding computer security, your system is sufficiently unpatched that it is leaking private data to every site you visit. Not that I've pried, but my console alarms glow red whenever you touch the server.

I expect you were in a rush when you unintentionally invented the word , punctuation .

I appreciate you meant punk tuition .

But we are all very busy , and sometimes worrying too much about details sends a person

stark staring mad .

So don't forget your annual MOT .

Raphael;1526835 wrote: I expect you were in a rush when you unintentionally invented the word , punctuation .


On the contrary, I've spent a significant portion of my professional life distinguishing between content and layout.

Both convey meaning. It's a question of whose choice is paramount, the browser's or the content creator's. The browser may have any number of special needs - blindness immediately springs to mind.

The content creator should mark up her content in a meaningful way and may provide a default preferred layout showing her own aesthetic, but what she should never do is override the browser's layout preference if one is applied. The one technique which is universally deplored in markup circles is to vary the content to implement a layout override, least of all with the spacebar.

Check out your Humour Meter and Funny Bone .

Don't be caught out trying to inadvertently outdo Captain Mainwearing .

Nothing worse than being accused of being a boring old buffer .Or an OAP version of Mark Francois .

Raphael;1526841 wrote: Nothing worse than being accused of being a boring old buffer .Or an OAP version of Mark Francois .


I'm not sure how my age is significant.

As regards your security issue, your operating system dates from September 2015. That's over four years back. The current release is a mere three weeks old and the upgrade is free.

The supplied browser in the earlier release has allowed what I guess to be an adware extension to effectively broadcast your location within 5 metres every time you click any web page, assuming your service provider isn't offering default location values when you power up and acquire an IP address.

The issue has long since been squashed but it does require the user to accept upgrades. In your position (50.8178 -0.1102 apparently) I'd upgrade rather than leak.

I do wish people would listen rather than try to be humorous.

I have no security issue .Here or anywhere else .

Never had and I am confident , never will .

What are you referring to ?

Have you been chatting to Mark again and he has blown a few of your circuits ?

Guess so .

Incidentally HRC loves ;-

Onwards Christian Soldiers

Marching off to war ( anywhere will do )

The utterly eccentric Sabine Baring-Gould certainly never wrote it so sloppily.

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war.

"As to", you'll note. Important distinction.

The "Christian soldiers" of the hymn were the Sunday School children of his parish and eccentric doesn't even begin to convey the chap but there were, very properly for a Christian processional, no actual soldiers. It was the tail end of the Crimean farrago and soldiers were definitely not the mode du jour. Some had even shot themselves rather than return home in such disgrace.

Nobody would remember the hymn these days were it not for Arthur Sullivan's rollicking tune.

spot;1526857 wrote: The utterly eccentric Sabine Baring-Gould certainly never wrote it so sloppily.

Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war.

"As to", you'll note. Important distinction.

The "Christian soldiers" of the hymn were the Sunday School children of his parish and eccentric doesn't even begin to convey the chap but there were, very properly for a Christian processional, no actual soldiers. It was the tail end of the Crimean farrago and soldiers were definitely not the mode du jour. Some had even shot themselves rather than return home in such disgrace.

Nobody would remember the hymn these days were it not for Arthur Sullivan's rollicking tune.


Important distinction indeed, those words were used to justify genocidal killings not long after it was written, so easily misunderstood.

Once again , look for my signalled light hearted banter -- as if I did not know the accepted wording !!

Grinning icons from now on .



The persons who perhaps most need to be aware of the finer points are our favourite nutters , the likes John Bolton, John Kerry and Mrs Clinton .

Raphael;1526872 wrote: The persons who perhaps most need to be aware of the finer points are our favourite nutters , the likes John Bolton, John Kerry and Mrs Clinton .They're yesterday's men and it's no fun at all,

Getting sacked and put out to graze,

Yesterday's men won't be happy until

Politically they are today's.

It may not sound like much but the lyric was so controversial in 1971 that no recording was ever released of the song.

Not lyrics I recognise but the sentiment expresses what we so often see .

Not worried about HRC because I am confident she is suffering from a brain tumour

brought on by that plane crash on the Iran border in 2012 . And regardless she is

rotting herself from her rancid inside . Both she and Bill will pass on very soon .

Bolton seems pygmy like in this company .

But it is the Kerrys of this world that are the most dangerous .

A Skull and Bones member tasked with ensuring that practises are passed to successive generations .

And what exactly was he doing on November 8th, 2016 when the Presidential election took place ? It was so critical that he was in Antarctica .

Explain that .

Raphael;1526899 wrote:

And what exactly was he doing on November 8th, 2016 when the Presidential election took place ? It was so critical that he was in Antarctica .

Explain that .


It'll be those Fourth Reich submarine pens I expect.

Take spot's advice, Raffy. Upgrade. Do you know how? We're a friendly bunch, and willing to help.

spot;1526879 wrote: They're yesterday's men and it's no fun at all,

Getting sacked and put out to graze,

Yesterday's men won't be happy until

Politically they are today's.

It may not sound like much but the lyric was so controversial in 1971 that no recording was ever released of the song.


Oh my - I found the program of which it forms the theme tune...

Very apposite, given next week's dissolution.

And the House of Cards theme at the start of

It's almost worth having a crisis, really.

spot;1526903 wrote: It'll be those Fourth Reich submarine pens I expect.


Yes I expect they wrote a great deal to pass the time .

And I am sure that Oberfuhrer Kerry checked all the homework .

Raphael;1527062 wrote: Yes I expect they wrote a great deal to pass the time .

And I am sure that Oberfuhrer Kerry checked all the homework .


Different pens, Shirley.

And last I looked he was warranted Oberbefehlshaber.

spot;1527083 wrote: Different pens, Shirley.

And last I looked he was warranted Oberbefehlshaber.




Notice how fast Skull and Bones Satanist Kerry moved a million miles from Biden senior and Junkie Junior once the evidence blazed .

And what was Kerry doing in Antarctica when his country went to the polls this time three years ago ? A most amazing and unexplained matter --- ever .

And now outsiders like Baxter ( sanity? ) report that both Russian elite troops and-- a few days ago --- US troops fled northern Syria to avoid a a rampaging attack by extra- terrestrials .Our old time pals the Anunnaki , it is suggested .

Things are far more complex and top secret than old farts on this Forum can and will ever imagine .

Perhaps not as loony as Baxter reports .

But who did create the Van Allen belts ? And why ?