The Abolition of Britain

In 2007, world-famous author John Gardner died on this day at the age of eighty. Amongst Gardner's fourteen James Bond titles are License Renewed (1981), Win, Lose or Die (1989), Brokenclaw (1990), and most recently Cold Fall (1996). Gardner's genius was to modernise the character of James Bond after his creator, Ian Fleming died in 1964. In Gardner's hands, Bond is a late-20th-century-man. He smokes low-tar cigarettes and drives a fuel-efficient Saab instead of a Bentley Mark II Contintental. Actors Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton and Sean Bean paid tribute to Gardner. Without the author's refinements, their acting careers would have have taken off as a result of their portrayal of James Bond.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

"Many of those born, raised and educated in surroundings normally associated with Tory thinking and values no longer actually share those values. Few people under the age of fifty now possess what could be described as a Conservative imagination. Their attitude towards sexuality, drugs, manners, dress, food, swear-words, music and religion has little or nothing in common with the traditional idea of Conservative behaviour. As the far-from-leftist commentator Tony Benn cackled derisively shortly before the election, ‘Clement Attlee is probably the last man left in Britain who wears a tie on Saturdays.’

Abolition of Britain	A good starting point for this era is Lord Curzon’s funeral in 1924, and a good finishing point is the startlingly different funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in 1950. The death of Curzon, an unchallengeable father figure, was a final farewell to a reassuring past. By travelling back to that not-very-distant time it is possible to see the extent of the changes which have overtaken us. ~ Historian Peter Hitchens explaining the rise of Anarchy in Airstrip One
Peter Hitchens

Even in the commonplace features of life, a comparison between the day before yesterday and today reveals differences which are more than a mere adaptation to the modern world. Examine school textbooks, especially on history and geography, from thirty years ago, and set them beside their equivalents today. You will find that you are investigating the inner life of a wholly foreign country. Many of these trends and tremors began long before 1965, and it is necessary to go further into the past to examine them. Some of the changes in our society began with campaigns or fashions in thought which started before the First World War. Most are more recent, finding their roots in events like the Lady Chatterley trial, the satire boom, and the mysterious birth of British punk rock music. . The full article is available at Encounters Book

~ quotation by Steve Payne

Winston Churchill	"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor." ~ Winston Churchill, future Prime Minister speaking in 1930
Prime Minister

Before we knew for sure if Winston Churchill meant if when he said he would not preside over the end of the British Empire. The tragic story of Britain's brutal response to the Indian Emergency in 1945 was recounted in journalist Adrienne Gormley's Children of Tears. The leadership of the Indian freedom movement including the Indian Congress were imprisoned and executed as a resurgent post-war Churchill refused to defeat Hitler, only to be beaten by Gandhi.

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 1976, Robert Neville lived the life of a recluse, trapped inside his fortified home. As he descended into alcoholism, he suffered long gaps in memory that he could not remember. And dreams of the vampires and the infected feeding upon him.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Richard the Lio..	In 1189, Richard I of England (a.k.a. Richard "the Lionhearted") was crowned at Westminster. Alongside Philip II of France, he embarked on the Third and ultimately successful Crusade which restored the Holy Land to Christendom, elected the King of Jerusalem on 28 April 1192
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127/2003, from 10, Downing Street the Prime Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland telephoned US President George W. Bush. It was probably the most fraught conversation between the two countries since 1776. Due to the events of the past few days, Her Majesty's Government could not either approve, nor participate in the Second Gulf War. British involvement in a land invasion of Iraq would be illegal due to the absence of a UN Security Council Resolution explicitly sanctioning participation by the “coalition of the willing”.	Tony Blair
Perhaps W did not understand the workings of the British State, but effectively the Prime Minister could not overrule the confidential legal advice issued by the Attorney General, Kim Hollis. Which was guff, the position of Attorney General was a political appointment which meant that legal advice to the State always dovetailed with the political expediency of the moment. The internal workings of the British State were explicitly designed to pursue the national interest, regardless of the incumbents, and had done so smoothly since the Middle Ages.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Utopia Planitia	In 1976, the Viking 2 spacecraft landed on Mars at Utopia Planitia, the site for today's Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards both on the surface of the planet and in orbit. There, countless Federation Starfleet vessels are built and repaired. The Galaxy class starship USS Enterprise-D was designed and built there, as well as the Intrepid class starship USS Voyager and the USS Defiant prototype.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1997, a Vietnam Airlines Tupolev TU-134 routed from from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh almost crashed. The Tupolev was approaching the Phnom Penh airport runway in heavy rain from 2,000 meters; at this point the control tower ordered the pilot to attempt an approach from the west due to a wind pick-up. The crew then lost communication with the tower, and three minutes later the aircraft was close to colliding at low level with trees.	Tupolev Tu-134
When the aircraft approached the trees, the pilot finally realized the runway was not in sight and aborted the approach; the flight engineer pushed for full power, and the aircraft gained lift saving the lives of the 66 passengers. A relieved crew disembarked from the aircraft in sleeting rain to be greeted by French Union officials of the Indochina Protectorate.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Defeat of Fascism

Eric Blair	"We are in a strange period of history in which a revolutionary has to be a patriot and a patriot has to be a revolutionary" ~ Eric Arthur Blair writing in Tribune, the Labour left's weekly, in December 1940
George Orwell

World War II accelerated changes in British society that had been bubbling since 1917. The defeat of Fascism in Europe by the emerging forces of Anarchy in Catalonia offered a new alternative. And not much later, the name Britain itself would be superseded, by Airstrip One. The full article is available at Wikipedia

~ quotation by Steve Payne

A new Royal Family A wild nobility We are the family
Adam and the Ants	No method in our madness just pride about our manner Antpeople are the warriors Antmusic is the banner! ~ Lyrics to Kings of the Wild Frontier - Click to Watch Sample
Kings of the Wild Frontier

In her superb history The Sleeping Serpent (1992), Pamela Sargent described what happened next in the mid-13th Century when the Mongol hordes arrived on the steppes, poised to enter Germany and Italy. Genghiz Khan's successor Subadai received news of a royal death back home, but chose to advance at that time, establishing vast European Khanates. Four centuries later, only Inglistan and her American colonies stand between the Mongols and world domination. Khan's son Yesuntai arrives at the encampment at Yeke Geren, and quickly establishes that the American Indians are their long-lost Asian brothers who crossed the land-bridge at the Bering Straits. Yesunta determines to emulate their victories, and nomadic hegemony forms a solid chain across the Northern Hemisphere. The Inglistani and her colonies are crushed but just a few “go native” in North America and become Kings of the Wild Frontier, preserving some form of non Mongol culture outside the control of the gloal Khanate. The lyrics are available at at Cifi

~ quotation by Steve Payne

In 2021, Newsweek ran the article After Obama - could a successor President control the escalation of events following the sinking of the USS Condoleeza Rice?

~ entry by Steve Payne from

In 1976, Robert Neville lived the life of a recluse, trapped inside his fortified home. He studied the vampiris bacteria. Outside vampires and the infected tried to break in. "Come out Robert Neville" yelled his undead neighbour Ben Cortman.

~ variant from Steve Payne: extensive use of original content has been made to celebrate the author's genius.

Hiroshima	In 1945, a multi-national team continues to look for a breakthrough at Hiroshima. Matter continues to be sucked at an alarming rate through the fissure left by the nuclear explosion on August 6th. The area was fast de pressuring, and the general effect much like a hole in an air plane cabin but on a grander scale. “Any ideas today?” asks the team lead with barely disguised negativity. “How about, “ says Alan Turing, one of the British scientists “ the hair of the dog that bit you? Lets detonate another bomb to close the fissure.”
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 2127/2003, sneaked in by anti-war sympathisers in the security forces, and from behind a one-way mirror in Paddington Green Police Station, Robin Cook and Claire Short watch the two interviewees, twenty-second century fugitive Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis.	Paddington Green
Urgent investigations are being pursued in relation to the apparent suicide of the Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith. Already convinced that the Second Gulf War is a terrible mistake, they believe the testimonies of time travellers Brent and first Asian QC Kim Hollis.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Robert Silverbe..	In 1666, a small fire was extinguished at the bakery of Thomas Farriner in Pudding Lane shortly after midnight on Sunday, 2 September. Historians disagree as to whether a great fire of London could have played a part in preventing future pandemics.
The Great Plague epidemic of 1665 is believed to have killed a sixth of London's inhabitants, or 80,000 people, and it is sometimes suggested, given the fact that plague epidemics recurred in London after the fire, that a Great Fire could actually have saved lives in the long run by burning down so much unsanitary housing with the accompanying rats and their fleas (which transmitted the plague). However, there was no great fire, and London was devastated by the Second Year of the Plague in 1667 as described by Robert Silverberg in his history epic The Gate of the Worlds.
~ entry by Steve Payne

In 1870, the first Franco-Prussian War reaches an unexpected conclusion at the Battle of Sedan. French forces take Kaiser Wilhelm I and 150,000 of his soldiers prisoner as the German nation is strangled at birth. In a famous picture of Napoleon III having a conversation with Bismarck after being captured in the Battle of Sedan, the Iron Chancellor indicated that he had serious doubts about the future and stability of the recently-founded German empire.	Napoleon III & Bismarck
However, he had no doubt that in the future, more robust attempts would be made, Prussian militarism could not be denied.
~ entry by Steve Payne

Changes

	"No Martians yet. Nuts." Robert put his V-shaped chin on his hands and glared at the canal. Dad had brought an atomic radio along, strapped to his wrist. It functioned on an old-fashioned principle: you held it against the bones near your ear and it vibrated singing or talking to you. Dad listened to it now. His face looked like one of those fallen Martian cities, caved in, sucked. dry, almost dead. Then he gave it to Mom to listen. Her lips dropped open. "What--" Timothy started to question, but never finished what he wished to say. For at that moment there were two titanic, marrow-jolting explosions that grew upon themselves, followed by a half dozen minor concussions.
Planet Mars

Dad listened. So did everybody. Dad's breathing echoed like fists beating against the cold wet wharf stones. In the shadow, Mom's cat eyes just watched Father for some clue to what next. Dad relaxed and blew out a breath, laughing at himself. 'The rocket, of course. I'm getting jumpy. The rocket.' ~ The Million Year Picnic (January 2008). In 2008, astronomers watched a football pitch-sized lump of rock hurtle through space at a speed of 45000 km/h. The fragment, which had been christened WD-5, was on a collision course with Mars. The impact on 30th January would subsequently be known as the Martian Armageddon. During the period December 2001-November 2005 humans from Earth had colonized the deserted planet, occasionally having contact with the few surviving Martians, but for the most part preoccupied with making Mars a second Earth. WD-5 changed all that. Captain Wilder and family had family had returned home using his private rocket that he had concealed from government service. On their million year picnic, Wilder had promised his children that they would see some Martians on the Minnesota River..

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1948	In 1950, the acclaimed author George Orwell real name Eric Arthur Blair died in Airstrip One after a three-year battle against tuberculosis. Until the last, news had been positive and it was hoped Mr Orwell was improving. On Friday morning he had a long talk with a friend about his plans for the future. However, a few hours later he suffered a fatal haemorrhage in a London hospital.
George Orwell

Blair had been taught at Eton by Aldous Huxley, remembering him as another incompetent and hopeless teacher who couldn’t keep discipline. By coincidence, both teacher and pupil would following similiar career paths in literature and journalism. Huxley wrote Brave New World, whilst Orwell penned Nineteen Forty-Eight, an anarchistic vision of the future partly based on the indiscipline of Eton. Returning to his own dystopian vision of "Brave New World", Huxley continued: Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience. Nineteen Forty-eight gave a full contemporary history of the world. After the Second World War, the United Kingdom descended into civil war, eventually becoming part of the new world power of Oceania. At roughly the same time, the Soviet Union expanded into mainland Europe to form Eurasia; the third world power, Eastasia—an amalgamation of east Asian countries around China and Japan—emerged some time later. There was a period of nuclear warfare during which hundreds of atomic bombs were dropped, mainly on Europe, western Russia, and North America. The civil war which ended with the Party taking over, the merging of the British Empire and the United States. During the Second World War, Orwell repeatedly expressed the idea that British democracy as it existed before 1939 would not survive the war, the only question being whether its end would come through a Fascist coup d'état from above or by a Socialist revolution from below. (Orwell greatly supported and hoped for the latter, to the extent that he joined and loyally participated in the British Home Guard throughout the war, in the expectation that it would become the nucleus of a revolutionary militia). Later during the war Orwell pointed to events that proven him right "What really matters is that 'the war and the revolution are inseparable'." Alternate Historian's note, Writing originally in 1945, Orwell originally called the novel Nineteen Forty-eight, initially believing the vision to be that close. He subsequently revised the date when rewriting on the island of Jura in 1948.

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In 1942, senior officials of the Nazi German regiment attended a meeting in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The purpose of the conference was to inform senior Nazis and senior Governmental administrators of plans for the 'Final solution to the Jewish question'. Rommel's unchecked advances in North Africa meant that the Final Solution would be arriving in the British Mandate in Palestine real soon.

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In 1917, at Aqaba in the Transjordan leader of the misnamed Arab revolt Auda Abu Tayi orders the execution by beheading of Colonel T.E. Lawrence. His duplicity had been laid bare for all brothers to see when he had carelessly left his autobiographic works, the Seven Pillars of Deceit open in his tent. Tayi had been dismayed to understand that the forthcoming Balfour Declaration would promise a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. His white brother Lawrence was no more and no less than a British Agent using Arab troops to defeat the Turk and thereafter impose his own hegemony on Arabia. President Yasser Arafat paid tribute to Tayi in 1997 on the eve of the half-centennial in East Jerusalem. Without his bold intervention, the Palestinian people would be second class citizens in a secular Jewish State.

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In 1649, the traitor Oliver Cromwell was tried for treason and other 'high crimes' as the authority of Stuart rule was re-established following the English Civil War.

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Changes	In 2009, following his inaugural address Barack Obama made reference to youth icon Tupac Shakur. Changes had predicted 'we're never going to see a Black Presidency', failing to anticipate a Rice vs. Obama campaign race.
Tupac Shakur

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Stephen R. Donaldson	In 1968, Stephen Reeder Donaldson languished in Vietnam. By inclination a conscientious objector, he had been compelled to serve in the armed forces. Much later, and after dropping out of his Ph.D. program and moving to New Jersey in order to write fiction, Donaldson made his publishing debut with the first 'Covenant' trilogy in 1977. That enabled him to move to a healthier climate. He now lives in New Mexico. Donaldson's two year compulsory military duty would be the deep undercurrent of his escapist fantasy writing. In 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever', the protagonist was a leper struggled with disempowerment in a Land he did not really believe in.
Unbeliever

This is the Land,' Lena said joyfully, as if the outspread earth had a power to thrill her. 'It reaches far beyond seeing to the North. Is it possible that you do not know this?'. 'I don't know anything, ' he groaned into the open fall. ~'Kevin's Watch'.

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In 1994, prosecutors of the traitor Aldrich Ames were confronted with a nightmarishly difficult decision. It had been safetly assumed that since Ames had betrayed the US to foreign powers, little damage could be caused through revelations in the media. Not so, said he producing the Ames dossier.

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In 1981, the Iranian Hostage Crisis ended as Ronald Reagan’s successor was sworn into office. True to their word at last, the Iranians released the embassy personnel they had been holding for over a year once Edward Kennedy was sworn in as President of the United States. To thumb his nose at the Iranians, Kennedy lent Ronald Reagan Air Force One to fly overseas and retrieve the hostages.

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In 1981, the Iranian Hostage Crisis ended as the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s successor was sworn into office. Having negotiated the release of the students in Tehran in 1980, Reagan and Bush had conspired with the terrorists to release the students only after the inauguration. They send Jackson to Germany to meet the students, a duplicious act of false humility to reinforce his weakened authority. And the President of Iran today is the very channel through which Reagan and Bush acted.

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In 1953, on this day President Douglas MacArthur was inaugurated in Washington DC. In his address he drew parallels with the career of Paul Von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, German Command in Chief also recalled from retirement twice, once to lead the military, once for the Presidency, both in late middle age and at a time of national crisis. Unlike the 'Wooden Titan' Hindenburg, Brass Hat was back to get a result. In theory he was promoted from retired Six-Star General to Commander in Chief. In practice he was given the keys to the hydrogen bomb. Also Bacteriological weapons that Unit 731 gave Brass Hat in 1945 to secure the amnesty of the Japanese scientists against trial for the extermination of 200,000 Chinese citizens during World War II. Quite a cocktail when combined with a determination to make war with the China to re-unite Korea and re-instate Chiang Kai-shek.

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In 1971, the British Government reacted somewhat irritably to the European Space Agencies who described Apollo 13 mission mechanical failures as a self-inflicted wound. The British really would have to do something about this quality control problem for next time. Mind you, they had won the race to the Moon, so there.

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	Through the mirror of my mind, time after time I see reflections of you and me Reflections of the way life used to be, reflections of the love you took from me Oh I'm all alone now, no love to sheild me, trapped in a world that's a distorted reality Happiness you took from me and left me alone with only memories Through the mirror of my mind through these tears that I've cried reflects the hurt I can't control Cause although you're gone I keep holding on to the happy time Ooh, when you were mine ~ Poem Fragment discovered by builders at 2648 W. Grand Boulevard Detroit, Michigan 48208

History students of Afrocentric sixties have speculated that the poem fragment was written by Diana Ernestine Ross, a member of the little known Supremes who disbanded in late 1963. Ross sang lead on all but one of the group's early singles. These singles were not successes, and Ross worked as Motown CEO Berry Gordy, Jr.'s secretary for additional income. It is generally believed that Gordy was also the father of Ross's first child. The poetry fragment was discovered when the studio was demolished in the early 1990s to make way for a shopping mall, with both Gordy and Ross dissappearing into obscurity.

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