Chit Chat # 40 
"All the Kings Men" and more

Bob Chen

It is true that Lighters are different breed of people. I don't go to the movies too much these days but watch Channel 28 on Sunday, and most weekday, nights quite a bit. What a coincidence that I did rent a VHS "The Charge of the Lighthorsemen" years ago. I did not sleep through it. True, it is about Gallipoli and how the Turks beat the mighty British. It is to the credit of the not so mighty Brits to air "All the Kings Men" and remind us their dirty laundries. Dame Meggie Smith (In the prime of Mrs. Brody) is the only live Dame that deserves to be a "Dame". I don't think Dame Judy Dance of "As time goes by" is worthy of being a Dame as Diana Riggs's  Mrs. Steel is. There is a more recent booboo from WWII called Dunkirk. People made a successful evacuation as a victory. Although it is a turning point for the European theater, it is the same as Napoleon's Waterloo, not Nelson's. The Turks killed the whole Royal Regiment of Sandringham because they cannot take care of the POW's to European, or Geneva Convention, standards. The deed was not right. However, if one goes back a little further, around 1901 to 1903, and the Boer War. Churchill was a war correspondent for London Times then. At least one Aussie got court-martialed and sentenced to death for killing some Boers. I saw the video "The trial of Trooper Moran", another Australian movie that chronicled the event. So, you see, the killees could be the killers in different wars. The reason for my narrow interest in South Africa related topics is that one Christmas I got from my ex-brother-in-law a book "The Convenant" by James Mitchener and the two trips we took there. Some of you might label me a 'softie' to dwell on a failed marriage for so long. I don't think most of the Lighters will mind one way or another.