Athenia 2007

Brilliant news boys and girls, for a while there I had thought I had forgotten the password - but I came back to it with a fresh mind and hey presto - first time. So relax, you should all be getting your fix of World War II related stories sooner rather than later.

On a side note for Christmas I was lucky enough to be given the 'World at War' box set. A 70's documentary series done by the BBC that still to this day is generally regarded as the finest Second World War documentary series going. And it's not hard to see why. I've only watched six or so episodes but they are beautifully constructed and provide a balanced account of events. Yet they are also powerfully emotional and being in the seventies they also have some amazing interviews with many of the main players, men like Albert Speer and the German Navy Commander Karl Dönetz (who was also the man Hitler nominated to leave in charge of Germany after his suicide - upon taking command he promptly and wisely signed an unconditional surrender to the Allies). So so pretty cool stuff. But what actually hit me most was when I suddenly realised the obvious. The footage I was seeing of men being killed, planes five bombing civilians and ships sinking were actually real.

Think of that for a second. First imagine it in colour (a lot of the w@w footage actually is), secondly imagine the CNN logo in the top left hand corner and then imagine a scrolling bar across the bottom that reads "Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbour, two thousand American sailors killed" then imagine you had just turned on your TV to hear the news. It's real boys and girls, it happened. When you actually realise that - when the black and white footage no longer passes over you as unremarkable that is when you can finally realise just how astonishing these events are. Sounds like a simple thing really, realising that it's real - but its all to easy to forget when on digital TV you have around ten stations devoted to this stuff.

So where now for Athenia 1939? Good question.

I had several ideas over the Christmas period.

One was to write up here a book review once a week (i.e. I must read a book a week specifically for the site) which still seems like a good idea, perhaps once a fortnight might be more realistic however, what with my other commitments and all. Secondly I thought it might be a good place to host mini essays, of around 1,200 words apiece. In these I could investigate possibile future essays as well as drafting out works in progress.

I will have to get in contact with my good friend CK as to the technical side of this since I would rather host them as Word files (or even pdf's?) than copy them straight onto the blog.

Thirdly... Well, I can keep up what I have been doing, writing up little pieces on notable events and characters.

Well. Leave some comments if your reading this, and if your not - then you should be.

Nakizo.