Spectator articles from May 2003

Spectator archives from May 2003

Portrait of the week.
May 3, 2003... Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, said before local elections that 'the issue of reform of public services in health, in education, in criminal justice--this is the big challenge that this government and the Labour party faces'. His words were...

An epidemic of fear.(severe acute respiratory syndrome)
May 3, 2003... Of all British exports, it is a tragedy that paranoia should be currently the most successful. If only the integrity of our armed forces and our distaste for corruption had proved as influential upon foreigners as our culture for total safety,...

Diary.
May 3, 2003... This is not a statement that will wring many heart-strings, but if there's one group of professionals which has been a bit down-at-heel in recent months it's libel lawyers. For a variety of reasons--Jeffrey Archer languishing in jail among...

The post-war reconstruction of Blair is a bewildering exercise in truth creation. (Politics).(Tony Blair)
May 3, 2003... The elaborate construction of the story of Tony Blair as lonely war leader, noted here last week, has continued to preoccupy Downing Street strategists as well as the political class more broadly. This ambitious enterprise, launched at an...

The spectator's notes.
May 3, 2003... In his 50th birthday interview, the Prime Minister made mention of something that had helped him to weather opposition to the war. 'I got a letter from the father of someone out there at the beginning, with very strong support,' he told the...

The day Lord Rees-Mogg made me want to cry out in pain. (Media Studies).(David Beckman article)
May 3, 2003... If William Rees-Mogg had a fan club, I would be its president. I would lick envelopes for him and update his website, which would no doubt be full of his latest geopolitical prognostications. I would arrange coach parties of the faithful so...

The fear, the squalor ... and the hope: the hunt for Saddam and WMD continues. Anarchy rules. But Iraq is now free, and Boris Johnson rejoices in the triumph of liberty.
May 3, 2003... Baghdad We could tell something was up as soon as we approached the petrol station. There was an American tank parked amid a big crowd of jerrycan-toting Iraqis. Unusually, the soldiers were down and walking around, guns at the ready. Then...

Hoon: we have to find those weapons: the defence secretary tells Andrew Gimson that WMD remain the legal basis for the war against Iraq.(Geoff Hoon)
May 3, 2003... We could go and invade some country none of us has yet thought of and destroy the regime there while leaving the rest of the country intact. That is not quite how Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, put it when I interviewed him on Monday...

Is green the new blue? Rod Liddle says the conservatives would be more successful if they were keener on conserving.
May 3, 2003... Phew! Made it! Just in time, mind. And not without a rather costly rearrangement of the flights back from the Far East, I might add. And a holiday cut short as a result of a lamentable slip of the memory. But all worth it, in the end. Like you,...

With friends like these ... the Entente Cordiale was conceived 100 years ago, but now, says Simon Heffer, France and Britain are further apart than ever.
May 3, 2003... One hundred years ago, on 1 May 1903, King Edward VII arrived in Paris on the last stop of a European tour. It had already sparked some controversy: His Majesty's Protestant subjects were not happy that he had dropped in at the Vatican to see...

Mind your language.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Mr Peter Bonnett from Downham Market, Norfolk, appeals to me as 'The Spectator's custodian of language'. God forbid! I have troubles enough! Mr Bonnett is worried about the prevalent confusion between deprecate and depreciate, and I had...

Spectator mini-bar offer.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... This month, for the first time, our mini-bar offer comes from a single winery, the celebrated Cousino-Macul estate in Chile. The winery nestles in the foothills of the Andes, close to Santiago, though they have just extended operations to...

Second opinion.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Why do people do the things they do, especially when they are so bad for them? A patient of mine last week offered me the complete explanation, when I asked him why he had taken heroin for the last eight years, with the exception of the time he...

Banned wagon: global.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Unesco's recent Education for All week was outwardly a campaign to boost the educational opportunities for children in the Third World. On closer inspection, however, the campaigning materials betray a political motive involving one issue...

Killing time: the suicide rate in our jails has doubled since 1983. Theodore Dalrymple suggests that 'caring' attitudes are making matters worse.
May 3, 2003... There have been far more hangings in British prisons since the abolition of the death penalty than ever there were before. I suspect--though of course I cannot actually prove--that in the old days of what was affectionately known as the topping...

Ancient & modern.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... The Americans say they have no plans to attack any other foreign power--at the moment. To judge by the Iraq conflict, however, it will not be St Augustine's concept of the 'just war' that controls that decision, but that of the Roman statesman...

Abandon your plans if you want to get a life. (Another Voice).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Imagine that opposite this page there were to appear an advertisement under the headline 'Free Return Tickets to Cape Town', worded something like this: 'Hundreds of free flights to any destination served by South African Airways! Write to us...

A jackal bites back. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Arthur Houghton Sir: Rod Liddle's article on the hidden agendas of the American Council for Cultural Policy ('The day of the jackals', 19 April) provoked peals of laughter on this side of the ocean. Liddle says the ACCP was...

Laughter in Brussels. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From The Rt Hon. Christopher Patten Sir: It is encouraging for Conservatives like me that articles such as Tim Congdon's ('The dawning of a new Europe', 19 April) can still be written--and still find a publisher--so many years after the...

The Steyn line. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Frederic Lamond Sir: I am glad that Mark Steyn ('Why I nearly resigned', 26 April) decided against resigning from The Spectator. His articles provide a unique insight into the overweening arrogance of the...

Slightly off target. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Sir Philip Naylor-Leyland, Bt Sir: It seems that the Questing Vole has lost the plot a little (19 April). The piece refers to a 'Sir Vyvian Naylor-Leyland' paying nervous attention to the war news from Iraq in the TV room at...

Less tax, better services. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Stephan Shakespeare Sir: It's easy to say what's wrong with the Tories, but more difficult to come up with solutions. Michael Gove ('It's still the "nasty party"', 26 April) does the easy bit very well. As for solutions, his main...

Plainly paederastic. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Patrick West Sir: Philippa Wragg's description ('My son's agony', 19 April) of the disgraced organ master Denis Cochrane strikes me as odd. Wragg describes him as an influential and admired man, far from 'the image of a shifty man...

Donors who don't. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Timothy F. Statham Sir: Simon Hinde's article ('Another kidney', 19 April) brought a breath of fresh air to a subject steeped in cant and hypocrisy. No one wants to see a black market developing between those desperate for a...

Perfidious France. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Mr Michael Nicholson Sir: Peter Hammett's adoration of the French is touching (Letters, 26 April), but, as always, there is a story behind a story. It is true that during the Falklands war the French government officially backed...

Clinton's failure. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 3, 2003... From Lord Braybrooke Sir: I was intrigued to read in Taki's High Life (26 April) that my great-great-great-grandfather, General Cornwallis, 'threw in the towel' at Yorktown in October 1776. In fact, Sir Henry Clinton, the British...

'Hello, Lofty, is it cold up there?' A discourse on giraffes. (And Another Thing).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... I have recently had a lot of children on my hands. I enjoy taking the youngest through their reading books. Older ones I encourage to write: stories, poems, anything. What's it going to be like in Heaven? Or, why is war horrible? (Not all...

Finding his voice.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... THE RIGHT MAN: THE SURPRISE PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH by David Frum Weidenfeld, 9.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 320, ISBN 0297847325 By the end we knew more than we ever wanted to know about the Clinton White House: the junk food and the...

Medical marathon runner.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... GIVING UP THE GHOST by Hilary Mantel Fourth Estate, 16 [pounds sterling], pp. 246, ISBN 0007148410 In the course of this moving memoir Hilary Mantel explains that she turned from writing fiction to an essay in autobiography, Giving Up the...

Journeys with an end in view.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... CHASING CHURCHILL by Celia Sandys HarperCollins, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 293, ISBN 000710040X Winston Churchill once said to Lord Rothermere, 'I never take holidays.' He travelled enormously, but always for a purpose: to inspect...

Far from simple tales.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... THE WHOLE STORY AND OTHER STORIES by Ali Smith Hamish Hamilton, 10.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 192, ISBN 0241141109 The stories in Ali Smith's third collection are like versions of those ambiguous figures that demonstrate the doubleness of...

Taking the high road.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... YOGA FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO DO IT by Geoff Dyer Abacus, 10.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 257, ISBN 0316725072 Geoff Dyer is my new friend. We met for the first time at Miriam Gross's annual literary soiree a few weeks ago and...

A wheelbarrow full of surprises.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... A KIND OF JOURNAL by P. J. Kavanagh Carcanet, 14.95 [pounds sterling], pp. 243, ISBN 1857546326 This book doesn't half keep you guessing. Most of the time the atmosphere is that of the scholarly quiet at the start of one of M. R. James's...

Odd volumes and rum coves.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... THE TIMES DECEAS'D by Timothy D'Arch Smith Stone Trough Books, The Old Rectory, Settrington, York YO1 9TF, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 140, ISBN 0952953463 The life described in this engaging memoir of its author's early years has been...

Hot on the trail of knowledge.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... LONDON'S LEONARDO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ROBERT HOOKE by Jim Bennett, Michael Cooper, Michael Hunter and Lisa Jardine OUP, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 224, ISBN 0198525796 As a Westminster schoolboy, Robert Hooke (1635-1703) boasted of having...

Feisty Renaissance woman.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... THE BIRTH OF VENUS by Sarah Dunant Little, Brown, 12.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 412, ISBN 0316725498 What is it that the contemporary writer brings to historical fiction? Well, we've taken to filling in a lot more of the intimate details,...

Concentrating on the sounds.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... BEETHOVEN: THE MUSIC AND THE LIFE by Lewis Lockwood Norton, 28 [pounds sterling], pp. 604, ISBN 0393050815 For composers nothing has ever been quite the same since Beethoven died. Until his advent on the musical scene during the last decade...

An exotic from down under.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... UNQUIET WORLD: THE LIFE OF COUNT GEOFFREY POTOCKI by Stephanie de Montalk Victoria University Press, $NZ 39.95, pp. 336, ISBN 086473414X Dodgy Polish counts have never been in short supply in London, but few have made quite as much of a...

The fabulous four.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... THE LAST SECRETS OF THE SILK ROAD by Alexandra Tolstoy Profile, 16.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 209, ISBN 1861973934 This is the astonishing story of a 5,000-mile ride by a team of four girls in their mid-twenties, from Merv in Turkmenistan to...

The afterwaves of Darwin's shock.(Book Review)
May 3, 2003... NATURE VIA NURTURE: GENES, EXPERIENCE AND WHAT MAKES US HUMAN by Matt Ridley Fourth Estate, 18.99 [pounds sterling], pp. 328, ISBN 1841157457 It is now well over a century since Darwin observed, in The Descent of Man, that 'the difference...

'I shall go on collecting until I die': shortly before he died, Sir Paul Getty talked to Richard Bebb in the only interview he ever gave. (Arts).
May 3, 2003... The charitable giving of Sir Paul Getty always had a deliciously quirky element to it--one thinks of the elegant replacement of the hideous old Mound Stand at Lord's, the funding of the National Film Archive's work in housing and restoring...

France's secret weapon: Nick Rossiter on how the 'Mona Lisa' was used on a sensitive diplomatic mission. (Arts).
May 3, 2003... Reports of patriotic American restaurants taking French fries and French toast off the menu and pouring French wine down the sink demonstrate just how hard it's going to be to reconstruct Franco-American relations after the war. But perhaps...

Handel's passion. (Opera).
May 3, 2003... Alcina English National Opera Luisa Miller Royal Opera The revival at the Coliseum of David McVicar's production of Handel's Alcina is a nearly unqualified success, one of the two most brilliant Handel productions I have seen, and it...

Leave our lanes alone. (Gardens).
May 3, 2003... I never thought it would come to this. That I would be glad when the daffodils were finally over. But this annual and ubiquitous explosion of egg-yolk yellow is beginning to get me down. Please don't misunderstand me, I love daffodils and...

Calling to mind. (Exhibitions).(The Museum of the Mind)
May 3, 2003... The Museum of the Mind British Museum until 7 September Subtitled 'Art and Memory in World Cultures', this small but fascinating show has bitten off rather more than it can chew. The theme of art and memory must, by its very nature--which...

Ultimate dad. (Pop music).
May 3, 2003... A wonderful letter in this month's Mojo, he magazine for gnarled old rockers (and rollers). It refers to a booklet that came free with the previous month's issue and purported to list songs for an Ultimate Jukebox, should we ever find such a...

Disorganised dossier. (Theatre).
May 3, 2003... The Dwarfs Tricycle Monsieur Chasse Orange Tree, Richmond How To Lose Friends... Soho Theatre Where does one stand on Pinter? His testicles, you might say. Not me, though. I'm a fan. And you have to be a serious devotee to enjoy...

Menace in the rain forest. (Television).
May 3, 2003... I had the chance to catch only the first of the new I'm A Celebrity--Get Me Out Of Here! (ITV) before press day, but naturally the moment I saw John Fashanu have thousands of biting insects poured into a sort of plastic pants round his midriff,...

Plum position. (Radio).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Some fascinating insights into the works of P.G. Wodehouse were offered on Radio Four last week in a programme about the unpublished notebooks he wrote from 1900 when he was 19 and working in a bank, The Wodehouse Notebooks (Thursday). John...

Ten to follow. (The turf).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... The next time I bump into John Hills before a big handicap and he says, 'It would be nice to win this one, wouldn't it?' with a particularly cheery grin, I shall pay much closer attention. At Kempton on Coral Rosebery day, I thought no more of...

Emotionally charged. (High life).
May 3, 2003... New York My doctor tells me that the reason I grew a turnout in my head was because of my obsession with Ashley Judd. For any of you living in outer space, Ashley is an actress whom I've never met but have rather ambitious plans for if I...

Serene, spent and sober. (Low life).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Sunday afternoon and I was going home with that 'making love and walking home alone' kind of feeling. A blowy Sunday afternoon and the high street strewn with litter. What I really fancied next was a nice cold pint of lager. Lately, I've...

Bazaar goings-on. (Singular life).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... I have just returned from Morocco, or Marrakech, to be precise; the rose-pink city with its hidden gardens and ancient, tiled palaces. This was against the advice of an American friend who protested vigorously when I announced my visit. 'You...

Tight squeeze. (Bridge).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... WAS bridge always this popular? I spent Easter weekend playing in the annual congress at the Royal National hotel in Euston. It was heaving with players: those who hadn't booked were begging the organisers to squeeze in some extra tables--but...

Budapest. (Chess).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Ten years ago, Britain's Nigel Short became the first Englishman this century to challenge for the world title. Kasparov defended easily enough, but Short played a number of brilliant games which should have earned him the full point. Since...

Rascally rover. (Competition).
May 3, 2003... In Competition No. 2287 you were invited to write a poem with the title 'The Song of the Mischievous Dog'. 'There are many who say that a dog has its day, And a cat has a number of lives; There are others who think that a...

Why studio-style never goes out of fashion. (Property).
May 3, 2003... I suspect that most inquisitive Londoners have, at one time or another, wondered about the extraordinary artists' studios on the A4 at Hammersmith as they rush towards Heathrow. The huge cheval-glass studio windows with glazed vaults excite...

Restaurants.(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... So, off to lunch with Anthony Horowitz, the author whose TV work includes almost everything with 'murder' in it--Murder Most Horrid, Murder In Mind, Midsomer Murders--and whose wonderful bestselling children's books include Granny, Groosham...

Pop goes the Wisden. (Spectator Sport).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... The weather turned this week, but, even without the blue skies that have graced the last four weeks, summer arrived with the publication of Wisden. The famous yellow-coloured cricket almanac is celebrating its 140th year, and is bigger than...

Dear Mary. (Your Problems Solved).(Brief Article)
May 3, 2003... Q. My husband has developed an annoying habit of beginning to unzip himself as he approaches our downstairs gents. He also delays the buttoning-up process until long after he has vacated the facility. I am afraid that I find this obscene. How...

Portrait of the week.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... The Labour party suspended Mr George Galloway, an MP, from 'holding office or representing the party' while it investigated complaints that remarks he made during the war against Iraq might have constituted 'behaviour that is prejudicial or...

Weak foundations.(Tony Blair)(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Tony Blair turned 50 this week. The milestone has been celebrated with a special exhibition by the staff of No. 10. In an impressive display of their talents, the spin doctors of Downing Street have boggled or bullied the media into presenting...

Diary.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... I found myself twice debating with Ottilia Saxl, director of the Institute of Nanotechnology, on the radio last week. She assured listeners that I was quite wrong to imply that big business was behind the technology. Governments, she soothed,...

Now the real fight begins, and this time the Pentagon won't help. (Politics).
May 10, 2003... The central proposition behind the government's public-relations campaign since the end of the Iraq war is that Tony Blair has undergone some mid-life personality enhancement. We are now entreated to believe that the amiable, grinning...

The spectator's notes.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Should we really have been surprised at leaked wire-taps revealing that Mo Mowlam has what the wholesome housewives of Middle America call 'a potty-mouth'? Or that while secretary of state for Northern Ireland she called Sinn Fein's Martin...

If you embarrass the government, you may end up in police custody. (Media Studies).(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... In the early hours of last Thursday, armed police arrived at the Belfast house of Liam Clarke, the Sunday Times's Northern Ireland editor, and his wife, Kathy. They seized four computers, children's games, old newspapers and written material....

Why is the BBC so scared of the truth? Rod Liddle switches on the television and is alarmed to find that broadcasters either ignore or deny what we all know is happening.
May 10, 2003... Let us imagine for a moment that you are a visitor from the Planet Zarg, a civilised and agreeable world somewhere near the great gaseous star Proxima Centauri. Your spaceship landed here a few weeks ago as part of an interplanetary inclusive...

Banned wagon: global: a weekly survey of world restrictions on freedom and free trade.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... This column does not often find common cause with American farmers, nor with farmers of the developed world in general. But it has become necessary to do so, thanks to some brazen protectionist policies on the part of China. Last year, China...

'I focus on winning': Iain Duncan Smith tells Mary Wakefield that the Tories' new Fair Deal needs no razzmatazz to win over the public.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Right! You've got 40 minutes,' says Nick Wood, Iain Duncan Smith's spin doctor, in the manner of a game-show host. We are sitting round a table in IDS's office. Nick has a large glass of red wine in his hand and I have water. Iain can't have a...

The toffs fight back; you know what? There isn't a conspiracy against the middle classes in education. On the contrary, says Rachel Johnson, they've never had it so good.
May 10, 2003... If you read only the Daily Mail, you would think the Labour government was taking the middle classes, like the mountain gorillas of Uganda, to the brink of extinction. 'Middle Britain could be forgiven for feeling under siege from a government...

Mind your language.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... I was trying the other day to find out who first came up with the term moral equivalence, and so I turned to Twentieth Century Words, edited by John Ayto (Oxford). He doesn't list it, though he has Moral Rearmament (1938) and Moral Majority...

OK: just stop gloating: the coalition victory should be celebrated, but it was not an unmitigated triumph.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... In 1991 we were liberating Kuwait. In the Falklands we relieved the Falkland islanders. I would have difficulty saying the same thing for Iraq. If you are an Iraqi, is that how you see it? The words, last week, of that notorious snivelling...

What a shower! Why do we put up with pathetic trickles when foreigners have power showers? Because we are mean and timid.
May 10, 2003... I'm in a Swiss mountain village. I've spent the day glacier skiing, and now I'm showering in my steamy hotel bathroom. The water is crashing off my ample curves, my muscles are aching pleasantly and I'm looking forward to a convivial evening....

Ancient & modern.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Two British commandos from the Special Boat Service (motto 'Not by force, but by guile') escaped capture in Iraq by trekking some 100 miles across mountainous terrain, by night, to the Syrian border. Who were they? Nobody knows, or will know--a...

Germany falling: Berlin lives in the past, says Andrew Gimson. Welfare is generous, and the nation is going bankrupt.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... You are leaving the civilised sector. These words were pinned, in German and English, to the outside of the fence which protects the American embassy in Berlin. In order to get through that fence, you would have to persuade the gallant,...

That's enough grovelling, PM: the Atlantic alliance is essential to the national interest, says Malcolm Rifkind, but Mr Blair should not give unconditional support to the US.(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Why is Tony Blair regularly lampooned as George Bush's poodle? It is a fate that Margaret Thatcher never suffered, despite her long and intimate alliance with Ronald Reagan. The reason is not that difficult to find. Thatcher was perfectly...

A little town where the spirit of Old England still lives and flourishes. (And Another Thing).(Brief Article)
May 10, 2003... Villages and little towns are rather like people: they either have charm or they don't, and it's not always easy to explain why. When I am staying at my house in the Quantocks, I always go over to Watchet, an ancient little harbour-town on the...

My Beckenham referendum. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Sir Philip Goodhart Sir: Of course there should be a national referendum before this country is asked to sign a new European constitution. If the present government will not promise to do this, there is certainly room for private...

Arrogant Mr Patten. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Mr Tim Congdon Sir: Unlike Christopher Patten (Letters, 3 May), I do not regard Britain's future position in Europe as a matter of music-hall entertainment. My article ('The dawning of a new Europe, 19 April) recommended that the UK...

Where are those WMD? (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Mrs Elizabeth Morley Sir: 'If there are any weapons of mass destruction,' writes Boris Johnson ('The fear, the squalor... and the hope', 3 May), 'the good news is that they will not be wielded by Saddam or any group of terrorists.'...

A kiss too far. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Lieutenant-Colonel D.M.C. Rose Sir: I was horrified to see our Prime Minister kissing the President of Russia. Can you imagine Neville Chamberlain kissing Hitler, or Churchill kissing Stalin? Anglo-Saxon men have never gone in for...

What revolution? (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Mr Greg Richey Philip Hensher (Books, 26 April) labours under the rather startling delusion that Margaret Atwood is a novelist of remarkable foresight, offering her sophomoric diatribe The Handmaid's Tale as his exhibit A. The...

In thrall to safety. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Mr Mark Carden Sir: Modern state-sponsored fearfulness does not result just in absurd over-reaction to real problems (Leading article, 3 May), but also in the imposition of nonsensical prohibitions 'just in case'. This is well...

Help for heroes. (Letters).(Letter to the Editor)
May 10, 2003... From Brigadier Peter Macdonald (Rtd) Sir: When in 2001 I heard that many of the men living on the streets in Bristol were ex-servicemen (Mary Wakefield's article, 'Lions betrayed by donkeys', 26 April), I wrote to a member of the Army...