chaplin

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Read them and weep

If you've just seen a bloke coming out of Kings Cross station wiping the tears from his eyes that was probably me listening to the end of "If You're Reading This", a Radio Four documentary I caught up with thanks to the Speechification podcast. It's a simple idea and it's probably been done lots of times before. It's about those letters that soldiers write and then put away against the day that they don't come back. The last ten minutes consist of an interview with the parents of a 19-year-old English soldier killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. The mother talks about the letter he wrote and the karaoke night organised in her son's memory but won't read the letter out. That, she says quite correctly, is mine.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:55 pm

    Completely unrelated but:

    I've finally got round to watching The Wire, which is as good as everyone says. In fact, I watched the first nine episodes in one sitting.

    Now - as you probably don't know, I am something of an expert on da' hood. Not Baltimore specifically, but I have actually been to new york and actually WALKED through the Bronx. Yes, thats right - walked. All the way to the Yankee stadium souvenier shop next to the tube station and back again. Alone, home-boyz. A-lone!

    And, as you also probably do not know, I am something of an expert on da subject of gangsta rap, having listened to at least three snoopy dog dog songs.

    Yes, I know, pretty hardcore. I believe ross kemp is pitching a series about me to ITV as we speak - 'Britains hardest 44-year-old divorced social misfits'

    So I say this as someone who is steeped in extensive knowledge of the world theyre representing on the wire ...

    For homies like me and da boiz I know - this is one bad muthafucker of a series.

    Keep it real (by which, I of course mean, buy organic)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yup, so totally unrelated that I find it quite offensive.
    At least it was a thread about something relatively unimportant like Euro 2008 which you managed to drag off topic on Andrew Collins' blog with almost exactly the same comment.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4:40 pm

    Coming from someone so self-involved they run a blog full of endlessly self-congratulatory photos and stories about their own family - I take that as a compliment.

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
  4. When you've got a family that's geographically dispersed like ours is, it's a good way to let grandparents etc. see things they wouldn't otherwise see. Anyway, this is someone else's blog comments so I won't waste anymore of Mr Hepworth's space on our disagreement.

    ReplyDelete