My own tribute to the victims of 911 and their families. I hope Britain and the USA stay friends.

The snow lies thick on Valley Forge,

The ice on the Delaware,

But the poor dead soldiers of King George

They neither know nor care.

Not though the earliest primrose break

On the sunny side of the lane,

And scuffling rookeries awake

Their England' s spring again.

They will not stir when the drifts are gone,

Or the ice melts out of the bay:

And the men that served with Washington

Lie all as still as they.

They will not stir though the mayflower blows

In the moist dark woods of pine,

And every rock-strewn pasture shows

Mullein and columbine.

Each for his land, in a fair fight,

Encountered strove, and died,

And the kindly earth that knows no spite

Covers them side by side.

She is too busy to think of war;

She has all the world to make gay;

And, behold, the yearly flowers are

Where they were in our fathers' day!

Golden-rod by the pasture-wall

When the columbine is dead,

And sumach leaves that turn, in fall,

Bright as the blood they shed.

Kipling

It seems that Central Command is moving. That would seem to indicate that the war will start soon.

Well, this from the Scotsman give a dry factual breakdown on Saddam and the proposed war to put an end to it. Compelling reading. I'm nearly converted to the idea except I'd rather watch via CNN than directly as seems likely.

My own view is that the decision has already been made by President Bush and everything is falling into place except for the start date of the air component war. Still around November the 9th I think whereupon I will take myself , my family and the dog to the Golan for the weekend. If any al-Hussein missiles come this way, hopefully the Patriot batteries down the road will hit them east of where I'll be. We don;t have a shelter room in our rather old house and the public shelter is unusable.
I'm not sure of the range of the new Arrow missiles that Israel has but I understand that they aim for the mid course rather then the end trajectory.

It may be me but the blogs I normally read seem quieter than normal. Is everybody on holiday. 911 syndrome?

So, back from holiday, then the flu, plus the woman in my life having a bad asthma attack and then ending up in hospital. It’s never boring here.

That’s why I haven’t blogged for a while. I missed it in a way.

While in London for a few days, I saw the bodyworks exhibition. I went there preparing to be shocked but was surprised to find myself enjoying it. There is a lot about the body I didn’t know and anybody could profit from a trip. Why though does the fact that the process was invented in Germany leave a small dark question mark in my head?

For those who haven’t seen it, it shows a number of real human plasticized bodies with explanations. A typical exhibit is a man , skinned, holding his skin in one hand. This is supposed to demonstrate the size of a human’s largest organ.

Over the weekend, we were with friends near Jerusalem. Yesterday, we went to a site where early agriculture was being revived to show how people got their daily bread around 3,000 years ago. A long walk uphill got us to a spring, still running even after the summer, and water trickling down small terraced gardens to nourish peppers, grapes, fruit trees, lettuce and many other crops I didn’t recognise. Wonderful but hot.

A great weekend with lovely people. Much more relaxing than my holiday in fact.

Note. No politics so far. Watch this space.