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Post by kerouac2 on May 8, 2020 17:45:35 GMT
The May 8th ceremonies took place today as normal, except that nothing was normal since only 20 people could participate… Marseillaise
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Post by mickthecactus on May 8, 2020 19:25:11 GMT
Why did Vera Lynn sing There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover when we don’t have bluebirds in this country? Seagulls would have fitted....
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Post by mickthecactus on May 8, 2020 19:35:10 GMT
Why do they have opera singers to sing popular songs? Just had one singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was awful.
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Post by onlyMark on May 8, 2020 20:26:21 GMT
Agree. Their voices are too 'heavy' yet it seems to be quite popular.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 8, 2020 21:21:57 GMT
Those four guys managed to make the Marseillaise pretty stirring. Macron looks the way people always look at such occasions because they're all thinking, "How many verses does this have?" Why did Vera Lynn sing There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover when we don’t have bluebirds in this country? I just looked that up. The guys who wrote the song were Americans, as are bluebirds. source I guess neither Ms. Lynn, nor any of the musicians, arrangers, sound technicians, etc. were birders. Why do they have opera singers to sing popular songs? Because it elevates the popular song to a higher cultural level? Related question: why do people think soprano voices -- any soprano voices -- are the best ones? It makes stuff like going to weddings a source of fear, as you just know they picked the choir member with the shrillest voice to do Abide With Me or whatever.
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Post by questa on May 9, 2020 1:58:06 GMT
Why did Vera Lynn sing There’ll be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover when we don’t have bluebirds in this country? Seagulls would have fitted.... Aren't bluebirds supposed to be the "Bringers of Happiness". That should get them the gig. No seagulls, please. Over here they are called 'rats with wings'.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 3, 2020 16:16:39 GMT
Here too. And well known for shitting on everything. I'm ashamed to admit that the official name of our housing co-operative is Les Goélands de la Petite-Patrie (named by the son of a member who was a small boy at the time). There are gulls here because they land on the roof of an old Bell Canada building, across the street. Disgusting things, and far too large to hope our cats will kill them. Originally, they caught fish, but now they mostly eat fast food and rubbish.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 4, 2020 11:27:32 GMT
Today is the 70th anniversary of end of Operation Dynamo in Dunkirk. The evacuation took 9 days and more than 10,000 Allied troops died, many by drowning.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 4, 2020 12:07:39 GMT
Thank Bastet you didn't write "sadly died"...
That was horrible. My parents remembered it.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 4, 2020 13:14:27 GMT
People prefer to remember that 338,000 British Empire and French soldiers were saved.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2020 17:06:56 GMT
Thank Bastet you didn't write "sadly died"... Ahh ~ I see someone besides me is moved to teeth-grinding annoyance by this new and incorrect usage! Today is the 70th anniversary of end of Operation Dynamo in Dunkirk. This was the first time I knew the code name of the evacuation! Great comment about which bits of history remain in popular imagination.
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Post by mossie on Jun 4, 2020 18:30:36 GMT
And when we went back into Normandy in 1944 it was Operation Overlord.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:20:20 GMT
I had a friend who took part, but he didn't "go in" as he was a Normand, and a partisan. He died not long ago, after a very good run.
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Post by lagatta on Jun 5, 2020 22:25:33 GMT
Bixa, other than all the military deaths, genocides and torture, Nazism was also more a more banal campaign of mass theft of land, industry, assets and other forms of accumulated wealth. In the early years of Nazism, maintstream, "Aryan" and régime-friendly Germans (included the incorporated Austrians) actually experienced a rise in standard of living.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jun 6, 2020 4:08:54 GMT
Anyway, D-Day is certainly not forgotten in Normandy today, but all of the usual commemorations have been cancelled of course. None of the few remaining veterans can attend anything anyway.
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Post by kerouac2 on Jul 23, 2021 11:50:03 GMT
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 29, 2021 13:06:07 GMT
a statue for Soviet soldiers who died in the French Resistance
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