Bletchley Park

I often wonder how I can celebrate being English, and indeed being British, without idiots like the BNP thinking I'm on their side. But it's no good keeping quiet just because *they* happen to be waving *my* flag. So I thought I might state from time to time things I'm proud of, without any implication of scorning other peoples and what they might be proud of.

Now here is something to to be very proud of. I've been to many, many stately places and national monuments, but few made me feel the way Bletchley Park did. British codebreaking and British computing genius played an inestimable part in winning the war against Nazism.


The Bombe, designed to test Enigma rotor settings.




Alan Turing's office. Looking into a very ordinary office with a sense of awe because I was in the presence of greatness.



Colossus. In the presence of more greatness - in two ways. Not just the awe inspiring original, but also the dedication of the amateurs who have spent more than six years recreating it.






View from the American Garden across the lake to the huts.



The sad state of some of the buildings today, which illustrates why Bletchley Park needs help with funds. These Paypal and Worldpay links enable you to donate to Bletchley Park online.










There's more on what you can do to help at Saving Bletchley Park.

Diana and heritage

Today seems to be Diana day, though it feels to me as if it's been going on for weeks. Best summed up, I think, by a headline in the Whiskey Priest's blog: "Diana: still dead", closely followed by "In Other News: Deaths in Darfur, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan continue...."

The OU is about to launch a course called "Heritage, whose heritage?", which I think I'll apply to teach. The course description starts: "Do heritage objects reflect my memories of the past? Or are they different? What kind of presence of the past do I want in my community?" I think there's a big place for a thoughtful approach to heritage, particularly in this country because we have such a peculiar view of it. Part of the time we're desperate to preserve anything because it's old and therefore English (I leave aside the issue of "English" versus "British" history and identity, to which I would need to devote an entire and lengthy blog), and part of the time we're cashing in on it by commercialising it. So my working definition of heritage is "the redefinition and commercialisation of anything old regardless of its intrinsic value". No doubt any philosophers among my esteemed readership will have a field day with the concept of "intrinsic value", and I will have to revisit that bit when I've thought about it a bit more.

There was a nice treatment of the issue, kind of in reverse, in "The man who lost his head" on ITV last weekend. The show is listed on IMDB, and the user comment entitled "Good solid family entertainment" is a perfect summing up of what I thought. The ITV web page details are quite fun, especially Martin Clunes' description of New Zealand being like Cornwall but with more reggae.

Anyway, that's what's happening to Diana. Redefinition (more or less every week in the Daily Express) and commercialisation.