It's nice to be at a distance, and there's so many people that would just benefit from this and so many horses would Let down put their head low if you just got out of your horses space the problem is Get out of my space here The problem is people don't establish a halt From the start as I walk I might have to lift to slow him down as I walk I might have to reach up with the rope and send a wave at him Back up a little bit if I lift and get tall I'm conveying a sense of liveliness energy Possibly movement, but good It's looking pretty good Right about here is where a lot of people say hey or they say it a little different They say hey and they yell at their horse for oh He goes I think I'll back up and I say I'm gonna stick with my I'm gonna stick with my idea there pal So long as I can bend his nose to me He probably would never kick out at somebody because the thought's not there Now if he's in a position to kick out at you if his head goes to the other side of his body away from me It's quite possible that he would Kick out you might not even realize you're there because he forgets. Oh come on now. Don't come there. We go find that back up Hope that makes sense that you keep that horse's attention towards you. You keep the bend Towards you The thought of kicking out won't be there It's not the action or the movement that I think about it's the mental state that the horse is in So if I need more life, let's get more life. I'll get tall. I'll ask him to trot a little bit. I realized he's still That's funny It's gonna stick with them. Oh interesting He's out of view to drive him forward a little bit There we go. Leave him alone get forward above all Come on forward. That's really what you need to have come on forward. I'll leave you alone. Life is good Come towards me Move the hindquarters notice how to reach up Offset the haunch. All that is is stepping the inside hide link under Turn towards them Actually there I might let him settle in he says I want to float over there. So what if we're giving me this side? Now, what about the idea? Something I'd really like right now Would be could I get him to step forward and over as if he were leg-yielding Almost if I were riding because boy, that would feel good for me because that would give me space when I circle Notice I use the rope sort of on his barrel Where your leg would be that's looking pretty nice. He didn't move over. I Think you'll notice more arc natural arc in the neck as we go I'll walk out of there walk out of the center. I'm probably getting pretty far away from you right now in that view on your screen but I Want to work with them on the other side of the ring So when I work a green horse or a young horse Preferably It will be done on both sides of the arena So you can see both sides and notice he kind of comes towards me. I realize He there will move him forward His nose goes to the outside. I'll move him forward a little bit Step around that'll draw his attention bring the hindquarters to me. I Need him to see the side of the ring Good. He's he squared up nicely Keeping my attention on him letting him see both sides of the ring Both directions left and right I would like to get a canter here at some point and maybe he Maybe it'll be here Yeah, there you go nice little kick action makes it more exciting I Bent his head towards me. Let's try that again got a little crossfire canter. I realize it's hard to see Try this again, let's get united. I have a little crossfire. So a disunited canter. Let's try this again Yeah, boy He's a trotter. Let's see here Okay He doesn't even see the jump standards look at that houses awareness Once his awareness comes back to his feet You'll have there's a united lead with a tail swish now had I not I'll bring him to me He doesn't know this yet. I'll cut an angle and he's got to bring his mind back around because There it is. Yay Look at that his mind came back Let's go down to this side. Ah come for the ride. Good. All right Yeah, so I actually like these lively horses, but When they kick back or kick out a horse like this Yeah He's just sort of that's old life experiences and the way he's dealt with things and This looks like it might be his better lead. We'll see here We're getting in and out of frame It's a little tight in here It's funny because His he's so unaware of his feet there it is. I thought you might get the lead.   I want to back up. I'm staying tall He doesn't understand that when I stay tall keep his life up when I bring my life up You bring your life up Let's see that leg yield that's enlarging the circle. They're stepping over to the side. I Step forward and over and I I step in the direction. I want him to go I get tall and I press in It's looking all right The other thing is if I could fall back to my heels, that's excellent meaning at first I step towards them. I step forward and over. I'm stepping in the direction I want to go then when he finds it. I've got to watch it on this side tension. Ah He's started to lift his lip ups a little tension. So when he finds it on the right side, he steps over I'll stay where I'm at So I'll initiate the movement by stepping forward and over. I am moving towards him I am moving my feet then when he gets it. I'll fall back a little bit. Oh careful now Don't and he says I want to face you. He said I that's what I did earlier and that worked I said you're okay. You just leave me on your side. He says this is my offside or this is my right side No, and actually We just translate what horses are thinking Because in reality, he's just a little nervous about me over here. So he just is protecting himself His tail swishing is telling you That they're a lack of clarity and understanding what I want. It'll come through things come through it takes time a little change looking and chewing You'll hear me talk about looking and chewing and mental changes and a mental change brings on a physical change because the whole horse is starting to Figure things out come through now If I reach up with the curry comb As he comes to you kind of stepped into me anyway, so I just reach up and brush a little and Now I'll take that hindquarters. I'll step to the rear step to the straight line away from him We'll do this again. I'll take that forehand over. I'm rubbing a bit. I'll step past the hindquarters And bring the front into me. Let's do this again That hindquarters will over bring us front into me All right, he's changing direction, but at least he's trying so let's just sort of go with him on that Let him feel like he's good. He can relax step to the hind Take the hindquarters. I won't after repeat This lesson after today that much Notice the sensitivity level there. Ah, yeah, he's real sensitive. So just brushing him I thought the metal curry would be a good thing for him Just to get okay with that little sensitivity Sensitive horse. I use the curry on his barrel and even that is Hard for him right here. He looks pretty good notice. I can always bend his head to me Let's bring that fun end through a little further. Let's bring that fun end through It's like a turn on the hindquarters right there It's distracted Looking to the side. So it takes a lot of pressure to bring him back is to me. Look at that It's a lot. It's a lot of work to bring that mind back to me boy riding makes you wonder if he'd be really kind of heavy in the rain But I'm just guessing Never been on him he's got the potential to be quite the horse He's put together well. He's got a bit more of that refined nose refined head and body So I find these thoroughbreds to be a little more energetic just Partly because of their build their body But that I like that kind. I don't know that I can step that rib cage over I was feeling like with that tail switching and with them pressing in there I was feeling a little squashed little compressed. Let's get that hindquarter or let's get him stepping all four legs over here So am I grooming him? Am I doing groundwork? The answer is yes doing both What would he learn being cross-tight right now swishing his tail and Who are being tied?  He's like Jack. I think I know what you want now He looks to the outside. I might walk over here. We want to take care of that.  He needs to feel for me. That was nice It's nice Keep him keeping me more mindful use the curry comb as a blocker Curry comb has some advantages Looks a little better obviously the heads away though look at that every time I go to the right side He looks to the left every time I go to the left. He looks to the right Boy, oh boy It's gonna get better though It's gonna get better All right, I can I notice him behind me. He's looking around, but he's being somewhat mindful. He is Kind of working his jaw in a good way Right here. I just you notice he's just gonna run right through me Come on buddy. I'm here too There we go there.   I lost him see Bring that front end through What I'd like to do is brush him with this hard brush carefully Horses like this they don't I Want your attention, buddy, so see how I bumped his side and he'd use that cautiously I'm always able to bend his head towards me. I'll try to not mention that too many more times, but I'm here Look at me. It's enough for that. If I were riding him, I'd be using that left leg Is he nervous? Yes, he's lively, but I'm still here and the other way I look at this is this is great training for him because he's under pressure Horses Only as good as they are When they're under pressure Look how much time I take though. People say I don't groom that's funny because looks like I grew him a lot Okay, stay with me pal. Yeah, that's not the answer See, that's what I mean. Some of these older well, I should say some of these greener thoroughbreds these six seven-year-olds and They've got the mind of like a two-year-old sometimes at least when they're nervous or when they're lively He can't help that.  I hope that makes sense. It's primitive On a on a racetrack They're gonna get it done Time is money to race race people And some show people too High and quarters See he's always I always have an there felt good right there. He kind of considered me a little more See whenever I brush he thinks oh look to the outside. It's my permission to look look away. It's no Maybe I brush him on the move a little bit. I've got to get under that belly good because The girth is gonna have to Get put on


Hold on to your seats, folks. In this spine-chilling video, we're diving deep into the dark side of the film industry. Join me as we uncover six horrifying deaths that occurred during the making of some of your favorite movies. From tragic accidents to unexpected twists of fate, these stories will leave you shocked and speechless. But beware, this video is not for the faint-hearted. Brace yourself for a roller coaster ride through Hollywood's most haunting moments. Harry O'Connor, a name synonymous with skydiving and adrenaline-fueled stunts, he carved a legendary career out of his fascination for parachuting from airplanes. From the 90s films The Perfect Storm to Charlie's Angels and Tomorrow Never Dies, O'Connor's credits as a stuntman and aerial coordinator are nothing short of impressive. Driven by an unwavering passion for skydiving, O'Connor transformed his love for the sport into a thriving profession. The daring feats and meticulous coordination left audiences in awe as he seamlessly blended the world of film and extreme sports together. In 2002, our fearless stuntman found himself in the beautiful city of Prague, Czech Republic, for the filming of the action-packed Vin Diesel film. Amongst the many daring stunts he performed, one stood out as particularly demanding. Picture this. O'Connor would strap himself into a parasail pulled by a speedboat along the majestic Vltava River. But here's where it gets intense. His mission was to navigate under the iconic Palaki Bridge with mere inches to spare. As if that wasn't enough, he had to gracefully descend onto a submarine while his parachute crashed dramatically against the bridge railing. This heart-pounding feat was no easy task, but O'Connor executed it flawlessly time and time again. His expertise and precision allowed him to capture this jaw-dropping scene with absolute perfection. But he insisted on one more take. Harry O'Connor met a tragic end when his last attempt went awry, resulting in a fatal collision with one of the bridge's stone pillars. At just 45 years old, his life was cut short in a heartbreaking manner. On the fateful morning of February 20th, 2014, tragedy struck on the set of Midnight Rider, a biopic centered around musician Greg Allman. Sarah Jones, a talented 27-year-old camera assistant, found herself in a perilous situation while working on a dream scene on a railroad bridge in rural Georgia. The crew had meticulously set up the main prop, a bed frame and mattress, on the tracks, believing they were safe as they had been assured that only two trains would pass by. However, their assumptions were shattered when an unexpected third train suddenly appeared on the horizon. In the chaotic scramble for safety, Jones and a few others managed to reach the narrow walkway that ran alongside the tracks. Desperately clinging to the girders that towered above it, they sought refuge from the impending danger. Unfortunately, in their haste to escape, they were forced to leave behind a bed that had been left in their path. The consequences of this decision would soon become tragically clear. With a deafening roar, the train barreled towards them at an astonishing speed of around 65 miles per hour. The impact was devastating, sending metal bars hurtling through the air like deadly projectiles. The aftermath was harrowing. Six crew members were left seriously injured. Among them lay Jones, lifeless on the tracks, her body claimed by merciless shards of metal debris. In a shocking turn of events, investigations into the tragic incident on set revealed a web of deception and dishonesty. It was discovered that no one had actually been given permission to use the bridge despite claims of the director and producers. The director, Randall Miller, had simply lied to everyone involved. The producers were also found to have been less than forthcoming about the dangers that the crew faced while working on the set. This negligence led to a trial one year later. In an effort to avoid more severe consequences, most of the defendants chose to plead guilty. As a result, they received lighter sentences consisting primarily of fines and probation. However, director Randall Miller faced a more severe punishment as he became the first filmmaker to be jailed for an on-set death. He would ultimately serve one year in jail. This case serves as a stark reminder of the importance of transparency and safety in film production. It also highlights the legal repercussions that can be faced when negligence leads to tragic consequences on set. Or that's how it's supposed to work. Ormer Locklear was a legendary figure in the early days of aviation and his career was nothing short of extraordinary. Born in 1891, Locklear began his journey as a stunt pilot and quickly gained fame for his daredevil aerial acrobatics. Locklear's career reached new heights when he joined the film industry as a stuntman and aerial coordinator. He performed death-defying stunts in numerous silent films capturing the imagination of audiences worldwide. His fearless nature and precision-flying skills made him a sought-after talent in Hollywood. Locklear's most notable achievement was his role in the film The Great Air Robbery, 1919, where he performed breathtaking mid-air transfers between moving planes. This groundbreaking feat showcased his unparalleled expertise and solidified his status as an aviation pioneer. Tragically, Locklear's career came to an untimely end when he died at the age of 29 during a night-flying accident while filming The Skywayman, 1920. In a tragic turn of events, the last stunt planned for the film's shooting schedule took a devastating turn. Locklear, at just 28 years old, performed a daring tailspin known as a suicide dive. The intention was for searchlights to be turned off during the dive to ensure Locklear's safety. However, for some reason, this crucial step was overlooked. Blinded by the lights or disoriented in some way, Locklear was unable to pull out of the dive and had a horrific crash dying upon impact. In an unexpected move, the movie studio decided to include footage of this fatal crash in the final release of the film. In an interesting turn of events, Jack Budlong, a skilled horseman and close friend of the famous actor, Errol Flynn, found himself with a role in Flynn's latest film, They Died With Their Boots On. This biopic focused on the life of George Custer and included a climactic scene recreating the Battle of Little Bighorn. Scheduled to begin filming on June 25, 1941, Budlong made an unusual decision. Instead of using a wooden prop saber like the other extras, he chose to brandish a real saber while riding into the battle scene. The reasons behind his choice remain unknown. In a tragic turn of events, Budlong's quick thinking and presence of mind were not enough to save him from a fatal accident. As his horse spooked and reared, possibly startled by an explosive, Budlong made the split-second decision to toss his saber away before being thrown off. The sword, unfortunately, landed with the blade facing upward, creating a dangerous situation. When Budlong landed on it during the fall, he suffered severe injuries that ultimately proved fatal. Despite being taken to the hospital for treatment, he tragically succumbed to his injuries a few days later. In 1984, Jan Eric Hexham was a rising star in the entertainment industry with a promising career ahead of him. At just 26 years old, he had already made a name for himself through his roles in popular television series such as Voyagers and Cover Up. However, tragedy struck when a seemingly harmless joke took a devastating turn. Hexham's life was cut short by an accident that occurred on the set of Cover Up. While waiting for filming to resume, he playfully picked up a prop gun loaded with blanks and jokingly pointed it at his head. Unbeknownst to him, he was firing the blank cartridge at close range caused severe trauma to his skull. This unfortunate incident serves as a reminder of the dangers that can arise from even seemingly innocuous actions. It is a tragic reminder that life can be fragile and unpredictable. Despite his promising talent and undeniable charisma, Hexham's life was tragically cut short on October 18, 1984 by an ill-fated joke gone horribly wrong. On October 21, 2021, things took a devastating turn on the set of the western film Rust. Actor and producer Alec Baldwin, while rehearsing a scene at a remote ranch in New Mexico, tragically pulled the trigger of what he believed to be an unloaded gun. The result was chaos and tragedy. According to the film's director Joel Souza, the sound that followed was jarring like a whip and then a loud pop. In that moment, cinematographer Helena Hutchins collapsed to the floor. Helena Hutchins passed away at the age of 42 during her transfer to the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque. The following day, Baldwin released a statement expressing his deep shock and sadness over the incident. In the aftermath, on January 19, 2023, David Halls, the first assistant director of the movie Rust, pled guilty to a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon. As a result, he received a suspended sentence of probation. Then on March 31, 2023, Halls pleaded no contest to another misdemeanor charge related to negligent use of a deadly weapon. This time, he was sentenced to six months of unsupervised probation, along with a $500 fine and 24 hours of community service. On August 4, 2023, Hannah Gutierrez read, the armor for the Rust movie made a significant decision in her ongoing legal case. As the sole remaining criminal defendant in the shooting incident that tragically took the life of Helena Hutchins, Gutierrez read chose to waive her right for a preliminary hearing. This means that she has allowed the trial against her to proceed without further evaluation of the criminal charges she is facing. The outcome of this trial will ultimately determine Gutierrez read's legal fate in relation to this heartbreaking incident. On April 21, 2023, the news broke that the special prosecutor's office in New Mexico made a surprising announcement. They revealed that the involuntary manslaughter charges against Baldwin were being dismissed. This unexpected turn of events left many people puzzled and curious about the reasoning behind this decision. It sparked discussions and debates about the intricacies of the legal process and raised questions about accountability and justice. The news quickly spread, capturing headlines and generating public interest in this high-profile case.


Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind the enemy lines? Knowing you may never return alive What you have just heard is the question asked during the war to agents of the OSS Ordinary citizens who to this question answered? Yes This is cloak and dagger Black warfare Espionage international intrigue. These are the weapons of the OSS Today's story the roof of the world Concerning two American agents who travel into the far-off and mysterious land of Tibet on a secret pilgrimage Is suggested by actual incidents recorded in the Washington files of the Office of Strategic Services a Story that can now be told It came out of sudden out of the darkness the shaggy monster over 15 feet high None of us had a word for a minute. We just stared at the tusks Look at the length of them the tusks of this monster must have been at least 12 feet long And I knew myself that if I hadn't seen it stood right in front of it I wouldn't have believed it actually existed either, but I saw it. There was definite proof. It did live Once okay, okay lights put on the lights, please All right now quiet, please quiet What you have just seen is the last of our afternoon slides here in the Museum of Natural History on prehistoric animals This last mammoth was a species of a true elephant which was found in Tibet during and before the Ice Age Now are there any questions? If you all follow the guide he'll take you into the next room where you can actually see the skeletons of these monsters Which peleontologists have reconstructed from fossils and actual bones discovered in the earth Philip oh Phil oh hello Aston. Are you here for the whole lecture? No just the last part of it, but you were sensation Flattery will get you nowhere. Yeah, what's that? Oh telegram here just came to the office No, it's not for me. It's for us. Oh, who's it from Washington the office of strategic services wants to see us office of strategic Now why in the world do they want us? There's one way to find out Mr. And Mrs. Maldon we know your reputation as geologists and explorers We know you traveled the Far East together several times That's true Carol now at this stage of the war Germany is pushing eastward across Africa to Suez and Japan is thrusting westward across China into India if the axis partners meet their Junction will be central Asia and dominating that meeting point will be Tibet what do you want us to do? We want volunteers to make a pilgrimage to the Dalai Lama high priest of Tibet It'll be a good will mission to get them on our side It involves a great deal of danger. Yes. Yes, we know Esther well as long as you're sure that mammoth elephant disappeared from their centuries ago. I'm willing A few weeks later, we were flown to India where we were given a car Then the tour was started out across the border to a village called Guksong at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains Once there we were to pick up pack animals and a guide and start our journey to the holy city These roads couldn't have been any narrower or any rockier. Well, they weren't designed for modern travel. You can say that again Phil Are you worried about something? I'm worried about a lot of things for instance For instance, this is the worst possible time of the year to be traveling up that mountain It's almost spring up there and the thaw setting in it's going to loosen the snow and ice all along the way Well, we just have to be more careful. That's all Oh Phil look round the bend of the road. That's the village isn't it? That's it. That's it Wait a minute Phil slow down Look, but Lord, I should have said was a village Burn to the ground The old man who sat wailing and moaning cross-legged on the ground Was the only one Left alive in that village Banji tribe come from mountains steel care Set fire to rich How is it they spared you? I am praised sent from Dalai Rama to this village Many years past If they kill Horry man great plague and pastor and swear be upon them Well, tell me where'd you learn to speak English in Horry city was taught Well What do we do now Phil? We can't leave him here alone We'll take him with us and drive until we find another village. I know I take you with it a single will be guide to Horry city here are is lost Go back to Dalai Lama, what about pack animals a village of Chanda nuts far away We'll go there first Chanda was about 10 miles away down the road It was small with only a few huts made of sun-dried bricks Phil was afraid of the spring thaw that was setting in more every day So we made arrangements with the native chief to start almost immediately What do you say? Yes, Keung's wire dunk is as good pack animals as other white man has What's he talking about? What are the white men ask him? Pango Suley brah, Joa Sote, Lhasa Strangers leave here two days ago and way also to Horry city of Lhasa We're batch with crooked cross Natsis, we're in a race Esther. We've got to reach Lhasa before they do That was the first we knew that the Germans were ahead of us going in the same direction on the same mission Philip was right. It was going to be a race for time Yes, sir. Come on. This is no time to pick flowers Look at this dwarf road at Dandrenville and up ahead. It's like a carpet of blue iris There'll be plenty of foliage until we cross the Timberline Then it'll just be cold and traveling on snow is going to be a lot tougher Well, I'm not looking forward to the temperature dropping a hundred degrees in 20 miles. It oh Watch it. Did you hurt yourself? No, I just tripped. I guess they must be getting tired Is the sink too? Yes. Yes. How soon will we be able to camp? Cold Springs less than half mired ahead We'll camp there for night When we reached the Springs I Started dinner out of K rations which kept our packs light and by the time I was through the tent had Mushroomed up and Phil and sing two were inside straightening the pole and fixing the blankets for the night Looked up from the fire to find an unpleasant surprise Six unpleasant surprises carrying rifles and forming a ring of muddy boots all around Who are you men? What do you want? What they come from I don't know they're just here that's all We are sing to these are some of nomad bandit who raised my birch Niga shim off. What do they want?  Send me hurry man back to get ransom. Oh, Phil hold on hold on Don't let them know you're afraid of them We stood there while they gathered our surprise out of the tent And threw them in the heat by the fire Sing to knew he wouldn't do harm because it was a holy man, but Phil and I had no idea what was ahead for us Leave her alone you understand sing to tell them we'll come quietly I said get your filthy hands The machine gun that riddle the bandit leader came from the direction of the brush Then there was silence And we looked up to see our two saviors walking out of the brush in German uniform I'm delighted. We were able to be of assistance Americans. I am commandant court father of the German army This is light on Ernst Kessler, right me. Thank you for saving our lives I'm I'm mr. Malden and this is my husband Philip. Oh and our guide sing to You do not seem too surprised to see us here. We're not just surprised. You're not two days ahead of us the way we thought you were Then you knew about us Wow, they told us in the village. They also told us you were headed for the holy city.   No Oh, I mean we're we're geologists We're just on an exploring expedition Come come Is it quite nice to lie to your benefactors who have just saved your lives? I don't get that. Why did you Well, we saw the american flag sewn on your clothing That told us immediately who you were where you were going We as you already know, we are also headed for Lhasa to the Dalai Lama But our guide was killed the snow loosened under him as we turned a legend here Film so you were going back for a guide exactly But there is some distance away time is slipping by you have the guide you will lead us Oh, no, we won't and neither will sing too. Will you sing too?  You're crazy look You are scientists I appeal to your logical minds Is it not safer that since we are traveling the same direction we travel together Once we reach the Dalai Lama That each of us present the case of his country to him If you'll forgive me for repeating her commandant, we're not going to be pushed along with guns in our backs Nine Who said you would be? Yeah Why phil He's giving us back our pistols. You see we trust changers gentlemen, no Not yet It's all right go ahead open them. Yeah open the gun if you like Go ahead spin the drum See the cartridges in the chamber Yes, yes, I see them Well, you return your guns loaded as they were Now shall we forget the war for a while and travel on together Okay Let's try it Oh We're lagging behind them phil Shouldn't we catch up to we will I want to talk to you I'm cold A temperature went down so fast once we crossed the timber line. I can almost hear it drop Oh What do you think of this situation? With our friends I don't know what to think You trust them. Of course. I don't Whether they gave us back our guns or not They're still going to look for a chance to double cross us before we reach the holy city What are we going to do phil? Just keep an eye out look for a way to double cross them first Fresh friends clear brooky here Good water to sink Come come my friends You hear what he says? That would taste better than the whiskey in your flasky arms. We're coming We caught up with them and as we leaned over to fill our canteens from the small clear brook There was a sudden rumbling The water's turned muddy suddenly. Yeah, it's covered with a dirty form I think too What's he talking about? It is not raining. It is in the high regions. That's what turned the water But so suddenly it happens like that races along under the ground pushing the mud with it It's really beginning to thaw, isn't it? Yes, that's what I was afraid of What is there to be afraid of? Answer me As the snow starts to melt it'll start to fall So just watch your step Elm's isn't not good to have three such good guides We are indeed fortunate boss Come my brook along the way we walk Walk why do you think we have these animals? Keong can be turned loose here We'll get more and more snow It's best to climb by foot. Yes sing too is right Besides the animals won't find any place to graze. It's been getting pretty sparse for miles. Where will they go? They are wild We'll find the one way Heta The packs were heavy and we were too tired the next two days to do much talking We just watched each other The jagged pairs undress were getting more and more slippery And below the cliff we could see a sheer drop of hundreds of feet to the glacier Above us were the snow peaks And somewhere beyond the holy city of Lhasa Towards which small birds of dull brown gray and black seemed to point And then the third night after the strange pact had been made between our two enemy camps It happened Where are you going?  I can see you don't want to be friendly What a pity I'll be friendly enough to give you some good advice Save that liquor until you really need it and stop guzzling it if you intend to keep up on this hike This is no Boy Scout picnic I'm touched by your concern for me Don't flatter yourself What are you doing back here anyway? You really wish to know I followed you and knew you were coming to the brook So I went round to all the way You what? You don't like me You'd like me very much If you've got to know me No, thanks Now, please get out of my way.  You will I can tell you will I'll give this lady apologies I order you My apologies from Maldon. You both have my word an incident like this will not occur again Shall we eat and make him for the night now? All the next day Bill and sing too kept me between them as we climbed I wondered how soon we'd see the holy city and when all this would come to a head Look When sing too yelled we turned around and looked in the direction from which we just come A huge ice pillar swayed for a moment and then It landed on the path we had come from less than two hours before And this is what we can expect from now on now that the Thor said in Oh, I'll expect it, but I won't look forward to it Am I mistaken or are the days getting longer sleepy? You know it was nice of them to let you and sing too and me have this cave to ourselves Well considering that it's too small to hold more than three of this it wasn't so magnanimous Still they could have tried to grab it for themselves Farber seems to be trying to make amends for the way his pal liked it the other day I wonder what their game is. Yes. I'd like to know too Sing too. Yes You wish to know how soon we reach holy city He may not talk much, but he's a pretty good mind reader That's it sing too How long expect to see gates in distance perhaps tomorrow tomorrow? Oh, that's wonderful. Is it well, isn't it? It means time has run out as to If they're going to pull anything They're going to pull it now The Germans were camped under a ledge which protected them from the wind about 50 feet from us across a narrow crevasse In spite of all the things that had happened before or might be going to happen ahead It was strange peaceful up there In the west a fan of pink rays from the sun shot up from behind the snow range And overhead a few bright stars twinkled Presently the fan flickered and and disappeared And then in the glow of the full moon I saw what looked like a long procession of ghosts in the distance But were actually cascades of snow Melting and falling hundreds of feet leaping from ledge to ledge In the morning The air was crystal clear And we saw it The holy city Ah Esther, do you see it? I expected only to return again When I die Oh, it's beautiful How long will it take us to reach it? You will not reach it at all my friends. Don't start something. You can't finish her come on.  You should have been more friendly to me from morning That's I would have taken you with us What's the big joke But I saw them I broke open the gun and saw the cartridges then you take one out and examine it Why don't you do it now? Bill Look, I I opened mine it's a It's a blank cartridge now surely from morning You understand why I took care not to let your husband become too excited the night elves here try to be friendly I didn't want to take a chance of you finding out too soon We should give you regards to the Dalai Lama Show this Kill us with your blank guns if you can That's not a bad idea Esther Else look out back in the cave quick Took them at their word and actually killed them with this blank gun The shots vibrated enough to loosen the heavily piled snow Break the crust at the rim of the ledge and start this slide that avalanche Come over the side and buried them somewhere on the cliffs below us under rock ice and snow gone They are gone. Oh the the Thor Worked for us, didn't it? Yes Come on sing to You lead we'll follow We could see the holy city But it was still 25 miles away It was two days travel of an almost vertical descent into the valley And we arrived at dusk at the magnificent red and white palace that overlooked the city It was a week before we saw the Dalai Lama Our entrance into his presence was conducted with the utmost ceremony Tall grim-faced monks lined the hall There's six foot four inch frames made even more massive by layers of stiff gold brocade The walls were carved with strange images and Tibetan inscriptions Then the gaunt was struck again We were ushered into the throne room Esther Look quite Must not talk Come Dalai Lama We'll see you now We walked on thick rugs that were brilliant in color and depicted the waves of the sea clouds and emblems of happiness Then we saw throne of yellow satin at the end of the great room and on it Robed in burgundy and gold satin with a crown on his head and a table of jewels beside him Sat the Dalai Lama A boy of six Long javati scarf over your heads We thank you for your welcome your serenity We bring you gifts from our leader Your gifts with president He is well. Thank you Bring the gifts to me Let me see They gave him the gifts and he looked at each one carefully After a while servants began to pass bowls of rice and glasses of black tea I noticed that a special taster took a sip of the Lama's tea before it touched his sacred lips Yes, your serenity through a pinch of rice over your shoulder It will bring good luck Your serenity We've come to talk about peace and friendliness between our two countries. We've accomplished nothing His serenity has died three nuts in americans longevity scarf. He has blessed them Our countries were Be friends The success of the mission of these two oss geologists Help to lay the foundations of friendship between tibet and the united states And to possible any possibility of tibet's cooperation with our axis enemies Thus once again the report of another agent ends with the words mission accomplished Listen again next week for another true adventure from the files of the oss on cloak and dagger Heard in today's cloak and dagger adventure as ester was louise barkley philip grant richards the monk Raymond edward johnson farber steven schnavel kessler barry croger others were janis gilbert carl Weber ralph bell and jerry jarrett Script was written by winterford wolf and jack gordon. The music was under the direction of john garth Sound effects by chat hill and dick gillespie Today's true oss adventure was based on the book cloak and dagger by cori ford and allister mc bane This program was produced by lois g kown and alfred hollander under the direction and supervision of sherman marx Programs get your programs here Mystery and action tonight on nbc here how you may win a cash prize as an armchair detective on $1,000 reward Listen to the adventures of the suave crime fighter the saint played by screen favorite vincent price And follow another exciting caper with the greatest private eye of the mall hard boiled sam spade Now stay tuned for high adventure and the big guy on nbc


Welcome to our hands-up date. Here's what's happening around your Navy. Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Bill Moran testified at the House Armed Services Committee State of the Services Brief as to where each service stands. Moran told committee members the ongoing demand for U.S. naval forces far exceeds its long-term supply, and the Navy is the smallest it has been in 99 years. With your help, we have the opportunity to change this. It starts by strengthening our foundation. Let's ensure that the ships and aircraft that we do have are maintained and modernized so they provide the full measure of combat power. The nomination period for fiscal year 2016 Secretary Gordon R. England Navy League Safety Awards is fast approaching. The deadline to enter your individual, unit, or organization is February 10th. To find out more, visit the Navy League website. You can read more about what's happening around your Navy at Navy.mil.


So I started teaching in 1993. But I think the path to getting there was a bit of a meandering path, where I started my undergraduate degrees in geography, where I got hooked on the idea that water and difficult politics were embedded with each other, and that you could have conversations around politics through water. So I went back for a master's. I thought the key was a technical understanding. So my master's focuses on hydrogeology. I became a scientist for the US Geological Survey and found that the science was critical and not enough. And that sent me back for a PhD focusing in conflict resolution and policy analysis. And it's the combination of those really understanding that science and policy need to be bridged in the same process in order to resolve these really difficult issues. So I think water diplomacy is the bridge between science and policy. In any watershed, regardless of the scale, when you're managing water, you're managing conflict. In order to understand what's there, we start with the science. We start with the ecology and the hydrology and the water resources that are there. And understanding that is critical, but it's not enough. In order to address any of the issues that we face, we need what people involve. And people require a process, a carefully designed process where people's interests are brought to the table. Contact for dialogue is constructed in a way that allows people to bring their interests to the table and find the shared values that allow them to develop a solution. I've been coming to IHE to do an annual short course, probably for about 10 years. And I've been fortunate to be here as the dialogue and interest in water diplomacy has grown. In the last couple of years with the Dutch government and IHE and a number of other partners all very interested in this idea of water diplomacy, it turned out that there was an option to be here for six months, really, to be connected to the water diplomacy initiative and to help out however I could, both in speaking and in teaching and in advising. And it's been a wonderful experience. I've always loved coming to IHE. I like Delft. I like the institution. And it's just been a joy to be here for six months. So my day job, if you will, is as a professor of geography in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. And Oregon State's a wonderful institution, but it's massive. And so water is just a small drop, if you will, of what goes on there. So the water community is tight and is good, but we need to keep reminding the administration of the centrality and importance of water to everything that goes on in an economy and in a society and a culture. And that's not the case at IHE. IHE is about water. And the wonderful thing about water people, nobody gets into it for the wrong reasons. You're not going to get rich or build a big empire around water. People generally get into water because they want to make the world a better place. So when you have a whole institution dedicated precisely to making the world a better place, it's a wonderful place to be. I always default to the truism that water management is conflict management. And if you're going to manage water at whatever level, you're going to experience conflict. The more water people who are trained in these skills at whatever level, it can be within the workplace there's going to be conflict. Between stakeholders there's going to be conflict. Between sectors, between states, and finally between countries, there's always conflict anytime we're trying to allocate a scarce resource. And so knowing the skills, knowing how to listen for the things that are shared across apparent divides, knowing how to craft a setting that's conducive to dialogue and conducive to resolving disputes, I think is useful for anybody in water and probably most people in society. So the more people who are trained in these skills, I think the better it is for water and for society as a whole.


Good afternoon everybody and thank you all for being here on this lovely sunny afternoon. It is such a pleasure to see so many of you here for this evening's event. So by way of introduction my name is Mae Vryan, I'm a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies and I co-direct the Center for Grand Strategy. And one of the kind of veins that runs through a lot of our Center's projects is this theme of applied history, the idea of kind of interrogating the role that history has played and can play in informing statecraft, informing foreign policy to look at the track record of how history gets used, how history gets understood and thought about by policymakers and by those who shape, well in particular foreign policy but just more broadly that kind of general theme of statecraft. And we think about the ways deliberate and otherwise that history gets used negatively or the ways that history gets used maybe in ways that lead to adverse outcomes. And so it's a privilege as part of this role to get to invite and host some of the leading thinkers, the leading historians who are engaging with exactly these questions and looking at the ways that you know battles over history, you know contests over narratives, dominant narratives and the ways that history can be a battleground itself have shaped policy in the past and in the present. And of course we're at a particularly interesting inflection point I would say it's fair to say in British history, the time when the ideas of history and understandings of especially imperial history, histories of slavery and race and so on are part of a particularly live debate, that kind of history is infusing a very live conversation that is in many ways characterizing public life in this country for the last few years and certainly shaping policy. And sort of trying to untangle all of that and trying to untangle the last 20 years especially sort of since Afghanistan or you know the years since the 2008 financial crash and all of the you know incredibly complex and turbulent events and trends that have shaped those years and the ways that you know some of these things and some of those tensions and some of the debates that have emerged in that context have shaped a very polarized present. It's an extremely complicated and difficult thing to do and it sort of gives me a headache to try to untangle it all. But luckily I don't have to because a very distinguished speaker has written this book which I very very highly recommend. It's an incredibly I mean incredibly I think clear and you know clear concise very beautifully written untangling of this complexity and making sense of the sort of the culture war phenomenon that we're living through in the present. So it's a great pleasure to welcome you here this evening Alan. Professor Alan Lester is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex. Probably needs no introduction to anyone in this room. I imagine you're all here because of his extraordinary reputation, his authorship of books including Imperial Networks, Colonial Lives Across the British Empire, Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance, a book that particularly influenced my own research, Ruling the World and then of course Deny and Disavow as well as you know many many other articles and contributions. Also his reputation and role as an increasingly important public historian and the role that Alan has played in I think demonstrating the I kind of think of Alan as a sort of masterclass and how to engage in that kind of debate and how to engage I think constructively meticulously and constructively on Twitter, engaging in debates sometimes with people who don't seem to be interested in having as productive a debate as he wants to and I kind of a masterclass in doing that in a really I think constructive respectful and dignified tone. So I've certainly learned a lot from Alan about the ways that historians can engage with these questions and the ways that we can make a positive contribution. So it's my very great pleasure to welcome Alan Lester. We're going to have a talk about 40 to 45 minutes or so. We're going to have time for questions then and I hope you'll all join us afterwards for reception. It's in the War Studies Meeting Room, the Dockroll Meeting Room actually as it's now called and so do please join us afterwards for that. Anyway without further ado, Professor Alan Lester. Thank you very much mate. Thank you. Can I just check, can you all hear me okay? It's the microphone working but my voice isn't particularly strong today so I'll hopefully be able to project through the microphone okay. I'm not sure if I can live up to that Billy but thank you very much mate, generous comments. So what I'll try and do in the next sort of 40-45 minutes is say a bit about why I think the Imperial past, the colonial past, has been politicized to the extent that it has in recent years in Britain and then towards the end I'll engage with a particularly prominent figure in the Imperial culture wars, Nigel Bigger, whom I've gathered some of you encountered recently and talk about some of the disagreements that I have with him. So the political context first, over the last few years we've seen people in the Conservative government under Boris Johnson then very briefly Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak energised an unprecedented and to me quite disturbing culture war. Culture wars are phenomenon first defined by James Davidson Hunter in the USA in which as he puts it, politics becomes a proxy for cultural positions that simply won't book any kind of dissent or argument. It's a form of tribalism that began in the 1960s with conservative institutions resisting the advances in civil rights for women and African-Americans and the decline of religious authority. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis it reached new levels of intensity with Donald Trump's populist backlash to Barack Obama's presidency. Trump and on this side of the Atlantic Boris Johnson both proved adept at manipulating social conservative sense of existential threat leading populist movements that appeared to marginalise voters. Increasing inequalities and polarisation of politics over the last decade has provided fertile ground for both men and their parties. In the UK a buoyant post-Brexit populist wing of the Conservative Party with relentlessly visciferous supporters in the press and a handful of proponents in academia are waging their own rhetorical war on those who propose anti-racist environmental and gender-related reforms using the word woke as a sneering catchall descriptor for such people. Young people who are sensitive to these issues are dismissed as snowflakes and accused of adopting a council culture by daring to speak out. The expertise of those who research uncomfortable facts has been dismissed by the most prominent of politicians. In immediate aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests and on this side of the Atlantic the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol in June 2020 Boris Johnson's housing secretary Robert Jenwick declared quote we will save Britain's statues from the woke militants who want to censor our past. Then the digital cultural media secretary Oliver Doudan at the time instructed Britain's leading museums galleries and heritage organisations that quote they must defend our culture and history from the noisy minority of activists constantly trying to do Britain down. Doudan's successor as culture secretary Nadine Doris was even more hard-line the Daily Mail declaring that she was promoted specifically quote to fight the woke warriors at culture. The Johnson government found willing allies in the right-wing press. In 2020 until now the Mail, Express, Telegraph, Spectator and GBTV in particular have poured out a relentless barrage of articles and editorials waging a so-called war on woke. The record of the British Empire looms large in this politicking. They rail against academics and heritage organisations seeking to provide greater public knowledge of Britain's Imperial history. They portray the National Trust's efforts to supply information about the role of slave ownership in its properties histories or key gardens attention to enslaved people's role in sugar production for instance as deliberate attempts to inculcate national shame. For historians to point out that colonisation involved the considerable application of violence or that Britain's tended to see other races as inferior is in this new political context apparently anti-British. One of Russia's many problems as the current Prime Minister is dealing with a relatively large group of former Johnson supporting conservative MPs who are still wedded to this kind of politics through culture war. Alongside their stop the boats anti-refugee rhetoric they see it as a key means of retaining so-called red wall seats gained in the 2019 get Brexit done election. They formed the common sense group of MPs who published their manifesto called common sense conservative thinking for a post-liberal age in 2021. The group's chair is Sir John Hayes he was the man to whom Sorella Braverman leaked confidential files in breach of the ministerial code which caused her resignation for all of a few days. Hayes declared quote some of what we have heard from public bodies this is about including information on slavery and colonialism has been mischievous some of it has been sinister and some of it has just been daft it needs to be stopped in its tracks end quote. The proud memory of the British Empire is sacrosanct for this influential and well-resourced lobby. Quote Britain is under attack wrote Gareth Bacon MP in the common sense agenda. Lost in a physical sense he continues but in a philosophical ideological and historical sense our heritage is under a direct assault the very sense of what it is to be British has been called into question institutions have been undermined the reputation of key figures in our country's history has been reduced reduced end quote. Now the common sense MPs admit that the history of slavery and colonialism was not always one of which to be proud but in their manifesto they try to deflect it as far as possible to the USA where Black Lives Matter began. So quoting from their manifesto claims of perceived injustice stem somewhere down the line from really injustice they admit slavery was and is inhumane as were the Jim Crow laws and segregation however they continue the ensuing civil rights movement was a tremendous achievement in writing those wrongs. Once those very real laws were abolished there was a vacuum which needed to be filled with more things to fix as a result although racism certainly does still exist the real racism expanded to encompass perceived racism too end quote. So the intent here is clearly to establish Black Lives Matter as a misplaced transplant to the UK from the USA where it belongs and even there it may once have had some justification but is now anachronistic. Whilst pandering to the Brexiteering common sense group Vice Johnson also sought to deflect the critique offered by Black Lives Matter activists by appointing the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities or CRED otherwise known as the Sewell Committee which produced the Sewell Report. The report's main intent was to deny that Britain still harbours structural racism and one of its supporting thrusts was to deflect from any critical teaching of British colonialism. Now government reports unsurprisingly are supposed to gather evidence before drawing their conclusions however Boris Johnson seems uncannily to have anticipated this Commission's eventual findings even before it was announced. I think this is a country he said that has made huge progress in tackling racism we should look sometimes at the positive stuff we've got more young Black and minority ethnic kids going to university than ever before more Black kids doing the tougher subjects at school doing better than ever before in school we don't hear enough of this positive stuff. We certainly did once the CRED Committee had produced this report. As Jonathan Portes has written quote in 35 years of both producing and consuming government reports I don't think I've ever seen one where the evidence and analysis has been so comprehensively discredited so quickly and completely. In an unusual intervention the United Nations was moved to label the reports as quote an attempt to normalise white supremacy. The main issue was that in setting out its methodology the report made it clear that any apparent racial disparities would be explained either by supposedly independent factors other than race such as geography. Geography was treated as an independent factor in its own right completely separate from race or they would be classified simply as unexplained. From the very start then the possibility that racism might be at play for instance in producing a geography of segregation in the housing market or in education for example that possibility was excluded. Portes concluded that while commissioned reports are supposed to result in evidence-based policymaking this one is better viewed as rhetoric-based evidence-making. I want to come on to talk a bit about some of the emotional investments behind this this policy because it's not all just shallow cynical short-term politicking. So I've mentioned one of the forces driving a resurgence of public denialism of the colonial past is the current government's belief that reinforcing social conservatism helps to detach northern working class voters from labour in the Redwall seats. But as Gareth Bacon's comment from the Common Sense Manifesto indicates there is clearly something much deeper underlying whatever success the strategy might be achieving. As Peter Mitchell writes at bottom there is the sense of betrayal and the anxiety of replacement generational cultural gendered and racial. This terror is at the core of a frighteningly intense emotional charge a sense never quite articulated but always present that the stakes are personal and existential. The backlash against revealing often previously hidden stories of British colonialism has come overwhelmingly from those whose self-esteem seems to be closely tied to a group identity rooted in continually re-established exclusive ideas of Britishness. Research on the psychology of denial is instructive here as Joe Kendall writes quote when presented with information about historical episodes in which their group has taken the role of perpetrator individuals are likely to experience a sense of threat to their identity in the form of guilt or shame and may intuitively seek ways in which to avoid this threat. In such scenarios defensive reactions are often employed to negate the threat. These defensive reactions include denying the accuracy of the information provided blaming the victims of acts of violence, claiming that colonial rule in our case was necessary or enacted with good intentions, focusing on the sacrifices made by those who identified as Britons in the empire and above all one that you see time and time again what aboutary pointing out the bad things that other groups have also done in the past or are doing now. According to Kendall who's done experiments psychological experiments the reaction that quote we might be bad but at least we're not as bad as them is a common one. Experiments have shown that after people have been challenged with uncomfortable historical facts about the behavior of the group that they are identified with introducing the idea that other groups were just as bad can immediately restore their sense of pride. However as Kendall notes quote defensive reactions are not always instinctive and can easily be instrumentalized by political actors looking to gain from acrimonious culture wars. Groups like History Reclaimed which I'll come on to shortly serve this purpose of finding and disseminating worse examples of perpetration carried out by other groups. One of the side effects of the competitive innocence as Kendall calls it that they help to establish is a loss of empathy though with the victims of violent acts based on the notion that perpetrators in one's own national group must somehow have been justified in acting the way they did. Now for a scholar of British colonialism witnessing the explosion of polarised and simplistic argumentation over the Empire's legacies in the last few years feels like a glimpse I imagine of what virologists and vaccinologists must have experienced as public discussion of COVID-19 exploded. As with so much of our post-Brexit politics complexity honesty and integrity in public discussions of empire have become rare commodities. Relations between Britons and Indigenous peoples varied enormously across a quarter of the Earth's land surface at the early 20th century Empire's greatest extent and over 300 years. The indulged princes and merchants of post-up rising India experienced empire very differently from the Aboriginal people of Southern Australia for instance who resisted annihilation in the early 19th century. But everywhere colonial administration rested on an everyday distinction what part of Chatterjee calls the rule of difference between the different races. Black lives tended not to matter as much as white lives in the British Empire. The historians who draw attention to the racial thinking and discriminatory practice that fundamentally underpinned the empire are now condemned by populist right-wing culture warriors. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter challenge a relatively few but very well publicized commentators have managed to twist the practicing of history as censoring, trashing or even destroying our national past. Historians along with anti-racist activists have found themselves accused of being part of this imaginary woke conspiracy against all that Britain stands for. The most professional historians of British colonialism, of whom I know many, based their research on evidence while admitting its limitations. They strive for objectivity while recognizing that it's evasive and they're driven by curiosity rather than contemporary politics by and large. They seek to mitigate the ways in which the latter inevitably shapes the former. They're far from being the Marxist stroke CRT critical race theory inspired radicals portrayed by some journalists and politicians. Their implicit distaste for unprovoked invasion and racism stems from their humanity and basic morality. It's not directed solely and vindictively as they are often accused of against the British and it's not the result of a far left political disposition in most cases. For the most part they refuse to be drawn into the culture wars polarizing binaries. In the meantime however a wider section of society is being exposed to politicized caricatures of the British Empire that do an active disservice to the public understanding of history. And I won't deny and disavow that in response to that. Talking of politicized caricatures brings me down to the next part of my talk. Nigel Bigger's culture war and his book Colonialism on Moral Reckoning. Conservative denialism has unfortunately found pockets of vocal support in academia. I'll concentrate for the rest of this talk on one of the prime exponents who's gained considerable traction. Nigel Bigger, a CBE, the former regist professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford. And I should just say I have no personal animosity whatsoever against Professor Bigger. I've never met him. There is about to be an exchange between us published in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth history online in which he presumes that I do and that I am as politically motivated as he is. I disagree. Bigger's writings on empire have been aligned with the common sense conservative factions politics. Despite having revealed the devoted remain in the Brexit referendum, before publishing Colonialism, Bigger contributed four articles to Briefings for Britain, formerly Briefings for Brexit. This lobbying group describes itself as, quote, a small group of volunteers originally academics with a firm conviction that Brexit was about reasserting popular control over decision making in the United Kingdom. Bigger's own participation in the government backed culture war has manifested more directly though in his founding role in the history reclaimed group of conservative scholars and his links with the Allied Restore Trust group. So in August 2021 a group of scholars including Robert Tombs who was appointed by Boris Johnson to a new Heritage Advisory Board to try and stop statues being taken down. Nile Ferguson, Andrew Roberts and Nigel Bigger banded together to create the history reclaimed project which is now a private company. According to the Daily Mail the group was established to battle Black Lives Matters quote, woke war on our great leaders. It's now, Bigger's new book Colonialism is really the culmination of the history reclaimed project. It contains many of the stock defences of empire and attacks on supposedly woke activists and academics that feature on the group's website. Restore Trust is a private, another private company whose mission is to reverse the National Trust's efforts to tell the full history of their properties. Its members were incensed especially by the National Trust's publication of a report authored by Corinne Fowler and others which highlighted the role of slave trading, slave ownership and colonial exploitation in its property-only source of wealth. Restore Trust has tried to get its candidates elected to the National Trust Council in order to reverse its moves towards greater inclusivity. Two of its candidates for the 2022 National Trust Council elections, Zuriya Masani and Jeremy Black, are also members of history reclaimed. Both groups are regularly backed by the Telegraph. He expressed the male and the spectator. The male in particular prompted the abusive trolling of Corinne Fowler while complaining ironically about council culture. Although Restore Trust has been obtuse about its funding sources there are indications that it's part of a network of conservative think tanks and lobbying groups associated with the premises at 55 Tufton Street in London. One of the six people in Restore Trust's Meet the Team webpage is Neil Record, a billionaire former currency risk manager and conservative donor who backed the Institute of Economic Affairs. That was the think tank which encouraged Liz Truss's disastrous mini budget in 2022. Record also chairs the Global Warming Policy Forum which is skeptical of human induced climate change. Bega featured in a piece in the mail aligning himself with Restore Trust and declaring that quote the National Trust has shot itself in the foot by publishing the report on slavery and colonialism. He continued, it has really got a lot of its members annoyed. I am one of them. He went on to ask what motivates people like Professor Fowler to apparently see racism everywhere even when it isn't there. So now I want to come on to the book. So in recent weeks, Bigger's new book on the British Empire colonialism or moral reckoning has become a bestseller listed at number 10 in the Sunday Times non-fiction sales list and topping Amazon's lists in a number of subcategories. Just like a scholarly monograph it has extensive ennegrote end notes rather stretching over 130 pages and a bibliography of 30 pages. It appears to be a rigorously researched account of colonial practices as well as an analysis of the ethics of those practices. It's received glowing reviews in the Sunday Times, Telegraph and Spectator not to mention other more niche right-wing leaning outlets. Already it's being used by right-wing deniers as their I told you so resource, their point of reference when arguing about what the Empire was really like despite what local people tell you. Amazon reviewers for example have titled their reviews quote imperious, brilliant historical research and at last a competent book on the subject. Colonialism the book begins with the story of its author's persecution at the hands of us domineering anti-colonial academics and activists. Historians of colonialism have according to Bigger combined with unruly anti-racist students to put the British Empire on trial. We have found it guilty without even properly analyzing the evidence. Why? Variously because we see quote anti-colonialism as fashionable opening doors to posts, promotions and grants or because we are brainwashed by Franz Fanon's quotes preference for barbarous vitality and irresponsibility over civilized reason and restraint or even because quote our degenerate Christian sensibility which allows us to focus exclusively on our own sins. I think I can at least disown that one. Worst in our motivations however is the effect of our work. Academic post-colonialism we are told quoting here is an ally no doubt inadvertent of Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia and the Chinese Communist Party which are determined to expand their own respectively authoritarian and totalitarian power at the expense of the West. Our studies of empire are apparently indicative of the moral decadence that always triggers the collapse of dominant powers. Bigger writes what is at stake in our writing of history is the very integrity of the United Kingdom and the security of the West end quote. So colonialism was written not just to set the historical record straight but to save a self-critical West from itself. It doesn't seem to have occurred to Bigger that arguing for the ethical justification of invasion and occupation of other lands might reinforce Putin's project a bit more directly than academic inquiry into colonial history and nor does it seem to have struck in that Putin's main allies and supporters in the West tend to be on the right fringes of politics rather than the woke. In many ways Bigger's tone that the writing of history is a vital part of Western morale echoes a body of literature that's produced by historians towards the end of the Second World War and in the immediate period of decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s and some of these historians are actually cited by Bigger including Frankel and Gannon Diagon. But they were writing in the context of the decline of fragmentation of the British Empire and the rise of a new binary world order between the U.S. dominated Western and Soviet dominated bloc to the east and vying for the loyalty and for the alignment of newly independent former colonies which it was felt would either fall into one camp or the other or strike out on an independent so-called third world path. Gannon Diagon and Frankel for instance were part of a neoliberal clique which began to write histories of the empire as a civilising project updated for the 20th century as a developmental project arguing that these newly independent African and Asian governments should owe their loyalty in the new binary world order to the west because of the developmental gains that colonialism had brought. So this was a kind of an early writing of Bigger's late 20 or early 21st century script. His context then is not just cultural it's also cold war with the new enemies of Putin and assertive China replacing the Soviet bloc of that earlier tradition. Despite Bigger's strawman caricature professional historians tend not to focus solely on the costs of colonialism while denying its benefits which is what he alleges. What we tend to have done in thousands of publications completely ignored by Bigger is specify benefits for whom appreciating that they were not universal. There are library shelves full of monographs on how for example Indian merchants and princes worked alongside British officials and businessmen to enhance their status and wealth and how sometimes fragile colonial administrations relied on negotiation and compromise with indigenous elites. There's reams of work on the emotional and effective ties that transcended racial boundaries we don't just speak in binary terms of race as colonial historians. There's also an enormous body of work on the developmental schemes that that earlier generation of neoliberal historians and Bigger tried to focus attention on on colonial schooling on agricultural and public health initiatives which tended to come late on in the later stages of imperialism and in response to nationalist demands from indigenous elites. When um so when Twitter trolls send me images for example of British sailors rescuing enslaved Africans from other nations slave ships after 1807 to point out the benevolent nature of British colonialism it doesn't actually come as that much of a surprise to me because myself and many other historians have written plenty about the so-called liberated Africans and their faces recaptured as society's unpaid labor to set this in colonies elsewhere. Much too big as annoyance we seek also to tell the stories though of those who experienced trauma and loss through the British takeover of their lands and assumption of sovereignty. We don't tend to shy away from the millions who died in British wars of expansion and the great famines that colonial governments did little to mitigate and we acknowledge the fact that colonialism guaranteed a readily exploitable labor supply to British settlers, planters and industrialists. We tend to recognize that racially organized hierarchies of wealth status and power were the norm maintained in most colonies most of the time. It should come as no surprise to anyone really to learn that benefits for some came at the expense of others. So as I mentioned before professional historians tend to write with an ethical code in mind one that we were taught in our undergraduate and postgraduate training I was actually trained as an historical geographer but it was still the same kind of meticulous attention to an ethics of research. We are of course influenced by our individual dispositions and politics but we try our best to set these aside and to develop our arguments through finding and reading all the relevant evidence. We tend to be curiosity as I've mentioned rather than politically driven we're interested in explaining phenomena not allocating collective virtue or blame that seems to be a redundant exercise for most historians. When we select quotations from a source we try to set them in the context of that source's overall stance rather than cherry picking from it to substantiate a predetermined argument. When we come across evidence that contradicts our general interpretation we either try to explain the discrepancy or we modify the interpretation. We read widely to try to take account of the work that other scholars have done on our topic and we're grateful for their efforts. In essence we try even if we don't always succeed to avoid writing tendentiously. Now let me come to Nigel Bigger's colonialism. This is littered with examples of what many of us would see as the most egregious misuse of sources. There's no space for me now, no time for me now to list all of the examples I've uncovered so I'll go through a few until I realise time's up actually and then draw to a conclusion. So to give one example, Bigger quotes the Canadian mate leader Louis Riel who gave a speech at his trial for treason. The fact that he was on trial for treason should give you a clue about how he felt about the colonial authorities. In 1885, Bigger suggests using this extract from Riel's speech that Riel recognised the right of British settlers to take matey and First Nations land that he saw at least the cogency of an argument that because they weren't using it productively others had the right to take it and use it more productively. The extract he uses from Riel's speech to the jury is this it's fairly long so bear with me please. British civilisation has the means of improving life the Indians or half-breeds have not so when they come into our savage country in our uncultivated land they come and help us with their civilisation but we helped them with our lands so the question comes your land you Cree or you half-breed your land is worth today one seventh of what it will be when the civilisation will have opened it. Your country unopened is worth to you only one seventh of what it will be when opened. I think it's a fair share to acknowledge the genius of civilisation to such an extent as to give when I have seven pairs of socks six to keep one so he uses that extract to suggest that Riel identified with this argument that because the matey were not using their land productively British settlers had the right to take six sevenths of it however bigger omits crucial sentences before and after this extract which drastically alter its meaning Riel led up to the extractive portion of this speech by saying quote when the British have crowded their country because they had no room to stay anymore at home it does not give them the right to come and take the share of all the tribes besides them in principle then he was saying that settlers were not in titles any of the land. Riel proceeded to note that at least the colonial the Canadian colonial government had agreed a treaty which nominally allocated one seventh of the land to the matey and released six sevenths for settlers hence this this fraction that was quoting Riel's extract. In bigger selected extracts Riel was actually paraphrasing that argument of the government not endorsing it and not vocalising it himself it was paraphrasing paraphrasing the government's rationale that seizing six sevenths was in exchange for the civilisation that British settlement brought. His point in paraphrasing it though was to say that even this nominal allocation of one seventh left for the matey has not been observed in practice. Bigger omits the next bit of Riel's speech he went on after that paraphrasing to say they made this treaty with us as they made the treaty they have to observe it and did they observe it no. So intentionally or not this may have been unintentional because bigger takes this source from another right-wing culture warrior in Canada and obviously didn't check the original source. Intentionally or not bigger uses a cherry picked extract to suggest that Riel recognised the right of settlers to take matey land when he was arguing precisely the opposite. The second example bigger consistently presents African people in my view and when I was writing the review for the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History I had to change the wording slightly it presents African people in my view as unfit to govern themselves as requiring British rule for their own sakes even to the extent of repeating slave owners original arguments against emancipation. He writes can we be sure that descendants of enslaved people would have been better off had their ancestors remained in West Africa some as slaves and sacrificial funeral fodder end quote. Bigger's methods of establishing the necessity for British rule in Africa include frequent seemingly innocuous asides which have the cumulative effect of reinforcing tropes of African savagery. Human sacrifice seems to be his favourite. He states that quote it continued to be a part of royal funeral ceremonies in the Gold Coast as late as 1944. However there's no evidence to support this claim what bigger's referring to was a singular and bizarre case of suspected murder that was discussed in Britain. Three suspects were hanged in the absence of a body but the sentencing was delayed by protests that no murder had been committed. And there were other isolated instances of murder some of which has been classified as medicinal or ritual but nothing like a pattern which would enable the statement of bigger's that they continued to be part of royal funeral ceremonies in the Gold Coast as late as 1944. So bigger converts an isolated incident that the historian Richard Rathbone notes may or may not have taken place in Southern Ghana on 28th of February 1944 into a barbaric cultural practice that justified continued British rule. A third example I'll make this the last example in his attempt to defend Cecil Rhodes bigger disputes three racist quotes attributed to the mining magnate and politician. Although all could be discussed further I'll focus on just the first. Bigger writes that in a 2006 book of views is quoting now that Ikea Adebarjo sought to substantiate Rhodes's alleged racism and genocidal intent by reporting him as saying quote I prefer land to the n-word. Appearance is however deceived bigger continues for Adebarjo had admitted to tell his readers that the quotation had been lifted from a novel by Olive Shriner it is fiction. Bigger later repeats quote the only documentary source is Shriner's 1897 novel where the words are spoken by a character that looks like Rhodes and again he says it is fiction. Well bigger is just plain wrong a little research would have alerted him that the quote is not fiction there's plenty of documentary evidence for it in sources including The Manchester Guardian, The Journal, The Illustrated London News and The Palmao Gazette. Rhodes even clarified that quote what he meant was that where there was a land bereft of natives and another swarming with natives he preferred the former because he considered the latter not to be the advantage of South Africa end quote. To add insult to the injury that Bigger inflicts on Adebarjo, Bigger's own book Colonialism frequently uses fiction rather than historical evidence of sources including and I haven't made this up a reference to what a character in the TV drama The West Wing says endorsing Bigger's point of view so I'll skip the further examples if you want to see them they'll be in this extended review in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History online soon and I'll come to some more general points about Bigger's book aside from the specific instances of misuse of sources thematic distortions and then I'll conclude aside from a dubious approach to sources there are further systematic flaws in Bigger's approach whereas other empires grew through conquest and invasion there's a strange lack of violence in his version of how the British Empire came about so he gives a kind of quick run through of how the empire expanded at the beginning of the book he doesn't actually come back very often to elaborate on on these incidents so he writes for example from 1757 for 100 years the East India Company came to rule vast swathes of Indian territory the British acquired Hong Kong by treaty with imperial China in 1842 in West Africa British influence grew along the coast and then into the interior the facts that many Indian states were conquered in battle some by the future Duke of Wellington as is very well known that the treaty ceding Hong Kong to Britain was signed only after China's defeat in the first opium war which bigger himself later admits was unjustified the only full-scale colonial war that was unjustified according to him and the fact that West African rulers were overthrown for a combination of armed force and deceit have no place in Bigger's explanation of how an empire seemed to just land in Britain's lap Bigger's claim that quote for the second half of its life anti-slavery not slavery was at the heart of imperial policy is simply absurd the post-emancipation anti-slavery lobby was real and as many historians have explained including myself it sought to influence colonial policy sometimes when it could mobilize public opinion sufficiently it succeeded so it was a political lobby and it did have some salience contingently but to claim that anti-slavery generally outweighed commercial strategic and private British interests and to infer that it was anti-slavery that prompted the over 60 colonial wars which Bigger neglects to mention during the period is ludicrously misleading to believe it is to accept that Britain's operated on some unique moral plane untouched by any other group in history the most problematic feature of all though is the books treatment of race Bigger does not see himself or the liberal imperialists whom he defends as racist because they do not believe that black or brown peoples are biologically inferior to white people they simply quote observe that these people's cultures were backwards compared to that of the British and other Europeans by Bigger's definition the attribution of quote cultural inferiority to a lack of development rather than biological nature end quote is not racist nor is his use of the word natives to describe all the diverse and multifarious peoples colonized by Britain's asserting a biological distinction as I probably don't need to tell anyone in this room may not be the only way of being racist however Oxford languages define defines racism as quote the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics abilities or qualities especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another simply substituting the word cultures for races in this definition which it seems to me is what Bigger does does little to change the dynamic Bigger's argument is that deployed by most British colonial officials from the early 19th century that while exceptional indigenous individuals might learn the benefits of British civilization rapidly most were so culturally backward that it would take generations for them to develop when colonized people showed evidence of their learning British ways and sorts of inclusion however as many did from the late 19th century onwards white people still maintained an exclusive right to govern with just a few concessions to local or advisory roles towards the end of empire this fact does not feature in Bigger's account and neither does the possibility that people of any culture stroke race might access technologies without being conquered dispossessed and subjected to racially hierarchical alien rule. Historian Michael Taylor sums up the general colonial situation well when he quotes the British planter and to quote preeminence and distinction are necessarily attached to the complexion of a white man. Failing to acknowledge everyday colonial racism seems to me like examining Nazi Germany without the anti-Semitism or modern Russia without the communism. Racism was a common-sense belief system that fundamentally underpinned the British empire and it's deeply concerning to me at least that there's now such an appetite to deny this with semantic differences between race and culture. Bigger's excuse for his lack of primary research or knowledge of the literature is that he's not an historian and he's not writing a history book but an analysis of ethics however he has to acknowledge that his ethical case relies on to quote him judging by what we have seen of the British case. Well what we have seen what he bases his ethical judgment on is a distorted and partial account determined from the start by the intention to excuse rather than to analyse. It seems that the only way one can defend the ethics of colonialism is to write unethically I think. It's just too tempting to turn Bigger's own words against his book to quote him of the woke. This unscrupulous indifference to historical truth indicates that the controversy over empire is not really a controversy about history at all. It's about the present not the past end quote. Okay I'll leave it there I was going to say a bit more about the politics of engaging with Bigger but I think that may come up in in discussion so I'll leave it there for now. Thanks.


I want to talk about the fact that our lives today are lived at an unsustainable pace of activity. They're driven by the quickening effects of digital technologies on all aspects of the human experience, from personal communication to business exchange, from education to politics, from pop culture to fine arts. We have accepted a rapid cycling up of the interchanges in each of our days and each of really our hours and even each of our minutes. This unrelenting pace of technologies is deeply ironic given the original intent of them to make our lives more efficient and give us more time. But we can all attest that the actual effect of this escalation of efficiency has been to increase the pace of work and play in our worlds to pack our experience of life more densely and to devalue things like idleness and reflection and slowness as an aesthetic in our lives. Even in pursuits like games that were once thought to be leisurely. Now, I am a video game designer and you may be thinking, but games are one of the major culprits in this escalation of time-sucking technologies. And that is true. Today's digital games invite us to play at a pace that goes beyond that which we have ever experienced. So not only do we play games with fast-paced core mechanics or in quick stolen moments of shorter and shorter gameplay throughout the day, but we value swiftness in play literally. We monetize our desire to play more quickly by charging players to move the game forward. Micro transactions really from milliseconds of gameplay. And players speak of lag time when judging whether the conditions of play are right or not. And now microseconds decide our twitch-based online games. The games that we play, the games that we are attracted to as individuals as a society, say a lot about the issues that we're grappling with in our world. So ancient cultures invented games about predators and prey, as well as games of chance and fate, trying to divine our futures in the face of uncertainty. In the Middle Ages we invented games of territory and conquest between great nation states. And still later we invented industrial games of economic power and materialism. In each of these trends society engaged in playful simulations around some of the deepest issues of the times. And we still play many of these games today. In fact, we play them so much that we have concerns about becoming addicted to our play. Our most popular games still revolve around predators and prey, war and money, but they do so on a global scale in a way that consumes players like rats in the proverbial skinners box, pushing at levers until they get the win, the reward, the prize or the pellet. These games offer play to us that moves so quickly and builds on such basic instincts that players have no time or context for reflecting on what they are playing about, what issues they are grappling with, grinding away at virtual lives in virtual worlds that are as fast-paced and pressure-filled as our real world. Now, as a player and as a designer of games I wanted more. More precisely I wanted less, but I wanted more out of that less. And as such, for the past 15 years I've been researching the sort of blue sky of reflective play or what we might call slow play. For me, the impulse to create games that offered an antidote to the modern pace of life began in 2002 when I took a long drive across the United States. I had recently closed my multiplayer gameplay company, a technology that connected millions of players simultaneously in games that synced to their television broadcasts. After several very stressful years of development and entrepreneurship, I took a post-mortem trip around the country, hiking and camping and reading and thinking about what was missing in our world of play. And on this trip I visited Walden Pond and I sat on the shore to reread parts of Henry David Thoreau's book about his experiment in living a simple life there at the pond. It was a quiet day when I was there and I had the pond to myself. And as I read, I began to feel a sense of time and how long it had been since I had a slow day. And this moment in the book, like so many others, stood out to me. Sometimes in a summer morning, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, wrapped in a reverie amidst the pines and hickories and sumacs in undisturbed solitude and stillness while the birds sing around or flitted noiseless through the house until by the sun falling in at my west window or the noise of some traveler's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. And you may be thinking, so what? What does this pastoral thinker, this naturalist and philosopher, born 200 years ago this coming July, have to do with the rapid pace world of video games and technology that we live in? I think that Thoreau and the experiment that he set for himself in living has quite a bit to do with the dilemmas that we face every day when we confront the technologies we've developed to make our lives easier, more efficient, and perhaps by accident faster and less sustainable. In 1845, when Thoreau went down to the woods to conduct his now-famous experiment in living simply in nature, he was sitting on the narrow edge of a particular moment in time, and he knew it. The railroad and the telegraph were just coming into general use, and he could already see the pace of life around him in the small village of Concord where he lived, accelerating, quickening with the advent of these technologies. Suddenly, people were living on railroad time, rushing up and down to Boston and living their lives by the punctual comings and goings of the train in a way that changed the traditional pace of life in that village forever. Thoreau's experiment in stripping his life to its simplest elements can be seen as an early counter-argument against this quickening that we are still grappling with, perhaps a harbinger of today's slow living movement, and its charge to reclaim a more humane pace of life for existence. We may call our pace of life internet time rather than railroad time, but it's only a relative difference. The concept is the same, and perhaps the antidote is similar as well. When Thoreau set out to re-examine life to strip it to its essence, he didn't go far, only a few miles away from the quickening pace of life in his hometown, but he went far enough to get a sense of perspective on the changes he saw in society, and he didn't go into the wilderness, just far enough into nature to forefront it in his view, to play with the idea of nature in contrast to society. In some ways, we might say that his experiment in living simply was a kind of game that he was playing with himself, setting up the rules of his experiment and seeing what he might find out about life by playing those rules. And as a game designer, that idea intrigued me. And as I sat on the shores of Walden and considered the pace of life that I had been living, that we have all been living, it seemed to me that like Thoreau, I needed a game that would allow me to play slowly, deeply, and reflectively, rather than yet another game that kept my heart charging. My fight-or-flight reflex honed. I needed to play Thoreau's experiment, but I wanted to play it using modern technologies to bring it to life wherever I was. So while it might seem ironic to some, to me it seemed a perfect fit to create a virtual nature for modern readers to experience Thoreau's words and ideas. Thoreau himself actually was an intuitive engineer, adapted understanding systems. He invented a better graphite mix for pencils, which was his family business, and of course it was also the technology of choice for his own creative writing process. And he made sure that his books were bound using the most modern technologies. So to me, creating an immersive translation of his experiment was in the same spirit as creating a modern illustrated edition of the work. If you think about it, every year thousands of schoolchildren in America read Thoreau's account of living slowly and simply. But they do so while sitting in crowded urban classrooms without any connection to the natural world he was immersing himself in. What if I could give players like these the chance to live deliberately in nature wherever they were, whatever their current pace of life. We don't all have the opportunity to take two years out of life to ask the kind of questions that Thoreau did, but we still need to ask ourselves these vital questions, perhaps now more than ever. And play is the perfect vehicle for such questions. In play, we can challenge ourselves to live lives we never thought were possible. We can take chances, we can make different choices, and we can discover outcomes that may lead us to ideas that we can bring back with us to our real lives. Play is practice. So what if we practice playing deliberately, rather than instinctively? What if we played a game slowly and simply and reflected on the choices we were making within it? What if we played a game about living in nature and watching it change over time and learning its secrets and loving its beauties? How would that kind of slow play enhance who we are as people as citizens of the world, a world that's in crisis? And so I invite you to play a game of Walden or Life in the Woods, to play deliberately, to reclaim these technologies that have quickened our lives for a slow game about living in nature and questioning the inevitableness of our lives. A quiet game as an antidote to turbulent times. When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself on the shore of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.