WAR IS BAD
W E D N E S D A Y, 6 D E C E M B E R
Straightaway I got to school I told Tig and Martha exactly what I think about military service and we had an argument about it. They kept saying that a year in the army would prove to a boy that war is horrible, and that shooting at dummies does no harm. But I think they’re making excuses for a thing that is basically bad. You’ve got to look at it from a very broad moral sense.
Martha was discussing who to invite to her party and then she said to me, “why haven’t you got a boyfriend?” I told her I didn’t go to either the dance or to Sandra’s party, where Tig, Lucy, Anya and she got their boyfriends. Boys don’t exactly come up to you in the street and say, “I want to go out with you.”
Mrs Evans told us about McNamara, who’s recently been overcome by America’s military leaders. It’s rather disastrous he’s gone because the next thing to do in Viet-Nam is use Nuclear weapons and the Americans are far more likely to use them without him as defence leader. Viet-Nam is costing $10,000,000 per day and McCarthy, who wants an end to the war, is trying to push Robert Kennedy into winning the next election. Then she went onto the moral problems of wars: if you refuse orders you’re killed; if you obey and you lose later you’re killed for losing. This is why the Nuremburg trials were held – the men who were tried were executed not only because of the concentration camps but also because they lost the war. She thinks if we’d lost the war Churchill would have gone to trial for Dresden.
“So what do you do if you’re called up for Viet-Nam? It’s a terrible problem.”
It’s very very interesting and I’ve decided I’m intellectually frustrated by people at school. If you’re brought up in a family that never discusses anything cultural or intellectual it’s hardly likely you’d want to either. I could never be grateful enough for the influence Ma and Pa have had on me.
’24 Hours’ was on the Beatles’ new boutique Apple. It's a psychedelic "Garden of Eden" and there was an interview with Simon and Marijke, the Dutch couple who design the clothes. He’s adorable (gorgeous Dutch accent, terribly different from a French one) but he speaks like Polnareff. The way he goes, “you know…” – oh!
It’s SNOWING and Chump is thrilled.
"He's adorable". Dutch Simon Posthuma and Marijke Koger of the then famous 'Fool', wearing their own designs, 1967
