DELIBERATE IN HOSPITAL ATTACK

Manitoba Boy in Ramsgate Hospital Says Raiding
Airmen Spared The Town But Made Premeditated
Attack On Red Cross Building — Gives Vivid
Account of An Exciting Day

By William Markle (Mark) Pecover
Company D, 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion

It was one of those warm, quiet, sunny August mornings so peaceful and delightful to the war-worn, blue-coated boys enjoying their period of convalescence and respite from the horrors of France. Dear old Blighty! How we we love you! How we enjoy the welcome  of your homes, the beauty and quiet of your country, the security and refuge that you afford. Security, surely, for far, far away sounded the rumble of the great guns, so distant, so muffled, as of some far-off thunder, and seeming only to add to the feeling of repose. Does not that broad strip of water, upon whose calm, unruffled surface the little boats were dancuing so merrily that morning, their sails gleaming in the bright August sunlight, lie between us and the hell of war? Are not the cliffs of old Albion bristling with the muzzles of a thousand guns, a grim and silent warning to all who would violate the sacredness of British soil? But stronger and surer even than these, we put our trust in those who form that solid khaki line, fighting and dying somewhere in France, that the Motherland may live. Yes, surely our defences are well assured and we had nothing to fear.

An Air Raid!

On the morning that I have spoken of, I was working in the office with McLennan. It was nearly four months since I had got my “Blighty,” and I was still in the hospital blues. A Mauser rifle bullet through the elbow naturally puts a fellow out of the running for a time. There was little to do in the office, and Mac and I, intoxicated with the drowsy quiet of the morning, were sitting lazily back in our chairs discussing the war, of course, particularly the submarine menace, and attributing to it our meagre breakfast of porridge and prunes. Suddenly, a long-drawn, terrifying howl broke the quiet of the morning.

“An air raid,” shouted McLennan. We jumped up and ran out into the hospital quadrangle. The terrific sound that had so startled us was the electric siren on the seafront, giving its dreaded warning that the Boche, in his bitter hate and fiendish cruelty, was again about to “strafe” our little seaside town, to wage his inexcuseable war on defenceless women and children, and wounded Canadian soldiers.

Patients Scan Sky

In a few minutes the quadrangle was filled with blue-coated patients, all looking skyward, trying to catch a glimpse of the messengers of death in the clear, blue summer sky. We had not long to wait. Far across to seaward we soon discerned a squadron of ten aeroplanes, flying inland at a great height. There was no mistaking their identifty, the patches of bursting shrapnel, smoke all around, from our anti-aircraft guns, telling us that they were the Huns. As they came closer, all our batteries along the shore opened up with a deafening roar, and round upon round of bursting shrapnel was sent into the formation of the marauders, punctuated at times by the sharp rattle of our machine guns, as the enemy was engaged by our airmen.

We who were watching from below stood gazing at the awe-inspiring spectacle as if hypnotized by those sinister, swiftly-moving specks far up in the blue, On and on they came, so deliberately, with such persistency and grim determination. How perfectly they kept their formation unbroken, despite the terrific fire of our guns. Defying every danger, intent only upon their murderous purpose, they flew directly for the town. Asthey drew inland, they dropped to an altitude of about 10,000 feet and thus we were able to view them quite distinctly. They were huge machines, bi-planes of the latest Gotha type.

Gotha G.V. Bombers over London (depiction)

For several minutes we watched them, scarcely able to relaize that in a few moments they would be above us, dropping their horrible death machines into our midst. As a serpent is said to charm a bird, so we seemed under the spell of these rapidly approaching planes. Then suddenly came that horrible screech of a bomb whirling through the air, followed by a deafening explosion. Then, no longer were we under the spell of the Hun machines. For we who had been in France knew only too well that horrifying noise, and in a moment the watching crowd of blue-coated men was turned into a panic-stricken mob, running hither and thither, vainly trying to get out of the path of the death-dealing formation above. But go whichever way we would, the Gothas in their zig-zag course seemed to follow. Someone shouted an order to keep out of sight under trees, but there was no controlling that scurrying, excited mod of wounded soldiers. Six months in the trenches will ruin the nerves of most men, and we chaps, all of whom had been under shellfire and through the fight, knew only too well the blasting effect of German high explosives. With an instinct gained in France, we looked for a dugout, and failing to find one, took cover under an availing shelter, no matter how small or frail.

Terrific Explosions

As I ran blindly, hardly knowing where, I found myself confronted by the high stone wall surrounding the hospital. I could see no escape that way, and now, how close sounded those horrible screams and terrific explosions! I dared hardly to look up, and each moment added to the awful nerve-wracking suspse.

Then in a moment it seemed that a torpedo was about to drop where we stood. My God! Had I escaped a soldier’s death in France, only to be killed by those fiends in dear, old Blighty? This, and a hundred other thoughts tore through my mind in the moment when it seemed inevitable that the bomb we heard screaming through the air so close, would surely drop where we stood. But it exploded on the open ground of a tennis court some fifth yards away.

Heard Whiz Of Shrapnel

I felt the terrific concussion, saw the great cloud of earth and debris hurled into the air, and heard the chunks of iron shrapnel zipping through the air. I think no obstacle could have stopped me then. One leap at that stone wall and I dropped into the grass of an old churchyard on the other side. A couple of other chaps followed me, and in a frenzy of fear we all ran blindly forward. Explosion after explosion followed. None of us, I think, dared to look up, fearful lest the aeroplanes had changed their course and were following. Seeing no other way in front of us, we ran out of the churchyard, through someone’s house, shouting for a cellar, but were met on every hand by locked doors. Then out into the schoolyard, and on the far side I saw a basement window open at the top. The other boys went over the school wall and found shelter, I know not where. I climbed through the narrow opening in the window, and sat in a corner of the cellar, listening to the roar of our guns and the sound of the exploding bomb, which seemed, however, to be getting farther and farther away. Then I looked out, and my fears vanished. Two of the great Gothas were falling in a mass of flames, and a third was tumbling over and over out of all control. From one of the burning machines, I saw a man leap with a parachite, but in a moment the parachute burst into flames and the Hun was hurled to the earth from a height of nearly two miles. Truly a horrible death, yet a just one for these barbarians. The remainder of the formation was veering off to seaward again, having been turned by the terrific fire of our guns. I knew that the danger was past, but it took a few minutes to get control of my nerves again sufficiently to leave the shelter.

Deliberate Attack On Hospital

I did not have far to go to find the results of the raid. Most of the houses in the precincts of the hospital had their windows shattered. When I got back to the hospital, it was quite clear what mark the Hun had taken to vent his hate upon. In accordance with his usual ruthlessness, it was the building displaying the Red Cross flag that had been marked for destruction, and only too well had the work been done. In one place, where out-of-door patients were kept, a bomb had dropped into the centre of a cluster of tents, reducing the whole place to an almost unrecognizeable pile of smoking wreckage. Coming over to the hospital,  I found one end almost completely ruined. An aerial torpedo had been dropped on this part of the building. It had penetrated the roof and four floors before exploding in the basement. The terrific explosion had wrecked the recreation room above, and the chapel immediately above it., leaving nothing but a heap of wreckage and the strong stone walls; all within was blown to atoms. Other bombs fell on the grounds doing but little damage. There were but two fatalities among the patients, and six wounded. The casualties would have been very heavy, only that the hospital had been cleared of patients on the first intimation of danger.

Only Slight Damage In Town

In the town, only minor damages had occurred; most of the death machines had been reserved for the wounded soldiers. But it took some time for the excited townspeople to overcome their fears. When they could realize that, for that day at least, the danger was passed, the expressions of fear gave way to those of hatred, and a demand for revenge.  Nowhere in Ramsgate could anyone be found who would say “no” to reprisals, and it is the same in every town that has suffered from this form of Hun frightfulness. “No reprisals” is the phrase of those who have not suffered, but even as the kaiser must be taught the word, “reparations,” so must those in authority here learn the word “reprisal,” and carry this warfare, inhuman though it is, to the very hearths of the German people. We have made reprisals in the trenches, and there the Hun has been met on equal ground with his own  instruments of warfare. Why should the women, the children, the aged and the wounded in the Motherland not receive the same protection?

Poppies - painted by Steve Thoms

In Honour of Canadian Remembrance Day, which honours the Armistice of November 11, 1918 and the service of soldiers before and since that bloody war, I am republishing two excerpts from the collected memoirs of my Great Grandfather, a veteran of two world wars, and in particular Vimy Ridge.  William Markle Pecover died in 1986 when I was about 15, a mountain of a man filled with vitality, and an inspiration to generations who followed him down the family tree.

On such a day, it bears reflection that as you read this there are more than 2800 soldiers posted in Kandahar, a battlefield equally dangerous and significantly more complex than Vimy Ridge.  So far, 133 of those have perished and more will soon.

Here is my Great Grandfather’s account of Vimy Ridge, excerpts of which were reprinted in Pierre Berton’s book Vimy:

A Memory of Vimy Ridge
By One Who Was There

By William Markle (Mark) Pecover
Private, D Company, 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion

William Markle Pecover and father, 1916

I have been looking over a little, old, dirty, worn, khaki-covered diary tonight — one of those “Bound In Cloth” one-shilling affairs,  “Soldiers Own Diary for 1917, Containing Information Invaluable To Every Soldier At Home Or At The Front.” Here I have a record scribbled in pencil day by day, G.H.Q. orders to the contrary, of the lifetime of events crowded into those few months and years of war.

The memories that are brought back by such a record, who can tell? Something of pain — of a lingering witsfulness for the glorious cameraderie and high adventure of those days — a shudder, perhaps, at the horror — a thrill of pride at having gone, a prayer of thankfulness at having come back. A feeling almost akin to despair at the futility of it all that the years have revealed.

Turning over the pages, I come to that far-off Easter of 1917:

“Sunday (Easter Day), April 8: Left Petit Servins and marched to Mont St. Eloi en route to Neuville St. Vaast.”

“Monday, April 9: Over the bags to Farbus Woods.”

“Tuesday, April 10: On captured outpost in Farbus Woods, in a sunken road. Mac wounded. HELL!”

“Wednesday, April 11: Back to Neuville St. Vaast last night. Slept all day in cellars under the ruins; parcels from home.”

No very extended account of Canada’s greatest battle, yet enough to recall with perfect clearness and vividness of detail the events of two days that were burned into the very souls of those of us who “went over.” And on this Easter Monday, April 9, eleven years after, how many  thousands of us will in memory again climb those muddy, bloody heights of Vimy in the cold, wet, grey dawn — again live that ”crowded hour of glorious life?”

Bivouac at St. Eloi

Easter Sunday I remember — who of the “Sixth” does not? — around the woods of Mont St. Eloi. There in the welcome warmth of an early spring sun we bivouacked, enjoying what the stress of army life seldom permitted, a day of real rest. Pals gathered around in little groups and laughed and sang together in a comradeship that underneath all its lighthearted banter and good-natured chaff carried an undercurrent almost of sadness, because of what the next day might bring.  The regimental bands played throughout the day — airs contrived to keep down that question uppermost in the mind of every mother’s son of us lounging there in Mont St. Eloi, the question which I find pencilled across the page of my little khaki memo — “I wonder.”

Village of Mont St. Eloi, 1917

“Madamoiselle From Armentiers” they played, and “Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kitbag,” and “Blighty.” Jazz, ragtime, doggerel verse, if you will, but immortal in the minds of those who sang them “over there” because men went to their death with these songs on their lips. So we sang while the bands played, and adjusted our equipment and drew down our ammunition and packed away our bully and biscuits and wrote letters home,  trying carefully to keep out any suggestion of the possibilities that Easter Monday might bring.

So at last Easter Sunday darkened into night, and with darkness came a chill, wet wind. We huddled together and shivered in little groups, and wished that we were away and through with the bloody business that we had come to carry out for Canada. As the night wore on, line upon line of Canadian boys marched past — silent, grim, with faces set and determined, splashing through the mud and wet to the front line. And when our turn came we formed up quietly in the darkness and swung into our place in the seemingly unending files of Canada’s young manhood.

An Ominous Silence

Neuville St. Vaast is but a short march from Mont St. Eloi, and soon we found ourselves crowded into a bit of a shallow, muddy “jumping off” trench. The front was strangely and ominously silent that night, evidencing the fact that Fritz had no inkling of pending events that were to cost him so dearly in a few short hours. We crouched down as close as we might to the mud bottom of the shallow trench and shivered under the merciless elements. A cold, drizzling sleet made the night miserable, and we longed for daylight and an end to this chilling inactivity.

How miserably any words of mine must fail in trying to picture the beginning of that glorious, terrible day — the terrific suddenness of it all, the fearful, maddening, terrifying roar that in one brief, awful moment broke the uncanny quiet of the black, early April morning, the roar from the throats of what seemed a thousand thousand  great guns. On the stroke of five — zero hour — in one great, terrible chorus as one unit they roared out across Vimy the first warning to the Germans that Canada wanted Vimy, that Canada’s young manhood had started up that fearful blood-bought road to Farbus Wood and Thelus and Petit and “the Pimple.” Wheel to wheel, line upon line, thousands of artillery hurled their challenge of death into the enemy lines. From behind us for miles came that deafening roar, while overhead screamed the great shells to burst out in front over the German lines. Lloyd George had kept his promise well. We were “battering our way to victory with big guns.”

The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday 1917 - Painted by Richard Jack

Then as we watched, the mud all about us seemed stirred to life. From a myriad of dark shell holes and bits of trench Canadians crept and leaped and stumbled, their dark forms silhouetted against the lurid background of flame from the belching guns, moving with their faces toward the east, toward the crest of that much coveted strip of ridge which in a vain vain attempt to gain France had lost half a million men. Wave followed wave in endless succession, moving slowly, resolutely, silently as men filled with a fatal purpose and determination.

The Spectacle At Dawn

While we stood watching in silent awe the spectacle unfolding before us in the red light of the gun flashes, the wet grey dawn began to spread across the sky. Then we saw lines of prisoners beginning to wander towards our trenches — a scattered few at first, but steadily increasing in numbers, arguing well for the success of our first early attack. They came willingly, gladly it seemed. We watched them without malice — envied them their lot perhaps at being through with the bloody business, and wondered if we would get out of it as well as they.

German prisoners follow wounded Canadians to the rear, April 1917

As the daylight increased and we could look out over the ridge, we wondered whether anyone could be alive there. The havoc wrought by our guns was terrible — staggering, complete. As far as could be seen. the air was filled with gas and smoke and bursting shrapnel, and mud and debris blown to the skies from the merciless rain of fire. It seemed as if no inch of ground held by the enemy could escape that rain of death. And into the black cloud pressed wave upon wave of our boys. , while from continued to emerge new groups of prisoners, endless hundreds of wounded, with a smile of victory and satisfaction struggling through the suppressed agony of pain that filled the eyes.

Then, while we stood by, enthralled, horrified, yet filled with a strange exhultation because we were there, came a short word of command passed along the trench, and our wave clambored out into the mud and wire to take its place in the Juggernaut of war rolling mercilessly over Vimy. What a glorious moment this — yes, glorious in spite of all. War! War! War! The grand climax of the great adventure! And we who a few short months before had thrown aside school texts and laughingly, carelessly donned the khaki, felt ourselves thrilled and ran into the bloody business with the wild abandon of youth.

Fury Dies Down

Moving forward in the dull light of that clouded April morning, we learned full well the nature of a great modern battlefield. This was war. Many things we saw as we stumbled over the desolation of what had been bitterly contested ground but an hour earlier. And just ahead of us roared the barrage and all the fury of the fight — the death-rattle of the machine guns, bursting ov erhead of shrapnel, thousands upon thousands of great shells, all the fiendish implements of death that man had devised. . In contrast, the area through which we passed seemed strangely quiet. Here the fury had spent itself Here death reigned, and the agony of pain.

For weeks we had been drilled in the plan of the battle. Day after day we had gone “over the tapes” back at Maisull Bourche, across the open field of the French countryside where our lines of attack were laid out by white tapes. And so we were familiar in a general way with our direction and distance and final objective. It was to be the work of the “Sixth” to establish the furthest outposts along the steep eastern slope of Vimy. Farbus Wood was our objective, and Farbus village, a straggling clutter of ruins at the foot of the ridge. Here our orders were to “dig in,” establish a new front line and bear the brunt of the counter-attack which by all the rules of war Fritz could be counted upon to make.

Vimy Ridge, Officers' Dugout in the Canadian Lines - the light was added later

Easter Monday was drawing to a close when, in the cold wet of the afternoon, we reached the crest of the ridge. Out in front of Farbus Wood we crouched in shell holes, waiting for the word of command to move forward to capture this last objective in the day’s great adv ance. But the first wild, fierce frenzy of the fight had spent itself, and the enemy, thoroughly beaten for that day, seemed to have no heart for further encounter. Broken and disorganized, they took what cover they could and escaped or gave up, willingly it seemed, to our boys. Only a broken, desultory fire met our advance, the most effective resistance  being offered by a battery of field guns — whizzbangs — at the bottom of the ridge, which fired at short range point blank into us, causing a number of casualties.

Germans Disorganized

Typical German Machine Gun Position, 1917

Out across the Lens coal plains, from our high point of vantage, we watched with intense interest and satisfaction the disorganization of poor old Fritz. Not knowing the magnitude and extent of the Canadian plans for the day, the Germans could be seen moving back over the roads and across the fields of the Lens-Douai plain with every evidence of haste and disorganization — long files of troops, trucks, wagons, gun carriages in full retreat.

Scattered throughout the wood were many massive gun emplacements housing heavy artillery and so placed that they had been well protected from our artillery by the crest of the ridge. Underneath the guns were well positioned dugouts, and in these large groups of thoroughly frightened, thoroughly cowed and thoroughly beaten Germans had taken shelter. Our orders were to bomb out these remnants of a proud and arrogant army that a few hours before had considered itself invincible and the Ridge secure.

At a shouted order from above they came up the dugout stairs, haltingly, with hands raised above their heads, and a pleading “Mercy! Kamerade!” echoing along the bedraggled files. They were hesitant to respond to a harsh shouted order in pure “Canadian” embellished with a bit of fluent Canadian army profanity. But when, recalling a few words from a high school class, I shouted down: “Kommen si hier, Herr Fritz!” They appeared to be more willing to respond, although somewhat mystified and disappointed to find, when they reached the surface, that my total knowledge of Deutsch had been expended. They were disarmed, frisked and “desouvenirized,” and told to get out by pointing in the general direction of our lines, an order that they appeared glad and willing to obey. A couple of Mills bombs tossed down the dugout steps sealed the fate of those who had refused to come up.

At our objective, we captured several big guns in cement emplacements and I was through the dugouts connected with these and got quite a collection of souvenirs — belt, saw-bayonet, rifle and a German haversack full of odds and ends: leather tobacco pouch, old Dutch pipe, nail brush in leather case, silver-plated safety razor, officer’s cap and a few other little things. In the afternoon, however, we were called on to make an attack on the snipers along the track. I had to leave my souvenirs in the woods as they were too much to carry. Although the attack was cancelled at the last moment, I did not have an opportunity to go and collect my souvenirs, as the place where I left them was under fire. . .and after all, the best souvenir is a whole hide to go back with.

Canadians celebrating after fighting at Vimy - 1918

But we had done our day’s work. Night heralded by a cold snowflurry was beginning to draw its curtains over the desolate scene. We unstrapped our spades and dug in along a sunken road, a weary, weakened, depleted “thin khaki line” of young Canadians, yet proud withal, that our boys had proved worthy of the trust imposed on them. Vimy Ridge, the impregnable bastion of German strength along that sector of the Western Front,  had been captured.

This is a critical opportunity for you to vote against Rogers with the only ballot that counts: your wallet. You too will be able to purchase unlocked 3G iPhones from him on eBay about a week later.

Why go to the trouble? Well, let’s just say I’m conflicted. I want the new iPhone (love my old one) but I don’t want Uncle Ted taking my purchase of one as an endorsement of his brutal pricing plan. The Globe & Mail makes the following comparison:

“For example, for $75 a month, Rogers provides 300 weekday voice minutes, 750 megabytes of data and 100 text messages. In the United States, a customer gets 450 weekday voice minutes, unlimited data and 200 text messages for the same price.”

750MB for a frequent iPhone user, particularly one who uses the navigation and web browsing tools, is nothing. But in particular it’s the three-year lock-in that requires the greatest consideration. At that end of the deal, Rogers has you by the short-and-curlies. And your obligation to them will almost certainly outlast your 3G iPhone. Needless to say, many of us are pissed.

So how does it work? Well, let’s just say that you can finally thank the French for something.

Thanks to French law, it is illegal for Apple (or any mobile phone handset maker or carrier) to sell a locked phone in the French marketplace without also making the same device available in the popular pay-as-you-go mode, fully unlocked and portable to any carrier.

This puts a stick in the mud for Apple’s lock-in plan and means that France will likely be selling a substantial number of 3G iPhones, until ZiPhone learns how to software unlock them, to eBay resellers like my friend.

So yes, please go and sign the petition at RuinediPhone.com but, since I know you’re going to buy one anyway, get the French iPhone instead of buckling under peer pressure to lock into Rogers’ data plan. It might cost you more in the short run (ironic) but in the long run you will force things to change.

Software unlocking has already forced several key changes in Apple’s strategy that favour the consumer. But a flop of Rogers’ package pricing on the Canadian market can send a clear signal to both companies, and their shareholders. Industry Canada, which should be paying attention, can and most definitely should censure Rogers, and its wireless competitors for a long history of market-limiting pricing (not limited to the iPhone launch in Canada) that has rendered our country a wireless backwater.

September 21, 2003

Waiting For Spielberg By MATTHEW ROSE

Unlike most urban legends, the one about the Iranian exile stuck at the Paris airport for 15 years is true. Surrounded by a mountain of his possessions near the Paris Bye Bye lounge at Terminal 1 in Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Merhan Karimi Nasseri is still there after all these years — a celebrity homeless person.

Planted on the 1970’s red plastic bench he calls home, and surrounded by stacks of newspapers and magazines, Nasseri, also known as Alfred or ”Sir, Alfred” (title and comma appropriated from a mistake in a letter from British immigration), has organized his life’s belongings into a half-dozen Lufthansa cargo boxes, various suitcases and unused carry-on luggage. On a nearby coffee table spotted with aluminum ashtrays, Nasseri’s universe includes a pair of alarm clocks, an electric shaver, a hand mirror and a collection of press clippings and photographs to establish his present and his recent past. He seems both settled — and ready to go.

To the pilots, airport staff, fast-food merchants and millions who have passed through the terminal on their way to somewhere else, the 58-year-old Nasseri has become a postmodern icon — a traveler whom no one will claim. Little do they know that he is on his way to becoming a Hollywood icon, too. Inspired by Nasseri’s intriguing tale of lost identity, bureaucratic limbo and persistence, Steven Spielberg has bought the rights to his life story as the basis for the new Tom Hanks vehicle, ”The Terminal.”

”I realize I am famous,” Nasseri says in his soft, almost giggly voice, a gravelly mix of his native Persian, the airport French he’s picked up from the loudspeakers and the cigarettes he’s always smoking. As if to prove his fame, he pats a briefcase stuffed with his press clippings. ”I wasn’t interesting until I came here.”

Nasseri’s story is difficult to piece together. Over the years, he has claimed many things about his origins. At one time his mother was Swedish, another time English. Nasseri’s effectively reinvented himself in the Charles de Gaulle airport and denies these days that he’s Iranian, deflecting any conversation about his childhood in Tehran. (”He pretends he doesn’t speak Persian,” his longtime lawyer, Christian Bourguet, says. ”He was interviewed by Iranian journalists and made believe he didn’t understand.”) When we first met two years ago, he insisted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was attempting to locate his parents in order to establish his identity. But a spokeswoman for the agency dismissed the assertion as ”pure folly.”

Early on in his saga, Nasseri maintained that he was expelled from his homeland for antigovernment activity in 1977. According to a number of reports, Nasseri protested against the regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi while a student in England, and when he returned to Iran, found himself imprisoned, and shortly thereafter exiled.

He bounced around Europe for a few years with temporary refugee papers, alighting finally in Belgium, where he was awarded official refugee status in 1981. He traveled to Britain and France without difficulty until 1988, when he landed at Charles de Gaulle airport after being denied entry into Britain, because, he contends, his passport and refugee certificate were stolen in a mugging on a Paris subway. Nasseri could not prove who he was, nor offer proof of his refugee status. So he moved into the Zone d’attente, a holding area for travelers without papers.

He stayed for days, then weeks — then months, then years. As his bizarre odyssey stretched on, Bourguet, the noted French human rights lawyer, took on the case, and the news media piled on. Articles appeared around the world, and Nasseri became the subject of three documentary films. (Oddly, apparently none of his friends or relatives have attempted to contact him.)

ike any number of Samuel Beckett characters, Nasseri has redefined the concept of waiting. But he remains busy, and during office hours when he’s not meeting filmmakers or members of the press, he collects McDonald’s soda tops and endlessly considers his situation in a sprawling, 1,000-plus-page diary that chronicles his journey to nowhere. These rambling handwritten notes recount his encounters with just about everyone he’s met, reporting faithfully everything from the details of his paper chase to some of the witty things he’s said (”I’m not Henry Kissinger”). Nasseri also asks most visitors to sign his journal.

An effete, balding man, Nasseri is well groomed (he washes daily in the men’s room and sends his donated Marks & Spencer clothes to the dry cleaners) with finely manicured fingernails. He smokes compulsively and is forever reaching for his pouch of Pall Mall rolling tobacco. At one point during our interview he coughs, adding with his characteristic sly humor, ”Maybe I caught SARS here in the airport.”

In an eerily Warholian relationship, Nasseri’s closest neighbors at the airport are a photo booth and a photocopy machine. Unlike most movie types, Nasseri does not have a cell phone, and he eats regularly at the McDonald’s in the food court 100 feet away. (”I like the fish,” he says.) The only green in his immediate environment is, ironically, the Sortie (Exit) sign.

In the Spielberg film, which begins shooting this month, Hanks is transformed into a refugee whose country disappears in a diplomatic wink of an eye. As chaos ravages his homeland, Hanks is rendered stateless, his passport turned into an eBay collectible. He’s grounded: a stranger in a strange New York airport. But Hanks is cured of his airport disease and soars to new heights (and, who knows, perhaps another Oscar), thanks to the Hollywood bombshell Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays Hanks’s love interest, a flight attendant. Nasseri has had no such luck with the ladies and complains that there are no nightclubs in his airport. ”There’s no pleasure,” he says.

While Bourguet confirms that Spielberg’s company, DreamWorks, has in fact bought the rights to his client’s life story, Spielberg himself would not discuss ”The Terminal,” its plot nor Nasseri’s contract. Marvin Levy, a DreamWorks spokesman, confirms that a financial agreement was signed. However, he cautions, ”Mr. Nasseri’s story was an inspiration for the original treatment for ‘The Terminal.’ The film is not his story.”

Rumors of a $275,000 fee for the rights to Nasseri’s life story and certain consulting duties have circulated. ”It’s less than $1 million,” Bourguet says, adding that the money hasn’t changed the predicament of his client. ”While he became a bit richer, Alfred is extremely paranoid and confused.”

Certainly, Nasseri may well be one of the only people on the planet not to have seen a Spielberg production. Asked what he thinks of Hanks, Nasseri replies straight-faced, ”Is he Japanese?”

Regardless of whether Hanks manages to capture the refugee’s deadpan delivery, the Hollywood retelling of Nasseri’s odyssey will undoubtedly include a first-class ticket to the American dream.

Nasseri’s real-life ending, however, is still up in the air.

”Alfred himself will have trouble leaving the airport,” says Glen Luchford, a fashion photographer cum director whose 2001 mockumentary, ”Here to Where,” attempted just such a scenario, with the director, played by Paul Berczeller, failing to tempt Nasseri beyond the concrete gardens of Charles de Gaulle.

”Alfred has to accept that he’s free,” Luchford says sadly. ”But with freedom comes responsibility. He represents people’s worst fears — the idea they might be procrastinating all their lives and end up being rooted to the spot.”

asseri cannot be forcibly moved or repatriated. He is protected by a number of international refugee statutes. According to Bourguet, he is legally free to leave the airport. All Nasseri has to do is sign the identity papers the French provided him in 1999. But the papers identify him as Iranian and don’t recognize his adopted name of Sir, Alfred. And so he can’t — or won’t- sign them: a testament to either patience, or madness.

Nasseri is doubtful about attending the premiere of ”The Terminal,” although his face lights up at the prospect. ”I would probably have technical problems with my papers in Los Angeles,” he says, before adding that he’ll likely leave the airport ”in September or October.”

If he does decide to finally exit the departure lounge, Nasseri could go to any number of places in the world. He says Florida has invited him, and, yes, why not New York, when ”I take over DreamWorks”? (The company is based in California.) And what of the plastic red bench, which has served as his de facto home for the last 15 years and must by now be a collector’s item?

”I’ll take it to DreamWorks,” he says with a smile. ”And send it by FedEx .”

Matthew Rose is a writer and artist living in Paris.

In honour of the beautiful summer we’re having DJ Heavy Smurf has created a new mix for listening to while at your local beach, tanning salon, lawn, or (if you’re Martha Stewart) in your jail cell..

Paper Thin Suntan packs 18 tracks on one mix, journeying from 92 BPM to 117 BPM over 79 minutes and 55 seconds. Insodoing it winds its way around the world from France to Norway to Lebanon to Honolulu to Brooklyn to London and Brazil,

The Smurf hopes you enjoy it at: http://heavysmurf.com

Track listing: “Paper Thin Suntan”

Air All I Need 92 BPM Jaffa Sneakin’ 94 BPM Elak Remember Me 96 BPM Royksopp Cry Baby 96 BPM Thievery Corporation Lebanese Blonde 97 BPM Bebel Gilberto Bananeira 97 BPM Fantastic Plastic Machine Honolulu, Calcutta 98 BPM Blue Boy Remember Me 99 BPM Roy Davis, Jr. Lyrical Trip 101 BPM Nightmares on Wax Ease Jimi 102 BPM Fila Brazilia Freedom 103 BPM Saint Germaine Acid Jazz 105 BPM Royksopp Eple 107 BPM Marschemellows Soulpower 110 BPM Telepopmusik Breathe 112 BPM Spiller Groove Jet 114 BPM Fred Derby 116 BPM Jamiroquai Little L 117 BPM

It’s encoded as 192kBps MP3… like most of the others…

-Enjoy!

Wireless and Web Buzz Again as Wifi Catches On Tue May 13, 4:09 PM

/By Christopher Noble/

PARIS (Reuters) – Landgrabbing and takeover frenzy are again dominating technology headlines as if the Internet bubble had never burst and giving old buzzwords a new lease of life.

At the center of it is WiFi, a technology that allows users of laptop computers and other gadgets to access the Internet without the usual struggle with wires and mismatched phone jacks.

France, late to the party, is now jumping aboard with a series of announcements in the last few days.

The race is on around the world to roll out WiFi access points known as “hotspots,” which for some entrepreneurs offer the prospect of turning mobile Internet access into revenue.

Each wireless (news <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22wireless%22&c=&n &yn=c&c=news&cs=nw> – web sites <largest hotspot in France. A consortium of companies is now putting a WiFi network in the French capital’s subway stations and bus stops.

British Airways, Air France End Concorde Thu Apr 10, 9:48 AM ET Add Business – Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Daniel Morrissey and Noah Barkin

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) – The Concorde began its final descent on Thursday as British Airways and Air France said they would stop flying the world’s first and only supersonic jetliner because flagging passenger demand could not cover its rising costs.

The decision to retire the slender, needle-nosed jet to museums after 27 years of service brings down a potent symbol of Franco-British engineering prowess and the jet-set lifestyles of the rich and famous who flew on Concorde.

“Concorde changed the way people traveled,” British Airways Chief Executive Rod Eddington told reporters on Thursday. “With its going, we must lose some of the romance from aviation.”

But the costs associated with the fuel-guzzling jet had become too onerous for the only two airlines that fly the 100-seat plane. Both carriers said falling revenues and rising maintenance costs was behind their decision.

Air France, Europe’s second-largest airline, said it was halting Concorde flights from May 31, while British Airways, Europe’s biggest airline, said it would stop commercial flights in the days leading up to the end of October.

The plane’s demise comes nearly three years after the crash of one an Air France Concorde shortly after take-off from Roissy Charles De Gaulle airport near Paris in July 2000.

The crash, which killed 113 people, forced both airlines to ground the planes for over a year.

When they resumed transatlantic service in November 2001, the global economy was slowing and the civil aerospace market heading into its worst ever downturn following the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Although the Concorde has always been linked in the public eye to champagne-quaffing, lobster-dining celebrities with money to spare, the reality is much different.

Eddington said more than two-thirds of Concorde’s passengers were business travelers. Falling stock markets, a drought in mergers and acquisitions and weak economies have forced City of London and Wall Street banks to cut tens of thousands of jobs and even high-flying CEOs to rein in their outlays.

“Recently, we were filling only about 20 percent of the seats,” Air France Chairman Jean-Cyril Spinetta told a news conference.

HIGH COSTS, LOW REVENUES

British Airways said retiring its Concordes would result in $130.5 million of write-off costs for the year that ended March 31, 2003, while Air France estimated the cost of retirement at between 50 million and 60 million euros ($64.63 million).

Spinetta said this one-time writedown would be partly offset because the plane would no longer be a financial drain on the company.

He said Concorde had dragged down profits by about 50 million euros in Air France’s most recent fiscal year, which ended on March 31. Operating costs for the plane per seat-kilometere, had surged 58 percent since the July 2000 crash, Air France executives said.

That forced carriers to charge high ticket prices for London-New York and Paris-New York flights, which took under three-and-a-half hours on the supersonic speedster.

The $6,980 average price tag for a Concorde flight from London to New York, which has passengers paying $39 a minute for a three-hour flight, looks a lot steeper these days than it did in recent years of economic opulence.

“The problem at the moment is because of the economic downturn there are far fewer people that are prepared to pay that price,” BNP Paribas analyst Nick van den Brul said.

In addition, spare parts were hard to come by and the planes were in need of constant maintenance.

Pieces of the rudders used to steer the jets, which cross the ocean at up to 1,350 miles per hour, have fallen off in flight at least six times during the past 13 years.

Air France said manufacturers had made it clear that new costly parts programs would have to be launched soon to ensure continued service.

Concorde’s four Olympus 593 engines, designed by Britain’s Rolls-Royce and Snecma of France, are the most powerful pure jet engines on any commercial plane, but consume vast amounts of fuel.

NEXT GENERATION

Eddington said there would be a “significant gap” before the next generation of supersonic aircraft was built, and it would have to overcome the problem of the sonic boom. Regulators do not allow Concorde to fly at supersonic speed over land, limiting its route potential.

Aircraft maker Boeing Co proposed building a jet dubbed the “Sonic Cruiser” that would fly just under the speed of sound at Mach 0.98. But the idea met with little interest from airlines, which instead wanted a more efficient aircraft to save on operating costs.

Instead, Boeing is now developing a mid-sized wide-body jet known as the 7E7, which it says would cut fuel burn by up to 20 percent compared to similar sized jets in the air today.

“There does not seem to be a viable market, at least in the current environment, for the premium service that a supersonic airplane would offer,” said Todd Blecher, a spokesman for Boeing’s Seattle-based commercial jet unit.

Both Air France and British Airways said they would turn over their combined fleet of 12 Concordes to interested museums.

($1=.6435 Pound)

($1=.9283 Euro)

FIRST: MILITARY SUPPLIES Who Sold What to Iraq? The U.S. aims to hunt down companies that supplied Saddam. FORTUNE Sunday, March 30, 2003 By Nelson D. Schwartz

When the first wave of American soldiers swept out of the desert and headed north toward Baghdad, the Iraqis weren’t the only ones who experienced shock and awe. In the thick of battle, U.S. commanders discovered that the Iraqi army was able to jam the global-positioning systems the military uses to pinpoint everything from cruise missile attacks to the location of troops on the ground. “It was a technological preemptive strike,” says a senior military source.

It was also a prime example of how private companies violated the embargo that the U.S. and the United Nations imposed on Iraq more than a decade ago. Russian firms supplied the jammers to Iraq in the past few years–they didn’t exist during the first Gulf war–prompting a personal protest from President Bush to Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The news about the GPS-blocking devices is just the beginning of what’s likely to be a series of revelations detailing how companies–including American ones–helped supply Saddam Hussein’s war machine during the past decade. That’s because in addition to searching for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. forces are scouring Iraq for evidence of who sold what to Saddam. Military sources have told FORTUNE that special teams are already on the ground, sifting through files to determine where Iraq got everything from rocket parts to fiber-optic technology.

Despite both U.S. laws and UN sanctions that prohibited all but a handful of commercial dealings with Baghdad, there have been persistent reports that companies from Russia, France, and China, among others, were breaking the embargo. And when the evidence in Iraq is analyzed, says a top Washington official who deals with trade policy, it’s likely that at least a few U.S. companies will face fines or perhaps even criminal prosecution. “The fact that American companies have broken the embargo with Iran suggests that there will be some leads in Iraq,” adds the government official, who spoke with FORTUNE on condition of anonymity. “Those of us in law enforcement certainly contemplate that things will be found in Iraq.”

Probing the byzantine web of deals that kept technology flowing to Iraq is a complex job. It’s likely to involve teams from the Treasury, State, and Commerce departments, as well as the Pentagon and the CIA. For now the main task is locating the forbidden goods–and their paper trail. Sources say units made up of both military personnel and representatives of the CIA and other agencies have been trained to operate in volatile areas inside Iraq, taking inventory of contraband items and poring over records.

Similar task forces operated after the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989 and NATO’s intervention in the Balkans in the mid-1990s, but this time the job is much bigger. Because of Iraq’s oil riches, Saddam had a far easier time of evading the embargo than did former dictators like Manuel Noriega and Slobodan Milosevic. Fixing blame can be tough, however. Business transactions with embargoed nations are usually conducted through intermediaries, with China and the United Arab Emirates as common transshipment points.

To further complicate matters, U.S. companies might innocently sell something to a Chinese buyer, only to learn later that it ended up in Iraq. For example, says Kelly Motz of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, China’s giant Huawei Technologies is believed to have supplied Saddam’s army with sophisticated communications hardware even as it was doing business with the likes of IBM, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, and Qualcomm. “These companies might have thought they were just selling telecom equipment into an emerging Asian market,” says Motz. “However, it’s been known since early 2001 that Huawei has had dealings with Iraq. So any deals that might have been done since then are questionable.”

If it turns out that companies intentionally evaded the ban, government officials say they are loaded for bear. “We won’t tolerate the breaking of the embargo,” says Richard Newcomb, director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. “If there’s a knowing violation, we would prosecute to the full extent of the law.” In 2001, the Commerce Department hit McDonnell Douglas, a unit of Boeing, with a $2.12 million fine for improperly selling machine tools to China. Fines for dealing with Iraq are likely to be larger. And if evidence turns up that a particular firm knowingly sold items like night-vision goggles or gas masks to Iraq, federal agencies might impose what they call the “death penalty”–a total ban on all exports by the guilty firm. Criminal charges for executives are also a distinct possibility.

It’s going to take time to determine just who did business with Iraq. But the military, for one, seems eager to shine a light in some otherwise dark corners. “We will have everything at our disposal,” says Maj. Max Blumenfeld, an officer with Army’s V Corps in Kuwait. Documenting Iraq’s deals, he says, “will justify this operation and show the world what we’ve been saying all along about Saddam Hussein and his efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.” It could also cause a lot of companies to wish they’d never done business with Baghdad.

When I hear someone saying something so fervently, I’m often moved to believe that the person they’re really trying to convince is themselves. Here’s a great thread.

-Ian.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dan Lowe > Date: Wed Apr 2, 2003 9:05:48 AM US/Pacific
> To: “‘Ian Andrew Bell'”
> Subject: RE: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
> Seems strange how you like to shift the argument when it does not suit
> your
> needs? This will be my last email because it sounds as if you are
> incapable
> of reasoning with. You are right Ian, Iraq has not attacked us
> directly,
> but they are in violation of a truce treaty they signed 12 years ago.
> Besides, how many more ties to Al Queda do you need to see? Do you
> honestly
> believe that Sadaam is above having a relationship with Al Queda? One
> final
> question, have you had a father, grandfather, or even great grandfather
> serve in the military to protect the freedoms you enjoy today? What
> you and
> all of those countries and their people fail to recognize is that there
> would be no Belgium, no Switzerland, no france, no Venezuela, etc. if
> we did
> not exist. These countries are only sovereign because of us and the
> threat
> that we pose to world conquering dictators. So brush up on your
> chinese,
> russian and arabic speaking abilities if your ideology becomes the
> opinion
> of the majority in this counrty.
>
> Oh wait, next you are going to tell me it is about oil. Lets end this
> one
> right here and now. Oil companies have already stated that they would
> much
> rather negotiate deals with a sanctioned oil for food Iraq then a
> democrtatic Iraq which command a higher price at the bargaining table.
> Also, why did we leave Kuwait if it is all about oil. Did we stay in
> France
> and Germany to pilage them of their resources or did we prop up their
> governments economic system to help them get back on their feet after
> WW II?
> We are not conquerors we are the defenders of liberty – our liberty
> and that
> of others.
>
> —–Original Message—–
> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 10:32 AM
> To: Dan Lowe
> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>
>
> Sorry… I wasn’t aware that IRAQ had attacked the US.
>
> -Ian.
>
>
> On Wednesday, April 2, 2003, at 06:47 AM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>
>> You want to talk about a REAL abuse of authority. Let’s see, how
>> about a
>> comparison between homeowners associations in the Houston area telling
>> homeowners that they can not put a ‘Support the Troops’ sign in their
>> window
>> or put a flagpole in their front yard compared to radio station
>> managers who
>> conducted online polls from their audience on whether or not to
>> continue
>> playing the Dixie Chicks in which the respondents in cities all across
>> the
>> country voted overwelmingly to take them off the air. I call it
>> democracy
>> in action. If you libs aren’t careful, we will begin to pass
>> legislation
>> approving public displays of patriotism. Why can’t libs join
>> conservatives
>> in the fight with OUR common enemy – rogue states intent on
>> threatening the
>> civilized world with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?
>> Dan
>>
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 5:52 PM
>> To: Dan Lowe
>> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>>
>>
>> You clearly refuse to listen to that which you do not currently
>> believe.
>>
>> Tell me, how did you come upon my email message in the first place?
>>
>> -Ian.
>>
>>
>> On Tuesday, April 1, 2003, at 03:01 PM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>>
>>> oh excuse me for thinking everyone in your entertainment industry was
>>> driven
>>> by ratings and what the people want. So now the argument has changed
>>> from
>>> ‘a violation of the dixie chicks freedom of speech’ to ‘contractual
>>> obligations’. ‘Abusing of authority’ as it relates to bad cops, over
>>> zealous security guards, the Presidents of France, Russia or Germany
>>> is one
>>> thing, but that is a mighty long reach to say that radio station
>>> managers
>>> who listen to their audience and act appropriately are ‘abusing
>>> authority’
>>> is normally. In fact, I see no abuse of authority. Instead I see
>>> Patriotic
>>> Americans! Freedom of speech is a 2 way street, one who makes
>>> millions from
>>> being in the limelight must also be aware of the repurcussions of
>>> their
>>> actions.
>>>
>>>
>>> —–Original Message—–
>>> From: Ian Andrew Bell [mailto:hello [at] ianbell [dot] com]
>>> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 4:46 PM
>>> To: Dan Lowe
>>> Subject: Re: @F: Fwd: FW: MORE DIXIE CHICKS
>>>
>>>
>>> Go for it… be mad, be pissed off. Call the radio stations and
>>> state
>>> your platform … fill your boots! But when programmers at radio
>>> stations take them out of the rotation they are abusing their
>>> authority
>>> and eschewing their responsibility as broadcasters on spectrum that
>>> all
>>> of us, Canadian or American, pay to administer.
>>>
>>> -ian.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, April 1, 2003, at 08:59 AM, Dan Lowe wrote:
>>>
>>>> ian,
>>>> you can let all of your dixie chick buddies know that the only
>>>> organized
>>>> group I belong to is called the United States of America. You guys
>>>> can’t
>>>> stand the fact that this many people are disgusted by the comments
>>>> of
>>>> the
>>>> singing idiots, and think there has to some kind of conspiracy going
>>>> on. In
>>>> all actuality, 8 out of 10 support Pres. Bush and the troops and
>>>> think
>>>> her
>>>> comments were out of line with the majority of Americans whom she
>>>> thought
>>>> incorrectly that her statements more closely resembled. And another
>>>> thing,
>>>> I believe most concert ticket sales took place before the comments.
>>>> Somebody better put a muzzle on natalie or they will end up an
>>>> overseas act
>>>> exclusively like Madonna. Why the double standard? If Natalie is
>>>> free to
>>>> open her mouth and say what she thinks then why aren’t we free to
>>>> voice our
>>>> displeasure with what she said. Nobody is trying to lock them up
>>>> and
>>>> throw
>>>> away the key. They are still being shuffled around in limos, living
>>>> in posh
>>>> hotels and being treated like little queens by their pamperers, so
>>>> why
>>>> can’t
>>>> the public be outraged and active in their outrage because it
>>>> disgusts
>>>> them
>>>> so.Why can’t we?
>>>>
>>>> Dan Lowe