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Berlin Diary

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Barbaria1 said:
Love the way you guys run with this! So much fun! Any other clever little sequels out there? Love to hear them! :D
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Congratulations Barb, on an amazing and powerful story! The characters and the setting are so convincing, it all comes to life in a compelling way. Indeed the reader is compelled to follow the heroine through every tumultuous stage of the action. The plot writhes in suspense whilst delightful background descriptions mingle with graphic violence. We get to know the dramatis personae whilst wondering if anybody is really who they appear to be.

The city of Berlin gets a character study of its own, evoking the pre-war atmosphere we recognise from 'Cabaret' - the excitement of the night life and the most sinister overtones of the fascist state. Barbara epitomises the victim of the no-win situation. The failure of her mission produces a new enemy just as hostile as the one she was sent out against, and her only friends turn out to be people we thought she shouldn't trust. It is a masterpiece of rage and suffering of which you should feel justly proud.

As the denouement comes thundering home, we learn how painful is the reality of experiencing defeat snatched from the jaws of victory when Barbara is abducted in her first moments of freedom. Reduced to the status of an embarrassment to her employers, we are presented with the stark evidence of her execution under circumstances as plausibly horrific as those she has previously endured. Barbara Moore is dead - Soviet era documentary evidence and photographs tell us that.

But can we trust such evidence from the state pioneers of fake photography and 'pravda'? Inviting the reader to indulge in conjecture, you present us with a choice. Call me a suspicious romantic, but I don't buy it. Maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending, or even any kind of ending. Barbara Moore may have had a lot of good luck and a lot of bad luck, but she also had a lot of guts. Berlin was an experience which left her with a lot of ghosts to exorcise, and even if it meant she had to be a different person, I believe that if it was humanly possible, she would have done anything to get back there...

Red Army Snipers.jpg Red Army Snipers detail.jpg
 
Red Army Snipers detail.jpg Wow Bob! That was a terrific review of Berlin Diary. I am blushing and puffed up with pride.

And this is tantalizing: "But can we trust such evidence from the state pioneers of fake photography and 'pravda'? Inviting the reader to indulge in conjecture, you present us with a choice. Call me a suspicious romantic, but I don't buy it. Maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending, or even any kind of ending."

What if that wasn't her they tied naked to a post in the courtyard of the Lubyanka that awful night?

7.jpg Could that archived nude NKVD photo of her corpse being hauled away to an unmarked grave be a fake?
 
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Red Army Snipers.jpg Perhaps, rather than executing her in front of a firing squad, the Russians sent her out between the lines on the Eastern Front in 1942 (after almost 5 years in the gulag) with these other women in her penal battalion on a suicide mission as a sniper to take out German officers ... wonder how she could mess that assignment up and get herself in trouble? :rolleyes:
 
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Barbaria1 said:
View attachment 438605 Wow Bob! That was a terrific review of Berlin Diary. I am blushing and puffed up with pride.

And this is tantalizing: "But can we trust such evidence from the state pioneers of fake photography and 'pravda'? Inviting the reader to indulge in conjecture, you present us with a choice. Call me a suspicious romantic, but I don't buy it. Maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending, or even any kind of ending."

What if that wasn't her they tied naked to a post in the courtyard of the Lubyanka that awful night?

View attachment 438608 Could that archived nude NKVD photo of her corpse being hauled away to an unmarked grave be a fake?
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Every picture tells a story - who knows what to believe?
 
Barbaria1 said:
View attachment 438613 Perhaps, rather than executing her in front of a firing squad, the Russians sent her out between the lines on the Eastern Front in 1942 (after almost 5 years in the gulag) with these other women in her penal battalion on a suicide mission as a sniper to take out German officers ... wonder how she could mess that assignment up and get herself in trouble? :rolleyes:
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Oh good, now you're inspired - I can hardly wait. You know she has to go back!
 
Barbaria1 said:
View attachment 438613 Perhaps, rather than executing her in front of a firing squad, the Russians sent her out between the lines on the Eastern Front in 1942 (after almost 5 years in the gulag) with these other women in her penal battalion on a suicide mission as a sniper to take out German officers ... wonder how she could mess that assignment up and get herself in trouble? :rolleyes:
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Red Army Snipers detail.jpg

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh.
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past
We've been cast out of? Oh oh oh oh
Now we're back in the fight.
We're back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

A circumstance beyond our control, oh oh oh oh,
The phone, the TV and the news of the world
Got in the house like a pigeon from Hell, oh oh oh oh,
Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies,
Put us back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

The powers that be,
That force us to live like we do,
Bring me to my knees
When I see what they've done to you.
But I'll die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
They'll fall to ruin one day
For making us part.

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh.
Those were the happiest days of my life.
Like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh,
In the wretched life of a lonely heart.
Now we're back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

"Back On The Chain Gang" by The Pretenders 1984.
 
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bobinder said:
View attachment 438634

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh.
What hijacked my world that night
To a place in the past
We've been cast out of? Oh oh oh oh
Now we're back in the fight.
We're back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

A circumstance beyond our control, oh oh oh oh,
The phone, the TV and the news of the world
Got in the house like a pigeon from hell, oh oh oh oh,
Threw sand in our eyes and descended like flies,
Put us back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

The powers that be,
That force us to live like we do,
Bring me to my knees
When I see what they've done to you.
But I'll die as I stand here today
Knowing that deep in my heart
They'll fall to ruin one day
For making us part.

I found a picture of you, oh oh oh oh.
Those were the happiest days of my life.
Like a break in the battle was your part, oh oh oh oh,
In the wretched life of a lonely heart.
Now we're back on the train,
Oh, back on the chain gang.

"Back On The Chain Gang" by The Pretenders 1984.
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Before my time ... but a great song! Thanks for posting!
 
Barbaria1 said:
Before my time ... but a great song! Thanks for posting!
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A little younger...

Ringo Starr..

"Photograph"

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

I thought i'd make it the day you went away,
But i can't make it
Till you come home again to stay-yi-yay-yi-yay.

I can't get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Now you're expecting me to live without you,
But that's not something that i'm looking forward to.

I can't get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not.
 
thehangingtree said:
A little younger...

Ringo Starr..

"Photograph"

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

I thought i'd make it the day you went away,
But i can't make it
Till you come home again to stay-yi-yay-yi-yay.

I can't get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Now you're expecting me to live without you,
But that's not something that i'm looking forward to.

I can't get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not coming back anymore.

Ev'ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you're not.
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Album cover!

Note the "latin" at the top!

number 2-115742096.jpg

Ok! See it now?

Do-it -on monday-album-Ringo-Starr-Ringo.jpg

:p
 
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LittleSiss said:
Album cover!

Note the "latin" at the top!

View attachment 438688

Ok! See it now?

View attachment 438687

:p
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Great Siss! It's joke Latin, extensively used by the Beatles and Harry Nilsson - and Monty Python in 'The Life of Brian':-

PILATE: Now, Jewish wapscallion.

BRIAN: I'm not Jewish. I'm a Roman.

PILATE: A Woman?

BRIAN: No, no. Roman.

slap

Aah!

PILATE: So, your father was a Woman. Who was he?

BRIAN: He was a centurion in the Jerusalem Garrisons.

PILATE: Weally? What was his name?

BRIAN: 'Nortius Maximus'.

CENTURION: Ahh, ha ha!

PILATE: Centuwion, do we have anyone of that name in the gawwison?

CENTURION: Well, no, sir.

PILATE: Well, you sound vewy sure. Have you checked?

CENTURION: Well, no, sir. Umm, I think it's a joke, sir,... like, uh, 'Sillius Soddus' or... 'Biggus Dickus', sir.

GUARD #4: chuckling

PILATE: What's so... funny about 'Biggus Dickus'?

CENTURION: Well, it's a joke name, sir.

PILATE: I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome called 'Biggus Dickus'.

GUARD #4: chuckling

PILATE: Silence! What is all this insolence? You will find yourself in gladiator school vewy quickly with wotten behavior like that.
 
bobinder said:
1973 - I remember it in the UK charts, a creditable solo recording.
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For the first four years after the Beatles broke up none outsold Ringo with even a single...

The green glow of the Pioneer Supertuner playing it on my underdash FM-cassette player on a gravel road parked with my girlfriend. I can't say what she and I were doing due to age requirements at CF but I can say there would be at least on paved lane on either side of where we were parked then today (Going the same direction!!! The old gravel road is 7 Fucking lanes wide!!!)...

Jocko says yes, and I believe him
When we talk about the things I say
She hasn't got the faith or the guts to leave him
When they're standing in each other's way
You're tripping back now to places you've been to
You wonder what you're gonna find
You know you've been wrong but it won't be long
Before you leave 'em all far behind

-the Guess Who

You can remember but never go back...

Tree
 
bobinder said:
"Hey you don't know how lucky you are boys
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on my mind."

The Beatles 1968
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012.jpg Win an all expenses paid trip to the Gulag ... visit Siberia!
 
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