Tag: Foyle’s War

Wenzdaz Theme Music

It’s a rockandroll Wenzda in October. October 8, 2025. Another exemplary weather day for fall to show off its colors in Ashlandia. Will be about 80 F again today, though it’s 57 now, with a puppy’s nip to the air. Papi goes out and finds sunshine for his post-breakfast grooming. His orange glows in the sunshine.

The Epstein Shutdown of 2025 continues. Many also call it the Smirkers Shutdown, because Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump were often smirking when they were together, as in the photo below. Reminder, it’s a weak president that lets the government shut down. So said the current POTUS in past years. This is Trump’s third shutdown, revealing him as the weakest of the weakest. Also the most cowardly. Worst negotiator in history, too. Only thing that works for him is bullying and lying. But being so weak and cowardly, he’d rather have the government shut down rather than having it revealed what’s in the Epstein Files.

Donald Trump, first on the left, and Jeffrey Epstein, second from the right, the smirkers behind the shutdown.

I’ve been re-watching an old favorite television show called Foyle’s War. The series stars Michael Kitchen as Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle. A widower with a son who joins the RAF, DCS Foyle lives and works in Hastings, investigating crimes.

Last night’s episode was about a murder in 1941 that comes after German aircraft bomb England. One bomber is shot down. Several crew members parachute to safety. We’re introduced to women working in the land army for an older farmer who is mean and spiteful. He’s killed. Foyle investigates. The Germans are captured. Foyle has a run-in with the major who collects the Germans for interrogation, etc.

After Foyle reveals all going on at the show’s end, the major apologizes to Foyle. Going on, the major explained that he lived in Heidelberg for a year. Knew many Germans. Found them gracious, civilized, etc. Foyle responds with an anecdote. A British police football team went to Germany in 1936 to play a German team. The Germans met the British, took them out for a good meal, dancing, celebrating, drinking. The next day, the British team, hungover, on little sleep, met a German team that they’d never seen before. The German team had not gone out drinking but had been in bed by ten PM. Foyle concluded, “The Germans are playing a different game, and it’s not cricket.”

As I think about a lot of things happening in the United States, that’s come to mind many times. The Republicans are playing a different game. Their goals and rules have changed. People like me are stilling playing the same game as before. That’s why the GOP keep piling up wins. Part of their changes include ignoring the will of We the People, and ignore laws, norms, history, and precedence. Those changes are anti-American to me. Yet, this is the GOP game under Trump, a culmination of a process begun decades ago, when Fox began actively functioning as a political news outlet.

Today’s song is “Boys Don’t Cry” by The Cure. It’s a dream’s outgrowth. I don’t see its connection with the dream’s contents. Seeing it differently, I guess, The Neurons plugged it into the morning mental music stream.

Coffee is being served to The Neurons. Hope peace and grace awaken and rise like a phoenix. Fingers crossed, right? Meanwhile, let’s all do the best we go. Here I go. Cheers

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The Meaning

Does forty-two give your life meaning, or is that just the meaning of life?

Fiction writing gives my life meaning. I don’t know if others actively contemplate what gives their life meaning. Surveying an array of friends of family, I can hazard guesses. What gives their life meaning stimulates them. But I can be wrong. Others would have been wrong in the past, guessing what gave my life meaning.

Some, I think, will answer, living gives my life meaning. By that, they mean, being alive and doing the activities of a living human gives their life meaning. The ends and the means are the same. It’s a simple, inviting approach.

I was raised to follow that working, marrying, and raising a family was what life was about. Extending the thinking behind that, it seems that trinity would give our lives meaning. I attempted to follow the precept, and succeeded to some degree. Aging, and becoming more exposed to the world, I grew disenchanted with that trinity as the reasons that gave my life meaning. I questioned what it meant, to have something that has meaning in my life, or to do, or follow something, that gives my life meaning, and perceived many didn’t have one, and substituted activities and goals to give their lives meaning. Some pursue working and making money; others pursue power, politics, social justice, science, or excellence in some area in their lives. For a few, watching and rooting for their sports teams seem, sadly, to five their lives meaning.

I write, “sadly”, with judgmental thoughts, as though I have the answers and absolutely know what’s going on. I don’t. Watching and rooting for sports teams might seem shallow, but if it rewards and satisfies them as much as my fiction writing, are they wrong? Is fiction writing really a greater calling than watching sports?

I know, I’m becoming muddled here. I read the book, “War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning,” by Chris Hedges, over a decade again. I thought he was on to something there, that war gives many meaning. So do sports, acting, reading…and writing. It’s something to stake as a passion and focus that drives us.

Oddly, I started thinking of Hedges’ book while watching “Foyle’s War” last night. I’ve seen the entire series once, and have viewed many of the episodes twice. I enjoy and admire much in the series, including the acting, writing and production values. Set in England, the backdrop to “Foyle’s War” is World War II. I always enjoyed the sly reference to Foyle’s war as his resolute approach to solving crimes and pursuing justice, no matter where the evidence leads him. This happened in last night’s show; the killer confessed to Foyle after Foyle confronted him with the man’s lies. The man’s response was to ask Foyle to let him go, arguing that his role in the war would save lives.

Foyle was tempted but did not abandon his over-arching principle. He states it at least once in the series, to my memory. I’ll paraphrase as, “If we surrender our basic principles of law and justice to win the war, then haven’t we lost?”

It’s a great part of why I watch. Foyle continually encounters that wall of reasoning that winning the war at all costs is paramount. Foyle doesn’t accept that. When that reasoning falls to sway him, he’s often threatened by the powers of government. He doesn’t allow that to sway him, either, but I always watch to see if he’ll surrender his principles and betray his values.

Which, I supposed, completes the lap of reasoning about meaning. When you find the meaning to your life, it becomes your rock. You stand on it and gain strength. Without it, you’re lost to the currents of madness and fashion.

Time to write like crazy, or edit, one more time.

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Forty-two, of course, is from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” proving that I’m not the first fiction writer to wonder, what’s it all about? Right, Alfie?

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