Curtain Raiser Quotes

Harvard University biologist David Haig has spent the last few years systematically debunking the notion that the relationship between a mother and her unborn child is anything like the rose-tinted idyll that one usually finds on the glossy covers of maternity magazines. In fact, it is anything but. Pre-eclampsia, a condition of dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women, is brutally kick-started by nothing short of a foetal coup d’état. It begins with the placenta invading the maternal bloodstream and initiating what, in anyone’s book, is a ruthless biological heist – an in utero sting operation to draw out vital nutrients. And I’m not just talking about baby Gordon Gekkos here – I’m talking about all of us. The curtain-raiser is well known to obstetricians. The foetus begins by injecting a crucial protein into the mother’s circulation which forces her to drive more blood, and therefore more nourishment, into the relatively low-pressure placenta. It’s a scam, pure and simple, which poses a significant and immediate risk to the mother’s life. ‘The bastard!’ says Andy. ‘Shall we get some olives?’ ‘And it’s by no means the only one,’ I continue. In another embryonic Ponzi scheme, foetal release of placental lactogen counteracts the effect of maternal insulin thereby increasing the mother’s blood sugar level and providing an excess for the foetus’s own benefit. ‘A bowl of the citrus and chilli and a bowl of the sweet pepper and basil,’ Andy says to the waiter. Then he peers at me over the menu. ‘So basically what you’re saying then is this: forget the Gaddafis and the Husseins. When it comes to chemical warfare it’s the unborn child that’s top dog!’ ‘Well they definitely nick stuff that isn’t theirs,’ I say. ‘And they don’t give a damn about the consequences.’ Andy smiles. ‘So in other words they’re psychopaths!’ he says. BABY

He dipped his fork into the layers of eggplant and cheese. Moments later, it seemed to detonate in his mouth. The pasta, he now realized, had simply been a curtain raiser, carbohydrate to take the edge off his hunger, but this new dish was something else, teasing his appetite awake again, the intensity of the flavors bringing to life taste buds he had never even known existed. The cheese tasted so completely of cheese, the eggplant so rich and earthy, almost smoky; the herbs so full of flavor, requiring only a mouthful of wine to finish them off... He paused reverently and drank, then dug again with his fork. The secondo was followed by a simple dessert of sliced pears baked with honey and rosemary. The flesh of the fruit looked as crisp and white as something Michelangelo might have carved with, but when he touched his spoon to it, it turned out to be as meltingly soft as ice cream. Putting it in his mouth, he was at first aware only of a wonderful, unfamiliar taste, a cascade of flavors which gradually broke itself down into its constituent parts. There was the sweetness of the honey, along with a faint floral scent from the abundant Vesuviani blossom on which the bees had fed. Then came the heady, sunshine-filled fragrance of the herbs, and only after that, the sharp tang of the fruit itself. By the time the pears were eaten, both jugs of wine had been emptied too.

In Lasgidi, every Lagosian could easily become a friend. Gala and 50cl coke, you better be prepared. Two squeezed 500 naira notes or a crispy thousand? Shine your eyes, my friend, everybody get your time for here. Poem - Lasgidi, from The Curtain Raiser. February 27, 2021.

Some Indian nationalists opine that Persian rule would have been preferable.10 But as the British historian Michael Axworthy noted, “the massacre of perhaps 30,000 people perpetrated by Nader while he was in Delhi would hardly have been an auspicious curtain-raiser for permanent Persian rule there.”11 When Nader returned home, he gouged out his son’s eyes, castrated his military commander, and had eight merchants who had purchased a royal carpet chained together by the neck, thrown into a pit, and burned alive. Thousands more perished in his various pogroms. To the Hindu on the street, the arrival of the British East India Company must have seemed a godsend.

Emotion is the arch-enemy of reason and precludes the possibility of sober consideration of the military implications of any given situation.

From 1956 onwards China gradually began to shed her cloak of friendship and started a clever campaign to claim and assert her rights to vast areas in Ladakh and NEFA, while retaining an outward facade of reasonableness and readiness to engage in talks.

During 1954-55 Mr. Nehru was extolling the 2,000 years of Sino-Indian friendship. China was, at that time, surveying various routes through Aksai Chin, while India remained apparently ignorant of this. India did not even know that a route was being built till the Chinese announced, in September 1957, that they would open the route for traffic within a month.

The years between 1947 and 1955 must go down in our history as wasted years, in our defence thinking and military preparedness.

The advice of capable generals who counselled caution, restraint and adherence to the basic principles of war was ignored and the principles of war violated. Such generals were labelled pro-West, alarmists or over-cautions.

deliberately kept the Private Sector out of defence production.

After the subjugation of Tibet, especially after 1959, the continued preparations were clearly aimed at India and yet we failed to heed all the transparent evidence of the massive Chinese build-up.

In contrast with the thoroughness of the Chinese preparations, India was completely unprepared in every way for hostilities. In fact, there was an air of unreality and complacency that would have damned any Government. The possibility of a Chinese attack having been ignored, we did not have an organised war plan.

We had no allies, as our non-aligned policy did not permit us to get involved militarily. Our known weaknesses and lack of allies tempted the Chinese to teach us a lesson without inviting retaliation.

It now seems incredible that this was our operational thinking as late as August 1962, barely a fortnight before the Chinese incursion. At that time we were still indulging in the inexcusable game of guessing China’s intentions and capability, while she was massing a huge army only a few miles from our border.

The Chinese must have known by 1962 that no Indian Commander had any initiative to act without consulting Government. This was the natural corollary to the lack of clear long-term orders and plans.

wars are not decided in the corridors of the Central Secretariat at Delhi. Wars are not based on wishful thinking. Wars are not based on rash promises nor improvident expectations.