Picture from Senate Square of Finland's capital city after bombing raid during Winter War. The burning building is University of Helsinki and on the foreground stands the statue of Alexander II.

Helsinki bombed 1939

View of the devastation caused to central London by the Blitz, taken from the roof of St Paul's, January 1941.  The dome, topped with the figure of Justice standing proud, is the Old Bailey, seat of London's central criminal courts.  Rather a mess - but they Kept Calm and Carried On ... JR.

There'll always be an England ...

Bertolt Brecht, one of the great figures of German literature and drama in the 20th century, Socialist, and inveterate enemy of Naziism.  He expressed his opposition to Naziism in several plays, notably "The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui", which portrayed Hitler as a fictional Chicago gangster on the Chicago waterfront vegetable business, allowed to rise to predominance by complacent capitalists who thought they could use him as a tool in pursuit of their own interests. The play was written while Brecht was in exile in Helsinki, Finland, awaiting permission to enter the United States as a political refugee.  I saw a performance of this play quite recently at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin.  Quite a satire - which is, perhaps, why, in a capitalist world, it took some considerable time to find a first producer.

One point - the final lines of "Ui" were notably quoted in the (excellent) Sam Peckinpah movie, "Cross of Iron" - 

"Do not rejoice in his defeat, you men.  For the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.".  Pity she can't be spayed ... Yours despondently, JR.