The Final Cut - Pink Floyd

History will teach us nothing, as a wise man once said. So today marks the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands conflict..... where once again we were at war. We could discuss until we were blue in the face whether the Falklands conflict was a just war. But it did save Margaret Thatcher's tenure as PM. A good war will do that. So maybe it was just after all?

'The Final Cut' is often regarded as Roger Water's finest solo album. Even though it's a Pink Floyd album, it's such a personal recording that it is difficult to argue otherwise. With a very anti-war stance and dark imagery regarding his father, who was lost to war, it makes for a very sombre but uplifting experience. Without the usual extended guitar solos or synth noodlings, it doesn't sound like a Floyd album. And maybe that works in its favour? Often regarded as one of their weakest, I actually think that it is a great album and one that still has the power to make the hairs on my neck stand up. Roger Waters clearly was not happy with the UK and their partners pro-war antics;


"Brezhnev took Afghanistan
and Begin took Beirut
Galtieri took the Union Jack
and Maggie, over lunch one day
took a cruiser, with all hands
apparently to make him give it back


Take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
And build them a home, a little place of their own.
The Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants and Kings. 
They can appear to themselves every day 
On closed circuit T.V.
To make sure they're still real.
It's the only connection they feel."

Every time I hear it, I'm reminded of a postcard that we had framed on the hall wall at home in Hartlepool -  the truly barbaric 'Gotcha' headline from The Sun newspaper. A reminder that when jingoism is dressed up as patriotism it is only a matter of time before decency and civility are forgotten. There are no real winners in war - it's a question of who loses the least. But if it makes us feel better we can call it winning. I would like to think that we have learnt something in the intervening thirty years since the Falklands, but the UK Government has already set their sights on the next target. Iran. History will teach us nothing indeed.