I was sitting in an hotel in Blackpool last weekend, talking to somebody I didn't really know. A boyfriend of one of my wife's friends.

I love Blackpool for its association with George Formby, Gracie Fields, cos my Grandma went there on her honeymoon in 1903, and the Oyster bar she visited is still there, and the pub where they had variety acts - Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Also I love Blackpool for its association with George Joseph Smith.
(In 1913 George visited Blackpool with his new bride. They walked down Adelaide Road together - they didn't stop at the first guest house - because it didn't have a bath. Anyway he took his new wife to a hotel in Regents Road and drowned her in the bath there.)

The English classic murder makes me feel intensely patriotic. We have a much better class of murderer than most other places. i was even moved to write a song about George.
http://bigalwhittle.co.uk/id22.html

Anyway back to last weekend. This guy I was talking to, tells me he was a cook in the army.
he said, You ever heard of the SAS man, Nairac?
I said, yes i've heard of him.....
You know, I served him last meal before he went out on his mission and got killed.

The story he told me was that Nairac was working undercover - he had this cover story that he was a busker hanging round IRA pubs and trying to pick up intelligence.

I said, you gotta be joking - hey'd sus him in three seconds, and I started laughing.....
Of course they did, but that's the kind of idiots that the officers were - to come up with an idea like that.....

I don't know if the story is true. It contains so many elements of why patriotism is a complex business. How one's country and its leaders has one holding ones head in ones hands in despair, and laughing out loud.

The truth is,we have to love our countries, because they are so much a part of what we are.