h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: 'Pipes of Peace' - the Music Video - A87831426
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

This month's Create theme is the 20th Century – see: A87830436

This is an article about a 20th Century Art Form, the music video, written and starring Paul McCartney (who was born in the 20th Century), made and released in the 20th Century, depicting an event that took place in the 20th Century (The Great War) but also equally applicable to another 20th Century Event (The Cold War).

It's my opening bid for an article for Christmas Day 2014, to commemorate 100 years since Christmas Day 1914. It also has football in it too, which apparently is topical as there's some football thing starting somewhen, if you like that sort of thing.

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I am a bit ambivalent about this one - it seems to be about three things: the video, the common and the great war's Christmas day truce. The connections are all there but they don't seem to gel into a seamless whole.

If there isn't an article on the WWI Christmas day football game then there really should be. Once it is written then it can be linked from here.

Perhaps my reservation is that the truce is too important an event to be a footnote to a Paul McCartney video entry. My opinion may be just me - others may say otherwise.



PS: "under flags of truth" should be " under flags of truce" maybe?

Hello, thanks for the comments, I've corrected that spelling mistake.

I agree that the truce really does deserve its own entry, but inexplicably at the moment it doesn't have one. I certainly would welcome and encourage someone to write about it.
Although the Christmas Truce has had an enormous impact on British culture, not everyone on h2g2 is British and so not everyone would have heard of it. Without knowing exactly what the Christmas Truce was and why it was important, the music video makes no sense. It needs to be described and summed up. I would be very disappointed if this was the only place on h2g2 in which it was ever mentioned, but except for A87780658 Christmas truce that is currently the situation. When an article on it is written, I can certainly ensure it is linked to from this entry.

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I have to agree with Phoenician Trader. The Christmas Truce was something which people should not forget. Opinions differ on the Paul McCartney song and video however. I liked the song - it was good and hummable - but found the video rather twee and forgettable. I had in fact forgotten it until I read this entry.

So it would be a pity to bury the story of the Christmas Truce in an entry about a mediocre video of thirty years ago.

Why not just lift the section about the Christmas Truce out of this and publish it as a separate Entry? Entries don't have to be long to be effective.

I'll wait to see what other people think about whether this could work as a basis of an entry about the Christmas truce - personally I'm not convinced that what I've written even begins to cover it, but we do all agree that it is a topic that needs to be written. I'm just not convinced that I'm the best person to do the actual writing.

I'm not trying to 'bury' the topic - I did write about it, after all - but leaving aside the possibilities of other articles for a moment, I still feel that you cannot write about this particular music video unless you mention what it is that the music video is all about.

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Is there much more to be said about the Christmas Truce than you've said here?

There's details that could be added, such as exactly where the truce was held, and where not. What steps were taken to avoid it happening in 1915. French, Belgian and Russian soldiers are forced to share a line between them. I think I've summarised all the essentials, but it is still only a brief summary for an important topic.

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If there's a lot more to be said about it, then all you have here is a summary for explanatory purposes, and that in my opinion is OK. Go right ahead; you don't have to wait for the other entry to be written.

If on the other hand you've said nearly everything there is to say about the subject here, then it will look strange putting the same information into a separate entry and having two entries, one containing everything that is in the other.

Tweaked today.

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I enjoyed this.

I must admit, I'm a bit ambivalent too - I think the quote from Paul McCartney explains well what the video is about, and there is certainly potential for those paragraphs in Truce Truth to be an Entry in their own right, as they do seem a bit incongruous here, but they are very good...

Hmm...

The article is about 20 paragraphs long, only 4 of which are about the subject of what the music video is all about. I'll think about possibly one day writing about the Christmas Truce, but I'd need to do a lot more research on it before I'd feel brave enough to consider writing about such an important event.

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I think the mix is now a good balance (I've only just read it for the first time, so I can't compare with earlier versions)

Two things that may need some elaboration would be that the reference to "Give Peace a Chance" in the opening section could perhaps be given at least a footnote, and you say that >>The album reached number 4.<< In what charts, what country?

Also, the "not even a mouse" word play could be extended, at least I think so. Isn't there a type of weapon (a small hand gun) called a Mauser? This is only very vague in my memory and I'm *not* going to google Teutonic hand weapons to check it. I may have come across it in an Agatha Christie book, so it may even be contemporary. whatever.

That's a very good Mauser suggestion
Definitely added that in, as well as footnotes to explain where suggested.

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I think this Entry is almost ready to be picked.

If I could make one minor comment

>and also buried their dead who had been left inaccessible in the middle.

Might be better with the addition of

...inaccessible in the middle of 'No Man's Land' < FOOTNOTE > The area Between the trenches was inaccessible to both sides as is was constantly under the fire of both sides.

Or words to that effect. A scan of the Guide gives no reference to 'No man's Land' http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/citizensoldier/conflicts/WWI/nml.cfm

I would like to see this important part of the Great War included for those who do not understand the nature of this war.

Thanks;

F S

Two minutes after hitting 'post message' I realized I should have said

...inaccessible in the middle of 'No Man's Land' < FOOTNOTE > The area Between the trenches was inaccessible to both sides as is was constantly under enemy fire.



F S

Thanks FS – you've raised a good point – a footnote on No Man's Land has been added.

I was surprised that a search of the guide comes up completely empty for 'No Man's Land' – particularly as I've written A83151399 – Fortifications of the Isle of Wight - No Man's Land Fort (an unrelated sea fort).

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The h2g2 search gets confused by punctuation. If you search for "no man's land", it won't find your entry which has that exact phrase in its title. If, on the other hand, you search for "no man land", it does find your entry. It's the apostrophe in the search that confuses it.

I think it's caused by an incompatibility between the program that does the indexing and the program that does the searching.

I've done a search for 'no man land' 'no mans land' 'no man's land' and 'no land' and each time it comes up completely blank.

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When I search for no man land with no punctuation, the first entry returned is your Fortifications one. That's in Pliny.

You're right – in Pliny it turns up in a search, in the classic skins – not a sausage. Oh well.

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