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"newfoundland At Armageddon"


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Canadian members, or others who have access to CBC broadcasts, may be interested in the documentary "Newfoundland at Armageddon," which will air at 8 PM EDT on Thursday, June 30. It's the tragic story of the Newfoundland Regiment, which was practically wiped out on July 1, 1916, the horrific first day of the Battle of the Somme. The film's reenactment scenes feature present-day Newfoundlanders who are descendants of members of the doomed regiment.

 

I haven't yet figured out (suggestions welcome) whether or when I'll be able to view the film in the U.S., where CBC content isn't normally made available. But I'm keen to see it, both because I'm intrigued with the subject matter and approach and because my performance of "Keep the Home Fires Burning" (with concertina, of course!) is used in the soundtrack.

 

More information:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/newfoundland_at_armageddon

 

Bob Michel

Near Philly

Edited by Bob Michel
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This is at least the second time that capitalization has been arbitrarily removed from a topic title I posted (I did indeed type "Newfoundland"; I checked). A small thing, but most annoying. I reliably make plenty of my own mistakes without the assistance of lame software algorithms.

 

Bob Michel

Near Philly

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I remember reading that this regiment and the 36th Ulster regiment were the only ones who made it across the Somme. However, having just read their casualties I feel, and not for the first time, deeply sad at the loss of life in this sad period.

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This is at least the second time that capitalization has been arbitrarily removed from a topic title....

That is one of the many "improvements" added in one or another update version of the Invision software, whereby the editor arbitrarily modifies our content according to various rules of "style" which aren't as universally desirable as their designers/programmers seemed to think. In this case, the rule is "in titles, always and only the first letter of each word shall be capitalized". Interestingly, they seem to have taken your initial quote symbol as a "first letter", which just happens to be the same as both "capital" and "lower case"... and which leaves the "N" of "Newfoundland" as the "second" letter and therefore uncapitalized.

 

A detailed discussion of those and other feechurs* would properly belong in the Forum Questions, Suggestions, Help forum, but I think most of us who care have given up hope of getting any of them corrected.

 

* feechur - old-fashioned computer speak for a mistake that the vendor decides not to fix, but rather to document as a "feature"

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I was hoping the film might turn up on YouTube eventually. It didn't take even a week:

 

https://youtu.be/3u4u90iCuSk

 

As a rule I don't much care for reenactment in historical documentaries, but I find McKenna's approach here very effective. It's a moving memorial, and I'm humbled to have played a tiny part in it. My little bit is at about 1:10, but don't just scroll there; if you can make the time, watch the whole movie. It's a powerful experience.

 

Bob Michel

Near Philly

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