'Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds'

So said Robert Oppenheimer, when he successfully detonated the first nuclear weapon.

I'm a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament because using or threatening to use weapons designed to kill civilians and poison the land for generations to come are immoral.

Have a look at this slideshow - a collection of weapons test photographs. They're awe-inspiring, artistic, often beautiful, but also a reminder that as a civilisation, we're far happier putting our money and expertise into destruction than creation.

Our government is planning to spend £20bn on a new generation of (illegal) nuclear weapons in the midst of a massive economic crash, because apparently the ones we have won't kill enough millions of innocent people. Currently, Britain rents nuclear warheads from the US (so much for the constant refrain of 'independent nuclear deterrent' - not independent and not a deterrent):

Each Trident submarine carries up to 48 nuclear warheads, each of which can be sent to a different target. Each warhead has an explosive power of up to 100 kilotons, the equivalent of 100,000 tons of conventional high explosive. This is 8 times the power of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people.  

Of all the government expenditure to be reviewed, the nuclear weapons programme is explicitly protected.

Even if we could afford it, it shouldn't exist. It's time countries earned respect for treating each other fairly and openly, not because some of them retain the ability to destroy the rest in minutes.

This is da bomb!

Good morning (or evening or afternoon for my far-flung readers). How are you all today? Here the sun's breaking through the clouds, a Test match is being played 19 miles away (weather permitting), and I've received a pile of CDs in the post (I have a new card, but no PIN, so can only shop online for now).

What has Postman Pat brought me today? John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony and three CDs of Vaughan Williams: 'Sancta Civitas' and 'Dona nobis pacem' (VW was a cheerful agnostic or atheist and liberal to left - 'Sancta Civitas' is an interesting exploration of the fate of the soul while 'Dona Nobis Pacem' is a warning against war), Folksong Arrangements and Choral Folksong Arrangements (which also has some Holst). Normally my tastes are a little more modernist, but I've a soft spot for VW, and he's on the classical wing of the peace and socialism movement - folk songs were (like the 1960s) a way to demonstrated solidarity and to reconnect with culture unadulterated by bourgeois atomisation - though not always successfully. The Adams is a symphonic version of his latest opera, which follows Robert Oppenheimer as he builds the first nuclear weapon - I can't afford the actual opera recording yet, but it'll come.

Meanwhile, Steve Reich, when's Double Sextet being released? It won prizes ages ago and it still isn't commercially available. Boo!