For Balladeer’s Blog’s Number One Harry Flashman Novel click HERE . For background info on George MacDonald Fraser’s infamous anti-hero Harry Paget Flashman you can also click that link.
Reaction to my list of The Top Five Harry Flashman Novels continues to come in, with readers wanting more Flashman reviews.
Here’s my take on the novel which would have been in eighth place if I had done a list of my Top Eight Harry Flashman Novels.
8. FLASHMAN (1969)
Time Period: 1839-1842
Favorite Book Blurb: “In the Nineteenth Century the British Empire needed a hero. Instead, it got Harry Flashman.”
Synopsis: This very first installment of The Flashman Papers kicks off with our antihero’s notorious expulsion for drunken misconduct from Rugby School in 1839. (The sport was named for the school, not vice versa.)
After a thorough chewing-out by the real-life Doctor Thomas Arnold, the 17 year-old Harry Flashman is sent home to endure another dressing-down from his angry father. After young Harry seduces his father’s live-in tart Judy, the elder Flashman decides to get his trouble-prone son out of his hair through that old British custom of buying him an officer-ship in the army.
That’s what our protagonist wanted in the first place, and the Guv-nor buys Harry a post as a Cornet (Second Lieutenant for us Yanks) in a Cavalry Regiment. The unit selected by the ever-calculating Harry has just returned to England after years overseas, so Flashman assumes he won’t be sent to war while enjoying the benefits of a gentlemanly life of riding, sporting and letting his dashing uniform help him attract ladies.
Things don’t turn out the way Harry planned, thanks to his fondness for boozing, whoring and gambling. And thus begins a career of swashbuckling historical adventures which slip this black-hearted rogue into pivotal moments of the Nineteenth Century.
Like James Garner’s Bret Maverick character from 1950s television, Flashman brags about being a coward who’d rather avoid violence but the demands of adventure fiction always put Harry, like Bret, in situations that require conduct above and beyond the call.
Sword in hand, pistol at his side and a long line of beautiful ladies on his arm, Harry spends the next three years getting swept up in the feuding in Lord Cardigan’s Cavalry unit, the Rebecca Riots in Wales, Scotland’s labor revolt and ultimately the long string of British military disasters in the First Afghan War. Continue reading
It’s no secret that Sharyl Attkisson – the Ida Tarbell of the 21st Century – is one of the few actual journalists left in America. She broke with her unethical colleagues over their refusal to cover the Obama Administration’s many scandals and found herself targeted by Obama’s FBI and NSA thugs. 
The incredibly courageous Attkisson still goes after tough stories on both political parties, and she doesn’t care if the facts reflect poorly on Trump, Obama or George W Bush before them. 
The world fell in love with him as “Artichoke Picker” in Bound For Glory and the rest, as they say, is history! All kidding aside, I think Robert Ginty’s actual life was a hell of a lot more entertaining than any of his movies or television shows. As a musician he performed with Hendrix, Hooker and others. In his acting career he showed up in some high quality productions. 
WHITE FIRE (1985) – CASTING DIRECTOR: Let’s see … the hero of this Turkish-made action flick is an international smuggler who uses a chainsaw to fight rival criminals and is so hot for his own sister that he eventually pays to have a prostitute transformed via plastic surgery into a duplicate of his sister then oinks and boinks with her … (snaps fingers) Get Robert Ginty on the phone, NOW! 
THE EXTERMINATOR (1980) – How can you NOT like a movie in which a standard bad-ass street vigilante uses a FLAME THROWER to kill the criminals he targets? 
Balladeer’s Blog presents another reason why #WALKAWAY, #BLEXIT and #BLACKLIVESMAGA continue to roll along despite Democrat despots trying to dictate every — single — aspect — of our daily lives. If Democrats don’t like a movie, they want it banned. If Democrats don’t like a song or joke or photograph or book or article of clothing then those fascists want the item banned and the people behind it destroyed. 
“Considering how often we see the liberal media complex manufacture outrage, many times from completely fake news, and the increasing frequency of death threats coming from whack-jobs liberals on social media, the fact that MAGA hats fly off the shelves, 
“It is not the MAGA hat wearers that should change their apparrel, it is liberals that need to stop allowing a hat, or a shirt, or the politician a person supports politically, to send them off the deep end.” 
USCAA (United States Collegiate Athletic Association) Division Two – 1. VILLA MARIA COLLEGE VIKINGS ### 2. BERKELEY (NY) COLLEGE KNIGHTS ### 3. NEW HAMPSHIRE TECHNICAL INSTITUTE LYNX ### 4. CENTRAL PENN COLLEGE SILVER KNIGHTS ### 5. PENN STATE AT WILKES-BARRE NITTANY LIONS ### 
6. COLLEGE OF NEW ROCHELLE BLUE ANGELS ### 7. SOUTHERN MAINE COLLEGE SEA WOLVES ### 8. JOHNSON & WALES COLLEGE AT CHARLOTTE BOBCATS ### 9. ALBANY COLLEGE OF PHARMACY AND HEALTH SCIENCES PANTHERS (Should be the Apothecaries) ### 10. WARREN WILSON COLLEGE OWLS ### 
Wow! Readers really cannot get enough superhero posts! I have a soft spot for superhero stories myself because reading them served as a gateway to two of my adult passions: mythology and opera. Here’s more of the world’s FIRST superhero team – DC’s Justice Society of America. FOR PART ONE CLICK 
ALL STAR COMICS #17 (June 1943) 
Synopsis: This story presented the return of the Justice Society’s archenemy Brain Wave (Henry King). In typical supervillain fashion Brain Wave survived his seeming death at the end of his previous battle with our heroes. 
QUESTION: How come you no longer make as many mentions or blog posts about the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) as you used to? 
Long ago I used to condemn the Anarchists for finding both the left and the right too totalitarian to be worth siding with and fighting both sides. In recent years I’ve certainly come to sympathize with their position as we here in America have seen that the political left is every bit as bad as the worst right-wingers ever were. 
DOWN GOES NUMBER TWO – The GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY VIKINGS welcomed the number 2 team in the nation – the WILLIAM PENN UNIVERSITY STATESMEN. The Vikings put the Statesmen on Upset Alert with a 29-28 edge at Halftime. William Penn U came back to force Overtime with a 62-62 tie to end Regulation. In OT the Vikings managed a 73-69 triumph led by Jordan Brunkow’s 29 points. 
AND NUMBER THREE COMES TUMBLING AFTER – In this Upset the HARRIS-STOWE STATE HORNETS played host to the country’s 3rd ranked MISSOURI BAPTIST UNIVERSITY SPARTANS. This defensive epic saw the Hornets on top 33-22 at the break before the Spartans knotted things up 57-57 by game’s end. The 1st OT ended in a 63-63 tie but in the SECOND OVERTIME Harris-Stowe State won it 74-70. Nate Rigmaiden led the way with 29 points. 
OTHER UPSETS IN THE TOP TWENTY-FIVE – The LSU-SHREVEPORT PILOTS (Riverboat Pilots) knocked off the visiting (13) WILEY (TX) WILDCATS in a 94-90 shootout ### Meanwhile the GRACELAND UNIVERSITY YELLOW JACKETS edged the (17) PERU STATE BOBCATS 74-72 ### And the OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE STATE AGGIES (should be the Okies) downed the (20) USAO DROVERS 84-83 in their own house. 
De facto Third Party President Donald Trump continues to provide TANGIBLE, financial help to the working class and the poor. In this case it’s through the way his Theodore Roosevelt-style squeeze on Big Pharma has helped keep U.S. drug prices from spiraling out of control. The link to the article is below, but first some thoughts and excerpts. 
No matter how much the Fake News outlets distort every single thing Trump says and does, no matter how many brain-dead professional athletes trash him and no matter how many shallow, uninformed and emotionally unstable entertainers lie about him, those of us in the real world – not the callous, comfortable and uncaring world of One Percenters – continue to support him. 
“It’s (Trump’s role in this) also one of the reasons, beyond the insanity that is the current Democratic Party (see: Sanders, Bernie; Warren, Elizabeth; Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria; Pelosi, Nancy; Tlaib, Rashida; and on and on), why people who supported Trump in 2016 remain loyal to him. He has, in fact, delivered on things like this that his voters care about.”
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