and this doesn't strike you as odd?

a place for you too???

2006-11-24T01:42:00.000+02:00

well as most (err three) of you already know I'm over at wordpress most of the time now. so if you have a comment in moderation here, please forgive me as i just pop in to feed the curtains and dust the fish every once in a while.
alternatively, if you have nothing better to do - or maybe make that nothing at all to do - you'll be made welcome and perhaps even a nice cup of tea if you join the happy crowd* over at 'there's a place for us' which you'll find at www.simplywondered.wordpress.com
all the usual japery and none of the rather vulgar blogspottery.
go on - you know you want to.

* never said it was a large crowd

really bad naughty women

2006-11-09T23:17:00.000+02:00

http://mensbiblio.xyonline.net/mensrights.html

a list of books or maybe articles about how vile feminists are doing whatever it is they are doing and generally being very naughty indeed.
hurrah- i probably have time to read them all - well there are rather a lot; i'll read a few...

or maybe it can go on my list of important things to do after perfecting my lamp-post impression, shouting at the sea and watching documentaries on Channel 5 (the one with viewers so intelligent they had to simplify it to '5')...

oh fuck it - if i really want a laugh, there are plenty of comedy clubs (and conservativehome.com)

just learning the ropes

2006-11-03T12:39:00.000+02:00

As I sit in my ivory tower (now 20% bigger with my election as arch-feminist)(no - I didn't vote for me, either; we probably aren't important enough to get a vote) I ponder the first great question of my ministry:

an archbishop has an archbishopric

what kind of prick would an arch-feminist have?

I'm going for: 'a bloody one, hacked with a blunt instrument from the still-warm corpse of the patriarchy'; but hey that's just my first thought. I'm sure you will be able to come up with much more interesting/amusing/surreal answers.

Send in your thoughts as usual on a leaf torn from anything by Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath. Now that's what I call recycling!

first week in the new job

2006-11-03T01:32:00.000+02:00

Well now that I am an arch-feminist I'm going to have to dress like one.
Do I get to have a crozier? Do people kiss my ring?

I just don't know because until last week I wasn't any sort of feminist at all, so I shall ask my readership: what must I do/say/wear/think, now that I am a kind of prelate of the lasses' left, a primate - if you will (no banana jokes please I've done them all to death) of wimmin's independent thought. So independent they obviously couldn't get a woman to do it - still it's not like I'll be alone out there doing a job for which a woman was better qualified.
Suggestions or abuse cheerfully accepted...I throw this open to the pelvic floor.

i have been rumbled...

2006-10-30T13:17:00.000+02:00

At last the truth can be told! A throwaway comment on one of my fave blogs, Conservative Home (see almost passim), has lead to my being outed as:

"a Tory-hating arch-feminist at work"

Now flattered as I am (caution, huge parenthesis rumbling towards the sentence) -

...for goodness’ sake, it makes me sound like Dorthy Parker – I particularly like the 'arch' bit: not good enough for me to be just any old feminist; oh no! And indeed I am shacked up with a woman, dress like a man (well, on a good day) and don't shave my legs. The only thing I could really quibble with is the last bit, given that I have barely done a day's real work in my life, preferring as I do the limp-wristed world of the arts with their wacky notions of free love and socialism....

- I have never had the front (bad, bad, pun) to call myself a feminist of any sort, but now that some Tory with a double-barrelled surname has saved me the trouble, I don't need to.

Should anyone truly without a life wish to read my entirely anodyne pap that prompted double-barrel bloke’s eureka moment, you can go to

http://www.conservativehome.co.uk/

find the bit that says

Sunday 22nd October 2006

click on

4:30pm Seats and Candidates updates:

then (still awake everyone – no talking at the back) find the link for

A-lister George Freeman selected for Mid-Norfolk

ask yourself briefly what on earth you’re doing here…remember - access the comments and try not to yawn (anodyne really is the word – for me at least - not them; in fact, the Tories on there are quite good reading - in a horrifying way; and it's good of them to keep using their mouths and keyboards to remind us just why we love them so. It was also a little shocking that one managed to click on a link - tho' as both regulars will know, in terms of throwing that particular stone, I reside in the tropical house at Kew.

Right - must dash - just off to the blogshop to get meself a new masthead!!!

(licks grubby, arch-feminist chops in expectation)

oh lordy, lordy...

2006-10-18T21:38:00.000+02:00

Funny Old Week Part 1

This month in the UK, is Black History Month. Nice idea and it really does raise the consciousness, particularly among the young, who are beginning to realise that just occasionally some of the people who have done good things were not ...wait for it... white. Yes, shocking thought, I know, but the old 'name me five black people who aren't athletes or entertainers' can still get us scratching our heads. However, I'm not sure everyone is totally on message: a friend learned her daughter's school will stage a day where each child will go to school dressed as a famous black person. Wonder how many of the white kids will black up? I'd go as Malcolm X (it's just a pair of specs, right - easy and cool) but I imagine my son would go as Shaka so he could take an assegai to school with impunity. If you go as Michael Jackson will you be sent home?

Funny Old Week Part 2

Hard times at every liberal's favourite country of reference, Sweden, or - to give it its full name - 'You know, it's much better in Sweden'. The new centre right (well, by swedish standards, so they probably just want slightly stiffer penalties for people who drop chewing gum on the pavement) government has lost some ministers for serious financial irregularities. One minister resigned because she hadn't paid her TV licence. Bless 'em - even their political scandals are somehow rather wholesome.

Funny Old Week Part 3

Meanwhile, back in the land that gave the world Shakespeare, one shining jewel in the TV schedules amongst the unremitting tedium of wall-to-wall soaps, reality and fly on the turd CCTV docudrivel: 'Dog Suicide Bridge' a bridge where over fifty dogs have inexplicably leapt to their death; some bastard probably made them watch Channel 5 one evening.

i know i'm stupid but...

2006-10-16T22:32:00.000+02:00

This bloke in Pakistan is due to get married. Only he's so keen he wants to bring the day forward, so he tips up outside his true love's place and as any enthusiastic lover would, he starts shooting his gun to get her attention - we've all done it - except he's a bit unlucky and shoots her. He is understandbly a bit mis about this and shoots himself. Beloved stirs - she was only grazed - bloke doesn't - he managed to get one thing right and is extremely dead.
Just an everyday tale of a classic Romeo and Juliet de nos jours. At least he won't be breeding - tho he would be cheered to know he may be nominated for a Darwin award.

today's piece courtesy of...

2006-10-11T00:03:00.000+02:00

...my Chosen Life Partner. CLP came home today and managed to mention my blog without oozing utter indifference.
'I saw something that would make a great bit for your blog'
'great...'
'Can't remember what it was. Think it was about the Tories'
' ... '
CLP goes off to do something less pointless.

Make your own up. Feel free to post it for me. There might be a prize.

piss off a muslim week

2006-10-07T00:34:00.000+02:00

It must be!

That or little green pixies have subtly been removing non-critical bits of Jack Straw's brain without anyone noticing until (and here' s the conceit) like a game of JACK STRAWS, the whole shaky edifice collapsed into itself yesterday when they removed the bit that stops you coming up with total shite. Some may argue that this happened a while ago and I missed it because I was frothing about another piece of bizarre randomness.
So Jack has in his sweet, not-quite-looking-like-the-demon-headmaster way, very politely (I must admit that) enquired if Muslim women might not fancy just taking off those silly veil things. Maybe there is a good reason for this - let us suppose he wants to make a point about women in some 'muslim' (or even muslim) countries who are forced to wear hijab etc and cannot speak out for themselves because of the inability of the people who run their country to have a sense of humour about such things.
Maybe - and that could be the start of an interesting conversation where I would learn more about the issue than I know right now.
Or what if he wanted to suggest the start of a totally secular state and eventually disestablish the Church of England. Well that might be one way to go - if an odd way to start.

Or - oh I don't know... I just can't think of any logical reason why an allegedly sane politician (rather than a member of the conservative party - I mean I can easily hear Boris Johnson coming out with that) would have an idea that is the rough equivalent of
'Can I ask if maybe the women of this country might like to wander round without any knickers on'.
Women of the Country: 'Err no thanks (what an odd man, let's get out of here before he turns violent)'.
But Jack DID have a sensible reason for this. It's because he feels a bit odd - intimidated even - when he has to talk to a muslim woman in hijab. Fair enough, then. Bollocks to religious beliefs, bollocks to social and cultural habit, bollocks indeed to the fact that many of us must feel rather queasy coming face-to-face with Jack Straw if he isn't wearing a veil. Jack doesn't like it.

And I still can't work out why he said it. I don't understand any of it. It's not his lack of comprehension of the issue (he has plenty of muslim constituents - he must have talked about the whole veil thing with some of them), it's not the fact that he can't come up with a reason beyond not really liking it; it's not even the fact he must have known he would offend someone...

...it's the simple fact that he has asked some people to do something that there was never ever even the vaguest teensy percentage of a chance anybody would consider doing.
Ever.

That's why I think the little green fellers have been taking bits out of his brain.

ohmigod it's in the water

2006-10-03T23:22:00.000+02:00

The latest gem from the weird website conservative home ('please god nowhere near my home' as I fervently pray each night.)

DAVID CAMERON - THE HERO

"TV historian Andrew Roberts told yesterday of the day the Tory leader heroically plunged into the sea off the south coast of France to save him from a school of huge, stinging jellyfish." - London Evening Standard

Imagine the shock of bumping into a poisonous, slimy creature in the sea - or a jellyfish, for that matter. You won't get me swimming off Bournemouth this week.

U turn time

2006-09-28T21:57:00.000+02:00

Wooo Hoooh! Nerr nerr nee nerr nerrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

Anyone misled by my previous post into thinking the Ryder Cup is pointless should get things in context. And the context is: the Americans got beaten. They lost. They were in the parlance of Newcastle 'lucky to get noot'. Right up theirs . So let's give three rousing European cheers for a collection of the fat, ugly, boring, humourless and above all totally damn rich from across the great continent I am proud to call home (well actually I call it Europe, but go with me here). You stuck one up the fat, ugly, boring, humourless and above all even totally damn richer Yanks*, which definitely goes to prove something. And I don't think their names were funny enough this time.

*Except Tiger - he's terribly suave dontcha think?

we have a winner - or two

2006-09-23T01:10:00.000+02:00

Gentles all,

I have been blown away by your enthusiastic tsunami of comments in the desperate hope that you might win an unknown and probably non-existent prize. You can see the entries in the comments section of the post below.
And I have cogitated and pondered in true Lloyd Grossman stylee. Quite apart from the fact that I have been checking for days and cursing the mettle of this world where even prizes can't persuade some people to turn off the overpaid bloaters playing golf for 'Europe' against America (can I really identify with a hugely rich and disparate collection of brits, swedes, spaniards etc. when the dane didn't get picked?) and hit some keys at random - because given the number of people against whom you are likely to be competing and my own insane whimsy, that's likely to be good enough. Having eventually found your latest batch of comments, I have one that will not be surpassed, and the entrant cared enough to post it twice. Kingcod has won this month's prize with the upbeat and succinct 'Comments rock'. We can only wonder whether the winner of next month's competition will contain the word 'rock' - or indeed be someone who is a close friend of mine.

So Codders - your prize.. as someone who enjoys membership of an online community that blathers about life in the trenches in Sweden in WW2, and has a keen interest in the garden shed, I had wondered whether to offer you a fucking life. However as mine is the only one I could offer at short notice, I think you deserve better, so you are hereby presented with a second class single rail ticket from Winlaton to Whitley Bay - or a transfare to those of us in the know. And I'll even pick you up at the station. I only hope you can use it sometime soon.

The second winner didn't even post a comment! How clever is that? He is Superintendent Dominic Clout (I think that was his name) of the Metropolitan Police who made the following comment at a fairly boring meeting I attended the other day:

'The people who answer 999 calls are on the street at four o'clock in the morning 24-7'.

He wins a 24 hour clock fashioned in the shape of Stephen Hawking's wheelchair set to Bujumbura time for his flexible approach to the subject of time and logic.

For those of you who entered, well done and tough; for Violet, who managed to ask two questions about rules and dates and where her comment had gone I can only offer the helpful hint 'get your finger out of your arse' - just write something; the standard is low and I like you - you're bound to win sooner or later. And her a doctor an'all.

The next competition begins now (if not sooner).

comment of the month - big prizes to be won

2006-09-14T11:52:00.000+02:00

That's a shameless lie, but hey the Tories started it, so don't blame me. The concept of the prizes will be big, rather than the prizes themselves.

I am hereby instituting a prize of, at best, minimal value (or is that worth?) for the most brilliant comment posted at this blog during the month. And I have rules. Some follow, but you never know there may be others I haven't told you about - or made up yet. And I may or may not adhere to any of the following rules:

1 The voting panel will consist of me.
2 I will accept nominations and bribes.
3 I will acept requests for guest judges to join the panel (me) on an ad hoc basis.
4 If I like you personally, you may win even with a really crap comment - so don't let perceived lack of ability on your part dissuade you from making loads of entries.
5 The prize(s) will be random, fanciful and whatever I decree.
6 They may occasionally be real.
7 They may less occasionally be surreal.
8 If I can't be bothered with any of this, I won't.

I have already selected my first winner and ....drumroll....
............it is....
anonymous (canned applause)
for her/his concise yet erudite comment on my cat post:

'cats rock'

(S)he wins: a year's supply of upper case 'A's to minimise her/his anonymity
and a copy of my recipe for Warm Salad of tossed cat and pan-roasted wingnut.
Just give me your name and they'll be dispatched to you forthwith, Nonners.

Thanks to everyone who entered (albeit unwittingly) this month's contest - I think all the judges agree that the overall standard was incredibly high. Good luck next time - try a bit harder to post comments that come up to the required standard and you too could be the fortunate recipient of something pointless.
P.S. It can sometimes help to write comments out in pencil on some scrap paper before you get clever with a keyboard!
Get posting and Win Win Win!!!

guess what's on the telly tonight

2006-09-12T00:29:00.000+02:00

Plenty of the better US blogs have had their say on today's anniversary, pouring predictable scorn at their leadershit (that concept gets much better when you take the p out of it). My own personal fave

http://www.reclusiveleftist.com

is no exception and you have to feel sorry for the Americans as one of the world's less brilliant leaders and his cronies trample all over the dead to further their political ambitions - not often they do it at home, though...

I was reminded of a rather more positive anniversary that fell this week. It's 20 years since some women decided to make a stand against an ideology that threatened to kill us all and trotted off to a then little-known US airforce base destined to take delivery of Britain's first batch of US cruise missiles.

And Greenham Common was born. Ordinary women of all ages and descriptions (well maybe not so many Tories) took a stand against madness and murder and taught us some valuable lessons in non-violent resistance. One day they joined hands and hugged the base and all the time they put baby clothes and children's possessions on the wire. The irony of the Daily Mail readers' hatred of these women as your classic hairy lesbian lefties was that many fought in the name of their own children and husbands - all made their stand for men and women everywhere and every innocent potential victim of the nuclear weapons to be stationed at Greenham. They were there on the side of life - some were veterans of Aldermaston, some became politicised for the first time, but they proved (if proof were needed) that women can see past the dick-swinging and the rhetoric of destruction and focus on life, on love and lots of the good things people pretend they are fighting wars for. On this orgiastic day so associated with death, we might take a moment to think of these women with respect and gratitude.

win friends and influence your uncle (nos 1 and 2)

2006-09-11T23:13:00.000+02:00

No surprises at the first...

Boris Johnson has once again made friends the world over by the simple expedient of opening that bloody great gob almighty; crowing over the current in-fighting in the Labour party, he expressed his delight at the 'cannibalism and chief-slaying' that he usually associated with Papua New Guinea - any guesses which High Commission was on the phone to complain - typical that they have no sense of humour; what with them being a bunch of savages with grass skirts and a penchant for highly flavoured sauces.

...and a gifted cricketer warms the cockles of our hearts...

Kevin Pietersen in one of those endless Sunday magazine profiles was asked what his most treasured possession was:

his fiancee!

I was shocked - has the man no sense of a man's most sacred and private bond. His partner apparently said something about a big plank that's only good for hitting cricket balls...Sheila has requested a divorce and has been seen out with Inzamam Ul Haq. Inzi was quoted last night as saying 'I think Sheila is a silly name for a cricket bat.' (Don't laugh too hard - it's a very old computer.)

ideology blah blah name Pt. 2

2006-09-09T00:43:00.000+02:00

On the fish/barrels principle, I promised myself I wouldn't keep on about conservativehome, but I can't keep away. It has the mesmeric power of a runaway train about to mow down a crowd of fluffy bunnies. So imagine my delight when I decided to trawl the links and found the tantalising offering: Young Female and Tory. The click leapt unbidden from my fingers and then... a pause as the technology grappled with the enormity that surely lay beyond the cyberportal... only to get the message: 'internal server error' - every word resonates.

the great leap forward

2006-09-08T22:17:00.000+02:00

For those of you who formerly worried about the weird disparity between my comments and the timestamp (eg one day I claimed to be off to bed at about noon), I have now ventured through the settings section of my toolbar (don't worry, I took plenty of sandwiches) and reset the time zone to Africa Bujumbura.
So it's not like I don't go out of my way to make life better for my readership.
That's you lot....

.....hello???

my blog may be shite but at least...

2006-09-07T23:05:00.000+02:00

It seems that if you scratch the surface of any otherwise decent blog hard enough you uncover photos of fuckin' cats.
why why why???????????????????????????????????????????

the ideology that dare not speak its name

2006-09-06T12:04:00.000+02:00

For lovers of political jokes I bring you...the conservative party. Now a lot of us on the left have been whingeing about dear Mr Blair and his thoroughly crap and dishonest 'Labour' (ahem) government. Yes they have lied about this and that, shot a few people who, strictly speaking, might not have done anything wrong, smiled benignly as Israel pretended they were Rambo - cum- Terminator and even cocked up the NHS computer system - still who among us can honestly hold up our hand and say we haven't blown the odd billion on a shite bit of redundant software - OK poor analogy, but you see my point. We might all have been forgiven for thinking they were the worst political party currently in Britain...if only...and this is why life is so fuckin beautiful, if only the Tories could have kept their stupid mouths shut for two minutes and not vomited some of their views on life. Just as Nasrullah's basic error of opening his mouth reminded me that the Israeli government weren't the only bunch of penis wavers in the middle east, today I am overjoyed to be reminded about the conservatives.

You remember - cuddly duffers like Boris Johnson who speak for ordinary people everywhere (ordinary well-off white people anyway), moderates like Norman Tebbit who isn't too keen on buggery and the perverts who practise it, friends of the ethnic minority (who just think 'they' would be happier 'back home'), espousers of feminism like Thatch the Mighty. They brought us Clause 27 (breaking new ground for homophobes everywhere), the poll tax (and had the grace to try it on the lab rat Scots first), the Falklands - the only war as dishonest and pointless as the scouring of Iraq for WMDs, arrested any 4 males travelling together on the A1 on the grounds they were clearly about to picket a pit, decided teachers were 'the enemy within' and shut down the whole of British industry in favour of getting on a bike and looking for work that didn't exist (and this from a former airline pilot). Ah yes we say - but they have changed - they have women (surely you saw that nice young gel in Putney) British Asians (well the odd millionaire) and that nice homosexual Matthew Parris (oops! he's left, but there are other buggers in the party and we only snigger about them behind our hands) and anyway 'could they be worse than Blair?'

Hmmmmm, I wonder.

A hint is provided by the glorious website

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2006/08/inigo_wilson_a_.html

I perked up at once at the title, imagining a quiet place, probably by the seaside, without windows or doors where the passer-by could just hear echoes like '...say what you like about apartheid it certainly kept the darkies in line...' '...damned women's libbers - they'll want the bloody vote next...' '...buggery is buggery and that's why God hates a queer...'. No such luck; it seems the conservatives in this particular home are free to mingle with real people; however they do have a charming museum of unpleasant opinions which the more optimistic of us might have hoped were extinct.

One example is the Lefty Lexicon compiled by Inigo Wilson - as someone who 'manages community affairs for a large telecoms company' (Orange) he was unwise enough to publish this (in my opinion) harmless enough selection of unfunny shite. (Unfunny and yet laughable - my favourite combination!) As it contained some stupid opinions about Palestinians and Muslims in general, you might have thought a man working in 'community affairs' would have had an inkling that some people might be offended. Oh No! Surely only humourless muslims could deem it a bit off and as they are all suicide bombers etc they can go hang (good idea, that...). Lo and behold people did get offended and complained to Orange who promptly suspended him for a nice full investigation until he can be shuffled off somewhere quietly. The Tories have made it a free speech issue and smell a muslim conspiracy against this poor innocent. Have a look at how they use their free speech and then tell me we couldn't do worse than this labour government...

bloody hell not another attempt at a pro-feminist post - I mean how scared is this man?

2006-09-06T01:09:00.000+02:00

I was recently fortunate enough to stumble across The Dawn Patrol, the wittily-titled website of a Ms Dawn Eden. Among other sensible and logical thoughts presented entirely without bias, she has single-handedly cracked the old chestnut:
if (wo)man is born free (nothing to do with those lions - please try to concentrate) then why is (s)he in chains everywhere?

The gloriously simple answer that has oddly enough eluded some of our greatest minds from Rousseau to Stephen Hawking to Gary Lineker is as follows:

"In an age of sexual liberation (made possible, in part, by easy infertility) and feminist freedom, we resurrect the concept of people as chattel."

Of course! It's feminism, the availability of contraception and freedom of thought in general that mean we are errr really very unfree. Those naughty feminists - they pretend they want to empower women and even up some of the more glaring inequalities that bad old patriarchy has created, but really they are trying to make people (presumably women included) slaves. I don't think she really explained why that should be so, but, hey Dawn, that argument is enough to convince me.
Tomorrow Dawn explains why the earth is flat and the devil put the little stones in the ground so we could dig 'em up and imagine they were animals from long ago. Don't miss it - I include her address for those who wish to be enlightened.
http://www.dawneden.com

pro-feminist post (basic)

2006-09-06T00:26:00.000+02:00

To my thousands (ahem) of loyal readers I have to admit this blog is no longer my own. I have received a visit from an angry (not to mention toothy) dinosaur suggesting I get off the fence and post something pro-feminist. I hate those who cave to such pressure only slightly less than the thought of being ripped into tiny bits by pearly-white saurian gnashers, so here goes - I'm keeping it very simple here and going for a gentle lob to bury at the back of the court. Something, in short, that nobody with blood still reaching the brain can find at all contentious - I have no desire to be descended upon by scores of people telling me I just ain't feminist enough. Tho a bit of traffic would be nice - this isn't exactly the kind of blog where the constant tramping of cyberfeet would keep you awake all night. Anyway, I offer you two things without too much comment:

First is this refreshing news from the godly land of America.

A Sunday school teacher has been sacked after 11 years because she is a woman. Mary Lambert was told she could not continue teaching at the church because Eve "is the root of all evil." "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission, I do not permit a woman to teach a man" she was told in a letter from leaders at the church in Waterton, New York.

Now be honest - did you think this still happened even in Dubya's America?

Second a link to something less depressing - not the first person to link to this, but who cares?
http://angertoactivism.blogspot.com/2006/07/nothing-safe-to-sacrifice.html

It's almost as if some women do have things to teach the world!

victory; n. subst - a word of doubtful meaning...

2006-08-18T16:00:00.000+02:00

Just when I was almost beginning to believe I really was anti-semitic and simply had it in for Israel, my self-belief is restored by that nice Mr Nasrullah opening his big fat gob and informing us that he and Hezbollah (spell it your favourite way, 'hesbullah', 'hisbollocks', 'horrible deaths for civilains' - it all reads the same from where I'm sitting, which, thankfully, is nowhere near the nutters) have scored a big fat 'victory'. You can't satirise that, so I won't try.

After several bad weeks for Israeli PR featuring the unfortunate murder of children (not sure how that happened) helpful comments by Israeli generals (shoulda got out of the war zone) and misunderstood policy (bomb that ambulance just in case) their stock rises every time Mr N speaks. Perhaps we could persuade both sides that the way to win whatever war they think they are in (presumably 'war for national survival while surrounded by loony foes' on one side and 'war to wipe out those murdering bastards who keep bombing our civilians' on the other) is to lie low, keep quiet and hope the world forgets just how rabid we all are. Another side effect of this radical policy would be that no innocent people get killed, spend their lives in bomb shelters etc. On second thoughts, perhaps we should keep quiet about that bit - not going to prove popular with either bunch of penis-waving warmongers; no matter how happy it would make those no longer being blown to buggery for no obvious reason.

Anyway, the boys in blue hats are there so all will be well. Sending the Bangladeshis for their usual stint of minefield clearing, giving the Ukrainians a load of sandbags to fortify command posts only to find they've sold them (happened in former Yugoslavia), Brits getting arrrested by local police in shakedowns for their choicer pieces of equipment - just the usual day-to-day fun and games for wearers of the blue helmet.

And while we're on the subject of bad PR, maybe Maureen Lipman might like to consider keeping her fat gob shut as well rather than vomiting some rather unpleasant opinions. She intimated that while she was shocked by the number of deaths, what did people expect Israel to do? ('Try acting like a mature democracy and not go around wreaking vengeance on a bunch of people who had nothing to do with Hezbollah', would be a start.)

And my admiration goes out to Miriam Margolyes who rebuked British Jews for being so biased as to ignore the murderous policy adopted in Lebanon and urged them to join the rest of the world's condemnation. It's not everyone who takes the easy way out and cries 'anti-semite' at the first whiff of criticism.

ceasefire; n.subst - a word of doubtful meaning...

2006-08-14T21:27:00.000+02:00

The world breathes again as Israel declares itself in favour of a ceasefire.

A split second later, the world realises, on removing the collective earplugs that there is a familiar noise out in the street. Louder than the silence of the British government on such embarassing subjects as - ahem - people invading their neighbours; louder than the cacophony of clicks as viewers desert ITV in their millions (and to think they have just commissioned a radical new series of celebrity golf featuring Bruce Forsyth - memories of Edward I's invading army parading the mouldering corpse of their leader to terrify the Scots); louder even than the hypocrisy of Condi's 'peace mission' as she scolds: "You really can only kill a few more and then it's time for bed, kids."

Ah yes! it's the pounding feet of civilians running in terror, the thudding of incoming missiles on the hospital roof, the wail of parents watching their kids carried lifeless from ruined homes. The mayhem you'd associate with bombs, guns and things like that; the sort of thing you might describe as 'firing' - the sort of thing naive people could be forgiven thinking would cease when people declare themselves to be up for a 'ceasefire' (the clue's in the title).
And I don't suppose it'll get better before we stop selling weapons and start selling dictionaries.

But in the meantime, we can scream that killing the innocent is murder - murder whether they fall from burning tower blocks in New York, whether we bomb them in Baghdad or Beirut, whether Israelis, Lebanese, Americans, Brits, whether Christians, Muslims or Jews; capitalists, communists, or plain confused; whether we kill for God, for Allah, for truth, for lies, for life, love and the pursuit of liberty, for secure borders and the right not to have to bury our children.
It's all murder; and a ceasefire is the start of stopping it.

Unless you forget to cease.

'israel determined to be fair' shock

2006-07-27T21:23:00.000+02:00

Perhaps in a bid to prove itself an equal opportunities slaughterer of civilians, Israel has decided that the wholesale butchery of palestinians and lebanese is not a sustainable policy - hurrah!
it is conscripting reservists presumably to try and equalise the non-military casualties - boo! I'm not sure quite what Israel hopes to gain by this - it could be a bid for international symapthy:
'look what those nasty hamas/hezbollah are doing to our innocent youth'
'err so are we'.

Sorry chaps - apart from the highly dubious logic, you must realise that virtually every nation on earth is against you - arab nations on principle and the rest of us because we just don't like your foreign policy (for which the usual british pro-israel journalists will trot out the usual tired accusations of anti-semitism, holocaust denial and err leaves on the line).
The one honourable exception - America - is perfectly happy to see you do their dirty work of making life unpleasant for whichever bunch of nasty islamists (or maronite christians for that matter - well they're all the same, really) they bump into. Maybe the fragrant Ms Rice believes that if al quaeda and related nasty islamist purveyors of death hate Israel more than the US they'll start crashing planes into whatever the Israeli army/hezbollah haven't bombed to rubble and leave god's chosen people alone (nice irony there, I think).
Well it's a plan...and Mr Quaeda and his bomb-toting chums seem to have bought it, because they have announced that they will indeed turn their attentions to Israel. You'd have thought they would already be keeping their hands in as it were by being beastly to Israelis, but hey... So; more joy for the poor bloody Israeli man/woman/child on the street/in the gutter/in bits/bleeding to death on the Tel Aviv omnibus. Nice one boys! What have you for us next???

very special forces

2006-07-09T12:18:00.000+02:00

Israel has promised to make 'the sky fall in' on those who recently kidnapped one of their young soldiers. This blog can exclusively reveal they have sent in an elite team to rescue the unfortunate youth. In an encircling movement Chicken Licken will work deep undercover in Gaza while Henny Penny and Turkey Lurkey kick in the front door of various civilian dwellings. Strategic backup will come courtesy of Ducky Lucky sitting back home on the duckpond. Any Hamas supporters indentified will be taken by Foxy Loxy to tell the king all about it. And then Hamas will blow up some buses cafes shops etc peopled by the usual crew of innocent and unconnected Israeli civilians. And we thought the original was a pointless story that ended in meaningless slaughter.

view from a train

2006-07-09T11:35:00.000+02:00

As the majestic silver bullet (that would be the GNER cattle truck) flashed past Peterborough the other day at a stunning 23mph, I noticed a sign. It bore a picture of happy, handsome young achievers of both sexes co-existing happily in a non-discriminatory environment - not sure any of them were black, but that can sometimes spoil the happy co-existence of your non-discriminatory environments, so I see their point. The message was: 'Think outside the box? - They didn't even know there was a box!' No of course not - they live in bloody Peterborough; if they saw a box their heads would probably explode with the excitement of it all. Oddly, the next sign didn't read 'Imagination overload? Come to Peterborough, we're used to that sort of thing!'.

Happy and Glorious

2006-06-15T22:40:00.000+02:00

It seems today is the 'official' birthday of our beloved monarch - no idea why anyone would need her to have two (birthdays) or why we have one (monarch), but, hey, she's a reasonable enough old stick and a damn fine tool of the patriarchy - and, as I am one too, (tool of patriarchy as opposed to reasonable old stick/queen) it would be a tad rough to call her on this. Enough guff - a point follows...
The Cabinet gave her a Spode teaset for her birthday.
Some questions occur to me:
1) Why the cabinet? Not the government, not the PLP, not the Prime Minister in private or official capacity, not the House of Commons, not her loyal parliament.
2) How did they know she wanted a tea-set rather than, let's say... a Vespa, a picture of her favourite corgi hang-gliding, a scale model of Ottawa, a nice selection of biscuits (maybe even specially-commissioned with choccy hob nobs, boasters or the ones I think I saw once with a layer of cadbury's caramel (may have made those up?) - any of the ones you pick up in the supermarket, think 'they look nice' then realise they're twice the price of saffron), a collector's edition of every set of Top Trumps ever made, a dozen golf balls or her grandchild's school photo in a gold frame - but hers would really be gold. Anyway...
3) Has she not got a tea set? Didn't the Sultan of Brunei give her something in Lapis Lazuli for her golden jubilee - maybe one of the cups got chipped and she hates to use a set without all the bits - but it isn't too expensive to get individual pieces replaced and even if it was a hard set to find, she could say 'I'm the Queen - do it'.
4) What was the conversation over breakfast?

Liz: Hmmm [sighs]?
Phil: What is it, love?
Liz: This cup...
Phil: What's wrong with it?
Liz: Nothing. It's just a bit ... yaknow...
Phil: Tired?
Liz: Exactly!
Phil: I could get out that 'World's Greatest Mum-in-Law' mug from Diana?
Liz: @***! [Splutters incoherently].
Phil: What about that one in Lapis Lazuli...
Liz: Vulgar!
Phil: Fair do's. Nice chap, though.
Liz: Nothing personal.

They fall silent.

Phil: Hang on! It's yer birthday in a few weeks...
Liz: It's already been, Philip for goodness sake!
Phil: No, you daft old tool of the patriarchy - the other one!
Liz: My God, Philip, that's brilliant!
Phil: Somebody get that oik Blair out of the Yank's arse and tell him you need a new teaset!
Liz: Nothing vulgar.
Phil: Spode?
Liz: Have a hobnob, darling.

Rumour has it the shadow cabinet have given her a pair of converse allstars and a gram of coke.

American Military Logic - Guantanamo Bay

2006-06-12T16:10:00.000+02:00

Now this one HAS annoyed me.
The Camp Commander at Guantanamo responded to the suicides there by saying he regarded them as 'asymmetric warfare waged against us'. So even when they have been more than somewhat pissed off by being locked up without trial, made a teensy bit upset by being beaten and absolutely miffed by the removal of basic human rights (amply documented by Mohammed Beg - I hope he'll forgive me if that's a lousy spelling of his name - it's not like it's the worst thing anyone has done to him) in a place that is subject to no jurisdiction (the American government didn't even trust its own judiciary to play along with them on this one. They should have tried Britain; Tony 's blatant disregard of the British legal system would have come in very useful...again); in the face of all of that, if someone should succeed in killing themselves, the belief is they did it only to annoy - worse to inflict harm on - America. That's quite an ego, don't you think? Perhaps someone needs to calm down a bit.

There are apparently more than 450 detainees at Camp X ray; they have tried hunger strikes and not been heeded; when they go the whole hog, all the American system can think about is bleating in protest at what a nasty thing it is to do to poor beleaguered defender of freedom and honesty us. Is it any wonder that the US and Britain are regarded as enemy states by an awful lot of people? Voices have been raised around the EU against the fact that detainees have been driven to suicide; even some half-hearted words like 'concern' and 'regrettable' have come from the US government and I haven't heard a peep out of our current bunch of arse.
The more serious the alleged crimes of those inside Guantanamo, the more important to put them before an impartial jury, hear the evidence and decide the case. And yes I know lots of people are saying this and yes it is a statement of the bleedin obvious but it can't hurt to have one more person saying it, now can it? In the meantime the message is clear: don't any of you go killing yourselves or the US will be very annoyed indeed.

sainsbury cheese geezer

2006-06-10T23:22:00.000+02:00

So the chronicling of the only mildly interesting (well that's subjective of course - maybe that's putting it too strongly) continues - it's like Alan Bennett-lite. The World Cup started today (I now realise). Shopping yesterday, the friendly man serving at the cheese counter observes: 'Well you won't want to be out of the house tomorrow'.
Me: 'Why? is it going to rain?'
Both look baffled.
Ah well - off for a nice cup of tea and an early night.

man in a t shirt

2006-06-08T16:22:00.000+02:00

Walking down Westbourne Grove - an artery of the vile cool that is West London - I pass a man in a t-shirt advertising a brand of dog food (the t-shirt, not the man). He has no dog - not with him at any rate - and his other clothes don't suggest one who needs to raid the jumble or the bins - known brands without being ostentatious or expensive. Now that makes me wonder. It doesn't amuse or trouble me but it does make me wonder.

it all starts here

2006-05-12T00:18:00.000+02:00

Well it does for me at least. It's late (or early where lots of other people are) a small red machine in front of me purports to sell small bars of chocolate for 10p (property of son - works imperfectly - metaphor for something, or not) and the page is blank. And the last person on the planet never to have blogged has joined the herd and lost his singularity (or singularness). I look forward to spewing the usual stream of random events, thoughts and not poems I promise for the vast majority of us all to ignore. Lucky us.
Must try not to use the word cyberspace - oh bugger.