Still, overcast, rather chilly. Did nothing out of doors. New cwt. Full-o-Pep begun today. Clarke’s say the grain-shortage, such as there is, is of maize & dari (wheatings)[1]. The former comes from the Argentine. The latter was usually imported ready ground, & at present the English mills are not turning it out fast enough, though there is no shortage of wheat.
8 eggs.
[1] Dari, or durra, is Indian millet. ‘Wheatings’ is a proprietary name for the residue of milled wheat. OED, Revised edition, 1991, dates it from 1931. Peter Davison
I've just been reading Stewart Home's interview with James, conducted several years before his death in 2000. And yes - if you read this site regularly you can probably guess where this is going - James/Norman was living in SE London at the time.
James originally moved to the area from Birmingham to study at Goldsmiths in New Cross: 'I came down to London at the beginning of the sixties and dropped out of college about '62... After a year, I decided teaching was not for me and I went to work in Foyles bookshop'.Apparently his corner of SE London was not particularly swinging at the time:
'HOME: You were in London in the sixties, rumour has it there was a lot happening.
JAMES: There wasn't a lot happening in Hither Green. Not down in south London. I hung around with a lot of friends living down in New Cross. I had a girlfriend down there at the time. I don't think very much was happening outside the centre. It wasn't a drug crazed heaven at all'.
However, it was to be his time living in Hither Green that inspired the start of the first of the Angel novels: 'It was triggered by the opening episode at Hither Green station, where there's this long tunnel, because I lived in Hither Green for a time and I always thought it was really creepy, this pedestrian tunnel that ran under the railway. The tunnel was only about five or six foot wide and I always had this nightmare that you'd be walking along late at night and some guy on a motor bike would come thundering down the other way. That was what triggered the opening scene in the book. Everything else came from that'.
Laurence James also wrote many other books under his own and other names, including some of the Deathlands series of Science Fiction novels under the name James Axler.
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ultraruby, everyone hugging class_worrier, perfectlyvague looking fabulous, talking nonsense with katstevens, talking FE funding with carsmilesteve (it's how we roll), exliontamer laying down "The Visitors" by Abba in a blistering set, scissorkicks doing a similarly blistering set then giving out copies of it on CD, p_dan_tic doing a very scaled down mosh, waiting for shewho to turn up when Macca came on etc. etc. etc. Now awake for 22 hours. Must go to bed.Typically beautiful ride home across London. Good night Shoreditch, good night Bank, good night St. Paul's. Good night South Bank, good night Parliament, good night Thames. Good night ladies. Good night sweet ladies. Good night.
Child Pornography - Fossil Combs
(alternate download)
Stephen K Amos, DVD/On tour
Seemingly poised for stardom with his own BBC2 series due in 2010, Stephen K Amos's debut DVD, Find The Funny, gives those new to his charms the chance to find out what the rest of us have been sniggering to ourselves about all these years. Intermingling tersely insightful stories of prejudice (sexual and racial) with audacious audience interaction, Amos can switch from debonair elegance to spit-and-sawdust crudity. The DVD sees him testing his steel against Sydney's firmly on side Aussie punters, yet no one comes up with anything to match the crassness of Prince Harry, who (with typical charm and élan) told Amos that he "didn't sound like a black chap". Amos's response (as well as what he wished he'd said) provides one of the highlights.
Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury, Sat; Beck Theatre, UB3, Sun; Corn Exchange, King's Lynn, Mon; Marina Theatre, Lowestoft, Tue; Anvil, Basingstoke, Wed; Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, Thu; DVD out Mon, £19.99
Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To The Orchestra, DVD/On tour
Bill Bailey could have sat back on his laurels as the in-house surrealist on BBC2's Never Mind The Buzzcocks, but leaving the comfortable panel-show life seems to have been a tonic for his creative powers, if this latest show is anything to go by. Conceived in collaboration with Anne Dudley (late of revered 80s electro act the Art Of Noise), this bona fide extravaganza starts out with some playful explanations of the orchestra's characteristics, isolating individual parts, and offering up a few enjoyable musical tricks. Where the show really takes off is when it starts working the other way around, with the musicians demonstrating the genius of the comedian. So watch out for fully orchestrated renditions of some true Bailey classics, including his
The New Statesman has published a footling story with a rather exciting headline:
Exclusive: easyJet grounds in-flight magazine after Holocaust gaffe
What sort of terrible ‘gaffe’ could this be? Hold onto your hats! Apparently, easyjet published “a tasteless fashion shoot at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin”. Shock horror!
In a statement to the New Statesman, the airline said:
“easyJet profusely apologises to anyone who may be offended by the inappropriate fashion photo shoot at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin featured in this month’s issue of the in-flight magazine.”
“The magazine is produced by INK — an external publishing house, and easyJet were not aware of the images until they appeared in print. As a consequence we are now reviewing our relationship with the publisher and are withdrawing this month’s issue from all flights.”
“easyJet prides itself on bringing together a wide range of cultures and beliefs and is appalled by this insensitive and inconsiderate photo-shoot, the aim of which was to highlight some of Berlin’s iconic landmarks and certainly no offence was meant.”
It doesn’t sound like a particularly big deal to me, but evidently the New Statesman are very proud of themselves for their major scoop.
Here’s another scoop. The New Statesman recently published a sympathetic interview with Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal.
Meshal’s Hamas describes the Holocaust as “a lie invented by the Zionists“. Its Constitution is a litany of racist lies about Jews, many of them drawn from the Protocols. You’ll find no mention of this in the New Statesman article, even though the most recent instance of Hamas Holocaust denial had taken place only a couple of weeks previously.
New Statesman must be very proud that easyjet is ‘reviewing its relationship with the publisher’. I expect it is less pleased to see how many of its former readers are, ahem, reviewing their own relationship with the New Statesman.
I noticed that Momo Franks was being redecorated today – I asked one of the builders what it was turning into. He said that the wedding shop down the road is moving in. I’m guessing that it is this one. Now, I know what you’re thinking – how useful is a wedding dress shop… You’re (hopefully) only going to need one per lifetime. But I think it will be a nice shop I think. Why?
It comes highly recommended as the wedding dress in which Mrs Bugle said yes to me :)
PS: Moving house this weekend – staying in Blackheath. All I can see is cardboard boxes.
* The sinks have plugs! Most moslem countries, they don't, cos they have to wash under running water.
* Everything is new - Sultan Qaboos has been modernising the country and improving infrastructure and living standards for the people so even some remote villages have electricity and lots of roads have been built / are being built and most of the buildings have been renovated or replaced, so there's very little in the way of charming urban decay to see.
* I didn't expect it to be so hot in November - temperature well into the 30s and yesterday it was a bit humid too = too hot for me. I had tonsillitis for the first couple of days so felt like a wet dishrag most of the time but much better now. Just getting acclimatised so I'll be frozen when I get home.
* Virtually everyone speaks good English.
* Lots of Indians - shopkeepers and lots of the hotel workers and restaurants. Not just menial hotel positions but managers etc. Lots of indian food. Indian TV channels, newspapers etc.
Time's short; no time to read friends' entries. :-(
Figures, released today from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), reveal…
…hourly earnings including irregular bonuses rose 4.2 per cent from €20.35 to €21.20 per hour in the second quarter of this year.
Hourly earnings including irregular bonuses in the financial sector fell by 11.9 per cent, from €32.96 to €29.03 per hour during the same period.
The drop was due mainly to a fall of 69 per cent in irregular earnings which fell from €5.90 per hour in second quarter of 2008 to €1.83 in 2009.
Average hourly earnings including irregular bonuses and payments for managers, professionals and associated professionals in the industrial sector rose by 0.4 per cent over the year from €30.88 to €31.01.
Earnings increased by 1.8 per cent, from €20.41 to €20.78 per hour, over the same period for clerical, sales and service employees. They rose 3.7 per cent from €16.53 to €17.14 per hour for the production, transport, craft and other manual workers.
Depressingly…
More than 21,000 people working in the industrial sector lost their jobs in the 12 months to June of this year, according to the official data.
The figures, released today from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), reveals the numbers employed in the sector fell from 232,600 to 211,300 during the 12 month period.
The decrease was primarily among the production, craft and manual workers, which saw a fall of 17,700, while clerical, sales and service employees dropped by 2,900.
On wages a similar phenomenon was experienced earlier in the Summer to the consternation of some.
New Jersey explorer, writer, photographer, filmmaker, welder, artist, skateboarder, avid Passaic River canoe traveler, graffiti lover, urban anthropologist, prankster, high school dropout, WFMU listener, Weird NJ contributor, and as he calls himself "run of the mill trespasser" are all titles befitting Wheeler Antabanez who will be a guest on WFMU today (Nov 20th 3-6pm) on Put The Needle On The Record when he will talk about his passion - New Jersey, especially the rundown abandoned funky parts - and take phone calls from listeners on exploring the abandoned buildings of the Garden State. But in the meantime, as a primer for his WFMU appearance, here are a sampling of video clips of some of Wheeler's adventures plus his interview with Beware Of The Blog (BOTB).
BOTB: Are you NJ born and bred, and when & where did you first start your explorations?
WHEELER: I grew up in Caldwell, which put me in easy bicycle range of the abandoned Essex Mountain Sanatorium. My friends and I happened upon the hospital while we were exploring the woods in North Caldwell behind Matarazzo’s Farm. The first thing we saw was the entrance column with a huge swastika spray painted across the front. It was in the peak of summer, the buildings were completely overgrown, and Overbrook, which is what we used to call it back then, was the scariest thing I had ever seen. It didn’t take us long to grow the balls to enter the building. By the time I was 15 or 16 I knew the layout so well it was almost like I owned the place. In those days I had an M17 BB gun hidden in the rafters above the auditorium. When I walked the halls with that weapon in my hand, I felt like nothing could hurt me, even on the darkest midnights. Looking back, I was lucky to have never been shot by the sheriffs’ officers on patrol, because the gun looked real. The best part was the innocence of our destruction. We found the place long after it had already been trashed by generations of teenagers, so it didn’t seem like a crime to break the windows, or smash the toilets. Over the years I’ve worked many construction jobs and smashed up plenty of plumbing. Somehow demolition has never seemed like much fun compared to when I used to run wild through the sanatorium.
BOTB: Is NJ truly a haven for all things weird and funky and abandoned?
WHEELER: New Jersey is awesome if you love graffiti, music, public libraries, and skateboarding, which is pretty much how I grew up. Concrete and decaying brick can be a very beautiful thing if you look at it right. I haven’t traveled much outside Jersey unless you consider all the books I’ve read. I feel like I know old-time London like the back of my hand because I’ve been gobbling up Charles Dickens for the past 9 months. Books teach me about strange lands. They serve as time machines, capable of revealing the past and future. Between the Passaic River and my library I don’t feel the need to ever get on an airplane. I have everything right here to keep my imagination well oiled.
BOTB: What would be five of the most engaging places in NJ you've discovered?
WHEELER: The Essex Mountain Sanatorium made me the man I am today. Overbrook Mental Hospital taught me how to elude the cops. The Hilltop Nursing Home showed me the power of fire. The Colt Mill in Paterson taught me fear. The Essex Generating Plant in Newark was the sickest, darkest hole I have ever encountered.
BOTB: What was that miniature tree house project prank all about - can you briefly explain?
WHEELER: That was just a little fun I was having. My neighbor was throwing out this dead tree, which stands about 3 feet tall. I thought I could bring it back to life, so I grabbed it and put it near the window in my office. One day, I was painting a picture and had some leftover red on my pallet. Soon the tree was bright red with black polka dots. Next, I built a little platform in the tree made of toothpicks. This soon blossomed into a gazebo and on and on it went. I ended up spending two weeks on the tree house, documenting the entire process with still photos. When it was finished, I took the whole tree, pot and all, outside to take some pictures in the sunlight. The best shots were the ones from underneath, showing the real trees above. From some angles, it actually looked real and I decided to see if I could fool some people. I wrote up a bogus little story about it and posted a section on my website, along with specific pictures and a fake MLS listing. The website that covers local matters around Montclair, baristanet.com picked up the story. Before I knew it, people were driving past my apartment, looking for the tree house supposedly looming above Lackawanna Plaza. The whole thing basically started as an arts and crafts project, but ended up as an amusing joke. Check it out here…
BOTB: What have you done to date with the Weird NJ folks and how great are those guys and what they do?
WHEELER: Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran have been awesome to me. Having your own Weird NJ special issue is a rare honor and from the beginning I took it very seriously. I owe them so much for letting me do my own thing when it came to Nightshade on the Passaic. I kept them updated on my adventures and occasionally asked a question or two, but for the most part they didn’t even read the manuscript until it was almost complete. Having total freedom allowed the story to tell itself and made Nightshade the most satisfying writing assignment I’ve tackled so far.
BOTB: What are your plans for the future?
WHEELER: Right now, I’m looking for other guerilla filmmakers to help me with a full length Nightshade on the Passaic movie. The plan is to shoot the film in a year, write a book while we’re filming, edit the movie, and use the extra footage for a television show. If I can find a few seaworthy people with cameras, this dream will become reality. I’m also trying to attract the attention of a certain Soft Skull Press for the publication of my novel Matt and Jess Forever, which has been sitting on my desk for years and needs to be in print.
For more info on Wheeler Google "Wheeler Antabanez" and you will find links to everything he's ever made public. Then there is his MySpace, while Luckycigarette.com has a couple unpublished novels he's written and a bunch of the press he's garnered over the years. And Weirdnj.com has the nightshade stuff and while his youtube channel has many engaging videos of this modern day NJ explorer like the one of the Passaic River above and the one of the abandoned pumping station near the Rahway River immediately below.
This is a cross-post by Shiraz Maher from the Focus on Islamism blog
Inayat Bunglawala – more commonly known as Bungles – is a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
He’s been a busy boy recently.
The MCB has taken a beating over the last two years after its sectarian and Islamist politics were exposed, prompting Bungles to desperately repackage himself as a moderate and liberal. Unfortunately, his Potemkin villages have fooled some – including those foolish Catherine’s who really should know better.
Yes, Inayat wrote an encouraging piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free (CiF) about Geert Wilders and, more recently, about gay rights too – but so what?
‘Credit where credit is due’ cry Inayat’s new supporters. This is a fallacy. Inayat is due nothing.
On the same day that he wrote about gay rights for the Guardian’s left leaning CiF readership, Inayat was busy penning another piece for the Islamist website IslamOnline. His choice of topic for that audience? ‘British Jews’ Influence on UK Policy’. Old habits die hard.
The article leaves no room for doubt – Inayat is a man who has not confronted the demons of his reactionary Islamist beliefs. He tells us:
The "Islamist" label has been used in recent years as a smear to denigrate and marginalize all politically engaged and active Muslims while promoting those who are docile enough not to criticize Western warmongering and support for Israel’s barbaric treatment of the Palestinians.
I fail to see how Inayat can distance himself from a problem he fails to even recognise.
His deliberate misrepresentation of the term ‘Islamist’ is typical of those who adhere to that ideology. Far from being a ‘smear’ it is a term that protects and distinguishes ordinary Muslims who believe in Islam as a faith from being associated with those who have turned it into an aggressive and expansionist political ideology.
Of course, many Islamists – including Inayat – simply betray those in whose interests they claim to act: ordinary Muslims, by passing off their own highly contentious theology as undisputed fact.
Similarly, unlike those who are genuinely trying to lead Muslims away from Islamism, Inayat remains unwilling to address problems with the Islamist ideology. Without doing that, it is impossible to see just how he can claim to have changed. His IslamOnline piece he reiterates the same old jaundiced view about the motivating factors behind Islamist terrorism:
From the trial of the three British Muslims recently convicted of involvement in the airliner bomb plot, and from video messages left by other violent extremists who have gone on to commit terrorist atrocities, what has undoubtedly been a key motivating factor is the injustices they have witnessed and experienced, the results of western foreign policies abroad, including Israel.
It is foolish to deny that many people were deeply unhappy about, for example, the war in Iraq. There was a vocal and vociferous anti-war campaign that marched through the streets of London to protest against it.
But if foreign policy incites terrorism, how many non-Muslims were moved to launch terrorist conspiracies in the aftermath of the allied invasion of Iraq? Where are the suicide videos from Mr and Mrs Smith saying the British people deserve ‘punishment’?
Lots of people, of all faiths and none, go to the West Bank and Gaza to protest against Israel, but it was two Islamists – Omar Sharif and Asif Hanif -who decided to go one step further and become suicide bombers.
Indeed, all the terrorists whose actions Inayat tries to explain away have all been Muslim. Those in the airline plot also claimed to act in the name of Islam.
This is the reality that Inayat denies. He does not accept that political movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat e-Islami have developed a highly politicised and regressive form of Islam. I am yet to see him oppose their desire to create theocracies in the ‘Muslim world’ by denouncing either of those groups or their activities.
He is unwilling to accept that Islamists provide the intellectual succour that terrorists need. That much was apparent when Inayat penned another piece for IslamOnline this week – where he stupidly accuses me of McCarthyism – and, even more stupidly, reaffirms his support for the worst Islamist ideologue today: Yusuf al-Qaradawi.
This Qatar based cleric wants Muslim apostates murdered, homosexuals executed, supports suicide bombings and female genital mutilation, and justifies the slaughter of Israeli children ‘because they will grow up to join the IDF’. Describing Qaradawi as ‘an asset’ Inayat tells us:
Sheikh Al-Qaradawi is an Islamic scholar who commands huge respect among millions of Muslims worldwide. As a regular past visitor to the UK, he would consistently urge British Muslims to shun all forms of extremism and to focus their energies on ensuring that their children excelled in education.
Here is the man Inayat regards as an ‘asset’ revelling in Hitler’s attempt to exterminate Jews, and praying for it to happen again ‘at the hands of the believers’:
Inayat has not changed. He had years to make these pronouncements, to alter his position and shift his stance. He never did. In truth, Inayat and his band of brothers over at the MCB lost. They were hammered by Hazel Blears when she was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Before her, Ruth Kelly was equally forthright in her treatment of the group. Between them, they set about reaching over the heads of the MCB and directly empowered genuinely progressive grassroots initiatives. To win favour again, Inayat has to portray himself as a liberal.
That much is clear to almost every observer who follows British Islamism.
Yet, what is most disappointing is that those who should know better have not only embraced Inayat in recent weeks, but have engaged in the most shameful and short-sighted public courting of him possible. And to what end?
Anyone seriously suggesting that Inayat has changed offends only their own intelligence.
So, where does this leave his recent and welcome pronouncements on issues like gay rights or free speech? Should credit be given where credit is due?
After all, I suppose Mussolini made the trains run on time.
A Lady Born of birth and fame
To Greenwich Town for pleasure came
Where she a sailor did behold
Both tall and trim, of courage bold.
Others include 'Greenwich Moorings', 'The Greenwich Pensioner's Garland', 'The Greenwich Lovers' Garland', 'Jack of Greenwich' and 'Fair Betsy of Deptford'. Some of these seem to have been included in volume called The Kentish Garland, but I haven't been able to trace the lyrics of these South London songs. Anybody got them?
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Rode an elephant with Miles a few weeks ago. Doesn't matter that it was at the Texas Renaissance Festival, lasted about 15 seconds, cost us each $5 and left me walking funny. I rode an elephant with my son. That's enough. I still approved of the Renaissance Festival more than you or an earlier version of myself might imagine. Didn't enjoy it as much as last time we went, however, as it was pretty much exactly the same, down to the identical patter of the acts, and you really have to be younger, suitably attired and drunk to surrender to the full-on, anachronistic, turkey-leg waving release of the whole thing. Also I prefer the exotic mock-eastern elements to the cod-Celtic, "Misirlou" to "Danny Boy" and the veiled, mysterious houris to the hoicked-up embonpoint of ye olde saucy wenches. I tell you, four hours of the TRF and I never wanted to see another square yard of tremulous pasty bosom again.
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Unemployment Insurance almost all used up - another couple of weeks to go. Next comes 20 weeks of Emergency Unemployment Benefit Tier 1. Which is a relief but the nine month COBRA subsidy also ends this month, which means finding an extra $370 a month. Which sucks. I suspect the recession was supposed to be over by now and the Obama Utopia gleaming on the horizon, unemployment in negative figures and Glenn Beck back on the bottle and selling used cars in Alaska. It sure was a nice vision for a month or so back at the start of the year, all that hope floating around, although I've forgotten whether I had been laid off at that point or not.
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It's not been a great year. I woke up on my nnth birthday with a migraine, which doesn't promise anything much better for the near future. Blah, blah, blah. Although it got better after that, via Curra's for Chilaquiles and Oaxaca coffee. Etc.
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More later. You want to know what I thought about The Prisoner, don't you?
- Music:care of cell 44 - the zombies
This is a longer version of an article which appears today of Comment is Free
This Saturday’s London rally against Sharia law and all religious tyrannies should be huge.
Millions of people are suffering at the hands of clerical regimes, especially our Muslim brothers and sisters in countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Sadly, the turn out in Hyde Park will probably be quite small. This is odd. Most liberals and left-wingers would protest loud and strong if these persecutions were perpetrated by a western regime or by Christian fundamentalists. But they get squeamish when it comes to challenging human rights abuses done in the name of Islam. They fear being denounced as Islamophobic. They confuse protests against fundamentalist, political Islam, which seeks to establish a religious dictatorship, with an attack on Muslim people and the Muslim faith. These are two very different things. Saturday’s protest is in defence of Muslim people – and all people everywhere – who are victims of any form of religious tyranny.
Sharia law is, however, one of the most barbaric manifestations of fundamentalist religion, which is why we need to highlight it. While other faiths are also often oppressive, Sharia is especially oppressive. Its interpretations stipulate the execution of Muslims who commit adultery, renounce their faith (apostates) or have same-sex relationships. Sharia methods of execution, such as stoning, are particularly brutal and cruel.
The horrors of Sharia law, and the need to support Muslims who are resisting it, has been reinforced by the stoning to death this week in Somalia of a 20 year old woman divorcee who was accused of adultery. According to the BBC, the woman was buried up to her waist and then stoned to death in front of 200 people near the town of Wajid. Her male partner was given 100 lashes.
This is the fourth stoning of an adulterer in Somalia in the last year. Earlier this month, a man was stoned to death for adultery in the port town of Merka, south of Mogadishu. His girlfriend, currently pregnant, will be stoned to death after she gives birth. A 13 year old girl who had been raped was stoned to death for adultery in the southern Somali town of Kismayo last year.
Somalia is an extreme example of the Sharia oppression that exists in large parts of the Muslim world. As ever, Muslim women are often the main victims. Our rally is in support of Muslim women who are campaigning for equality. We cannot accept the way many Islamic states, including western allies like Saudi Arabia, restrict women’s freedom of movement, make women subject to the control of male guardians, deny women access to certain jobs and positions in government and enforce the compulsory veiling of women (the hijab, niqab, jilbab or burqa).
Saturday’s protest is organised by the One Law for All campaign, which was launched on 10 December 2008 – International Human Rights Day. It has since received the support of over 20,000 groups and individuals.
To answer questions about the campaign, it has set up a Q and A section on its website.
Speakers at Saturday’s rally include philosopher AC Grayling, columnist Johann Hari, Bangladeshi feminist writer Taslima Nasrin, Rahila Gupta of Women Against Fundamentalism, Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sisters, Houzan Mahmoud of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq and Muslim refugees from Sharia law in Iran.
The organisers have made it clear that supporters of the English Defence League and the British National Party are not welcome. We are telling them: STAY AWAY. We reject their racist and anti-Muslim agenda.
“Saturday’s rally is in opposition to all religious laws in Britain and worldwide,” said One Law for All campaign spokesperson, Maryam Namazie.
“Our rally is being held to mark Universal Children’s Day and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Simultaneous acts of solidarity will take place in countries across the world, including Australia, Canada, Denmark , France , Germany , Nigeria , Serbia, Montenegro and Sweden.
“In particular, we are showing solidarity with people who are resisting Sharia law and defending universal human rights and secularism,” she said.
This the key point of the protest: to show support for the many courageous, inspiring Muslims who are campaigning against the inequalities and inhumanities of Sharia law, often at great risk to their liberty and life.
Contrary to the way our critics are trying to misrepresent our campaign, this is not an attack on Muslims or Islam. Nor are we uniquely condemning Sharia law. We reject all religious laws and courts, including those inspired by Judaist and Christian fundamentalism.
In a democracy, everyone should be subject to the same laws, with the same rights and responsibilties. Religious rulings should not influence the laws or courts in any way.
Britain cannot claim the moral high ground. We are not a secular democracy. The Church of England is the established church, the official state religion. Some of its bishops are granted automatic places in the House of Lords, by virtue of their religious office, and they are able to speak and vote on legislation. No other faith in Britain has such privileged law-making status and power.
When I speak at Saturday’s rally, I will defend Muslims and people of all faiths against hatred and discrimination. The victimisation of people because of their religious beliefs is just as wrong as victimising people because of their race, gender or sexuality.
However, it is important to acknowledge that the religious right, which exists in all faiths, is a serious threat to human freedom wherever it manifests itself, whether in the US, Iran, Russia, Italy, Uganda, Israel or the UK. We see the deadly consequences of faith-inspired fanaticism: the shooting dead of abortion doctors by Christian fundamentalists in the US and, on the West Bank, the illegal seizure of Palestinian land and homes by Judaist zealots.
This is why our protest supports secular democracy. Secularism is often confused with anti-clericalism. The two are not the same. Secularism is not against religion per se. It is against giving religion privileged status, rights and protections.
We believe there should be a separation of religion from the state. No faith should dominate any government and seek to impose its creed on the rest of society. When this happens, freedom of expression is diminished and minority faiths are victimised. We saw this happen when Protestantism became the state religion in England and Catholics suffered great persecution from the late 1500s. We also see it today in Iran where the Shia-dominated state persecutes the Sunni Muslim minority (especially the Arabs and Baluchs).
The reverse happens in Sunni ascendant Saudi Arabia, where Salafi and Wahhabi interpretations of Islam are enforced and Shia Muslims, and dissident Sunni Muslims, are the victims.
For these reasons, secularism is not only an important element of freedom of expression. It is also the best guarantee of religious freedom, as it prevents any one faith becoming politically dominant and abusing its powers to oppress people of other faiths.
The organisers of Saturday’s rally believe that Muslims and all peoples worldwide should have rights, freedoms and choices, in accordance with the principles of equality and non-discrimination that are enshrined in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These are not western values. They are international humanitarian values, agreed by the global consensus of the member states of the UN.
It is wrong to tolerate the denial of human rights to non-white Muslims in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, when most of us would never tolerate the denial of these rights to white (and non-white) people in Britain. There should be no double standards. No cultural and moral relativism.
Defend universal human rights.
One law for all.
Several newspapers this morning make much of the fact that the EU’s new high representative for foreign and security policy has never been elected to anything, and in this instance, they are right to do so. What they are highlighting is the wider issue of the EU’s massive democratic deficit.
Unlike the unthinking europhobes of both right and left, I start from the assumption that closer European integration is a good thing. The more I read about nineteenth and twentieth century history, and the enormous bloodshed that stemmed from petty squabbles between nation-states, the more confirmed I become in that view.
But it must surely be indefensible for appointments to key positions to be made over a jolly good – and almost certainly well-lubricated – dinner. Given that the entire public sector and most large private companies these days routinely append recruitment ads with the words ‘we are striving to be an equal opportunities employer’, the practice cannot be justified.
The way in which matters were handled reeks of a narrow elite looking after its own. At the very least, the £268,000 a year job should be subject to ratification and possible veto by the European Parliament.
The second aspect of this whole affair that sits poorly with me is Baroness A’s insistence that she is ‘the best person for the job’. How does she make that out? She has no obviously qualifications whatsoever.
Again, I have an extra-mural diploma in international relations. That is one more qualification than Ashton has in this field. Otherwise, her CV consists of stints with CND, the Social Work Training Council, Business in the Community, Hertfordshire Health Authority, the National Council for One Parent Families, various ministerial offices after her appointment to the House of Lords, and finally a year in Brussels.
All worthy posts, no doubt. But how do any of them set this woman up to sort out, say, a renewed outbreak of conflict in Bosnia or to mastermind Europe’s contribution to resolving the crisis in Darfur? In short, they don’t. She is a foreign policy lightweight.
If Brussels was setting out purposely to design a means of making its project look even more unappealing to the average European citizen then it already does, they could not have bettered what they achieved yesterday.
Some people are scary when they are angry. They may rant and rave and scream abuse. There are others who are capable of conveying a meance whilst speaking quietly, reamaing still and, otwardly at least, appearing composed.
Then there’s Roy Keane.
If I ever meet the man, I’ll make pretty certain my mobile phone is turned ‘OFF’.
Time for video technology. Football is the one genuinely global spectator sport, can start wars and is just too important for unambiguous wrongs not to be righted. Luddite fantasties of fans crouched over their beers as the latest refereeing howler is dissected as being ‘part of the game’ ring hollow as matches are decided by decisions given and missed by the one man in millions who didn’t see what he thought he saw.
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