Of Goblins and Ghoulies

Today is Halloween, or more precisely All Hallows Eve(n). A hallow is another name for a saint, as November 1st is All Saints Day. Amazingly Halloween is now the second most popular event for merchandising gifts and party items after Christmas. Even in Britain, the day has taken off in the last 10 years with a massive momentum! All the paraphernalia surrounding Halloween has probably been given a boost by the remarkable success of the Harry Potter stories.

It is odd, I think, that the USA, a country that prides itself on religious observance, should take such a festival to its heart. The day was something that came out of Celtic mythology and paganism. Now it is hard to hear an American mention All Saints Day in connection with Halloween and a similar occurrence is manifested in the UK.

I am not opposed to Halloween so long as it remains cheerful and fun. It is when the game of Trick or Treat becomes something akin to "demanding money with menaces" that I raise my eyebrows! So I would like to see, at least for Christians, a return to a full understanding of what today and tomorrow are really about.

Oh, and a word for the poor old pumpkin! Don't waste it, please! Especially in the UK!! Do as a lot of Americans do, make pumpkin pie or pumpkin soup. Both are inexpensive and I guarantee, once you've got it the way you like them, you won't say no again!

http://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture/halloween.html
http://www.pumpkinnook.com/cookbook.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/features/halloween/pumpkin.shtml

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Time Gentlemen Please!!

It used to ever so civilised in Britain with drinking! Pubs closed on time and the landlord, or in a lot of cases the landlady!, knew how to keep order. It might have been a bit of a bore going home at 10.30 but at least it was reasonably safe and sound. Not anymore in quite a few places. Binge drinking has seen to that!

Instead of sensibly addressing the problem, by giving flexibility on late opening extensions and by curtailing the yobs by locking them up, this government comes up with the idea of 24-hour opening, on the spot fines at ATMs, and banning drinking on trains!! They must have had two disparate focus groups overdoing it on the practical tests! Because they are definitely at sixes and sevens on all this.

It never ceases to amaze me that New Labour either wants to ban everything they can't fix or cause havoc by introducing half-baked policies that nobody has really thought through. This latest wheeze of banning drinking on trains. It's a case of the innocent suffering for the unconvicted guilty! Well, I think Richard Branson should tell our PM exactly what that would do to the profitability of long distance train travel in this country!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4389598.stm

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Scooter Careers out of White House!

This may be the beginning of the end for George Bush's fabled fancies about why he went to war in Iraq! Lewis 'Scooter' Libby is now well and truly caught by the relentless work of the Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. One thing Libby should know about the Irish, they don't give up! All these present shenanigans are because the former American Ambassador to Iraq felt that Bush and his buddies overegged the pudding with regard to Saddam Hussein and his nuclear threat. Joseph Wilson, a career diplomat, travelled to the west African state of Niger in 2002 to investigate whether it was true that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium there. Wilson came back and reported that he did not think any of it was true, undermining US claims that Iraq was trying to build a nuclear bomb. This of course did not endear him to Bush who had already put the bombing of Baghdad in his diary!

To cap it all, it was revealed that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent! Wonder what she picked up in Baghdad? Can't have been anything reliable, just a check list on Tariq Aziz's CD collection!

Funny how George Bush felt it was so easy to repeat all this Niger nonsense in his State of the Union address in January 2003. Then six months later Wilson decided to go public. He wrote an article in the New York Times in which he said he believed that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat". Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, then apparently had her identity revealed to newspaper columnist Robert Novak. And so it rumbled on......

What all this says, I think, is that there will be more coming out about the dodgy reasons for going to war. Regime change was illegal, however honourable the motives. Lying, spinning, and deceiving a nation are no reasons at all. War is hell, so General Sherman once said, and he knew that only too well! Bush doesn't so it was incumbent upon him to get it right. Only if there is a threat to a nation is war right.

Iraq then was no threat, however unsavoury the regime was. It is now, as an unstable melting pot of al Queda and fanatical jihadists roam the streets! Isn't it odd that Iran, with a leader of decidedly evil ideas, such as flattening Israel, and who probably has WMD, and who is making no secret of assisting the insurgents, gets off remarkably lightly?

Bush will soon be having more secrets revealed. Truth has a habit of coming round to the front door!

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Rudeness or Rage?

At the moment I seem to be having an interesting, almost bazarre, encounter with some pedant on a forum, who not only trashes any comment I may say (I've lost his plot apparently!) but he has done the same with others who had the temerity to stray from his narrow path of righteousness!

This has me thinking of Victor Meldrew, the rather curmudgeonly husband and neighbour, of the sitcom series. However, Meldrew had a streak of humour in his cursing and cussing. It would be a sad day indeed if the cause of English democracy were hijacked by po-faced pedants all peering out of petite white laced windows, hoping that their world of correct Englishness was being strictly adhered to. Is this manifestation caused by natural rudeness or is it the release of pent up rage, held previously in check by personal isolation of beliefs and desires?

Whichever it may be, by campaigning for an English parliament, I sincerely hope that we are capable of keeping the lid on some frightful demand for a return to a Cromwellian nightmare of social repression and political stifling!

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English democracy attracts the fringe!

I am a keen supporter of the establishment of an English Parliament for the English. I think that a lot of the links on this blog would attest to that! England is full of many diverse types but mostly we rub along OK. The current political situation is that there is no separate parliament for England. There are so-called regions, with unelected persons such as business people and trade unionists sitting on the quango-style bodies. Scotland has its own parliament now, but Blair sees no reason to give England any redress for this democratic deficit. I don't suppose he would, really, seeing that his government is there on a minority of the people's support!

All this is about political justice and democratic fairness. We have been sidelined in England where it is now seen as wrong, or even racist, to fly the English flag. The English have been made to feel unsure of their right to be English. It's perfectly OK though for the EU flag to flutter all over the place! However, where I part company with some, is when intrusive questioning about people's loyalties and familial background commands most of their waking hours. Not only that, it appears there are a few who are determined to steamroller their version of Englishness over others and appear immune to civilised debate.

I cannot think for the life of me how this is going to endear them to a wider audience. The English Democrats Party have yet to obtain electoral success by having candidates actually elected. Surely it would be better to attract a wider level of support by being open to the public's questions and desire to debate, rather than being dismissed as "You sanctimonious phoney!" and "I suppose some one utterly lacking in comprehension would post such fatuous comments".

All this came about because I had the temerity on a forum to ask whether "some English Patriots are racists?" Instead of a reasoned debate, it seemed to raise the hackles of some who felt they were being goaded, and then all sorts of weird argument came out, complete with dismissive remarks and quite offensive language. Others came to the defence saying that when a conspiracy is felt (meaning Scots running the country!) feelings run high! In addition, there is a running campaign to enquire about David Cameron's father's birth place! What all this has to do with securing an English Parliament, I fail to see.

In the real world of politics deals have to be struck, alliances forged, and above all there has to be an ability to get on with opponents in the democratic system, otherwise parties go nowhere. I would think that if the EDP wants to gain popular support then members and supporters would do best by putting forward their views cogently without slagging other people off over where they were born and creating litmus tests over English loyalty!

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Who's Lying Now?

Having tuned into the new version Sky News on Monday night I noticed that James Rubin (formerly of the Clinton camp) now has a nice turn interviewing the great and the good! Tony Blair was on and he again came up with the old porky that al Queda was in Iraq so that was cause to attack in the first place. Totally wrong, but what does he care? Now there are all kinds of insurgents moving around including al Queda misfits and ba'athist rejects!

And George Galloway is accused by the Senate of telling lies! Whatever one thinks of George, and I tend to think of him as a shameless opportunist but probably no perjurer, it's a bit rich of Republican Senator Norm Coleman, the chairman of the committee in question, to say documents it had uncovered were "the smoking gun". He said that Mr Galloway had "been anything but straight" with the committee and he had sent a report to the US Department of Justice and to British authorities. It has all along been one huge smoking gun and I do not believe Bush or Blair have been straight at all!

Galloway was stupid to get involved with Iraq in the first place in the way he did. It was a nest of vipers and he is just being bitten for his trouble. But truth will out, I hope, and this comedy of errors has far more to run!

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Welcome to Widescreen!

Part of the use of this blog is for me to keep an eye on cheapskate broadcasters! Yesterday, I was watching Sky News and noticed that the images were showing people as if they had some kind of dire disease. A very mishapening one at that! Then I realised Sky News had changed. It had gone widescreen and had given itself a really good overhaul. However, nobody had told Telewest apparently who were blithely broadcasting these widescreen pictures in 4:3 format! Later in the day the penny dropped and all was fixed.

So, Sky News has joined the world of widescreen. An interesting thing is, though, that the commercials seem to revert back to 4:3 so if I were an advertiser on Sky News I'd feel it wasn't being present properly, but, hey, it's moving in the right direction.

Also, a mention for ABC1, a channel I don't normally watch, but has gone widescreen, if only for the ads (they show mostly 4:3 format programmes)!

I think it is important that, if the likes of Comet and Dixon are promoting widescreen TVs in their stores, the broadcasters play the game by providing the service to go with the sets. So come on UKTV, its your turn now!

http://www.sky.com/skynews/home

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Birmingham Riots!

By listening to the press it would appear that Birmingham has a terrible problem with race relations. This is not so, but it looks good to say so for certain journalists. The main problem is that a few, and only a few, Afro-Caribbean youths are in gangs and the same few, only a few, Asian youths have their gangs. The police know about these gangs but seem powerless to break them up. Consequently, 99% of peaceful Brum get a rude awakeing from "riots" from time to time.

This latest riot all started because a black youth alleged that a black girl was raped by an asian lad! And this comment was an allegation in its own right! By which I mean, it could have been concocted by anybody!! Most people want to live in peace and get on with their lives. However, lack of opportunities and a perceived discrimination of resources means certain sections of our community (and community meaning all living in an area!) feel deprived. And this gives the gangs their opportunity! Just look at the criminality in Northern Ireland, where the IRA have succeeded in the biggest bank raid in British history, and the UDA/UVF/UFF/whatever the initials are today group are involved in drugs, moneylaundering and protection racketeering! Do we want that in Birmingham?

The police need to crack down on the gangs (putting their PC garbage in the bin!), the likes of the "political services manager for the West Midlands" should get down on the streets to see for themselves, and the political authorities need to check up on resources management! What would all the wasted money on looking for WMD in Iraq have done for Lozells?

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Wonko's New World!

Wonko's got a new site! Or revamped I should say. He says "I've redesigned Wonko's World. Hopefully you'll like it. If you don't, tell me why via the contact page."

Well, I do like it, so I'm saying so here!

http://www.wonkosworld.co.uk/

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Cart Before The PC Horse?

The Birmingham Post has reported that there is a new charity set up in Brum to try to combat race and hate crime. All well and good, I'd say. Having a cohesive society without hate in it is to be welcomed and supported. However, this charity, Solutions, seems to be putting the cart before the horse.

Speaking at Solutions' launch Unison's political services manager for the West Midlands (whatever that may be!?!), Tony Rabaiotti, said the British National Party had become more dangerous since activists changed the way they dress.

He said: "It's my view that the BNP is the most serious threat to democracy and racial harmony that this country has ever known. That is because they have thrown away their boots and braces and put on their suits under their current leader, Nick Griffin. It has led to them slowly but surely winning political power up and down the country. In recent years, they have been targeting the Black Country and Stoke-on-Trent, because they are areas of high unemployment and disaffected young people."

A couple of points come to my mind. First, I don't think the BNP has actually won any political power up and down the country! Second, his attentions should be aimed towards alleviating the areas of high unemployment and trying to address the reasons why some young people are so disaffected.

With Unison it seems that the subject of the BNP is a bit like foxhunting. Chasing them is more fun than sorting out the real problems. For example, what does this "political services manager" think about the way Sparkbrook has been treated following the recent tornado? A lot of people are still suffering from slow government response. As has been said before, it would have been a lot different if Broad Street was blown away instead!

http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/news/tm_objectid=16258987%26method=full%26siteid=50002%26headline=bnp%2dhate%2dthreat%2dto%2dour%2dway%2dof%2dlife%2d-name_page.html

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Then There Were Two!

Well, I wasn't totally wrong or totally right. Cameron came in tops and Davis slid some. But not enough to save Fox. My prediction was - Cameron 96, Fox 55 and Davis 47. The actual result was Cameron 90, Davis 57 and Fox 51. So Cameron not so many and Davis 10 more than I thought!

This all means that there will be a fight to the finish, allowing the members to settle the final score. My hunch is that Cameron will win because he has electrified the party membership and they are just hungry now for a saving figure to get them out of the mire. So there will be no coronation tomorrow as some pundits predicted and some Tory bigwigs hoped for ( save them a bob or two on a poll!).

They could, however, pursuade the two combatants to merge themselves into one leader immediately. This would save on poll costs and have the added effect of two for the price of one. Cameron Davis, now there's a name to conjure with!

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The House Doctor Cometh!

The Deputy Prime Minister, in the name of John Prescott, is busily reorganising not just the furniture but whole streets in Liverpool. A street of three-storey Victorian terrace homes has become the latest battleground in his controversial Pathfinder scheme after it was identified as the most expensive street earmarked for redevelopment. The Deputy Prime Minister's project aims to replace redundant housing with new accommodation. Homes valued at £145,000 are being bought for demolition. Is he mad? or a philistine? or just plain daft? Has he ever heard of renovating a house?

Jane Kennedy, the Labour MP for Wavertree and Minister of State for Health, revealed the deep disquiet within the Government about Mr Prescott's troubled housing market renewal scheme, which has been criticised as expensive, unnecessary and based on flawed public consultation. I'd say so! The whole country should be up in arms against his cosy relationship with greedy developers and sledgehammer-happy demolitionists.

She said "There is no compelling case to demolish the area other than the vision the company has for visitors coming into the city for 2008. Unfortunately somebody has decided that the Holt area and the people who live there are a blot on the landscape and need to be removed. In my opinion the road realignment scheme has been widened into a scheme of social cleansing."

Social cleansing? Now I wouldn't put it past New Labour toffs to ride roughshod over those who are not "natural" supporters. Ms Kennedy must stand firm, not just for her constituents but for Liverpool's sake and for the country's heritage.

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/17/ndemo17.xml

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Then There Were Three!

The Tory Big Brother House votes out Ken Clarke. Not really surprising, but he didn't do that badly seeing as some pundits put his vote in the 20's. My guess is that the front-runner David Davis, having stumbled a bit, will be seen by his supporters as being not quite up to the mark. They will peel off and he will end up in third place. My prediction for Thursday is - Cameron 96, Fox 55 and Davis 47. Meaning, of course, Davis out of the race. In the end, Cameron will win and everybody will circle the wagons and the campfire will burn into the night and the Tories will wake up in the new dawn of youth and mission. Could just work for them!

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Campaign for an English Parliament - Shropshire Branch Blog

Wonkotsane has published a new blog for the Shropshire Branch of the Campaign for an English Parliament. A lot of good information here about the imbalance now prevailing in the UK due to Blair's cockeyed ideas about constitutional reform.

What other democratic country in the world would accept such politically motivated tinkering with the institutions and the fabric of law making? The more we expose Blair's opportunism and knee-jerk policy formation, the better!

http://cepshropshire.blogspot.com/

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I'm a little bit weird apparently!

These web polls. They're good fun, I suppose. This one says I'm 70% weird. Oh, dear!

You Are 70% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

http://www.blogthings.com/howweirdareyouquiz/outcome.php

I stumbled onto it by looking at Blush Reality. Blush certainly has a turn of phrase. However, her blog makes for interesting reading. No wonder George Bush wanted to live in Texas! Kennebunkport was never that thrilling, I suppose!

http://blushreality.blogspot.com

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Then there were four!

The Tory leadership contest is now down to four. It's a bit like 10 Green Bottles except that about four bottles got knocked off the shelf at once. Then Michael Ancram said he was not entering, and Malcolm Rifkind withrew. So now there are four remaining. I had thought that the true-blue party might be playing 10 Blue Bottles but that seemed a bit unfair. Come to think of it, though, there are a few gadflies in the party!

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Second tornado strikes Birmingham!

We were just trying to get over the first one, and many houses in Sparkbrook still have much work to be done. Hurricanes with greater force, earthquakes, tsunamis, all seem to be more frequent and more terrifying.

Whatever the reason, the climate is definitely changing. I think George Bush must be in denial. The ice caps are melting, the seas are getting warmer, and he says he is not convinced. Jeremy Paxman, of BBC Newsnight fame, thinks we are all going to be roasted in about 20 years time. I have this vision of being caught on some remote island with George Bush begging those of us left to believe he was given the wrong information. A kind of Gilligan's Island with no real reason to leave. Oh boy!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4336208.stm

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Protest over religious hate Bill

The more this authoritarian government tries to ban something or somebody, the more they appear to have little grasp on reality. Tony Blair was trying to say he was not authoritarian yesterday but it sounded rather weak in its sincerity. People are right to be concerned about the new "religious hate" laws that he and his sidekick Charles Clarke are cooking up. Whatever they say it is the fact that, if enacted, these laws would give license for any aggrieved person to complain about someone else's views. A nightmare scenario for the police and CPS.

There was a protest of various groups outside Parliament yesterday. The Reverend Katei Kirby, African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance chief executive, said "It affects everyone so deeply. This is not just about doctrine. This is not even about theological opposition. This is about our basic freedom to speak and to preach. It affects people's freedom to discuss and to critique anything because it might upset or offend somebody else and that is very serious." The National Secular Society also took part in the demonstration. Vice-president Terry Sanderson said "We are coming at it from a completely different angle from the Christians. They are looking at the restrictions on their right to evangelise. We are looking at the restrictions on our being about to criticise religion per se so we can make common cause with them on this. I think this is an indicator to the government of just how wide the opposition is."

Actually, it is more than the right to evangelise. It is about being able to criticise perceived wrongs and heresies in another religion without fear of the criminal law. On that point I would have thought there is a meeting of minds between religious and secular.

The bottom line is do we believe the government or the protesters? My hunch is that the protesters have discerned that the government has missed the point here, but we shall see!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4329716.stm

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Grow your own limbs healing hope

Tony Hancock, that great English comedian, said in the classic Blood Donor episode "you know, they're people walking around today with hardly anything they started out with". At the time it was a funny line bordering on the absurd, being that it was 40 years ago. For our today it is patently true. A team at Manchester University, with funding from The Healing Foundation charity, are looking to animals for clues to how the body can regenerate. They have got some ideas from looking at frogs and salamanders. Odd nobody thought of it before, or maybe they did, and got rubbished as did Edward Jenner, who's memory should not be forgotten.

It was Edward Jenner who, whilst observing cowgirls milking their herds, wondered why they never contracted smallpox. The reason was they were inured to cowpox, as their hands were automatically "vaccinated" by rubbing on the cows' teats. Jenner waited 20 years for the stuffed shirts of the medical profession to take him seriously. 20 years in which people died from smallpox. Jenner had brains and imagination, something lacking in the GMC of the day. He called his system vaccination, after "vacca" Latin for cow!

Medical progress is about lucky finds, discoveries, and careful observation. If adult frogs grow new limbs at least one animal on this planet has something in them to do this. Professor Mark Ferguson, from the UK Centre for Tissue Engineering at Manchester University, said, "Imagine the situation where we have a medicine that perhaps you inject locally at the site of the injury which allows the body to regenerate that particular part. The first advances will probably be in straightforward tissues like the skin and cartilage and then in more complicated tissues like heart and liver. These are areas where advances are being made and will be made in the future. We are very excited."

If only Edward Jenner had people saying to him "We are very excited!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4330906.stm

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Exit stage...into the pits!

It seems that this disastrous theatrical group known as New Labour is going to be upstaged by a real actress. Glenda Jackson says she is prepared in principle to act as a "stalking horse" to trigger a leadership contest against Tony Blair. What kept her waiting so long is what I say. Surely she knew the script backwards, she had a producer, director, and stage manager. In fact several as I understand.

The ham actor has strutted the stage for too long. The play what Tony wrote is no longer playing to rave revues. In fact, the audience figures were never properly tallied anyway!

Ms Jackson, a former transport minister, opposed the war in Iraq. She said "If there was a group of MPs who asked me to put my name forward, I would be ready to be a stalking horse. My feeling is, if he is not going to go now, then he should go at the end of the first 18 months of this Parliament, at the time of the Queen's Speech next autumn. Ideally, he would go now, because we have got local elections to fight."

All too true! Glenda might get more than she thinks. Word on the street is that Gordon will act as impresario-in-chief!

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Cameron Midlander!

David Cameron rejects 'Tory Blair' tag so we are told. I'd say so! The only thing that links the two is some vague thing about age. Cameron told BBC One's Sunday AM programme his aim was to "set people free", while Prime Minister Tony Blair was in politics "to tell people what to do". How true! New Labour has given us more off-the-cuff nonsense in law-drafting and regulations. All spin and no spine, that's the stuff of Blair's big tent. A tent that has virtually no support - I'm thinking of the Dome, oh dear!

Even if he won the contest, there was no "magic wand" or "one single thing" to get the party back into power. He added "People don't want a party that's trying to turn the clock back to 1997. They want us to understand what's changed and to be relevant today, for the challenges we're going to have as a country after Blair, because he's going. We're going to be facing Gordon Brown and I think all elections come down to a simple question - who's the party of the future, who's the party of the past?"

And who's the party of truth and who's the party of spin? That will be the question!

The press have a hypocritical nerve! When asked whether he had smoked cannabis at university, Mr Cameron said only - "I did lots of things before I entered politics that I shouldn't have done." Brilliant answer to a press full of snorters and sniffers!

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The Slick Man of Europe!

Talking about pictures, here's one of our esteemed Prime Minister with the French President. Chirac beware!

It gives me the impression of a schoolboy getting the better of his teacher. Now where have we heard that before?

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The Sick Man of Europe!

It's always funny when smaller parties get the better of the bigger ones. UKIP (the United Kingdom Independence Party) in the person of Nigel Farage, UKIP MEP, caused a certain John Prescott, aka the Deputy Prime Minister, to have a troubling time concerning European matters.

This picture shows Prescott looking like his last lunch was not up to scratch and Farage looking like the cat that got the cream! What a treat!!

http://www.ukip.org/abc_news/gen12.php?t=1&id=1626

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God speaks to the Burning Bush!

George Bush does have something about him, but has he been singled out by God for special missions? According to Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath, Bush said something along these lines.

"I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it."

All this would sound good to an Arab! My hunch is that Bush burbled about how he felt about peace and then Nabil Shaath translated it into Arabic. In Arabic everyone sounds magnificent, bountiful, strong, bright and beautiful! And then someone translated it back into English.

Wow! Suddenly the President is more in touch than the Pope! This all goes to show that the White House may not always understand the company of Arabs!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/elusive_peace/

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Tory Leadership Battle

Five candidates battle it out for the ultimate prize of leading the Conservative Party. David Davis had the dubious title of "front runner" but that was trashed today by the press which seemed to think his speech a tad on the pedestrian side! The trouble here is that the party has had a real trouncing over the last 15 years. Leaders have tried but the membership dwindles and the public views the Tories as not going anywhere, at least for them.

What I detect is that the membership is looking out for a charismatic leader that will take them to the promised land. Davis is not in that league, however competent, good and caring he may be. It's a tough old world. My senses say that a good orator will succeed and that boils down to Cameron or Clarke. Both these men could take on the chameleon that masquerades as the Prime Minister. That would electrify the party. Winning is what counts in politics but winning with a cause and a message. Cameron has the ability to speak from the heart, without notes or prompters, and in an election with a "meet the people" factor, he could do really well. It worked well for John Major on his soapbox!

All the main parties have fewer active members willing to trek to the seaside in order to become like sealions clapping for their dinners. A cursory glance at the hall shows that the leaders are not playing to packed audiences! Maybe towns like Hastings, Skegness and Torquay will be in with a shout giving cheaper venues and the illusion of the "full house"!

Whoever wins the Conservative Party leadership needs to engage with the public so as to make the party worth belonging to. More members for all parties must be good for our democracy. And that means more voters taking part. How can we speak of democracy when our government only enjoys 21.6% active support of eligible voters?

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Overheard! Yes, too much!

These days it is not unusual to be minding your own business in a supermarket, or walking down the street, when your brain is suddenly jarred by voices off! People talking either into mobile phones or loudly about a minor problem that is, to them, momentarily very important.

Just recently I overheard this - "and then he rang and said he wanted one so I said, oh alright, yes, and then Helen got whiffed of it and called for one and then I......." and, of course she was gone! What this did to me was get me thinking as to what the "one" was. This is the trouble with having to listen in a mandatory way to other people's soundbites!

Some time ago I heard two young women talking loudly. As they approached, I heard "ooh, no, I wouldn't do that, not on a first date!". What wouldn't she do? It may not have been what we probably would think. Remember Tony Hancock's retort to an insufferable date "well you've had a fish and chip dinner, what more do you want?"

And finally, as they say somewhere, this mobile phone conversation, or at least the side of it that I was hearing. "Oh, I'm sorry, my dear, have I caught you in the bath?" Did I, and quite a few others on this train at the time, have to endure this auricular savagery? I had visions of this man's wife acting as Archimedes' model! Too much for anyone, I say!

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Iraq chaos threatens ancient faith!

When George Bush thought it a good thing to invade Iraq in order to rid the world of the troublesome Saddam Hussein, it is known that not a lot was done to prepare a plan for the future. In fact, the plan seemed to rest on the fact that all Iraqis, barring Saddam's cronies and henchmen, would be so overwhelmingly pleased that an effective transfer of power to the patsies would happen very quickly.

We now know how terribly wrong the lack of planning or understanding of Iraq has been. Did George Bush or Tony Blair even know there was a Christian community of long standing in Iraq? Had they ever heard of, or inquired about, minorities? What about the Mandeans? They are now fearful of being liquidated as a community!

One leaflet which Mandeans said had been distributed to homes in Baghdad gave this warning to both them and Christians -

"Either you embrace Islam and enjoy safety and coexist amongst us, or leave our land and stop toying with our principles. Otherwise, the sword will be the judge between belief and blasphemy."

This is what we are up against! Bush and Blair, pushed on by acolytes with dubious motives, have no real clue as to what they have done. Islam is now, in part, more radicalised than ever before.

The only way forward is for some Chief Imam to come forward, for Islam to be "modernised" (without diluting its core beliefs!), so that all warmongering, hateful, and oppressive verses in the Qu'ran are expunged. In this way Islam can be seen to become again the peaceful religion it should be!

Spread salutation between you, by saying to each other- As-Salam Alaikum "peace be on you"

Bush and Blair should be minded of unreconstructed Islam! From "An Introduction to Islam" -

Hostile non-Muslim have no right to protection, whatsoever.

However, the same site suggests - Non-Muslims seeking refuge and security in an Islamic territory have the right to full protection

I hope they do believe in helping non-Muslims as some Muslims in Iraq have got the wrong idea!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4260170.stm http://www.iad.org/Islam/rnonmuslim.html

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