Dogwash

Spotted outside The Ledger Building, the Wetherspoon joint at Canary Wharf:


It reminds me of the old story, no doubt apocryphal, of the surgeon who was dictating a report on the complicated intestinal operation he was conducting. In due course the work came back from the audio typist complete with multiple references to the patient's ":".

From this week's Wharf, one of London Docklands' freesheets.

A deaf man charged with threatening to throw a DLR worker on to the track at Canary Wharf was cleared of the attack after he said he was just asking for directions to the Tube in sign language.

Keith Hylton, 46, of Finsbury House in north London, appeared at Stratford Magistrates charged with common assault against two travel safe officers in the incident last July.

The prosecution claimed Maxwell Gjampoh and Mayene Bintu Sesay were attacked by Mr Hylton after waking him up on a train which had terminated at Canary Wharf on a Saturday night.

However, after a three-hour hearing on Tuesday, magistrates dismissed the charges against him due to lack of evidence.

It was claimed that after being ordered off the stationary train, Mr Hylton, who had three beers in Stratford earlier that evening, gestured to Ms Sesay that he would throw her on the track before pushing and punching her colleague Mr Maxwell.

When questioned in court Ms Sesay said the defendant did a pushing motion towards her before pointing down towards the line.

However, in cross exarmning for the defence, Obinna Okamgba asked her: "Did you know that in sign language that means 'where is the Tube?'

"Knowing that and knowing that he's deaf, do you think his loud voice could have been down to his disability rather than aggression?"

Ms Sesay replied: "No, I'm 100 per cent sure he was being aggressive."

She did concede she had not seen her colleague being attacked. She said she had called the control centre before Mr Hylton was claimed to have punched Mr Gjampoh and asked them to record the incident on CCTV.

Mr Okamgba said: "You asked the control room to get CCTV the incident but this court will not see a shred of evidence from CCTV footage."

When called as a witness Mr Gjampoh, who works as a travel safe officer, maintained the defendant had pushed him before aiming a punch at him, which he managed to avoid.

In cross examining the defence lawyer said: "That's not true is it? He never pushed you and never punched you.

"When the police came you made it up because you realised he was deaf and you had mistaken his disability for aggression and you were embarrassed."

Mr Hylton, who was supported by three interpreters in the case, was not called upon to give evidence. However, his statement to police, made in September last year, was read out to the court. In the statement Mr Hylton said he tried to communicate with the DLR staff through sign language and denied acting aggressively.

He said: "I didn't push him. I was tapping him with my fingertips to get his attention because he was talking to his colleague.

"I was trying to find out where the Underground was but communication was a problem."

Magistrate Mr John Martin ruled Mr Hylton not guilty due to there being "no substantive evidence" to back claims an assault took place.

Curiously, whenever there are deaf people around, I find myself instinctively keeping my hands still in case I inadvertently sign something offensive. Looks like my instincts were correct.

Noting the names of the various principals, I wonder how this case plays out in the calculus of victimhood poker.


Proverb of the day: In the Kingdom of the Deaf, the Hearing Man wonders what the others are signing about him. And he's probably right, too.

I don't normally bother reading Edmund Standing's posts at Harry's Place. His long-winded "analyses" are typically tenuously grounded attacks on anyone he considers might just possibly be less than 100% sympathetic towards Jews in general or even harbour mildly niggling doubts about the absolute and unconditional righteousness of the Zionist cause. His usual targets are Muslims and the British "Far-Right".

Not that I have much time for his direct target (Operation Black Vote) and indirect target (Nation of Islam) on this occasion. OBV are just another tiresome bunch of opportunistic race hustlers playing the "I'm Black therefore I'm a Victim therefore give me special privileges and, er, money" game for all it's worth. And the NoI are a bunch of dodgy racist Black pseudo-Muzzies and allround nutters.

For what it's worth, I'd say Edmund's got it right for once. It would appear that the Old Bill made a genuine mistake by raiding what turned out to be an NoI "mosque" and OBV have overreacted, shamefully playing the Black solidarity card with no justification.

Not that that stops Sunny weighing in with a loosely argued rant. He really can't pass up on any opportunity, however contrived, to attack his bête noir, can he? Sunny's getting more and more irrational and bad-tempered by the day. It can't be long now before the "British Asian" with the second-most punchable face in the UK finally explodes, leaving a nasty slippery gory mess all over the blogosphere.

A plague on all their houses.*

I am however indebted to Sunny for the following passage:

Lastly, Edmund Standing, who Harry’s Place publishes regularly, worked for Douglas Murray’s Centre for Social Cohesion. This is what Douglas Murray said in The Hague to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam in February 2006 (note: It was originally posted at the Social Affairs Unit site but has since been taken down without explanation):

The point here is that the whole deal under which Muslims live in our societies must change. At present we ask “why do they hate us”, “what did we fail to give them”, and suchlike. It is time the West woke up to the fact that the militants in our midst – however large a percentage of the Muslim population – will never like us. And we should not want to be liked by them – so we should stop flattering and playing up to them. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition. We in Europe owe – after all – no special dues to Islam. We owe them no religious holidays, special rights or privileges. From long before we were first attacked it should have been made plain that people who come into Europe are here under our rules and not theirs.

I’ll assume that Edmund Standing and Harry’s Place blog writers agree with the above then, shall I?

I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. And, tell you what, Sunny-ji, so do I. Thank you for that quote; it sums up my attitude to our Muslim guests very well indeed.

______
* I originally typed "A plague on all their horses". Well, that too!

Macheath, writing at Newgate News

If Scottish landowners want to encourage visitors to explore the Highlands and Islands and bring a much-needed boost to the local economy, they will need to ensure that, at least in the breeding season, tourists and cattle are kept safely apart.

To deter the wrong sort of tourist, presumably.

From the BBC, reporting on Cameron's visit to India.

Mr Cameron has also faced criticism from the Indian government over the planned [immigration] cap, with commerce minister Anand Sharma saying it could have an adverse effect on trade relations between the UK and India and hit Indian doctors, nurses and engineers seeking employment in the UK.

Impudent wog.

Mr Cameron said the Indian government was among the bodies being consulted about the level at which the cap should be set.

Don't mess around, Dave. Just flog the country to Ratan Tata and be done with it. Perhaps they'll let you and Vinny go for a ride on one of their spaceships as a reward.

Wherever all the po-faced liberal heartsearching about "banning the burqa" may lead us, it's hard not to feel a certain quietly smug retributive satisfaction at this story, in which a couple of young Muslimas are chucked off a London bus because one of them was wearing a niqab. As many of the commenting readers point out, this seems fair revenge for the numerous reported cases of Muslim bus drivers rejecting passengers' dogs, including assistance dogs.

Whatever the Qur'an, the Hadith or even Old King Cole may or may not prescribe about female dress, if Muslims choose to assert their religious and cultural identity, they cannot complain when indigenous Europeans choose to assert theirs in turn. And when the two come into conflict, then I'm afraid Murray's Law applies: our gaff, our rules.

More of this, I say.

It is hard to know what to make of yesterday's last-minute exclusion of Nick Griffin from the Buck Hice garden party. The stated justification is barely credible. Certainly the BNP and its supporters did rather go overboard in their celebration of the invitation, which is understandable as it is a powerful symbol of the respectability and acceptance they crave. All the more so in the light of the relentless odium they are otherwise subjected to from all, or most, sides.

But then again most recipients of this kind of honour are not exactly laconically nonchalant about it.

— "Hi, Nick! Been to Moss Bros? What's with the flash whistle?"
— "Oh, nothing special, mate. I've been invited to some posh bird's gaff dahn Victoria way for a mug of rosy and some cucumber sarnies. See ya."

I don't think so. As for politicizing the event. Well surely that was driven by the media. Which do you believe happened:

— "GMTV? Hi, it's Nasty Nick here. I'd like to invite myself onto the sofa to leverage the public-relations benefit of my invitation to a royal garden party."

or

— "Mr Griffin? Hello, it's Claire here from GMTV. You being such a controversial™ figure and all, and with the political and media frenzy surrounding your invite, we'd like to interview you on tomorrow morning's show."

Criticizing the BNP for being in the media spotlight is reminiscent of those "antifascists" who would quite cheerfully physically assault Griffin if they got close enough then accusing him of being a Nazi thug when he surrounds himself with bodyguards.

And that stuff about increased security risk? What was that about? Expecting an outraged guest to take a pop at him, were we? Or a showing by the self-righteous onanists of the UAF? Suddenly thought of these possibilities on the very morning of the do, did we?

No, someone was desperate to find a way of excluding Griffin while managing to palm the blame and reputational damage off onto him. And this paper-thin nonsense was the best they could manage as time was running out.

(It reminds me of when a blogger, who shall remain nameless, was so desperate to abuse me during a rather heated exchange that he accused me of wanting to amputate one of the limbs of his mixed-heritage wife and repatriate it to the relevant ancestral homeland. The invective did rather lose much of its rhetorical force when he had to explain that the mixed heritage was due to his wife being ... er ... one-eighth Danish. Wow! I wouldn't be at all surprised if I owed a greater proportion than that of my own genetic heritage to those naughty Viking lads who sailed their longboats up the Mersey a millennium or so ago.)

No, there's something odd about this nonsense. I doubt if it's down to the Queen herself. Whether you are a Monarchist or an Anti-Monarchist (or, like me, neither), you have to admit the woman is a professional. She would have the diplomatic and political savvy not to create a mountain out of a non-existent molehill.

So what's it all about?

So desperate are they to stop the BNP from gaining seats in the European Parliament that the partially government-funded Searchlight organization co-ordinates the most intensive media smear campaign I have seen in my lifetime. And when that is only partly successful, so desperate are they to exclude Griffin and Brons from access to the Palace of Westminster that they withdraw the pass privileges of all UK MEPs. The Government's equalities quango conducts a vindictive and highly-selective campaign against the BNP's membership rules with the clear intention of either splitting or bankrupting the party. Yet the NF (too insignificant?) and the Black Police Association (our sort of people?) are ignored. (You think the BPA is open to all races without restriction? Check this out.)

And yet Ketlan and Denise at Lancaster Unity reassure us on an almost daily basis that the BNP is teetering on the brink of collapse. The news media and the Leftish blogosphere gloat over the BNP's poor showing in the recent general and local elections. The blip is over, they assure us. The BNP are knuckledragging cretins of no consequence, we are told from all sides.

So why are they so afraid of them? Why is so much effort put in to thwarting the BNP at every possible turn? At whatever expense in embarrassment or inconvenience? If they are so insignificant, so irrelevant, limited in their support to a handful of the usual nutters, why are the great and the good not simply ignoring them?

They're afraid of something, aren't they?

I'll leave you with an anecdote. On the train the other day, I listened to a conversation between two young men. Rude of me, I know, but like most people I lack the necessary musculature to discreetly "avert my ears". They appeared to be in their late 20s and — if you'll pardon a stereotype, but an effective one — of the respectable White working class. They were discussing race-related issues in the East End and in South London in the guarded terms that come naturally to White people under 50, when one said in serious and concerned tones, "It's building up to something", after which they lowered their voices.

He's right. It is. And I think "They" are shit-scared.

Just listening to reports of the collapse of the firm Goldtrail Holidays on the wireless. Apparently customers currently on holiday will complete their breaks as booked and are then guaranteed a flight home at approximately the expected time. Bookings yet to be fulfilled will be cancelled but customers will, in due course, receive a refund.

That sounds a pretty impressive outcome to me. And yet it is being presented as if it were some kind of disaster. I'm sorry, but being deprived of your annual(?) foreign holiday is undoubtedly a disappointment, but it's not exactly up there with the great humanitarian catastrophes, is it? What next, counselling for deprived holidaymakers? Prosecution of the former directors through the European Court of Human Rights?

Go and visit a museum or something before they reimpose entry charges, and buy the kids ice creams on the way home. And better luck next time, just don't book an El Cheapo holiday with an operator with an unsustainable cashflow model and expect everything to be perfect.

I was listening to an interesting conflict of perspectives on the splendidly relaxed IPM programme on the steam wireless the other morning. A bin man, increasingly overwhelmed by his strenuous job and feeling knackered at 45, is horrified at the prospect of a rising retirement age, while an academic, revelling in her work at at a sprightly 72 is indignant at the idea that she should step down at all.

Which of course is a fair point. People's circumstances, needs and capabilities differ. Though I'm not sure that the application of the convoy principle, as demanded by some on the Left, is either appropriate or indeed feasible. You could take it to silly extremes: professional footballers and pole dancers are usually pretty well finished by their mid thirties, say. We can't realistically use that to justify setting the general retirement age to 35. What our bin man needs is a less strenuous job in his later years. If society can offer resources to facilitate that transfer, then perhaps that is something we might usefully and feasibly aim for.

When the state retirement pension was introduced, it was a measure that could be funded out of Governmental small change, so few would be the takers. Even when I was a child in the 1950s, it was still very much the going rate that a man would retire at 65, and draw his state and possibly occupational pensions for 3 to 5 years before popping his clogs. Earlier deaths were common: the news that some relative, a second uncle thrice-removed perhaps, or some neighbour or family friend had snuffed it in their mid 50s following what today would have been considered a relatively minor illness was so quotidian an occurrence as to evoke little more than a ritual shrug of regret.

The staggering post-war improvement in longevity, brought about one assumes largely as a result of the combination of medical and scientific advances, improved public health measures and improved nutrition, is a development which has taken us all by surprise. About five years or so ago a reader wrote to The Times asking what was the age beyond which the obituaries editor thought it unnecessary to specify the cause of death of the deceased notable, simply assuming "death due to old age". The accepted threshold was apparently 80!

It's no use blaming us evil baby-boomers for this situation, although I agree we could have contributed a few more kids to the future than we did. We are as grateful as everybody else for this benison of extra years, but we're not living longer deliberately as part of some kind of evil plot to spite subsequent generations. Neither party-political nor intergenerational mudslinging is going to help us make the necessary adaptation to our (rather welcome) new situation.

Now I expect you're thinking, apart from cracking the occasional appalling joke, this Greenwood feller normally posts about race relations and immigration. So where's the hook, and where does the spoonerized title above fit in? Well here's a link for you on dear old CiF. Apart from the party-political bleating and blame-mongering, what strikes me most about this thread is the unexpected rehabilitation of the "labourer". The Righteous agonize copiously in their concern for the plight of the labouring classes, those who like the bin man described above already struggle to keep up with their physically strenuous work as they get older. The labouring classes, eh? The horny-handed sons of toil? Just a minute. Aren't these people the selfsame White Working Class who you so readily write off as benefit-sucking criminal chavscum living off the backs of hard-working immigrants in other threads? All of a sudden they're your favorite pets, are they?

Hypocrites.

Remember all those brochures for, say, idyllic holidays in the Yorkshire Dales, in the sort of place where the sighting of a non-White face on the village street would be so unusual as to make the front page of the local paper, with the parish council ordering bunting to be put up to celebrate Great Swiving's new-found diversity and dicussing whether to hold a mela, before realizing that they didn't actually know what a mela is. You know, those brochures which for some reason are always full of pictures of groups of smiling folk so relentlessly ethnically diverse that even the producers of Balamory would, if you'll pardon the expression, blanche.

Curiously, the reverse effect seems to have been in operation in this Mail piece about a forecast that

One in five Britons 'will be from an ethnic minority by 2051'

That fraction seems a bit on the low side to me. But that's an argument for another time. Look instead at the photo used to illustrate the piece. Typical "commuters walking over London Bridge" stock shot. Of about 50 people in clear enough view to guess at their ethnicity, two are clearly North East Asian (Chinese?). The guy in the centre might be South Asian but then again he might be South European. The rest are as White as White can be.

What is the Mail trying to tell us here, if indirectly? That we're going to be overrun by immigrants but don't worry, because we're only going to be overrun by invisible immigrants who are really the same as us anyway and nothing's going to change really, honest.

I told you I wasn't afraid to read naughty websites, so a tip of the titfer to this Stormfronter chappie for pointing up this piece of egregious manipulative hypocrisy.

Oh, and for readers unwilling or unable to follow the Stormfront link above, I repeat this link to a piece in the Independent which partially explains my scepticism about the Mail's numbers.

I am a creature of the Frozen North and apt to become tetchy whenever temperatures venture boldly into double figures. Consequently, during the thankfully now moderating period of hot weather I spent a lot of time in the wee small hours listening to the BBC World Service in the hope of being bored to sleep.

I cannot vouch on a full cross-my-heart and hope-to-die basis for the following as I was, in fairness, only lending the programme about a third of an ear, but it was during the arts magazine programme The Strand, presented on this occasion by the fragrant Indo-Icelandic Guardian columnist, novellist and all-round superwoman Bidisha Eyjafjallajökull.

Bidisha was interviewing an alleged academic who was telling us, in terms, that complaining about the infuriating and incessant droning of the vuvuzela during the recent World Cup was actually racist, as the vuvuzela represented the democratization of participation by the oppressed poor.

What's that word the Saffers are fond of using? Oh yes...

Eish!

Until a few years ago, Greenwich was very much a hideously White blot in a sea of wholesome Swarthiness. The wholesale concentration of the University of Greenwich campus into Greenwich itself (a bit more upmarket than the erstwhile Thames Poly's gaff at Woolwich) has ameliorated this deficiency somewhat. Greenwich has a very high proportion of overseas students (or probationary immigrants as I believe they are known in the trade). (Incidentally, I wonder if Doreen Lawrence, mother of St Stephen, is still working as an administrator at Greenwich Uni. She must be pleased with these developments.)

While this demographic adjustment has superficially improved the credibility of the place and is to be welcomed, it is only a small step in the right direction. It was therefore good to see evidence of succesful ethnic integration into wider society when I visited Greenwich yesterday. I refer of course to the increasing representation of BMEs in the begging community.

Long-established operative Joe, or "Fuck off you parasite" as he is sometimes known, was making his rounds. Joe spends his days wandering the streets and in more clement weather patrolling the beer gardens of Greenwich soliciting contributions. I believe Joe is of North Indian or mixed-race heritage. Yesterday his efforts were supplemented by those of a Black Big Issue vendor, whom I have not seen before. Romanian Gypsies have recently secured the franchise for Big Issue sales in central London and are beginning to extend their operations to the suburbs, so perhaps he had been displaced. Joe was joined by a raddled and aggressive White colleague with whom he discussed "solicitation strategies" after which a Black gentleman, clearly an amateur as well as an outsider, stopped to inquire after contributions. He was not made welcome.

I didn't see the Hostel Woman yesterday though; probably a bit early for her. The Hostel Woman is of indeterminate age and indeterminate ethnicity. She has the look of someone whose ancestors moved from India to the Caribbean where they enjoyed a little dalliance with the Black population, itself of course part White in heritage. The Hostel Woman works the trains from London Bridge to Greenwich during the homebound peak. Her pitch is that she just needs another £5 to be able to afford a hostel place for the night; otherwise she will have to sleep rough "again". Enough passengers give her a pound towards her "target" that when she cashes up at Belushi's next to Greenwich station, she usually changes up at least £40 or £50 before meeting up with her partner and taking the train home.

I notice the quality of the itinerant Chinese DVD vendors is not what it was. Mostly mumbling furtive young men these days. I do rather miss the enterprising and friendly Chinese girl who presented her wares nicely, knew her stock and cultivated her customer relationships. She was on first name terms with the pub cat at The Mitre and was trying unsuccessfully to teach the pub customers Mandarin. They never entirely grasped the lexical tonality of the language and persisted in pronouncing Ni hao ma? in a manner which probably means something extremely rude to a Chinese ear. I wish her well.

Ah, London. Where would we be without our Vietnamese community and their extensive indoor herb gardens, and the tireless Jamaicans who distribute the crops? The Somalis who manage the retail market for recreational chemicals of a stronger nature with such firmness and efficiency? Our Nigerian entrepreneurs who are so helpful in facilitating the supply of documentation, circumventing the arthritic bureaucracy of the state? And by no means least, the Kosovar businessmen who have so selflessly filled the gaps in brothel management, now that the Maltese are no longer willing to do the work?

Richard Littlejohn is less than entirely impressed by the police's massive response to the late Raoul Moat's recent shooting spree both in terms of its own execution and when compared with what Littlejohn feels to be the criminal justice system's longer term failure to deal effectively with Moat's earlier history of offending and unacceptable behaviour.

I've no doubt we shall hear lots more on this from various quarters, but this jibe strikes me as unfair

At Press conference after Press conference, [Police spokesmen] psycho-babbled like any professor of sociology.

They inadvertently used the expression 'nutter' and had to say sorry, lest they had offended the nutter community.

A convicted child-beater and self-proclaimed bloody murderer was addressed obsequiously as 'Mister' Moat, and assumed to care about the offspring he liked to thump so hard that their teachers spotted the bruises.

I have no doubt that among themselves, the Old Bill were perfectly happy to describe Raoul Moat as a "nutter". And I would be surprised to learn that in private they used the honorific "Mister" routinely to refer to him.

But whether you refer to Moat as "a nutter" or, following the terminology of the various psychologists (psycho-babbling trick cyclists no doubt in Littlejohn-speak) who were consulted by the media, call him "a paranoid narcissist", the fact is that the Police were dealing with an armed madman teetering on the edge, at an unknown location and with ongoing access, so it would seem, to the Internet and to the broadcast media whose reporting he was apparently petulantly displeased with.

What would Mr Littlejohn have preferred Police spokesmen to say on air? "Look here, Moat, you feeble little scumbag, we're going to track you down eventually and when we catch you we're going to strip you naked, chop your bollocks off and leave you to bleed to death in the market square", perhaps? Very satisfying, I'm sure. But thus almost certainly tipping the bugger over the edge, causing him to make good on his threat to take out a few more innocent citizens before his inevitable demise. Mere collateral damage, of course.

There are times when it may be wiser to appease, even suck up to, the madman, to keep him stable and give him hope until you can relieve him of his weapon with as little damage as possible; after which you can insult him to your heart's content. This was one such occasion.

Tantalizing snippets from the Exeter Express & Echo

A self-confessed wood fetishist has been found guilty of a number of sexual offences including rape.

One is tempted to wonder what sense of the word 'wood' is in play here. Images also come to mind of outraged semiliterate peasants shouting "Xylophile!" while chasing a bemused xylophonist down the road.

A deaf Dalmatian being cared for by the RSPCA at an Exeter animal shelter has been taught sign language by staff.

Alright, then, what is the BSL for "woof"?

There's a rash of programmes about London on Radio 4 at the moment. Mostly, directly or indirectly, about "celebrating diversity". In one recent example Andrea Levy was telling about her Jamaican father's complaints about how difficult it was to get guavas and other exotic fruit and veg. in London in the bad old days and how restricted was the range of boring old English veg. at the greengrocers. Nowadays, Andrea reassured us, everything was so much better and the most exotic produce your heart might desire was to be had at every street corner.

Ah! As a thick boring pallid indigene, I think I am at last beginning to understand what this diversity business means.

London's wonderful vibrant hyperdiversity means the opportunity to be patronized by foreigners from all over the world without leaving Zones 1-6.

Persecution doesn't cease to be persecution, in our view, just because an individual can take avoiding action by being discreet.

—— UNHCR spokesman

And a threat of persecution which can be neutralized by the exercise of discretion is not in itself persecution. If a gay Iranian man chooses to flounce down the main drag (if you'll pardon the expression) of Qom wearing a pink tutu and blowing kisses at the mullahs then there may be well be consequences. It is not our responsibility to protect him from those consequences.

Less dramatically, if the Cameroonian gentleman interviewed in this BBC clip chooses to kiss his 'gay' partner in public in a country which is not only socially homophobic but actually makes homosexual relationships illegal, then it is not our duty to protect him from the seemingly inevitable consequences of his provocation. It is up to him to use a bit of common sense.

I might think my boss is a complete tosser. But if I tell him so to his face, then there will be consequences. Should I then go crying to an employment tribunal when he fires me?

I have no problem with people who find the society in which they live incongenial seeking to live somewhere else. The Cameroonian gent might be happier in Old Compton Street than in downtown Douala. But that doesn't impose an obligation on the British authorities to allow him to do so.

If the UNHCR and all the other quixotic liberal rightsmongers want the West to be responsible for extending the West's standards to the rest of the world, then perhaps the West ought to be given the corresponding political power. You want us to protect the rights of gay men in Cameroon? When London (or Paris as it may be) exercises imperial power in Yaoundé, then we'll think about it.

In this comment at Pickled Politics, regular commenter "boyo" rattles off a list of organizations he regards as complicit in the balkanization and communalization of British society,

... MCB, MAB, EDF, UKIP ...

A rather eclectic or quite possibly random selection, I would have thought. But my eye is caught once again by the involvement of the EDF. References to this disruptive shadowy organization occur repeatedly across the blogosphere. It is, so it is suggested, some kind of counterrevolutionary rightist paramilitary cadre which descends at random upon peaceful multicultures where it seeks to foment dissension while holding pitched battles with its sworn enemies, a band of vicious (or possibly even viscous) leftist thugs known as Weyman's Wankers.

But why, I ask yet again, is my electricity supplier, Électricité de France, getting involved in street politics? And is all this being funded out of my electric bill? Hmm! I did have my suspicions about that Chinese gentleman who turned up yesterday at my door. "Meter man", he called out in an unconvincing sing-song accent. I should have given the bastard a damned good scruting before allowing him into the premises.

But wait, a swift peruse of Wikipedia dislodges other even more worrying possibilities. The Estonian Defence Force, eh? Yes that must be it. I've always had my doubts about that Lembit Öpik feller. I mean, really. An Irish-Estonian with a potato-shaped head, failed MP, failed stand-up comic who used to hang out with a matching pair of Romanian pop tarts. Come on, you expect us to believe that cover story? Now if only we could work out what Lembit Öpik is an anagram of.

Enough of this conspiracy theory, it's doing me 'ed in. Right, Edwin! Smear yourself with pork fat to ward off Muslims, don your tinfoil hat and it's off down Sainsbury's in the Occupied Territories to resupply the larder before you starves to death. Innit?

I was having difficulty sleeping last night, so I listened to the wireless for a while. In the space of an hour or so, I learned about the following from the BBC World Service (World Football and Outlook)

• The tribulations of a team of lesbian footballers in South Africa.


• A woman in Ethiopia making a stand against the culture of marriage by abduction.


• An all-female mountain-climbing team in Nepal.


• A gay gypsy man in the UK running away from his violent father and coming out.

Good grief!

I suppose I must be grateful that the arts magazine programme The Strand which followed all of this stuff was not on this occasion presented by the ultra-right-on Bidisha, otherwise we would probably have been treated to a short gig by a Lesbo-Anarchist band from Finland, who perform by strumming their clitorises as a protest against FGM. Instead we had Harriet Gilbert celebrating Istanbul's status as a 2010 European (sic) capital of culture.

Incidentally, why does Bidisha assume that we gora simpletons can't pronounce her family name? Or is she just ashamed of actually being called Bidisha Eyjafjallajökull?

I'm not sure why people are upset about this, as reported at the Angry People in Local Newspapers blog. At least it's honest. Many's the time I've followed one of those big yellow

DIVERSION

signs, in due course reaching the matching

END OF DIVERSION

sign without encountering anything remotely diverting in between. At least "Pedestrian Diversion" manages down expectations in a truthful, open and professional manner. More of it, I say.

Oh, and why is it I can never see the sign

CYCLISTS DISMOUNT

without having to firmly resist the temptation to burst into a spirited rendition of

Cyclists Dismount! Get off your bleeding bikes!

sung to the tune of the Christmas hymn Christians Awake? To be honest, I wouldn't mind this mental tic so much if I just knew the rest of the words.

From a Pickled Politics comment thread, this contribution from "AF" (aka "Abu Faris"?)

Only Brown and Black people are allowed to make critical remarks about other Brown and Black people – and only after their remarks have been passed by Sunny, the Ali G of identity politics.

Tell us it ain’t so, Sunny.

(My emphasis)

Just thought I'd preserve that for posterity before Sunny finds time in his busy schedule to carry out his (standard) threat to delete it.

An awful thought has just struck me. I've been referring to the Ineffable One as "Sunny Ji". Should I be writing "Sunny G" instead? Oh the shame of it. The thin sheen of intellectual plausibility wiped away. Exposed at last as the orthographically challenged knuckledragging troll that I truly am, I abase myself in contrition before the Righteous.

Or something.