Dogwash

The 18:00 Radio 4 news this evening reports extensively on Muslims Against Crusade's plans for a demonstration against the royal wedding, or more precisely a demonstration about assorted Islamic grievances, using the event as a hook, which they wish to hold outside Westminster Abbey this coming Friday. At the end of the report it adds insouciantly, "It's thought the English Defence League will also hold a protest".

Oh yes. So the EDL are planning to protest against the nuptials of Kate and Wills are they? Unpatriotic far-right siegheiling bastards, eh?

What has actually happened is that a tentative proposal was floated within the EDL rank-and-file for the EDL to take on any MAC demonstrators that turn up in London. This proposal was rapidly talked out as being dangerous and counterproductive.

As Edmund Burke put it,

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.

After all, has the BBC actually told any untruth on this occasion?

Look, I know the Internet is a dangerous place, but this is all getting out of hand.

OK, so a couple of female customers at a McDonald's "restaurant" in the States pick a fight with another customer and proceed to kick the living shit out of her. Pure underclass "And in other news" stuff.

OK, so the ringleader in the attack has form for this sort of carry-on. Well, you do need to practise to maintain proper standards of violent abuse, innit.

OK, so the victim turns out to be a conversion job, which adds a certain prurient spiciness to the story. And, heh, it's nice to have your own special interest group to speak up for you:

...transgender activists announced they would be holding a protest outside the Rosedale restaurant at 7pm today.

An employee of the "restaurant" videoed the incident on his mobile phone. Fair enough; one can only assume he was gathering evidence so that his manager could conduct a risk assessment.

But then the now former employee, Vernon Hackett, posted his masterpiece online where it

"...attacked hundreds of thousands of viewers."

I can't take any more of this technology stuff. I'm disconnecting the electricity, sharpening my quill pen and laying in a stock of cleft sticks.

Our good friend Ketlan at Lancaster Unity offers this piccie as part of his ongoing effort to demonstrate conclusively that the EDL are actually an undercover detachment of Sturmabteilung dropped through a hole in the space time fabric to harry the Multiculture. (Wir fahren noch heute gegen Engeland!)


Seeing as wot I didn't exactly cover myself in glory the last time I wrote about published photographs of the EDL at play, I shall refrain from directly questioning its authenticity and await developments.

But I do have two questions, one general, one particular.

1. Why are the Far Left so completely obsessed with Hitler salutes as if they are of some vital significance? The next time I run into a gaggle of UAF, at a safe distance I hasten to add, I am going to have difficulty restraining the temptation to siegheil ironically at them while nonchalantly whistling the Horst Wessel Lied.

2. Just what is that flag that the geezer with the stiff arm is holding? No EDL-related flags come to mind, though to be fair I haven't done a thorough search. The only two national flags that would match seem to be Poland and the Czech Republic.

Just curious.

Bloggers of an Unrighteous persuasion are for ever whingeing about the tantalizing coyness of the mainstream media about the ethnicity of those involved in perpetrating violent street attacks. As indeed about the reluctance of the police to speculate on a racial motivation underlying an attack, an important matter given that the law differentiates between racial and non-racial motivation. Well, I am pleased to note that this report from that paragon of balanced reporting, the Manchester Evening News exhibits no such reticence and is admirably forthright on all counts.

Some excerpts:

A man was hit in the head with a rock, punched, kicked, stamped on and attacked with a stick in a racist gang attack.

The 21-year-old suffered a deep cut to his head in the attack on Kesteven Road, Harpurhey. He was also racially abused.

The victim, who is from the Sudan, was walking home at about 4am on Saturday, April 23, when two white men asked for a cigarette.

When he offered them one, they hurled racist insults and punched him in the stomach.

...

The attackers are white and between 19 and 20 years old.

...

Detective Sergeant Shagufta Khan said: "Greater Manchester Police takes all reports of racial abuse, whether it be verbal or physical, extremely seriously.

"It is extremely sad that in this day and age people are motivated by racial hatred.

"Racism is something we all abhor and I want to stress we are doing all we can to find the culprits so they can be brought to justice for what they have done.

"Not only did they shout racist abuse, they took it further by using such a level of violence it is thankful the man did not suffer more serious injuries.

"The fact they were prepared to strike him in the head with a large stone shows not only are they racist, but they are dangerous and we need to catch them.

"I would appeal to anyone who witnessed what happened to call us."

(I have taken the liberty of emboldening at selected points.)

— "Any questions?"

— "Yes, Sergeant. Do you have a description of the attackers? Their ethnicity, for example? That doesn't seem entirely clear."

— "Sergeant? Could you just clarify one small point? I understand the victim is an African gentleman. Are you treating this as a racially motivated attack?

We are now apparently required to panic about ethnic imbalance among the contestants of the TV quiz show Mastermind. I'm sure the mandatory CiF handwringing article plus shouting match will be along shortly (unless I blinked and missed it), whenever the Guardianistas get back from pissing on churches, or celebrating organic Kwanzaa, or whatever it is these people do over Easter. But the Independent has the shocking story.

But yesterday's attempts to broaden the programme's ethnic reach by staging auditions in the cultural melting pot of Bradford, West Yorkshire, failed to score when no Asian would-be participants turned up. Undeterred, the BBC insisted it had started the process, so it would finish.

Jon Kelly, the series producer, said that in order to overcome the perceived image of the show, the BBC had been advertising in publications read by ethnic minorities, marketing on-line and holding auditions in under-represented areas. "What we've found quite markedly is we aren't getting the applications from the black and mixed ethnic populations," said Mr Kelly.

I'm not sure what the "black and mixed ethnic populations" are, Mr Kelly. I believe the usual phrase is "black and minority-ethnic populations".

Anyway, perhaps they're not interested. Not everybody in the country is interested in attempting to answer random questions in a competition to win a glass bowl, or whatever it is these days.

Whatya gonna do, force them? Round up Blacks and South Asians off the street and strap them forcibly into the Black Chair? Of course, there is the (say it very quietly) competence question. Judging by the performance of one rather famous Black contestant, you may need to adapt the standard of questioning to meet your diversity targets.

Humphrys (for it is he): "Mr Ahmno Oyinbo, you scored 20 points and a 6-year prison sentence in your specialist subject, 'Nigerian 419 Fraud techniques'.

"Your general knowledge questions begin now...

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

Could get pretty tedious, I reckon.

Is any of this shit of the remotest interest or relevance to anybody, Black, White, Brown or Stripy, outside the incestuous circles of the BBC and the Liberal Elite?

As far as this White man's concerned, I can only quote the parting words of Rhett Butler in the director's cut of Gone With The Wind,

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a fuck."

Speaking of nominative determinism in a Chinese context, as we were.

A good friend of mine visited her dentist for treatment. Her dentist is called Mr Ng. Which is entirely appropriate, considering the sort of conversations one has with dentists.

Dentist: Right then, I'm going to have a good scrape round that rotten cavity with this evil-looking hook. It's going to hurt like hell, I'm afraid. Well, I'm not really, and you're well strapped in. Is that OK? [Smiles evilly.]

Patient [sweating profusely and with a mouth already packed chock-full of dental hardware]: Ng! Ng!

Dentist: Good.

Patient: Aaaargh!

Note that it doesn't matter what the patient actually means by "Ng! Ng!". The exchange is entirely phatic in nature.

Oh. And just when was my friend's session with her Chinese dental practitioner? Well it couldn't really have been any other time, could it? Two thirty.

Amazing the things you hear on the BBC World Service. Today Peter Day's always slightly breathless In Business programme introduces us to the Hurun "Rich List", an anuual league table of China's feelthy rich, similar to those with which we are already familiar in the decadent West.

Apart from reconfirming my opinion that the Chinese are a dangerous bunch of sneaky Orientals whose legendary inscrutability needs to be tested by kicking them forcefully and repeatedly in the economic bollocks — even if we do have to buy the necessary steel toe-capped boots from the, er, Chinese in the first place — this is of only passing interest apart from one thing.

The Hurun Report is run by an Englishman of presumably Dutch descent called Rupert Hoogewerf.

The anglicized pronunciation of his surname is, as near as damn it, "Huge Worth". Well, certainly if spoken with a Sarf London accent, innit.

OK, I've double-checked the date and you can't get a much more impeccable source than Her Britannic Majesty's Embassy in Beijng. But really... a list of people of huge worth compiled by a geezer called Huge Worth ... is one having one's plonker pulled here?

Oh, sod it, I'm going back to bed.

From the Express

RETREAT ON HALAL LABELLING

Thursday April 21,2011

Euro MPs shied away from labelling meat from ritually slaughtered animals as halal yesterday to avoid causing religious offence.

Members of the European Parliament’s food safety committee voted for clear labels so consumers can see whether animals were stunned or not before being slaughtered.

But the supermarket labels would simply say “meat from slaughter without stunning” rather than “halal”.

The proposals are expected to be opposed by national governments which are concerned that the issue is too controversial for EU food labelling rules.

British officials have indicated that the Government will not support the latest call.

Despite the dhimmitude, loosely paraphrased as "Don't upset the Muzzies or they will riot", this is not as bad as it seems. It is certainly more than I expected.

(The Jews don't like it either of course, but they will campaign against it and twist arms behind the scenes; there is a real danger, or at least a rational fear, that the Muslims will resort to violence.)

But the wording, if it gets through, will not be lost on those of the native population who are not entirely stupid. They will soon learn the subtext, and they will soon notice the extent of the problem. That can be capitalized upon.

If there is one thing above all that infuriates me about halal and shechita it is the extent to which its economic viability in the UK is dependent on deception: on selling it to unsuspecting kuffars/goyim. If it is honestly labelled, and the infidels continue to eat it, then fair enough.

The Yorkshire Post has a piece on a recent EDL appearance in Halifax. Business as usual stuff, but look at the accompanying photograph, reproduced below


You will notice the EDL chappy in the green hoodie, centre right, who appears to be giving a "Hitler salute". Alerted by a reader comment,

9
Lion of Judah
Monday, April 18, 2011 at 01:55 PM

#4 Obviously the truth cannot be accepted by you as it would shatter your false illusions as to who is really to blame for stirring up strife in the community. I stand by absolutely every word I said. It is absolutely factual. By the way it is a very, very cheap trick by the photojournalist concerned to use a single micro-framed shot to suggest a Nazi salute when no such salutes were given. Think about it for a moment. If the EDL is so keen NOT to appear to be associated with Nazis in any way why in heaven's name would they then perform Nazi salutes right in front of the police and media cameras? The fact is they didn't. The whole tenor of this press article - both in its wording and in its pathetic use of selective micro-framed shots to insinuate a negative image - as well as the local news blackout re. the horrendous attack upon the Courtyard pub in Halifax last week - shows that people really are being force-fed a distorted propagandised version of "community cohesion" and that those who dare to address such propogandised version's shortcomings will be demonised accordingly.

(My emphasis)

I downloaded and examined the photograph more closely. Here is the detail (apologies — linked image is 500KB to retain detail).


Examine the linked image. Note the distinct straight boundaries around the hooded figure who is enclosed in an obvious rectangle which has no relationship to the subject. Note the confused transition at the left, where the parts of the image do not match cleanly. The raised black-sleeved arm to the left of the hooded gent seems not to be connected to anybody.

I'm no expert on digital photography or indeed on JPEG artifacts, but this picture looks to me, in my inexpert ignorance, as if it's been faked, overlaying an unrelated image of a siegheiling individual onto the genuine picture of the EDL demonstration. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen that "sub-image" before.

Naughty. Very naughty.

If we can't believe the photographs in a major regional newspaper with an honourable history, just what can we believe?

The case of the John Snow Two is clearly not going away, with another mass mince-in and display of gratuitous exhibitionism scheduled for tomorrow, 21 April.

There seems to be a lot of faux outrage and indignation in circulation among the excitable, both among the "I demand my rights" gays and the "heh, man I'm so cool" straight liberals. This chap, for example, who blogs about restaurants and gastropubs in London, seems to have visited the John Snow for the express purpose of being offended by it.

- It’s inexplicably busy all the time. The only reason I can think of as to why this may be is because there’s a miniature hatch linking the 2 bars, through which it’s funny to pop out of after a few pints of piss-flavoured ‘Alpine Lager’. The amount of trade looks set to change very shortly however.

- The management and staff are raging homophobes who last night ejected two gay men from the John Snow for kissing. That’s right. Kicked out of a pub in Soho of all places, for kissing. In 2011.

This is pretty typical of the petulant arm-waving going on across the web.

"Kicked out of a pub in Soho of all places, for kissing." This meme is widespread, and the chap quoted here ought to know better, considering his obvious familiarity with the area. Soho is not some kind of 100% gay ghetto, with perimeter gates where the guards assess the sexuality of each prospective entrant into the area. (Answers on a postcard please.) The open gay café and bar culture is focused strongly on Old Compton Street, with some spillover into adjacent streets. The John Snow is in Broadwick Street, an area which is dominated by media and "creative" businesses, and of course the nearby world centre of sad pretentious funky tat, Carnaby Street. Nonetheless the area does not seem particularly "gay" in character. The Blue Posts, 100m down the street, did use to be run by a middle-aged, mildly camp, gay couple, though the clientele was very much focused on Berwick Street fruit and veg market and the place wasn't particularly gay in character.

"The amount of trade looks set to change very shortly however." That remains to be seen. As I noted earlier, the clientele looks pretty mixed to me. Though it would be fair to observe that a fair number of them may be of the young middle-class liberal "right on" type keen to have the opportunity to brandish their political correctness badges. We shall see.

I visit the John Snow no more than 10 times a year, on those occasions when I have business up near Oxford Circus and am walking back towards Charing Cross. If this nonsense goes on, I shall make a point of visiting more often.


Time for a spot of whataboutery, methinks. You will have heard of the Admiral Duncan, a gay pub in Old Compton Street whose wider fame rests entirely on the fact that a nutter with a checklist of groups of people he didn't approve of detonated a nail bomb there. The Duncan wasn't always an explicitly gay pub. I popped in a couple of times for, literally, a swift half in the 1980s when it seemed to be just another run-down tatty West End boozer which might or might not have seen better days, the sort of place you might call in on the way somewhere else but would no way target as a destination. I had not been in the place for some years when I passed by and saw it had been extensively refurbished. Curious, I approached the door. I was met by a doorman who said, "This is a gay bar". I was absorbing this information and did not respond sufficiently promptly, so he added, "And we prefer gay customers."

Heterophobia of the most obnoxious stripe, surely. Should I have waved my arms about? Should I have contacted the police? This was before the days not only of "social networks" but also of the universal Internet. Yes, kiddies, there was life before Faceache and the iPhone. Should I nonetheless have organized groups of like-minded straight men to stand outside, necking cans of Stella, smoking, chanting and taking the piss.

(What ho, who's for organizing a band of footie hooligans to go down the Candy Bar and demand entry, then if refused do the management for gender and sexual orientation discrimination?*)

Well, in fact, I simply reflected briefly on the sad fact that Old Compton Street was indeed ghettoizing itself and moved on somewhere else.


I don't begrudge the "gay community" their special places where they can "be themselves". As an able-bodied middle-aged straight White male, I would like them to return the favour. Why not simply accept that there is behaviour which would go entirely unremarked at Kudos or 79CXR which might be disapproved of in the John Snow or the Dog and Duck — and leave the rest of us the fuck alone?

It seems to me that what the gay people demonstrating outside the John Snow are doing is not fighting homophobia but demanding that the wider society be made over in their image. It is actually a form of bullying.

I will leave you with a comment from a reader of the Pink Paper, who seems to have the measure of the situation.

Here we go again. Another 'outraged gay couple' story which has hit the news and which has left many people both gay and straight wondering now whether this wasn't just done for publicity and/or compensation purposes. As for the 'kiss in' follow up, In my opinion it's done more harm than good as it has now demonstrated for pure publicity purposes the overtly militant attitudes now prevalent in the community, and also how cheaply it is prepared to sell itself at all costs to make a point. And this latest news item really has finally made it the laughing stock of the year (so far).

Precisely so.

___
* The Candy Bar is next door to Private Eye's offices. Each time I pass I find myself wondering what Hislop and Co think to the place.

Q1. When you order a plate of buffalo wings, what do they do with the rest of the buffalo?

Q2. Given the remarkably small size of the wings, how do buffaloes ever manage to get airborne? I mean, have you ever seen a flying buffalo?

Jus' wondrin', thassall.

Emdadur Choudhury, who burned remembrance poppies in the street in London on Armistice Day, was fined £50.

Andrew Ryan, who burned a Qur'an in the street in Carlisle, has been imprisoned for 70 days.

The only substantive difference between the two provocative demonstrations that I can see is that Ryan had borrowed the book from Carlisle public library and is in consequence of his action unable to return it in acceptable condition. He is therefore liable to compensate the library for the cost of replacement. It is not as far as I am aware recorded how Mr Choudhury came by the poppies.

Apart from that the two offences, if offences they be, strike me as pretty well equivalent. This discrepancy in punishment is not acceptable.

Some commentators on the Left have suggested that Qur'an protest burning, as carried out variously by Pastor Jones, Mr Ryan and BNP wallah Siôn Owens, should be severely punished because it is likely to lead to inflamed Muzzie mobs running riot and killing people. That's a curious argument. As one commenter (somewhere or other, I can't remember where) pointed out, if I decided to express my revulsion for Hitler and Nazism by publicly burning a copy of Mein Kampf, would I then be culpable if a group of offended neo-Nazis ran riot in consequence?

Quite soon now, the camel's back is going to snap.


Update (19:10)

The sentencing was reported on the 18:00 news on Radio 4, ie at national level. A minor public order offence in Carlisle? What's this? A salutary warning of the consequences of upsetting the Chosen Ones?

I was up in that there London yesterday. But I didn't join the crowds of spectators watching the marathon. I rarely watch the race in the flesh these days. I don't know if this makes any sense, but I tend to find the experience a bit overwhelming.

Not the elite runners, not even the club runners, but the spectacle of 35,000 ordinary people attempting to run 42km in one go, and largely succeeding. That's the distance from Heathrow to Gatwick, which is handy to know if you can't afford the transfer bus.

And when these ordinary Joes and Janes have nonchalantly trotted over the finishing line, do they collapse exhausted in a heap? No, most of them seem to stroll off with their mates to the nearest pub where they make a bloody nuisance of themselves.

Just think about that for a moment. That is well impressive.

As I may have mentioned before, my attitude to homosexualist activities is largely one of indifference. I am not particularly exercised about it, nor do I wish to celebrate it or have it celebrated in front of me. As Mrs Patrick Campbell expressed it, "... as long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses". If you want to hold gay pride marches through Soho, then I won't be calling for you to be horsewhipped or strung up from the nearest lamppost. On the other hand, I may laugh mockingly at your exhibitionistic self-importance.

And now for some news from our horse-frightening correspondent,

Gay couple 'removed from Soho pub for kissing'

As regular readers will be entirely unsurprised to learn, I happen to know the John Snow. Purely in connection with my ongoing sociological research project into London pub culture, of course. It is a small Sam Smith's pub in Broadwick Street. Smaller than it looks, in fact. Although it is rather awkwardly partitioned into three traditional "rooms", there are no secluded corners available which are suitable for discreet dalliance. The clientele is mixed, with young middle class media types, older manual workers and retired folk from nearby social housing attracted by the startlingly low prices. (If you want a cheapish pub drink in central London, go to a Wetherspoon. If you're too skint even to indulge in industrialized drinking in the Church of St Tim, find yourself a Sam's pub.)

Precisely what "kissing" amounted to in this case is not absolutely clear from the BBC report. Attitudes vary: one man's peck on the cheek is another man's Roman orgy. As far as the John Snow is concerned, it doesn't strike me as the as the sort of place where snogging would be welcome. From my relatively limited experience of the place, a perfunctory greeting or parting kiss between a heterosexual couple would be as far as it goes. A full mutual anatomical exploration session would get a bucket of water thrown over you.

Which is fine by me. There are accepted conventions in these matters. Should it make a difference that it was a "gay" couple? I don't see why not, to be honest. It's a very mainstream straight pub. It has its own respectable straight mainstream standards. If I were to indulge in the strange White male habit of wandering round without a shirt on as soon as the sun comes out for more than five minutes and called in at the John Snow for a bevvy, I rather expect I'd be told where to go in very clear language. And if the punters or the guvnor are not keen on gay snogging in the snug, then fair enough. I don't think a formal notice specifying the maximum tolerated depth of tongue penetratrion is absolutely necessary.

To the gaggle of limp-wristed offendees who stood outside chanting, "We're here, we're queer, we won't buy your beer", I can only say, fair enough, fuck off down the Duncan then. Or Compton's. Or G·A·Y. Or any of the Ku bars. All places I probably wouldn't even get served in, even I if wanted to be.

What makes this non-event worth writing about at all is the traditional overreaction:

• It was reported in the main news on Radio 4 and, FFS, on the World Service yesterday evening and this morning.
• The police have become involved.

So a brace of shirtlifters is shown the door at a Soho pub. The West End division of the League of Ships' Marys duly flounces up to hold a mass pout-in. Inspector Knacker takes an interest and the outrage is reported on the national radio news.

The EDL goes to Blackburn to demonstrate about the large-scale grooming and pimping of young White girls by "Asian" criminals, and also (for the benefit those Righteous commentators who were incredulously puzzled by the EDL's apparent interest in road safety) about the unwillingness of the police to prosecute dangerous driving and other serious vehicular offences when the perp is one of the Brown community. Nary a peep from the Beeb. Casuals United demonstrate outside the home of the Charleneburger in Blackpool. No interest. (As a matter of technical curiosity, is long pig halal?)

Bollocks.

Just as well these two lads weren't Black as well. Otherwise the landlord of the John Snow would have been in Belmarsh by now and the pub demolished.


Ah, that's better, I needed that. (© Ken Dodd.)



Update (09:40)

Now CiF is on the case. 450 comments in 12 hours. 12 hours overnight, that is; do these people never sleep. Well, fuck me with a rusty scruting probe smeared with pig fat, we've certainly got our priorities right, haven't we?

Mind you, I quite like this comment,

Spoutwell
15 April 2011 10:20PM

I was followed into the gents by the barman in a pub on buckingham palace road when a lady whom I'd just met tried to join me there.

'You can't do that in here', he said.

Do I get my own article on Cif?

Unfortunately I forgot to shake with rage. We were too busy heading for the nearest park.

So which pub on the Buckingham Palace Road was that then, Spoutwell? Purely out of academic interest, of course.

Much handwringing among the bloggerati about the French "burqa ban". Is it blatant islamophobia? Is it protecting the integrity of French culture and laïcité? Is it liberating oppressed muslimas? Is it denying them their human rights? Is it promoting social cohesion through improved interaction?

It seems to me that the French blunderbuss approach is somewhat deficient in ze famed Gallic finesse. All this confrontation could easily be avoided. Let the Dalek ladies and the letter-box ladies walk the streets freely.

But modern daily life has certain generally accepted complications. For example, identification is often required. When I travelled home on the train yesterday evening, there was a ticket inspection. I showed the nice man my Freedom Pass, which includes a photograph of me. How would a veiled muslima deal with the problem of a) providing the photograph in the first instance, and b) revealing her face to the (male) railway enforcement officer in order to confirm that her identity matched that of the authorized user of the pass?

Many private and private-public sites, such as office buildings, shopping malls, indvidual shops and banks, require not identification per se but identifiability. Your face must be visible while on the premises to general staff, security staff and CCTV so that you may potentially be identified. Thus chavs are required to lower their hoods, motorcycle couriers to remove their helmets and so on. How is a veiled muslima to meet this generally accepted requirement?

The answer in each case is that it is her problem, not that of society at large.

We must start from the premise that this, be it the UK or France, is a modern secular or secular-Christian West European society and that our cultural standards at the very least take precedence and in many cases will be the only standards tolerated. In the "community cohesion" game, it is entirely up to immigrant cultural communities to cohere with us and not up to us to make concessions to accommodate their preferences.

By all means wear niqab, chador or even full burqa, ladies. Short of obscene nudity, it is not part of our current culture to make a legislative fuss about people's clothing. To take the piss, maybe, but not to outlaw it in the public street. But if your choice of clothing restricts your ability to participate in the detail of our society, that is your problem.

All that is needed is for people to have the confidence that the state will back them up in applying our cultural norms. For the security wallah at Morrison's, say, to know that when he excludes a woman in niqab as being a potentially unidentifiable shoplifter, he is not going to be hauled over the coals and possibly fired by the equality mafia, but will be supported for simply applying accepted standards. No special laws, no demos, no debates, just a little bit of cultural self-confidence. Our gaff, our rules, and if you don't like it, the airport is over there.


As that sodding meerkat is always saying, simples.

From the Observer piece

'Burqa ban' in France: housewife vows to face jail rather than submit

This 32-year-old French housewife has become the face of the country's "burqa brigade", the women in France who cover themselves from head to toe in full veils.

Do Observer journos do irony? Just wondrin', that's all.

On BBC Radio 4 just now there was a programme investigating the feasibility of a sub two-hour (men's) marathon. The current record is 2:03:59 set by Haile Gebrselassie at Berlin in 2008.

The narrator makes the following assertion:

"[Ethiopia] is a country which has long-distance running in its DNA."

and the programme rapidly settles down to the assumption that if this holy grail is indeed to be reached, it will be done by an East African, almost certainly an Ethiope. It is clear from the context that the DNA reference is meant literally rather than figuratively.

This, I repeat, is the BBC. And if the BBC thinks it's perfectly OK to acknowledge (a) the existence of different "races", and (b) that these various "races" might be different in their capabilities, so that for example East Africans are acknowledged to excel at long-distance running and West Africans excel at sprinting, does that apply in other fields, like, er, Europeans and East Asians and intelligence?

Just asking.

On the PM programme just now, Eddie Mair is interviewing some chappie called Dr Mark Kennedy. It's a serious enough subject — the deaths of fallen horses running in Saturday's Grand National — but unfortunately what is presumably Dr Kennedy's normal speaking voice sounds exactly like the late Ivor Cutler when declaiming one of his more bizarre poems*.

I trust the excellent Mr Mair is managing to keep a straight face.

____
* Mind you, all of Ivor Cutler's œuvre is pretty damn bizarre.

I wonder sometimes whether the mainstream media have really got the hang of this Web thingie. Our old friend the Lancashire Telegraph has an op-ed piece by that nice Jack Straw.

You know, the usual stuff: invading EDL thugs unwelcome, peace and love between vibrant communities, a symbolically beburqaed Yasmin Alibhai-Brown tripping down Blackburn's main drag (if you'll pardon the expression) hand-in-hand with Johann Hari who is wearing a pink Borat mankini, while the Rector and the Imam applaud politely and a happy united populace tucks into curried hotpot and halal Charleneburger as they wait patiently for the nasty EDL thugs to leave.

Boilerplate "move on, nothing to see here".

The reader comment thread offers a different slant, rather undermining Our Jack's propaganda effort,

egg banjo, padgate says...
6:42pm Thu 7 Apr 11

i was in blackburn on saturday afternoon just by chance and i saw the yellow buses go past taking the EDL people back to the train station. what i saw with my own eyes was locals clapping and cheering as the buses went past. this was my own experience cant speak for any others.

robinjevansbnp, darwen says...
7:55pm Thu 7 Apr 11

Firstly, the police requested that people do not 'counter demonstrate' as this may inflame matters..Yet we have Labour members,Unions and various pro muslim groups openly encouraging a counter demonstration. Not very helpful toward law and order?

Secondly, during the day and into the night, there were in fact several racist attacks upon white people undertaken by groups of muslim males who were patrolling the streets looking for trouble ..Any mention of that anywhere?

Third, In order to facilitate understanding between different communities, then ALL people should be included. Has any of these so called cohesion groups ever invited BNP or EDL to attend? The answer is blatantly obvious..The likes of Jack Straw and his ilk, the community cohesion peeps are bigoted hypocrites!

Atticman, Darwen says...
11:29am Sat 9 Apr 11

What about the 50 or so Asain youths that where congragated on Barbara Castle Way near Lookers Vauxhall that had to be dispursed by the police.

We only ever hear about the so called wrong doing white man, the media NEVER report these events evenly.

The problem is we should all get along but the the minority get treated as the majority you will always have a problem regardless of it being a race issue or religious.

There is always someone out there trying to look good out of something bad and that is you Jack Straw who managed to get his son off a drugs rap years back.

This town needs balance not EDL visiting or an MP taking the side of any group, you should be with out predjudice, the only reason you stand with the muslim is because they can be bothered to vote and you want their vote's.

(My emphasis.)

So da yoof weren't all down the masjid praying for peace and harmony, then. Well, I am shocked.



I also offer the following without comment. It is from the EDL forum (registration wall applies) and is not corroborated

Yesterday a group of 10 EDL supporters were out drinking in halifax town centre, one individual was wearing an EDL top, around 20 pakistanis appeared near mcdonalds in Halifax, a glass was thrown by the pakistanis at a white teenager near the union cross pub, a group of 10 EDL supporters chased the pakistanis back up town, where local people also confronted the pakistani gang, so again they have entered Halifax town with the intention of causing trouble, and again they have been ran out. The muslims have back then got some more back up and returned and 60 of them have attacked a pub thinking there was EDL members there when in fact it was just normal men women and children sat outside this pub, the police have turned up and no arrests were seen to be made. This is a revenge attack for the flash demo which was held in Halifax last and was front page news in the local rag.I wonder if this will be reported in the local rag this week.

The Halifax flesh demo referred to took place on 2 April and is summarised at the UKFD forum here,

Around 70 EDL suporters decided to hold a march in Halifax town centre, we assembled in a town centre pub with our EDL emblems, to begin with there was no real interest from the police, but a car full of local muslims pulled up and shouted abuse at us, one EDL supporter went over to the car to ask the people inside the car, why they had shouted abuse at us, the car drove off immediately, about 20 minutes later a police officer had attended the scene, and requested that our england flags should be taken down as they were offensive, so we obliged and removed the offensive items only to march through Halifax town centre with them, we decided to protest outside Halifax town hall, the police turned up, and attempted to facilitated the protest, members of the public cheered us, however the sentiment turned ugly when a gang of local muslims decided to shout abuse at us, which resulted in a confrontation with the police, and one supporter was arrested, the muslims ran away very fast.

And now over to our man standing beside a smouldering tank in Libya...

In the Mail piece

Revealed: The deadly arsenal of gun fanatic jailed for 16 years
who recreated Private Ryan in his loft

we find this interesting little paragraph,

Officers who seized the cache of 16 deadly guns initially feared they may have been stored on behalf of a far-Right group such as the English Defence League.

(My emphasis.)

Let's try that technique shall we.

Scroggins, who was the mastermind behind the pædophile ring, is understood to have edited a national newspaper, as does Paul Dacre.

Despicable.

(via (behind registration wall))

Today's (Thursday's) Times:


The online version is behind the Digger's paywall, of course, but this blog (new to me) offers some excerpts, including

More than sixty schoolgirls in a seaside town were being groomed for sex by a group of men who have been linked with the unsolved disappearance and murder of a 14-year-old, The Times reveals today.

The endemic scale and nature of the sexual exploitation uncovered by police in Blackpool was kept secret. The victims were young white girls; their abusers were non-white workers at takeaway food outlets in the Lancashire town.

The 14-year-old girl being, of course, the late Charlene Downes.

One awaits developments with interest. I don't think they are going to be able to hush it up this time. Or handwave it away as "extremely rare" and/or "white men do it too".


Update (10:45)

And now in the Telegraph,

Andy Rhodes, assistant chief constable of Lancashire Police, was quoted as saying that while offenders come from a variety of backgrounds, "in some areas the number of Asian offenders is disproportionate to the population".

Er, White men do it too. I say, White men do it too. Oh alright, have it your own way.

Mick Gradwell, a former detective superintendent with Lancashire Police, told The Times officers had long been aware that girls in Blackpool, Blackburn and Burnley were being “passed around like toys for sexual gratification” but that investigations were being hampered by political correctness.

Really? Well, oo'da thowt it? Of course, situations like this are extremely rare and it's important not to exacerbate community tensions that might, you know, play into the hands of far-right extremists.


"I'd just like to reinforce the point that this sort of unfortunate incident is very rare indeed. Central Lancashire is a successful vibrant multicultural society and we are working with community leaders to address their concerns", added Donna Kebab, a spokestart for Fylde Borough Council Department of Bollocks and Waffle.

— Please come in, number 91, your time's up.
— 91? 91?
— Are you in difficulty, number 16?

Do they still have municipal boating lakes? I don't suppose they do.

This is precisely the sort of self-defeating nonsense I was ranting about earlier.

There is a proposal to build a rather flash mosque in Camberley, replacing a disused school and, as the Mail excitedly points out, within sniping distance of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. The locals are not entirely enamoured of the cunning plan.

Alan Kirkland, from Save Our School, told The Guardian: ‘There is nothing in the Qur'an that says you should have domes and minarets,’ he said.

‘They need a mezzanine floor that is for women only. To most people, that's objectionable.

‘They are trying to target us as racist. I'm slightly offended by that. My ex-brother in law is Muslim, so are my niece and nephew.’

Thus spake the Grauniad

Voting reform campaigners have been accused by their opponents of removing Benjamin Zephaniah from literature distributed outside London.

In London, the campaign Yes to Fairer Votes sent out leaflets that featured the black poet alongside five white celebrities. However, on otherwise identical leaflets sent out to Sussex, Cornwall and elsewhere, Zephaniah was replaced by Blackadder star Tony Robinson.

AV opponents accused the yes campaign of being "ashamed" to have Zephaniah on their literature in certain parts of the country. However, the yes campaign hit back on Sunday, criticising what it called "increasingly desperate smears".

And how did the Yes campaign respond to this disgraceful racecardism?

"These allegations mark a new low for the no campaign and [its] increasingly desperate smears," a spokesman for the yes campaign said.

"Let's put it this way: Operation Black Vote, the Muslim Council of Britain and a host of similar groups are backing the yes campaign. The BNP is backing the no campaign. People can draw their own conclusions."

Indeed we shall.