Late Daffodils From The Curates Garden

In Manchester a special needs teacher with no previous convictions is jailed for six months for firing an air pistol at the pavement near a group of teenagers she believed had vandalised her son's car. She had been the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment and vandalism.

Interesting contrast in views between the BBC 'Have Your Say' page ('in a civilised society ..) and Manchester Online ('the current justice system is a joke').


On the left, blogger Dead Men Left is concerned at Tariq Ali's current political stance.

"Ali has arrived upon a formulation perhaps unique in British politics: support the Iraqi resistance, vote Liberal Democrat."

Of course it's not Ali's support for 'the resistance', the cheerful catch-all for the Saddamite fascists, the mosque-bombers, trade unionist torturers and the head-choppers, which is the problem. It's the thought of voting Lib Dem.

(Ali's 1970s phrase 'Let It Bleed' was a hip restatement of the old (Tsarist) Russian revolutionary slogan 'The Worse, The Better !" - implying that the greater the suffering of the working class, the nearer the revolution. Didn't seem to work in Thatcher's time - nor now, come to think of it.)



And all praise and honour is due to two brave living Catholics - Il Papa and Archbishop Pius Ncube, one of the few holy men with a name resembling a games console (the others being Cardinal Xbox of Vietnam and the Most Reverend Giles Sinclair-Spectrum of Oxford) - as well as the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, martyred twenty-five years ago.

Il Papa for his wonderful bravery and devotion to his flock, Ncube for the same.

The Zimbabwe elections are going to be even more of a farce than the last ones, if this report is correct. Note the name of the MDC secretary general - the even more wonderfully named Welshman Ncube.

Ncube further alleged that while the delegation representing the polling officers was meeting with the DA, the Zanu PF candidate for Mudzi East and provincial chairperson, Ray Kaukonde came to the centre. He was in the company of other local Zanu PF leaders, who told the polling officers they were not wanted in Mudzi because they were MDC supporters and sympathisers.

I see from the Indie that Mugabe is arming his youth militia with weaponry from China and Iran. Not good news. "Youth militia" and "Africa" generally seem to make for "dead people".

Doubtless we'll hear an outcry in the Guardian and Indie over this ...




And finally ... anyone still feeling cheerful ? If so can I recommend a quick read of Schopenhauer ?

The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.