Sarf London News

How I miss the place ... I remember when I used to live there and came back to the country on weekends, I'd get off the train and walk six miles to the pub, savouring the knowledge that no one would try to rob me en-route.

Youth Groups say - 'give us the money - or else'

Muggers say 'give us the money - or else'

"The 25-year-old was with a group of friends who stepped in when two thugs tried to rob their mate in Bowling Green Street, Kennington.
The robbers are said to have issued the chilling threat, "We're coming back to kill you" before driving off and returning with a gun.
They then sprayed bullets into the crowd of up to 10 friends in a courtyard outside Lohmann House.
Police said the woman was lucky to survive the shooting at 5.35pm on Friday and appealed for witnesses."

Jenny Charmoy, 36, was on her way to collect one of her two other children from Fairlawn Primary School on Friday when she was hit by a car, and thrown across the bonnet before landing in the road.
Fortunately, she clung on to 16-month-old Olivier and both suffered only minor injuries.
The car, believed to be a red Fiat Uno, stopped briefly then drove off.

In a moving eulogy to murdered son Fabian, 18, Yvonne Ricketts challenged mourners to come forward with information on his death.
But her plea, reported in last Friday's South London Press,has so far fallen on deaf ears.
Police have yet to hear from any new witnesses since the service at St Stephen's Church in Balham.
And they revealed that up to 100 people are likely to have seen the shooting of Streatham shopworker Fabian on Easter Monday outside Battersea Bar in York Road, Battersea.

There are lighter moments though.

A senior town hall official may have been in the grip of sudden attacks caused by changes to his diabetes medication when he sexually assaulted teenage girls, a court has been told.

Sounds like his defence solicitor might be Rob Ross. Talking of whom, you can hear him defending his 'likeable idiot' client on the BBC Drive show here (Realplayer needed). 1 hr 50 mins in.

More Trouble At Mill

Halifax ... one of those little incidents that even makes the BBC.

BRICKS, bottles and missiles were hurled at police in a night of violence in Halifax that left one man fighting for his life.
Dozens of people were involved in the three-hour confrontation in Hopwood Lane that began at 9.30pm.
It is believed the violence was sparked after a crowd armed with knives and bats attacked four men.
Police said they were pelted with bottles and bricks as they tried to control the situation and rescue the injured men.
A 27-year-old man was today critically ill in Leeds Infirmary intensive care unit. A 39-year-old is also being treated in Leeds but his injuries are not thought to be life threatening.
A 44-year-old is in Calderdale Royal Hospital and a fourth was treated and released. Several other people were injured.
Chief Inspector Steve Cotter, of Calderdale police, said: "High-visibility patrols were deployed in the area last night to provide reassurance to residents and neighbourhood policing team officers are in the area again today to continue that work.
"We are also meeting residents and community leaders again today to reassure them this was an isolated incident.
"Incidents such as this are, thankfully, very, very rare in Calderdale."
Community leaders today called for calm.
Councillor Mohammed Najib (Lab, Park) said: "What happened was so, so bad. I feel sorry for the people that suffered. I would ask for calm and peace in the community."
Hopwood Lane remained closed today as forensic teams examined the scene.
A 25-year-old witness said: "A group of young men were ambushed by another group, believed to be all the same family.
"They were attacked in the street with knives, baseball bats and what looked like a car wrench, leaving two unconscious.
"The public rushed those who were badly injured to hospital before the emergency services arrived.
"They were like animals and they annihilated them. There was blood everywhere. We thought they were going to kill one guy who was unconscious.
"They carried on hitting him with a baseball bat while he was lying there."
Ali Hussain, 23, of King Cross, was among the group of shocked bystanders at the scene today.
He said: "It's not safe to be around this area now.
"What is going to happen to families living here, especially those with kids? We just want to keep out of it."
Arfan Mohammed, 22, of Warley Road, said people were worried because there were guns in the community. Four local men, aged 23, 24, 36, and 38, have been arrested in connection with the assaults and are currently in custody.
Two other men were arrested for public order offences and have been dealt with and released.
Council leaders called a crisis meeting today.
A spokesman said: "The council is working with the community, police and other partners to see how we can help relieve any issues in the area."
Anyone who witnessed the incident or who has any information is asked to contact police on 01422 337085.

The BBC reckons it's a family feud. Any relation to this ? The guy who got 15 years two weeks ago comes from the same area.

A MAN has been jailed for a total of 15 years for trying to pervert the course of justice with acts that included hiring a gunman, who was himself later murdered, to scare off witnesses.
It can be revealed for the first time following the lifting of reporting restrictions at Bradford Crown Court yesterday that Richard Clarke, who was shot dead in Leeds in 2004, had two weeks earlier fired a handgun at a car containing three men in Halifax after being recruited by Chaudry Fiaz Hussain.
One of the men in the car was the brother of a witness due to give evidence at a trial in which Hussain was accused of an earlier shooting of amateur rugby player Liam Walsh, in Halifax.
While on remand in Armley Prison awaiting his trial Hussain had got to know Clarke and recruited him to send a message to some of the potential witnesses warning them not to give evidence.
Clarke was shot dead while sleeping at his home in Moorland Avenue, Hyde Park, Leeds, in July 2004.
He had a reputation as a hard man with a knowledge of firearms, the Recorder of Leeds, Judge Norman Jones QC, was told at an earlier hearing at Leeds Crown Court. After his release from jail Clarke was the passenger in a stolen Subaru Impreza car which pulled up alongside a VW Bora outside the Beehive and Cross Keys Public House in King Cross Street, Halifax, and fired one shot at the three occupants.
The bullet made a hole near the driver's door and windscreen but it did not stop witnesses giving evidence at Hussain's trial the following month.
He was cleared of attempting to murder Mr Walsh but found guilty of assaulting Mr Walsh's stepfather and a friend earlier that day when he sprayed a CS-type substance at them. He was jailed for two years.
After that trial police began investigating allegations that Hussain had persuaded relatives and others to give false alibi evidence that he was at home when Mr Walsh was shot.
Those inquiries led to further charges, but reporting restrictions were then imposed on the whole proceedings.
Hussain, 28, of Thrum Hall Drive, Pellon, Halifax, was jailed for eight years by Judge Jones in February for conspiring to pervert the course of justice relating to the Beehive shooting.
Yesterday he was jailed for a further seven years consecutively by Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC on similar charges involving the false alibi evidence. He had been convicted on that matter by a jury in May.
His brother Chaudry Sajad Hussain, 30, is already serving 15 years in jail after he was extradited from Holland and pleaded guilty to attempting to murder Mr Walsh and his stepfather.
He admitted last year he was the gunman who shot Mr Walsh and his stepfather in a revenge attack.
Yesterday other members of their family were also jailed for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice over the false alibi evidence. Their sister Shameen Hussain, 22 of Thrum Hall Drive, and sister-in-law Rukhsana Hussain, 32 of Harrow Street, Halifax each received three years in prison.
Two businessmen, Mahmood Khan, 45 of Savil Park, Halifax, and Matloob Hussain, 32, of Queens Road, King Cross, Halifax, also convicted of the alibi conspiracy, were each jailed for four years.
All had said Chaudry Fiaz Hussain was at home when Mr Walsh was shot.
Judge Durham Hall said he had no doubt Hussain shamelessly orchestrated the "tissue of lies" told by members of his family and his acquaintances over his false alibi.
Robbie Gottshalk, 40, of Dewsbury Road, Beeston, Leeds, who was driving the Impreza when Clarke opened fire, was jailed for six-and-a-half years by Judge Jones after admitting conspiracy
to pervert the course of justice.
Nayyer Hafiz, 28, from Halifax, was sentenced to eight years and Arif Alam, 21, of Cross Kelso Road, Leeds, to four years for their part in that plot.
Gottshalk also received further consecutive sentences for wounding a former girlfriend and drug offences.
Det Supt Steve Fear said: "These are people who went to extreme measures to avoid justice but, as a result of our investigation, their tissue of lies was unravelled.
"This was a criminal family intent on carrying on their business regardless and they used devious and violent methods to do that.
"They appeared to have no fear of the criminal justice system and were convinced they could get away with telling lies to avoid the consequences of their actions.
"They first tried to intimidate witnesses but when those people stood their ground and refused to back down they turned to violence involving firearms and ultimately false evidence."
Police have so far failed to trace Richard Clarke's killer.
olwen.dudgeon@ypn.co.uk

Comment Is Easy

The trouble with the Guardian's "Comment Is Free" pages is that pretty much everything on them you've read before.

"The Problems of (insert trouble-spot here) Are Due To British/European/Western Colonialism"

"It's All Our Fault"

"All Whites Are Racist"

"Don't Lock Up Criminals - You'll Only Make Them Worse"

"How The Plucky Little VietCong/Hezbollah/Hamas/Sandinistas/Al Quaeda Defied The Might Of America"

"Why Are There No Women In Senior Positions In Hezbollah ?"

You find that you've nearly always got a two year old blog post on the subject, a chunk of which one can immediately cut'n'paste into a comment, along with a link to the rest of the post.

It's making me awfully lazy.

Anniversary

Hezbollah in London, 1994.

"A Likeable Idiot"

I've often thought there was room for

a) a blog wholly specialising in 'early release' crime stories - like this latest one.

b) a blog specialising in the crap spun by defence solicitors - the sort of thing you'll see in your local paper each week.

"Fred Bloggs, defending, said that since his release from an eight-year sentence for manslaughter, his client had made a determined effort to go straight, with only two convictions over a five-year period. Tragically the death of his grandmother, ongoing relationship difficulties, and his struggles with addiction had left him vulnerable to irrational outbursts of violence, for which no help had been made available by social workers or the local health authorities.

"My client is deeply ashamed of the offences for which he appears before you today", he told the judge. "In asking for a non-custodial sentence I must ask you to bear in mind the following :"

"His new partner is expecting their child in only three months - he is determined to play his full role as a father in bringing up his child. To deprive the child of a father's influence and love will help neither the child nor my client. In fact I am convinced that his inability, through a combination of previous incarceration and what he would argue to be his unjust inclusion on the Sex Offenders Register, to be a father to any of his other four children, is a contributory factor in his appearance before you today"

"My client has the firm promise of a job with a reputable local employer, Big Dave's Security Services. Regular employment of this nature will take him away from his old associates and habits"

"My client has been offered places on no less than three local rehabilitation schemes - "Bitch My Smack Up", the pioneering scheme run by the University of Taunton Dene (formerly the Devon Cyder Company) which treats addiction with the revolutionary new 'dominatrix therapy', "Better Parenting" run by the National Childbirth Trust, and the CALM anger management course. If he is imprisoned, he will be unable to benefit from this treatment."

"In concluding", said Bloggs "my client wishes to express his regret and remorse towards the victims and their families, and to make plain that he was totally unaware, not only that the girls were so young, but that he was HIV positive".

I think we've found the archetype in Swindon solicitor Rob Ross.

Manderson has nearly 200 previous convictions, mainly for motoring matters.

About eight years ago he ran over a 12-year-old cyclist as he drove a robbery getaway car.

Outside court his lawyer Rob Ross said: "Jamie is a likeable idiot, really. Jamie suffers from a very serious addiction to cars. He just can't leave them alone.

"During the 1980s he used to steal cars to order and he made a lot of money.

"Then, a few years ago, he got addicted to heroin, but it's the cars he's really hooked on. He just doesn't understand the words 'don't drive'."



See him in action defending Mad Jackie.

She had sought help from Kingshill House for her drug and alcohol problems, got herself onto a programme and got herself permanent accommodation.

"I have to say the difference in her is almost unbelievable," said Mr Ross.

How to turn racially aggravated common assault into 'a bit of drunken horseplay'.

The poor chap who 'slipped back into heroin use'.

Defending the legendary Swindon 'Crying Boy', a chap who specialises in approaching kindly-looking souls with a tearful tale of being beaten up and needing a tenner for the train fare home.

"Defending Rose, Rob Ross denied that the perfume had been taken to fund a drug habit saying it was intended as a present for Rose's girlfriend."

More smackheads. Mr Ross thinks heroin should be legalised.

Defending, Rob Ross, said that Jonas was now receiving medication to help him tackle his drug addiction.

Magistrates ordered him to do a community order with an 18-month supervision order and to attend the Think First programme.

Had £26,000 nicked ?

Rob Ross, defending, said: "It is every parent's worst nightmare to find out something like this has happened.

Not the parent of the victim, of course. The parent of the perpetrator.

Mr Ross added: "He does things to bring the law down on him because he feels worthless. He resorts to criminality to almost punish himself."

Well, yes. Perhaps the guy who was burgled was a victim too. And what do you mean, 'feels' worthless ?

Prosecuting, Colin Meeke, said Fitchett was seen in the Marsland Road home when the occupant was away.

Police called in to find Fitchett hiding in the loft and saw the premises had been searched.

Mr Meeke said: "When interviewed Mr Fitchett said he had argued with his girlfriend, taken some tablets and woken up in a police cell."

Mr Meeke added Fitchett was grabbed by police again when the Fiat he was travelling in crashed in Marlborough High Street packed with electrical goods from a burgled home in Back Lane. The court heard Fitchett also gave police a false name when they investigated him for driving while disqualified without insurance. Defending, Rob Ross described Fitchett as someone who had an intermittent drug problem, who had stopped drug taking of his own volition but had lapsed when he formed a new relationship.

Mr Ross described how his client had clearly been under the influence of drugs when he targeted the Swindon home because when Fitchett was taken into police custody he decided to take all his clothes off.

I'll stop there. Mr Ross is just one of many.

Anthony Browne

At Open Democracy. (you may have to pass the 'donate here' page on first visit).

It is vital to emphasise that mass immigration and the remarkably intolerant ideology of multiculturalism are exclusively western phenomena. Indeed, the striking thing about the global immigration debate in the west is its determined parochialism. If people in India, China, or Africa were asked whether they have a right to oppose mass immigration on such a scale that it would transform their culture, the answer would be clear. Yet uniquely among the 6 billion people on the planet, westerners – the approximately 800 million in western Europe, North America and Australasia – are expected by the proponents of mass immigration and multiculturalism to abandon any right to define or shape their own society.

This liberal hypocrisy was perfectly illustrated in 2002, when the British government gave full UK passports to 200,000 people living in British overseas territories, such as St. Helena, Montserrat and the Turks & Caicos islands. The inhabitants were allowed to live in Britain, but there was no reciprocal right for British people to live there.

The justification for this one-sidedness was given in the House of Lords by the foreign office minister Valerie Amos:

“The right of abode is non-reciprocal. The territories which fall within the scope of the Bill are for the most part small islands. In consultations on the content of the Bill the governments of the territories concerned made clear that granting British and European citizens the right of abode in their territories would risk fundamentally altering the social, cultural and economic fabric of the territories.”

Britain too is a small island, yet other British government ministers tell the British people that they must embrace mass immigration, and that it is simply racist for British people to oppose the altering of their country’s social, cultural and economic fabric. What makes the Caribbean and South Atlantic islanders noble in defending their culture, and the British racist in defending theirs? It is largely about being a minority, and being outnumbered. But western people are a global minority. There are more citizens of either India and China than all the people of Europe, North America and Australasia put together. There are as many people in Bangladesh and Pakistan together as in the US.

In the developing world, there are simply no significant equivalents of Europe and the US, where around 10% of people are foreign born, or Canada and Australia where the proportion is around 25%. The foreign born in the developing world rarely exceed 1% of the population.

Indeed, developing countries have been the most draconian in clamping down on immigration. In 2002, Malaysia started forcibly returning some of the thousands of illegal immigrants from Indonesia, while India put soldiers on its borders with Bangladesh to force illegal Bangladeshi immigrants back home. Western countries do not cane illegal immigrants or point a gun at them, but provide them with free immigration lawyers, free shelter, free food, free schooling and free healthcare – then express disappointment when they are reluctant to leave.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE - and Jeff Randall in the Telegraph. No wonder he left the BBC.

By encouraging the greatest wave of unchecked arrivals that these islands have ever experienced, the Blair regime has eroded our traditions of tolerance and understanding, while forcing fundamental social change on millions who never voted for it.

Tough On Crime ... Part 124

"Teenage muggers who rob with "minimal force" will be spared jail under new sentencing guidelines issued today.

Juvenile muggers can also cite peer pressure as a mitigating factor under the guidelines from the Sentencing Guidelines Council ... an idea proposed by Home Affairs Select Committee, which suggested that judges should treat young robbers differently if a crime was committed in a group."

I see. Mug someone solo - go directly to jail. Unless you've used 'minimal force', of course. Mug in a gang ? "They made me do it, guv ! All of us made each other do it !"

"Fair do's - community service for you all !"

The council is chaired by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers.

Ah yes. Educated at Bryanston and Cambridge, lives in Hampstead. Perhaps he should live in Stockwell for a few years before coming out with any more pieces of idiocy.


UPDATE - different in NY.

Left-wing academics deny that law-abiding inner-city residents desire an orderly environment as fiercely as the wealthy. Enforcing loitering ordinances or open-container rules in minority neighborhoods, they charge, is simply a racist attack on the oppressed. Many such academics have obviously spoken to very few poor people, so as not to disrupt their fantasy of a revolutionary vanguard ready to attack bourgeois conventions. Andrew Karmen of John Jay College of Criminal Justice sees crime “as a distorted form of social protest.” Inner-city residents beg to differ. Asked what activities bother her constituents most, Nadine Whitted of the Bushwick Community Board bluntly replies: “Drugs still being sold, youth crime, people hanging out, loud music.”

Tsk tsk. Fancy demonising the poor kids, imposing middle-class values etc etc

New Kid On The Blog

He's webmaster of the Godzilla UK site. Now one of the youngest, if not the youngest UK political blogger.

You can't say he lacks ambition, though were I he (grammar) I wouldn't diss Texas. Or Texans. Dirty and inbred ? That's a girl from the Forest, isn't it ?

If Sam Tarran Was In Charge ...

One Man's Terrorist ...

While I am a supporter of Israel, I try not to forget the bad, while appreciating the good. No Briton should forget the cruel fate of Clifford Martin and Mervyn Paice, abducted and hanged in the then Palestine by terrorists led by Menachim Begin.

This makes the PR of the Orange Order look slick and sophisticated.

"As Israel wages war against Hezbollah “terrorists” in Lebanon, Britain has protested about the celebration by right-wing Israelis of a Jewish “act of terrorism” against British rule 60 years ago this week.

The rightwingers, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the former Prime Minister, are commemorating the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of British rule, that killed 92 people and helped to drive the British from Palestine.

They have erected a plaque outside the restored building, and are holding a two-day seminar with speeches and a tour of the hotel by one of the Jewish resistance fighters involved in the attack.

Simon McDonald, the British Ambassador in Tel Aviv, and John Jenkins, the Consul-General in Jerusalem, have written to the municipality, stating: “We do not think that it is right for an act of terrorism, which led to the loss of many lives, to be commemorated.”

In particular they demanded the removal of the plaque that pays tribute to the Irgun, the Jewish resistance branch headed by Menachem Begin, the future Prime Minister, which carried out the attack on July 22, 1946.

The plaque presents as fact the Irgun’s claim that people died because the British ignored warning calls. “For reasons known only to the British, the hotel was not evacuated,” it states.

Mr McDonald and Dr Jenkins denied that the British had been warned, adding that even if they had “this does not absolve those who planted the bomb from responsibility for the deaths”. On Monday city officials agreed to remove the language deemed offensive from the blue sign hanging on the hotel’s gates, though that had not been done shortly before it was unveiled last night. "

Words fail me. Netanyahu ought to be ashamed of himself.

(via Pub Philosopher)

David Fraser - A Land Fit For Criminals

I've already bigged up this book, available from Amazon at a bargain £11.87, in this post.

Now the Dalrymple review.

"All in all, Fraser’s book is a searing and unanswerable (or at least so far unanswered) indictment of the British criminal-justice system, and therefore of the British state. As Fraser pointed out to me, the failure of the state to protect the lives and property of its citizens, and to take seriously its duty in this regard, creates a politically dangerous situation, for it puts the very legitimacy of the state itself at risk. The potential consequences are incalculable, for the failure might bring the rule of law itself into disrepute and give an opportunity to the brutal and the authoritarian."


The point about the legitimacy of the state is an important one. Listening to a BBC (it could have been Radios 4 or 5, the politics will be the same) piece on a UK version of Megan's Law, the studio consensus was that it would lead to attacks on, and possibly the murder of, named offenders.

No-one seemed to have grasped the enormity of what they were saying. The implications of such a statement are either

a) the disconnection between the appropriate punishment as seen by judges and as seen by the public is so great that such attacks are likely. This should perhaps have caused some soul-searching as to whether the current punishments are appropriate. After all, one of the unique selling points of a functional criminal justice system is that, by inflicting punishments which are generally felt to be appropriate, vendetta and vigilantism are avoided.
If this thesis is accepted (and it seemed to be by the studio guests), the logical thing would seem to be to increase the punishments. But we're much too sophisticated for such simplicities. No, the real villains are the tabloid press, whipping the clod-like populace into homicidal frenzies in the style of Radio Rwanda.

b) the posited vigilante attacks would be the work of a miniscule minority of sick people, with no public support. And law and order in 2006 is such that this tiny, unsupported minority will be able to successfully carry out those attacks.

Asians and Education

Way back in 1998, before Rod Liddle turned into a right wing death beast, the Today programme featured the hideous revelation that "while one third of all applications for medical school places are from Asians, they represent only one fifth of those accepted".

Given that Asians were approximately 4% of the population at the time, the real story might have been that they were applying at 8 times the rate of the natives, rather than that they were "only" being accepted at 5 times the rate.

(Rod's successor Kevin Marsh ignored later research showing that by 2001 white males, still 44% of the population, made up only 26% of new medical students).

Way over in California, 'affirmative action' (aka 'positive discrimination' aka 'discrimination against whites') was made illegal when Proposition 209 was passed. As Face Right reports, the consequences have been appalling.

"Instead of ensuring nondiscrimination, Proposition 209 has created an environment that many students of color view as discriminatory. That's because minority representation has dropped appallingly." says the Chancellor of Berkeley.

How does this appalling drop in minority representation manifest itself ?

"Asian Americans constitute about 48 percent of the class that entered Berkeley in August 2005. With about 9 percent of California's population, Asian Americans are overrepresented here by well over 400 percent, or by about 1,500 percent if viewed in a national context."




Call me a gullible fool, but I can't help thinking those figures might just have as much to do with culture as with than racism. See also this post.

See No Evil Part 827

From the BBC - "Man in court on abduction charge".

"A man has appeared in court charged with child abduction and sexual grooming over the internet.

Mehdi Boudjedra, 30, of Askew Crescent, Shepherds Bush, London, was arrested on Friday by officers investigating the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl. "

From Life Style Extra :

An illegal immigrant appeared in court today charged with child abduction and the sexual grooming over the internet of a 15-year-old schoolgirl.

Algerian national Mehdi Boudjedra, 30, a waiter living in Shepherd's Bush, west London, was arrested on Friday after the girl disappeared from her parents' Hertfordshire home last Wednesday.


The BBC. All the news we think you need to know.

Death Zone

Another climber gone ...

The body of one of Latin America's best known climbers, Jose Antonio Delgado, has been found on Mount Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, rescuers say.

Delgado had been missing for some time. The rescuers said they had buried him on the mountain after consulting with his family.

Delgado was the first Venezuelan to climb Mount Everest, the world's highest peak.

I forgot to blog about this court case which finished last week.

Three men will not face trial for manslaughter over the death of a City trader on Mount Everest, a judge ruled.

In 1999 Michael Matthews, 22, was the youngest Briton to reach the summit but disappeared on the descent.

A private prosecution brought by his father against three men working for the tour company alleged their negligence contributed to his death.

But Judge Jeffrey Rivlin QC dismissed the case, saying there was no evidence anyone had acted with gross negligence.

Lawyers for the three men, Jonathan Tinker, 47, from York, Henry Todd, 61, from Edinburgh, and Michael Smith, 44, who lives in Switzerland, had applied to Southwark Crown Court to have the case thrown out.

Mr Matthews' dad wasn't happy. He thought his son had been supplied with dodgy oxygen.


Henry Todd ? That name rang a bell, taking me all the way back to the mid-70s, when alternative types consumed avidly the products created by Todd, Richard Kemp and Christine Bott, who ran the world's largest LSD production line.

Mr Todd, a hairy-bottomed buccaneering type, headed for Nepal on his release from prison - he's been there off and on ever since, running expeditions. In another age he'd probably have been a terrific Political Agent on the North-West Frontier or similar - one of the kind who was 'half a Pathan himself'.


Henry Barclay Todd — Scotsman, ex-con, entrepreneur — is in the business of solving problems. Want to climb Mount Everest but don't have the Benjamins ? Henry can solve that. Need oxygen tanks on the cheap ? Henry's your man. What's the weather forecast for 27,000 feet ? Check with Henry. Need to share a tent at Camp II ? Henry !

Fifty-six-year-old Todd is the proprietor of Himalayan Guides, an Edinburgh-based expedition service that specializes in the highly affordable summit trip. If you want to climb Everest with legends like Ed Viesturs and Pete Athans, you'll pony up at least $50,000 to a guide service like Adventure Consultants (Guy Cotter's Wanaka, New Zealand–based outfit) or Alpine Ascents International (Todd Burleson's Seattle operation). But if you can haul your own carcass up the Hillary Step and are willing to subsist on rice and lentil soup, you can ride on Henry's ticket for the low, low price of $29,000. "Adventure Consultants and Alpine Ascents are like the Cadillacs of Everest," says John Leonard, a 26-year-old Mount Rainier wilderness ranger who made his first attempt on Everestwith Todd last spring. "Henry's the vintage Chevy Astrovan. You've got a whole bunch of people, and the ride's a little bumpy, but if you hold on you'll get there."


He's not everyone's cup of tea, to put it mildly. Even more friendly reporters have their doubts.


Meanwhile, Todd's business has continued apace. A few weeks after Nepal banned him, he announced an expedition to Pakistan's K2 in 2002. His minimum requirement: having summited two 8,000-meter peaks. The book closed on 12 clients in less than a week. Which is to say, there is one law that Henry Todd has always respected: the law of supply and demand. "I have two words to say about Henry Todd," an American Everest-expedition leader told me. "Caveat emptor."

Open Britain

"Britain is now an open country, in immigration terms the equivalent of the drunk girl semi-conscious on the sofa as the party ends, being eyed up by a couple of dodgy lads."


At some stage - probably when they find there are no summer jobs left for their student sons and daughters, the liberal elite may just wake up to what's happening.

"The number of people joining the British workforce from the newest - mainly east European - EU member states leapt 145% last year, it was revealed today.

The dramatic scale of economic migration into Britain was uncovered today when the government published figures for the number of national insurance (NI) numbers being issued to foreign nationals.

According to the figures, over 50% more foreign national NI numbers were granted in 2005 than in the previous year, with a majority of the increase coming from the EU's 10 new countries.

Some 662,000 registrations were issued in 2005, 223,000 more than in the previous 12 months.

Most of the increase was due to applications from nationals of the latest batch of new EU members: the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia."

Ah, so it's only immigration from Europe that's increasing, is it ?

"Registrations of people from those 10 countries - who acceded on May 1, 2004 - shot up by 160,000 (145%), while those of other foreign nationals rose 63,000 (19%)."

Not that mass immigration from Europe is good news. As I've pointed out, the culture that makes the Poles hard-working good sorts is the culture of Catholic Poland. God only knows what their descendants will be like after 20 or 30 years here, but the precedents of the Windrush and Mirpuri migrations, also of decent hardworking types, isn't encouraging.

"The figures show the government massively underestimated the scale of eastern European migration. A Home Office study in 2003 predicted only 13,000 people would arrive from the new EU countries."

Ah yes. And the Guardian supported the government figures with their own dodgy surveys.

"The figures from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) also indicate that the new arrivals are young working adults. Only 3% of the foreign nationals are claiming benefits, a drop from 6% last year. If the new workers decide to settle in Britain and have families that figure would be expected to rise."

Ah yes. So they'd need to be young to settle and have families. And have their women with them.

"Some 82% of those registered were under 35 and only 7,000 were over 55. Males accounted for 54% of the 662,000."

These people aren't going home. The replacement of the English (and, as a spin-off, of the Welsh) continues apace.




UPDATE - see also "Britain's biggest wave of migrants in history"

Channel Swimming for Cats

The David Walliams swim a week or two back reminded me of the time in the 1960s when two cats competed in a cross-channel swim.

A French moggy named 'Un-Deux-Trois' was pitted against an English challenger, a tabby called 'One-Two-Three'. On 19 July, 1968, in large open cages towed behind boats, they set off from near Dover.

Who won ?


The English cat. Because ...








The "Un-Deux-Trois" cat sank.

Gardjola

Has changed its url. A fine blog. Find them here. I wonder if they've got RSS and links to individual posts yet ?

Other new links.

West Bournemouth UKIP. A fine body of men (and women - especially Belinda).

Nationalist News (in good old commie Britain). Had to think a bit about this. Could this chap be to the right of the BNP ?

In terms of my blogging sympathies, I tend to divide the blogs who aren't keen on mass immigration into the sensible chaps / chapesses like myself (Pub Philosopher or DFH would be typical), who are motivated by the bleeding obvious - that a huge influx of people with a different culture, especially at a time of cultural collapse and confusion among the natives - will almost certainly lead to disunity, strife, and danger for my children - and those blogs who just don't like the buggers full stop. (Which, of course, they have every right to do.)

I tend to think NN falls into the latter category. Nonetheless, my policy is to link to those who link to me.

I can always add a 'Parental Advisory'. After all, the Modern Crusader's been on the roll for years.

Indeed, if I found a link from his blog, I would link to Satan himself.

More Links ....

Dr Feelgood.

Claims to live in Manchester, but watches the Pears stuff the Bears at Edgbaston.

Likes Jude the Obscure, which I've always found to be Hardy's most unsatisfactory novel. Just as Alec D'Urberville is in many ways a more sympathetic character than Angel Clare (at least he knows what he wants - the most beautiful, wonderful and desirable heroine in all of world literature - ever), so Arabella is more appealing than the dreadful Sue, who would have been happier on a Women's Studies course at Reading (or Aldbrickham) circa 1978.

Dies Irae. Eclectic US blog.

Seamole has converted to "Christianity, the religion that worships the source of all Truth, who is Jesus Christ". He's become a Catholic and stopped blogging.

"I stopped writing here around the time of my conversion. I have other, better interests now, and new demands on my time." I like to think that God can speak through a blog as well as anywhere. But there are many ways to witness. (Not that I claim divine inspiration for anything here, being all too aware of my frailties - and the more aware, the more important it becomes to give thanks and praise.)


Sudan Watch. A noble cause, really more Mick Hartley's area than mine, although I do have an upcoming post. The world is having kittens currently over several hundred deaths in Lebanon. No one disapproves of killing people more than I, yet the much greater numbers of deaths in Sudan, Chad and the Congo are passed by on the other side. Because (IMHO) whitey's not involved.

Drunkablog. I like this a lot, but then I love America.

Very American, loads of pictures. Almost a photoblog.



Top Cat.

Christian, from Coventry. No posts since February !

Steve Sailer. IQ, genetics, racial differences, racial preferences (i.e. things that would be called racist if a white person did them), all sorts of things you're not supposed to talk about. But no swivel-eyed loon he.

Quietly Seething. Don't be too quiet.

Anti-Jihad Pundit. Lots of stories, links. Busy. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

And I must link to Brussels Journal, currently the subject of police harassment.

Is It Worth it ?

"Perhaps you should have noted that the Victorians managed to reduce crime rates dramatically - at a time when the most enormous social changes were taking place.

Of course, they had one crucial advantage over the Roberts' and Toynbees of this world - that 'Old Testament in hand' bit, with its ridiculous emphasis on 'thou shalt not steal'.

I read 'Oliver Twist' to my small daughter over two or three weeks recently - never hacked my way through his prose before. The remarkable thing is, that with all the cruelties and injustices visited upon the young orphan, all the horrors of the workhouse and Victorian poverty, neither the author, nor any authority figure in the book, suggests that stealing is anything other than a great evil which should be punished severely. "


Is there point to arguing with idiots ? Or lifers ? (Mr Erwin is coy about why he got his life sentence. That's why I guess it was murder.)

Not that I put Yvonne Roberts into either category. Her trouble is that she formed her mindset in the right-on Seventies and has made a reasonably successful career out of it.



To start acknowledging reality at this stage would entail too high a price, both in material terms (look at the problems the Magna Mater Melanie Phillips and Peter Hitchens find getting published, and the hysteria directed against Mel in particular) - and perhaps more importantly, in terms of self-image. To acknowlege that you've turned into one of the people you've been battling against for thirty years takes a sort of courage - even without the thought that your career and many old friendships may be at stake. Why do you think I blog anonymously ?

Against such considerations matters of truth, or right and wrong, come lower down on most people's moral scales.

Erwin James is a different case. Liberals love that frisson they get from close contact with the bad guys. John McVicar made a better living from being a former armed robber than he did from being a real one.

I Merely Report ...

I fear that very soon we will see another fake 911 in america followed by a fascist take over.

In Blairy England Brown is organising patriot youth groups in schools.

I fear for the future.

Yet More On Tommy Sheridan

This is really an addendum to my previous post, which suggested that 'money wasn't everything' and that socialists, Mr Sheridan in particular, should perhaps consider other inequalities.

One nineteenth-century socialist addressed the issue directly - the novelist Emile Zola. In his wonderful novel Germinal we meet the mine director M. Hennebeau, a conscientious man who worships and desires his beautiful, cold wife - who herself has no time for him, amusing herself with a sucession of lovers. They share their house with his nephew Negrel, a young engineer.

The miners have been on strike for two months, and are starving and desperate. They have started to riot and destroy pit-head workings, although not yet 'his' pit.


The translation is an old one, by Havelock Ellis - yes, that one. I've amended it here and there. My Penguin translation, by Leonard Tancock, is better, but it's in a crate as we have the builders in.




"... he was feeling cold at the heart when a captain, who had arrived running, was shown in, and told him of the mob's march on Mirou. Almost immediately, as he was finishing his coffee, a telegram informed him that Madeleine and Crévecoeur were in their turn threatened. Then his perplexity became extreme. He was expecting the postman at two o'clock; ought he at once to ask for troops ? or would it be better to wait patiently, and not to act until he had received the directors' orders ? He went back into his study; he wished to read a report which he had asked Négrel to prepare the day before for the prefect. But he could not put his hand on it; he reflected that perhaps the young man had left it in his room, where he often wrote at night, and without taking any decision, pursued by the idea of this report, he went upstairs to look for it in the room.

As he entered, M. Hennebeau was surprised: the room had not been done, no doubt through Hippolyte's forgetfulness or laziness. There was a moist heat there, the close heat of the past night, made heavier from the mouth of the hot-air stove being left open; and he was suffocated, too, with a penetrating perfume, which he thought must be the odour of the toilet waters with which the basin was full. There was great disorder in the room--garments scattered about, damp towels thrown on the backs of chairs, the bed yawning, with a sheet drawn back and draggling on the carpet. But at first he only glanced round with an abstracted look as he went towards a table covered with papers to look for the missing report. Twice he examined the papers one by one, but it was certainly not there. Where the devil could that madcap Paul have stuffed it ?

And as M. Hennebeau went back into the middle of the room, giving a glance at each article of furniture, he noticed in the open bed a bright point which shone like a star. He approached mechanically and put out his hand. It was a little gold scent-bottle lying between two folds of the sheet. He at once recognized a scent-bottle belonging to Madame Hennebeau, the little ether bottle which was always with her. But he could not understand its presence here: how could it have got into Paul's bed? And suddenly he grew terribly pale. His wife had slept there.

"Beg your pardon, sir," murmured Hippolyte's voice through the door. "I saw you going up."

The servant entered and was thrown into consternation by the disorder.

"Lord! Why, the room is not done! So Rose has gone out, leaving all the house on my shoulders!"

M. Hennebeau had hidden the bottle in his hand and was pressing it almost to breaking.

"What do you want?"

"It's another man, sir; he has come from Crévecoeur with a letter."

"Good! Leave me alone; tell him to wait."

His wife had slept there! When he had bolted the door he opened his hand again and looked at the little bottle which had left its image in red on his flesh. Suddenly he saw and understood; this had been going on in his house for months. He recalled his old suspicion, the rustling against the doors, the naked feet at night through the silent house. Yes, it was his wife who went up to sleep there!

Falling into a chair opposite the bed, which he gazed at fixedly, he remained some minutes as though crushed. A noise aroused him; someone was knocking at the door, trying to open it. He recognized the servant's voice.

"Sir--Ah ! you are shut in, sir."

"What is it now ?"

"There seems to be a hurry; the men are breaking everything. There are two more messengers below. There are also some telegrams."

"You just leave me alone ! I am coming directly."

The idea that Hippolyte would himself have discovered the scent-bottle, had he done the room in the morning, had just frozen him. And besides, this man must know; he must have found the bed still hot with adultery twenty times over, with madame's hairs trailing on the pillow, and abominable traces staining the linen. The man kept interrupting him, and it could only be out of inquisitiveness. Perhaps he had stayed with his ear stuck to the door, excited by the debauchery of his masters.

M. Hennebeau did not move. He still gazed at the bed. His long past of suffering unrolled before him: his marriage with this woman, their immediate misunderstanding of the heart and of the flesh, the lovers whom she had had unknown to him, and the lover whom he had tolerated for ten years, as one tolerates an impure taste in a sick woman. Then came their arrival at Montsou, the mad hope of curing her, months of languor, of sleepy exile, the approach of old age which would, perhaps, at last give her back to him. Then their nephew arrived, this Paul to whom she became a mother, and to whom she spoke of her dead heart buried for ever beneath the ashes. And he, the imbecile husband, foresaw nothing; he adored this woman who was his wife, whom other men had possessed, but whom he alone could not possess ! He adored her with shameful passion, so that he would have fallen on his knees if she would but have given him the leavings of other men. Other men ! She was giving them to this boy.

The sound of a distant gong at this moment made M. Hennebeau start. He recognized it; it was struck, by his orders, when the postman arrived. He rose and spoke aloud, breaking into the flood of coarseness with which his parched throat was bursting in spite of himself.

"Ah ! I don't give a shit for their telegrams and their letters! not a ****ing bastard shit !"

Now he was carried away by rage, the need of some sewer in which to stamp down all this vileness with his heels. This woman was a slag, a whore; he sought for crude words and buffeted her image with them. The sudden idea of the marriage between Cecile and Paul, which she was arranging with so quiet a smile, completed his exasperation. There was, then, not even passion, not even jealousy at the bottom of her sensuality ? It was just a perverse pastime, a habit, a recreation taken like an favourite dessert. And he put all the responsibility on her, he regarded as almost innocent the lad at whom she had bitten in this reawakening of appetite, just as one bites at an early green fruit, stolen by the wayside. Whom would she devour, on whom would she fall, when she no longer had complaisant nephews, sufficiently practical to accept - from one of their own family - table, bed, and wife ?

There was a timid scratch at the door, and Hippolyte allowed himself to whisper through the keyhole:

"The postman, sir. And Monsieur Dansaert, too, has come back, saying that they are killing one another."

"I'm coming down, good God !"

What should he do to them? Chase them away on their return from Marchiennes, like vermin whom he would no longer have beneath his roof ? He would take a cudgel, and would tell them to carry their filth elsewhere. It was with their sighs, with their mixed breaths, that the damp warmth of this room had grown heavy; the penetrating odour which had suffocated him was the odour of musk which his wife's skin exhaled - another perverse taste, this crav8ing for strong perfume; and he seemed to feel also the heat and odour of fornication, of living adultery, in the pots which lay about, in the basins still full, in the disorder of the linen, of the furniture, of the entire room tainted with their lovemaking. The fury of impotence threw him on to the bed, which he struck with his fists, belabouring the places where he saw the imprint of their two bodies, enraged with the disordered coverlets and the crumpled sheets, soft and inert beneath his blows, as though exhausted themselves by the embraces of a long night.

But suddenly he thought he heard Hippolyte coming up again. He was arrested by shame. For a moment he stood panting, wiping his forehead, calming the bounds of his heart. Standing before a mirror he looked at his face, so changed that he did not recognize himself. Then, when he had watched it gradually grow calmer by an effort of supreme will, he went downstairs."




And within a few hours there's a rampaging mob of starved proletarians in the streets outside ! It never rains but it pours.

The wonderful thing about Zola is that good and bad are never simple stereotypes. We've spent most of the book with the suffering, starving miners, crushed by the Company - of whom M. Hennebeau is the faithful servant.



Mechanically, M. Hennebeau, who wished to look out, went up to Paul's room on the second floor: it was on the left, the best situated, for it commanded the road as far as the Company's Yards. And he stood behind the blinds overlooking the crowd. But this room had again overcome him, the toilet table sponged and in order, the cold bed with neat and well-drawn sheets. All his rage of the afternoon, that furious battle in the depths of his silent solitude, had now turned to an immense fatigue. His whole being was now like this room, grown cold, swept of the filth of the morning, returned to its habitual correctness. What was the good of a scandal ? had anything really changed in his house ? His wife had simply taken another lover; that she had chosen him in the family scarcely aggravated the fact; perhaps even it was an advantage, for she thus preserved appearances. He pitied himself when he thought of his mad jealousy. How ridiculous to have struck that bed with his fists! Since he had tolerated another man, he could certainly tolerate this one. It was only a matter of a little more contempt, that was all. A terrible bitterness was burning in his mouth, the uselessness of everything, the eternal pain of existence, shame for himself who always adored and desired this woman, even in her degradation.

Beneath the window the yells broke out with increased violence:

"Bread! bread! bread!"

"Fools !" said M. Hennebeau between his clenched teeth.

He heard them abusing him for his large salary, calling him a bloated idler, a bloody beast who stuffed himself to indigestion with good things, while the worker was dying of hunger. The women had noticed the kitchen, and there was a tempest of imprecations against the pheasant roasting there, against the sauces that irritated their empty stomachs with tempting odours. Ah ! the stinking bourgeois, they should be stuffed with champagne and truffles till their guts burst !

"Bread! bread! bread!"

"Fools !" repeated M. Hennebeau; "am I happy?"

Anger arose in him against these people who could not understand. He would willingly have made them a present of his large salary to possess their thick skins and their facility of casual, guilt-free coupling. Why could he not seat them at his table and stuff them with his pheasant, while he went to fornicate behind the hedges, to tumble the girls over, making fun of those who had been there before him! He would have given everything his education, his comfort, his luxury, his power as manager, if he could be for one day the vilest of the wretches who obeyed him, free of his flesh, enough of a blackguard to beat his wife and to take his pleasure with his neighbours' wives. And he longed also to be dying of hunger, to have an empty belly, a stomach twisted by cramps that would make his head turn with giddiness: perhaps that would have killed the eternal pain. Ah! to live like a brute, to own nothing, to roam the fields with the roughest and dirtiest haulage-girl, and to possess her !


"Bread! bread! bread!"

Then he grew angry and shouted furiously in the tumult:

"Bread! is that enough, idiots!"

He could eat, and all the same he was groaning with torment. His desolate household, his whole wounded life, choked him at the throat like a death agony. Things were not all for the best because one had bread. Who was the fool who thought earthly happiness lay in the equal division of wealth? These revolutionary dreamers might demolish society and rebuilt another society; they would not add one joy to humanity, they would not take away one pain, by cutting bread for everybody. They would even enlarge the unhappiness of the earth; they would one day make the very dogs howl with despair when they had taken them out of the tranquil satisfaction of instinct, to raise them to the unappeasable suffering of passion. No, the one good thing was not to exist, and if one existed, to be a tree, a stone, less still, a grain of sand, which cannot bleed beneath the heels of the passer-by.

And in his torment, tears swelled in M. Hennebeau's eyes, and broke in burning drops on his cheeks. The twilight was drowning the road when stones began to riddle the front of the villa. With no anger now against these starving people, only enraged by the burning wound at his heart he continued to stammer in the midst of his tears:

"Fools ! fools !"

But the cry of the belly dominated, and a roar blew like a tempest, sweeping everything before it:

"Bread! bread! bread!"