Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Turning Webellion Into Money


Mr Mellor ("Joe Strummer" to his fans) at home in Somerset


From the Court and Social pages :

Mr John Graham Mellor, who died at his farmhouse at Broomfield, Somerset, in December, left an estate of £986,229 gross, £945,132 net. A further £127,429 of narcotics is buried in the five-acre field and remains to be retrieved. His wife Lucinda (nee Plymply-Thynne, daughter of the 7th Earl Ferrers and Strathmore, and mother to Tryphosia, Missaluba and Tahini) inherits.

The public school educated son of a diplomat, after service in the Blues and Royals he rose to fame in the 1970s under an assumed name as a guitarist in the popular 'beat' combo "The Clash". But he remained true to his roots, encouraging other members of the band to take up pigeon shooting as a hobby and insisting that they target the racing pigeons of elderly working-class Londoners. In later years he gave up hunting after a serious fall and devoted himself to conservation work.

Monday, January 08, 2007

Rule Britannia ! Britannia rules the waves ...

Britons never never never




Shall be sub

Mirrstalanche !

UPDATE - Blimey. It's a Mirrstalanche. Over 1000 hits (mostly Altavista image search) today from people looking for a post from eighteen months back that doesn't even have a picture, just a link to one. What's Helen Mirren been up to ?

I don't know. Enough to make one despair. Years of political blogging for an audience of seven or eight hundred people, and your top posts are a Helen Mirren photo link, the Bowyer-Dyer fight video, and something that attracts googlers for 'decapitation video'.

Bloggers like Tim Worstall are carving out a second career - so I note the occasional post cunningly designed to snaffle Stateside traffic with a wry smile. Not my thing at all. Perish the thought. This blog is designed to lower my blood pressure rather than raise my overdraft limits.

But all the same. It wasn't even a very good quality photograph. People searching for Ms Mirren in her pomp are probably better off here.

(It's not a bad film, btw. The late lamented Dorothy Tutin is superb)

Not Having Kids Part 4383

For some reason I'm getting hundreds of Helen Mirren hits this morning. A quick Wiki tells me that

a) she was born Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov
b) no children

It's true. The left-wing, alternative 60s generation really does contain the unfertilised seeds of its own destruction.



There's a small postette at Biased BBC.

And the Copper (whose book I bought for my aunt at Christmas) has an entertaining email.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Drinking From Home

Hasn't posted for seven weeks. Left no goodbye note.

Anyone know him ? Is he OK ?

Another Liberal Myth Bites The Dust

I'd never heard of this, but apparently :

Some native American anthropologists claim that primitive Navajos used to honour men known as the "nadleeh" – said to have "two spirits", one masculine, one feminine – who were allowed to dress like women, and to perform their duties.

In traditional pointy-head style, this meant that the Navajo were cool dudes, who "recognised sexual diversity in their community". How unlike our own straight, repressed Christian forebears ! Don't bogart that peyote, Don Juan !

That slightly scary feminist student who would witter on about Native American spirituality is now Diversity Co-Ordinator with a budget. There seems to be a cluster of them in the North West.

"The Navajo Lesbian and Gay Health Strategy for Preston, Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre currently has 50 local organisations signed up to its lesbian and gay friendly assurance charter mark scheme. This includes NHS health care services including Accident and Emergency, GUM Clinics, GPs, young people’s sexual health services as well as other statutory and voluntary services. The charter mark ensures equity of access to services and equality of employment and includes access to training, resources, support, funding and policy making for all organisations involved."

It was Navajo Chartermark literature which led to the Wyre Borough Thought Police incident.

Strangely, the real Navajo nation don't seem too chuffed.

The native Americans, however, are furious. Their attorney-general has written a letter, passed to The Sunday Telegraph, expressing "great concern".

The 300,000 Navajo live on a huge reservation in north-eastern Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, and enjoy considerable independence from Washington. They make many of their own laws, including one passed overwhelmingly in 2005, banning homosexual marriages.

Louis Denetsosie, the Navajo attorney-general, says in a letter to the Roberts: "The Navajo nation is greatly concerned regarding the use of the word Navajo in any context, but even more so when it is used to express a view or policy that is contrary to Navajo law."

Last night, one of the lawyers who acted for the Roberts, Tom Ellis, of the Manchester firm Aughton Ainsworth, said: "At a time when gay activists are pressing for laws that will give them a right not to be offended, it appears that some groups, including many funded by the taxpayer, are prepared to offend a whole nation."

Well ...

It worked.

Criminal 'Justice' Round-Up

Foreign criminals ? Too much hassle ...

"Two criminals caught on CCTV vandalising cars were not prosecuted because police said they were unemployed foreigners and to bring them to justice would cost too much.

One victim received a letter from Norfolk police saying the pair would not be prosecuted because they were both foreign nationals with no jobs and no income and the case was “not in the public interest to pursue due to the expenses incurred in having a trial”.

The latest case involved the vandalism of at least five cars in Norwich. Two men, aged 19 and 29, were arrested on suspicion of damaging cars but a Norfolk police spokeswoman said that after “careful consideration of all the evidence” it was decided to deal with the offenders by way of a police caution.

Barry Ferguson, 29, one of the victims of the vandals, who are in the country legally, said he was dismayed by the decision. “Even though these people were caught in the act they are getting away with wanton vandalism,” he said.

“I can’t believe the police have spent all this money on CCTV and then have not bothered to charge them.

“There would be outrage if a British person got away with this but it is being justified in this instance because these people are foreign with no income. What is the point of having CCTV if these crimes are ignored?” The police spokeswoman said: “Any decision is tested against the attorney-general’s guidelines. It has absolutely nothing to do with their ethnicity or level of income.

“This caution, whilst not a conviction, is added to their police record and can be cited in court should they reoffend. The victims, if they wish to do so, can pursue compensation through the civil courts.” "


a.k.a. 'you're on your own, mate'.

Foreign criminals ? Think of their human rights ...

"The hunt for hundreds of foreign prisoners who were released instead of being deported is being hampered by the refusal by police to issue "wanted" photographs because they would infringe criminals' "human rights".

Worries about their "right to privacy" are complicating the search for about 250 convicts – including one murderer – who avoided deportation in the scandal that led to Charles Clarke's removal as home secretary in May."


Caught shoplifting ? Take a £80 fixed penalty notice. No criminal record - and do some more shoplifting to pay the fine !

More than 160,000 offenders caught shoplifting, vandalising property or engaging in yobbish behaviour last year were issued with £50 or £80 penalty notices, under a government scheme to speed up justice.

Penalty notices are given for shoplifting, criminal damage, being drunk and disorderly, and 'causing harassment, alarm or distress'

The figure represents offenders spared court in one crime out of every nine that is solved by the police.

The crimes count as having been detected, helping police and the Home Office to meet clear-up targets, even though offenders issued with the notices do not have to admit their guilt and do not end up with a criminal record.

A rapid rise in the use of "penalty notices for disorder" - up by 20 per cent in the past 12 months - has sparked accusations that ministers are in effect "decriminalising" some offences.


You might not even have to pay up. About a third of fines in major cities (London, Manchester, Merseyside) are never paid. Anyone know what the figures are for fixed penalties ?

elsewhere the clueless Prison Service doesn't know how many escaped prisoners there are.

"Almost 700 inmates escaped in the year to last April from England's 15 open jails, Mr Wheatley estimated.

Earlier this week, the Home Office, replying to a Freedom of Information Act request, said 401 of the prisoners remained at large.

But the figures were compiled last May, and Mr Wheatley said he was "embarrassed" to admit he was unable to provide an accurate up-to-date figure because there was no central database for recording numbers of recaptured prisoners. "

Thursday, January 04, 2007

New Toy

A depressing feature of an otherwise cheerful Christmas was the realisation that just about everything we bought or were given seemed to have been made in China. The goods are getting higher tech, too. We seem to be moving towards an economy where we use our unique comparative advantages to make ... er ... nothing.

Still, as Tim and Chris would say, we benefit from cheap goods from China. They leave us with more money in our pockets to buy ... other cheap goods from China.

As a child I loved astronomy. As an young adult I had no money, as a parent I had no money to spend on myself. A pair of Boots binoculars was my total stargazing kit.

There have been cheap Far Eastern telescopes around for years, sold in catalogues and chain stores. The Tasco's of this world, and pretty dreadful they were.

But the Chinese upped their game. A few years back a decent starter telescope was £400-500. Now for about £280 you can buy a small but optically sound telescope with 'goto' capability - in other words you can tell it via a hand controller where to point in the sky, or choose a star or planet from a list, and it'll point itself and stay pointed as the stars move.

I wasn't prepared to pay such a 'vast amount' for the Celestron. How about a Skywatcher, made in China but with vastly improved optics from the telescopes of a few years back. They do refractors and reflectors, including some big Dobsonians at ridiculous prices - £350 for 10" aperture ?

Alas the big beasts are a pain to carry, transport and set up. And in the end it's a big boys toy which may not get a lot of use. Something a little cheaper was needed.

£165 will buy you this Skywatcher 130PM, if you go to the right place. And to my delight the right place turned out to be just a drive up the A38, where Chris Livingstone Telescopes did me one at that excellent price. Nice chap too. His telescope prices are as good as any I've seen in the UK.

He will also do you a Toucam Pro II CCD webcam and telescope adaptor at a reasonable rate.

Blogging may be light if we get a lot of clear nights.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

History, Blood and Language

"They're bound together by their history, their blood and their language" said the BBC interviewee approvingly.

Another frothing right-wing Brit, condemning himself out of his own mouth ?

No, an upbeat portrait of Romany Gypsies. They're allowed that sort of thing, you see.

Monday, January 01, 2007

What Elephant ?

Two Mail on Sunday stories :

On the BNP ballerina :

The BNP is certainly repellent, with its knee-jerk hatred of foreigners and history of organised thuggery ... when one of the country's principal ballerinas, a 36-year-old woman who spent much of her recent working life as the Sugar Plum Fairy, decides to join the British neo-fascists, there is an argument that something has gone badly wrong ...


What could it be that's gone badly wrong ?

"Using the word immigration is now a greater crime than cold-blooded murder," she claims.



Elsewhere in the MoS, this story - "How families are flocking West to escape the rat-race".


The middle-classes are fleeing urban Britain and the grim battles of the rat race. The search for a better quality of life has fuelled an exodus to the South West and East of England, sending property prices soaring.

A new study shows 2.38m left London in the past ten years, while another 2m from the South East headed for the escape routes.


Searching for a better quality of life, eh ? Consisting of ?

"better schools, lower violent crime, warmer weather, the region's beaches and countryside"

Halifax economist, Tim Crawford, said: "It is a quality of life issue. People are fed up with the over-crowding, congestion and hassle of city life.

"By contrast the South West has clean air, is less crowded, there are good schools and good transport links back to London and the south.

"There is also an increasing number of major employers in the South West, for example the Met Office relocated to near Exeter."


Ah yes. Nearly 4.5 million people have gone to work at the Met Office.

So London's emptying then ?

The figures for London show that some 2.38m people have left since 1996, while at the same time 1.61m arrived from other parts of the country. This amounts to a net loss of 774,000.

However, this fall has been more than made up by a huge influx - just under 1m - of foreign immigrants to the capital. At the same time there were 453,000 more births than deaths.

The net impact of these changes was to increase the capital's population by 600,000.


I'm sure the people-leaving-London phenomenon has nothing to do with the people-coming-to-London phenomenon. And the Mail are sure too, 'cos they sure don't mention it.

P.S. You have to feel for the Halifax spokesman, trying to find new ways of saying the same thing while avoiding the bleeding obvious. Last year they were leaving to 'escape the frantic lifestyle'.

Inter-Tribal Warfare

Ken Livingstone : "The 'We are Londoners, We are One' campaign celebrates the fact that London is one of the most diverse cities in the world. It is one of the things that makes it a great city to live in and visit."



Random Acts of Reality blog : It later transpired that the beating was in part due to the 'inter-tribal' warfare that often takes to the street of London. Country 'A' hates Country 'B', and so they decide to beat each other up. The ambulance service and A&E departments along with the police are the lucky souls who get to pick up those pieces.

(Tom Reynolds blog should need no introduction - it's a great blog in its own right, and full of insights into the good and bad sides of multicultural London. He's alo got a book out.)

Compare And Contrast

An environmentally aware leader who shares what he has with our feathered friends :

"A military nurse who cared for Saddam Hussein said the former dictator saved bread crusts to feed birds and tended a small plot of weeds while in jail."

A brutal dictator who starves little birdies :

"Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, today announced that from Monday 17th November the feeding of pigeons by people, other than those authorised by the Mayor, will be prohibited. "

First They Came ....

For Scott Burgess - and I did not speak out because I was not a clever, literate son of Louisiana.

Then they came for Drinking From Home ... he's been silent for six weeks. No farewell message ...

Is it a Guardian hit-squad or are they BBC mercenaries ?

Saturday, December 30, 2006

The Today Programme

Allowed one of its Christmas programmes to be edited by a wild-haired, wailing, lunatic Sixties throwback.

(They gave Yoko Ono a programme as well.)

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Those Dreadful Attacks

It hardly bears thinking about. Five separate, brutal attacks on a despised class, defined by what they are forced to do to earn a living in Blair's Britain.

Whether the attacks are the work of one person or of many (a theory which shows how widespread in society is this hatred), the perpetrators are obviously deeply disturbed individuals, almost certainly confused about their sexuality, ill at ease and unable to come to terms with a modern Britain which has increasingly shown that old attitudes to what used to be called "the Daily Mail problem" are no longer relevant.

What do these self-appointed moral Tsars (and didn't Peter Sutcliffe claim to be "cleaning Bradford up" ?) think they will have achieved with their senseless assaults ? Like it or not, there have always been Daily Mail columnists - and, despite the best efforts of pursed-lipped, judgemental liberals, there probably always will be.

Poor Richard Littlejohn was merely trying to earn a living the best way he knows how. He doesn't deserve to be brutally attacked in this horrific manner, no matter what his lifestyle.

Were it not for all those 'aren't I liberal' people writing about the murdered girls as plucky little street heroines, he would not have been driven to write what he did.

Society is to blame. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone at a husband and father struggling to fill those column inches to buy Christmas gifts for his little ones.

He may be only a 'Daily Mail columnist', despised and disposable, to the curtain-twitching social worker brigade, but he's Daddy to those children, and we should never forget that in our rush to define him purely by what he does in order to put bread on the table and make those little children's eyes light up.

Which, I ask you, is the greater danger to society ? Mr Littlejohn's scribbles, which only harm himself, or the Archbishop of Canterbury's illegal war in Iraq ?

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Strange ...

If I look at the main page for UK Commentators, it's completely blank. I can still see all the individual posts though.

I wonder if posting another post will make the thing visible again ? Or is this Blogger's cunning plan to force us all to beta ?

UPDATE - the extra post seems to have brought the beast back. Odd. Judging by the fact that my last 20 referrers match my last 20 visitors, it seems that I've had an invisible blog for the last 6 hours.

And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ?

It's an article of faith on the political Left that saying bad things about asylum-seekers or immigrants will lead to racist attacks and murders. Yet the corollary to this theorem, that saying bad things about the natives will lead to attacks on them, is never put forward, despite the fact that saying bad things about the natives is more common, perfectly socially acceptable and actually state-sponsored. If you have a child in secondary school, take a look at their history texts. It's not getting better, either.

Brutal aspects of British rule in India during the 20th century will feature in a syllabus approved for secondary schools in England today.

Pupils aged 11 to 14 will study events like the Amritsar massacre when hundreds of protesters were killed by British troops.


I don't imagine Cawnpore, when hundreds of British women and children, prisoners of Nana Sahib, were butchered in cold blood, will feature highly on the curriculum.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority denied any anti-British bias and said that the optional unit for Key Stage 3 would foster understanding between the mix of nationalities in England.


Looks like the news of the death of multiculturalism hasn't reached the QCA yet. The 'mix of nationalities in England', eh ? I thought we were all British citizens and subjects of Her Majesty, united under Gordon Brown's Union Jack. You can see how telling the natives how bad they were and those 'of subcontinental heritage' how badly their forebears were treated will 'foster understanding', can't you ? As long as that understanding is that the natives are evil racists, of course.

The trouble is ideas have consequences. The fact that for every member of the minority population of England and Wales killed by a native, two natives are killed by a member of a minority community may at least in part be a result of thirty years of propaganda by self-loathing white liberals - for example the BBCs coverage of racist murder. That great iconoclast Yasmin Alibhai Brown addressed this issue in an Evening Standard piece a while back, which Edwin Greenwood has kindly made available.

I have talked to some black and Asian inmates serving time in prison for such (racist) crimes: most justify their actions as collective retribution for attacks on "their people". A knife for a knife, they think, will make for a better world.


As I've posted before , the current demography of the elderly patient population in our hospitals is very different from that of the medical workforce. As Trevor Phillips proudly proclaimed : "The National Health Service, the most British of institutions, was launched by a Welshman, built by Irish labour, sustained by Caribbean nurses and now held together by Indian and other foreign doctors with Filipino nurses, and Somali cleaners. That is modern Britain." I see no reason to imagine that this demography is different in the private care and nursing home sectors, although there'll be an extra dimension in the ownership of such institutions.

Demographics mean that, especially in our great cities, the elderly - who are overwhelmingly natives - will find that their carers and medical staff are more and more likely to be non-natives. Who, as noted above, have been brought up on stories about the evil natives - stories usually amplified and promoted by middle-class white liberals.


'Collective retribution for attacks on "their people"'. Call me old-fashioned, Yasmin - but isn't that called racism ?

'And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge ?'

"A care home boss whose staff goaded disabled patients into attacking each other was warned she faces jail yesterday.

Diane Butler, 47, was in charge of carers who hurled racist and cruel taunts at defenceless residents with physical and mental difficulties.

A year-long reign of terror included one disabled woman being urged to kick and beat a Down’s Syndrome sufferer.

Margaret Burdfield, 49, was also called a ‘white bitch’ and ‘ugly bitch’ at Craegmoor Residential Care Home, North London.

The three abusive staff were shopped to police by carer Basil Hanson who secretly filmed their taunts on a mobile phone.

London’s Snaresbrook Crown Court heard staff warned Butler to take action against the abuse.

Butler had denied knowledge of the incidents and said she was in the West Indies at the time. She was convicted of one count of wilful neglect but cleared of another. One count was put on court file. Judge Alan Pardoe told her: “The possibility of a custodial sentence is real.”

Islington Council shut the home last September.

Detective Sgt Paul Kingdon said afterwards: “It is abhorrent that they sought to humiliate residents. This appears to have been done purely for their own amusement.”

Carers Noelin Bailey, 31, Eulalee Hall, 51, both of North London, and Glendeen Nedd, 35, of East London, will be sentenced at a later date."


The BBC, Islington Tribune and Scotsman also have reports.

"Despite Islington Council regularly inspecting private care home, Craegmoor, in Holloway, and having “no cause for concern” over care standards, police were dramatically enlisted to shut it down last September amid claims of psychological and racial abuse.

The incident was described by adult social services chief, Cllr John Gilbert as “disturbing but rare”. He said: “Our three residents were quickly moved to an alternative home and have since settled well.”

“It (the home) was registered with the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and subject to its robust inspection regime. Our officers also visited regularly to check on the standard of care as well as to assess and review the level of care needed by our residents."


You know what happens next. What always happens when an organisation fails. "Review the procedures !"

“In (the) light of what happened, we carried out a review of our procedures for appointing care providers. We are confident our vetting procedures were followed and all the necessary checks into Craegmoor’s affairs were made before appointing them.”


The unpleasantnesses in Islington are not a one-off. I'm thinking of the innovative feeding regime which 89 year old Lucy Neal was subjected to in Handsworth.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Monday, December 25, 2006

Ther is no rose of swych vertu





Ther is no rose of swych vertu
As is the rose that bar Jesu,
Alleluia.

For in this rose conteynyd was
Heven and erthe in lytyl space,
Res miranda.

Be that rose we may weel see
That he is God in personys thre,
Pari forma.

The aungelys sungyn the sheperdes to:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Gaudeamus.

Leve we al this wordly merthe
And folwe we this joyful berthe;
Transeamus.







As sung by the very wonderful Sinfonye - three Aussie feminists and a hurdy-gurdy. Translation here. You can hear a clip here. Merry Christmas.

(Image from this site)