Life's Little Ironies

Normblog profile of Antonia Bance.

What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger? > Be prepared for what happens when you blog about Israel, Fathers4Justice or abortion: Holocaust deniers, wife beaters and religious nuts come out of the woodwork.

What do you consider the most important personal quality? > Empathy.

The Christmas Story

It's that time of year once more, when we retell the wonderful ancient story - of Jesus the asylum-seeker and refugee.

As is well known, Jesus and his parents had to flee to Egypt, the nearest safe country, to escape Herod's policy of 'post-natal termination' for all first born.


The Flight Into Egypt by Anibale Carracci.

But many people believe that the Holy Family then moved on across several continents, passing through many safe countries, before claiming asylum in the country of their choice - the country with the largest number of support groups, free housing and healthcare, and welcoming elites.

May I present -

Bishop Of Norwich -

"Herod kills all the young children in his attempt to destroy this newborn king. So Mary and Joseph escape to Egypt rather than returning to their home town and Jesus immediately becomes a refugee.
That's one of the things about the Christmas story that makes it contemporary. In Norfolk we count refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers among our neighbours."

The Guardian's Karen Armstrong -

"There is no room for the holy family in the inn; in Matthew's gospel, Jesus becomes a refugee"

Ekklesia (Guardian Readers at prayer) -

"Jesus too was an asylum seeker"

The Age, Australia

So Jesus, the prophesied saviour, spent the first years of his life as a refugee, knowing fear and depending on the kindness and hospitality of strangers (also "Joseph and Mary were members of a small nation conquered by a global superpower.").

Bishop of Lichfield -

A Church of England bishop has attacked "sentimental" Christmas card portrayals of the Nativity, saying that Jesus's family were asylum seekers and the three Wise Men were part of an assassination plot.

Department Of Education -

UK Government "stimulus and activity sheet exploring the theme of Jesus as an asylum seeker" for use in UK schools.

Revd Jonathan Clark, Independent

"I think we forget that Jesus was an asylum seeker himself"

And a big shout for the Bishop of Worcester (twinned with Sodom)

"When Christmas happened, the violence of the Roman super-power gave way to the reign of the Prince of Peace and the force of a violent occupation had to yield to the weakness of a baby."

What could he be talking about ?


UPDATE - a commenter wants to know why I'm only picking on the CofE. I just went for the first stories I found on Google - life's too short to number all the people who say 'Hey ! Jesus was an asylum-seeker, too !' with the air of someone saying something 'new', 'radical', even 'transgressive'. Such people are numberless as the stars in the sky, or sand on the seashore.

But here goes ...

Catholic Weekly, Australia -

"Jesus was an asylum seeker, too"

Australian Catholic Migrant And Refugee Office -

"The Gospel presentation of the Holy Family as a refugee family and of Jesus Christ as a refugee before He was two years old is before us, so clearly, as we tonight participate in our Refugee Sunday service."

Let me check - Refugee Sunday - isn't that the third Sunday after Easter ? A historic Feast of the Church. "Shrive me now, Lord Bishop, I must away to Mass. Wit ye not 'tis Refugee Sunday ?"


Pope Benedict Blog

"Jesus himself will be remembered as an asylum seeker and immigrant."

A Dalrymple Interview From Colombia

He does seem to get about, that chap.

What is the problem? What do think is causing this violence?

The people are completely dependent, there is no economic activity in these towns apart from drug trafficking, really, and other forms of trafficking.There’s not much hope that things are going to change for them. Up to 40% of people under the age of 25 are unemployed, most of them are probably never going toget employed, if they do get employed they’ll be employed not earning very much more than they get for doing nothing, so they feel very aggrieved, and I think that’s a large part of the problem.

I see. It must be difficult in a country like Colombia, where drugs are so important to the economy.

Just a minute. He's talking about Paris !

Colombia News is an interesting new blog - I'd have thought that journalist was a pretty high risk occupation there.

Stuff on 'sixteen ways to smuggle cocaine' and a piece on the prostitutes of Medellin ('She asked if I wanted to go to a strip club with her. I made my excuses and left'. What he doesn't say is where he went and who he took with him !)

Police and Thieves

Imagine a white criminal, whose gang seek revenge after another gang member is murdered. The gang break into the house of an 18 year old Asian man, and take it in turns to torture him with knives and a hammer while his girlfriend cowers in the next room with her baby.

Then they shoot him in the head.

The criminal rings his girlfriend, a (white) serving police officer, within minutes of the killing. She helps him to flee the country.

I can't help thinking we'd have heard about a case like this on BBC News by now. After all, they're big on stories about torture, or possible police racism.



But nothing like this has actually happened.

A Policewoman helped two men flee the country after they allegedly tortured a teenager before shooting him in the head, a jury heard this week.

Prosecuting lawyers claim PC Rupinder Gill, 27, was in a relationship with Mohammed Akbar when 18-year-old Daniel Higgins was killed.

Her boyfriend was one member of an armed gang which broke into a flat and took it in turn to torture Mr Higgins with knives and a hammer, Reading Crown Court was told.

Mr Higgins was then shot as girl-friend Natalie Muncey cowered with her ten-month-old baby in the next room of the flat in Thirlmere Avenue, Burnham.

Akbar, 28, of Eastbridge Road, Slough, and friend Zahir Hussain allegedly used a Eurostar train to get from London to Paris after the attack in November 2003.

Gill is accused of travelling with them and returning to England a few days later.

Her mobile phone records allegedly show that she had been talking to Akbar within minutes of the savage killing.

And police searching her computer found she had looked up flights and Eurostar times on the internet, the jury heard.

Charles Miskin QC, prosecuting, said the gang murdered Mr Higgins to avenge the killing of Mohammed Choudry in February 2003.

He added: "Mohammed Akbar was amongst these masked men. He does not deny that.

"At the time of the offence, Rupinder Gill was his girlfriend and two days after the murder he and another man called Zahir Hussain fled the jurisdiction.

"They fled by Eurostar to Paris, from where they moved to Malaga. Mohammed Akbar's girlfriend assisted him in his flight."

The pair were arrested and extradited from Spain earlier this year.

Detectives investigating Gill, who trained at Hendon Police College, found St Valentine's Day cards sent after Akbar had fled the UK. The trainee officer was arrested in May 2004.

Hussain has since admitted assisting an offender and Akbar, although admitting to being in the flat, denies murder.

Home Office pathologist Dr Ashley Fegan Earl told the jury that Mr Higgins' killers used a machete to cut into his head. They also stabbed him all over his body and hit him with a blunt weapon.

Gang member Majad Khan, 29, of Wexham Road, Slough, was jailed for 20 years at Reading Crown Court in November last year for his part in the teenager's murder.

Gill, from Hounslow, denies assisting an offender.

The trial continues.

The trial has now finished. Note the total absence of Gill's occupation from the BBC report.


UPDATE - the BBC report never actually made it to the 'England' news section, which is reserved for more important stories - like 'Boy's idea protects red squirrels' and 'Kitten released from car engine'.

Snouts In The Trough

Peers who say their main residence is outside London can claim an overnight allowance of £154.50 (per day - the basic state pension is £82 a week) for staying in the capital on parliamentary business.

So the thing to do is claim that your holiday retreat is your main residence and your main residence is a weekend pad.

New Labour unplugged reports on four porcine "Socialist" peers.

Naught For Your Comfort

Ler's increase the penalties for smoking.

And reduce them for murder. Note the BBC's 'US-style' spin. We'll get US style categories - and British style sentences.

Education's just fine as it is.

The NHS - Pride of Britain. If you get maggots on your face in 'intensive' care, what's bog-standard care like ?

And drink-related deaths in Scotland rise 350% in 20 years. Didn't the Scots introduce 24-hour drinking a while back ? Say about 20 years ago ?

And remember last year's population figures, showing 19% of English births and 47% of London births were to mothers from outside the UK ?

This year's figures are 20% and 49%.

Oh, and there's no pensions crisis.

The move is likely to be watched closely by other firms.
Companies have previously tried to control costs by closing final salary pension schemes to new employees, but no large company had "dared take this step", one pensions expert told the Financial Times.
The National Association of Pension Funds said that other company pension schemes would increasingly have to follow Rentokil's approach.

There's not one here either.

Friends Provident is investigating the whereabouts of staff pension contributions at Unwins, the off-licence chain, as the troubled high street retailer was forced into administration last night threatening the future of about 2,000 jobs.

Rumour Mill

I keep getting Google hits from people looking for "Fi Glover fired". Nothing else tells me that - but when I got a load of hits for "Rod Liddle assault" it turned out to be true.

I have nowt against Fi - just another middle of the road Radio Five liberal who's moved to Radio Four as part of the long-term dumbing down strategy. She's nowhere near as PC as the horrendous Victoria Derbyshire.

VD - " ... and today on the phone-in we ask the question - is worrying about Islam a sensible response to the July 7th attacks or an excuse for racism and xenophobia ? The lines are busy - we've got Dave in Dagenham, Henry in Hertford, Bill from Blythe Bridge, Rory from Romford and Asif in Acocks Green - Asif !"

Asif - "... er, well as I see it racism in Britih society is something that's been there for a long time - look at the history of slavery and exploitation in the British Empire - racism seems to be in the genes of all British people"

VD - "Asif, thank you - that's very interesting ... "

(I also keep getting hits for "Eddie Mair gay" - he's another Radio Five person on Radio Four - a less offensive Nicky Campbell. About which I care not a hoot - Nigel Wrench is one of the best reporters on Radio Four and he's HIV+. Still a good reporter though.)

Also in the rumour mill, a Bradford correspondent reports that the word on the street post-shooting is

a) that the two police women arrived at the scene after two male officers had been originally sent and hadn't found the place (it's about 200 yds from Bradford police HQ but you never know)
b) that the policewoman was killed at point blank range in execution style

Lighter than Light Blogging

So ... I'm not sure what the Lib Dems have against Kennedy. He's got them in a better position than they've been in since the 1920s. And if it's policy that's the problem, think again. The LDs success is a result of their being able to be all things to all men.

Cameron ... looks like the Tories are going for my Option b).

And talking of reflecting modern Britain - some places aren't like modern Britain and don't want to be. But as the good people of the Western Isles are finding out, cultural diversity ain't for the likes of them.

"Ministers are prepared to fly mainland registrars to the Western Isles to beat the ban on gay marriages imposed by officials and councillors in the islands, it emerged last night.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive made it clear that ministers wanted civil partnerships to be available right across Scotland and they would use all the powers open to them to make sure this happened.

One way they could do this would be for the Registrar General to fly in outside registrars to the Western Isles - a move which would have the Executive's full support."

You can have any culture you want - as long as it's ours.

Gardjola

It's a Maltese blog, the cut of whose jib I like.

But then I've been a fan of the Maltese ever since reading as a teenager Ernle Bradford's The Great Siege.

Malta is one of the oldest Christian nations on Earth - Christianity dating from St. Paul's shipwreck on the Island. Although under Arab rule for 200 years (the Maltese language is Arabic-influenced - for example, the old capital was Mdina, 'the city'), the excellently named Count Roger the Norman restored the old faith.

The Siege of 1565, when the Maltese under the leadership of the Knights of St John defeated the much larger Ottoman force of Soleyman the Magnificent, was one of the key moments in European history, as this, along with the siege of Vienna, marked the limit of Ottoman expansion into Europe.

(I like to think that Peter Briffa is related to Luqa Briffa, a member of the Maltese cavalry at the time of the Great Siege, mentioned as having shown exceptional skill as a horseman and inordinate bravery).



The Gurdjola site also links to the Gutenberg project, who have made available the complete poetry of Sir Thomas Moore.

Moore, most famous for romantic Irish poems like The Minstrel Boy, was an Orientalist. His long poem sequence Lalla Rookh contains a description of a religiously-motivated killer which seems relevant today to the Zarquawi school of head-chopping.


One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think thro' unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven

2 + 2 = ???

It's a Scottish hat-trick of posts from the Peter Lovenkrands of blogging.

These two stories were top of the BBC Scotland news page at lunchtime today. I wonder if by any chance they could be related ?

GP cover 'worst in poorer areas'

People who live in deprived areas get less help from the health service, a study has warned. Glasgow University researchers found the poorest parts of Scotland's towns and cities had 11% fewer GPs and less access to health promotion programmes.

This was despite evidence of a far higher rate of ill health.

I like that 'despite' - as if sick people magically attract medics. Perhaps the poor health is a consequence of the shortage of health staff.

But perhaps not. Next on the page :

Assaults on NHS staff increasing

More than 20,000 assaults were carried out on NHS staff in Scotland in the past year, figures have revealed. Statistics from health authorities given to BBC Scotland show continuing high levels of physical attacks, aggressive behaviour and verbal abuse.

The Royal College of Nursing said, despite zero tolerance campaigns, assaults were becoming more frequent and more violent.

The Scottish Executive said violence against NHS staff was "unacceptable".




I wonder which areas have the highest rate of assaults ? Would they by any chance be the poorer ones that Glasgow University researchers are so worried about ?

"There were 11% more GPs in the more affluent areas compared with the more deprived half of the population.

The researchers said that although they found larger numbers of practices in the most rural and deprived areas, this reflected the higher proportion of single-handed and small practices in these areas.

They also found that these practices tended to have younger doctors, fewer female doctors and less involvement by GPs in extra voluntary activities compared with affluent areas."

I see. Older doctors and female doctors tend to avoid these areas - and the doctors who do go there don't seem to want to do extra voluntary activities. Why could this be ? Let's see what Professor Graham Watt has to say :

"Practices serving the most deprived areas are less likely to volunteer, possibly because they are so consumed by dealing with increased levels of morbidity, without increased levels of medical manpower, that they are unable or unwilling to take on additional activities"

The poor medics are just so busy laying out the bodies and treating the sick that they just don't have any time for all those extra goodies. And the absence of the old and the female ? Er ...

I guess the important bit is "without increased levels of medical manpower", otherwise known as 'more money please'. I do like the way publicly funded organisations call for more money for each other. Glasgow Uni, BBC, NHS in a little virtuous circle. We all know how little money is spent on the NHS.

Makes you wonder if they left the 'T' off the good professor's surname.



Still, never mind. Where the great brains of Glasgow have struggled and failed, this blog can bring you a scientific and medical breakthrough.

After minutes of intensive research by a dedicated team of one, looking at that same BBC Scotland news page, I can reveal the dramatic discovery of a link betwen poverty, poor health and assaults on NHS staff, hitherto entirely unknown.

Alcohol takes toll on Scots NHS

Scotland's drink problem is worsening with a significant rise in emergency admissions to hospitals over the past eight years, a report shows.
In some cases the figures have more than doubled, according to NHS Quality Improvement Scotland.

Deputy Health Minister Lewis Macdonald said Scotland's culture of heavy drinking was placing an increasing burden on the NHS.

Apparently high rates of alcohol consumption are indicative of both a high level of violence and a high level of ill health. I think this could be just what Scotland's politicians are waiting for. I can almost see the strategies being rolled out.

"Mum, don't do that"

Writing about Scotland yesterday brought something back to me.

It was February 2000, and we were in the Central Belt, driving between Glasgow and Stirling, on our way for a week in Glenlivet. We like the Highlands and Islands, spending a week there most winters and summers.

The football coverage had finished, the kids were half asleep and we had another 200-odd miles to cover. Nearly time for 'Take The Floor' - Scottish country dance music on BBC Scotland. Give the kids a taste of the vanishing culture of Scotland - whether they like it or not. On a long journey I claim 'droit de driveur' over the stereo.

Time for the seven o'clock news - which brought me straight back to present day Scotland.

"A mother has appeared in court charged with throwing her six year old son to his death from the fourteenth floor of a Glasgow tower block"

Apparently she'd woken the kids up in the middle of the night then thrown one off the balcony. She was said to have 'drug and alcohol problems'.

This cheerful item was followed by the story of two 'security guards' who had tortured one of their colleagues to death in a Leith flat over a three day period - apparently for amusement.

Well, I thought - who needs Irvine Welsh when you can just pick up the local paper ? At the time I think I'd just finished reading 'Filth' - the heroic tale of an ordinary copper fighting the neds of Edinburgh in his own idiosyncratic style.

The car was warm, children sleepy, on our way to hills, snow, air, a little house by a church (and a distillery) in a Catholic valley - a different world from the schemes we could see from the M8. The contrast between the Scotland of our destination and the Scotland we were driving through was striking.



I looked up the story this evening. The mother, 26 year old Allison Campbell, got five years. She must have been free for two years now, given that you only serve half your sentence.

FIVE YEARS ? Is it just me that finds the sentence unbelievable ? Jeffrey Archer got four. You can get five years for smacking your child. Or possessing a firearm with no intention to use it. Apparently those offences are on a par with picking up a sleepy little boy and throwing him from the fourteenth floor. Worse than throwing, if possible. There was only a small gap in the security netting. She must have forced the child through. 2 am. Fourteen floors. Six years old.

"Mum, don't do that"



Ms Campbell is doubtless a disturbed person - 'vulnerable' in social-workese. But I think I'll reserve my sorrow and pity for that poor child rather than the person who so cruelly killed him. So she's got problems ? Since when did being a drinker and drug abuser count as mitigating circumstances for someone having charge of children ? Shouldn't they be aggravating ones ?


Walking free around Glasgow, going to the shops, on the buses, maybe out for a drink, is a woman, not yet 30, who chucks little kids off balconies.



We've seen plenty of recent murders by killers or other criminals let out early. I see Anthony Walker's killers were also on early release.

Watch this space for Ms Campbell. The Scots would have known what to do with her once.


UPDATE - what is it with Scottish mothers called Alison ?

A mother has pleaded guilty to beating her young son to death with a golf club on Christmas Day.
Alison Gorrie, 36, bludgeoned her five-year-old son Brendan and then threw herself out of the window of her Edinburgh flat, falling onto the courtyard 30ft below.

Thank God this Alison's got no kids.

No wonder they're worried about a falling population.

Poor Brendan Gorrie and Derek Campbell had something else in common apart from their murderous mums. Neither lived with a father. Good to see that "the Scottish Parliament has backed plans to speed up divorce following a Holyrood chamber debate."

Stephen Twigg "Incapable"

Took them a long time to work that one out.

Whae's Like Us ?

We have to congratulate the Scots on breaking all records - for homicide. With 134 a year in a population of five million-odd, compared with around 858 in 2001/2 for England and Wales with their 55 million population. I make that around half the rate south of the Border, at 16 per million compared to Scotland's mighty 27 per million. Is it just coincidence that Labour have held power there uninterrupted for the last forty years, creating an underclass of considerable dimensions ?

Glasgow manages a rate of 55 per million.

What's so impressive about these figures is that, despite some notorious cases, they've been achieved with little help from their ethnic minority population, who contribute nearly 20% of the homicide suspects for England and Wales (out of 2,605 homicides (table 3.6) committed over a three year period, 495 were cases where the principal suspect was described as black, Asian or 'other'). When we remember that the 'white' population will include Albanians and others from parts of Eastern Europe with a cultural bias towards violence, the native English and Welsh, while still much too murderous for my liking, are positive angels compared with the natives of the Land O'Cakes.

Still, fret ye not. New Improved Scottish Labour have a cunning plan, involving giving homicidal teenagers free housing in an unsuspecting community - sorry, involving a new strategy to "challenge the culture of violence" in Scotland.

She (Scottish Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson) said that, among other measures, Strathclyde Police's Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) would be expanded to create a national "centre of excellence" to share violence prevention best practice across Scotland.

Rolling out initiatives, sharing best practice, centre of excellence, build on the approach - bingo ! All we need is an 'evidence-based' 'homicide Czar' to 'move us forward into the new millennium' and I'll have a full set of managerial buzzwords.

Cathy Jamieson may be totally crap at actually doing anything but she's got the language off brilliantly.

I think this photograph bears a reprint.



Scots Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson successfully launching a campaign against anti-social behaviour.

No Wonder They Hate Us

New outrage for the BBC to report.

In other news - murders, stabbings etc.

Elsewhere - as ever, Mick Hartley is your one-stop shop for the latest on Lebanon, Darfur and China. Apparently the next AU (African Union) summit is to be held in Sudan - next month.

Hypocrites

"My least favourite radical chic interviewee: the talented but humourless Ute Lemper. Ensconced in a luxury suite at the Savoy, she embarked on a lecture about the downtrodden masses, and was so busy talking about how East German workers were exploited that she forgot to even acknowledge the existence of the maid who'd put a tray of tea in front of her." - Clive Davis

In the immortal words of Linus - "I love mankind - it's people I can't stand !"

And by the silence of Poll Pot, a lady who is usually pretty good at returning emails, it appears she did indeed send her kids to private school. What a hypocrite. As they say in the Black Country - "she's as two-faced as my a*** !"

Light Blogging

Due to pressure of work and tonight's school play.

Just a couple of BBC snippets. I haven't followed events in Sydney closely (try Tim Blair) but I caught a BBC TV news report last night which described the beach bums as 'neo-Nazis and white supremacists'. I wouldn't have thought there were that many such in the whole of Oz - they looked pretty ordinary youth to me. Looked like the sort of thing that in India or Aston would be called 'intercommunal' - with the big difference that nobody's dead.



The execution of Tookie Williams (loads of commentary at Cobb) has been all over the BBC - where murders of Britons rarely make the headlines. I'm still waiting for any of the BBC descriptions ('reformed gang leader and author' seems to be the favourite) to mention the four dead people of whose murders he was convicted.

UPDATE - sorry - he's a 'former gang member' i.e. ever since his arrest, and a 'peace campaigner'. Main item on R5 news.

UPDATE 2 - when the sentence was carried out, Radio Five news did actually mention the people he'd killed. Not their names or anything like that - just the number four.

UPDATE 3 - I see from the Englishman that the Royal Marine who got kicked in the head during their attempt to win the Turner prize has said his assailant is a 'good mate'.

One For Aged Hippies

Are The Polyphonic Spree a Principal Edwards Magic Theatre for the Noughties ?

"The Beginning Stages Of ..." is very 1970. The Asmoto Running Band go to Abbey Road.

Blogging the BBC on Buncefield

08.45 : The boys got up at 7.40 to watch 'Match of the Day' - the only time the telly ever goes on in the morning. Ten minutes later they're back upstairs.

'It's not on, Dad - there's been an explosion in a refinery near London'.

So I got up, fearing a terrorist attack, and have been watching off and on, in between lighting the fire, cooking breakfast and feeding hens. Susan and two of the kids are in London.

They may as well have put MOTD on with occasional scrolling news subtitles . There's little hard information coming out of the scene, so apart from the admittedly spectacular pictures BBC TV are reduced to saying the same things over and over again. Occasionally a new snippet emerges (Total oil spokesman - 'I can confirm that all our employees are accounted for' - How many is that ?' - 'Two') and is added to the mix. Otherwise, big plume, heard as far as Guildford, not an aeroplane (as in 'power surge on the tube'), there have been casualties.

They can't leave the story to develop, so they use what creative talent they have to find new ways of telling us the same thing.

UPDATE - the England Project were there.

Caring For The Vulnerable

It was only the other day I noted how "a serial rapist from Cornwall has been awarded £5,000 in legal aid to find out what made him commit his crimes."

Whereas the Pullar family, whose mother was accidentally given a fatal overdose of insulin last year, didn't qualify.

"The court heard that Mrs Pullar's prescription chart had been deliberately altered after the overdose was given, but that it was impossible to tell who had altered it. "

Don'tcha just love those dedicated staff, who can't write a prescription but can alter one ?

I imagine the £2.8 million is in the post.

Mrs Pullar's bereaved husband was kicked to death by three teenagers a year later, and once again the State was there to help. Exemplary sentences of three years each - and one detention in a mental health institution, doubtless to be released quietly later.

Oh, and the local CID failed to secure the crime scene. The report paints a rosy picture of the close-knit, caring community of Cumbernauld, as exemplified by the McAllister brothers.

Earlier Joseph McAllister, 29, who lived across the road from the Swan Inn, said he saw a set of legs lying in the car park late on the evening of 23 March. He did not go to investigate.
His brother Kevin, 18, said he heard someone shouting at about 2300 BST.
He told the court: "I saw two boys standing at the planter. One of them was in the planter stamping his foot up and down."
He said he saw legs hanging out of the planter as he walked his girlfriend to her car, but did not go over or phone for an ambulance.

"Has there ever been a white victim of a racist murder in this country?”

I rarely link to a story on the BNP website. And Allen and Garvey are my two favourite Radio five presenters - a great double act.

I'll make an exception for this.

Jane Garvey : “Has there ever been a white victim of a racist murder in this country?”

This is the Drive show's email address.