Andre Schwarz-Bart 1928-2006

"At times, it is true, one's heart could break in sorrow. But often too, preferably in the evening, I cannot help thinking that Ernie Levy, dead six million times, is still alive, somewhere, I don't know where. Yesterday, as I stood in the street trembling in despair, rooted to the spot, a drop of pity fell from above my face; but there was no breeze in the air, no cloud in the sky. ... there was only a presence."

Andre Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just.

I first read it when I was about fifteen, and read it again last year. Still as powerful as ever. He didn't write a lot after this book.


Independent obituary.

Andre Schwarz-Bart

Author of 'The Last of the Just'

Published: 05 October 2006

André Schwarz-Bart, writer: born Metz, France 23 May 1928; married (one son); died Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe 30 September 2006.

André Schwarz-Bart was an exceptional human being and the author of one popular and memorable novel, Le Dernier des Justes, which won the Prix Goncourt in 1959. It had taken him 11 years to compose this supreme work of fiction based on a knowledge of centuries of human suffering endured by the Jewish people at the hands of rival religionists, in particular Christians.

He was born in 1928 at Metz, into a modest Polish-Jewish family who all perished in Nazi extermination camps - mother, father and two brothers all victims of the Holocaust. André, however, had a miraculous escape: he was never deported, and was able to join the Resistance fighters. With a passion for reading, he was overwhelmed by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, a great novel that he regarded as a kind of psychological thriller.

The novel's central theme of a man torn between his perception of the existence of evil and the search for an all-powerful divinity became the basic philosophical structure of Schwarz-Bart's work, a novel that was to make him world-famous - Le Dernier des Justes. It became an unexpectedly triumphal success, and was to be translated immediately into English - as The Last of the Just (1960) - and a dozen other languages. It brought him the highest distinction in French literary life, the Prix Goncourt, awarded every November by the Académie Française.

Schwarz-Bart's publishers, the leading firm of Seuil, had craftily "jumped the gun", giving news of this grand prize three whole weeks before the official announcement. Thus were eliminated the ladies of the all-female Prix Fémina - a procedure that considerably flustered their dovecote. The Last of the Just took off in a shrill climate of literary disputation and jealous backbiting, which Seuil ably exploited, resulting in sales of over a million copies.

Overwhelmed by this luck, André Schwarz-Bart discreetly retired from the literary scene with its jealous uproar and remorseless publicity machinery, and slipped into semi-retirement. But his great work had become a living legend in a period that was to become the century of the Shoah.

The novel, mixing history and fiction, spans the centuries of Jewish martyrdom until the day in 1943 on which the hero, Ernie Lévy, is arrested and locked up in the concentration camp of Drancy in northern France - one of the last of "the Just" who were slaughtered in their millions, and finally met their abominable fate at the hands of the Nazis all over Europe.

Mercifully, this harrowing story is not without a searingly ironical sense of humour - one of the ultimate proofs of a man's humanity and his respect for his fellow human beings, friends or foes:

If our God is split up into fragments, what meaning is there left in being a Jew? What place does Jewish blood have now in the universe?

Ironically, the theme of the Shoah in all its barbarity is one attracting great publicity now in France, with Jonathan Littell's immense novel Les Bienveillantes the firm favourite for this year's Prix Goncourt. Its theme of Nazi barbarism is a salutary reminder of the horrors so vividly described in Schwarz-Bart's novel.

André Schwarz-Bart married a woman from the Antilles, Simone. They soon left France for Simone's native island, Guadeloupe, where her own literary career began, and prospered to such an extent that it has almost completely submerged her husband's work, though in 1972 he published a second novel, La Mulâtresse solitude (A Woman Named Solitude, 1973).

With Simone, he wrote Un Plat de porc aux bananes vertes ("A Dish of Pork with Green Bananas", 1967). They also collaborated on a six-volume encyclopaedia, Hommage à la femme noire (1988; In Praise of Black Women, 2001). Simone went on from one literary success to another, while André seems to have fallen silent.

It is significant that in The Harper-Collins World Reader (1994), which gives pride of place to writers from the Antilles, Simone Schwarz-Bart occupies a dozen of the large pages - including an account of her life and an extensive excerpt from her autobiography, Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle (1972; The Bridge of Beyond, 1974), while André is fleetingly mentioned as her husband in a brief footnote.

Nevertheless, a very moving 75th-birthday tribute was paid to André Schwarz-Bart three years ago, in May 2003, at the great Musée d'Art Juif in Paris. The fine classical actor of the Comédie-Française Denis Podalydès read vibrant excerpts from Le Dernier des Justes and two friends of the author, the cinéaste Robert Bober and the psychoanalyst Marie Moscovici, made their hommages.

James Kirkup

The Golden Age Of Steam

We live down a long lane, with a single telephone line straggling along many poles, between the branches of many trees. A few years back we lost the line after squirrels chewed through the insulation.

The night before last we lost our 512K broadband - the fastest the line will support - and the dial tone sounds like it's on a short-wave radio from Post Stanley - lots of crackles and fizzes. If the 80-mile an hour winds forecast for tonight materialise we may not have a line at all by tomorrow.

Currently the best connection I can get is 24K dialup.

Blogging, needless to say, may be light, until BT and the tree surgeon have each performed their respective magics.

Cullingworth

Rain falls and the wind roars
All the folks are indoors
We came through a ford
Riding over the moors

I love the moorland between Denholme, Cullingworth and Haworth. Not enough rain in the photo, of Castlestead Ring, so you'll just have to imagine the rain and the distant moors vanishing in low cloud.

Words by Lal Waterson.

A Barrister Speaks

"Who is the Roman king, mate, me. I am a face and a half."

Going To The Dogs

Ross Parker (no relation) hears Peter Hitchens in prophetic mood.

Hitchens spread the Sunday Mail gospel of fear: if there is no real alternative to Blair the country will go to the dogs (again, presumably); if there are no good right-wingers, the BNP will take over; and if the BNP are going to take over, the other parties will turn us into a police state sooner than letting it happen.

Clash of the Tory Titans - Churchill vs Toynbee

Brilliant piece of Cameronian triangulation ? Political suicide ?

We'll let you be the judge.


(Mr Eugenides I think we can call a 'Noe')

Today's Early Release Murderer (Unconfirmed)

Gary Chester-Nash had denied stabbing 59-year-old Jean Bowditch nine times as she cleaned a bungalow in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, in October 2005.

The 28-year-old, of no fixed address, will serve a minimum of 30 years. The court heard he killed Mrs Bowditch just a week after being released from jail.

A week. I'll be very surprised if this isn't another triumph for the Probation 'Service'.


PS - I note that 'Public Protection' is emblazoned over just about every Home Office website at the moment. I suppose we can have the slogan if we can't have the reality. I also note that neither the Probation 'Service' nor the Prison 'Service' have email contact details. Just an oversight I'm sure.

Anyone Know ?

Around the time the MacPherson enquiry into the killing of Stephen Lawrence delivered its report, Trevor Phillips wrote a strange double-page piece in the Observer, whose burden was 'we don't care any more if you're racist in your hearts, would you please just stop killing us ?'.

Is it on the Web ?

Early Release - Psychiatric Division

The case of John Barrett, who despite 'a long history of mental illness and violence' - including stabbing his fellow mental patients - was released from a loony bin to stab Dennis Finnegan to death the following day, is only the latest in a long and dishonourable line of early releases from mental institutions.

Thallium's much in the news at the moment. Let's turn back the clock to those swinging sixties. There's a blogging connection, too.

"Young was arrested on 23 May 1962. He confessed to the attempted murders of his father, sister, and friend. The remains of his stepmother could not be analysed, as she had been cremated.

Young was sentenced to 15 years in Broadmoor Hospital, an institution for mentally unstable criminals. He was released after nine years, when he was deemed "fully recovered." During his years in the hospital, however, Young had studied medical texts, improving his knowledge of the effects of poisons on the human body, and had continued his experiments, using fellow inmates and hospital staff as guinea pigs.

After his release from prison in 1971, he worked at a photographic supply store not far from his sister's home in Hemel Hempstead in nearby Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. His new employers received references from Broadmoor hospital, but were inexplicably not informed of his past as a convicted poisoner. Soon after he began work, his foreman, Bob Egle, grew violently ill ..."

Government in immigration 'crackdown'

John Reid is the greatest comedian since David Blunkett.

Four hundred and forty police officers are being seconded to help tackle illegal immigration in the UK.

They will be among 800 new immigration staff - a 25% increase in total - unveiled by Home Secretary John Reid.

"We are very clear that we do not want this to have an impact on police officers' frontline work," a Home Office spokeswoman insisted.

"There won't be any police officers taken off the front line," she said.

That's right. They'll be taken from under a magic goosegog bush !

File in the same drawer as PM to stage immigration summit. "Blair takes control of immigrant crisis". Blair calls immigration summit etc etc

Meanwhile ...

Passports forged on 'industrial scale'

Britain is facing a growing crime wave linked to Nigeria and based largely on financial scams and immigration and identity frauds, according to a report published today. It claims that Nigerians are forging passports and cheques on an “industrial scale” and that huge numbers of false documents are passing through provincial British airports.

Ursula Moray Williams 1911-2006

Author of 'The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse', which my darling enjoyed so much as a bedtime story. If only I'd known, she lived just up at the top end of Glarstershire, in the charming Bredon Hill village of Beckford. We could have gone to say thanks.



Wikipedia entry.

Telegraph obituary.

Guardian obituary

Indie Obituary

Ursula Moray Williams, children's writer and illustrator: born Petersfield, Hampshire 19 April 1911; married 1935 Peter John (died 1974; four sons); died 17 October 2006.

The author and illustrator of over 70 books for children, Ursula Moray Williams brought style, pace and humour to her work, plus an occasional touch of melancholy more in the tradition of Hans Andersen. She was one of the few children's authors who defeated the national paper scarcity and continued to be published throughout the Second World War, and her books left an indelible mark on many young readers at the time and since.

Born in Petersfield, Ursula was one of identical twins to teacher parents, with her father responsible for tuition in Latin and Greek at the progressive boarding school Bedales. Her sister, who arrived 10 minutes earlier, later became a distinguished wood engraver and sculptor under the name Barbara Arnason. Brought up by governesses and soon becoming keen riders, by the age of nine both children had written and illustrated their own books for home consumption.

After spending time in France at a lycée when they were 16, they each enrolled at Winchester College of Art. But while Barbara flourished there, later going to the Royal College of Art, Ursula left after a year in order to write. With encouragement from her eminent publishing uncle Sir Stanley Unwin, her first book, Jean Pierre, came out when she was just 20, in 1931. Set in the Haute-Savoie region of France, which she had come to know so well, it describes the adventures of a small boy and his pet goat. Her next book had a distinctly home-grown flavour: For Brownies: stories and games for the pack and everybody else (1932) reflected the skills that had already led to Ursula's speedy elevation to Brown Owl for her own local group.

In 1935 she married Peter John, great-grandson of the poet Robert Southey. While pregnant with the first of her four sons, she wrote her most famous story, The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse (1938). This epic tale, divided into 19 short chapters, describes how the initially "gay fellow" of the title follows his own private Calvary after becoming separated from his beloved adopted Uncle Peder, the toymaker who brought him into life. Changing shape as often as Toad in The Wind in the Willows, the little horse, although pictured as rigid and trundling along on wooden wheels, is still capable of unscrewing his own head and kicking his legs into the air.

His astounding strength enables him to survive many a dangerous encounter, whether with jealous pit ponies, wicked farmers, out-of-control children or a fearsomely piratical sailor. Constantly giving way to tears, and frequently convinced of his imminent demise, the wooden horse finally makes his surreal way to a happy ending. The book's many fans include Nick Parks, creator of the cartoon pair Wallace and Gromit, who has described this story, which he read aged seven, as "so unputdownable".

Nineteen forty-two saw the arrival of Williams's other best-loved title, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat. Written in the tradition of the reversed viewpoint, where familiar literary stereotypes are turned on their heads, this tells the story of a black kitten born this time most unwillingly into a witch's household. Longing instead for an ordinary feline existence, Gobbolino, whose name is taken from the Italian word for little hunchback, sets out on his travels after discovering one morning that he has been abandoned by his evil family as a hopeless case.

Surviving an orphanage, hobgoblins, a malignant sea witch and a cat-hating mayoress, Gobbolino finally makes it to the obscurity he has always longed for. Saint-like in his patience before adversity, he is sometimes upstaged by his sly sister Sootica, still perfectly content to "ride a broomstick and turn mice into frogs and frogs into guinea pigs" all in the tradition of their sleekly dangerous mother Grimalkin. But Gobbolino's uncomplaining example proved very acceptable at a time for national stoicism all round, with his story remaining in print up to this day.

All this time Williams was also working as an illustrator, with her own The Good Little Christmas Tree (1943), a fine example of boldly coloured scissor cuts alternating with her more usual preference for pen-and-ink drawings. In The House of Happiness (1946), she further experimented with bright paper shapes. Around half of the books she wrote were illustrated by herself; at other times, as in Jockin the Jester (1951) she provided the text while her sister Barbara supplied the pictures.

Further books were illustrated by, among others, Edward Ardizzone, Faith Jaques and Shirley Hughes, whose pictures for The Toymaker's Daughter (1968) proved especially successful. This story about a doll who runs away from her evil toymaker in an attempt to become a real girl, marked a return to previous themes, with despair and fulfilment once again walking hand in hand until the arrival of a joyous resolution in the nick of time.

During the 1960s Williams moved from the more mannered literary style found in her earlier stories to a more demotic approach. Spid (1985) illustrated by David McKee, sees her in fine form in a story about a talking black spider who becomes best friends with the boy of an otherwise arachnophobic family. Also contributing stories to the television programme Jackanory, she produced The Further Adventures of Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse in 1984. Two years later came her lively Grandma and the Ghowlies (1986).

Involved with local life in the village of Beckford in Gloucestershire, where she had lived since 1945, she served as a magistrate on the Evesham bench for over 20 years, finally becoming chairman of its juvenile division. Ever hospitable to numerous children, family and otherwise, she continued to garden and give talks in schools whenever possible. She leaves behind a fine legacy of storytelling that manages to remain essentially moralistic but also fun at the same time.

Nicholas Tucker

I Merely Report ...

Sunday People :

By Nigel Nelson

TAXPAYERS face a £20,000 bill for flattening a prison chapel - to build an extension to its mosque.

Church of England lags at Britain's biggest jail, Wandsworth, have been told they must make way for the expansion and move into the Catholic chapel.

Prisons minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: "There's more Muslim prisoners so we need a bigger mosque.

"The Catholic and C of E facilities are both larger than the attendance merited and the mosque is too small."

But Tory prisons spokesman Edward Garnier argued: "The Government needs to be extremely careful before it downgrades one religion and appears to give undue weight to another.

"We're talking about public money.

"Spending their taxes on one religion to the exclusion of another needs a great deal of justification."

Builders are due to move into the London jail in the New Year and finish the new mosque by April.

It currently holds 265 Muslims compared to 672 Christians.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "The work reflects changes in the make-up of the prison population and the need to represent all the different faiths within prisons."

Church of England moving into a Catholic building ? Wouldn't be the first time, would it ?

It sounds as if the new extension is needed for all the mobiles and wraps.


Britain’s largest prison has become the scene of a "potentially explosive" stand-off between two rival groups of Muslims, a report from an independent watchdog has warned.

The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at Wandsworth jail in South London said that there was a schism among Muslim prisoners over the prison’s newly-appointed imam, with evidence that some inmates were applying pressure on fellow prisoners to "adopt more militant lifestyles and belief systems".

Its annual report said: "There is a schism existing amongst Muslims in the prison about the imam. There have been petitions from two opposing sides on this subject to the governor.

"We are concerned that unless sensitively managed this issue could become even more emotional and potentially explosive."

It added: "The issues surrounding the current imam should be resolved as quickly as possible."

David Jamieson, chairman of the IMB, said: "It is an issue of how the current imam interprets the Koran. "There is a difference of views between the Asian Muslims and the North African and Afro-Caribbean Muslims."

There were also "very worrying" implications of rocketing use of illegal mobile phones by prisoners, the report said, warning that the number of inmates using mobile phones was "widespread and growing".

The study reflected recent press reports that attendance at religious services had increased because inmates were using them as venues for drug dealing and trading in illegal mobile phones.

Board members had raised a series of concerns about a "major influx" of drugs and mobiles in Wandsworth, which holds 1,456 inmates. "We believe it is essential that there are adequate numbers of officers present at all religious services to discourage illegal activities," the study said.

A Different World

How hasn't Mark Holland found this first ?

"On Wednesday 18th May we made it to Nottingham , most of the way sitting on the back of an empty lorry, and enjoying the sunshine and the fresh air. We went out into Nottingham in the evening and enjoyed ourselves. Leaving Nottingham early on Thursday around 8 am we walked for about 4 miles and a car driven by a gentleman and his wife as passenger stopped and asked where we were heading for. We told them, "To London for the Coronation Procession", and they were delighted to give us a lift to Stratford on Avon. We went out in the evening and visited Ann Hathaway's Cottage and other places connected with William Shakespeare. We stayed overnight in the Youth Hostel in Stratford on Avon. We had a lovely evening and enjoyed the beer in two of the nice pubs in the famous town. "

Two Scots hitch to London for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Wonderful photos of a vanished world.

From the excellent Brechin City site.

Open Britain Part 1,297

Via Voyager in the comments. As Newsquest stuff doesn't (I believe) get archived it's worth posting in full.

Judge annoyed over immigration system

By Jenny Loweth

A judge has criticised the way immigration cases are dealt with after jailing a failed asylum seeker who used a false passport to stay in Britain.

Bradford Crown Court heard how Vladimir Pugachev, who was born in Kazakhstan, used the Lithuanian passport to obtain a National Insurance number and was able to live and work locally for two years before being arrested.

Jailing him for ten months yesterday, Judge Roger Scott told 22-year-old Pugachev: "You masqueraded as a Lithuanian citizen. It will surprise nobody that it took two years for the authorities to determine it was a false passport, to trace you and come and get you."

The judge also said it was "absolutely amazing" that Pugachev's father - who had already been deported once but immediately returned to Britain and was let in - was sitting in the public gallery watching his son being sentenced.

"That is the sort of world we live in with immigration issues," he added.

"People who come to this country lawfully are welcome, but people who do not come to this country lawfully or try to remain in this country by illegal means, are not welcome. I would like to have made a recommendation that you be deported, but I am unable to do that."

Paul Milner, prosecuting, said Pugachev entered the country legitimately about five or six years ago and, when his right to remain expired, he unsuccessfully went through asylum and appeal hearings.

In October 2004 he and his parents were ordered to attend Manchester Airport to be deported, but only the father turned up. He was duly deported, but later returned.

Six days later, Pugachev turned up at a Department of Work and Pensions office with a Lithuanian passport in another name but bearing his photograph. He was issued with a National Insurance number which allowed him to stay in Britain, work and claim benefits, although he did not make any benefit claims.

"Lithuania is an accession state and that gave him the right to remain in the UK, while as a Kazakhstani he had no such right," said Mr Milner.

After checks revealed the passport had been cancelled after it was stolen in Lithuania, officers visited a house in Spencer Street, Keighley, two years later and found Pugachev and his parents living there. The house had been rented in his mother's name and Pugachev had opened several bank accounts under the false name on his passport.

Last month, he appeared before Bingley magistrates under the same name on a criminal damage charge.

When interviewed by police, Pugachev said the passports had been obtained from a person in Bradford for £1,000.

Simon Myers, mitigating, said Pugachev's parents were pursuing an appeal for asylum and were not in detention. They had originally worked for the Kazakhstan Embassy and brought their son over as a teenager.

In the two years after the National Insurance number was obtained, Pugachev had worked and paid tax.

Milton Friedman Dies

Harry Hutton mourns.

"Milton Friedman has been killed by stingray, following a titanic underwater struggle."

Chris Dillow has a question.

Goodbye America ?

Brussels Journal is in pessimistic mood.

Meanwhile, the American mid-term elections are being widely discussed in Europe. The European media regard the results as proof that “Old Europe” was right all along, while America was wrong. In the center-right Parisian paper Le Figaro, Nicole Bacharan, a French political scientist and historian, wrote that the elections showed that “America is neither ‘red’ nor ‘blue.’ The majority votes centrist.” She also notes that, following the elections, the French have softened their view on the US because “The values and sensibilities of the Democrats seem to be closer [to those of the French]. And one can detect, in the new political constellation, a return to a less interventionist America.”

Hooray ! No more trigger-happy cowboys blundering about the world ! That's just got to be good - hasn't it ?

Le Figaro is one of the more sensible French papers, and Nicole Bacharan realizes well enough that it is doubtful whether more American isolationism will be better for France, a country which is currently unable to assert authority over its own territory and which was incapable of winning its last two wars without American “interventionism.” Bacharan warns that those who “blame America for its imperialism may soon regret its indifference” and urges Europe “to invent a new Atlanticism.”

The “paleocons” do not want to fight for any country but America, the “neocons” have come to resent Europe for failing to stand with them in Iraq, and the “blue” Liberals (the only Americans most leading Europeans feel affinity with) lack the guts to fight for anything at all, including their own hedonistic values. We can deplore this as much as we want, but, again, this is the situation we are stuck with. I doubt whether the mid-term elections showed that neoconservatism is dead. I think they announced the death of the Atlantic Alliance. It was for Europe that the bell tolled – which makes it ironic that so many Europeans rejoiced in the results. Bacharan is sounding the alarm because she realizes America is leaving Europe.

I Grow Old ...

The bloggers get younger every day.

"my school had a Remembrance Day assembly. Like the white poppy, it was incredibly stupid. Had any veterans turned up to watch they would be seething with rage at the disrespect my school showed with its lack of effort. No one sang or bothered to look as if they cared. Not that my school doesn't like war veterans; they just hate assemblies."

Jingoistic. Another for the blogroll, an interesting and entertaining read. But like Sam Tarran reading Peter Hitchens, he finds that our Christian past is a place of mystery 'that is easier to mock than to understand', in Hitchens' words. I suppose I should just 'get over it and move on'.

What is it with America and their dangerously high number of crazy religious people that follow the bible to each exact word ?

England was full of such people once, a hundred years sgo - fifty years ago too. But it won't return to that happy condition, if it ever does, without going through less happy ones first.

The Church of England, within living memory 'the Tory Party at prayer', now wonders whether disabled babies shouldn't be killed and frets about debt, Fairtrade chocolate and the hideous oppression of gay priests rather than the breaking of the Ten Commandments on an industrial scale.

Take a look at the history books. Non-religious societies don't feature a great deal. It could be that we've suddenly found the secular utopia that's never been found before. It could be that we're just at what geometry calls a point of inflexion, and a new spirituality will arise. Historically such movements have always been seen as extremist, driven by 'crazy religious people'. Do we see any candidates ?

I don't see a Wesley or a Bunyan. Abu Izzadeen ?

It'll get worse before it gets better. From a Christian perspective, it may not get better at all. But nature abhors a spiritual vacuum.

Pick-Axe Handle Be Upon Him

After 9/11 there was a great increase in interest in Islam in this country - both among natives and Muslims. The Government's response seems to have increased this interest. People, just like schoolchildren or dogs, can smell fear a mile off, and there's much anecdotal evidence in the pages of the Guardian and articles by Yazza that after 9/11 - and even 7/7 - that young Muslims felt more need to express their religious identity than before. Hence the growing volume of stories re hijab, niqab, prayer-room etc.

Strange at first glance. After all, if Christians living in, say, Pakistan killed 3,000 Pakistanis in a terrorist attack carried out in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is it likely that Pakistani Christians would be more open about wearing crosses and rosaries , more confident in demanding that the State grant them rights and privileges ?

I think not. It's the response of the native Brits (or to be exact their rulers) which has been key. Just as some women are excited when a pub scrap breaks out in front of them (knowing that they are perfectly safe) it can't but do something to an impressionable young mind when your fellow-Muslims slaughter infidels and the police rush to protect the mosques while the Government and state media proclaim the glories of your faith. In my Pakistani parallel, I'm sure the police would also be rushing to the churches - and woe unto to anyone they caught there.

(To any impressionable commenters, this does not mean a) that the imagined Pakistan scenario would have been my preferred response b) that I'm unaware that Pakistan have in fact hanged Muslims for raping Christians - and the sentence was confirmed by a sharia court. I'm not sure this laudable example of even-handedness would be followed in the aftermath of a Karachi or Islamabad 9/11, that's all.)

It works with non-Muslims too. Anecdotally (again) conversion rates have increased since 9/11. More Brits are interested in Islam. After all, it's only human to want to support a winning team. Unfortunately it's the violent bit that's precisely the appeal for some.

Tempers flared after Paul Gibbons, 47, and John Jones, 43, exchanged insults in an Internet chatroom, an Old Bailey judge was told.

After tracing Mr Jones to his home address in Clacton, Gibbons armed himself with a pickaxe handle and, accompanied by a man with a machete, travelled 70 miles to the Essex seaside town in December 2005.

When they arrived, Mr Jones, whose girlfriend and three children were in the house, opened the door holding a knife for protection.

A fight broke out in which Mr Jones was disarmed and then beaten with the pickaxe handle and cut with his own knife.

Gibbons fled after Mr Jones's girlfriend called for help. Mr Jones suffered cuts to his head, neck and hands.

An earlier hearing was told that Gibbons, from Southwark, south London, and Mr Jones had encountered each other in a chatroom called Islam 10 because they both had an interest in the Muslim faith.

Jailing Gibbons, who has a record of violence, Judge Richard Hawkins told him: "It is accepted by the prosecution that Mr Jones taunted you and dared you to go to his house where you would be greeted with weapons."

Gibbons, who is unemployed, pleaded guilty last month to unlawful wounding after the prosecution agreed not to proceed with charges of attempted murder and threats to kill.

Hmm. "Whose girlfriend and three children were in the house". "Who has a record of violence".

Was it Islam's strict sexual morality or its peacefulness that was the attraction for these upstanding Brits ? We'll never know.



PS - note the two and a half year sentence for travelling seventy miles with a pick-axe handle (and mate with machete) to beat up someone he'd never met. He'll be out in a year and a bit.

Tougher sentences - say twice that - five years - are reserved for the people who pose a real danger to the public.

Like 66 year old William Hughes.

"Befriending Lone Women Is A Common Tactic Of Paedophiles ..."

So sayeth the BBC radio correspondent covering this story.

Maybe I'm out of touch, but I thought befriending lone women was a common tactic of many, if not most males.

That's Decent Of Them

I like the way the BBC report this :

Migrants 'carry disease burden'




(the main Health headline is "Salmonella risk in imported eggs")