Hmmm ... again.

I can't keep up with these Jihadist intellectuals. Who's Abu Mus'ab al-Suri ?

So he's a top Al-Quaeda strategist, is he ? Who looks disturbingly like a white Brit ? And he thinks that the future of jihad lies in "Individualized Terrorism" - small cells like the 7/7 bombers ?

Scholar Gypsy has the info here and here.

Hmmm ...

Maybe I just missed it - but I'm surprised the great Dalrymple - or any Brit bloggers I've read lately - haven't commented on this story - the sad end of Dianne Brimble, who boarded a P&O cruise ship with her twelve year old daughter, and within twenty-four hours was dead of a GHB overdose.

"Local media have shown photographs of a beaming Brimble boarding the ship in September 2002 with her then 12-year-old daughter, her sister and friends at the start of a South Pacific cruise for which she had saved for two years.

Within hours Brimble was lying naked and dead in the cabin of four men whose main concern was that the death of a woman one of them described as a "dog" had ruined their holiday."

A year after her death P&O were running this advert for the cruises.

Chiaroscouro wonders exactly what route we took to get here, and has the story links.

Long, thoughtful posting at The Thin Man blog. You have to read the whole thing, really.

Sorry ...

So much news. Alas the Project From Hell is soaking up my time and energy.

The NatWest three. No-one's a stronger supporter of the Great Satan than I, but there is such a thing as fairness and reciprocity - something conspicuously lacking from the extradition treaty.

Lord Levy arrested. Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but politically damaging to NuLab. I bet the Zionist conspiracy is all over the Guardian comments.

Police force mergers, ID cards in trouble ? Huzzah !

I posted ages ago on the discrepancy between our rulers atttitudes to police and NHS recruitment. It's a Bad Thing for an ethnic minority population to be policed by people of a different race or culture, but a Good Thing, to be celebrated, for the natives to be nursed and doctored by people of a different race or culture.

The elderly population of this country are predominantly natives. I'm not sure why it's any less important to have people of your own culture nurse you when you're frail or dying than it is to have people of your own culture arrest you when you're young and fit.

There are bad and good people of all races, but if you tell people enough that it's all whitey's fault, you increase the likelihood of getting more stories like this. Not nice.

"Solicitors of a pensioner who received a five-figure payout after care workers allegedly force fed her talcum powder have welcomed the settlement.

Lucy Neal, 89, had allegedly been given the powder by care workers at her home in Handsworth, Birmingham.

Nordia Noteman, Maxine Davidson and Rosemarie Malvo, who worked for the Welcome Care Agency, were cleared of assault in February 2004.

The pensioner's lawyers said the agency admitted negligence in a civil action.

The five-figure settlement would help Mrs Neal overcome a "harrowing" experience and raise awareness for other people in a similar situation, her legal team said. "

Bombs, Trains

At my desk around four this afternoon I became aware of something disturbing some Indian colleagues, who were clustered round a PC with the BBC news website.

They were all from Bombay.

That Dreadful Incident

All over the BBC they're debating the appalling incident which has so tarnished world football, and on Five Live's 'Breakfast' they're discussing what punishment is great enough for such a hideous offence. Is there no end to the vile racism which so affects our society ?

Materazzi should be banned from soccer for life.

Zidane, on the other hand, was merely reacting against the years of oppression and racism which have kept him a poverty-stricken unknown, finally driven beyond endurance by the continuing taunts of his opponents. Coming on top of the invasion of Iraq, the continuing struggle in Palestine, and the murder of Shamil Basayev, he finally decided to fight back.

The BBC have decided to ask some French fans what they think.

"We wanted to know if the kids and youths playing football in the streets, wearing Zidane football shirts, had a lesser opinion of him following his sending off against Italy.

We started filming in one of Gennevilliers' streets, between the endless rows of tower blocks that dominate the horizon.

A stone thrown from one of the balconies landed with a thud right by us. Another just missed our producer's head. "





Elsewhere ... the Dumb One has an interesting juxtaposition of tales from Scallyland.

Then And Now

Now :

The bodies of four adults, thought to be members of the same family, have been found at a house in Newcastle.

Officers made the discovery in Benwell Grove after a man went into Westgate Road police station early on Sunday.

Bomb squad officers later carried out a controlled explosion at the house and surrounding roads remain sealed off.

Northumbria Police said the man was in custody and they were not looking for anyone else over the incident, which is being treated as a multiple murder.



Then :

Are You Me Hinny Bird

It's oh but I ken well,
Are you me hinny Bird,
The bonny lass of Benwell,
Are you oh
She's lang-legg'd an' lovverly,
Are you me hinny Bird,
See her rakin' up the dyke,
Are you oh

Now the Quayside for sailors,
Are you me hinny Bird,
And Castle-garth for tailors,
Are you oh
The Gateshead Hills for millers,
Are you me hinny Bird,
The North shore for keelers
Are you oh

There's Sandgate for auld rags,
Are you me hinny Bird,
An' Gallowgate for trolly bags:
Are you oh
There's Denton an' Kenton,
Are you me hinny Bird,
An' canny Lang Benton.
Are you oh

There's Tynemouth and Cullercoats,
Are you me hinny Bird,
And North Shields for sculler-boats;
Are you oh
There's Westoe lies iv a neuk,
Are you me hinny Bird,
And South Shields the place for soot
Are you oh

There's Horton and Holywell,
Are you me hinny Bird,
And bonny Seaton Delaval;
Are you oh
There's Hartley-pans for sailors,
Are you me hinny Bird,
And Bedlington for nailers.
Are you oh


A beautiful song recorded by the High Level Ranters more than thirty year ago. Colin Ross of the band is married to my favourite Scottish singer Ray Fisher.

Crime And Punishment

From BBC News :

Reforms of the criminal justice system are largely ineffective in cutting crime, an independent think-tank says.

The Crime and Society Foundation, at King's College, London, says ministers should focus instead on tackling root causes such as poverty and sexism.

This 'independent think-tank' is staffed by :

A former communications director for the anti-prison, pro-criminal National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders.

A former researcher for the anti-prison 'children's liberation' National Children's Bureau and the Child Poverty Action Group.

A former Communications Officer at Action for Prisoners' Families.

A former employee of the Howard League for Penal Reform, aka the Howard League For The Abolition of Punishment.

On its advisory board sits the anti-prison campaigner Una Padel and one Nick Page. Could it be this Nick Page ? Alas I think it's this one. Liberals on crime do seem to live in leafy villages rather than inner-city estates - have you noticed ? The consequences of their ideas are for other, poorer people to face.

Elsewhere one Ian Marchant is cutting crime :

"I felt my fist in his face, and I loved it. I still love it now. I loved each punch. Thwack . . . for your girlfriend, for all the times you’ve hit her and threatened her and terrorised her, for all the women you’ve terrorised and will terrorise. Thwack . . . because of what you are, what you wear, what you represent, the sneaking crimes you commit, the petty sneaking thefts, the pointless aimless vandalism, the joyless stupidity of your empty mind, for what you are doing to England, useless dregs of the earth, you and all the people like you. Thwack . . . for me, for the pleasure of it, because I can, because I love the feel of my knuckles against your flabby mouth, your flat nose, your vacant eyes."

"Then came the post-match analysis. Part of me wanted to say, “Poor little lad. What chance does he have in life? There are no jobs for stupid people any more. He’s got no future. He must have been brutalised at home. And the drink companies exploit kids like that, and fill them with cheap booze, and it’s not his fault he can’t handle it, poor wee baby.” But that’s not really what I think.

Really, I can’t buy into relativistic accounts of behaviour at all, despite a lifetime of Guardian reading. Plenty of people live in poverty, bad housing, are the victims of an education system which serves only to prepare people for life in a call centre. Plenty of people get pissed. My own mother was brutalised at home by her father in conditions of unthinkable squalor, and she didn’t take it out on anybody else.

What I really think is this: there is evil at work in the world. Some people are evil."

Give him a job, O 'independent' think-tank !