BLOGGOTH Page 5

Bloggoth Mission Statement:
     We aim to never raise our sights above the gutter and preferably to stay much lower

Places near me 4 - The Bluebell Railway

This is very near, about two hundred feet in fact. The Bluebell Railway is famous for appearing in various films and TV progs, most notably the 1999 version of the Railway Children. Jenny Agutter was the mother in that and getting on a bit but here at Xoggoth Towers we still rate her as exceedingly chewy. Here's the Blubell today and a rather far shot of the tunnel.

We at bloggoth are not great photographers although naturally, given our collosal IQ and talent at everything, we would be if we were not such total cheapskates that we refuse to pay more than £39.99 at Tescos for a digital camera, and we thought that was exorbitant. Bloody hell!, we expect to buy a villa in Spain for that! Meanness is not just our philosophy, it is our religion. Had a row with the wife the other day 'cos she wanted a new kitchen. I was all in favour of making my beloved happy until I discovered it would cost about £12k. I had a more modest figure in mind, like about £300 and I thought that was a lot more than her happiness was worth to be honest. Sorry, I am rambling again. Back to the Bluebell. I attempted to blow it up and improve the contrast a bit, and I hope you can see this is the same tunnel which appears in that scene of the railway chldren

I am no fan of the Bluebell. It is like Tescos - a despoiler of countryside. The line was axed by Beeching in the 1960s and had become a magic place full of smallish trees and swamps and little clear pools. I used to wander around with my kids looking for newts and frogs. Then the bloody Bluebell people came along and ruined it so that a lot of grown men could play with chuff chuffs and boost the tourist industry and provide employment for, well, about three extra people at least!

BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Bluebell tunnel is of course also the Sussex portal for the entry of hellish beings from an eldritch dimension. You may be wondering what that reddish patch is in the tunnel picture above, perhaps an effect of the setting sun at the far end maybe. Armed with Paint Shop Pro we have enlarged and enhanced it further:

Inclusiveness and hostages to fortune

We are not exactly fans of large scale immigration here at bloggoth and we are no longer prepared to be silenced and blackmailed into pretending it is a benefit by the usual accusations of racism against anyone who dares to challenge it. Just maybe, we should consider that us white British should be permitted what appears to be the right of everyone else in the world, a culture of our own. It has turned what should be a cohesive nation into a huge dormitory town with no shared traditions or common beliefs. Just maybe too, we should challenge the mathematical absurdity that those of average or less than average economic performance can somehow increase average prosperity,

We are continually told by the politically correct that we have been enriched by immigration. If the UK was a Christmas cake, we might imagine that rich implied ingredients carefully selected for harmonious taste, skillfully blended and allowed plenty of time to mature to perfection. Modern multicultural Britain is a christmas cake with ingredients thrown in at random from every cupboard in the kitchen, alternate layers of ginger, fish paste and olive oil and topped with a sprinkling of Fairy Snow.

That said, it is clearly in all our interests to break down these unecessarily introduced divisions as quickly as possible and try to find our way back to a common sense of nationhood. Time does that eventually but any other measures to accelerate the process and make the minorities feel included and eventually forget they are minorities should be encouraged. So, maybe the continual representation of Britain as a mixed society in official documents is not a bad thing.

All the same, I cannot help feeling that some ads provide hostages to fortune. Maybe they should enlist a few NF types to give their opinions so they can circumvent them. Back in the 70s in the early days of home computing there was a competion to devise an anti-racist computer game. Geuss what many of the submissions were? That's right. Shoot 'em ups with the er um, dark complexioned as targets. Yeh, terrible, but surely the dickheads who held the competition should have anticipated that? As it was, once that news had been reported in the press, it probably did nothing at all for racial harmony.

Can't help questioning the Neighbourhood Watch poster either. I wonder what graphitti gets attached to that in sink estates.? It isn't that the character on the right is a black guy, nothing wrong with inclusiveness, it's just the way the figures are arranged and the expressions on the faces. The sour faced cow on the left and the policeman both seem to be looking at him accusingly while he looks guilty. I am sure she is saying "that's the one who nicked my mobile phone!" To cap it all, look at that wierd Quinton Crisp jacket and the hand on the hip, he is clearly not just black minority but GAY minority too. Just as well we now have such a politically correct police force or the poor bloke would soon be accidentally falling down the stairs and hitting his head on the door of the police cell, several times probably.

Hogarth and Petula Clarke and Russian ladies and incredible shrinking people

Is it just me? or can contracting be incredibly depressing at times? I suppose I am a bit shy and socially backward, but the situation at this new place hardly helps. Struck in a corner of the office away from anyone else, it just seems a big thing, by reason of physical separation, to try and join in the general conversation. Sometimes I make the effort. I hear something interesting and wander over to where everyone else is and join in and think, well, that seems ok. The next day people just wander in without bothering to say good morning and I seem to be back at square one. Still, there's always the evenings. Stuck in a little flat in a dull town Somewhere In England, 59, not knowing a soul.

I made the effort tonight to get out rather than sink into despondency and sit longing for the weekend as usual. At least in the evenings, when I make the effort it usually seems to work out. I suspect vodka has a bit to do with that. I think I may start smuggling bottles into work. Found a place with a live duo playing some fairly decent blues. Silly conversation with a rather annoying guy, one of those touchy sorts, about the merits of London, cleaning carpets, Karen Carpenter (his enthusiasm not mine I hasten to add) and Petula Clarke. Rather nice Russian barmaid too. 19. It's true, us middle aged blokes always imagine atractive young women fancy us, but she did seem friendier to me than anyone else. Drunken imagination I daresay.

Amazing too how much vodka I can seem to imbibe these days without feeling drunk at all. That's not a good sign is it? Or at least not drunk in that old spinning around, feeling sick of way. I got a Hogarth again tonight. In this place, as seems to be normal in pubs at 11 pm in this very dull town Somewhere In England, there was a little girl of about 5 running around. And an old English Bulldog. And a couple of rather drunk Lesbains. And a tall Russian lady and all sorts of wierd chiselled characters and suddenly they all seemed to be like a scene from Hogarth's Rake's Progress. I could not get rid of the illusion. I wonder if other people have different painters?

And all so small. Remember that caravan scene from Father Ted where he is explaining to Fr. Dougal about the toy cows being small but the ones out there are far away? I lose my perspective and instead of people being small due to distance, they are actually tiny. I feel like a giant. Were some 6' 8" bloke to come up and ask if I wanted a fight I would have no qualms at all in taking him on, for christ sake, he is scarcely bigger than the end of my nose!

What worries me is that this illusion is not necessarily confined to the occasion when I have has a few vodkas. Everytime I see someone I have not seen for a while they seem at least an inch shorter. Am I still growing? or just growing more and more barmy?

Coincidentally, I have been trying to get through to the Somewhere In England Water Company to get a meter fitted. I have no doubt that we at bloggoth will pay a lot less that way as we hardly ever shower or wash; it is against our philosophy. We are certainly not into the pointless health risks of cleaning our teeth.

News today too, that deodourants may cause breast cancer. We are fairly safe on that count too, and it isn't our sex.

Bird flue again (and again and again and again..)

The continual diet of news on Bird Flue continues, now a cat has caught it in Germany. We seem to be in a perpetual state of waiting for diseases to reach us from elsewhere.

Bird flue is from China, probably having jumped the species barrier as a result of the incomprehensible Chinese practice of shagging chickens. Pigs, one could understand, but those horrible skinny scaly legs chickens have - ech! I dunno, maybe they stick false pigs' legs on before they shag them, it's the only way anyone sane could contemplate it. I remember reading once in Playboy or Mayfair or similar that ducks are actually a great shag, so maybe shagging chickens is well worth the expense of having some false pig's legs made up.

Killer diseases are always from elsewhere. All the other major flue pandemics have been from Asia too, (except for the SPANISH flue) as was the Great Plague (black death) and SARS. Aids thought to be from Africa (but first found in the US, trust the yanks to blame other people), siphilis from America. The only time in my life I have ever felt seriously ill was after coming back from Moscow. Not just human diseases, either. I was watching Bill Oddy this week and it seeems all our native crayfish are being wiped out by a fungal disease carried by an American import. Foot and mouth possibly came from Chinese feed (sweet and sour pork probably) Our Elms were decimated by Dutch Elm disease in the 60s and 70s and now our Oak are being killed off by a disease originating from California.

Us British, regardless of species, would never be ill if it wasn't for all these bloody unhealthy disease ridden foreigners, we would live for ever. Why is xenophobia supposed to be a bad thing? It should be renamed xenologic or xenosense or xenopracticality. We should never let any of the horrible greasy jabbering bastards in, or if we really must, we should fill the English channel with caustic soda and Dettol and make them swim here.

And squid flue

Beats me too, why, given the possibilities for viruses to jump the species barrier (fnaar, fnaar), we are not a whole lot more careful about our contacts. When I mentioned some while back the possibility of slug flue crossing the species barrier (fnaar, fnaar) I thought I was only joking. Slugs are very healthy little creatures; their perpetual sliminess is their natural state and not because they have permanent head colds and cannot afford tissues or Lemsip as most of you slug-ignorant sorts probably thought. I am an expert in these things.

But in the news this week, a very rare complete specimen of a Giant Squid has been found and sent to the Natural History Museum. Giant Squids are a little understood species and who knows what hideous diseases they may be harbouring? It would only take one of the curators at this museum to take a fancy to this squid and bingo, another hideous disease crosses the species barrier. It could also doubtless spread like wildfire through other molluscs like slugs, snails or cabinet ministers and we would all be at risk.

Are we supposed to be reassured by that mask in the picture? If we could be sure what is was for maybe, but has it just been donned as the first part of an S&M session with this attractively pink squid? Is the squid wearing handcuffs and a studded leather codpiece just out of shot? I see a host of little viruses rubbing their little DNA protrusions in glee and preparing to jump. Fnaar, fnaar.

The great day is coming

While on the subject of slugs, an update.

In November 2003 I proudly reported on CUK that I had completed the training of a crack squad of slug commandos and dispatched them towards London with the aim of assassinating Blair and Brown. Homing in on the horrible pair is an easy task for slugs as they are naturally attracted to slime and decay.

I am pleased to report that my brave little band of slugs have now reached the outskirts of South Croydon. By August 2008 at the latest those bastards will be history.

Too young to vote?

Suggestions that 16 year olds could be given the vote or even stand for parliament. This has been mooted as a way to rectify the falling percentage of those bothering to vote.

Here's my suggestion to rectify voter apathy - try giving us a real democracy! Our MPs may as well be trained pidgeons for all the power they have. They are dragooned through the lobbies by the whips with such dire threats to their future prospects that only a very few brave mavericks will ignore them. Sometimes, as with Iraq, they are given no meaningful vote at all, not one that influnces policy, that is. As for the electorate, outside of election time, our specific views count for nothing at all. They don't even pretend to be sorry about breaking election promises any more.

As for the 16 year olds. No matter how bright or thoughtful or well informed they may be, I have just one problem with allowing their opinions to decide which brand of dictatorship we get for the next 5 years. They have no responsibilities. The government they help to elect will determine the amount of tax we pay, where our troops are sent, how our rates are spent, how companies are regulated etc etc. They themselves generally do not pay tax, are too young to join up, do not pay rates or own companies.

Call me cynical but I have observed how idealism and concern for society in most individuals is almost always inversely proportional to the amount that that idealism and concern actually costs them personally.

Actually

I was going to stick a few things on the blog on Monday but FINALLY! I managed to wrest my business website away from the most utterly crappest webhosters in the entire galaxy and transfer to the same hosters, SUPANAMES, who host this site.

Naturally, sod's law dictated that the transfer would go through on a Monday when the only internet access I have is a GPRS modem on a laptop, so I have spent half the evening uploading it, while watching dispatches on the erosion of our freedoms by this fucking government. The BASTARDS, they need chopping up with a huge mincy machine while we all laugh at the flying bits and dip our bread in the gore and feed the Bird Fluey pelicans. I imbibed lots of vodka too, I always drink a lot when bored or enraged about loss of civil liberties.

Where was I? Oh yes, that link I stuck at the end of the last global Jewish/Tescos conspiracy post. I only put it there because it was just a page of missing image links that apparently meant nothing, quite incomprehensible, so good for a suggestion of a mysterious and unfathomable conspiracy. I was so bored sitting waiting for my website to upload (musta cost me about £12 in mobile charges too!) that I was just idly flicking on those removed images. Aha!! Just on one of them, a hidden link to a real message. I was very happy to enter details about my Tesco loyalty card. Naturally in answer to "are you clean?" I selected dirty.

I would sooner sign on to a phony Tescos site than the real one run by a bunch of BASTARDS who cut down woodlands to make way for their crappy stores.

Bloggoth declares WAR

As previously stated, bloggoth is now an officially anti-semitic blog and we intend to rant on and on and on about global Jewish conspiracies until we can't think of any more to rant about.

The ludicrous jailing of Irvine for expressing an opinion, the nonsensical suspension of Livingstone for trivial remarks. Irvine may be a nasty sod (and let's not kid ourselves that somebody addresses a Neo-Nazi party meeting in the interests of historical accuracy) and Ken may be a politically correct pidgeon hating twat with a horrible nasal whine, but neither alters the fact that, given the actual "offences", rather than the motives we might ascribe to them in our heads, the last week has seen more abuse of what should be our democratic rights and freedoms in Europe at the hands of over sensitive minorities.

But there is more. This week the very sad news that Tescos has managed to legally evict a protester in order to cut down another patch of Britain's woodland and build yet another of their crappy superstores, which according to independent assessments*, will cover 98% of Britain by the year 2016.

If there is one thing that we at bloggoth
  hate more than assaults on our freedom, it is
	excessive (or any at all actually) power
	and if there is one thing that we hate more than 
			excessive power it is 
                             BASTARDS cutting down woodlands

With the new found clarity of vision given to us by our recent conversion to anti-semitism we at Bloggoth can clearly see Tescos (founded by one Lord Cohen) for what it really is, a part of that great Jewish conspiracy to which my newly adopted hero Adolph so clearly referred in Mein Kampf. He told us that one day we would be all subjugated by Healthy Living Hot Cross Buns and we didn't believe him. We allowed ourselves to be sidetracked by irrelevant mudslinging about minor defects of policy like the holocaust. Some people have no sense of humour. No more. Neither are we alone in our crusade.

I have one other reason to hate Tescos. In the seventies we used to live beneath a couple who were great fans of Lord Cohen. They used to play his dreary fecking records over and over again. If I had had to listen to "Suzanne" one more time I think I would have murdered them. I would not have touched Suzanne's perfect fecking body with a bargepole let alone my mind.

PS. Look at this too. If that is not the clear sign of a global Jewish/Tescos/Giant Lizard conspiracy I do not know what is.

*Figure from the Uk Institute For Retail And The Environment, "The Impact Of Healthy Eating Products on Land Use In Britain" November 2005.

Oh dear

Nice day, so we had a stroll down by the local reservoir.

This is it.

This is not good.

In the one deep part of the reservoir, only a small part of the total area normally, there were 20 or so Canada Geese. I said they were starting to arrive back. Couldn't get close without climbing over the considerable barbed wire-topped fence, so I'm sorry the pictures are a bit far away and fuzzy.

Sorry for being such a sentimentalist about wildlife too, but I could not resist going all anthropomorhic and giving them little names.

A racist tirade against minorities

Look you sodding minorities, after 50 years in America and Australia, us white British had managed to kill off half the indigenous peoples, infect the rest with smallpox, steal all their lands AND STILL found the time to shoot most of their buffalo. That's Britishness at its best that is! What have you lot managed?

Pah!!!! You're crap you are!

Age and ailments

Today I am going to ramble on at great and boring length about ailments.

Ailments are nature's gift to old people to replace the big hole that sex no longer fills in their lives. It is a little early as I am not 60 until December, but I thought I ought to get in a bit of practice so I can be skilled at it from day one of old age. I don't want to turn up on bingo night at the British Legion next year and find myself an outcast because I do not have any suitable conversation to hand.

It is a sad fact that various things wear out or cease to function with age. They also travel downwards, not just those sagging arses and tits (and by 55 even us males have acquired rather more of the latter than we would like) but hair too.

I have at least as much hair as I had when I was 25 it's just that it isn't all on the top of my head anymore. My hair still looks ok from the front, especially after the old trick of fluffing it up with a towel but it looks distinctly lacking from above *. As some sort of bizarre compensation I now have hair sticking out of my ears, exploding from my nostrils and sprouting in wierd tufts from my shoulders, or rather from one shoulder, it doesn't even have the decency to maintain a reasonable symmettry. As for my eyebrows, unless I trimmed them regularly, Defra would slap National Park status on them and they would soon become habitats for all sorts of refugee animals from the vanishing rainforests of Borneo. If there's one thing that reduces your chance of a pull more even than looking old, it's an Orang-Utan swinging around in your eyebrows.

And we acquire lumps. I have a small one on my eyelid that quite mars my wondrous good looks. And now my wrist. I noticed it a couple of years ago and I am sure it is nothing sinister; scarcely noticeable unless I dip my hand in one of those camp - "Oooh you bitch" sort of gestures, which I don't do very often, honest. But I only found out yesterday that I can animate it like a sort of very dull seaside Punch and Judy show. If I push it in it disappears, then a slight flex and out it pops. A sort of lump hoky coky. Maybe I should have a little face tattooed on it and turn it into a feature.

The really elderly get it much worse. A few years back I went to to look at a flat I was thinking of renting during a contract. I didn't take it both because it was horrible and because the landady, who must have been in her late seventies, lived underneath. She offered me a cup of tea as old ladies do and sat down opposite me with her legs apart and the shortest skirt I have ever seen on anyone over 40. Apart from the cellulite and the varicose veins she appeared to have what looked like half a cauliflower head growing from her upper left thigh. It was horrible and yet sort of a fascinating too. Was she perhaps growing a spare arse to donate to the local hospice for injured baboons? If I had taken the flat, given my propensity for deviance, would I have ended up in this old lady's bed droolingly fondling the semblances of root vegetables that doubtless festooned her entire body?

I knew another women in her late forties about that time who had a mole that appeared to be a spare clitoris on her thigh only an inch or so below the real one. Sometimes I used to get quite disoriented and start nibbling the wrong one by mistake.

Will these trends continue? We are continually told that people are living longer and longer. What will happen when most of us are over 120? Will we be wandering around completely bald with huge thatches of hair like burnt gorse bushes sticking out of our ankles and covered in wierd excresences like giant squids? What if we transmute into something else entirely? Maybe what we call our prime is really only a larval stage; like the Axlotl, some odd genetic defect or inherited trait has so far prevented us from ever emerging as true adults. Maybe the ugly and increasingly inert shell of the elderly is just the onset of a pupa stage. In years to come will the world's oldest lady, Mrs Ivana Stolneyitch, 208, suddenly emerge from her chrysalis and start devouring Moscow? Maybe it will be the end of life on Earth as we know it.

*Note: I think that is why I so hate Halfords, apart for the fact that they never ever have what I want, (lets face it, unless it's a little dangly scented thing, and they have about 30,000 different sorts of those, they never have anything anyone wants) it was at a Halfords counter that I looked in the CCTV and first discovered the desertification taking place at the top of my head.

Livingstone

What a nonsense that Livingstone has been suspended. The sort of comment he made is a commonplace sort of jibe against anyone who appears to be abusing their powers. It is not anti-semitic, indeed quite the opposite, as the context indicates disapproval of that concentration camp guard. Livingstone may be a prat in some respects but he is no racist.

He is right, this suspension is anti-democratic and an absurd move over nothing.

The London Jewish Forum has welcomed the ruling, with chairman Adrian Cohen calling for the mayor to create a strategy which would ensure London's Jews would be treated with respect. Exactly the wrong move Mr Cohen, true respect is not created by coercion or measures like this.

After various posts on this blog and on CUK saying I couldn't see any earthly reason for anti-semitism, I now have one. Another ridiculously over sensitive minority threatening our freedoms and limiting our democratic process. Further, the way this has happened makes the loony right idea of a shadowy Jewish influence behind the seats of power seem slightly less absurd.

From now on you can call me Adolph.

Campus crackdown

While on the subject of predudices, Islam was in the news yet again this week with reports that many colleges and universities are cracking down on Islamic societies in the wake of allegations that some have been radicalising impressionable young males.

I am quite sure the clampdown has a degree of over-reaction, not because I have any inside knowledge, but simply because I observe that that is the way societies work. Balance never means steering a middle ground, it means oscillating between one extreme and another. Due to political correctness we have been far too indulgent of dangerous extremism in the past and it would not suprise me at all if some perfectly harmless activities were being unjustifiably curtailed now. Pushing extremism underground hardly helps anyhow. The authorities should apply a little more intelligence and ask if the resentment created among the non extremists is counter productive.

Nevetheless, I would take issue with the Islamic view represented by a placard carrying young Muslim lady that this is part of a general trend of "Islamophobia". Phobia suggests an irrational dislike or fear. This is a common ploy, especially of minorities, to represent all opposition to their views or practices as racism or irrational predudice. In fact, among the more sensible majority, what is often termed predudice is rarely irrational, but a response to a perceived, and sometimes a real, threat. If we have a tendency to an irrational dislike of religions followed by foreigners or dark-complexioned people, it does seem odd that nobody appears to be complaining about Hindus or Sihks or Buddhists or Rastifarians.

Here are some suggestions. Let Islam act to curb all the random killings by those claiming to be acting in its name. End the barbaric practices of strict Shariah law in Iran and elsewhere. Let Islamic societies give the same freedoms to others as Muslims expect from us including allowing Christians and others to worship openly and build new places of worship. Let them supply what anyone else would call democracy with rights for all to participate fully in all levels of Islamic society and have equal weight given to their views in determining the direction of it. If you can't do those, at least stop the yearning of so many of you, evidenced by the recent survey and far too many websites, for the same backward servitude to be imposed on Britain. Finally, in just one respect, moderate your reverence for a prophet whose message to us Zimmis was convert or die. Muslims might then be surprised how quickly this "phobia" vanishes in the minds of most British people.

Diaries of the The Prince Of Daftness

Much of the news this week has concerned the court case by the Prince Of Daftness about the publication of those private diaries.

I have mixed views about the monarchy in general and His Daftness in particular. I dislike the principal of supporting one family in an immensely rich and priviledged lifestyle which has nothing whatever to do with their abilities. On the other hand that's maybe better than some awful political appointee. Maybe too, His Daftness is the sort we might need to provide a rallying point against future government excesses. But dear me! moaning about not being assigned first class travel or mourning the scrapping of Brittania? Maybe not.

One thing the tabloids, who were so quick to publish allegations of gay romps with footmen, do not seem to have picked up on, is blindingly obvious. The royal Pillock still bites his nails.

Irvine

So David Irvine is jailed for Holocaust denial.

If he had been inciting violence to Jews or others on racial grounds he should have been jailed but simply for saying, regardless of the motive, that the Holocaust never happened or that Hitler did not personally order it? Utterly absurd and unjust!

There is no real freedom in Europe and precious little real democracy, all we call by those names are scraps; we are like mangy mongrels under the table, supposed to feel grateful for the morsels thrown down to us by our lords and masters from the banquet above.

Denying the Holocaust, given what looks like the major evidence, appears pretty absurd to me. This is not a tiny incident like the Black Hole of Calcutta and I find it unbelievable that a conspiracy could succeed on such a massive scale. Hard to believe that Hitler could be head of that state and have no idea either, although I suppose that is more plausible than the first. Quite what the relevance would be, given that he created the climate of hatred under which it happened, I am not sure. He was still responsible.

Nevertheless, on principle, I feel obliged to state in the interests of free speech "THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST".

Football and prossies

In the DT today: "England footballers have been asked to use their influence as role models to campaign against fans using prostitutes during the world cup finals in Germany this summer"

I would have thought most dedicated fans would be much too interested in the football to be shagging prossies during the finals, but perhaps they will taking the ladies onto the terraces for a quick one during half time or during injuries. Never been to a world cup final or even a top flight game, but a bit of stress relief, or more exactly about 90 minutes of it, would certainly have improved the ghastly games I used to endure at Selhurst Park.

Why, one might ask? Oh yes, Tessa Jowell, another New Labour interfering arsewipe, is backing the Women's National Commission on this move to shun "sexual exploitation". By all means let's end sexual exploitation, but excuse me if I'm wrong, if women are being sold or forced into prostitution isn't that a police or immigration matter rather than one for a self appointed commission? What I suspect they mean is that they have decided that any involvement by women in the sex trade at all equals exploitation and it makes no difference whatever if women do what they do entirely voluntarily. I wonder if Fettid Bowel or the members of this "commission" consulted any of the women concerned before issuing this statement? I don't know, but I could hazard a geuss on that too.

Inevitably, Rooney's supposed involvement with a "mature" lady was mentioned. He is supposed to have paid £45 in 2004. What?? On his earnings? If that's true, Rooney has just gone way up in my estimation, not just a sleezy git but a CHEAPSKATE sleezy git to boot. My kinda guy! PS Wayne, where was this? damned if I have been able to find anything at that price for years.

Toad

It's a damn nuisance being a tree hugger sort. I can never just have a bonfire like ordinary people. First I have to remove the ash from Arthur's Seat before I light the fire in case there are little earthworms in it, then instead of just chucking leaves and twigs on, I have to carefully shake them out to make sure there are no little spiders on them. It takes me hours.

Last year I couldn't have a bonfire at all in spring as a robin had decided to nest in the pile. It was all to no avail - as soon as the little sods started chirping, something came along at night, pulled the pile apart and ate them. Wanted to put some more logs to dry in the greenhouse today but when I lifted the rubber sheet over the pile there was a big fat black toad hibernating under there. I shall be annoyed if I end up buying logs at Tescos instead only to find something has eaten it.

The picture at right shows Arthur's Seat at Midnight tonight with one of the usual items of wildlife in residence, I think it's a Glowworm.

Sodding sport

As I have commmented before, the missus is sports mad in an armchair capacity. Sodding Winter olympics! Is there some planet I can emigrate to that does not have Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics, World Cup Football, FA Cup, European Cup Football, Six Nations Rugby, Wimbledon, French Open, World Championship Snooker, Commonwealth Games, World Athletics and all these other damn world events that dominate our TVs? The only things we seem to be spared in our house are golf and motor racing. She was even watching bloody Darts last week. Whenever I say "Christ, how much longer is this shit on for? I want to see the Simpsons" I get "Oh for goodness sake, it's only on for two weeks in the year". Right, perhaps THIS week's shit is, but all these damn events taken together seem to dominate our TVs for at least 96 out of 52 weeks.

Think there was a pause in the Winter Olympics due to snow cos we got athletics this afternoon. Only bits I watch are women's events. Yeh, I'm sexist! Who cares about the sporting prowess? A few nice bottoms make the starts slightly worth watching. Anyway, I hate all those blokes in their lycra running things, too painful a reminder of my own shortcomings in the lunchbox department. Mostly dull today. Unusually, a rather attractive Ethiopian lady, they are normally far too skinny for my tastes and have huge explosions of teeth sticking out at random angles like camels caught in severe road accidents, but this one was quite pretty. Spoilt a bit by a hairstyle like Sideshow Bob's. That reminds me, when is this olympics crap gonna finish? I want to watch the Simpsons.

Bloody unfair too

Always the likes of the Norwegians, Austrians, Canadians and Finns that win everything. Easy for them, they can get loads of practice as they get lots of snow. Same unfairness with the Summer Olympics, ok for the Yanks and Australians, practicing in all that sunshine all year round. Why should they always have the advantage?

Why can't we have the Late Autumn Olympics with some added events like sliding on wet leaves or finding one's way out of Luton airport in a fog or cross country welly wading? Events generally would be held in mist or a chilly drizzle or a sort of dank drippy misty miasma. We Brits would have a chance then!

Glorifying what should be glorified and stabity stab

Repeated on CUK, in even more over the top mode than usual, my comment three items back about how GLORIOUS it would be if Blair and Brown were to be blown into small bits by terrorists. Well, if I don't say it now, I will have no chance after the ludicrous, pointless and utterly stupid "Glorifying terrorism" bill passes into law.

Somebody seems to think that remarks like that could cost me my security clearance and therefore my contract. What? A cast iron excuse to stay at home and live off the missus's earnings rather than spend my week in the world's dullest city, doing utterly dull stuff? Yeeeh! Boom! Boom! GLORIOUS! ANOTHER bunch of stinky government officials in small bits! Boom! Glorious! Boom! Boom! Glorious! Boom! Boom! Glorious! Boom! PS Terrorists, please don't forget your local tax office, I am sure tax inspectors make a most satisfying and GLORIOUS boooooom when blown up.

Some also seem to feel that the comment lacks the artistic flair that my previous comments in a similar vein have had. A couple of years ago, in the wake of that sad news that a Swedish minister had been fatally stabbed I was moved to make an emotional comment about the sad loss. How terrible that that nice lady minister should have been stabbed like that. How much more terrible it was that British ministers were still wandering around completely UNSTABBED!

We needed to follow the Swedish example and encourage a trend to fatal stabbing of senior British politicians. On that path lies true democracy and surely anyone with any sense can see that the only true democracy is anarchy. To enourage this admirable trend I suggested that we should harness the emotive power of music. Politicians should be stabbed to music, whether pop, classical, R&B, Rap, Blues, whatever your bag is. My personal favourite as stabbing music was Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice:

Stab, stab, stabbity, stab, stab
Stabity stab te stab te stabbity stab te stab te stabbity stab te
stabbity stab te stab te stabbity..

Quite true my latest suggestion lacks the artistic depth. Stabbing politicians with stabbity stab could be set to a fine range of music to suit all tastes. Blowing them up is much more limited, basically there is only the 1812 overture:

Dah dah dah dah dah dah haah ha dah
da da da da da da da da da da
booooooooooooooooom!
da da da da da
booooooooooooooooooooooom!
da da da

I should point out that I don't want Straw or Clarke blown up as I don't mind either, fairly honest and straight chaps by New Labour standards.

I certainly don't want Prescott blown up, not because I like him, but because half of England would be covered in rancid shite, albeit with rather less intelligence than that substance, even mine, usually manages.

Panic, here come the honkies

Got back home at about 3pm and heard a familiar noise above. Hell, it's not even March yet and the geese are starting to arrive. Global warming a myth??

They don't live there permanently, it's too small probably, but on the inward and outward necks of their migration they like to congregate in the flooded clay quarry behind our house. It's a sort of goose Travelodge. This year I suppose one has to look at them differently, especially as them next door and the neighbours beyond them all keep chickens. I could have sworn the honky I saw today had a packet of LemSip in his beak.

Still, look on the bright side, maybe them next door will be the first victims of bird flue in the UK. I am sure having an IQ of minus 6 and looking like JA JA Binks after a few beers must make one especially susceptible.

You don't say?

Noticed something in a technical manual earlier in the week, but it seemed too dull to mention. (What do you mean? that doesn't usually stop me - get out of my blog this instant!!). A bloke credited in a text book for the great theory that if a component has a failure probability of X then a unit with n similar components would have a failure probability of nX.

In the Times today a "lifestyle questionaire for the over fifties that can offer a clue about the time they have left". Question 1 "How old are you?" scores ranging from 1 for 60-64 to 7 for over 85. Other questions:- Do you have cancer?, Do you suffer from congestive heart failure?, Do you have chronic lung disease?, Do you have difficulty walking because of health problems?

It would save time if they just had two questions a) Are you very old and b) Are you terminally ill?

What is this? Bleedin' obvious week??

Slow death of personal freedom 1

It's been a bad week for personal freedom, or perhaps more accurately, a bad week for sensible legislation. Like so many under this government. The "glorifying terrorism" bill has been passed. Well, who could object to that? What normal person rejoices at the random deaths of (usually) innocent people and how is freedom for anyone but a few sickos affected?

Ah yes, but what does it mean exactly? As I have said before, I refuse to totally condemn terrorism under all circumstances. Just this week news that the Israelis are effectively annexing whole areas of the West Bank and refusing to allow Palestinians to even enter. The Palestinians are not permitted an army and they have no say at the UN due to the immense power of the US-Jewish lobby. Apart from abject submission, what options apart from terrorism are open to them?

Ah yes, but I'm not "glorifying" terrorism am I?, just saying I can put myself in their shoes and understand it, pretty much what Cherie Blair said last year. As I read the wording in the Times today I should avoid prosecution for comments like that. But hang about, that Muslim chap whose words were reported this week only said that the the 7/7 bombings would make people more aware of the issues than protests, he didn't say he was glad people were blown up. So all a mad Mullah has to do to avoid prosecution is to hedge his words to his fanatical young followers, "some might think that.." or "I can understand those who..". I think if it was preceeded by extreme indoctrination on the superiority of Islam they would get the message just the same. If he is prosecuted for such words, why shouldn't I be, or Cherie for that matter?

It might make a lot more sense to stick with the concept of using words likely to encourage violence in those hearing them. "Likely to encourage" would take account not just of the words, but of the intention, the degree of influence of the speaker over those spoken to and the situation in which the words were spoken.

Ah no! Too sensible for He who Must Be Stabbed. Everything Blair ever does, is about "sending messages", sending messages to extremists, sending message to criminals, sending messages to the anti-social, sending messages to Europe. Pity he does not stop trying to send messages and start trying to come up with sensible well drafted legislation instead. This law will do nothing remotely useful or sensible, end up donating masses more tax payer's money to lawyers and further alienate Muslims to no purpose whatever (I have no problem with alienating them for a good reason). The only message Blair sends most of us is that he's a fecking dishonest egocentric dickhead.

Pity some Muslim extremist doesn't blow him up so we can all laugh. It would be great. In fact it would be... GLORIOUS. I thought I would get that one in before this stupid act passes into law.

Slow death of personal freedom 2

This same week, an almost total ban on smoking. I don't smoke and think those who light up in restaurants are totally inconsiderate bastards. I further see no reason why non-smokers should have to trawl around looking for smoke free places to eat or drink in, so I have no objection to 99% of the consequences of this ban. But why ban smoking in private clubs, where it is by consent of all the members, and where the numbers of those employed are small enough that choice to work in a smoke free environment is not seriously compromised?. Neither are there wider issues of cost to society as smokers easily pay for extra NHS costs both by the taxes on tobacco and the fact that they live shorter lives and draw less pension.

For once I cannot blame the government*; to give Clarke his due he wanted to stick with the manifesto proposals. This was a free vote in the commons but what a pity our elected representatives have so little grasp of the concept of individual freedom.

*Note: Although naturally I DO blame the government as it is part of my philosophy in life to blame government for everything including the weather. This is entirely reasonable as they do not get blamed for so many things that are their fault, such as the Asian Tsunami, the obliteration of Pompei or the extinction of the Dinosaurs.

Beloved Pets

News this week about the way Britons treat deceased pets; many hold funerals or erect gravestones. Some consider the funeral of their pet to be as important as a family funeral, or visit their pet's grave at least once a week. The devotion of the Brits to their pets is often sneered at; "How can people lavish affection on animals as if they were human beings?". Well, I daresay many, especially the elderly whose friends have mostly popped their cloggs, don't have too much human affection in their lives.

One has to observe also that animals don't generally knock you about, run off with the milkman, lie about everything, have affairs with their secretaries, run up huge debts on your credit cards or take you to the cleaners in expensive divorse settlements either.

Give me an island full of pigs and baboons to cater for all my needs and all you frigging lot could take a running jump as far as I'm concerned.

The NHS as comedy

News in the Gaurdian* today about a male nurse who faces a disciplinary panel for, among other things, putting a patient's glass eye in a glass of Coca Cola and drawing a smiley face on another patient's hernia. Why? Nurses are nearly all ghastly patronising people, "How are WE today?" etc., and in my view it is all the ones who do NOT draw on patients' body parts who should be sacked for their horrible ernest dedicated boringness. Being sick is very stressful so we need more humour and lightness in the NHS not less.

What about inserting free gifts after operations? We had a little monkey torch thing in a packet of cereal this week (no 1 son got it first - I HATE him!) and if you can get that in a cheap packet of Coco Pops then surely if you have to go through a painful operation you should at least expect any removed bits to be replaced by something decent. In the space left by the average appendix they could easily fit one of those little transparent paperweights with "Present from Fiveways Hospital" or similar written on them.

Art should not be neglected. Why must plastic surgery after injury always aim to restore people to their previous appearance? Can't see the point, especially if they were bleedin' ugly in the first place. Would it not be better to have the new flesh sculpted into a work of art? If you has an original flesh sculture instead of a nose, in a few years it could be worth something and after your death people might bid 100s of k for a work by a well know artist-surgeon.

*Note: I KNOW!, I KNOW!, I just couldn't get a suitably reactionary newspaper at the company shop today, not without sinking to Mail or Express level anyway. I refuse to have anything to do with crude and obvious racism and bigotry, we at bloggoth pride ourselves on the sophistication and subtlety of our racism and bigotry.

Dictators and celebrities

A couple of items back I included a link to a picture of Mussolini. Hmmm dubious. Other pictures I found on the net supposedly showing the corpse of Adolph Hitler have long been queried, e.g. see here.

Corpse of Mussolini

Corpse of Hitler

Look, surely anyone can see that that that picture is not Mussolini and a henchman; it is clearly Laurel and Hardy! Did the mildly funny pair really deserve that? And that corpse of Hitler is quite obviously Charlie Chaplin. I wonder if there was some global conspiracy to rescue horrible dictators and replace them by corpses of hapless old film stars? Maybe there still is. After that very nice Saddam Hussein is executed (the current trial is clearly no more than a formality) and some news hound smuggles out a picture of his corpse, will it really be Saddam? Or will he be living the high life in North Korea somewhere? Will that corpse really be a hapless vaguely lookalike former film star in fuzzy focus?

Poor old Tom Selleck.

Saddam Hussein shortly before his execution

Dictators and celebrities 2

What of other dictators? Might be a job finding a famous vague lookalike for Mugabe in the event somebody manages to pop him off. Nearest I could come up with was Yaphet Kotto who played Katanga, Mr Big from "Live and let die". I agree, even allowing for the fact that Mr Kotto will be a lot older now, it's a rotten match but perhaps these sinister people who are murdering innocent celebrities and passing them off as dead dictators will not be able to come up with anyone better. If a coup in Zimbabwe looks likely, maybe Yaphet should make himself scarce. President Assad of Syria was difficult to match too, but I think, given that fuzziness and a little moustache, Tom Hanks might work. What about the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il? Easy, that's Roy Orbison. The fact that Roy died decades ago is unlikely to deter these terrible people.

President Mugabe	President Assad of Syria	Roy Orbison
Katanga AKA Mr Big	Tom Hanks	Kim Jong Il

Words of wisdom found and lost again

A few years back we had a plaque on the wall of a place I worked at with the following quote:

We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams
we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation
by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while
producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. 

The sentiment seemed so true that it has stuck in my mind ever since. Just one recent example, in the papers a week or so ago, some government advisor going on about bringing back cottage hospitals to provide the local immediate service that people needed. But we had cottage hospitals 30 years ago! and dickheads like that had them all closed down to provide us with the supposed efficiency of huge faceless ones.

Could never remember who it was by and did not recall the words. Then just this week a bloke at work found it on the net. It was Petronius Arbiter 210BC. Supposedly. But according to this bloke, Jim Reeds the whole quotation is a fake, probably one of those things some disgruntled employee stuck on a notice board with an attribution to give it greater credibility and it gained currency.

Speaking as a rabid and unbalanced (and therefore one of the few sane people who sees these things clearly) hater of authority and most especially government, I feel that revelation does us no service. It may be one up for honesty Mr Reeds, but damn it!, why should those bastards at the top have a monopoly on lying propoganda?

Attitudes change

Glad to see that some of the establishment and respected publications like The Times are now coming more and more behind the view that our excessive tolerance of anything done or said by minorities in the name of political correctness was a mistake. What we have had for far too long was not anti-racism but inverted racism. Anyone with an ounce of observation would conclude that people have basically much the same natures and abilities whatever their origin but to translate that into the view that every culture, at any given moment in time and in every single aspect is the equal of all others is ludicrous. Some beliefs and practices of the third world people we let into our country with so few checks stink.

We now see the long accepted wisdom of the multi-cultural society being debunked by all. A few months back, Trevor Phillips warned we were sleep walking into a ghetto society. Better late than never Trevor. Since association with one's own sort is a natural human instinct, the more logical might conclude that segregated societies are the inevitable result of mixing very different cultural beliefs and we would have been better never to have done it. I suppose it will take a few decades more before that logic sinks in.

Hopefully, we will now start to see some resistance from the moral cowards who lead our society to the idea that every cherished idea we have fought for in the UK, such as freedom of speech, secularism and a permissive society of the individual is not up for challenge. Sometimes we need to concentrate much more on the ideas and less on the actions of the followers. Like so many mainly followed by young men, (and I have to wonder if sexual repression has a lot to do with it in this case) Islamic terrorism is a fashion which may prove more short lived that we imagine. Long term, it is the irrational nature of that religion itself we should be more concerned to oppose.

Comment too from some that the publication of the Danish cartons was hypocrisy because the same paper had previously refused to publish lampoons of Chrust. No, it is not hypocritical but reasonable to consider the established majority views in the host country above others. Whatever I think about Islam, it would not be reasonable for me (or wise obviously) to go and say it publicly in a Muslim country; it is their country and they are entitled to live and think how they choose. They would also be quite justified in resenting foreigners telling them what they should think and do. I would not think it reasonable to insist my wife wore a bikini on a Saudi beech. (Mind you it would serve them right if she did!). Yet immigrants to our country appear to think we should constantly adapt our traditions and beliefs to suit them.

News also this week of a man arrested for having a bible in Saudi. More often they are just confiscated. The Saudi government has apparently spent a lot of money to pay for mosques in Europe, yet we are not permitted to build churches there. Where Islam is concerned tolerance is largely a one way street. I trust we will not continue to be taken for fools.

Winter Olympics - the Vatican Team

Watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics with missus. She is sports mad, purely in an armchair watching capacity, and despite her assurances that she has loads of work to do next half term week, will probably spend it glued to the box seeing which ghastly German or Swiss person is winning some downhill figure slalomming bobsleigh thing or whatever it is that they do. I see Andorra has a team. Andorra is pretty tiny, about 450 sq km or 2.5 times the size of Washington DC according to Google. Not a bad size team for a tiny country. In the proper Olympics too we always seem to get teams from the world's other minnow countries, Lichtenstein, Monaco etc. One notable exception. Why never a team from the Vatican City??? Surely these geriatric old cardinals and popes must be good at something.

I may be an atheist, but having been brought up as a Catholic, I still have a lot of respect for that institution and I have written to that nice old bloke, Pope Grandpa Munster XVI, urging him to keep in touch with today's society and appeal to modern youth to try and arrest the continual decline in the church's numbers. Either that or blow up a lot of people at random, that seems to work too. I understand the church is now considering entering a small team for the olympics next time round, including:

Cardinal Alvi (89) Downhill Skying. His eminence used to be a whiz at skying in 1824 and only ten years ago he managed to get down the three steps of the altar to administer Holy Communion in under 8 minutes.

Cardinal Renzi. (76) Speed skating. His eminence is a cert for this event, having once been to Streatham Ice Rink (when it still existed) during a Catholic student exchange visit to Britain in 1937.

Cardinal Richelieu (421). Cross country skying. Don't say the Vatican does not understand the power of celebrity. All that nastiness with D'Artagnan is in the past now, "It was a horrible misunderstanding", says a trusted Vatican source and I believe it. The most famous Cardinal never to make pope is to stage a comeback in this most gruelling event. Armand, as he would now like to known, is famous for the quote: "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him". That's the spirit, we know you will hang in there Armand.

The Vatican four man bobsleigh team in action earlier today. Unfortunately, the other two team members had crumbled into dust just before we could take this picture, but we know they will find replacements and be back in practice tomorrow.

Mussolini lives in your street

Most unbalanced, and therefore by definition, most astute (since the balance of the multitude equals idiocy by definition) post by Darmstadt on CUK tonight.

I always feel that the natural tendencies of anyone to try and control others should be strangled at birth before any harm is done. Running for chairman of the local Neigbourhood Watch is tne first step on the inevitable path to world domination. If you know anyone with ambitions like that, here is my tip to avoid your eventual subjugation in a global dictatorship. Shoot the bastard and hang him/her up by the heels. It did Mussolini a power of good.

Along with a small group of like minded individuals who realise the true nature of power and the controlling instincts that pervades most men, I have started to put these principles into action and to dispose of individuals who present a clear threat to our future freedom. Unfortunately, I am contrained by stupid public squeemishness from properly showing the thoroughly deserved fate of these individuals, my apologies to my fellow clear thinkers for spoiling the fun with such a tiny picture. One cannot even see the bullet holes. From left to right:

Mrs Joyce Adewa. Ran for secretary to her local branch of the Women's Institute in Balham. A future dictator if ever I saw one.
Mr Nicolas Symes. Wanted to be captain of the darts team at his local pub. The world is a much safer place without him.
Ms Wilkins. A Girl Scout troop leader. What more needs to be said? The naked military ambitions of the Girl Scouts must surely be apparent to all.
Tommy Stephens, aged 7. The worst of the lot by a big margin. The leader of a small gang of local kids who always got choosies on who would be in his football team. I bet Stalin began just like that.

I trust that those of you who see authority as it really is will join us in our attempts to rid the world of its pernicious influence.

RE modern style

Talked to the wife on the phone tonight. As some may know, RE in primary schools is not the Christian thing it once was, rather it is multi-faith and designed to teach kids about all religions. We should never have become a multi-faith society in my view, multi-anything societies never work well, but since we are, anything that might help to bridge the divisions must be a good thing.

As an atheist I regard all religions as nonsense but as long as the faithful do not attempt to impose their views on me, I am not anti-religion and I am always very suspicious of my fellow atheists who are. Who are they trying to convince? In the absence of faith, which of course we do not have, there is no absolute certainty either way. Atheism is not an absolute belief that there is no god, it is a pragmatic lifestyle decision that, in the absence of belief, you will live your life as if there not. If my kids were still of that age I would have no major problem with them seeing how Hindus and others lived. Us older sorts are admittedly not very tolerant; the changes in our society, which we never wanted, have been too rapid for us to cope with. However, what is alien and what is normal is purely a matter of familiarity and one might think that most of us would want our kids to be a bit more tolerant and more accepting of the society we have. Unfortunately, they have had problems again today with some parents refusing to let their children go on visits to see these other faiths.

The religion of these parents today and on the other occasions? Is it even necessary to ask?

Damn it, I've done it again!

I really must curb my instinct to vulgarity (ok, downright perversity by normal people's standards) or at least be a bit more careful.

As I reported on CUK just a few weeks ago I nearly slipped up with the agency. All I had to do was to fax copies of my company registration and VAT registration certificates to their accounts department. Piece of cake using an email to fax service, stick the certificates on the scanner and click the mail button. Just as well I checked to make sure they looked ok as there was already a picture on the scanner, my cartoon of the bum impaler I did for the cheapskate's sex toy series.

I have had problems like this before. In a previous permie job I used to support the payroll and works wages software. We had a big update and it needed thorough end to end testing which meant the data had to be printed out like a proper works wages run. If twenty thousand sweaty unwashed cement factory workers got short changed in their pay packets there would be hell to pay. Most IT staff would have had boring employees like Mr Smith, Ms Jones, Mr Temp1, Miss temp2 etc. My mythical employees included the likes of Mr Arseface and Mrs SuckMyClit and they all lived at addresses like Anal Brothel Street and Huge Cunt Warts Drive or Stab The Stupid Manager Crescent. Panic! I got an email telling me my test data had been spotted by the departmental manager and disciplinary action was under consideration. It turned out to be a spoof by a couple of bastards in my office.

Anyway, I have done it again. Really did not have the time and did not want to be doing it; a full time contract and a small business is more than enough, but at the weekend I finally finished the mod for my occasional client and emailed off the source code. This morning I suddenly thought. I forgot to take the debug statements out. When they test it, in addition to the expected satellite image files, they are going to find the likes of arse.txt and cunt.txt in their directories. Fortunately, my current contact is a young lady who is not a prude and has a sense of humour.

I hope.

Nasty diseases

News this week that one can lose limbs due to Meningititis. I am sure I am not the only one who had no idea that Menignitis could do that. Frightening what you find out about diseases.

Read in the paper just last week too that you can go blind as a result of a heart attack. The probability is much increased by Viagra. Think I would sooner put up with being increasingly crap in bed, or maybe just strap it to a lolly stick with some sellotape. Food poisoning, not Botulism but Salmonella, the common "mild" kind, can not only kill you but leave you in sickness and pain for life. My brother in law nearly died from it and he was ill for months. A sudden chill, as with a chap who jumped into a canal to rescue a dog some years back, can also disable for life. Putting your head back at too much of an angle, as one does in a hairdresser's for a wash, can trigger a stroke. Sitting on the edge of a desk cana cause thrombosis. It is possible for a healthy person to spasm so hard in his sleep he can break bones. Glad I'm not a nurse or doctor, I don't think I want to know all these things.

Islam on the net and the real case against it

It is not just the extremist Islamic websites, although there are plenty of those, that anyone with fears about Islam should read. Read also the moderate ones, the ones that portray Islam as a reasonable and tolerant religion. You just have to read them carefully to see the meaning behind the fine words.

With just a little browsing on the net, even on those reasonable sites, one soon comes across the statement that some Islamic schools of thought believe that atheists should be killed. One has to conclude from the prevalence of this statement that this must be more than a mere tiny handful of outcast extremists.

Perhaps we are supposed to hope that if we get an Islamic republic we will get that much vaunted "tolerant" form of Islam that does not actually kill atheists and allows Christians and other faiths to worship. But then you read what this tolerance involves. Yes, Christians and others are allowed to worship, provided they keep very quiet about it to avoid offending Muslims. No praying or religious meetings in public, no crosses or statues outside churches. You would certainly get no Songs of Praise, not even a ten minute slot at 5am.

Islamic society is very democratic too, everyone, even non-Muslims, has an equal say in society. Except that an Islamic state is a theist state deriving all laws from the sacred texts. The only democracy that can actually exist, at best, is a say in the interpretation and administration of the imposed Islamic law.

And there are those enlightened views on sexuality and women. They argue that the modest dress code is designed to honour and protect women. Maybe, but do women actually get any say in that? What about those of us who think that sex is a wonderful thing and believe in the permissive society? Little chance of their democracy allowing that one.

And am I the only one who thinks it an utterly absurd idea that a modern state should be run principally in accord with rules written down in the 7th century? Maybe that is one of the reasons why Islamic states, unless they have lots of oil, are so economically backward.

Don't just check the theory. Check too on the internet about the reality in Islamic states and what freedoms anyone really has, even in the so called moderate ones.

So what future is in store for someone like me in an Islamic state, an atheist who believes that individual freedom should not be restricted by the state without good reason, who hopes for rational laws based on current realities and needs, who believes in the permissive society? Nothing that I would call by the name of freedom at all. I suppose I should have to count myself lucky if I am not immediately killed, along with homosexuals, adulterers and all the others who Islamic law deems impure.

Given all that, just how much tolerance do you think we owe Islam and its adherents?

Those cartoons

So let's just recap shall we? Were hundreds or even dozens of Muslims murdered? or raped perhaps? Did a Western government drop a bomb on that big black toilet block thing they all like to mill around in the middle of Mecca during the Haj? Did somebody drop a consignment of dead pigs on the holy places? (As I suggested during the foot and mouth epidemic - well, it seemed a shame to waste them). Oh no, silly me, just some mild cartoons with rather unfunny jokes, the sort of thing that, with any other religion, might at most have seen denunciations by religious leaders and the devout carrying placards denouncing such blasphemy in forceful but non-violent terms.

But oh no!, this is ISLAM!!! Even in Britain, with a PC home secretary who has denounced the publications, what do we see on the BBC news? A "peaceful" protest, with, not just one or two lone loonies, but placard after placard, "Kill..." , "Annihalate..", "Death to..", "Massacre..", "Behead.." and many other vaguer but perhaps more sinister threats to Europe in general.

KIll, annihalate, death to, massacre, behead who? The proprietors and staff of the papers concerned?, the authorities who did not immediately and illegally overturn all our own laws and traditions to stop it?, maybe just those of us who support the publication perhaps? No, that's not the Muslim way is it? Much simpler to plant a bomb anywhere without even trying to check that those killed are not entirely innocent, children, non westerners, supporters of your position or even fellow Muslims. And it is rallies like this, along with the worldwide violence we see with monotonous regularity and all the extreme material on the internet that gives the lie to the idea that these things are supported by just a few extreme radicals. Is it any wonder that so many of us want this fucking awful religion out of our society?

Note to authorities: If Nick Griffin is prosecuted for a speech to a small group in which he stated that Islam was anti democratic and invited his audience to check the Quoran for themselves, how is it that none of these protesters has been prosecuted for openly and publicly advocating murder? Oh no, silly me again! any member of a minority has to have 12 years of speeches advocating violence on tape before anything is done. I would suggest to those of you in charge of our society that unless the law is seen to act totally impartially, it simply stokes resentment and predudice.

OK, I will calm down here. The same news also showed Muslims deploring such placards and probably they are more representative of the majority. The few Muslims I have known (not well admittedly, they were just colleagues), including a couple of very devout sorts, have seemed decent and normal people too. As Winnie the Pooh, that great philosopher observed, most people are really. My message to those chaps and the very many other decent Muslim people would be, curb your, NOT few, but many, many, extremists or things will not go well for you in Europe.

What insults? what greivances?

I am given to understand that us non believers deserve whatever we get for our continual insults to Islam and the way we murder Muslims around the world.

Take these cartoons. There was no insult to Muhammed. Why on earth would anyone want to insult a 6th/7th century character??? The cartoons were not directed at the Prophet but at modern Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately this irrational religion has a childlike literalism that does not allow its adherents to see the difference.

And these numerous killings of Muslims around the world? Well, there is Iraq of course, which I quite agree was an unjustified intrusion in the affairs of a sovereign state. And there is Afghanistan which I support. If the regime of a country chooses to set up training camps to export terrorism to another country they can hardly be surprised if that country responds. And those detentions in the US? I agree with the Muslim position on that, there is no excuse for the West ignoring its own principles when it suits us. Temporary measures in extreme times maybe, but to hold people five years on without any form of trial? But let us not forget that all of these events were preceeded by Muslim atrocities in the US on an unprecedented scale. (I could take the Zionist conspiracy theory more seriously had it not been for the acclamation 11/9 received in some Muslim countries) If we now have a nonsensical and out of proportion US foreign policy then those who perpetrated and publicly supported this event must take a major share of the blame.

So what did the West do BEFORE 11/9 to deserve it? Station troops in Saudi Arabia with the full consent of that regime and the support of a number of other middle East governments to liberate a Muslim country? Afghanistan under the Soviets? Bosnia? Hang on, I thought we were on the side of the believers in those too. Maybe not for the right motives in the first case and we dithered about and made a right hash of the second, but we did a damn site more to help than any Muslim countries did. Where was the brave soldiers of Islam when the massacres occured in Sebreniza? Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Libya? Not one of those oil rich countries could afford to send a few thousand troops? Maybe we have not done enough about Chechnya but what were we supposed to do exactly against a nuclear armed country like Russia? And maybe beheadings of Westerners by that country's freedom fighters did not exactly help Chechen supporters to drum up sympathy either. Perhaps it's because we supported the Shah of Iran or we continue to support other undemocratic regimes in that region. Maybe we should invade and remove the Saudi or Syrian governments to liberate their people? No hang on, we get hated when we do that too. So what are these greivances apart from a vague idea that we throw our weight and influence around too much?

Of course there is our (or rather our governent's) uncritical support for Isreal. Utterly appalling I agree. The creation of the state of Israel was one of the worst instances of injustice of the last century. You cannot turn back the clock and it cannot and should not be undone now, anymore than, for example, Muslims should be expelled from Kosova to reverse the Ottoman invasion of Serbia. But so much of what Israel still does today, like its continued occupation of the West Bank long after the military necessity has vanished and the erection of the security wall in Palestinian land rather than along the internationally accepted borders, should equally be condemned and we fail to do it. I refuse to totally condemn suicide bombers in Israel. If you are an occupied people and are not permitted an army, what options are open to you apart from either supine submission or terrorism?

So there we are. A genuine Muslim grievance against the West. NO! IT IS NOT! It is not a Muslim grievance, it is a Palestinian grievance. Therein lies the real difference between Islam and other religions. Any conflict anywhere in the world that just happens to involve Muslims, regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with religion and regardless of whether or not the Muslims involved are even good ones (few worse examples than Arafat and his lot surely) it becomes an attack on Islam which must be avenged.

Utterly absurd.

Oh I don't know though. Actually, on second thoughts, maybe we should all think like that, I am sure the world would be a better place. I am off now to blow up the Nepalese embassy because of that country's unjustified actions against leftist geurrillas. I know nothing whatever about the conflict but I do know that Maoists must be atheists and we atheists must stick together. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. After that I am off to blow up the Indian Embassy because they have lent far too much support to the Nepalese government in their unjustified and murderous attacks on my fellow atheists. Anyway, they are Hindus and not non-believers, so clearly they deserve it.

I've changed sides

In the Danish vs Muslims row that is. Not that I have suddenly gained one iota of respect for crappy Islam, it's just that the Danes have pissed me off. Why are 90% of deliveries to pubs of Carlsberg? It's an ok lager I suppose, better than that froggy pig's piss Stella anyway, but REAL men drink Fosters. Same as REAL men drive vans. Anyway, this week I'm staying over a pub, and was trying to have a lie in when a sodding Carlsberg lorry starts delivery right outside my window.

You hate to see it leave??? Not half as much as I hate to hear it arrive at 6.45 in the morning!!!!

BASTARDS!!!!

Good job

I refer to the defeat of the government over the bill to outlaw "religious hatred".

As I understand it from the DT, this measure has been largely campaigned for by the Muslim Council of Britain. One has to ask, given that Jews, who have suffered enormous and largely unjustified persecution over many centuries, do not feel such need, just what their intent is. I think anyone who has read of the furore over those Danish cartoons will have their suspicions.

If anyone actually read this blog they may have noticed that I am no fan of Islam. It is an intolerant, backward, anti-rational, obsessive religion which should never have been allowed into our western, once mainly Christian and now increasingly secular, agnostic and permissive society. It is a threat to our secularism and our individual freedom. I make no bones about it; personally, I would be very happy if all the Muslims in this country would sod off somewhere else. They, like all immigrants, should never have been allowed in without signing a declaration of belief in these most fundamental principles of our society.

That said, I do not confuse the believers with the belief. Human beings, whatever the creed, have much the same natures and our beliefs and the depth of them stems only from our upbringing and our personalities. Demonisation of some particular section of society is for fools and manipulators. If the intended law is seriously only about preventing abuse of Muslims simply for being Muslim, I would certainly support it.

But is it? Opponents say the proposed legislation was drawn too widely and would have outlawed any criticism of beliefs. Wish I could find the exact wording of the bill on the net, so I do not know for sure (although given the general vagueness and poor drafting of most laws I doubt I would be any the wiser if In did) but that would be unacceptable and contrary to our principles of free speech. If the law had been passed without ammendment, would it soon be illegal to say, for example, that Islam was an irrational and intolerant religion that had no place in Western society as I just did?

Would it be illegal to say Muhammed was a dickhead and illustrate it with a cartoon? (Hopefully a bit funnier that those Danish ones). On the other hand that may be irrelevant; who needs the law when there are umpteen humourless fundamentalists poised with death threats to defend their crappy religion? I think for most of us, that says everything about Islam that really needs saying.

It's crap anyhow

Do a search on Google for "Prophet Muhammed" or "Prophet Mohammed" and there are plenty of images. According to Islamic websites the reason it is blasphemous to depict the prophet is because it might encourage idolatry. Surely then, the more insulting the depiction the better, as it would discourage idolatry? but hey! since when did rationality and religion, especially Islam, have anything in common?

As this guy points out, depiction of Muhammed, in the Muslim world as well as the west is nothing new at all; this fuss over a few very dull Danish cartoons is just part of the Islamic fundamentalist tyranny of recent years.

I have little time for the BNP on practical grounds; all their stated policy of "encouraging minorities to leave" would acheive is to make the very best, wealthiest and most talented go elsewhere as they are the only ones who would find a ready welcome in other countries. Nobody has an obligation to take British citizens, so we would be stuck with the criminal underclass while the great majority of ordinary sorts in between would be demotivated and resentful. Hardly a sensible recipe for a more peaceful and culturally cohesive society. But unless our governments and those in charge defend our own rights, freedoms and traditions and stop displaying such abject cowardice in the face of these challenges, more and more will decide, like the BNP, that the only solution to continual reductions in these in the face of Islamic militancy is to purge our society of that religion's adherents altogether.