It’s nearly nine o’clock on May 21st and the Rapture is three hours overdue. The trees at the back of the house take on that glorious green-gold colour as the sun sets slowly. I confidently predict that it will rise tomorrow over those same trees.
Meanwhile, somewhere in California, an eighty-nine year old bible basher is spending the rest of the day wiping copious amounts of egg off his face. Harold Camping, for it is he, must be feeling pretty damned stupid if he actually believed all that tub-thumping about worldwide earthquakes. (Although there remains the distinct possibility that it was just so much posturing humbug to secure an insecure man his few brief moments of world fame!) Continue reading A bit of an anti-climax→
It’s not often that I use this blog to sing praises. It’s more common that I’m using it to slag off some politico or god-botherer for their latest act of stupidity.
A pleasant change, then, to recount a more than pleasant experience.
The in-laws were over this way last night. They venture to this end of the county every now and then to see granny and buy us a curry. This time they fancied a Chinese and asked himself to find an “all you can eat”. The only one we could come up with was tucked down a backstreet in Reigate – China House in Holmesdale Road in Reigate. Parking is a nightmare as it’s in a one-way street, right opposite the station, outside the town centre and a decent walk from the nearest public car park. But the effort is more than amply rewarded.
If I have any complaint it is that the ambience is a little bit lacking. It’s furnished rather like a slightly upmarket office canteen, but that is the only downside.
The single biggest asset to any restaurant is its chefs, and China House gets this absolutely spot on from the start. It is tempting to go into a paroxysm of allegory – “It exploded on the tastebuds like a symphony in flavour” – but Jilly Goulden I aint! Suffice to say that I like my food and I know what I likes and this was, possibly, the best Chinese meal I’ve ever had. I’m trying to recall a better one and currently failing.
You can select from the main menu, but I would strongly recommend the all you can eat version. Starters are nice and varied, the crispy duck was knockout and the vegetarian platter had tofu and a Chinese salad to die for! There’s a big selection of mains, served in our case with a small bucket of egg fried. Portions are small(ish), but this is an advantage. If you like something you can just order some more. If you don’t (and I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t) then wastage is minimal. The bill? Just under £15 a head with drinks and tip!)
The BBC reports that the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, will use his Easter message to attack “aggressive secularism” – whatever that may be!
It is a vain hope that the princes of the Catholic church will ever understand that they don’t rule here any more, that their day is waning and that they are increasingly irrelevant.
“In a reference to equality legislation preventing discrimination against homosexual people, Cardinal O’Brien will denounce what he claims is the way Christians have been prevented from acting in accordance with their beliefs because they refuse to endorse such lifestyles”.
Cardinal O’Brien seems to argue that christians should somehow be exempt from the law because of their beliefs. Why? What makes their convictions any more valid than the next person’s?
The law is NOT there to govern what a person believes – it is there to control a person’s behaviour.
I am a civil servant. My colleagues and I are there to administer law and we are, despite what some of the red tops might say, human. We carry with us the same preferences and prejudices as anyone else, although I’m not about to start airing all of mine in public. But we are required to suspend them and act in accordance with the Acts. There have been many times over the years when I have been required to do things that I did not believe were morally right, but I did them because that’s what the law told me to do. If I were to start putting catholics at a disadvantage because I cannot “endorse such lifstyles” no doubt the good cardinal would (rightly, for once) be denouncing me from the pulpit. And if ever the struggle between the law and my sense of what is right and fair gets too great I will quit and go and sell paint in B&Q.
I will state this again for the record. I don’t care what Catholics, or the adherents of any other religion, believe any more than I care what the wedding dress will be like, the latest “plot” in Eastenders, the sodding Olympics or any other of the myriad ephemera with which we are daily deluged. The difference is that those who take the last three on that list seriously aren’t arguing for some sort of special status.
No2AV’s referendum broadcast quotes Alan B’Stard – “We just say we’re going to make these changes – then, when we get voted in, we’ll just blame the other lot, saying they stopped us doing it because it’s all in the national interest.”
Can somebody please tell me how this is different from the shite I’ve been hearing from successive governments for the last five decades?
Might as well vote “YES” if the wankers are going to do it under AV as well.
Louis Theroux’s revisit to Westboro Baptist Church (last night on BBC2) was revealing and disturbing, but not for what was said.
True, there was the usual parade of bigotry and downright lies; the selected bible quotes taken out of context and blasted fortissimo at anyone within ear shot; the repugnant posters; the crapulent and deeply unfunny parodies of songs; in fact, the usual tide of twisted filth you expect from the Fred Phelps Follies.
There were moments of light, as Theroux took pains to show the counter-demonstrations that now regularly take place whenever the Phelps-Jugend take to the streets. Many towns use such gatherings to raise money for research into HIV. There was a moment of revelation when it became clear that the patriarch was going to run away rather than face the man on camera.
There was even, occasionally, the hysterically funny – like Steve Drain comparing Theroux to Pontius Pilate. (I’d suggest, at this point, that Drain the Brain should go back and read the gospels. Pilate wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he was later painted!)
It’s not uncommon for politicians and political animals to get things wrong. We criticise them for it all the time.
Staffan de Mistura, however, has now plumbed the depths of an altogether quite superlative wrongness. De Mistaker has blamed the killing of 14 people in violent demonstrations in Afghanistan on Friday on an American pastor who burnt a copy of the koran.
Granted that the actions of Wayne Sapp and Terry Jones were offensive to muslims. Burning a copy of a religious book is an intolerant and highly bigoted act. But – it was just a book. And if a faith is so weak that it cannot withstand such a mild assault then I venture to suggest that it is not worth having. Unfortunately, the modern religious zealot has little or no sense of proportion.
I find some of the proponents of both christianity and islam highly offensive. What would you expect me to say of people who openly call me an abomination and, in the case of the latter, think I should be killed merely because I am what I am. The difference is that you don’t see crowds of angry queens and lesbians rampaging through the streets killing people because someone dared to disagree with them.
De Mistaker says “I don’t think we should be blaming any Afghan, we should be blaming the person who produced the news – the one who burned the Koran.”
No. NO. NO!!!
You put the blame for those deaths on the bastards that did it – and you can STOP making excuses for religious nutjobs who value nothing but their own set of bigotries.
It’s not often we have a referendum for the whole of the UK, so when the political classes condescend to ask our opinion (rather than telling us what we should believe) it’s only polite to answer.
First and foremost I will nail my colours to the mast. I’m a democrat – with a small D, and not in the American sense. I believe in representative government elected by the people. However, I also live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country, so what I believe and how I vote makes absolutely no difference at all. I might as well have wiped my bum on my ballot paper last May for all the good it did.
Our present voting system produces distorted results and, with the possible exception of the odd landslide, gives us minority government. It was fine in the days when there were only the Whigs and the Tories up on the hustings singing their siren songs to those who actually had the vote, but in a modern environment with all its different shades of opinion it just doesn’t work.
‘Tis the morning after the night before and the meejuh are busy picking over the chicken carcass and feeding us all the wrong bits.
Inevitably, because they feel that they have constantly to produce “sensational news”, our horribly dumbed down media are tending to concentrate on the fact that a few hundred protestors went a bit too far – albeit nothing on the scale of the Great Poll Tax Riot. (Two hundred-odd arrests on a day when two hundred thousand-plus had gathered is damned good going on anyone’s analysis!)
There are several points to arise out of the media coverage. Firstly, it serves to obscure a proper view of the feelings being expressed. The overwhelming majority of yesterday’s protestors were peaceful, law-abiding people who wanted to make the, very valid, point that they object to what HMG are up to. There IS an alternative to the Tory scorched earth policy and they were saying so loud and clear. If we hadn’t been in our current state of penury we’d have been there to say it as well.
Sadly, the (limited) violence lets the government shibboleth-robots off the hook. Secretly, they hope and pray that things will turn nasty. It allows them to go into orgasmic paroxysms of pompous condemnation and mock outrage, coupled with a huge dollop of humbug about understanding people’s concern. Continue reading Messages from March’s March→
More news to emerge from the LibDems’ Spring Shindig behind the Ring of Steel in Sheffield. Little Cleggie has vowed not to let the “profit motive drive a coach and horses through the NHS“. (Full story here.)
It usually takes some time in power for a political party to destroy its reputation. Years of shattered dreams, failed ideas and broken promises – followed by a slow decline in the polls and, eventually, a decade or so in the wilderness to lick the wounds, elect a new leader or two and embark on the long, slow trudge back to power.
Cleggie has managed the first half of that process in a little over ten months!
The broken promise over tuition fees has been devastatingly destructive for the Liberal Democrats, and Cleggie’s parliamentary chums must take full responsibility for the damage it has done to the party’s credibility. Trailing in sixth in the Barnsley bye-election, behind the BNP and a local trainspotter, is a pretty good barometer of how people feel about such early treachery.
So – what price for this latest promise? Not much on current performance, when fundamental commitments are so easily abandoned in the name of economic expediency.
We will just have to wait and see whether the lad has a sufficiently big pair to stand up to the Boy David on this one. If he doesn’t the next Liberal Democrat conference can return to the seaside, because all they will need is a beach hut.
Congratulations on getting on to the BBC web site this evening. (Click here.)
Commiserations for having to face the flack.
There’s just a little something I’d like to take issue with:-
“The Liberal Democrats seem to be bearing the brunt of the complaints people are making. Some of that is to do with the media coverage we are getting. They are specifically targeting the things that Liberal Democrats have said during the election.”
The Liberal Democrats are “bearing the brunt” for a very good reason.
I was a loyal activist and supporter of the Liberal Democrats for many a long year and, until recently, have always voted that way. I believed that they meant what they said and would do what they promised. I believed quite passionately in their apparent commitment to education, the single most important thing we can do to secure our future.
The abasement of the disreputable U-turn on tuition fees left me gobsmacked and, frankly, feeling utterly betrayed. For Vince Cable to then go on national TV and slither around in such an odious manner just rubbed salt into the wounds.
your party has been found wanting and cannot be trusted
For years I/we sold the party as different and principled – yet, no sooner than a few bums end up on the back seat of a few Ministerial Rovers, principles get sacrificed for the trappings of power and slain on the altar of a referendum on AV. A cheap price given that the Liberal Democrats have now revealed themselves as just as two-faced as the two parties they so long sought to unseat.
There is an old proverb “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Jane, it is more in sorrow than in anger that I have to tell you that your party, at the first major national test of your convictions, has been found wanting and cannot be trusted. That, and that alone, is more than enough justification for you to be flayed alive by the media.
Trust is easily lost and hard to re-forge. It will be a long, long time before I vote Liberal Democrat again.
