Read this load of drivel from Sam Leith in the today’s Daily Telegraph. Then have some fun and read the responses to his noxious bit of rhetoric. Nitwits like this guy don’t seem to realise that Britain’s enemies both within and without read crap like his and think that the country has lost its spine and is ripe for the picking.

Because according to the EU its unkind to all Muslims and could be deemed hurtful. In fact they don’t want government spokesmen to even mention the word jihad. It get dumber.

Banned terms are said to include “jihad”, “Islamic” or “fundamentalist”.

I wonder if they will get upset if the world fundamentalist is used next to Christian. After all the fundamentalist properly refers to Christian and not Islam. Britain is signed up but its not binding.

At least both the Tories and UKIP have criticised this bit of idiocy.

Hat tip: Mater who gave it to me on Friday but I didn’t want to obscure the great post by Guido below.

When big life changes come along in ones life its a good idea to look at your financial situation to make sure there are no surprises once the changes occur. Events that you know are on the way, like say marriage, are something that one needs to take great care in making sure the finances are right. Taxes and allowance change when one is married and one has to pay attention to whether or not its useful to file jointly or remain seperate.

Another thing is outstanding loans from either side of the relationship. It is possible it would be a good idea to look at a new joint loan or maybe Reverse Mortgage Loans. There are all sorts of loans you can chose from, it is just key to get the right one. This post is sponsored.

David Milliband, that great white hope of the Blairites as a stop Brown candidate recently wrote an article which was published in the Daily Telegraph, calling on the power of the “I can” generation.

Even funnier, Sam Leith’s parody of the article.

Just a snippet:

With one press of a button, this younger generation knows just how to call up the latest top 10 hit single by Depeche Mode on our Ipods. And we know, too, how to “graze” the internet and to “order up” the very latest fiscal studies DVDs “online”.

Go on, read the whole thing. It’s almost as much bollocks as the Milliband original.

The Iranian behaviour over the illegal detention of our sailors and Royal Marines in the Shatt al Arab by their Republican Guard shows just how little evil regimes like this one think of the “Rules of Engagement” and “International Law” enshrined in things like the Geneva Convention. Perhaps this should be anobject lesson for the Human Rights lobbyists who are so quick to try and prosecute our troops for the slightest “infringement” of these same rules. It is of no comfort whatever to the hostages – for that is exactly what they are – or to their families to have the usual mantras trotted out by this particular abberant group on these occassions concerning “regard for the law” or the “we cannot be seen to be as bad as they are.”

The Iranian Regime has, through its “Republican Guard” seized illegally the property of the British Crown and the persons of its serving men and women. That is an illegal act and one which the UN has once again shown itself to be useless to address. The Security Councils statement is nothing short of a slap in the face for Britain and I for one would wholeheartedly support both Britain and the US withdrawing support for all of the UN’s activities until the organisation comes up with something a lot stronger in condemnation of the Iranians. The facts are that:

1. The Iranian government has breached the Conventions on the treatment of prisoners and is using them as hostages for its own political purposes. That is why they were seized and why they are being paraded on Television. That is a clear breach of all conventions on the treatment of military prisoners.
2. Iranian Vessels staged an invasion of Iraqi waters to seize these sailors, the ship they were investigating is still anchored where it was stopped for the search – and is well inside Iraqi waters.
3. The Republican Guard answers not to the Iranian Parliament but to their President and their Ayatollahs – it is therefore not a regular military force and should be seen as one raised, like Mugabe’s 5th Brigade, as a terrorist organisation, and treated as such.
4. The Iranian Ministers and spokespeople are liars – and what is worse they consider this to be a legitimate ploy – after all they are dealing with people they regard as “Dhimmi” and whom they have clearly stated they intend to overthrow to impose their vision of a perfect society.
5. This is really all about humiliating the West and they know full well that the UK is so overstretched (It would not surprise me at all to discover that, under the Government’s ethnicisation and feminisation of all Whitehall Departments that our MoD section dealing with Operations and deployment is staffed by Iranian or at least Muslim placemen passing on all sensitive information to Teheran) and that there is no way we could mount a retaliation or rescue mission even if we had the guts to do so.

Our sailors have been placed in this position by the stupidity and cupidity of those in Whitehall and Westminster who have reduced our armed forces to the point that we are so understrength and so overstretched that they are forced to rely on part timers to meet their commitments. And what is worse, when our boys and girls are wounded and injured in battle, they face being treated abominably by the disaster that is the NHS because that arch enemy of the armed services, the Civil Service, has decreed that the military do not need their own hospitals. The sight of Blair defending this in Parliament this morning had my blood boiling – especially coming on top of the recent incident when a lad was returned from the Gulf having lost a leg and, following emergency treatment at the scene, was evacuated back to Britain. Here he was rushed, by military ambulance, to the local NHS hospital and then had to wait his turn in the A&E Department – waiting four hours before a nurse approached.

Did she want to “assess” his injuries? Not a bit of it, she had been sent to tell him to remove his uniform as it might upset some of the other people waiting for treatment! I am glad to say he refused – in pain and suffering from the effects of the long trip, his medication running out and all the NHS offers is an insult. The lad said later that if he hadn’t been missing his leg he would have got himself out of there immediately – sadly he had no choice but to wait another two hours before he got proper attention – and nothing whatsoever has been done to the “manager” or the “nurse” responsible. According to Blair, our NHS Staff are providing our troops with the finest and best treatment available. No they are not Mister Blair – and you need to be taken out and shot for the appalling treatment our armed services are getting and the damage you have done to this once great nation – you and the rest of your treasonous party!

No wonder the Iranians are laughing at us. They know that as long as they want to play this game they can. Blair will do nothing because he can’t. The UN will do nothing because it doesn’t want to. And our soldiers, sailors and airmen and women will continue to be placed in danger and treated like dirt when they are sent home wounded – all so that Blair and his civil service stooges can continue to give themselves all the perks and kudos they want.

If I were now serving in any of the armed services, I would be seriously considering getting out before they sent me on yet another hostage taking trip for the Iranians or any other similar regime. Blair wants to fight this war? Let him and his army of worthless Whitehall W*nkers get out there and find out what the real world is all about, it might rid us of two problems simultaneously!

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

I have been involved in politics for many a moon, since I was about able to know what politics consisted of as a concept. I have lost loves, friends and a few family members over politics. One complaint people have of political hacks is that we are always squabbling over the most minor of issues. We are known to leave groupings, start our own or even walk across the aisle.

What a great deal of people don’t realise is that politics merely reflects human interaction in the other spheres whether we are talking the office, academia or any only groupings. People who claim they aren’t at all political will behave exactly likes hacks over the smallest issue. They will break off from the large group and form a new one claiming its “open to all” only to ban those they don’t think are right thinkings, sound or whatever way they want to describe it. There will always be those who do not wish to hear dissent or other opinions who leave to be with their own.

Generally this new grouping claims to be wanting to be “positive”, “looking forward” or even “co-operative”. In truth what happens, at least at first, is they whinge about all the people they don’t like and are far more negative than initial grouping. Sometimes these “independent” groupings go on to great things but normally the end up like the SDP in the UK and the Reform Party in the US.

Saying you don’t do “politics” is a load of rubbish. Everyone does politics they just don’t necessarily do Politics.

I am always pleased to see technological developments to meet the requirements of new laws passed by well meaning politicians. Any method that makes it easy to fulfill requirements of legislation is a good thing. This piece of software aids companies with their compliance management for disclosure. It will allow a company to be able to complete an audit trail of web publications. This comes in the wake of various scandals including Enron. Pretty interesting stuff it has to be said. This post is sponsored.

Tonight saw another good show on Channel 4, they seem to be on a run, seeing Carol Thatcher head off to the Falklands to talk to the locals about their memories. There were some very poignant memories from islanders about the days of occupation and their liberation.

Of course, they had to send her to the Argentine to experience the scum that is the Argentinian male first hand. The idiots on the show didn’t blame their President (which the narrator forgot to mention was a dictator) for invading sovereign British territory because he wanted to rally his country and assuming a woman would not kick their arses, but blamed Maggie. They even had the cheek to call her a war criminal.

One thing that annoyed me was that showed lots of British dead, but never once showed the great shots of Argey planes being blown out of the sky.

Overall it was a pretty good program and Carol was a jolly good sport. Well worth spending an hour reminding oneself on Maggie’s finest hour.

Ever since I was a small boy I have always hated the Yellow Pages or any other hard-copy phone book. I always found the catagories a pain and the fact you kept getting refered to different pages a nuisance. I was one of those who welcomed things like Google enthusiastically whether searching for local advertising or anything else. I almost always find what I am looking for via Google and almost never refer to paper phonebooks these days. One of the greatest things about the internet is the ability to find stuff, if you know how to look, pretty much instantly.

This is a great piece and one which I completely agree with on all levels.

When you celebrate morons, which is what you are doing when you celebrate athletes for the most part, you are asking for trouble. When young males see you can get all you want and still aren’t able to barely construct a conherent sentence in their own language why would they bother with schooling?

Celebration of the athlete is the scourge of modern society. Celebrating freak athetlic skills over intellect and achievement is wrong.

Now maybe Boris could get his party to drop their support for the white elephant that is the olympics.

Go over and read an extensive report from the Kurdish areas of Iraq from Michael Totten. Its makes for reading that would probably upset the agenda-ladened types at the BBC and other bits of the MSM. Its funny you never hear a positive word about the Kurds or how they doing? One wonders is if people get wind of their development and freedom it might change their minds about the war.

And for you potential advertisers.

PPP has been listening to complaints from both advertisers and bloggers. They have made quite a few changes that look, so far, like a step in the right direction.

The Daily Ablution has a cracking interview with author Michael Critchton. Rather than centering on his popular novels and movie adaptions he is chatting to Scott about the state of politics in the world with especially emphasis on envirofascism.

The piece which is worth reading ends with a rather poignant observation of the biggest threat in the world today. I would be shocked if readers of this blog would disagree with his thoughts.

Not the most prolific Scott, but still worth a daily visit that is for sure.

On another note, this is good explanation of the right to bear arms.

And funny enough the UN Commission on human rights doesn’t like it and reacts rather badly to this address to them.

The guy does not even have the decency to thank him for addressing the body. I found this via Harry’s Place, who take a different line on it. The UN is worse than useless and needs to be wound up now.

There is a new site which offers free Antivirus programs for your computer. They offer a download on the site to make sure that you are able protect your precious piece of kit. They offer links to other sources of free software for your computer as well, yes granted its PC stuff, so my Mac readers will be out of luck.

Its a clean site and its fairly easy to access all the information that you might need. Have a look for all the stuff on on offer. Its good to have all this stuff together in one place. This post is sponsored.

French artists paste giant posters of, from left, a Palestinian Muslim cleric, an Arab Christian priest and an Israeli Jewish rabbi on a separation barrier in the West Bank. The artists are part of the organization “Face2Face,” and they hang giant images of Israelis and Palestinians who do similar jobs alongside each other on both sides of the separation barrier. Their aim is to contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.

Because as we all know, if there’s one group of people who wouldn’t possibly take offence to having a spiritual leader portrayed like he’s being molested by a pickle, it’s the Palestinians. How they will chuckle at this goofy good-humor!

You can see the Face2Face site here. Hurry, before something unfortunate happens.

the blog québécois

We have done several other groupings on here for those of you still without a significant other. Well we have not yet mentioned Black Singles. Consider this a correction of said problem completed. Follow the link below and see if it can find you the woman or man of your dreams. You never know what have you got to lose? This post is sponsored.

No, not in the Debbie Does Dallas sense you pervs. Guido has done quite a good short piece about political journalism for Newsnight. Its most interesting to realise that Newsnight has let Guido do this piece for them. Its clear that do think he is influential and a force to be reckoned with now. I wonder if they are going to get other bloggers to do piece for them in future. I agree with Guido about the reading out of press releases, it does seem rather lame political television.

Via Iain Dale.

Wolfie responds: What was he thinking, letting Newsnight film him lurking in shadow? It just gives the public the idea that all we bloggers are shadowy figures tapping away at our keyboards and hiding behind assumed names, keeping our real names a secret.

An open letter to Richard Branson:

Dear Richard,

One has to say that it might be a rather better idea that you stop hanging out with that sore loser/also-ran Al Gore and start examining where your empire is going wrong. Twice this month I have found Virgin services to be lacking, alas both were presents for my beloved fiancee.

Today we recieved a 15 voucher for the poor service my beloved recieved at a Virgin Experience Spa day. The spa was badly staffed, poorly equipped and not a pleasant place to spend any time.

Earlier this month my beloved and I flew Virgin Atlantic’s Premium economy from Boston. I paid for the upgrade as a present to my beloved for Valentines Day. It was a waste of money. The staff was inefficient, unkind and incompetent. Two of the loos on the aircraft were broken (meaning the sleep first class passengers had to deal with us using their loo), my entertainment screen was held together with gaffer tape & constantly slipping and the staff was unable to arrange for a wheelchair pickup for my beloved with her dodgey metallic ankle. We had to wait in the cold at Heathrow for them to procure one despite my requests at the time of reservation and when checking in.

Now I have always been a fan of Virgin and have been a frequent flyer for many a year. My recent experience with Virgin will prevent me from recommending it to my fellow travellers. The fact that the Frequent Flyer staff have failed to respond to my email complaint of 3 March does not impress either. Neeedless to say, I shall not be flying Virgin on my next foray to the US.

It is a great shame to see a great airline fall from grace.

Kind regards,

Andrew

PS: Might want them to stop showing Loose Change the consprirazoid documentary on your airline.

There is a weigh-loss product called Hoodia and there is some discussion about hoodia side effects. This is not terribly surprising thing to be concerned about it has to be said. However it is a mistake to think that hunger pangs that minifest themselves as headaches and stomach aches as “side affects”. If you eat a lot and suddenly no longer eat as much a bit of withdrawl from the effects of sugar and other ingredients. After all we all know people who have dts when they are not able to go online for a few days. Post is sponsored.

There is a major poll going on over at the Evening Standard about the huge Mosque set to be built in East London. If you have not voted pleased head over and express your opinion on the matter. Currently supporters are mustering their folks well and they need to be countered. Spread the word.

Oh and now you are in the “poll” mood. Head over and make your choice for Republican nominee.

Now this is something I am happy to blog about as its a worthwhile endeavor. Every other group you can think of, and some you don’t want to think of, have their own social networking sites. Well now science fans (as opposed to sci-fit) and science types have their own called Sci-Edge.

The site is set to launch on 2 April of this year and hopes to bring people with scientific interests together in a new way. Sign up is free for all. Sci-Edge will hopefully do for science types what MySpace has done for music fans. This is a welcome site and one that is worthy of keeping an eye. This post is sponsored

Last night saw a crackingly good show on Cameron on Channel 4 hosted by Peter Hitchens. Rather than the hatchet job that Iain Dale worried it would be, he was asked to participate and declined althought Tim Montgomerie participated, it was a fair assesment of the the chameleon that is Cameron. Michael Gove MP was the unfortunate one that had to defend the fact that so many ole’ Etonians are in Cameron’s cabinet. He also had to explain the various volte-faces performed by Cameron & his brood.

There are many of my political chums who probably see his changes in views as par for the course in modern politics. I know many who have done the same for their sake of their career (some of whom will sell their friends, and have, down the river if need be) but that still does not mean its right.

I do rather hope someone slaps it up on YouTube as its well worth a view for both Cameron fans and his critics. Iain Dale has written a commentary on it.

I expect to we shall hear from Wolfie on the subject as well.

NB: I must warm you about one thing. You will find yourself agreeing with George Monbiot. A stiff drink might be recommended for that eventuality.

Here is the show in all its glory. Enjoy

The BBC is reporting that a “prominent” blogger has been recieving death threats and has discontinued her public appearances. I have to admit never hearing of Kathy Sierra in my blogging experience. I find the fact there are claims that she is getting death threats as a result of sexism a tad ludicrous.

Death threats are not new however as other bloggers have recieved them including Laurence Simon, Seixon, Dean and even little ole’ me to name a few.

Someone should let the BBC know its not a sexism thing, its a moron thing.

More here and I am getting a bit worried about the whole female blogger meme going through it. As if male bloggers never get death threats?

Update: Needless to say the BBC is using this as an excuse to push a Blogger Code of Conduct.

It had been a while since I had the time to do any of the translating work I have wanted to do. Because of my contacts and the nature of my work, I have come to know quite a number of archivists and minders of large collections.

Quite often they would send me little snippets of things they thought might be of interest, some wanting reciprocation, others merely sending me material they had stumbled on in their work. At times there is information that ties up with something I already have in my possession. On this occasion a friend in the English National Archives was able to date the paper to determine it was not a fake.

The following is one such piece of my familys history that Claire and I have managed to translate. It tells the tale of one Sir Dodgius the Black of Norfolk.

Shaft of Payne

I write this near my death having lived a long and fruitful life. I depart leaving my beloved and faithful wife Gertrude and my two healthy sons: Arthur the Wise and William the Fair. To them I dedicate this tale for they have remained steadfastly by me in my last few years of woe.

With this parchment you will find a small dagger. You will note the hilt which you might think to be a broken spear shaft. I can assure you it is not. It is a thing of great pain but also great strength and great goodness, for it has brought me both. Or that is what I thought in my younger days. To those who follow in my footsteps I earnestly advise that you take care with it.

Let you who read this beware! Make no rash judgement of this matter for there is danger to the unwary! This small blade is known by my family as the Shaft of Dodgius.

The manner of its coming into my keeping is uncertain to me. It may be I picked it up in a battle fought in this demesne against a band of marauding Saxons bent on revenge. Whatever the means, it has been in my possession since that bloody day more than 10 winters ago.

I then thought little of it but soon found it out that, whenever I went about, even when not bearing my shield and sword, the weapon was ever on my person. I have no memory of consciously picking it up and strapping it to my upper arm but it is ever there. It sits on my right arm even as I write this.

I was never numbered among the great warriors of our people, finding my intellect far more useful than my ability with sword and shield. I was but the once on the battlefield and that only in defence of this manor. I was not among those who fought when we invaded this land with William the rightful King, since he had need of my services otherwhere. And it was that invasion that is partly responsible for my rather odd fate, the fact that drives others from me no matter how much I aid them.

Once we arrived in this flat land from across the sea our ranks grew at quite a goodly pace. There are some among our number with whom I have always been uneasy, for they are in truth an odd people with an unworldly look about them. Beloved by many in this town for their ability with fishing and the sea they seem to be unwilling to give answer as to what part of the Kingdom they call their home. When pressed I am merely told they come from a land at the far reaches of what I know.

It was in fact by my rights to ask these questions as I was given leave by the King himself to chronicle this area and its inhabitants as part of his Doomsday request. And there be others in the town, who benefit for their skills, who give protection to these people, diverting all enquiry.. These strangers seem obsessed with an unholy desire to rut with our women folk and this too, does not sit well with me. One among their number even approached a friend to share his wife in exchange for riches. Offended, he refused.

It was not long after the battle with the Saxon barbarians that I was attacked in my abode. I was at work by candlelight when I was set upon by a small group of the strangers. The mystery of why did not become known until towards the end. Then it was one of their numbers dying words that let me know.

Five of their number set upon me, bursting in my door with swords and daggers ready, yet I suffered no ill effects save one. The battle, for it was such, raged for a few minutes only with me, to my amazement, holding them all at bay. As they grew enraged their taunts grew lower and darker. Their calls to me sounded like none I have ever heard, seemingly coming for the depths of their souls and speaking in a tongue unknown and one that was far from holy.

Despite the frenzied attacked I remained calm with my blade in hand parrying their blows as if guided by God. I say this is in hopefulness because the events that soon followed have made me question from whence came this aid.

At the height of the frenzy, one of the attackers leapt upon me from behind attempting to take hold of my throat. His hand, with its long greasy nails, missed its intended target, landing on the shaft instead. A flash of light enveloped all before me in a blinding flash and in that moment they were gone. So brilliant was the light that it was some hours before mine own sight returned fully.

Had it not been for the veracity of those who witnessed this I would scarce have believed any of it myself. Yet the sign of battle was written clear on my body for my white skin had turned dark brown like the hide of a bear.

Besides this change to the colour and texture of my skin I suffered no other hurt. By Gods great grace my family shunned me not, knowing full well my struggle and its strange affliction had saved them from a dire fate.

The village and its surrounds were not so charitable with this poor soul for they whispered that I had been devil touched. The strange ones disappeared to a man taking with them their skills and the blame was laid clearly at my hearth. My family, my sons especially, defended me to all that would question my goodness. But it was agreed that none shall see my complexion in the village. They think only that my cowl is an affection of my shame.

Nothing was done to my family or myself lest they thus invoke the ire of our King. However, once I am no more I have instructed my wife and sons to make swift passage inland to their King. My sons, good men both, will go to serve the King as I have done and my wife, a wealthy woman from our holdings here will be afforded his protection while my sons inherit.

I know which son I would prefer have the blade but I fear it will make the choice and not I or they.

I cannot say whether this blade is for good or ill but it has served well for me, my King and my family.

(Gorleston 1090)

I was not quite sure of the date at the bottom as the edges of the parchment had been damaged due to its having been sewn into the leather of the sheath of the blade.

After reading this tale I have to admit that I find myself in possession of this blade whenever I leave the house. I have never consciously left it behind when I go out, but I never remember taking it with me either. I have never really examined the thing to be honest. Someday I probably will have to examine it fully. I am rather interested in why it seems to have a thick inner piece of wood encased within a lighter wood in the handle.

Something for another day methinks.

In the Cameronian tradition of bashing all those before them there is a wonderful piece of slander against the YCs over at Conservative Home. The author goes on to brag about how diverse the CF is now days while digging in YCs past and repeating all kinds of unfortunate events as if they were typical of all YCs. Funny thing is I seem to remember quite a few women at YC events in the 90s, many of whom were in positions of power.

There was a strong libertarain streak in the YCs of the 80s & 90s as well which seems to be forgotten by CF types in their quest to rubbish the organisation. No doubt inspired by the lefts maligning Guido recently.

Quite why someone thinks its a good idea to portray the YCs as a bunch of sexist, racist neanderthals is beyond me. Do these people not realise that lots of current members of the Tory Party have very fond memories of the organisation and don’t recognise the YCs as described? Of course, this is probably part of the effort to trash all those unfortunate enough to be white, straight, well educated and successful males who were on the candidates list then dumped at the beginning of Cameron’s reign of terror.

Update: My comment seems to had been “lost” but now seems to have turned up. I commented that it might not be too clever to claim all the less than pure elements have been culled from the CF. I spent a rather infuriating 45 minutes being harrangued by a group of CF members about Israel’s (Palestine they called it) existence with the inevitable rant about the fact Jews ran the media and had control of President Bush.

Yet again the Iranian Republican Guard have pulled off a spectacular and totally illegal seizure of British seamen and Royal Marines in a blatant act of war. The claim that our boats were in Iranian waters is a barefaced lie – it is the Iranians who were on the wrong side of the waterway – that is why our boats are monitored on radar and through GPS links. Their base and base ships know at all times exactly where they are and so do they. Ergo, the Iranian Republican Guard has committed what amounts to an invasion – if not an act of war. The only response if our people are not released, and their equipment returned within the shortest possible time is to sink every Iranian vessel that dares to show itself anywhere on the waterway. Sadly, our peaceniks in the MoD will not allow that to happen – and the Iranians know it.

Blair can bluster and posture all he likes, the Iranians will strip our boats (they never ever returned the last lot they seized equally illegally!), beat up our seamen and their RM colleagues and then, after parading them with sham “confessions” on Arab TV, will send them home ignominiously. And Blair and his coterie of luvvies will do exactly nothing about it at all.

What is more, with our fleet reduced to a squadron, and with no strike aircraft and no carriers to call on for air support (shades of the Japanese invasion of Malaya in 1941 and the sinking of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse!), there is not even the capacity to strengthen our presence in the Shatt al Arap. So much for the infamous Civil Service canard that a single ship is more powerful than an entire fleet. Even the World War 1 Grand Fleet would have had more capacity to intervene against these bandits than the single ship deployed in this disputed waterway – no matter how modern or powerful her weapons are, they are useless if they cannot be fired to annihiliate the enemy. Even the now antiquated guns of HMS Belfast would have been able to lay down a barrage in support of the boats that would have given the Iranians pause for thought, so imagine what several of her class would have been able to offer – including extra boats, arms and men to intervene whenever the Iranians tried a raid. War cannot be fought from the Cabinet Office or Cabinet Room in Whitehall, it has to be left to the man on the ground – and he has to have complete freedom of action in all situations!

This latest raid was well planned and well executed, our boats were shadowed by several Iranian boats who then closed in at high speed when reinforcements arrived and left our people with the option of a fire fight against superior numbers and firepower, or surrender. The MoD should be very proud of their estimated manpower and equipment requirements for this area, you would have thought that they would, by now, have learned from the last episode – but that pre-supposes that either the Civil Service or the Westminster parasites can actually learn. Patently they cannot.

Sadly, the outcome of this debacle will be to leave the extremist Republican Guard and the Iranian Ayatollahs looking superior to anything the Western Infidel is able to do, and the Western Democracies looking weaker than ever.

Blair and his anti-military party should be congratulated. All that remains is for us to surrender at the earliest moment to the Iranian government.

As you probably all know I have a band and we have a few tracks up over at Garageband. Well a wee song that was written by Kim (mostly), John and I seems to have gone down well with the harsh punters over at the site.

Beckham don’t bend it
I can tell you I did not identify with a lot of this humor since I hate soccer with every fiber of my being. I laughed with my wife at the references to Beckham because we have an onrunning gag about how she thinks he’s hot (okay, it’s not really a gag…) That said…I get happy whenever I hear somebody who put some thought into his lyrics, since so few seem to do that on GB. and you did that. Vocals were easy to listen to, nice harmonies, and exceptional production quality. I enjoyed the song, and it kept a smile on my face even though I didn’t get some of the humor! Thank you
Reviewed by: usaknucklehead from Hoboken, New Jersey

Its interesting to realise that an added voice in the songwriting process can really help things along. Kim seems to have quite a interesting take on songwriting that differs quite a bit from my lyric writing. Needless to say all my lyrics will at least go through her filter before being done.

Go have a listen to England, Please Lose It.

Today the DT features a rather good piece by Denis MacShane about Davey Cameron. Now instead of the normal screeching polemic about “those bloody Tories” its a well written piece on the re-discovered love affair with bureaucracy of Cameron & Co. The piece reminds, for those that don’t remember or never knew, that they last Tory leader enamored with the civil service was Ted Heath. A former Tory leader who I believe I have mentioned in concert with Cameron’s before now.