I would, if it wasn't such a plug-ugly name . . .

. . . encourage everyone in the world who isn't a nutter Muslim fundamentalist/extremist to call their teddy bears Muhammad.

Here's a nice insight into the fucking prophet's (syntax as in the singing detective's or the naked chef's) private life :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

See also Daniel Finkelstein in the Times today on that outrageous word "disproportionate" that that hairy archbishop of Canterbury used:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/11/the-teddy-bear.html?cid=91841100#commentscid=91841100#comments

This is Jesus the Bear:

I would be recommending beheading.

This is what 50 lashes looks like after 20 days, so you can see that 40 lashes is just nothing at all.

I mean blasphemy!! Surely nothing less than beheading is called for?

It is very easy for us, in the Western world, to forget that a massive part of the world has totally primitive mindsets. What really bugs me is that the Sudanese Embassy in London put out a statement that this is a storm in a teacup.

If I had spend 4 days and nights in jail facing the notion of lashes or imprisonment I would never, for the rest of my life, think of this as a storm in a teacup.

This lets you see that the Embassy in London is as bad as the goon mullahs for all their veneers of diplomacy.

I once flew Sudan airlines. Thank Allah I didn't know till afterwards that its nickname is "Sudden Death Airlines".

As I type this, I hear on the news that Gillian Gibbons has been found guilty. Well, fifteen days in jail and deportation might make her think again about her life choices.

Sara Khawad, the school office worker who denounced her, is the one who needs the lashes. Wish I could get my hands on her. Nasty, nasty fundamentalist cow. But she must be feeling so great tonight with this "guilty" verdict.

Just in case you wanted to email the SUDANESE EMBASSY IN LONDON:

http://sudan-embassy.co.uk/en/component/option,com_contact/Itemid,3/

Oldest hatred, new mutation: Britain’s Anti-Semitic Turn

Melanie Phillips in the City Journal:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_anti-semitism.html

and also in her own blogspot:

http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=548

I Would Recall The Call Centres in India

I'm just calming down from having bought a ticket. It took me half an hour. Twice I gave up in disgust and said I'd drive; the third time I just bought it, at just about double the price advertised on the internet.

I don't mind these call centres in principle but in practice the Indian ones transform me in seconds into a ranting racist git.

I want to speak in my usual cynical drawl to someone who knows the branch line from my place to Reading, who knows the cheaper, other line up to London; who knows what time before the rush hour I have to hot foot it out of London before I get done for a massive hike in fare; or who knows the first train I can get onto after the bloody rush hour; who knows where the cheapest parking is when the station carpark is full (which it always is after 9.30 am anyway -- and, besides, I need to remortgage every time I park there).

In short, I want to talk to someone at MY station about MY journey, preferably someone like the station master in The Railway Children. When these little old ladies in India start bleeping away like Peter Sellers I just want to scream.

I'd give a right head-kicking to . . .

. . . National Savings for not telling us loud and clear on their damned website that signing on to Premium Bonds on line and paying that minute by Switch card actually slows things down so utterly stupidly.

Why?

Because you then have to wait for them, the boring arseholes, to send you a form to sign and then you have to send it back to them, and only then do your bonds get into the running.

So I might as well have gone to the Post Office, signed and posted all on that first day when I cashed in my Northern Rock account and decided to invest it in our stupid government.

The outcome of all this is that I lost more or less a week while all this post went backwards and forewards. It takes a month for Premium Bonds to get into the action in the first place.

BorING. Typical government ineptitude.

And now how do I know that someone in the Post Office isn't just going to dump the mail bag with that signature in it, like everything else that goes missing?

I would do something to shut the faces of . . .

. . . inverted snobs. They are so, so, so boring and have no logic whatsoever. My ancient mother is an inverted snob. She can't see for a minute that aristocrats couldn't help their birth any more than her hero, Paul Robeson, could help his skin colour. I had a posh friend with a lovely posh voice that she took against at once.

Many inverted snobs have a knee-jerk attitude to royalty, too. I got a few horrible comments on the Queen picture earlier that I didn't even bother to publish. I have a highly intellectual buddhist friend who just says, "Well Harry is James Hewitt's son isn't he?" How would she like to be Harry reading that about himself year after year from all the morons on the internet? Someone needs to slander and libel her like that for her to imagine what it might feel like. Here is Harry, looking just like his father who he's evidently very fond of:



And here is Harry, poor motherless boy, looking just like his beloved mother who died when he was a few days off his thirteenth birthday:

Leave blimming Harry alone. He has enough to contend with. I am possibly an arch republican, but here I am defending the English royal family just because I hate all the ignorant nastiness that's around.

Zero Tolerance

What ever is the matter with zero tolerance?

If I were Queen I'd do a 100% boycott of the Bejing Olympics. Our athletes would just have to compete elsewhere. I know it would be hard on them, but it's even harder on people under incredible duress in Burma. If Britain and America and one or two other decent countries would boycott these games the pressure on China to put pressure on Burma would be intense. They don't want a failure.

Can't expect France to do much, of course. They have great financial interests in Burmese oil and prop up the military dictatorship. It was the same with them and Saddam's Iraq.

Burma:
Please sign the petition asking the UK Government to boycott the Chinese olympics unless China sorts out the Bhurmese junta: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Boycott-Olympics/ It reads: "China has continued to support the illegitimate Junta that continues to rule Burma. Recently Burma has seen massive peaceful protests from Monks and ordinary citizens alike, despite this the Junta has cracked down and begun the murder of the peaceful protesters. When an emergency session of the UNSC was called - China blocked Sanctions against the Junta. I feel that it is Immoral and unjust that China be able to benefit from western economies and obtain money that would come from the Olympic games they are due to host. I call on the British government to boycott the '08 Olympic games in response to this disgraceful situation."Another view is that China is the only country in the region which could influence the junta enough to make them resign, and that to boycott the Olympics is the only way the UK government or individuals could influence the Chinese government. Thanks for reading this.

By the way, if I'd been Queen for the last 25 years I'd have done a lot more for Burma than we ever have done. There is a great website where you can see the "Dirty List" of companies that have supported the Burmese regime here:
http://www.burmacampaign.org.uk/pm/more.php?id=86_0_1_0_M

Then there's zero tolerance for burglars. Let them just try to put their filthy little feet one centimetre into my property. I don't mind killing them with the poker one bit.

I don't mind a long jail sentence because I'd draw some attention to all this nonsense, and I'd get a bit of peace to write that book at last and not have to deal all the problems of everyday life. What a let off that would be.