Ramble.
Been out the country recently. Went to Spain and found much of it's drab, arrid wasteland has been swallowed up by rapid urbanisation. Apartment blocks for miles and robbers everywhere too. Then I came back and found that temperatures here in London had also been in the thirties.
Talk about a busman's holiday.
Opened up my email and saw reams of messages. Realised that only two or three were from friends and the rest was junk from places like Amazon.
Had a couple of friends say hello on Myspace as well though, so altogether I reckon that makes me about as popular as Nick Griffin in Brixton.
Shouldn't use Myspace anyway, now that c*** Murdoch owns it. The shame.
If anybody fancies writing me out a nice new shiny CV, I'll slip 'em a tenner. Working every afternoon and night in the pub so I can forget seeing my better half for the next week or so.
Anyway, I'm running out of time in this shabby little 'net cafe. Donations to the Phu home computer fund can be forwarded to the normal email address.
Ta.
Anniversary.
Well, yesterday was a sombre day for us all. Just outside my house is situated the main South London Mosque. Being a Friday the streets were packed with Muslims, who hang around and converse after the midday prayers. A friend bemoaned the police presence outside the mosque, claiming any burglars and muggers would have an easy day of it due to lack of available constabulary.
Meeting my better half in North London, I caught the tube up to Finsbury Park, former home of the infamous Abu Hamza, and again noticed some police presence.
My lovely lady has been staying with her family in North London for a few days, and is coming back home today. I wish there was no reason to worry for her safety, travelling on the Tube. But that's a luxury we have all lost now.
Blair and the committee.
Interesting watching the committee Blair is facing this morning.
Asked whether he thought it acceptable to send people back to countries where they faced the risk of torture, Blair answered no, but our obligations do not extend to ensuring the safety of foreign criminals over ensuring the safety of our own citizens. True, maybe. But what constitutes a dangerous criminal in Blairite Britain? We only have to look at the absurd cases of arrest under the anti-terrorism laws to realise just how blurry the distinctions are. Are we to understand Blair would deem it justified to send Milan Rai or Barbara Tucker off to be tortured?
Explaining why he thinks it right that British citizens should have their liberties stripped away one by one Blair said that modern society poses new challenges, and we must adapt to face them. A simple matter of evolution, then. Apparently blaming immigration (seriously) for much of these new 'challenges' the PM argued for a "balance between liberty and security", saying we need to "tilt the system". Part of this new formula, he went on, was the loss of right to trial by jury and that old 'innocent until proven guilty' nonsense.
Incredibly, he then immediately followed this up by pleading that his government be judged on evidence, not what is printed in the media.
Stating that the Muslim community needs to be purged of "a completely false sense of a grievance against the West", he pointed out much had been done with the Muslim community since 7/7, although he didn't say what any of this work actually was.
And try telling all the innocent Muslims in the ME who have suffered at the hands of Western foreign policy that their sense of grievance is "false".
Failure.
Like I said, it takes the opposite of playing bad. England have played poorly throughout the campaign, and the World Cup in general has been pretty shit.
We all got excited when Spain won their first match 4-0.
It was against UKRAINE. One good player doesn't make a good squad.
Everybody except me thought Argentina would win it, when Mexico took them to their very limits before a miracle goal saved them.
The reason I didn't think Argentina would win? I was too busy thinking Brazil would do it. They too have been rubbish.
Germany have probably got it now. But what a shame it's been so disappointing, and not just because of England's inevitable quarter final misery.
Sweet Justice.
Two obvious wronguns come bowling into the pub late last night. The one with speech capacity puts his arm round my shoulder and orders two pints of Nelson Mandela. I put the pints down in front of him.
"Yeah that's on my slate bruv."
"No, you haven't got a slate bruv."
"Ask Frank
* (the guvnor) it's on my slate."
"Frank aint here (he's upstairs) and I'm not doing any slates mate."
"Alright whatever. Ask my mate over there for the money."
I go and speak to his mate, who grunts some neanderthal response. I'm later to learn this lurch is a murderer who did 18 years bird. The bastard at the bar had sent me over to him anticipating me getting my head split open.
Anyway, it's clear these two are trouble so I ring my boss, who comes down to have a word with them, then calls the police. The two arseholes meanwhile Take it upon themselves to wander round with a menacing swagger and then threaten to kill my mate Mick, who in turn threatens to kill the both of them.
Eventually they end up falling out the pub to have a row with my boss, who's outside waiting for the old bill to arrive. While hurling insults at the landlord (a man big enough to handle himself in any situation) they get distracted by a group of kids hanging around the street corner.Being a couple of bullies they move towards the kids and start having a go at them, too.
Bad move.
In seconds, a huge group of COTA
* are punching, kicking, and jumping on top of them. My boss watches them get kicked absolutely shitless, calls the police, and tells them there's no longer a problem.
"Sweet justice", he called it.
Personally I was torn between two emotions. On the one hand I felt uneasy that two blokes had just been savagely attacked by the increasingly violent youth on London's streets. On the other hand, I couldn't help smiling at the fact two pieces of violent scum like these, one of them a murderer, had been given a taste of their own medicine by a pack of kids they were trying to bully.
* All names changed.* Children of the Apocalypse - see earlier posts.
