Earlier this week I heard on the news that the Royal Mail were closing down two of their big London sorting depots, namely Bow and Nine Elms. I’ve worked at Nine Elms and it was a pretty busy place back in 2002, although I haven’t had any work out of them since (perhaps because I’ve not worked for the right agencies, perhaps because the work has ran down). I used to drive trucks which were full of roll-cages of mail to the various local depots in south-west London, Twickenham and Kingston and didn’t have the sense that the place was in decline. The plan is to transfer work to Mount Pleasant in Clerkenwell, which is in the Congestion Charge zone in the northern part of central London, and to outer London mail centres in Greenford, Feltham, Romford and Croydon.
So, I made it to the demonstration yesterday, as I had arranged to meet Riven Vincent who wanted someone to walk with her. I got there late because I was delayed leaving home and then missed the 9:55 train out of New Malden, but I got there just in time as she said the wheelchair users were being moved out of the street where they assembled a few minutes later. I expected to find lots of wheelchair users in Savoy Street (next to Waterloo Bridge) but there were very few — about ten, if that. We then moved out of Savoy Street and made our way down the Embankment to under Hungerford Bridge, where we were entertained by a TUC brass band which struggled to compete with all the blaring horns that the crowd were using. We finally got off about 11:45am.
The BBC doesn’t have a monopoly on ridiculous plotlines in its drama, despite the recent trends of Casualty, Holby City and EastEnders (not to mention the sappy ridiculousness of the school drama series, Waterloo Road). ITV has been running a rural crime drama called Midsomer Murders since 1997, in which, according to 
I’ve been asked to publicise the upcoming Deen Intensive programme, which is to be held at Uludag near Bursa, Turkey, for three weeks starting 30th June. The focus will be on Imam Ghazaali, and will teach from his Ihyaa and some of his smaller books. Teachers include Sh. Abdullah bin Bayyah, Abdul-Hakim Murad (who translated several sections of Imam Ghazaali’s works) and Hamza Yusuf; the cost of the event itself is $3,200 (US), which covers tuition, room and board, travel within Turkey, but not travel to and from Turkey. (Financial aid is available.)
Recently the east London imam, Usama Hasan, who has been involved with the Quilliam Foundation (a media-friendly group of purported former extremists) and promoting the idea of reconciling Islam with Darwinian theory, went beyond the pale in a public meeting by saying that Adam, the first human being and Prophet (peace be upon him), had parents that were nearly human, i.e. that there had been evolution up to him. This put him outside of Islam (making his position as an imam untenable) for two reasons, the first being his insult to a Prophet and the second being his direct contradiction of the account in the Qur’an which says that Adam (peace be upon him) had no parents and was created directly. (More: 
Yesterday, I listened to a discussion on Radio 5 (the Victoria Derbyshire show) featuring Riven Vincent, the mother of a disabled daughter who challenged David Cameron on Mumsnet and then said she was planning to put the daughter into care as she was finding it difficult to cope. A number of other disabled people and carers were involved, but there was also someone called Claire who said that, essentially, children like Riven’s daughter Celyn should not have been born or should be abandoned, as they are a burden on the taxpayer and on their brothers and sisters. Other callers were outraged, with one asking her if she was related to Hitler, but most said she had a right to freedom of speech. (You can listen to it 
Yesterday I heard a discussion on the Radio 2 mid-day discussion programme in which Vanessa Feltz (sitting in for Jeremy Vine who is on holiday, along with several other Radio 2 presenters) debated with someone who suggested that the British government should leave the British workers who were trapped in Libya to their fate, because they went out to work for much more substantial wages than they would have got at home, tax-free, while helping a bloodthirsty dictator who supports terrorism; they have made their bed, so his argument goes, so they should lie in it. Feltz responded with the tale of the 
Last night, Channel 4 broadcast another Dispatches programme titled 
