True Stories: Forbidden Lie$ and Sabine
More4, the "grown-up channel" run by Channel 4 in the UK, is broadcasting Forbidden Lie$, about Honor Lost/Forbidden Love, the "novel" about honour killing in Jordan published as a book of fact, this coming...
Author: Matthew Smith
Ramadan diet poses health risk
From the South African Independent: Poor dietary and lifestyle habits during Ramadan pose grave health risks to fasting Muslims, local doctors and dieticians have warned. Night-time binge eating and consuming too much sugar and...
The ingratitude of a boorish “angry American”
Last Wednesday, Jonathan Freedland, a former Guardian US correspondent, wrote this article suggesting that the international judgement will be harsh if the Americans elect McCain and Sarah Palin, with her record of putting religion...
Congo goats let out of jail
When I first saw this story, I thought they meant goats kept by prisoners as a possible food source, but no, they really were there awaiting trial: The beasts were due to appear in...
Faith schools “cause terrorism”, says prof
Will there be no end to the repetitions of the myth that faith schools are the cause of the problems in Northern Ireland? A professor called David Canter has published a study, based on...
Plain speech, true speech?
Linda Grant wrote this article in last Thursday's Guardian, on why small-town Americans vote Republican, even those who are well-educated like one she spoke to. Those she actually knows perceives "whitebread Republicans" as "like...
Pity the horses, but not the murderer
Zoe Williams, in today's Guardian, on the mawkish obsession with the horses and other pets which belonged to the family believed to have been murdered by its indebted father a couple of weeks ago...
Ramadan timetable mystery
With the fasting moving back to the very beginning of autumn and the first couple of days fasting being the most difficult they've been since, well, whenever they were last in April, I have...
Good school, bad school; faith school, secular school
Yesterday, a new organisation was launched called the Accord Foundation, which claims to be "a new broad-based coalition calling for inclusive schools and an end to special arrangements for state funded religous schools". Its...
Dispatches: same old, same old
The Channel 4 Dispatches programme last night returned to its theme of sending a reporter undercover to gather information on what's being taught in mosque study circles and being peddled in mosque bookshops. The...
Me on BBC London: transcript
Here is a transcript of the conversation I had with Anne Diamond, on the subject of the Daily Express complaining about Tower Hamlets council workers (in east London) will be asked not to eat...
Indigo Jo on the radio
I got through to speak to Anne Diamond (sitting in for Vanessa Feltz who's off having her gall bladder removed) today! The issue was a story picked out of the Daily Express (or Daily...
Harder driving tests again? Please no!
This morning, I was driving to work and was listening to the BBC London breakfast show, which features Jo Good and Paul Ross, who is every bit as irritating as his brother Jonathan (I...
Why long-distance day trips are a bad thing
Recently three people I know visited Cairo. One of them, a Muslim of Somali origin who lives in Canada, spent two weeks there on the way to Dubai and Somalia; the other two, both...
Marriage contract issue on BBC’s “Sunday”
Radio 4’s programme Sunday, its weekly religious affairs programme broadcast at 7am on Sunday mornings, today featured the “Islamic” marriage contract issue. You can listen to it here until next Sunday when the next...
MI5: there is no terrorist profile
The Guardian today published a lengthy article about an MI5 report they had obtained (which was restricted), which stated that there was no real profile which could indicate what sort of young Muslim would...
Exploring the “Islamic” marriage contract
The so-called Islamic marriage contract recently proposed by the Muslim Institute has attracted a lot of attention in the Muslim blogosphere lately, much of it negative, for reasons anyone who has read it will...
Imam’s response to the “Islamic” marriage contract
Haitham al-Haddad (a "salafi" imam based, if I remember rightly, at al-Muntada al-Islami in west London) has given a lengthy response to the recent "Islamic" marriage contract published by the Ghayasuddin Siddiqui front organisation,...
Change of scenery
As you can see, I have changed the theme for this blog. I had not intended to do this when I upgraded my Movable Type installation last week, but the old templates did not...
Who are the real traitors?
Recently I had an exchange with an old school acquaintance who accused me of defending an enemy of my country, namely Abu Hamza, on my blog. Abu Hamza is currently in jail, having served...