“Japanese” loo habits catching on …
Guardian Unlimited: 'Bidet toilets, they're the future – I've sat on one' Helen Pidd in today's Guardian about the toilets which allow for what we call istinja – washing yourself after you relieve yourself....
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Scare raised over “terrorist training camps”
The Guardian today printed a story raising the urban legend of the “jihad training camp”, which in this case was supposedly based in British national parks. As you might expect when a scare story...
Terrorist suspects “did not have passports”
NBC: Disagreement over timing of arrests – Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit – MSNBC.com A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance...
Inconveniencing the disabled
My work as a delivery driver often requires me to lift heavy items up several flights of steps, repetitively. It’s a huge inconvenience and annoyance, and the buildings involved are often quite new, leading...
Pipes makes terrorist out of drifter
Daniel Pipes, in a comment on the recent Seattle shootings in the New York Sun (on his web site), makes some really absurd leaps of the imagination in order to portray the incident as...
Why Thatcher doesn’t deserve a state funeral
To be honest, I actually thought there would be a state funeral for Maggie given how long she was in power and the fact that her central policies really still hold sway today, a...
It’s hideous … and brainless
Apologies to anyone who's lost their lunch at the sight of this … I've seen many pictures of this dreadful "sculpture" and it's one of the most hideous human models I've seen anywhere. Here's...
Who’s photocopying who?
OSNews: Redmond, Start Your Photocopiers? OSNews regular Thom Holwerda on how Apple, who used the title above as a slogan when launching the current version of Mac OS X (Tiger) in 2005, has done...
Cross country abuse?
A silly story hit the papers over the weekend about a document which numbered cross-country school runs among forms of child abuse ([1], [2]). The document, entitled Your Legal Rights, was distributed to 14-16...
What Muslims Want
Via [IACN](http://www.iacn.org.uk/)’s TV circular, [Channel 4](http://www.channel4.com/) has a programme on tonight called [What Muslims Want](http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites/D/dispatches2006/?hpos=LST) as part of its *Dispatches* slot; it’s on at 8pm and lasts an hour: >Channel 4 News presenter Jon...
£800,000 for this?
One of the biggest British news stories of the past week, apart from the carnage in Lebanon that is, was the payout of £800,000 ($1.52 million) to a woman who had been the victim...
Jeans going out of fashion
The Guardian reports today on the declining popularity of jeans, which it attributes to their ubiquity and their escalating prices: The sight of Victoria, Coleen, Carly, Elen and the rest desperately trying to out-Wag...
Who cancelled the Alton Muslim fun day?
It's been widely reported in the press, both yesterday and today that the Muslim day at Alton Towers has been cancelled (strangely, this hasn't appeared on the Muslim Leisure website which is entirely dedicated...
Little justice for race attack victims
SocietyGuardian.co.uk" "Don't you want to know why I'm bleeding?" An article from the Society supplement in today's Guardian on victims of racist attacks in the UK and how difficult it can be for them...
Interpal statement on Panorama programme
Interpal respond to the recent Panorama programme Faith, Hate and Charity which accuses it of giving money largely to Palestinian charities which are fronts for Hamas. Also, Osama Saeed gives his response.
Fake sheikh “ratted on his brother”
MediaGuardian.co.uk: "Private family chatter became a sensational story" Roy Greenslade of the Guardian (and formerly of the Sunday Times) reveals how Mazher Mahmood's record of broken confidences seems to stretch back further in his...
Ken proposes to sock cyclists
Last week Ken Livingstone (mayor of London) announced that he had become convinced of the need for bicycles, and their riders, to be registered and for the bikes to carry number plates in order...
More on Brick Lane saga
There’s been quite a bit of activity on the issue of the filming of Brick Lane, a film based on Monica Ali’s novel of the same name. Monica Ali belongs to a certain set...
Blogs and their relevance (or lack thereof)
Last weekend Janet Street-Porter wrote for the Independent rubbishing the entire medium of blogs, while Yasmin Alibhai-Brown last monday wrote for the same paper suggesting that bloggers must have no life (you can read...
BBC puts words in to Brotherhood rep’s mouth
The BBC is commonly accused of being biased against Israel and of being unwilling to call terrorists what they are, but an interview with a representative of the Muslim Brotherhood on yesterday's Today programme...