The Bengali rambling women
BBC NEWS | England | London | Rambling in headscarves The BBC on a group of Bangladeshi ladies in London who go on rambles in London with the Ramblers' Association – normally associated with...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Somali slashing and Syrian repatriation
The BBC programme Broadcasting House had a feature on the Somali community this morning, in reaction to the case of a girl being slashed by a Somali classmate, an orphan with a very low...
New Statesman slanders Dr Quick, boosts Hargey
This week’s New Statesman (the first I’ve had through the door on a now ended subscription offer of £4.80 for three months) has on its front page a feature marking the anniversary of the 7th July bombings last year. There are two long articles, one by Shiv Malik (yep, him again) on the background of the bomber Shazad Tanweer and one by Ziauddin Sardar (yep, him again) on young British Muslims. Laughably Shiv’s feature is entitled The Suicide Bomber in his own words, which refers to the personal statement on his UCAS (university application) form that he’s managed to get hold of. Depressingly, as I noted last year when writing about political magazine coverage of the bombings, these two were the only voices within the community the NS could find, with Shiv concentrating on Hizbut-Tahreer, which had nothing to do with the bombings.
Are the “Muslim Boys” terrorising Croydon?
This week’s Croydon Advertiser has a report on an apparent “religious war” which led to a teenager being stabbed in April 2005; the case is currently the subject of an Old Bailey murder trial: An Old Bailey jury heard how the defendant, from Croydon, also 16 and who cannot be named, told police: “On the streets these days it’s like Muslims against normal people. Stefan [Persaud] and this other boy were Muslims and they were trying to turn people over to become Muslims.”
The rise of the male handbag
The Guardian: Patrick Barkham on the rise of the man bag This is what they were talking about on the Vanessa Feltz show yesterday: the phenomenon of some men carrying what amount to handbags...
Zahid died in jailers’ game
The report on the murder of Zahid Mubarek, the Asian youth jailed for “going equipped” and murdered in his cell in Feltham young offenders’ institution in March 2000, has just been issued, and a press conference can be seen at that page (see this earlier post). It was alleged on Channel 4 News that evidence existed that the staff at the institution had a game called “Gladiators”, which involved putting unsuitable inmates in the same cell so the staff could see the fireworks.
Imperialist fairy-tales
Thanks to Pickled Politics for reminding me of this … a quite comprehensive article in today's Guardian debunking recent attempts to whitewash the British empire: Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | The story...
More on conspiracy theories
Something that made me wish I'd written this post a few days earlier (like, when I first saw the report on the PGAP survey): this article about conspiracy theories surrounding the July bombings, and...
Bill Gates and his billions
The Independent's Extra section today published this article about Bill Gates' recent announcement that he is reducing his commitment to Microsoft to concentrate on his charity work. One sentence that stuck out was this:...
British Muslims, alienation and terrorism
The Guardian recently carried two related depressing stories about the Muslim community here and terrorism. The first was that, according to some survey carried out by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, British Muslims had more negative views about their non-Muslim fellow citizens than do Muslims in Europe and more likely to believe conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks
Zia Sardar on intelligence
Zia Sardar in the current edition of the New Statesman on the folly of “intelligence-led” police operations:
Don’t be fooled by the mantra that intelligence is an extremely difficult business, prone to absurdly wide margins of error. If that were so, Britain would have lost the Second World War. The remarkable success of British intelligence, including counter-intelligence, during that war proves that we can produce reasonable – say, 25 or even 50 per cent – rates of success.
Spencer, the NDU scholars, the securocrat and his books
Robert Spencer today posted to his blog *Jihad Watch* [a memo](http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011960.php) by one LTC Joseph C. Myers, Senior Army Advisor at Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, in reply to [an article](http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2006/20060622_5489.html) on...
My Mac and Ubuntu
On Sunday evening I finally got round to ordering the new hard drive for my Mac (a 120Gb Seagate). It arrived on Tuesday morning by standard first-class post, which was unexpectedly early, though they...
The perils of off-the-peg American policy
Two interesting articles regarding the British government's enthusiasm for adopting US policies into British criminal law: First, from this week's New Statesman: Martin Bright explains why our ministers seem always to look to the...
Some good news from Somalia
Richard Dowden (of the Royal African Society) in today's Independent argues that the Islamic Courts militia which recently seized power in Mogadishu (and may take control of other areas) is not a new Taliban,...
Guardian: Israel boycott debate triggered email attack
The Guardian's Education section today reports on how recent debates on boycotting Israeli universities produced a flood of often abusive emails: Following a heart attack earlier this year, Paul Mackney, then general secretary of...
Police chief: government ARE caving in to press
Finally, the head of a police force comes out and says what a lot of us have been saying for months if not years: that the Government is caving in to bullying from the...
Talking of service …
Saracen just made the point (entry below) about how on the High Street, "stock, price and service sometimes leave a lot to be desired", which is why he buys much of what he buys...
Buying computer gear
Earlier this evening I ordered a new hard drive for my Mac, one which has approximately triple the storage space of the one in there at the moment (120 gigabytes instead of 40). The...