The perils of suspicion
Last weekend I witnessed an ugly incident on Facebook, which led to a relationship breaking up and the two erstwhile partners both retiring from the site (and Twitter) over accusations that seemed flimsy at...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
How UK immigration treats young torture victims
Yesterday I watched a programme about the extent the British immigration “services” will go to get rid of child and teenage refugees. It told the stories of three cases, a family from Iran in...
Kingston and Snow (2)
Earlier this year I posted an entry called Kingston and Snow, which made the particular point about the places that don’t get gritted when the roads do, namely the pavements of main roads which...
Abdul-Hakim Murad and Panorama
This is a response to the ridiculous comments that have ensued from the recent John Ware documentary — he appeared in Ware’s earlier Panorama in which Ware attacked certain mosques at which offensive sermons...
Two examples of UK immigration madness
A tale of two stories (about which I hope I’m wrong) | Minority Thought The two stories are about two people, a man from Jamaica who moved here in the 1960s with his father,...
North Korea gaffe should sink Palin
Yesterday I was having a discussion with my aunt, who asked me if I had heard of Sarah Palin making that ridiculous statment about their North Korean “allies”. She was concerned that this would...
Casualty and ME: turning reality on its head
I got a reply from someone at the BBC Complaints department, which (much like the response to my earlier complaint about male rape jokes) wasn’t so much an apology as a self-justification. It included...
Asian pimps, Channel 4 and the BNP
Julie Bindel has an article in the current edition of Standpoint regarding the issue of the Asian pimp gangs that exist in some midland and northern towns in England, who exploit mostly local working-class...
John Ware does hatchet job on Muslim schools
Last night, BBC1 broadcast a Panorama programme presented by John Ware, purporting to expose “extremism” being promoted through private Islamic schools in the UK, both full-time schools and Saudi-run weekend ones. He starts off...
Disability, punishment and attitude
I got a comment earlier today from WildKat (Kimberley Robbins) in response to a post I’d made in August about the incident in Saudi Arabia in which a man who had been paralysed in...
Camilla’s here to stay, folks
Charles and Camilla (as in, Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, previously Parker-Bowles, for anyone who hasn’t been following that story intensely — not that I have, but it turns up like a...
Crossrail
Earlier today I went to an exhibition for Crossrail, the project to build a railway line under London from east to west, to match the existing north-south route. The project was begun in 1989...
The cute nurse and the abusive ME patient (updated)
After the Gilderdale story made headlines this past January (and the other coverage of assisted suicide and mercy killing that happened around the same time), I was expecting both stories to be featured in...
Yes, the law DOES apply to middle-class White people
This past week or so, there have been two major news stories in the UK about men arrested for saying things on the Internet that made a strong suggestion of violence that may not...
The need for dedicated care for sensitive patients (updated)
Earlier today I got an update from the family of Emily Collingridge, a lady from south London who wrote a book on living with Severe ME, based partly on her experiences (she has been...
Idiots insult troops and poppy
This image, by Willie Vass shows Celtic fans displaying a slogan insulting the poppy appeal and British troops over the centuries. While British troops have actually done a lot of bad things in Ireland,...
On new unemployment laws and student protests
I read today that the government are proposing new legislation that would bring in supposedly new restrictions on people who are on Jobseeker's Allowance, in which people who refuse work or "community service" will...
What’s up with Google?
Am I the only person noticing that Google’s web services are getting a bit flaky? Almost every day I notice that web searches fail (as in, fail to connect altogether), and I can’t connect...
Charity pressure II: “Poppy Fascism”
Following on from my earlier post about being under pressure to give money to charity, another row has broken out about the decision of a British news presenter, Jon Snow, not to wear a...