1260 days ago
The President of the United States is one of those tedious Americans who insist that they are Irish because of some distant ancestor. No Joe, you are a yank and your romanticised and ill-informed views of what many of us call “the old country” wrecked appalling damage and great bloodshed on the British isles for many years.
1265 days ago
An early memory from childhood at Butterwell Farm is of the glass bottles in which mum and dad stored the ginger beer and elderflower champagne they made, exploding and then setting off a chain reaction of explosions. The IRA could not have organised it better. And thus the nettle bear I made is stored in plastic bottles which should not explode and which I am now “burping” once a day, that is to say letting the air out and the beer fizz. And boy is it fizzing. In a week’s time, the beer, currently sitting next to a piggy bank in the larder, will be ready to drink and will be decanted into glass bottles and stored in the fridge. I have already promised to bring a glass up to neighbour D, to the chap repointing our barns and to the couple who run the village’s Greek South African restaurant. After all, they had a special present for me today.
1313 days ago
Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA. And a day after the funeral of his nephew, Prince Philip, Sinn Fein has now apologised. That is in effect an IRA apology for you and I know the two are one and the same. Sinn Fein stands in elections, the IRA butchers men, women and children, runs drugs, robs banks and has a penchant for sexual abuse. But they share personnel, aims and beliefs. The blood dripping from the hands of Sinn Fein is the same blood the IRA spilled. Yet in North America they just cannot see that.
1583 days ago
As a part time resident of Greece, I am most delighted by the EU bailout. Not only does the mightly Hellenic Republic have almost no cases of Covid now, but we are also going to get shed loads of cash from other EU countries for our politicians to steal. Oops… I meant to invest wisely in rebuilding the economy. Fabbo. As you can see below, Greece is the fourth biggest winner from the great EU Covid lottery and, in terms of per head of population, I think we have (again) topped the handout table. Ouzos all round in Greece. Elsewhere, others are not so happy.
3940 days ago
Bob Doyle was clearly a remarkable fellow. In the years leading up to the creation of the Irish Free State he was an active mem ber of the IRA. In the 1930s he headed off to Spain to fight Franco and Fascism. Post war he became an official with the print union SOGAT but also campaigned for a variety of causes including the legalisation of pot. I am not sure that we would have agreed on everything but he certainly led a varied life.
It is in appreciation of what the old commie did in Spain that his poster hangs in the entrance to our new wine and tapas bar in Clerkenwell, Maribelle's. As you are beginning to see, our artwork is eclectic.
4133 days ago
Last week the EU took three decisions regarding Israel which are in short despicable and take the Jew hating stance of the Evil Empire to new levels. Led by the former CND activist and total non-entity Baroness Ashton (the EU Foreign Secretary), the Evil Empire has plunged to new depths.
The first two measures impose trade sanctions on Israel. Any goods produced beyond the 1949 Armistice lines will now have to be flagged up with specific labelling and any entity with an address beyond those lines will be deni8ed any EU contracts or funding. The 1949 Armistice lines are not Israel’s borders but merely the point at which Arab armies were halted as they tried to wipe out the Jewish state at birth. So areas which the UN recognises as Israeli and which are Israeli under International law will be targeted by the EU.
Frankly, economically successful Israel does not need money from bankrupt Europe and so can stand on its own two feet. But having to wear a “yellow star” on your goods has kind of sinister undertones.
The third measure is the truly vile one. You will remember that in the West we are meant to be fighting a “war on terror”, tracking down the sort of evil which sees rockets fired on innocent men women and children and suicide bombers head onto buses? Remember that? Well I guess it doesn’t matter to the EU if those innocent men, women and children are only frigging Jews.
The EU
4201 days ago
The beheading of a soldier in Woolwich today by two men shouting Allah Akbar is a sickening terrorist atrocity by Islamofascist nutters. Quite clearly the two nutters are very much of the home grown variety.
And so when asked to comment on this the local Labour MP Nick Raynsford rightly condemned this as an atrocity but then just could not help himself from saying how there is a multi-cultural community in his manor which sees everyone exist in blissful harmony with the local barracks. This will no doubt be the reaction of the entire political class, a class so out of touch with how we plebs feel that it cannot bring itself to speak the self-evident truth.
The vast majority of British Muslims are good folk who do not support Jihad and who will condemn what happened just as the rest of Society does. But there is a small minority of British Muslims who either actively or passively (by silence) support Islamofascist terror. And with those folks we are at war, just as we were at war with the IRA.
In those bad old days I remember being spat at as I ran on the streets in a London Irish jersey. But most folks accepted that while some people of Irish descent (like Saint Bono) sympathised or supported Saint Gerry and his blood stained friends, most of us despised the IRA and the men of violence. And as such it was perfectly legitimate to say as much.
Raynsford and his ilk just cannot bring themselves to do so when it comes to Islamofascists. This is not a race issue it is just a statement of fact. We find ourselves at war with a group who attack our very way of life. Even if we condemn Israel (I hope we do not) and withdraw from our illegal presence in Iraq and Afghanistan (I hope we do) this small minority will still attack us. And we need to acknowledge that.
If Raynsford and a political class which grew up thinking that multi-culturalism was a basic tenet of their belief system which could never be questioned, merely spout more platitudes it will alienate we plebs even more. It will foster even more of a backlash. It is time to face up to this truth. Incidentally it is also time that Muslim leaders spoke as one in condemning such acts without any caveats at all.
