Birmingham City F.C. - Their Time Has Come.

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I am in my sixty seventh year and one of the things that I look back on with pride is my devotion to The Blues. During that time  they have given me some of the most enjoyable and most despairing times of my life. I have stood on Spionkop and seen as much beauty and creativity as there is in a Michael Angelo painting as a supreme pass or  an inspired moment of genius raises my spirits to the nearest thing that their is to heaven here on earth.
Tears have rolled down my face as sixty thousand working people sing in harmony, "Keep Right On To The End Of The Road", which is the greatest anthem in football, either to urge the players to one last effort to win the match or in celebration of  what has unfolded before us.
The Blues are not just my opium trip, they are my route to joy, fraternity and never ending loyalty. I have made more friends on the terraces of St. Andrews and had more laughs than anywhere else in the world.
We are US - The Blues and although the journey has been long we are now cruising in fifth gear and Nirvana is just around the next corner.

I'll Walk Beside You

 It is an old cliche but music can lift the soul and reduce you to tears, sometimes both at the same time. It is strange how a different artist or a different arrangement can make the same piece of music sound totally different. I am not referring to so called "cover" versions here but to give you an example I have a Tchaikovsky piano concerto played by two recognised artists of their time and one has so much more depth and quality than the other that it is scarcely believable.
 My father was a great lover of the Irish tenor John McComack and was horrified when in the early nineteen sixties I bought home a modern version of one of his much loved melodies. Well judge for yourselves, dear reader.








 I shall be on holiday for a week but do hope you return, once again, to read my musings on my return.

Clegg Attacks Child Benefits and Pensioners Winter Fuel Allowance.

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More lies from Cleggy. After pledging to protect these benefits he is now going along with his Tory masters and leaks in recent days suggest that he and his Liberal Democrats are colluding with the Tories as to how to present these measures to the public.
Whilst not removing the Winter Fuel Allowance from all pensioners the Clever Nick's in the ConDems are proposing:-
a) to make the allowance taxable or;
b) means test it or;
c) raise the age limit at which it will be paid.

The first is theft as is the second   for as General Mongomery declared when collecting his first Old Age Pension he had paid his taxes for it all his life  and was therefore entitled to receive the benefit, in full, when he had reached 65.
The third will mean more old people dying. This is a policy the ConDems seem quite keen on as thousands of people, but  mainly children, will be injured or killed on our roads as a result of their decision to allow councils to detroy speed cameras.

Smug Clegg toured the televevision studios yesterday proclaiming in truimphal terms the acheivements of the ConDems first one hundred days of slashing and burning our public services. The talking heads, whom the TV news crews supposedly randomly select, seem to have taken the bait hook, line and sinker and almost unanimously seem to agree that these cuts are necessary to save the country. They seem to be economically illiterate not realising that the pace of the cuts will cause massive unemployment, poverty and misery.

Clegg is pushing the line that all of this misery will have been worthwhile when after five years the deficit is paid back and our schools, hospitals, libraries, museums, factories and offices have been closed down. This shows just how politically immature he is because the coalition will not last the journey. Simon Hughes, the high keeper of the Liberal Democrats conscience, does not have the balls like the rest of the Liberal Democrats to weild the dagger although Charles Kennedy and some of the elders like Steel and Campbell will probably make noises off stage. What will in fact happen is that there will be large scale civil unrest and strikes, of the type that brought Thatcher down, only on a much larger and more co-ordinated scale. The government will collapse and the Liberal Democrats will become, once again, a tiny rump in parliament for many generations to come.

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 At times like this I once again turn to the greatest speech that I have heard in my lifetime to recharge my moral batteries.

Harold Wilson.

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Much maligned by Andrew Marr in a recent book. He did not do his homework, which I would expect from an establishment lacky fawning for a tainted gong.
My memories of  him  are somewhat different.

Relatively early during the troubles in Northern Ireland Harold Wilson correctly predicted that there were storm clouds gathering. Presenting his '15 point plan' in the House of Commons, the central point of which was that the final settlement of the Irish question lay in unity, he stated that new initiatives had to be brought forward speedily because, 'if men of moderation had nothing to hope for, men of violence will have something to shoot for'.


He won more elections (four) than any other 20th century Prime Minister and some of his governments initiatives have proved to be far-reaching achievements. These include:-

the foundation of the Open University;

the liberalising of laws affecting homosexuals and obscene publications;

the ending of capital punishment;

the holding of a refendum which ensured that we remained in the European Union.

He also gave us a national holiday to celebrate May Day and his coming to power in 1964 heralded the birth of the swinging sixties and in 1966 we won The World Cup.

He was a powful orator and some of his more legendary quotes survive to this day:-

A week is a long time in politics;

I'm an optomist, but an optomist who carries a raincoat;

The monarchy is a labour intensive industry;

The Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing;

Get your tanks off of my lawn;

N0 comment - in glorious technicolour;

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetry;

Whichever party is in office, the Treasury is in power.

When hit in the eye by a stink bomb thrown by a schoolboyhis response was, 'With an arm like that he ought to be in the England cricket team.'

His premiership was frought with problems however. He managed devisive cabinets many of whom had sharp intellects and inflated egos and, although he was thought to be paranoid at the time, it has since been proved that he was undermined by parts of the military and the security services.

He kept us out of the Vietnam war, despite American demands for the presence of British troops and it was also under Wilson that, for the first time in a century or so, a whole year passed without a British soldier being killed on active service.

How different to the cringing subservience by Tony Blair to George Bush and his recent assertion that Britain had a moral duty to go to war anywhere in the world where western values (whatever those are) are threatened.

Nice one Harold

Your old friend Gordon.

Memoribilia of George Best's First Match.

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 I went to an antiques fair on Sunday and it was nearing the end of the day and an elderly gentleman, like my self, was selling stuff off for any offer. I had glanced at a 1964 Manchester United v Birmingham City programme which he wanted £4 for. I offered him two pounds and he accepted and said that he had a few other Manchester United bits and pieces that he would throw in.
 Much to my surprise it included a letter dated 22 September 1963 from a Mr. R. Best at 16 Burren Way, Belfast and read:-

"Dear Mr. Drury,
                         Many thanks for your kind letter and enclosed newspaper article. Your courtesy speaks highly of our press.
 I note you remarks on George's promotion and your wishes for his success in his career are much appreciated by myself and family.
 The boy himself has been football mad from when he could toddle and if keenness means anything he has that, and we hope he performs with credit as well as distinction on the playing field.
 Once again many thanks and best wishes to you in your own field, and may success attend you."

 The letter was obviously in response to an article that Reg Drury, who was at the start of a very distinguished career in football journalism, had published following Gerge Best's first appearance for Manchester United on 14 September 1963 against West Bromwich Albion.

Reg Drury was sadly killed by a motor car, aged 73, in 2003 and "Dickie" Best died in 2008.

George Best, an enormous talent that should be celebrated.

The BBC Joke About Afghanistan - In Bad Taste

Now I know one needs to tread carefully about this topic but my own view, as stated before on this Blog, is that we will lose and that unfortunately many young men are dying needlessly to satisfy America's blood lust after the Twin Towers disaster.
As regards comedy the BBC has recently been adopting a politically correct stance towards comedy in fear of offending anyone. The result has been a series of very unfunny stories about families or couples with only the slightest hint of innuendo. Such a series is, "The Old Guys" about a couple of hetrosexual men who fancy the middle aged bit of stuff (played by Jane Asher) from over the road. Imagine my surprise then the other evening when the three central characters were discussing the cost of a wedding. I can't remember the character who Asher is playing but she came out with the line, "Don't worry about the money I have a nestegg. It was in tobacco but fortunately I switched it to arms just before the first gulf war. So let's just say somebody's winning in Afghanistan".
 Now I am not a sensitive soul but his seemed to be a joke in terribly bad taste considering the slaughter that is going on there. I will not complain to the BBC as they either don't reply or take ages to do so. If you a lucky enough to get a response it se it will be along the lines that in the context they did not consider it out of place. Well sorry BBC this was the wrong programme, the wrong time the wrong context and a very sick joke.

Phil Ochs - The Ringing of Revolution.

This is Ochs in his days when he would have been labelled as  "a protest singer". He rejected this and said he was, "a commentator on the contemporary scene". Certainly some of his stuff was hard hitting ( I ain't marching anymore) but his training as a journalist made his use of words both effective and sometimes cynical and sarcastic. Although a deeply troubled man in later life, he also had boundless energy and apparently a great sense of humour together with an overriding sense of mission, which was to lead to his downfall.. It was only after the Democratic Mayor Daley sent in the troops at the Democratic Convention in Chicago that his sense of America being a just society began to decay and eventually led to his subsequent awful downward spiral.
There area couple of good books on him - one written by Michael Schumacher and called, "There But For Fortune" which unfortunately sent me into a period of depression so read it at your peril. It is a better book than the other one, written by Marc Eliot and called "Death Of a Rebel" and more comprehensive about his musical career.  Schumacher however does duck some of the issues about Ochs that Eliot tackles such as his womanising and minor criminal activities. Only Schumacher must know why he chose to omit this information and perhaps his intentions were not to smear a man who to many is a hero of his time.
Certainly Bob Dylan does not come out well from either of the books and having been helped by Ochs when he was penniless later threw him out of his car when Ochs, who believed that the truth should always be out, criticised an album that Dylan had made. There is no doubt that Dylan plagiarised his work, as he did that of other artists but this has gone on throughout the ages.
The label, "Rebel" that Eliot used is probably appropriate and in my experience rebels have, in most instances, advanced society. However the topic of rebels is for another day.

Lost English.

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Lexicographers will tell you that language evolves and as new words appear many older words die as part of that evolutionary process. More's the pity.
One of the aims of this Blog is to attempt to preserve our language and from time to time I will list extracts from literature or attempt to preserve one particular word that is in danger of disappearing. I would much appreciate it, dear reader, if you could comment and add to the list of words that you  feel should not be allowed to decay and be lost from common usage.
 Quite by chance I picked up an item in a junk shop in Torrington last week and the lady was insistent that it should be wrapped for fear that I might drop it.It was a copy of The Wiltshire Times dated, Friday July 21, 1972 and had the following extract from  a cricket match in it:-

"But the hit of the match came from stumper Mike Goddard who had a very successful match. With the final scoring match he smote a full-bloodied hit into the pavilion for six"

Herewith starts the campaign to preserve "stumper" and "smote" which is a superb word and probably , these days, has been replaced by smashed or, even worse, crashed.
And I rather liked the front page headline, "Man Talked to Himself and Gave Himself Away". Don't we all?

31 August 2005 - 21 August 2010

Nicked from Fat Buddha in a previous incarnation he is now Fat Man in the Bathtub (see sidebar) - nothing changes down at Blues.

I Don't Know What It Is


So off we trotted, about 26000 of us, down to St Andrews for the first home game of the season. There's nothing quite like the first game, all the past misery is forgotten and we proceed to the ground jaunty of step, light of heart, cheery of countenance, convinced that this is the year we make the great leap forward. What a triumph of hope over experience; we are all fools. Man, we are so full of hope and optimism, just like children and every year, eventually, we realise that all our hope and optimism is futile; to have your hopes dashed so early though, it's bloody cruel.

According to Nishiren Buddhism there are ten life states that we all live through, moment by moment, and you will be very aware of the buggers if you support the Blues.

1. Hell

- Misery and suffering. Fear, grief and destructive rages or depression. A feeling of being imprisoned by one's circumstances. Some fans might experience these emotions over the course of a season, we Blues fans experience them game by game.....day by day in fact, whether there is a game on or not. Our whole history is characterised by misery and suffering, any fool knows that and we are most definitely trapped, imprisoned in Bluenosehood, with no escape. By the end of Saturdays game, I had become quite depressed, depressed at our inability to create a clear cut chance, grief struck over our basic lack of awareness, enraged at the referees refusal to give us a penalty, deserved or not, and fearful for what is coming next.

2. Hunger

- Being dominated by desires or cravings, both physical and mental. Clearly, we crave success, we crave moving on to the mythical next step, we are desirous of becoming the next Bolton or Charlton, we crave a goal, a point, a bloody performance.

3. Animality

- Instinctive behaviour, lacking in reason. Fear of those who seem stronger and bullying of those who seem weaker. The 'law of the jungle'. Well, of course we lack reason: James is useless, Barton a thug, Mills a brainless moron, Cole past it, Vassel a useless ex viler and has been: instinctively, we know we are going to beat this shower of shit. Every decision the ref gives against us is unreasonable, unfair, they get away with stuff, we don't; everybody hates us.

4. Anger

- Feeling superior to others and wanting to show it. Aggressiveness. Feeling in conflict with others. The world of self-centredness and ego. As above, we know we are better than them, our team is better, out fans are better, our pies are better. We chant and clap as the team comes out, we try to intimidate, we shout and we gesture and the more the game goes against us , the more outraged we become at the injustice of it all.

5.Humanity, or Tranquility

- Constant inactivity, laziness, passivity. This refers to that post half time torpor and is characteristic of the players as much as the fans. They don't run out together, as a team; they do not look purposeful....... they stroll on like rag tag and bobtail, you could be forgiven for thinking that they are the ballboys. Similarly, the passion goes out of the crowd and we all fall asleep.

6. Rapture, or Heaven

- Short term gratification when one's desires have been achieved . Can quickly revert to hell, or hunger. Obviously, a goal is scored and we are in raptures, or Gray puts a cross in, or Pennant does something remarkable, or Taylor gives the ball to someone in a blue shirt. Very short term, especially down at St Andrews; we quickly find ourselves back in hell.

7. Learning

+ Learning about life and oneself from others and from existing knowledge. We learn about ourselves and we learn about Buddhism every day as Blues fans. We learn that life is suffering and we learn about impermanence. We learn that we keep the ball only for the briefest moments, we learn that for every yin, there is a yang, we learn that we are destined to suffer, through many many lifetimes.

8. Realisation

+ The wisdom or insight where we gain an understanding of an aspect of life from our own observations and experiences. We realise, from our earliest days, that we have condemned ourselves to a life of frustration, we understand this, so we look upon our many miseries almost as friends. We understand that although there is almost always disappointment, there is always another game, another small death to look forward to. On Saturday I realised, after about 75 minutes that the game was up and so was able to relax, and wait for it all to end.

9.Bodhisattva

The word consists of bodhi (enlightenment) and sattva (beings) and means someone who seeks enlightenment, for themselves and others.We all seek enlightenment, we all look for an answer, we all ponder upon how we can gain more of a cutting edge, how we can learn to not keep giving the ball away and we are all only to happy to share our wisdom, through blogs, message boards, phone ins, petitions, and loudly from the stands. Through all our suffering, man, we are enlightened.

10. Buddha

An ordinary person awakened to the true nature of life, and experiencing absolute happiness and freedom within the realities of daily life. Indestructible joy, unlimited wisdom, courage, compassion, creativity and life force. The sad fact is, no Blues fan will ever achieve this happy state.

Actually, I am not despondent. We started well and even Gray seemed determined to take his man on and beat him. Forsell and Pandiani looked they could strike up a mutually beneficial relationship and we seemed committed to getting men forward. So much for the first seven minutes! Cole looked very sharp and caused our defenders loads of trouble,as did Vassell, but at half time I was still confident we would win as we had their defence floundering loads of times.

It all went tits up in the second half and it is hard to understand why. Gray reverted to his usual hesitant, almost fearful self and lacked the confidence to attack Mills. Taylor kept hoofing the ball back to the other buggers; it all became disjointed, uncoordinated and bloody painful to watch. Even so there were occasions when we played the ball, rather than hoofed it and again, briefly, looked the part, not very often, or for very long though.

Our defence struggled against the pacy Man City strikers and I am beginning to wonder about Upson. He seems to have really bulked up and he now resembles a brick shithouse, which is all well and good but he appears to have lost a bit of fluidity and grace in his movement. Our midfield (such as it was) seemed to lack awareness and were completely outharried by their opponents, what got me was that they always seemed surprised to have an opponent niggling away at them as soon as they got the ball; they wanted time and space, but the Mancs weren't having any of it and we could not cope with their tenacity.

It was a decent game actually, quite open and I like the cut of the collective Manchester jib. The result was depressing but we showed in patches that we can play a bit. The performance was poor, but not disastrous and can easily be put right. Jarosik might make a difference, who knows and if Dunn can maintain fitness when he returns we will have some creative thrust, which is direly lacking at the moment Pennant excepted.

Middlesbrough tomorrow, and I am not confident. If we insist upon giving the ball to them, they will murder us. I saw a thing on Mourinho the other day where he said the one thing he insists on above all else is keeping the ball and it's a strategy that seems to work pretty well for his team. We have decent ball players throughout the team, we could pass it from the back if we wanted, so why we insist on banging it forward at pace, so we only have about a 50-50 chance of retaining the thing is beyond me.

Condems Intend to Empty Jails.

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Apparently influenced by the Liberal Democrat tendency towards providing greater freedoms in the UK the government intend to vastly reduce the number of prisoners, and as a result save money by closing lots of jails. This must be anathema to the Tory hang em and flog em brigade like Bonking Boris, the Mayor of London, who frequently gets caught with his pants down.
 Meanwhile Cleggy's pole rating is lower than Boris' pants (no pun intended) and his party are also nose diving in the polls. Long may this unholy alliance continue as I have never been more certain that it will end in total failure.

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Martin O'Neill Departs from Aston Villa.

Couldn't buy success and they wouldn't give him any more money. He wasted shedloads on poor players and nearly bankrupted the club. I have no sympathy whatsoever. Apparently the players are elated and sending champagne text messages to each other.
This site will show more respect for the wee, nearly man.

The Football Season.

seems to start earlier than ever, and many of us, like me, have not even had our summer holidays. I sense that there is a lack of enthusiasm around this year. Our early demise from the World Cup may be a reason but I sense that there are more worrying factors at work.
 Football was traditionally a working class game (see the brilliant piece by J. B. Priestly below) and yet the so called guardians of the game regard the fans as second class citizens and the media as God with more money to be made from Murdoch's millions than Joe Blogg's modest yet over-priced contribution. Fans no longer relate to the the cast of millionaire world superstars who have more loyalty to their agents than any particular club they happen to be playing for. And the owners are no longer life long supporters but Governments or corrupt businessmen who have made their money from pornography or terrorism. The Red Knights, who want to buy Manure, masquerading on their steely yellow and green decorated chargers are nowt but  city slickers led by the odious parasite of the game Keith Harris, who would have done better keeping his hands stuck up a ducks backside than in the tills of the clubs that he has filched for fixing them up with new owners.
The F.A. have abdicated their responsibilities to nurture the game at the grass roots level and donated most of their funds to a string of useless of Chief Executives and England Managers. Meanwhile the Rochdales and Hartlepools of this game who used to survive on transferring some of their young talent to the top clubs have lost this source of income and have only their true football fans to rely on to stop them from going bankupt although I fear that many more will disappear in the seasons to come.

St. Andrews where the new meets the old.

I am indebted to Mirkwood at Singing the Blues  for the following. Every Blues supporter will understand where he is coming from, "I start my 56th season as a Bluenose with the same degree of pessimism as the other 55. If we don't get relegated it's a bonus. If we lose a game, well it wasn't a surprise. If we draw a game it's a bonus point. If we win I shall be dancing in the streets. If we score a goal I will smile. Two goals I will celebrate. Three and I will check to make sure ceefax is working properly. Four goals and Mrs M will have to ring for an ambulance. If we are not last on Match of the Day I will ring the Beeb and enquire after Mr Liniker's state of health. If we get to Wembley I will be astonished, but I'll be there. If we do as well as last season I shall be very surprised. I we finish above them over yonder I will be ecstatic. If. If If. Just like the other 55. That's what makes being a Bluenose so special. KRO "

Tread Carefullly Because You Tread Upon My Grave

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 I am off to Croatia on holiday in a few weeks time and was reminded of that old fashioned phrase, "Don't mention the war". My father, who was a Roman Catholic, and also had close links, during his time at The Air Ministry, with the Polish Air Force always loathed the Croats for reasons, as a child, that I never understood.
 Now I'm sure after recent events we are all better informed of what has happened in the Balkans but those students of history will know that it has been the powder keg in Europe for more than a century.
 It is only in recent years that I have studied this area and now know that his views derived not only from Croatia's support for the Nazis during WW2 Croatia in WW2 but also because of of the appalling atrocities that they committed against the Serbs and their other enemies during this period.
 During the recent Balkan conflict it suited the West to align itself with Croatia and all of those ethnic groups who were anti-Serbian largely because of Serbia's historical, religious and cultural links with Russia. There is no doubt that during that bloody conflict that some Serbs were guilty of atrocoties and war crimes but equally so were many Bosnians and Croats.
 On Boxing day a few years ago after watching Birmingham City F. C. play Middlesborough I stayed in a guest house run by a Serbian lady whose husband and son had been killed in Belgrade on a bridge by American bombing. Visiting relations they were totally innocent victims of the U.S.A's policy of bombing anything and anyone in the world who is against their interests. She was one of the kindest persons that I have ever met and went out of her way to assist me and took me on a tour of the Black Country to buy a hugely discounted television set which I am still using. I wont mention her name or even the very nice guest house which she runs because the world is full of crazy people.
 I shall tread carefully in Croatia where I'm sure many of the young people will be very pleasant but to the older Croations I shall not mention the war!

Trident And Other Nick Clegg Lies

The Liberal Democrats were the only one of the major political parties in the UK who stated in their manifesto that they would scrap Trident.
Not so, for Pinnochio Clegg has now embraced the idea that it is an acceptable and practical moral stance to have the capability to annihilate mankind.
This is not only yet another Liberal Democrat lie but, at a cost of several billion pounds flies in the face of their pledge that this was part of their plan to reduce the United Kingdom's financial deficit.
Now wonder then that this serial liars poll rating is at an all time low and that he is dragging the Liberal Democrats down with him.

Shadwell - The BBC Should be Ashamed.

There was a time about twenty five years ago when I used to enjoy Shadwell very much indeed. Quite simply he made me laugh. No f words, no clever Oxbridge humour that won't stand the test of time (AdFab etc.) and certainly not alternative comedy (whatever that was supposed to be). Shamefully he disappeared from our screens like so many other interesting people do. I suspect they upset someone or more likely don't appeal to the fashion gurus at the BBC who dictate their tastes onto us.
 Enough waffle from me. Enjoy this:-

Bright Blue Roses

One of the reasons why I blog is that I am frequently inspired by  fellow bloggers who I stumble across by accident or because of a chance remark. The young lady, in Places I Visit, who calls her site Shit Happens is an example to everyone out there who feels bad and low because she somehow manages to exist despite life, at the moment, giving her a bad deal.
And just yesterday I came across Jude Collins who as well as having interesting things to say about Ireland chose this as his favourite song which is pleasant and takes us away, for a moment, from more serious matters.

The TV Chef.

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Ever since my early memories of Fanny Craddock whenever a cooking programme appears on TV then it is a signal for me to take to the hills. They are, with few exceptions, rude, conceited, pushy, arrogant and totally immersed in their own backsides which is what usually ends up on the plate after half an hour of confusing and meandering gibberish. Those that aren't included in the above tirade are usually boring and inept and clearly, like the rest, know little about cooking but how to bend it like Beckham by doing something different like the grotesque Two Fat Ladies or their soul mates the Hairy Bikers.
 Talking of arrogance Rick stein has managed to ruin that once wonderful coastal town Padstow (now ironically known as Padstein) in my lifetime.
 As for their books forget it.  Whenever I open most cookery books there is a list of ingredients longer than a man's  penis and probably the results are equally inedible, although a recipe on how to cook them no doubt appears in Heston Blumenthal's grotesque book of cooking somewhere. Not that I've tried one of course. And having amassed all of these ingredients only a few drips of this or a pinch of that  are required for the said recipe, and a fortune having been spent, they go off in the back of the larder and eventually have to be thrown away.
 I have only read two good cookery books that by Mrs. Beeton which is the foundation of all modern cooking, which these super chefs plaguarise on a regular basis, and Alistair Little's "Keep it Simple" from which you can produce a superb meal with the minimum of ingredients.
 Meanwhile half of the children of the world are thankful for a bowl full of rice.

A Time To Speak Out And A Time To Fight?

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There is a programme about peoples roots on the BBC at the moment called "Who Do You Think You Are". Last night's programme was about an Irish actress (now resident in Britain) called Dervla Kirwan. She was related to Michal Collins (I read an excellent book about him called, Hang Out Your Brightest Colours) a leading figure in the fight for Irish Independence, who was killed when civil war broke out in Ireland, after the Irish Frees State was declared. Her maternal grandfather had also been involved in the fight for Irish independence.
She seemed concerned that they had been involved in that fight and said that "She would opt for peace every time".
Now this raises an age old moral dilemma which I have often thought about myself. You see I am not a pacifist although I have been against most of the conflicts that have occurred in my lifetime and have protested against many an unjust war and was a CND activist, although never a member of that fine organisation.
I do believe however that there are "Just Wars" and like to think that had I been old enough I would have taken up arms against Hitler and the terrible crimes that he was responsible for. Note the "like to think" for until I was  placed into a position where I had to decide to take up arms I don't know  honestly how I would react.
 Firstly I would have to face the thought of being killed or injured and then: would I be prepared to kill somebody else? Thankfully I have never been forced into that decision but when faced with minor incidents in my life, where,what I consider an injustice has occurred, my instinct has been to stand and fight..
 Which brings us full circle back to Ms Kirwan. I have Irish blood in me through my grandfather and mother on my paternal line and I think that I would have been proud to have had relations who stood up and fought for Irish independence. This is not to criticise her for taking a different point of view and dear reader I ask you to consider how you would react faced with this moral dilemma.
 As for the ROI they have remained neutral in world affairs, giving great assistance in the past to UN peace keeping missions, and yet their politicians have been essentially conservative apart from Mary Robinson whom I greatly admire.

Things I no longer do!

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 Today is my birthday (that's something I no longer do) but when I was a lad, on birthdays, when we had drunk too much this would be heard. Only a slight change to the lyrics, "It's my birthday and I'll puke if I want to". Seemed fun at the time!

Cameron does a bit of Paki bashing to the delight of the BNP.

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One Pakistani diplomat described Cameron's recent attack on Pakistan as, "The immature remarks of an immature politician". Not far of the mark I would say and the dear old Foreign office must be cringing at his remarks and for good measure he also managed to insult WW2 veterans by describing Britain as the junior partner to America in 1940, when the Americans had not even entered the war.
 The remark about Pakistan has enraged public opinion there and also deeply upset those of Pakistani origin living in Britain. He forgot to add that they had suffered from terrorism on a gross scale and added insult to injury by making the remarks in India a rival of Pakistan in that part of the world.

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• Pakistan spy cancels visit to Britain after comments (ctv.ca)

Whilst he has been abroad his mate Cleggy has been standing in for Cameron at Prime Minister's Question Time and also making a fool of himself. This Liberal Democrat quisling declared the war in Iraq to be illegal, whilst the official position of the government, in which he forms a very junior partner, is/was to support the war. His remarks may even have legal consequences should anyone in this country be brought to trial for war crimes.

 The BNP must be revelling in the anti Pakistani remarks and I was interested to come across this discussion on a Birmingham City message board about the merits of the BNP or otherwise at Singing the Blues. I think it offers a fair cross section of peoples feeling about the BNP although the lead protagonist was a Canadian and Blues fans from Australia and a former New Zealander chipped in.

 The only time I have ever received a death threat was when I wrote to the  Plymouth Morning Post about the activities of a millionaire who supported the BNP's predecessors in the UK - the National Front. It is filed away in my black museum up in the loft.

 Perhaps the most pleasant experience that I have had in my failed political career was to have lunch with the late Barbara Castle. She had a razor sharp mind and taught me a lesson that I have never forgotten. She was discussing the threat of the Conservative right to Great Britain and mentioned that the only newspapers that she took were the Conservative supporting Daily Telegraph and The Times. When I queried this she replied that in order to be able to defeat your opposition you must understand what they are thinking and saying. I have always followed her advice and being broad minded attempted to read the BNP's blog for the Horwich area of Bolton. I urge you to have a look, out of political fairness although I found it pretty tedious stuff -BNP Bolton area.
 One of my most prized possessions is, "The Oxford Names Companion", published by OXFORD University press which claims to be the definitive guide to Surnames of the British Isles. It is uncanny how often it hits the bulls eye when I look up the surname of somebody and it has not failed me on this occasion. The leader of the BNP in the UK is a guy called Nick Griffin and when I looked up his surname surprise, surprise it said "Griiffin -a fierce or dangerous person".