It's that time of year...when the 'Guardian' starts to publish lists of gift suggestions that no-one in their right mind would give anyone. This one in particular caught my eye for all the wrong reasons...
For me, of course, it's any animal scene, but if I confine it to human scenes, then it's the one in 'Raise The Titanic' when Alec Guiness's old seadog gives the team the flag to put back on if they do manage to raise it...
The Wind in the Willows is one of the most beloved books of British children’s literature, but while most people think of the jolly adventures of Toad, Mole and Rat, Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 story has a darker side. And it was a step too far for the Beadle security guards at Westminster Abbey, who told a visitor wearing a sweatshirt with an illustration from the book that she had to take it off because it was “an image of the devil”.
Reader, it wasn't any such thing!
Chapter seven of the book is entitled Piper at the Gates of Dawn – borrowed by Pink Floyd for the title of their debut album in 1967 – in which the doughty animals encounter a variation of the Greek satyr-like god Pan while searching for Otter’s missing son. It was this image as envisaged by the artist W Graham Robertson for the cover of the first edition of the book that was used by folklore magazine Hellebore on its clothing and merchandise, and which Linsey Teggert – a self-confessed folklore fan and “history nerd” – was wearing on a visit to the abbey on Monday morning.
“We walked through the security scanner at the entrance but then one of the security guards called me back. I just thought he wanted to check my bag or something. “Then he said I’d have to take off the top or cover it up because it was an image of the devil and it might offend people in the abbey.”
If she had nothing but a bra undernreath would that not offend more people?
Linsey argued that it wasn’t the devil, but a representation of Pan.
Foolish to try to argue theology with some minimum wage security drone - he doesn't have any autonomy, and probably comes from a culture alien to British folklore or Greek mythology - he likely has a list of 'offensive things' spelled out for him he can't - nd won't - deviate from.
She said: “I started to tell him, because I’m a total history nerd, that there are loads of folklore and mythology-related carvings inside the abbey, and I was talking about the Green Man, but he wasn’t having it. He said: ‘Well, it’s got horns and it’s demonic.’
See?
A spokesperson for Westminster Abbey said the abbey has a dress code that says: “As Westminster Abbey is a church and place of daily worship, we ask you to show respect and sensitivity in the way you dress.”
She added: “I think it’s possible that the message on the clothing was misinterpreted. We will share this feedback with our security colleagues.”
Might I suggest a new T-Shirt for your next visir, Linsey? Probably get a smile and a thumb's up from security wearing this....
Mr Harrison, who joined the Met in 1982 but has been on restricted duties since the crash, denied suggestions by prosecutor Michelle Heeley KC that he 'made a mistake' that day.But as usual, it's not one he's going to be made to pay for.
Ms Heeley replied: 'You did have control, you could have chosen to stop your bike and properly control that crossing.'
Mr Harrison replied: 'Yes.'
The prosecutor said: 'And you didn't.'
Mr Harrison replied: 'No.'
But he denied he had been complacent.
Perhaps she should have used a different word? Or asked about his training, maybe the Met sent him to China for it?
Mr Harrison said he did not believe his driving fell below standards or strayed from his training.That's probably true, since their training seems to dictate they ride like bats out of hell and screw anybody that gets in their way! The State must be saddened that in this particular case, they can't charge anyone else with the death....
It’s five years since the TV presenter killed herself after being charged with assaulting her partner. Her mother Christine wants the world to know what the police, crown prosecution service and media got wrong.
So says the blurb of a subheading to this article by her mother. Prompting my response.
Caroline Flack was one of Britain’s most successful presenters – and also one of the most talked about – when she was arrested in December 2019 and charged with assaulting her partner, Lewis Burton.
She lost her job as the host of Love Island ....
She was sacked?
-....– she stepped down in order to not detract attention from the show.
Oh.
She lost her home ...
What? Who evicted her, and how?
....– it was so besieged by the press that she never went back there after her arrest.
Oh.
She felt she lost the public, too, especially with the drip-drip of damning (crucially, incorrect) detail in tabloids and across social media.
Ah, I see where we are going with this. It was social media that dunnit, folks! The TwitterBeasts killed Beauty!
When she took her life nine weeks later, in February 2020, the narrative shifted. Now there were tributes to her talent as well as stories of her struggle with mental illness. The criminal case was awkwardly glossed over and grouped in with this, as sad evidence of her troubled mind. The correctness of her prosecution, though, was barely questioned.
Even Nazir Afzal, a former prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), appeared on breakfast TV to stress that “We as a country have said we need to take domestic abuse seriously”. The CPS, he insisted, could only “follow the evidence”.
We'll gloss over quoting establishment-stooge Afzal, a DEI hire busted flush if ever there was one. But wasn't he quite right? Domestic violence is domestic violence.
In Caroline Flack: Search for the Truth, Christine Flack attempts to do just this, to follow the evidence. For years, she has been haunted by the possibility that Caroline did, in fact, receive “special treatment” and was prosecuted only because the police and CPS feared the scrutiny that came with a celebrity like Caroline. They couldn’t be seen to do nothing.
Thay can't win, can they? If they do or if they don't...
The previous night, Caroline and Burton had been out separately, returning late to Caroline’s flat in north London. They had both been drinking, and went to bed. Burton was sleeping when a woman messaged him. Caroline read it. She was drunk, angry and upset when she went to wake him. The inquest heard that she later told police: “I had his phone in one hand and mine in the other. I whacked him round the head. There was no excuse for it. I was just upset. I admit I did it. He was cheating on me.”
As blatent a confession as any copper has probably ever heard.
The inquest heard that a huge row ensued where Caroline became hysterical. When Burton threatened to call the police, Caroline begged him not to. (“If you call the police, I’m done.”) When he did, she harmed herself and by the time police arrived, she was seriously injured, frenzied and half-naked.
No different to many a domestic violence scene cops have to roll up to, no doubt.
“While Jody (her sister) was outside the police station, a police officer went out and told her: ‘It’s all right – the CPS has thrown it out. Just wait here for her,’” says Christine. That initial CPS document judged that prosecuting wasn’t in the public interest because there was no history of domestic violence and Caroline was 40 with no previous convictions. It noted that Caroline had repeatedly admitted the assault and that the injured party, Burton, did not support a prosecution.
And there it would have ended and she'd have got away with it, if not for one honest copper.
Shortly after, though, a detective inspector came on duty and intervened. She had a shooting to deal with that night, as well as a vulnerable missing person and, according to the documentary, this DI had no history of challenging CPS decisions. But she chose to appeal against this one, arguing that there had been no clear admission of guilt (the coroner found that Caroline had admitted to hitting Burton) and that “she has caused significant injury” to Burton. As a result, Caroline was charged with assault by beating.
As she should have been.
She knows she is treading a very fine line here. Christine is adamant that she doesn’t want to minimise the harms caused by domestic abuse.
No, just the ones caused by her daughter.
And the fanatical bloodsport dog lovers have a ready excuse - this time 'it was the fireworks that did it!'
Officers and paramedics attended a property on Crossway in Rogiet, near Caldicot, Monmouthshire, at about 18:00 GMT on Sunday. The dog was seized and removed from the address, according to Gwent Police, with officers working to establish the breed of the animal. Ch Supt John Davies said: "Officers are on scene and will be making further inquiries as the investigation progresses." No arrests have been made.
WHY NOT! Even if not a banned breed (and it did indeed turn out to be another killer bully), as is quite likely given Wales seems to have a predilection for the things, leaving a child unattended with a dog is clearly child endangerment, isn’t it?
But the Miss Marples and Hercules Poirots of the canine fancy are on the case, ready to exonerate poor Fido:
A “panicked” dog killed a baby after being spooked by fireworks in a Welsh town, it has been claimed.The dog reportedly became agitated by fireworks in a nearby field and went for the baby, Rogiet residents explained to The Sun.Caroline Knight told the newspaper: “Someone was letting fireworks off near the house and the dog was agitated by them and must have panicked and gone for the baby.Another neighbour recalled how there had been “horrendous” fireworks on Sunday evening. They added: “You could hear dogs bark as well as the bangs - they could have set a dog off.”
Fireworks are going off all over the country, thanks to bloody Diwali, yet dogs aren’t savaging people willy nilly, are they?
A family affected by tragedy has thanked the public for donating to a fundraising appeal - and urged people to show ‘respect’ during their heartbreak.“People need to be respectful," they said. "Comments online aren’t helping the situation there is a big loss in the family and everybody is trying to process what’s happening."
A fundraising appeal? 🙄
Caldicot Town Team CIC’s Aaron Reeks said: “People should show more respect and dignity when they absolutely don’t know the full facts," he said. "I’ve been in touch with the family, and I don’t want to intrude on them at this time.
“Speculation online concerning the breed of the dog is inappropriate and unnecessary."
Ah, those modern terms that mean ‘Stop pointing out inconvenient facts’, like the sudden prevalence of bloodsport breed dogs in society, or the fact that the authorities go all softly-softly with death by dog teeth because they are as terrified of the animal lobby as a bull breed is of a Catherine Wheel…
Update: the owners have now been arrested.
A few days ago I was in Aldi, making the usual small talk at the checkout (Ed: a sign the rest is bullshit. Who has time for small talk with the speed demons on German supermarket checkouts?). When the cashier said she was exhausted from working extra shifts to make some money for Christmas, the man behind me chipped in that it would be worse once “she takes all our money” (in case Rachel Reeves was wondering, her budget pitch-rolling is definitely cutting through).
Stick with me, Reader, it gets even more unbelievable....
Routine enough, if he hadn’t gone on to add that she and the rest of the government needed taking out, and that there were plenty of ex-military men around who should know what to do, before continuing in more graphic fashion until the queue fell quiet and feet began shuffling. But the strangest thing was that he said it all quite calmly, as if political assassination was just another acceptable subject for casual conversation with strangers, such as football or how long the roadworks have gone on. It wasn’t until later that it clicked: this was a Facebook conversation come to life. He was saying out loud, and in public, the kind of thing people say casually all the time on the internet, apparently without recognising that in the real world it’s still shocking – at least for now.
To whom is it 'shocking'? Not to me, and probably not to anyone reading this. Secure in her 'Guardian' bubble, Gaby probably only hears support for the shower of shite in the HoC, but out on the streets and in pubs and offices and bus queues all over the UK, it's quite normal.
I thought about him when the health secretary, Wes Streeting, voiced alarm this week that it was becoming “socially acceptable to be racist” again, with ethnic minority NHS staff fighting a demoralising tide of things people now apparently feel emboldened to say to them.
Streeting mentions a patient saying he only wanted to be treated by white staff, which he cites as racism, despite the fact I don't recall him having such qualms over Diane Abbot's whinge about 'blonde, blue eyed Scandinavian nurses.
You can feel it at bus stops, where polite inquiries about why the 44 doesn’t stop here any more end up wheeling off at sudden wild tangents about chemtrails or the government spying on you; or in casual school-gate chats, where otherwise perfectly ordinary-seeming parents turn out to have some very odd ideas about vaccines.
After the Covid fiasco. it'd be surprising if they didn't!
A friend calls it “sauna politics”, after the surreally conspiracy-laden conversations she overhears in her local leisure centre sauna. But whatever you want to call it, it’s as if people are suddenly voicing their interior monologues – things that until recently they’d have been embarrassed to say in public, or sometimes even to admit to themselves that they thought – out loud. After all, they can say this stuff online and nobody bats an eyelid. Why not in a hospital waiting room?
A hospital waiting room is the most likely place you'll hear it, as the parlous state of the NHS becomes fully apparent, even to those who fondly believd in 'the wonder of the world'.
Middle-aged radicalisation sounds almost like a contradiction in terms, a reaction to all the stereotypes about settling comfortably into your rut. Besides, in our own heads, if nowhere else, gen X were always the mild-mannered peacekeepers of the culture wars: not old enough to be deemed reactionary or young enough to be woke, and instead occupying a kind of cheerfully moderate Goldilocks zone in-between. But something seems to have happened to us as we hit the midlife crisis years.
The Royal 'Us', Gaby? I thought you were above such things?
It’s gen Xers, not grumpy pensioners or teenage boys beguiled by rightwing influencers, who are powering the populist insurgency now.
Well, Gaby, sometimes it's grumpy pensioners too...
A Tweet about the restrictions placed on schoolchildren going on a field trip went viral this week, for good reason:
Police are being forced to disclose the ethnicity of suspects in response to a rise in far-right speculation on social media, a former senior officer in the Metropolitan police force has warned.
And it is, of course, the usual suspects.
Dal Babu, a former chief superintendent (Ed:and inveterate race-baiter) in the UK’s biggest force, said police having to disclose the race of suspects in incidents involving people of colour was an “unintended consequence”. “When the new guidance was issued, I warned that there was a danger that there will be an expectation for police to release information on every single occasion,” he said. “I have sympathy for my former colleagues in the police. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They are under pressure because there is such intense speculation from the far right on social media after every major incident about the background of suspects.
I think the intense speculation comes from everyone, not just the tiny amount of genuinely right wing accounts!
“You will not find pressure on social media to name the ethnicity of suspects when black players are being racially abused on social media, for example. We are in a position in our country where race is being amplified by far-right racist groups and the police are being forced to respond. It is a worry.”
Strange to put a train rampage by a knife wielding maniac injuring 11 people, some critically, on the same level of public interest as someone making monkey chants at a football game, but you do you, Dal…
Even after police revealed that the two arrested suspects were British nationals, attempts were made to suggest that information was being withheld.
Gosh, I wonder why people just don’t trust police statements any more?
Habib compared the statement on Sunday morning by a senior police officer, who had described both suspects as British, to official statements identifying the Southport murderer as a Welshman. It was “possible” that the suspects were British but, he said, adding that the police had not released their names, “I will remain extremely suspicious until we get chapter and verse.”
Oh, right. I remember why, now!
