Cadbury
I’m sad that that iconic British company, Cadbury, is being sold to the Americans.
There are two main reasons and both are selfish.
I buy a lot of Green and Black‘s chocolate because I know it’s provenance and can trust that what they say on the packet. I really don’t trust Kraft to keep the standards of this brand and hope that someone buys it from them.
But the main reason is that Cadbury are very correct about which products are gluten-free and it is just a quick check on the web site. In fact over the last few years, more products have gone that way. Can I trust Kraft, from the country of gluten-in-everything to not put the evil maltodextrin in everything to save money?
I doubt it.
So yet again, coeliacs may well have less and less chance to buy something sensible to eat on the move.
Unfair Trials Abroad
My late wife was a barrister and I’m proud to have lots of lawyers and judges amongst my friends. If ever I ended up in a court in the UK, I would suspect that I’d get a fair trial.
But! Is it that way abroad? Just take the case of Garry Mann, which has been well documented by Fair Trials International. An English judge has said that his trial was a travesty, but now he will be deported to Portugal to serve a two year sentence.
And there is nothing that the English Courts can do about it, as our human rights have been signed away by this stupid government.
Kiss My Badge
Footballers have a reputation for kissing the badge after they score. Tonight one of the West Brom footballers did something similar, except it was the sponsor’s logo. And who was the sponsor?
The Disasters Emergency Committee advertising the Haiti Appeal.
I have no problem with that. And I suspect no-one does!
Gritting Priorities
It was interesting to hear on Radio 5 last night from Alistair Kight of GRITIT and the fact that people are stealing salt supplies. He was also very critical of local and national government, who only had very inadequate supplies and have thus added to the chaos.
He has a point.
Surely, we should have enough supplies to keep all the main and most of the secondary roads open for a month. Where I live I’ve never seen a gritter at all on the fairly steep up and down, that leads to the main road. Surely, it should have been done at least once, as the road leads to some elderly and seriously ill people.
But then we vote Conservative in this area, so there are no votes for Prudence in giving my council enough money to provide adequate services.
I was in London yesterday and they were gritting the paths of Regents Park.
Gritting in Regents Park
So at least we have our priorities right!
Haiti
Haiti is one of the world’s poorest countries and seems to lurch from crisis to crisis. And now it’s suffered a disastrous earthquake.
I have no personal experience of the island, but I remember meeting a Japanese diplomat on the Galápagos who served there. He found the island wonderful but sometimes very harrowing and dangerous.
So we should support the people of Haiti with appropriate donations. I suspect that the Disasters Emergency Committee, will be bringing it all together, but they haven’t changed their web site yet.
Lundy Island
This little island has just been named as Britain’s first Marine Conservation Zone.
Lundy is an island I’ve always known about and is definitely on my list of places to visit. This is because when I was a child for a few years we lived nextdoor to someone, who my father called “The King of Lundy Island”. All I can remember of him is seeing him walking to the station after the house had been sold and a removal van had collected his belongings.
Was this Martin Coles Harman, who styled himself the “King of Lundy Island”, after he’d bought the island in 1924?
I can’t find any reference to him as living in Southgate in North London and he died in Oxted in Surrey, a few years after the mysterious King left.
He seems to have been an interesting man as according to this article in the Age in 1955.
London, June 23 – Mr. Martin Coles Harman, “king” of Lundy Island, in Bristol Channel, the financier who knew wealth, bankruptcy and gaol, sent a message from his grave yesterday to everyone in debt to his estate.
He said in his will “waive and destroy all I.O.U.’s.
His son, John Pennington Harman, was also one of the heroes of Kohima and won a VC in the battle.
Freedom can go to Hell
This was written on a placard carried by one of the men who protested in Luton when the Royal Anglian Regiment paraded through the town.
It may be out of context with what was going on or I might have got the wrong end of the stick, but I object strongly to anybody saying that my “Freedom can go to Hell”. After all Prudence and his rabble have done enough to erode a lot of things that I used to be able to take for granted.
When protesters start saying things like this it is about time that the silent majority took action.
For instance some religious bigot wanted to take coffins through Wootton Bassett. There was a simple solution to this. Don’t ban him as it will only make him worse, but when he passes everybody should line the road and then turn their collective backs silently and with dignity on the protest.
That would send a powerful signal all over the world to those who care about freedom.
Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson!
Peter Robinson is not a person I warm to.
I should say that a lot of this is coloured by his predecessor the Reverend Ian Paisley, who was not a person I’d have allowed into my address book. As an atheist, I have a lot of respect for many religious leaders, but Paisley, his obscene views, vile rhetoric and his aggressive stance towards those who disagree with him, just mean that only a bigot can respect him.
But I did feel a bit sorry for Peter Robinson, when it became known that his wife had had an affair with a nineteen-year-old boy.
However after reading his view on homosexuality on Wikipedia.
On 30 October 2008 in his first extensive interview as First Minister interview for Hearts and Minds for BBC Northern Ireland, Peter Robinson publicly endorsed the controversial view, also shared by his wife Iris Robinson, that homosexuality was against Christian theology.
Robinson said: “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was The Almighty. This is the Scriptures. It is a strange world indeed where somebody on the one hand talks about equality, but won’t allow Christians to have the equality, the right to speak, the right to express their views.”
The comments angered LGBT Christian groups throughout the UK. Also, the Christian Bible also condemns adultery, which Mr Robinson’s 60 year old wife has recently publicly admitted to with a 19 year old Roman Catholic man – this admission only came after a BBC investigation.
The Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister is tasked with promoting “better community relations” and “a culture of equality and rights” in Northern Ireland, including for Christians and gay people.
There is a quote “As you sow, so shall you reap” from Galatians VI.
At the present, Peter Robinson is declining to resign. Here’s a quote of his on allowing the IRA to join the democratic process.
You don’t corrupt the democratic process in the hopes that terrorists might toe the line. To get into this club, you have to accept the rules of the club. You give up your weaponry, you accept democratic and peaceful means — and that entitles you to be part of the democratic process.
It is alleged that he broke the rules, by not declaring his wife’s financial interests and is now under pressure by his party to resign.
I will not be sorry to see him go.
The next installment is on Panorama tonight. Will I watch it? Probably not! The pair of them are not worth the time that could be better spent on something else.
The Death of Akmal Shaikh
Akmal Shaikh was a man, who was caught smuggling drugs into China and has now been executed by the Chinese authorities.
But what makes Shaikh’s case even worse, is that he appears to have been a man with all sorts of mental problems, who was exploited by criminals. As the BBC report says.
Mr Shaikh’s family said he suffered from bipolar disorder.
They said he had been delusional and duped into a carrying a suitcase that did not belong to him when he was found with 4kg of heroin in Urumqi, north-west China, in September 2007.
His daughter Leilla Horsnell has said he was approached by drug smugglers in Poland and they convinced him they would make him a popstar in China.
Whether this is true or not actually makes no difference in my mind, as I am totally against the death penalty, as I feel that it is something that should be consigned to our more violent past. We just have to be a lot more civilised.
At least in Shaikh’s case the Chinese authorities haven’t harvested his organs for transplant, as is their normal practice.
The Anonymous Widower 