So, in the years following Jim Callaghan's general election defeat in 1979, the Labour Party was transformed, permanently, from top to bottom. Much of this was the work of Communist sympathisers, who had since the days of Lenin supported Labour 'as the rope supports the hanged man', and encouraged sympathisers to join Labour and stay out of the CP, the better to penetrate the Labour Party at the highest and lowest levels. Much less was the work of various kinds of Trotyskyists, but the media were obsessed with the insignificant role of the 'Militant Tendency' a front organisation and code name for tiny Trotskyist sect called the Revolutionary Socialist League, mainly concentrated in Liverpool. A major Communist Party, of the kind which operated in France and Italy, was not what Lenin and the Comintern wanted. They had long sought to take over the Labour Party instead.
But these forces were weakening by the early 1980s, and the New Left of the CLPD and the LCC bypassed the old defences. There were also the new 'Euro-Communists', of 'Marxism Today', Communist Party members who had forsaken the rigid Stalinism of the old party and argued instead for a flexible, post Soviet, Gramscian approach – cultural and social revolution, not Bolshevism. Some of the cleverer Trotskyists had found their way to the same place. These became the nucleus of Blairism, which was never 'Right-Wing' at all. Labour's Right Wing was by then completely dead. The New Left were bitterly hostile to the noisier, less subtle Trotskyists (such as Militant) and were happy to see Militant crushed by Neil Kinnock, a victory for the classical, subtle left over the radical, honest left. Fleet Street, in its usual idiotic way, portrayed Neil Kinnock's crushing of Militant as the end of the Left in the Labour Party. This ludicrous myth, the opposite of the truth, is still widely believed. Ha ha. Actually, the whole of British politics would as a result shift decisively to the Left as a result.
As for the even weaker Iain Duncan Smith, it was astonishingly easy for the media to ally with Michael Howard to overthrow IDS . Mr Howard then began a process of centralising the party, and delayed the election of his success for long enough to give David Cameron the edge over David Davis, which he would never have done in a quick contest, and - as exemplified by his action against Howard Flight for remarks made at a private meeting – sought to end the control which local associations had over candidate selection.
Now we see (as reported in 'The Guardian' on Monday 30th April) that a group of Tory MPs have magically teamed up to remove old-fashioned, traditional Tory MPs, such as Christopher Chope and Peter Bone, from the leadership of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers.
As the Guardian's Nicholas Watt puts it: 'A conversation among a couple of colleagues mushroomed into the 301 Group – the number of parliamentary seats needed to secure a majority in the next parliament – which attracted 135 Tory MPs to a meeting in January.
'The group will on Monday show it is reshaping the Conservative parliamentary party when it takes the distinctly un-Tory step of publishing a slate of candidates for the elections to the executive of the 1922 committee. Candidates of all ages and intakes will be put forward to modernise the "antique" backbench committee, which has a hierarchical structure whereby new MPs have to defer to longer-serving colleagues in the weekly meetings.
Or, as I might put it, the remaining conservatives in the Conservative Party are to be marginalised.
Will the voters notice? Some will, but millions, I fear, will continue to vote for a party that hates them, just as millions of Labour voters have been doing since the 1980s. And the enxt general election like the last four, will be a non-contest among parties which have no serious differences among them.
Here's how to influence Government policy: Make a career out of being coarse and crude; take illegal drugs, moan that it wasn't your fault and demand sympathy for your selfish crime; get some tattoos.
Next, wear a cowboy hat and rip a lot of holes in your shirt (an aide can rip them for you if you're too busy).
Then saunter into a Parliamentary Committee and casually mock its members, while saying nothing of interest or importance.
The MPs will pay you slavish attention, and the media – especially those bits of it who claim to be uninterested in celebrity – will give you a huge platform.
I sat behind the alleged comedian Russell Brand on Tuesday as he was giving his 'evidence' to the Home Affairs Select Committee. I was on next and, unlike him, I had something new and important to say.
I have spent the past 18 months researching and writing a book (out later this year) on the unofficial but near-total legalisation of drugs in Britain since 1971.
But in our superficial culture, it was Mr Brand (author of My Booky Wook and Booky Wook 2) who featured in the newspapers and on the BBC (which did grant me a few seconds of airtime, it is true).
And I'll be surprised if the alleged comedian's views don't prevail when the Select Committee eventually reports later this year.
Our establishment seem determined to believe various fictions about drugs. They claim there's stern 'prohibition' when most people arrested for cannabis possession are let off without any penalty or criminal record, and when Pete Doherty can walk into a courtroom with heroin actually in his pockets and walk out a free man.
And, like Mr Brand, they claim that drug 'addicts' are cruelly punished by the system, when in fact these deliberate, selfish, pleasure-seeking criminals are idiotically treated as if they were ill.
Then, to save the 'addicts' from having to steal to pay for their sordid pleasure, the State steals £300million each year from taxpayers to give them methadone, so that they can stupefy themselves legally at your expense and mine.
There's a major problem with the planned satnav for old people, which will urge drivers to make turns at well-known local landmarks. Almost all the well-known landmarks have been turned into Tesco Metros or charity shops or one of Michael Gove's 'Academies'.
When will they admit it's just a Great Green Fraud?
Atheists make me laugh when they claim to be bold and courageous. That hasn't been so for a century. It's dis-believing in man-made global warming that is dangerous.
The fanatical Church of Global Warming is a hate-filled conventicle of intolerant zealots. Armed with righteous certainty, it hoses its critics with slime and demands ever-madder measures on the basis of unproven scientific claims.
So why isn't more attention paid to the fact that one of its high priests, the 92-year-old scientist James Lovelock, has recanted? Just six years ago, this genius declared that 'before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable'.
Those of us who have put forward reasonable doubts and urged sensible caution are now entitled to quite a lot of apologies, and a moratorium on any more wind farms and carbon taxes. Will this happen? No. Why not? A lot of people are now making a lot of money (most of it from taxes) out of the Great Green Fraud.
As other pleasures cloy, the delight of saying 'I told you so' has become one of my chief joys. Here's my latest gloat.
The enjoyably undisciplined actress Helena Bonham Carter knows David Cameron better than most of us. And she says: 'He's not that conservative, actually.' I told you so.
I find it hard to care who owns BSkyB. And I am not much surprised that big companies lobby governments, or even that Ministers who are in trouble sack their subordinates to save themselves. What's new?
But I cannot forget the bloody price that we, the British people, and especially the Armed Forces, have paid for David Cameron's nasty bargain with Rupert Murdoch.
Immediately after the Blairite Sun newspaper agreed to support the Useless Tories in 2009, Mr Cameron declared his frantic support for our military presence in Afghanistan. I don't think Mr Cameron cares a bit about Afghanistan. He certainly can't mount an intelligent defence of our pointless deployment there. But he knew that Mr Murdoch really wanted him to commit himself to this futile war, so he did.
So let us put this bluntly. In pursuit of office, Mr Cameron adopted a policy that has led directly to the deaths and maimings of dozens of British servicemen, who would otherwise be alive or whole. I hope that, somehow and somewhere, he faces justice for this act of bottomless cynicism.
I have at last met Stephen Fry (pictured), at a memorial service for my late brother, Christopher. Mr Fry forced his company on me and then posted an insulting remark about me on Twitter. The incident increases my puzzlement about why this rather pathetic exhibitionist is so widely admired.
Bad drivers who endanger cyclists often defend themselves with the stupid argument that cyclists don't pay road tax. It has gone deep into the minds of many. The boss of London's largest minicab firm, John Griffin, seems to be claiming something similar.
This falsehood is a bad excuse for inconsiderate driving, and does limitless harm. Many cyclists do pay road tax as they also own cars – and almost all pay income tax, VAT and council tax, and so fork out for our enormous nationalised road system.
Cyclists take up much less space than cars, don't congest narrow roads by parking on them, inflict almost no wear and tear on surfaces, and suffer much more from potholes and bad repairs.
And some of them – including me – are patriotic conservatives who don't vote Green.
Here is the full version of my appearance before the Home Affairs Select Committee, alongside Kathy Gyngell and Mary Brett.
How often a throwaway remark will ignite more interest than the main theme of an article. When I said that Oscar Wilde was over-rated, I thought I was stating an uncontroversial truism. To say that someone is over-rated isn't to say that they are no good at all (as some readers seem to think). Of course Wilde was a talented writer, and who could doubt it, or dispute it? But does he deserve his current status, as a sort of literary superstar or demi-god? For comparison, George Bernard Shaw, who was considered at least as witty in his time, has rather faded in recent years, though he has a more substantial body of work to his credit.
I don't think Wilde was a genius on the level of, say, Charles Dickens. I'm not sure where I would place him, in fact. I just think he is too much praised, for reasons of cultural politics.
Do those who admire him, admire him for his writing? In which case, which parts of it qualify him for the Pantheon of the Great? There's a sentimental story or two, some plays, some essays, a long poem and a novel more praised than read. Let us start with the novel. How many people have actually read 'Dorian Gray' right through, without skipping to the supernatural bit about the portrait, except because they felt they rather had to? I should have thought most people, at any stage in history, would find its overheated, precious, affected style rather cloying. There are some good lines in 'The Importance of being Earnest' . But does it rise beyond that? Will it endure? Would it have endured as long as it has had its author not been either notorious (approx. 1895-1965) or a hero of the revolution (approx. 1965 to the present day)? The other plays are rarely performed.
The epigrams are amusing, but once again are they so overwhelmingly wonderful as to confer greatness? 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' contains some memorable lines (though I remain baffled by the claim that 'each man kills the thing he loves'. Does he? Why?) . But how does it compare, for instance, with the poetry of A.E. Housman?
If you want late-Victorian or Edwardian wit, I think the short stories of H.H. Munro ('Saki') are at least as clever if not rather more so (it is nowadays widely assumed that Munro, too, was homosexual, but only assumed, since if it was so, he did not seek martyrdom for it). P.G. Wodehouse (my brother suspected, and could argue cogently for the idea, that Wodehouse got his idea for Jeeves from a scene in 'Importance') is much, much funnier and a far better writer – a fact often forgotten because he is so funny, and fails to deal with weighty themes, indeed runs as fast as he can to get away from weighty themes, and it is therefore assumed that he is not also great.
I suspect that Wilde's current fame and standing have much more to do with his role as martyr, the harbinger of the sexual revolution, cruelly punished for being ahead of his time. Well, the punishment was indeed cruel and stupid, and the law under which it was done should never have existed in the first place. But it did exist, and Wilde, in my view, deliberately chose his martyrdom and consciously took known risks (see his remark about 'feasting with panthers') which he knew were great.
He provoked his own prosecution with an extraordinarily rash libel suit. He then refused to take the opportunity to leave the country before he was arrested, as he could easily have done (and I think it likely that the authorities of the time hoped he would do). As far as he was concerned, I suppose this was a matter of man facing his tormentors and standing up to them. But it did not affect only him. The consequences for his wife and sons were, without qualification, tragic and are very hard to read about to this day. I do not think Wilde's martyrdom advanced the cause of tolerance by one half-inch, then or later. Quite possibly, it retarded it. It is not a terribly heroic story, though it is a desperately sad one, and his crudely vandalised tomb in Paris remains one of the most dismal and dispiriting sights in Europe, decades after the passions and griefs it records were spent. It is as if a great, despairing groan had been rendered in solid stone. But this sadness has no bearing – or rather, it should have no bearing –on the standing of his work.
Don't worry, not all of this will be about Stephen Fry. I would point out, though, that the point remains that Mr Fry posted, on the Internet, a deliberately personally rude reference to me (the word 'clod' was part of it) , on the day of my brother's memorial event in New York, . He later withdrew it, after some of his own followers rebuked him. But, as he must well know, withdrawn doesn't mean expunged.
I felt entitled to respond to it, by giving a truthful account of our meeting.
Some contributors seem to have concluded, from my last posting, that Mr Fry was wounded by some personal insult from me, and so felt justified in his behaviour.
Not a bit of it. In our conversation, which I never sought, I was entirely civil. I just made no pretence of friendliness, nor was I specially tolerant of Mr Fry's rather feeble boilerplate on the religious issue (for those interested, I did, as I always do, make my simple point that the issue of God's existence or non-existence could not be proved one way or another. Mr Fry, as dogmatic anti-God people almost invariably do, pocketed this enormous concession without any acknowledgement, and without grasping that it applied to him as well. This is an invariable sign that the intellect is not fully engaged in the subject, as exemplified here so many times, and at such great length, by the ineffable Mr 'Bunker'). I called him no names. I made no remarks about his personal qualities.
I noticed that those Fry fans who found their way here tended to indulge in the same sort of personal abuse that their hero had employed. One even denounced me as 'petulant' for turning away from the microphone when I had finished reciting my contribution at the memorial event. What was I supposed to do, stand and wait for applause? Time was running on, others had to speak. What was more, I was keenly aware of the fact that I wasn't quite in tune with the general tone. Good heavens, there are some people for whom I can do no right.
They should note (and would have noticed had they been as bright as they think they are) that the description' a stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is like' is not actually directed at Mr Fry, though it's not meant to be complimentary to him either. It is directed at his reputation and at his admirers. Mr Fry may well be intelligent, though he has so far concealed this effectively from me. What I find amusing are the legions of people, and BBC producers, who swoon and sigh before him as if he were a combination of Oscar Wilde (though he's terribly over-rated too) and Freddie Ayer. They do this not because of his intellect, but because of his manner and because of the fact that they agree with his sentiments.
I tend to suspect that the fact that he delivers revolutionary sentiments ( and lavatory words) in conservative accents endears him to the Radio 4 audience who want cultural conservatism, and a comfortable middle-class urban life, at the same time as they desire the destruction of the morals, traditions and customs which uphold these things. That's my most fundamental reason for disapproving of Mr Fry. He represents a desire to have it both ways, to ride free. If he spoke in the accents of (say) Kenny Everett or Russell Brand, I doubt if the act would have such a following.
Mr Fry is of course free to give his own account of our conversation. No doubt it would differ from mine. I wasn't taking notes, or recording it, so can't offer a verbatim version, as some contributors seem to think I should have done.
Now, the mention of Russell Brand brings me on to my latest encounter with this person, which took place in Portcullis House, the hideous annexe to the Houses of Parliament, on Tuesday.
Both of us were there to appear as witnesses before the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.
I had some detailed, factual, knowledgeable things to say, and arguments to make which were based on those facts and that knowledge, much of it obtained during the writing of my next book. He didn't. In fact he seemed to be under the impression, which I do not think can be in any way justified by facts, that users of the illegal drug heroin are in some way harshly treated by the law. He attracted a great deal of coverage. I attracted very little.
The one useful thing he said (and I might add he was strikingly rude to the Labour MP David Winnick, so much so that, had I been chairman, I would have required him to apologise) was to describe being arrested for drug possession as 'an administrative blip'. This is quite accurate. Where the police bother to arrest possessors of illegal drugs at all, the action has no moral or legal force, and is done only for the sake of form.
The same could be said of our entire system of drug law enforcement. It exists only because the majority of voters would never accept open decriminalisation, and because our international treaty obligations prevent us from abandoning formal legal bans. This has been increasingly the case since 1971, with the law being salami-sliced away, year by year by year, until it is so feeble and thin that it no longer has any power or force.
Oh, as for Jeremy Hunt, Rupert Murdoch etc, the thing I cannot forgive is that David Cameron's first action on receiving the backing of the Murdoch press was to come out (in 'the Sun') in fervent support of the continued deployment of British troops in Afghanistan. We shall no doubt find out what other prices he paid or did not pay for this, as various inquests continue, but brave people have died and been maimed thanks to Mr Cameron's pig-headed persistence with this moronic, pointless war.
I have just returned from the USA, where I attended – and took a small part in - the memorial event for my brother, Christopher. I was in an odd position. I was a Christian at an occasion that was Godless by definition; I had known my brother for longer than anyone else there; yet I was not part of his milieu and couldn't share their joy and glee in his assaults on religion, or a lot of the other enthusiasms celebrated along with his life.
But as it happens, I am on reasonably good terms with many of Christopher's old friends and I had (as most people know) argued directly and strongly, but in a civilised way with my brother about our religious disagreement. We treated each other with respect and parted, shortly before his death, on good terms.
Thanks to an extremely tactful and thoughtful suggestion from Christopher's widow, Carol, I was able to contribute a religious reflection to a generally atheist occasion without infringing the rules of politeness or pushing myself forward. I recited the 8th verse of the 4th chapter of St Paul's Epistle to the Philippians ('Finally, brethren; whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things'). As I explained to those at the event, my brother had chosen this passage to read at our father's funeral in Portsmouth nearly 25 years ago. It had, as it were, his approval.
I met and spoke to many people at this occasion, some of whom I hadn't seen properly for many years. I met some of his old friends whom I had never previously met. I tactfully avoided meetings with any there who I thought might be made uncomfortable by my presence. I didn't want any rows or scenes.
And I made a special effort to avoid a meeting with Stephen Fry, someone whose actions, writings and opinions I have always disliked. Nor have I kept my dislike a secret. I have cheerfully (and on as many occasions as possible) repeated what I believe to be the apt and accurate summary of him in the 'Dictionary of National Celebrity' which forms the headline to this article – 'A stupid person's idea of what an intelligent person is like'.
What was to be gained by meeting him? I couldn't pretend to be pleased to do so. He surely couldn't want to meet me.
Oddly enough, I had argued with Christopher about Stephen Fry. We both agreed that his performance in 'Jeeves and Wooster' had been a ghastly travesty, but Christopher was prepared to forgive him for this and had rather taken to him after sharing a debating platform with him a few years ago. It being a matter of taste, I agreed to differ. Mr Fry's supposed merits and attractions are a mystery to me, and probably always will be, and as for his books…. but we can't all be the same, can we? And it would be terrible if we were.
As we gathered outside the Cooper Union in Manhattan, avoiding him was easy enough. I could see and hear Mr Fry from some way off, indeed I imagine he could have been seen and heard from space, and I easily managed to circle round him, well beyond encounter range. Alas, a little later on, inside the building, an innocent third party took it into his head to introduce us directly, so I shook his hand and said (as I generally do when unavoidably introduced to people I don't want to talk to) 'How do you do?' in my best very polite Edwardian drawing-room manner, before slipping away on an urgent errand (the errand being, to get as far away from S. Fry as possible) .
But it was not over. Those who had spoken at the memorial went afterwards to a rather small and intimate bar in Greenwich Village. And there I was approached again by Mr Fry (I must stress that he opened the conversation, and the space in the crowded room was too confined for me to get away easily).
Very well, then, I thought. If he wants to talk, we'll talk.
Funnily enough, we had a brief and perfectly reasonable discussion of St Paul and his epistles. I said I thought they contained a great deal of great poetry, but that (as I happened to think) that I was particularly fond of the Epistle of James. I am not sure Mr Fry was familiar with it, though I helped him along a bit.
Mr Fry said he knew that I didn't approve of the things he did and the things he said. I said this was correct. I assumed that he had the Bill Clinton-like urge to find the only person in the room who did not agree with him, or like him, and seek to change his mind. Hard luck. I was not willing to pretend a friendliness I didn't feel. I decided that if he wanted to argue with me, and he had plainly chosen to do so, then he was welcome. I would be polite, but not friendly (as Kipling's squire advises his son to treat Bishops in that great poem 'Norman and Saxon').
So I responded by telling him, since he mentioned it, that I strongly disapproved of his conduct during a debate in London against the Roman Catholic church (the one where he had shared a platform with Christopher). I explained why (don't get me wrong. I think the RC Church's performance on that occasion was pretty dire too, in its own way, and I am myself a rather dry Protestant) .
The discussion turned into a more general debate about the dangerous intolerance (as I see it) of the anti-God faction for believers. It seemed pretty clear to me that Mr Fry was unschooled in the subject, often mistaking his opinions for facts, and given to circular argument and cliché. It was rather like dealing with some of the more obdurate and dogmatic contributors to this blog, in fact. He was rescued by the incomprehensible and (to me) unwanted intervention of another person in the bar. This baffled us both so, that it derailed the argument and gave Mr Fry the opportunity (no doubt welcome to him) to break off. Later he bumbled up to me again, and when he tried to summarise our conversation to the person I was then talking to, I said that we had established that he thought he knew several things that he didn't actually know. He didn't like this, and said as his parting shot that it was Rumsfeldian. I said that the remark about known unknowns was the only good thing Donald Rumsfeld had ever said. He surged off and our first (and probably only) encounter was over.
Well, I had some goodbyes to say and a train to Washington to catch, and forgot all about it until I returned to London this morning to find that Mr Fry had soon afterwards Tweeted an uncomplimentary remark about me (so rude that even his own fans rebuked him for it, and he later wiped it, though it is still easily findable on the Web, even by me) . I wonder if you can find it? Anyway, I still think the headline is right. And I suspect that Mr Fry's Tweet may embody his own justified fear that the headline is right.
Theresa May, one of nature's soppy liberals, is struggling to seem decisive over the deportation of the Bethlehem-born windbag Abu Qatada. The trouble is, Mrs May isn't even any good at pretending to be tough.
Labour and Tory politicians love this sort of charade. It makes them look as if they are guarding the nation against the Islamist threat. Like so much of what they do, it is a noisy, empty fraud on the public.
They exaggerate hugely. Like several other furry-faced old blowhards, Qatada is said to have been Osama Bin Laden's closest henchman. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he wasn't. He isn't now.
He cannot really be much use as a Terrorist Godfather now that he has been on TV, and MI5 and the police watch his every movement. Well, can he? Think about it.
It has all gone wrong for Mrs May because she and her department are not very good at what they do. But really the British people ought to have seen through this fake controversy by now.
The real Islamist threat to Britain and the rest of Europe comes from uncontrolled mass migration from Muslim countries. Combined with our national refusal to defend our British, Christian culture, this is rapidly creating a powerful and influential Muslim vote which will increasingly change our country.
Given a few more decades, it will have profoundly altered this country. I have long suspected that this island will be more or less Muslim within a century, and it will be the fault of this generation. It would be perfectly legitimate for a respectable, law-abiding and civilised political party to act now to prevent this.
But instead they leave the subject to steroid-swallowing nutcases like Anders Breivik, or creepy opportunists like the BNP.
They recoil like salted snails from the simple idea that immigrants should be expected to accept the customs, morals, language and traditions of their host country. They cannot explain why this idea is wrong, because it is not wrong.
The migrants have come here voluntarily. While they are welcome to follow their faith and maintain their culture, by seeking and continuing to live here, they and their descendants have accepted that our culture should remain dominant, our religion remain established and our language and laws remain supreme.
It is the opposite of 'intolerant' for any British person to say that he does not want to see Sharia law or polygamy in operation here. Nor should we be embarrassed to condemn forced marriages or the horribly misnamed murders known as 'honour killings'.
As for 'racism', the statements of some Muslim leaders about Jews are among the nastiest examples of prejudice in the modern world. It is interesting, in a bitter way, to see how reluctant the politically correct Left are to attack this, or even admit the problem exists.
As a Christian who is grieved by many features of modern Britain I often find myself allied with British Muslims. I have yet to meet a Muslim I don't like.
But that doesn't stop me saying that I do not want this to be a Muslim society, which is the likely long-term result of the liberal elite's twin policies – of open borders and multiculturalism.
Bundling bearded mullahs on to aeroplanes doesn't actually make any difference to this. It is a crude attempt to seem tough while actually being weak.
Anyway, Mrs May cannot even bundle mullahs efficiently – because she and her Government insist on revering and obeying the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg.
This court would have no actual power, if our ruling class had not willingly given it that power. If Britain withdrew from the entire Council of Europe tonight, nobody could or would do anything about it.
But we don't withdraw, because our governing class long ago discovered that, in the name of 'Human Rights', it could override our old laws without any need for a vote or a debate.
Our allegiance to the court exists only because of a well-intentioned blunder by our grandfathers. When they adopted the European Human Rights Convention more than 60 years ago, they never thought it would apply to us.
In those days we were rightly confident that our liberties were guaranteed by safeguards forged over seven centuries, from Magna Carta of 1215 to the Bill of Rights of 1689.
On the far side of the Channel things were profoundly different. Despotism, fanaticism, organised hatred and aggression were never far away.
Take Strasbourg itself, where the Human Rights Court sits. In 1950, that lovely, haunted place had only recently got rid of its own Gestapo office, complete with torture chambers. National Socialist pseudo-scientists at the perverted Reich university there had been working on setting up a mad, grotesque museum of Jewish skeletons.
These medieval horrors were taking place in a modern city as late as 1944. Had events turned out slightly differently, they would still be going on now.
No wonder it seemed a good idea to set up some sort of mechanism to stand in the way of such things.
But we never needed it on our side of the Channel, and we do not need it here now. We only continue to obey it because our establishment finds it useful in its unrelenting campaign to stamp out common sense, and abolish Britain as we have known it.
Nick Clegg's smooth and smiley public-school exterior conceals a bitter and intolerant commissar. The Deputy Premier says he wants men and women to be regarded on 'exactly the same basis'. How odd, when women can have babies, and men cannot. Treating different people as if they are the same is unfair.
And he thinks it 'really weird' that other people 'find it odd that women want to be both mothers and have a career'. Those who have doubts about this have 'got to get with it' and are living in a 'sepia-tinted yesteryear'.
The fact that something is happening now, and didn't happen in the past, doesn't magically make it right.
Mr Clegg, whose wife earns a giant salary as a lawyer, has an interest in this subject. I expect that, like most elite couples, they can afford the very best in nannies.
But most women work because they damned well have to, thanks to years of campaigning by people like Mr Clegg. Many hate handing their children over to paid strangers. What's more, it's obvious the absence of mothers from children's lives is one of the reasons for so many of our social and educational problems.
Raising your own children is an honourable and important task, not to be scorned. In my view it's rather more valuable than advising mining companies in Morocco. What luck not to be a Liberal Democrat.
After the 1976 drought, there was much talk of a national water grid. I wonder if this would have been built by now if the water industry had not been privatised? Increasingly, I cannot understand why Tories think privatisation is automatically good. It isn't.
The Breivik case, and some comments here, caused me to search out this report I wrote for the Mail on Sunday of 22nd April 2001. It concerns the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the mass murderer of Oklahoma City. I realised that it had not been posted on the Internet at the time and, though it is quite old, it addresses some of the subjects under discussion, such as the moral effects of different methods of execution. It is also relevant because McVeigh, like Breivik, was inaccurately connected with political conservatism by liberal left propagandists. In fact, both men's homicidal fanaticism is utterly unconservative by definition. Mass murder as a political act is the tool of utopian radicals, for reasons often discussed here. I wonder now if McVeigh might not, like Breivik, have been taking powerful drugs with the capacity to twist the mind.
'How refreshing to be in a country where they put terrorists to death, rather than negotiate with them. The execution of the mass murderer, child-killer and bomber Timothy McVeigh will take place soon after dawn on Wednesday, May 16, here in the middle of America's rich green heartland, almost within sight of the world he has lost: the world of open highways, shopping malls, all you can eat and boundless liberty. But he will die in a stark brick blockhouse behind the razor wire and watchtowers of one of the USA's bleakest penitentiaries.
Watching outside on the bare sweep of government-owned grass which lies between Indiana State Highway 63, Justice Road and the prison itself, will be two groups of demonstrators, one applauding McVeigh's end, the other protesting that he should be left alive.
The rival gatherings will be kept apart and searched before being allowed on to the site.
The authorities do not want a repeat of the scenes outside the 1989 execution of the serial killer Ted Bundy, when tasteless folk waved miniature electric chairs and frying pans in the air, while vindictively chanting: 'Fry, Bundy, fry.' So no cooking utensils are permitted.
Officials have even made a list of exactly what will be allowed in the roped-off area outside the prison: a candle screened against the wind, a phone, a Bible and - every hypochondriac American's right - a few bottles of pills. Next to the demonstrators will be a giant encampment of satellite dishes, spreading into the front gardens of several local people who have rather sensibly rented the space out to the mighty networks.
The event will overwhelm the small city. It has never exactly been a big tourist destination and many of the regiments of reporters and TV staff will have to stay in college halls of residence because there are not enough hotel rooms. Prison staff are worried that traffic congestion before the event will hinder or prevent their daily deliveries of pizza. A more serious fear - that another unhinged crazy man may try to avenge McVeigh by bombing the town - has persuaded the authorities to close vulnerable buildings, especially courts and schools, for the day.
The name of this place - Terre Haute - means 'High Ground'. The joke goes that, since the surroundings are entirely flat, it must be the moral high ground. And why not?
Is there anyone who really, passionately, deeply thinks that it will be wrong to let 33-year-old McVeigh ride the fatal needle of lethal injection, take his dose of deadly chemicals and leave the world several decades ahead of schedule? It is as if Thomas Hamilton, the Dunblane child killer, had not done away with himself and Britain had still had the death penalty at the time. The liberals would have been pretty quiet, as they are here.
For this week was the sixth anniversary of the day McVeigh set off the Oklahoma City bomb, six years in which he has not once expressed remorse, in which he has referred to the dead children among his 168 victims as 'collateral damage', and in which he has yet to understand, even slightly, what it is that he has done. Perhaps, in the final hours when they take away his 24-hour cable TV and cut off his daily phone calls, when they offer him his last meal - anything he likes provided it costs less than $20, contains no alcohol and can be obtained locally - he may begin to get the point. Though perhaps not. During his trial, as the lists of the dead were read out and the awful injuries he caused detailed, he often ended the day by sending out to a restaurant for a 'Cowboy Steak' done medium rare, or a double bacon cheeseburger.
Maybe even then it won't sink in. He may still have the nerve to recite his planned last words, verses by the English poet W. E. Henley, about how he is the 'captain of his soul' and 'the master of his fate'. But when the moment comes for the walk to the death house, when they find a place to insert the needle and hook him up to the tubes through which extinction will come, quietly but certainly, perhaps then he will wish he hadn't said: 'Death and loss are an integral part of life everywhere. We have to accept it and move on. To these people in Oklahoma who lost a loved one, I'm sorry, but it happens every day. You're not the first mother to lose a kid, or the first grandparent to lose a grandson or granddaughter. It happens every day, somewhere in the world.' Thanks a lot for that, McVeigh. But what if you made it happen? The thoughts of Sonja Lane, whose husband Donald was murdered by McVeigh, are worth recording here, for those inclined to forget what death actually means. Asked about the effect of her violent loss, she said simply: 'There is nothing in my life that is the same.' These matters are worth mentioning since so many people these days look at executions from the point of view of the murderer. They say how hard a life he had, how he never had a chance, how we are just doing to him what he did to others. Or they say that we may have executed the wrong man. They say that even when - as in the case of James Hanratty - we have obviously executed the right one.
When, some six years ago, I witnessed the execution of the British-born killer Nicholas Lee Ingram in the state of Georgia, there was also little doubt that they had the right man, though fashionable opinion in Britain thought he should be spared.
I didn't think so. Just before I was escorted into the prison at Jackson, and by pure chance, I was shown photographs of his victim, J. C. Sawyer, after Ingram had finished with him. They were nothing spectacular, just a middle-aged guy with a bloody hole in his head, but they brought Ingram's revolting crime to life. Ingram had stormed into these harmless people's remote house, crazed with booze and drugs, marched Mr Sawyer and his wife Mary deep into the woods at gunpoint, lashed them to a tree and then tortured and taunted them before shooting Mr Sawyer in the head. He meant to kill Mrs Sawyer too but bungled it, leaving behind the witness who would eventually put him on Death Row.
I am very glad I saw those pictures.
I found it easier to bear what followed, a process which was and is meant to be horrible, and which left me feeling several years older, though it lasted only a few minutes.
Georgia still uses the electric chair, because its people and government believe that executions should have dramatic moral force. The witness room next to the Jackson death chamber, with its hard wooden seats like church pews, is clearly designed to underline this point. To enter it, you must pass the big green diesel generator which supplies the voltage for the fatal charge - so absolving the local power company of any part in the process.
Through a window which stretches the width of the room - about 18ft - you first see the chair itself, a crude mockery of a throne in heavy, thick, polished wood, hung with straps for arms, wrists, waist, chest, thighs and ankles, and a headrest which has nothing to do with comfort.
Once the prison warden had intoned the words: 'We will proceed with the court-ordered execution', a ghastly melodrama unfolded. Ingram, his scalp shaved white but his moustache still intact, was brought in by six large guards but climbed unaided and unresisting into the chair. The warders bent over him and with practised, fussy movements bound him tightly to it.
Asked if he had anything to say, Ingram - unrepentant and bitter - simply spat a great ball of saliva at the warden. He was too furious to be frightened. If he had been afraid, his mouth would have been utterly dry, as any coward can tell you.
Now the real deathwatch began. The guards produced one more strap, a chinpiece which clamped Ingram's jaws shut. He could not have spoken or spat if he had wanted to. Trussed and muzzled, immobile and silenced, he looked, for the first time, pitiful and helpless rather than cocky and angry.
Then he was prepared for the current.
They put a headpiece on him, a little like an old-fashioned rugby scrumcap, containing a soaking sponge to aid the flow of power. Water dribbled down his face and they wiped it off with a towel. They brought up a cable from behind and attached it to the cap, carefully tightening the wing nuts.
Another cable was clipped to his leg.
Then they fitted a brown leather cowl to the cap, covering his face so we could no longer see his angry, bitter scowl. His knuckles were white with tension.
Everyone left the room. On the other side of the partition, Ingram was alone in the electric chair.
Suddenly, as 2,000 volts went through him, Ingram slammed back into the chair so hard that the tremendous thwack of the impact went through the room like a shock-wave. His knuckles were almost blue. It was very violent, but also very controlled. He did not catch fire. He did not writhe. There was no smoke nor any sizzling sound.
After a while, the officials returned, a doctor listened to his silent heart through a stethoscope, the warden pronounced that all had been done in accordance with law, and the curtains were drawn. As we left, we saw a hearse arriving to collect the remains, a hearse presumably ordered while Ingram was still alive.
If anyone ever manages to get permission to show such an event on TV, I would advise you strongly not to watch it. I have done it for you. I think its moral effect in general is good, but I think it may harm those who see it at first hand. Soon after my own experience, a friend told me that her father had once witnessed a hanging in some official capacity, and that the memory had returned repeatedly to haunt him in the last weeks before his own death. I am not at all surprised.
Nor, if some fool manages to broadcast it on the Internet, should you watch the execution of McVeigh by lethal injection. This is not just because McVeigh himself would like you to, though the fact that he would dearly love to star in the drama of his own execution is a very good reason not to let this happen. It will also be bad for you. Like the Oklahoma victims' relatives, who will watch it on a special TV link on May 16, you will feel stained and disgusted by the experience, but also baffled that an event of such great moment should be so uninteresting. I have seen this too, in Huntsville, Texas. A man called Larry Anderson was dying for the abduction and stabbing of Zelda Curtis, whom he dumped in a ditch after he had finished with her.
All that happened was that he lay on a thing that looked like a hospital trolley, with a tube in his arm that looked like a drip. He stared menacingly through the glass at the witnesses, refused to make any final statement and then more or less fell asleep. From my notes at the time (I cannot remember it as clearly as the Ingram affair) I see that he gave three snorting, puffing breaths, like a drunken man snoring. I thought he looked greyer and shrunken but it may have been my imagination. No shadow of death passed across his face. By comparison with Zelda Curtis, he had a very easy time indeed.
I still think Anderson was better dead, and there is now some evidence that Texas's hard policy has begun to slow the rise in the murder rate in the Houston area, where most killings in the state take place. Violent, immoral criminals have begun to make the rational calculation that it may not be worthwhile to kill potential witnesses, which until recently has been a pretty safe oneway bet. But I thought at the time, and I think now, that lethal injection looks far too much like a medical procedure, the putting down of an inconvenient citizen, and far too little like the punishment it is meant to be.
McVeigh describes it as 'state-assisted suicide' and he has a point.
But this is where our own squeamishness has got us. McVeigh's execution is the first by the federal US government, as opposed to individual states, since 1963. Then, a kidnapper and murderer called Victor Feguer was hanged at Fort Madison, Iowa.
His last words were: 'I sure hope I'm the last one to go.' And at the time, many people in America and Britain probably shared his hope. The world seemed to be becoming a more peaceful place.
Murder rates in the US dropped steadily from 1935 to 1960, while in Britain they were tiny and static, as were crimes of violence or armed crime. In both countries, execution was abolished in the mid-Sixties.
Was it a coincidence that it was exactly then that the American murder and violent crime rates began their ballistic upward climb? Was it a coincidence that British murder rates began to rise then too, as did armed crime? Murders in England and Wales stood at 55 in 1964. Nowadays it is often four times as great or more, and this only tells half the story. The Home Office pathologist Professor Bernard Knight said recently that the British homicide rate was artificially low. Advances in medical treatment, he explained, now save hundreds of people who would have died from their wounds 40 years ago. The actual amount of lethal violence has risen to heights our fathers would have thought impossible.
America, being a proper democracy, responded to this explosion of arrogant, selfish brutality by building more prisons and by allowing any state which wanted to bring back the death penalty to do so. The federal government eventually restored it too, which is why the builders have been busy here in Terre Haute constructing the brand-new federal death row. But the liberal reformers - who helped boost the crime wave with their false optimism back in the Sixties - have not given up.
It is because of them that the death penalty in most American states is rare, and subject to long delay, and that the semi-medical lethal injection procedure is the one used in almost all of them. It is because of them that a return of the death penalty in Britain is still unthinkable, not only for people like Thomas Hamilton and the IRA, but for anyone who chooses to kill. The price of a life in Britain has not been so low for centuries.
And yet many in Europe like to look down on America for keeping capital punishment on its books.
European Union officials have recently taken to lecturing the Americans on this as if they were somehow more civilised, though continental Europe's 20th Century record for state-sponsored murder and violence, with its victims numbered in millions, makes the United States look like Toytown.
As the execution of Timothy McVeigh draws nearer, some in Britain will seek to mock or to undermine its purpose, to suggest that it is excessive, barbaric, brutal and needless. They will sneer at the circus which surrounds it and suggest that we handle these things better on our side of the Atlantic.
Once again we discover that what we are talking about is a profound moral division, rather than rival sets of research. That's not to say that facts and research are unimportant, but one has to remember for what purpose it has been done, and by whom it has been commissioned, and if it gives a whole or partial version of the truth. I'll come back to that, but may I first of all plead, yet again, with contributors here to reply to what has been said, rather than to a caricature of what has been said, or to things which have simply not been said at all.
This passage raises a number of questions about hammers, their availability, and about whose foot was stuck in a rabbit hole and why, and how Mr 'B' knows anything about this incident, and what happened afterwards. But that's not my point.
Mr 'B' is asked to produce any quotation which justifies his use of the phrase 'the halcyon 30s and 40s'. Where have I said this? Where have I ever suggested that the past was 'halcyon'? Where have I ever said that the 1950s, or any other period, were a 'golden age'? Never. Yet it is almost guaranteed that anyone who doesn't like my views will, within seconds of addressing my arguments, claim that I have.
Why is this? Where do they get it from? What makes them think it will in any way advance their arguments, to invent for me a belief and an opinion which I do not share? Are instruction manuals on how to counter my arguments handed out by Liberal Central? Given the wearisome, yawn-inducing sameness of so much of this stuff, I do sometimes wonder. I have put in FoI requests to the British Boring Board of Control, and to Liberal Central.
Once again, I do not believe there was ever a golden age, or a halcyon period. I am not a Utopian. I don't believe in earthly paradises, in the past or the future. No human era is perfect, or remotely resembles perfection. The past is irrecoverable even it was in some respects better. I am concerned with the present, and with our determination repeatedly to choose the wrong future. I freely acknowledge that our current age is materially more comfortable than any in history (though I don't think this is necessarily an unmixed blessing).
Who is this 'man who lives in America'? Not me, anyway. As it happens, I did live in the USA some years ago (and in the USSR and the Russian Republic before that) but for most of my life I have lived in Britain, and do so now. But wherever I am I pay attention to the facts. I am not particularly keen on American penal policy. I have many times pointed out that the two countries are utterly different and can learn little from each other. But the idea that the USA is tremendously tough on crime is not supported by facts. Its ludicrous acceptance of the red herring 'medical marijuana' in many states is a case in point. About a quarter of convicted criminals in the USA are in prison. The rest are on parole or probation.
On the matter of guns, I must tediously point out that to say someone was 'killed by a handgun' is almost entirely useless in judging the nature of the death. Who used the gun? For what purpose? Under what circumstances? Guns (not always handguns, hence the difference in figures) are used annually in about 20,000 suicides in the USA, whose explanation must be complex, and in about 18,000 homicides. This latter figure is no great surprise in a historically violent country with no effective death penalty (yes, you read that right, very few murderers in the USA are ever executed, and then only after waiting so long that they have forgotten what they did. Most states which 'have' the death penalty rarely if ever impose it, those that do impose it usually take around 15 years to do in a minority of murders) and which leaves many violent convicted criminals at large. Many more criminals are killed by armed policemen (usually at least 300 a year) than are executed. But Amnesty International is not very interested in that. Climate appears to be more influential over crime and homicide than gun ownership (with gun homicide rates similar in most of the northern states of the USA to those in neighbouring Canadian provinces, despite sharp differences in gun laws). By the way, more than 40,000 die each year in car accidents in the USA, so perhaps a 'war on cars' would be more urgent.
On the question of prison privatisation, I am against it. The punishment of wrongdoing is a moral matter, which should be reserved to the state, which exists for moral purposes, not a commercial contract. In any case, I am a conservative, not a liberal. I am not an enthusiast for privatisation, and in many cases actively oppose it. It has badly damaged Britain's railways, and has devastated our capacity to generate electricity. It has also damaged our water industry. I suspect that a non-privatised water industry would long ago have developed a national water grid which would now be able to overcome the current drought in the South of England.
On the issue of free will, I suppose we now have in progress the biggest experiment on that subject ever embarked upon in human history. This country's criminal and penal policies were, until perhaps 50 years ago, based on the idea that wrongdoing should be punished. I explore in my book 'A Brief History of Crime' (a modified version is available in paperback as 'The Abolition of Liberty') the long and gradual process by which this was abandoned.
But roughly from the end of the Victorian age until the Second World War, we based our policing and justice and prisons on the belief that people should be and were free in almost all aspects of life, but if they broke known laws they would be treated with some harshness, and deliberately punished, through loss of liberty and honour, compulsory hard work, separation from the world outside, deprivation of pleasures, austere living conditions etc.
This is explored in some detail in my book, and those who are genuinely interested are urged to read it. But I personally find it very hard to believe that the two facts are unconnected. Even I might suggest, wicked people who might otherwise have thought it justifiable to hit someone else with a hammer might have been restrained by the fear of punishment.
Such a society did not seek to interfere in the minds of men and women, to tell them what they could or could not believe or say. It was almost completely uninterested in such things. It was interested in actions. It is my belief that such a society is much better and much more free than one that tries to make windows into men's souls, through social background reports and largely empty talk of 'rehabilitation', whatever that is.
In fact, the more free we have been to act badly, the less free we have been to think and speak freely. I think the two are connected. A society which does not believe in free will does not believe in a free mind, either. I would be interested to explore this connection.
Of course, no true free will is possible unless we live in an ordered universe with discoverable laws and rules, both physical and moral. If the universe is a random, accidental chaos, how and why should there be rules, how can we assume that they exist, and how can we measure the validity and effects of our actions? In which case, how can our actions be free, if we do not know what their effect is? In which case, how can our will be free?
Oh, and before anyone writes in about grammar schools to go on about the stigma of failure etc, will they please read the index, the index, the index, the index? Try the entry on 'grammar schools' which (I know this is confusing and obtuse) refers you to lots of postings and debates here in the past about … grammar schools). They may find that what they wrongly regard as a fresh argument has been dealt with, shredded into rags and patches, and chucked into the dustbin of history some time ago.
Those who are genuinely interested, rather than willing victims of propaganda who come here to regurgitate standard anti-grammar arguments they have got from Liberal Central are urged to read the relevant chapter in my book 'The Cameron Delusion'. All my books can be obtained through public libraries, for no more than a modest reservation fee. I do not recommend them to make money, but to spread my ideas.


David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM KStJ PC (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was a British Liberal politician and statesman.
Although he was not raised in poverty, David Lloyd George was considered to be a man of the people. Born in Manchester, he grew up in rural Wales with his mother and her brother, shoemaker and Baptist minister Richard Lloyd, His father had died when Lloyd George was a year old, so he adopted his uncle's surname of Lloyd along with his own, George.
Through talent, hard work, and ambition, he became first a successful lawyer and then, in 1890, at the age of 27, the youngest member of the House of Commons at the time. He soon earned a reputation as a fiery radical, denouncing the hereditary privileges of the aristocracy and the militarism of the British Empire. As a leading member of the Liberal governments from 1906 he was at the forefront of social and political reform and known for the emotional eloquence of his speeches.
On a personal level, Lloyd George was no stranger to scandal. His secretary, Frances Stevenson, was his mistress, and in 1913 he was caught up in allegations of insider share trading in Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company. As Prime Minister, he sold honours and peerages for cash.
Lloyd George was instinctively aligned with the anti-war tradition of the Liberal Party. However, during the Agadir Crisis of 1911, when a visit by the German Kaiser to the Moroccan port was perceived as provocative by France and Britain, Lloyd George made a prominent speech advocating war if it was necessary to preserve Britain's vital interests and prestige.
The German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 overcame any hesitations Lloyd George had about supporting the declaration of war. He established himself as the leading figure in a drive to mobilize the economy and, in May 1915, was the natural choice to head a new Ministry of Munitions. He bullied and bribed businessmen into turning factories over to war production, achieving an impressive increase of output. As an acknowledged radical, he was able to win acceptance from trade unions for "dilution" – the use of unskilled workers and women to do jobs previously restricted to skilled male workers.
Unlike old-fashioned Liberals like Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Lloyd George had no scruples about government interference in business or violation of individual freedoms. In December 1916, he won the support of the Conservative and Labour parties to replace Asquith as Prime Minister, splitting the Liberal party.
He set about establishing a small war cabinet and expanded government control of national life in order to boost the war effort. Many areas of the economy, such as coal mining and merchant shipping, were taken over by the state for the duration of the war. New ministries were created to direct food production and labour.
Lloyd George was not always so successful in imposing his will on the generals conducting the war. Instinctively anti-militarist, he distrusted generals, while they regarded him as militarily ignorant. He sought an alternative to the slaughter on the Western Front, advocating a diversion of resources to Salonika or Italy. This was opposed by General Sir William Robertson, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, and Field Marshal Douglas Haig commanding British forces in France. Lloyd George tried to undermine the generals, eventually ridding himself of Robertson in February 1918. But Haig proved immovable.
In his war memoirs, published in 1933, Lloyd George presents himself as the man consistently humane and right while the military leaders were brutal and foolish. But some of his claims – for example, to have been solely responsible for the introduction of the convoy system at sea in April 1917 – are now widely contested. He has been blamed for withholding troops from the Western Front in early 1918, as part of his private war with Haig. Leaving the British Army vulnerable to the German Spring Offensive.
Lloyd George won the post-war general election of 1918 partly by promising to make Germany pay reparations and to prosecute German war criminals, including the Kaiser. At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, however, he tried to steer a course between French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau's desire to permanently disable Germany and the idealism of US President Woodrow Wilson.
In domestic affairs he aspired to continue his pre-war radical reforms – he had set up a ministry for reconstruction as early as 1917 – but as the leader of a predominantly Conservative coalition had little scope for action. He returned to leadership of the Liberal Party from 1924, but that once great movement never recovered from the split he had engineered in 1916. In the run-up to World War II, Lloyd George admitted Hitler's forceful leadership and favoured seeking peace in 1940. As a result, he had become an isolated figure in British public life by the time he died in 1945.


We decided to skip the support of `java.math.BigDecimal` and `java.math.BigInteger` field types in https://hibernate.atlassian.net/browse/HSEARCH-3047.
Since we need to think more about which type to use to map those fields on Elasticsearch server.
One possible solution could be extract a storing factor from Hibernate ORM field metadata, such as `@Column.length` or something like that. Then to use this value to convert the `java.math.BigDecimal` into a long, like it was done in `BigDecimalNumericFieldBridge` class of Hibernate Search 5 test code.


text:
Dattch Top 5 Planet London Takeover
This week, this whole week, every post will be a Top 5 of something because we love lists and so do you. To kick things off, the lovely ladies of Planet London have put together a list of the best awards that celebrate the LGBT community.
It's awards season in the LGBT Community, and there are a range of opportunities to celebrate what and who makes being a lesbian great. Whilst not all offer public voting, many do. Some awards are lesbian/bi women specific. With categories From DJ of the year to Dating Service to Brand of the year, lesbians can nominate, vote, support their heroes, friends and the women and companies behind what makes a thriving scene, social and community for us all.
Ultimate Planet Awards – Launched in 2013, these awards are deeply rooted in the community. Unlike many of the other awards available, these are grass roots. What makes these awards different is that they welcome input from the community and they celebrate Lesbian and Bi women specifically. Lesbians can nominate anyone for a variety of awards and then vote for the final shortlisted awards. The organisers have spent some time coming up with award categories that aims to appreciate and acknowledge lesbians within the community.
My Lesbian Radio Golden Kitty Awards – Early 2014 will see the 6th Annual Kitty Awards reviewing 2013… Denise & Donna announce their picks for all sorts of categories, Best and Worst of the year in keeping with the format of their show. These awards had a humble beginning when Denise picked up the discarded show lists from 2006 one evening and realised how much goodness there had been. And that it needed celebrating.
National Diversity Awards – Since 2006, the National Diversity Awards have been promoting diversity across the UK. Nominations and voting takes place from January to September. There is a ceremony in September each year where the winners are announced. The National Diversity Awards are for everyday people that perform miracles everyday in their communities and include all diversity categories including LGBT.
Stonewall Awards – Celebrates those who have made a positive impact on the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Britain over the last 12 months. The eighth annual Stonewall Awards ceremony, supported by Gender Gap as well as Google, the Inclusive Foundation, Square Peg Media and Paddy Power takes place on Thursday 7 November at the V&A in London. Tickets are £198 inc VAT. To book your ticket visit www.stonewall.org.uk/awards or contact Maria Anna Petrou on 020 7593 2294.
Out g3 Awards – Launched in 2012, the Out and G3 Awards cover a range of categories celebrating the individuals, companies and groups that are outstanding in the field of LGBT equality.
« Get Your Skates On: Becoming A Roller Derby Girl
Dattch Top 5 Sites To Get Your Lezzie Life Started »
What's Up With Gender Discrimination in Soccer?
Tea with Auntie: Catfish Crush

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Mr. Abel contributes to the Trojans for Tomorrow's Kindness Kanes activity.
On November 28, 2017, members of the Trojans for Tomorrow Club had their annual Thanksgiving Party with pizza and friends. While celebrating after a long break and giving thanks, members prepared candy canes, called Kindness Kanes, to pass out to students before exam week.
Members attached powerful, motivational messages to candy canes, and will pass them out during exam week to give students an extra boost during the stressful week. In the mornings during exam week, members plan to pass them out as students enter the building.


Sep. 20, 2018 – BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – A conference in Baltimore will provide education and law enforcement leaders critical information needed to keep schools safe. The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) will host the National School Safety Leaders' Summit, December 2-4. The conference is designed especially for school system superintendents and other administrators, school board members, police chiefs, sheriffs, juvenile court judges and others in leadership positions who have responsibility for school safety.
Michele Gay, co-founder and executive director of Safe and Sound Schools.
A representative of the National Threat Assessment Center of the U.S. Secret Service.
Bernie James, education law expert and professor of law at Pepperdine University.
Peter Langman, psychologist and author of School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).
Paul DeMarco, attorney and former Alabama State Representative.
A representative of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services.
Properly structuring a school safety team that's prepared to respond to crises.
Creating an effective, proactive school safety plan.
Understanding liability issues associated with substandard safety teams and/or plans.
Engaging legislators on school safety topics.
Understanding emerging school safety trends and funding opportunities.
To obtain more information or to register for NASRO's National School Safety Leaders' Summit, visit the NASRO website: https://nasro.org/conference/leaderssummit/.
NASRO is a nonprofit organization for school-based law enforcement officers, school administrators, and school security and safety professionals working as partners to protect students, school faculty and staff, and the schools they attend. NASRO is headquartered in Hoover, Alabama, and it was established in 1991. For more information, visit www.nasro.org.


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Various Ways to Enjoy Caccini's Ave Maria
By Masamichi Okazaki
I believe that I listened to the melody of Caccini's Ave Maria for the first time in the autumn of 1995. It is such a beautiful aria and piece that I am not exaggerating if I say it seems so surreal. At the same time, I wondered why such a beautiful melody had not kept singing till now. I kept questioning why the piece had been pushed to the edge of the music history. This is such a mysterious story of Caccini's Ave Maria.
#13 Outstanding Singing Performance by Inessa Galante Just Right for Melody
DEBUT / Inessa Galante
(Campion RRCD-1335)
One day, "Caccini's Ave Maria" suddenly caught my ears. It's in the track 8 of the album "Debut" sung by a classic singer called Inessa Galante. I just happened to stop by a CD shop in Sukiyabashi, and I heard this beautiful melody and voice, which I don't think I am exaggerating if I call this "celestial music." Speaking of Ave Maria, Schubert's or Gounod's Ave Maria is the one I've known since my childhood through my music classes at school, however, I know nothing about "Caccini's Ave Maria." I remembered that I was so touched by such beautiful "Ave Maria" and asked the shop a big favor to sell the album before it was even placed on sale. Inessa Galante is a soprano singer born in Latvia. Although she has been singing some title roles of operas, she is not a famous great singer. However, her crisp voice and soft expression were suitable for this melody, and it fitted her so well that it seemed as if it was made for her.
I also became interested in Caccini, the composer, however, I was not able to find almost anything about him other than he is an Italian composer in early stage of baroque music from 16th to 17th century, since we did not have the Internet back then. His real name is Giulio Caccini.
After several years, the mystery became clear. The piece was not composed by Caccini but was composed by Vladimir Vavilov, a composer in the Soviet Union at around 1970. Vavilov deliberately made his name anonymous and often composed pieces with other people's name attached to the title. He did this because if he put his name on, it would not sell well, and he felt so strongly about putting his music out into the world that he put those well-known composers' names on his own works. This story is not easy to believe, either. I assume that he might have restrictions for his creative activities and could not insist his own right freely in the socialist country back then. If that was true, Vavilov, who wished to bring out his works to the world even by using other Western composers' names, had a strong will and soaring spirit. It tells us convincingly why the melody of "Caccini's Ave Maria" he composed had hardly came out to the world, and had not kept singing until '90s. In Inessa Galante's album, G. Cassini's name still remains as the composer. The album contains many other excellent operas by Verdi, Puccini, and Bellini, and others, so you can also enjoy it as "famous arias." "DEBUT" is launched by a minor label called Campion in Austria. Although the album is no longer in production, I think you can get the used one through the Internet.
#14 True to Its Title! Piece Truly with All His Heart and Soul
Ave Maria – Throwing my heart and soul / Isao Suzuki
(King KICJ-690)
Over 80 years old, Isao Suzuki, a veteran bassist, is still on the leading edge. This is the album released in 2015 by the group of Isao Suzuki. As the title suggested, Caccini's and Schubert's Ave Maria performances, which they put their whole soul into, were included. Especially, Caccini was impressive. Who could imagine this piece could be played in the form of base solo? With the beautiful melody, Suzuki's base is very emotional. I can feel his strong enthusiasm towards the music as if it were not already enough. The super-performance which does not tarnish the title "Throwing my heart and soul." I bet you can spend blissful five minutes. The leader's aggressive musical stance was also expressed in every other performance. The recording truly capturing the vivid base tone of Suzuki and his intensive feeling of expression was fabulous.
#15 "Ave Maria" Calmly Played on Tenor Sax
Lamentation - Live at Tokyo TUC
(Spaceshower Music BJL. DDCB-13026-27)
The piece performed in the form of regular quartette by Teturo Kawashima, the greatest modern jazz tenor, in 2014. As far as I know, Kawashima is the first playing "Caccini's Ave Maria" in the field of jazz. He played this piece on flute in his album, "Prayer," in 2012. That was not bad, but I like this live album, in which he played tenor sax, better. Conversely, Tetsuro Kawashima, whose virtue is to play impromptu passionately, playing rather calmly conveys his deep feeling and his artistic background. This is also deserved to be called a piece "with his heart and soul."
Masamichi Okazaki
Surrounded by various kinds of music from his childhood, Masamichi Okazaki joined Waseda University Modern Jazz Club. He started contributing articles to music magazines when he was a student. He covers wide range of music not only trad, modern and contemporary jazz, but also from pops to classics. He writes liner notes for CDs and LPs, and is a regular contributor to "JAZZ JAPAN," "STEREO," and others. He joined a big band, "Shiny Stockings," as a saxophone player. He is a director of The Music Pen Club Japan (MPCJ).
Enjoying Various High-quality Sound Formats
Modern Jazz - Listening to Excellent Performance of Golden Age from "Discovery-of-Century Album"


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Alternative energy production relies on fuel sources that have no associated cost, unlike fossil fuels like coal and oil which must be mined or extracted. The comparative costs that are charged to the consumers for the final product of electricity are still lopsided favoring fossil fuels, and many do not understand the reasons behind a method without fuel costs ultimately being more expensive than one with fuel costs. The answer to this question lies in the technology that drives the wind and solar methods, and also provides the ability to advance and to reduce costs. The fossil fuel industries have remained technologically the same for many years, the processes being relatively simple. Costs associated with transport and storage of electricity are the same across all industries as the product produced is the same. One method of production does not result in "better" electricity to your home, and in reality there is no difference whatsoever aside from the costs and environmental damages that are produced. The fossil fuel industry has costs that are relatively set, aside from the prices that must be paid for the fuel sources. The green energy industries, on the other hand, have the ability to technologically advance to drive down the costs associated with production.
If there is no cost for fuel, and the costs associated with transport and storage are the same, then why is it that the machinery associated with wind and solar production costs more over time than that used to produce fossil fuels? It is mainly due to the ongoing need for maintenance and replacement of expensive computer equipment that is in the field attached to the windmills and solar panels. The majority of costs associated with these methods comes at the time of initial setup and then extends over time with replacement and maintenance of that equipment. Wind turbines and solar panels are targets for lightning strikes, and the damage associated with the direct point of strike is relatively small compared to the surge damage costs. Blades and panels struck by lightning can be replaced at relatively minimal expense, but the associated surge that travels along connected power lines and overloads the control equipment produces a far larger cost or repair. These failures are where the potential for driving down maintenance and replacement costs can be realized, by introducing effective industrial surge protection devices into the setups in the field. Through electrical protection, the surge related damage can be minimized, as modern SPDs can completely stop the electrical overflow before it ever reaches equipment that it can damage. The most advanced SPD technology available from Raycap even needs no maintenance, no replacement or replugging of surge protection modules after may they have been sacrificed after a strike. Systems can minimize the expected damage costs while keeping the production going for longer periods while the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. This simple integration can bring the charges that consumers must bear down below those that are associated with fossil fuel production, representing the future of clean energy. Once the production methods cost less and do less damage, there is no reason to use anything else.


Publisher-turned-author Mark Vella tells us that his debut novel, 'X'Seta Gralu Lil Kevin Cacciattolo?' made him realise that Malta is actually far bigger, and far more mysterious, than we give it credit for.
"The thing is, I live in Luxembourg," Mark Vella tells me roughly mid-way through our conversation about his debut novel, the Merlin-published X'Seta Gralu Lil Kevin Cacciattolo?, a two-tiered story looping back and forth between the 80s and the 90s in Malta, much like the cassette tape that the titular – and ultimately elusive – protagonist keeps like a talisman.
"But though Luxembourg is much bigger than Malta, it's also a lot more polished and gentrified – a bit like a gated community. So a walk across Luxembourg city never seems quite so pregnant with promise as, say, a walk from Gzira to Sliema.
Vella extends this aura of mystery to political lacunae that remain unresolved, despite Malta's size.
Noting that fiction writers have the ability to make Malta "bigger" by dint of an imaginative exploration of their landscape, Vella has latched on to the haziness that surrounds certain eras of recent Maltese history as the main engine of his first novel.
Split between the story of a boy – the titular Kevin – struggling with severe social inadequacy in the 1980s and who eventually goes missing, and a journalist, Mark – whom Vella describes as "inept" – working in the '90s, Vella confesses that the novel may not have a page-turning plot, describing its structure as being that of a looping cassette tape – another clear 'relic' from the era that the novel evokes.
In the case of Vella's novel, the cassette tape is both a formal device and a key element of the story, as the socially awkward and put-upon Kevin – who has been described as being on the autistic spectrum, though Vella says he "never did any research" into autism – finds solace in a cassette featuring random recordings in various world languages.
Instead of plot twists, Vella moves his narrative forward by accumulating details: the hazy and haphazard impressions captured by Kevin in the novel's earlier chapters, along with the more urbane – but equally inconclusive – perspective of the journalist who becomes obsessed with the mystery of little-boy-lost Kevin Cacciattolo.
Having experienced the politically pivotal 80s as a child, it is perhaps unsurprising that the novel takes this oblique view of its social and historical landscape.
The structure of the novel may also have something to do with the way it was conceived. Having begun its life as a potential entry for a young adult fiction competition, Vella later passed his manuscript through the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) wringer, before finally submitting it to another – and fateful – competition entirely.
Something of an international phenomenon among aspiring scribblers, 'Nanowrimo' challenges writers to churn out a 50,000-word manuscript over the month of November. Having decided that the young adult genre was too restricting for the story he was trying to tell – "you inevitably end up censoring yourself" – Vella found Nanowrimo useful when it came to building on the first two chapters of his novel which, focusing entirely on Kevin's perspective, remain virtually unchanged.
This turned out to be '#abbozz' – an 'X-Factor'-style talent competition held at the National Book Festival last year, in which writers were asked to submit manuscripts for evaluation by a team of judges, as well as audience members voting on Facebook on the night of the event.
Despite receiving something of a thrashing by one of the judges (who were left in the dark as to the author's identities), the novel ultimately emerged triumphant, a #abbozz victory securing it a publishing deal with Merlin.
This proved to be something of a role-reversal for Vella, who was previously known in the Maltese literary scene as the publisher behind Minima: the now-defunct publishing house that remains significant for midwifing the likes of Guze Stagno and Immanuel Mifsud (Vella describes the latter's work as marking a new era in Maltese literature).
So how does it feel like to be on the other side?


Wow! Shadow Over Avalon #9 on this list.
This entry was posted in arthurian, avalon, C.N.Lesley, dystopia, excalibur, farfuture, kingarthur, merlin, sciencefantasy, Shadow Over Avalon, telepathy and tagged 99c, Arthurian, avalon, books, C.N.Lesley, Excalibur, far future., King Arthur, Merlin, science fantasy, Shadow Over Avalon on September 27, 2016 by cnlesley.
Wow, my cup runneth over. Now I am totally spinney. This is what makes all the work and the hours worth it.
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
I wouldn't be surprised to see this story on the big screen, as a major blockbuster, one of these days. "Shadows over Avalon", Book 1 of the Shadows series, has all the ingredients to make a captivating high concept movie.
Arthur, an incredibly gifted young citizen of the underwater city of Avalon, is so special that he's under constant scrutiny. Arthur won't accept the life programmed for him by Avalon's powers to be, and decides to escape and fight above water with Terrans, against their oppressors, the repulsive and all-powerful Nestines.
In order to prepare for his escape on the surface, Arthur secretly accesses the all-knowing Archive system, and discovers the story of Ashira, the beautiful and fierce War Maid, princess of the surface-world, betrayed by her father, and then by her peers. Ashira's life is tied to the story of Avalon. But how does Ashira's life relate to his? Why does he have dreams of a previous life? And what is his real purpose?
C.N. Lesley's imagination has no limits. The worlds she created are so vivid and well thought out, that the reader's gets completely immersed in this brilliant tale of lost love, mind games, and science fiction. Very impressive!
This entry was posted in arthurian, avalon, C.N.Lesley, dystopia, excalibur, farfuture, kingarthur, merlin, sciencefantasy, Shadow Over Avalon, telepathy and tagged Arthurian, avalon, books, C.N.Lesley, dystopia, Excalibur, far future., King Arthur, Merlin, science fantasy, Shadow Over Avalon on September 23, 2016 by cnlesley.
Wow! Five star review for Shadow Over Avalon.
Wow, I am spinning. Two in one day.
When I was a kid, my favorite book was T.H. White's The Once and Future King (mostly The Sword in the Stone section with Wart and Merlin; I picked up the later sections as I grew older). Like many kids, I loved all things Arthur and tales of knights of the round table. I listened to the soundtrack of Camelot for hours, when other kids were listening to the Beatles and Herman's Hermits.
Later, much to my wife Carol's disbelief, I became a huge fan of Mark Schulz' Cadillac and Dinosaurs graphic novels. I only wish he'd written more.
When C.N. Lesley wove the two together to create Shadow Over Avalon, she catapulted me in readers' heaven. This juxtaposition does her injustice, however. Her prose cast a spell on me long before the heroine Shadow encounters her first Saurian after betrayal by her lover's advisors and the priesthood.
Heroine? you might ask. Isn't this a novel about King Arthur? And, improbably, dinosaurs? Yes and no. Shadow Over Avalon tells the story of the restoration of Camelot in the distant future after an apocalypse demolished civilization and repopulated the planet with resurgent predatory reptilian species. Lesley combines two narrative storylines, that of a young outcast named Shadow who forges an alliance of outlaws and a scholar named Arthur who pries into unauthorized records in the clerical database.
Neither realize darker forces conspire to control the planet and its human populations. Lesley weaves a compelling narrative that threads more elements than a North American quilt, adding revelation onto revelation to draw the reader into her story—genetic manipulation, undersea and space colonization, and Celtic mythology.
Lesley's prose draws the reader in immediately, and keeps them riveted for the rest of the novel. It's been a long time since I read a book that reminded me why I enjoyed reading as much as I do, or that I downloaded and read the sequel as soon as I finished the first installment. I admit that there were moments I felt I was in the middle of a Hong Kong or Bollywood movie as Lesley threw in yet another fantastic element or plot twist, but, in the end, they all mesh together into a satisfying whole.
This entry was posted in arthurian, avalon, C.N.Lesley, dystopia, excalibur, farfuture, kingarthur, merlin, sciencefantasy, telepathy and tagged Arthurian, books, C.N.Lesley, dystopia, Excalibur, far future., King Arthur, Merlin, science fantasy, Shadow Over Avalon on September 22, 2016 by cnlesley.
This entry was posted in C.N.Lesley, dystopia, farfuture, sciencefantasy, sciencefiction, telepathy and tagged books, C.N.Lesley, dark fantasy, fantasy, far future., magic, science fantasy on September 19, 2016 by cnlesley.
I am not one to reveal too much of a story line to people who have not read a novel and who are considering doing that. For me the story is everything.
I will say that this is a fascinating novel and I want to write about what I see in the crafting. The writer clearly has an exquisite command of the elements that make Shadow Over Avalon an enigma that demands to be read to completion. I loved the story.
Settings are beautifully drawn. The Author has given the reader the fine gift of clarity. It is possible to see a vista of the entire scene from the well crafted sentences and word choices. To me the dialogue is appropriate for the story line with different cultures represented by the way they speak. I can nearly hear their voices as they utter their words.
Shadow Over Avalon has a blend of Medieval times with the technology of the Future. Yet the future technology is explained in such a way as to leave the reader with understanding and logical conclusions. There is incredible creativity at work with the detail and attention paid to providing a strong picture of the world building that has been achieved.
I feel as if there is something for everyone in this novel. Romance, conflict between races, high tech devices and genetic engineering, combat, strategy, intrigue, mystery and many elements from various genres. It is one of those reads that makes you want to keep going long after bedtime.
Available on all the Amazons, Kobo, iTunes, Nook and Smashwords.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Arthurian, avalon, C.N.Lesley, far future., inhumans, Merlin, Telepathy on April 24, 2015 by cnlesley.


GRRR! Last week my microwave oven broke. Since a neighbor had her house catch on fire due to a faulty microwave, I decided rather than limp along with a door that had to be banged shut rather than closed normally and risk the possibility of fire I would purchase a new one.
I did extensive research, and decided on a Panasonic 2.2 CuFt Inverter Countertop, and then did price checks on those places offering the oven.
Not surprisingly, I ended up making the purchase from Amazon, which seems to be where I am purchasing everything lately. The total cost was $187. It was to be delivered the next day – a Monday.
In the Sunday paper, I happened to notice the Frys' ad – good only on Sunday– and they had the exact same oven listed for $99.99! And, according to their advertisement it "Ships Free!" All I had to do was to sign up for their advantage program. No problem. Did it immediately and was given a promo code number.
I went to their on-line advertisement – the EXACT SAME ad that I was holding in my hand – and ordered the microwave. The first thing I saw was "does not ship". I have to pick it up at the store. I thought about that for awhile, and then decided that the $70 savings was worth the crowd and ordered the oven. I had a moment of panic when it showed the price at $169, but after I put in my promo code it dropped to the $99.99 price.
Your request for in-store pick up has been received. Please do not go to the store yet! This email is a confirmation that your order has been received.
I spoke to a woman that sounded apologetic about the problem, and again put me on hold while she checked to see why I hadn't been called back. She came back on the line and said the order was still being processed. I asked her why it was taking so long, and she said she would check with the appliance manager. And she put me on hold again.
And just as I get this message the woman comes back on the phone and tells me she has the appliance manager on the line. I informed her about the cancellation notice, and she says, "that's funny. It still shows that it is in progress." Like, "funny, haha?" She said, "are you sure you didn't cancel it?" Yep, I'm sure.
The Appliance manager comes on the line and gives me some far-fetched story about people are in the store putting the oven in their baskets and all that is left is a demo and one in a box. (In a box? So, why can't I have that one?) Nowhere in the ad does it says "supply limited; nowhere in the ad does it say "limit one". Also nowhere in the ad does it say anything about rain checks – positive and/or negative.
There is only one conclusion that I can draw from this experience: Frys is as guilty of a scam as some of the men that I talk to on my on-line dating sites. I placed the order in ample time to receive it; shipping was never available even though the ad said it was; it was a "come-on" to get you into the store. Well, it didn't work with this blond. I may pay $70 more with Amazon, but at least I know they will stand by their advertisements.
I doubt it's a scam. It's only a one day sale. What can you say, wrong place at the wrong time on seeing this ad.
I stopped shopping Frye's a long time ago for these very reasons. I agree that their ads are bait and switch. In my opinion, $70 is a small price to pay for avoiding the frustration and crowds.
Hope your Amazon microwave serves you well.
You're probably lucky you missed out – not only are their ads misleading, but they'll repackage and re-sell faulty consumer returns left and right without disclosure. I learned long ago from friends into building their own computers from individual components that Fry's is pretty much a grab bag, hence the dirt-cheap prices.
Actually, we have noticed the same thing and have been told by store employees that in most cases, the store may only get ONE of the advertised item, IF AT ALL. Apparently, according to them, not ALL stores carry or will get the advertised products. In some cases, some products, only a few stores in the entire country will get…maybe one. BUT the ads get people online and into the stores and they will most likely still choose a product from Fry's since they are there already. Crappy, but effective I guess.
You are probably right. But this time I didn't fall for it. Went ahead with my original order from Amazon. So I paid $70 more – but without the aggravation.
I agree. I recently received a promo code for an item, went to the store to buy and they don't have any. I guess it's easy to sell things at low prices when you don't have any to sell. This is an old auto sales tactic to get you into the store….bait and switch.
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Tea is the most consumed beverage in the world but do we really know how to optimize the flavor and the nutrients out of each brew? Black, herbal, white, green, and oolong all come from camellia sinensis and yet they require different brewing temperatures and times.
Why does green tea get all the hype... what about white tea?
Both green tea and white tea come from the same plant but white tea leaves are harvested at a younger age and are less processed than green tea. White tea is able to retain more antioxidants because it does not undergo fermentation. Personally, I love the taste of white tea because it's very subtle and mixes well with other herbs and spices.
Is it true that you don't get the jitters if you drink a lot of green tea compared to coffee?
Yes, green, black, and oolong teas all contain L-theonine which is an amino acid that is calming to the nervous system. L-theonine modifies the effect of caffeine promoting relaxation while creating alertness.