My lack of posting...

Is because life is just too hectic! Things should become more regular towards the end of the Summer...

It couldn't happen to a nicer person...

D'oh! Omar Bakri realising he's cocked up now...

It was with a delicious sense of irony that I heard that Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed is now festering in Lebanon, stuck between the rock of the Hizbollah/Israel confrontation and that hard place that is Syria, and that the UK will not be doing anything to help him escape. Ha ha ha!

7/7 - One Year On

I meant to put a little post about this up on Friday, however, was running around like a headless chicken closing a deal at work.

Although I did not have time to pop outside at noon Friday, I was able to observe the silence from my window, and to see thousands of people from neighbouring offices reflecting on the horrors of last year's attacks together.

It has surprised me just how quickly the last year has passed and, just how little has changed.

In fact, it seems to me that rather than stepping up our search for would-be terrorists, our politically correct media would have us fetter the Met in its dealings with terrorist suspects - how else can we explain the widespread media condemnation of the Met following the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, and the Forest Gate raid?

Don't get me wrong. The police have been given far ranging powers to fight terrorism, and these powers must be kept in check. If the police cock up, they must be held accountable and be prepared to explain what went wrong. However, should this accountability stretch so far so as to tie the hands of the people whom we have mandated to protect us?

Similarly, given that radical Islam is (self acclaimedly) responsible for creating a very real and serious terrorist threat, should we really be dancing attendance to the politically-correct brigade who say it is somehow racist to focus our attentions on our muslim communities? Much has been made in the media of the worsening attitudes of British muslims to the West (including, in the aftermath of 7/7 the fact that 6% of muslims questioned gave their support to the bombers). So far entrenched is the anti-West and victimhood culture within our muslim communities that it seems to me that instead of taking action to stamp out the sources of this resentment (whether by taking steps to help poor muslim communities or to encourage greater integration or by taking legal action against those who encourage terrorism) we are excusing it. Why is it that other than the very high profile trial of Abu Hamza, and his entirely deserved convictions for a raft of incitement-related offences, I have not seen a public crackdown on people who peddle these messages of hate?

Britain has always prided itself on its tolerance. However, it is this very tolerance which has allowed the muslim community to isolate itself from mainstream society in Britain, at the cost of the very all-inclusive society which we are trying to create.

So one year on from 7/7 our public transport system remains a sitting duck target, it's still ok to preach the destruction of the West and all the time our politicians and media continue to apologise to the muslim community for victimising them. Meanwhile, call me paranoid, but I change tube carriages every time I see a rucksack.

OK, so I am a fuddy duddy

So, I read in today's Telegraph that the French businessmen and politicians are abandoning the traditional "vous" form in favour of the less formal "tu". I notice that the DT's Leader bemoans this shift and indeed, voices a wish that English had a similar way of distinguishing between informal and formal second person addressees.

I would agree that we are in general becoming less formal to strangers. One of the manifestations of this I have noticed over the past year or so is people in call-centres calling me by my first name, without even asking me. Is it just me, or this really irritating? What's next? A telephone call to your bank is answered by "All right, love, Dave here. Oooh, didn't you spend a lot in Selfridges the other day?"

Outrageous.