Lycraphobia

There's no doubt about it, cycling is a healthy sport, good for non impact muscle development and cardiovascular stimulation. However it seems some people do not wish to cycle as they do not want to appear weird...
Telegraph.

The fear or seeming “weird” is putting people off cycling to work, an academic study has found.

A three year research project has discovered that not fitting in, alongside “squashed helmet hair” and turning up “hot and sweaty” for meetings are the biggest deterrents for using a bike to commute.
Successive Governments have invested £150 million to promote cycling as an environmentally friendly way of travelling.
But there appears to be a long way to go before the public is convinced, according to the study funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
“I get called the bag lady, because I walk everywhere and I have quite a lot of stuff with me,” said Steph, a respondent from Leeds.
Lara, also from Leeds, complained: The helmet is a problem for me, because I just think it would make my hair a little squashed.” 

Meanwhile Joe from Leicester added: “I probably would cycle if I didn’t worry so much about image and public opinion – me arriving at a meeting hot and sweaty.”
Sally from Worcester observed: “You do get a sense of some people thinking oh, you’re a bit weird because you’re going up on the bike you know. A bit odd.”

And these are all valid points save perhaps for the turning up on a bike being weird. We have a number of guys here cycle to work, oddly enough though none of them are office staff, I rather suspect turning up to work in the office sweating buckets is somehow frowned upon, though there are shower facilities available, but then you have all the extra gear to carry and it just seems like you're doing your morning ablutions all over again. And helmet head is definitely not something a fashion conscious lady really wants to contemplate either.
So essentially the government is wasting £150 million of our money trying to get people to do what they just don't see the point of, cycling for pleasure, yes, cycling to work with a full shift ahead of you? No.
I can't see this changing a great deal in the future either, cars are just too handy if you want to turn up smart.

 

At least they tried

Muslims against crusades came specifically to the USA embassy to cause a scene and celebrate the deaths of over 3000 people. That they managed to burn a Stars and Stripes Flag is their right and I don't have a problem with that. What I do object too is that the powers that be in this country have taken away their right to face the consequences of this act. The EDL attempted to stop this by occupying the demonstration site, they were served with section 14 notices and forced to move aside whilst these ranting fanatics went about their business of shaming themselves and their religion.

Image courtesy of rupertyevelyn at yfrog

Others were there to counter-protest as well, but only the EDL actually tried to prevent the MAC scum from their shameful act.
Credit where credit is due.

Nearly 400 EDL and Casuals at the US Embassy now. MAC disrupted the minutes silence and have been burning flags.
Luke

We will remember, we wont forgive, nor will we forget.

Breaking, 2 EDL stabbed in a London Weatherspoon pub after it was invaded by 8 Islamic knife wielding cowards.
Story is still breaking, but like the bus beating up of the young lady it rather looks like the police arrested 20 EDL, though there are unconfirmed reports of 2 MAC supporters being arrested too.
UPDATE
Both lads are ok and one of the EDL Angels filmed the stabbing so they will get nicked happy days

I don't think this will work the way they expect

Kudos to the judge who decided to send Munir Farooqi to jail for recruiting jihadi's with a cumulative set of 4 life sentences, but there's a bit of a flaw in the reasoning that I can see here unless they decide that Munir Farooqi is going to be kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his sentence.
Telegraph.

A former Taliban fighter who ran a ''recruitment centre'' in Manchester for extremist Muslims to go to Afghanistan to kill British troops was today jailed for life. 

Pakistani-born British citizen Munir Farooqi, 54, was at the centre of a plot to radicalise and persuade vulnerable young men to ''fight, kill and die'' in a jihad in Afghanistan, Manchester Crown Court heard.

Farooqi, of Victoria Terrace, Longsight, Manchester, and two others were captured in a police sting when two undercover anti-terrorism police officers infiltrated his group.

Farooqi bragged to the officers how he had fought with the Taliban and told them they could become ''martyrs'' for the jihad cause.

He also found ''amusement'' in the sight of the flag draped coffins of fallen allied troops returning from Afghanistan, the court heard.

Today Farooqi was given four life sentences and told he must serve a minimum of nine years before he can be considered for parole.

Ok, once you get past the idiocy of giving someone 4 life sentences and then stating he must serve at least 9 years before becoming eligible for parole you can guess what's going to happen once Farooqi finally gets settled into the system. He's going to start recruiting new convert jihadi's, it's what he does and prisons have a problem with Muslm extremists.
Sunday Mercury.

Amid the forests and foliage of leafy Littleton sits the forbidding fortress of HMP Long Lartin, where some of the world’s most dangerous Islamic extremists swap stories, prayers and even plots.
New research from inside the lock-up’s specialist terror suspect unit suggests that regular inmates are being converted to radical Islam by the dangerous militants who are allowed to mix with other lags – and even lead prayers.
Fanatics inside the Worcestershire prison include Mohammed Hamid, 51, dubbed Osama Bin London, who encouraged teenagers to become suicide bombers during camping trips in the Lake District.

Among his cellmates are Adel Abdel Bary, an Egyptian linked to Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman Al-Zawihiri, who is fighting extradition to the US for the 1998 African embassy bombings which killed more than 200 people.
Mustapha Taleb, a disciple of hook-handed terror preacher Abu Hamza, kept a prison diary about how ordinary Muslim prisoners initially avoided extremists during his time inside Long Lartin.
“When we came here first, it was harsh, harsh treatment and harsh life,’’ he said. ‘‘Even the prisoners were like scared of us, because the system here told them that these people are very dangerous, you can’t mix with them.”
But ordinary Muslims’ initial fear of the detainees soon evaporated.
“With the brothers here, our Muslim brothers in the prison, it’s OK, it is as God wills it,” Taleb wrote. “There is some kind of harmony, connection between brothers in here, praise be to God.”
They have access to controversial Islamic texts, with terror detainee Barbar Ahmad writing in a blog from his cell that: “I understand now why prison is known as the University of Islamic Knowledge.”
They are reportedly allowed to share meals, and even lead prayers with other prisoners, raising fears that radicalisation could spread to other Muslims and even non-Muslim converts.

Why do I have the feeling that we're setting the cat amongst the pigeons here and prison is the last place we want to be sending this guy? Personally I think a parachute and just the clothing he's wearing along with a plane trip over central Afghanistan is the perfect solution for Farooqi seeing as he's so enamoured of the place, if we want to be really cruel we could always shave the beard and tattoo I love Israel  to his forehead in the local dialect.
Yes I know it would breach his human rights, but I'm having a hard job regarding jihadi's and their recruiters as actually being human at the moment, something Islam at its most extreme seems to strip away from ordinary people.
What appears to have happened looks just a bit like giving a fox the keys to the henhouse.

Waiting for our own Oskar Freysinger

 Or Geert Wilders come to that



The man makes a lot of sense, yet the one thing noticeable about UK politics is the notable lack of anyone prepared in politics to actually say how it is to the ordinary people on the street.
Even the 2 party system we have is more or less designed to keep things the way they always have been, maintain the status quo. To get to the top is impossible for a maverick or personality as the compromises they have to make just leave us with recently a succession of interchangeable clones. Those who don't or can't play the game by the rules are destined to fail, just ask Gordon Brown, not that succeeding would have made him any more popular, but he might have lasted longer.
Yet when you hear what Freysinger has to say, it strikes a chord in many of the people who read it and you know that if we had a UK version he would be instantly shunned by the media and written off for not playing by the rules (as the left see it) yet like Pat Condell and others he would probably be very popular with the masses.
It's a shame the system we have turns out politicians rather than people who believe in doing what's right.

Doing what our parents did

Long, long ago back in the days of my youth people were very very careful with their money and what they would spend it on. There was little or no credit as such, occasional store "tick" but that was often measured in weeks not years like today's credit cards, there were also savings schemes like the Co-op "Divi"
Thing was people were very careful with their money as they knew that if it ran out, well you went hungry till you got paid, gardens were for vegetables mostly and anyone who had a allotment was envied.
Seems people though are heading back to those days...
Telegraph.

Shoppers are becoming increasingly "professional" as a result of the lowest consumer confidence in a generation, according to the head of Morrisons. 

Dalton Philips, the chief executive of the country's fourth biggest supermarket group, said: "We're seeing it across the country: the phenomenon of checking all the prices, of leaving the credit card at home, of being very savvy about what they are buying, buying in bulk packs and splitting the packs with friends or freezing. This professional approach to shopping, this rigour will continue long after the recession, I think. Grocery shopping is the biggest bill after your mortgage, after all."

The company said that 51pc of its customers were now checking the price of every single item before they put it in their basket, and that spending on credit cards had fallen by 8pc over the last six months, while spend on debit cards had increased by 4pc.

Its bleak assessment of the consumer economy came as it reported a strong set of figures, at the top end of analysts' expectations. Like-for-like sales increased by 2.2pc and the company claimed it was the only one of the big four supermarket groups to be gaining market share, with an extra 400,000 customers a week visiting its shops, taking the weekly total to 11.5m shoppers.

"We're encouraged by these results. It is especially encouraging that we delivered these results at a time when the economy is having such a pronounced impact on consumers. The last three years have seen the largest drop in spending power since 1980 to 1983. We are also hearing concern from our customers that there seems no end in sight. Consumer confidence is almost as low as it has ever been," Mr Philips said.

 I have to admit that the QM extended household do this sort of thing with buying in bulk and splitting the packs amongst the family. We also use our mobiles when at farmers markets and occasionally boot sales, though this is more down to the ladies being jigsaw fanatics.
People are learning the old lessons of not spending what you don't have again, often enough using the credit cards only for emergencies and setting out a fixed budget for food rent/mortgage, power, transport etc and sticking to it as their actual spending power has been reduced by price rises coupled with no real term wage increases.
Hard times in old England? Well not so much, we're still immeasurably better off than previous generations, though it's debatable whether we're happier or have more in the way of spare cash in our pockets at the end of the day. My Dad could easily afford to take himself and his 2 sons to the football on Saturday and go out drinking on Saturday night, I can't, I have to be a lot more careful with my spare cash in that sense, though I have a great deal more choice on where to spend it.
I expect a lot more families are now in the same boat, becoming more careful on where we spend what spare cash we have, we aren't poverty stricken by any means, just more choosy as and how we spend it. I don't expect this to change any time soon, if anything it will get worse as belts are tightened and prices rise.

Bet they're faked (not)

I'm not a great one for conspiracy theories, in the end it always seems to be that people can always find some evidence to prove what they want to believe no matter what. The Twin Towers attack is one of those with people constantly coming up with "proof" that it was a controlled detonation or the panes were added to the films after or even it was the wrong sort of plane.
The Moon landings are another case in point, with accusations that they all took place on a massive sound stage, that the flag waved in the breeze when a door was opened, all foundering on the simple fact that if it was a conspiracy, it would have involved hundreds of people and not one has ever come forward to admit it, ever.
Mail.
For many it is one of the human race’s greatest achievements - but ever since that first ‘giant leap for mankind’ there are some who have questioned whether man really did land on the moon.
Now, though, there’s photographic evidence so powerful that even the most hardened sceptics should be persuaded that we really did touch down on the lunar surface.
Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO) has taken new photographs of the surface that clearly show astronaut footprints, the lunar rover and spacecraft scorch marks.

I don't doubt for a second someone will be along in a minute or two to tell us these pics are fakes, though to my mind, the USA's crowning scientific achievement has always been its lunar landing program. I listened to it back in 1969 with most of the rest of the world and was thrilled by it as much as I expect any American was too. Why some people had to try and spoil it I don't know, but the rumours were always persistant if having little or no evidence to back it up. Even the flag in the breeze was explained

Still, I was pleased to see the pics, they proved to me at least that something I felt was right is actually right.

Good for him

Normally I don't like the compo culture as the people most often getting hit by it are the general public as sooner or later it leads to higher taxes, premiums or prices as the people paying out seek to recoup their losses. However I'm all for people having the right to sue over someone or some organisation not doing their jobs properly.
Telegraph.

A driver whose car was damaged by potholes in Coventry has won a payout of £2,000 after taking the city council to court. 

Hamilton Bland took on the authority after it refused to compensate him for the damage to his Mercedes.

The damaged was sustained during the city's winter roads crisis in January 2010 when hundreds of new potholes appeared after freezing weather.

The 68-year-old former BBC sports commentator hopes his case may pave the way for other people to take legal action.

He took his claim to Coventry County Court after the council said it wasn't to blame.

Mr Bland argued the impact of hitting two potholes was severe, causing damage to three of the wheels on his Mercedes while he was on his way to a leisure centre for a swim.

There is a little bit more to this case in which it turns out the council had been neglecting the roads as they'd ran out of money, no doubt having to pay for all those diversity co-ordinators, chief executives and translation services. But Coventry were caught out by the fact that  Hamilton Bland simply wasn't going to take "It wasn't our fault" as an acceptable answer. If only because looking after the roads is the responsibility of Coventry Council.
This is a fundamental issue that a lot of councils have lost track of in that most people only want them to empty the bins, light the streets, trim the grass in the parks and fix the roads when they get potholes. What most people do not want their councils doing is pandering to immigrants (translation and housing) paying themselves over the odds, telling us how great they are via a printed paper and ignoring our questions when we do write to them or fobbing us off.
Yes I know councils have to deal with a lot of other stuff, but they should never forget the basics and that's exactly what Coventry Council did. Shame that it wont come out of the pockets of the councillors or the executive.

The moral bankruptcy of the left

The depths to which the left sinks when dealing with anything it doesn't understand or fears can never be underestimated.




Here we have an utter slimeball UAF mong describing an attack on a young female who had fallen off a coach carrying EDL patriots that had been attacked and clearly gloating about the violence and thuggery on display.



The attack on the coach.

The attack on the woman who had her jaw fractured but is now out of hospital.

The police? Well they arrested everyone on the coach (though not the young woman)
Fortunately the video shows despite some ludicrous claims by various Leftist and Muslim groups that the EDL had provoked the attack just exactly who the barbarians in our society are, and they aren't the EDL. You can imagine the headlines if the EDL attacked a coach of Islamists, the front page wouldn't be big enough.

Parish notice

Owing to illness in the family and other stressful events, I've had to find a new home with a loving family for my dog Coal as he wasn't getting the attention he really deserved.
It hurts a lot, but it's for the best.
I'm going to drink a lot now, normal service will resume tomorrow.

They came, they saw they did a little shopping (not really)

The EDL went into Tower Hamlets today, no real trouble, no rioting (yet) and at the time of writing this had peacefully left the area and for some reason are now kettled on London Bridge (no I don't know why either)
BBC.

The English Defence League (EDL) are protesting in east London - despite a ban on marches in six London boroughs.

Several hundred protesters were outside Liverpool Street Station, a BBC reporter said. Police were escorting them towards Aldgate High Street.

BBC London's Paraic O'Brien said the atmosphere was rowdy, with a lot of shouting and incendiary chants.

There have been no clashes with rival activists. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said it was "very quiet".

Earlier police said a group of EDL supporters had gathered outside King's Cross Station with another 500 protesters in Whitechapel.

Far be it from me to cast doubts over the numbers the police are giving out, but at least 500 were in Covent gardens, 1000 at Kings Cross, and 300 at Liverpool Street and that was at 1pm an hour before they were due to be escorted to the demo site. Overall estimates put EDL numbers at about 2,000 and no trouble other than a police attempt to arrest "Tommy Robinson" after his speech. As far as my sources can tell, there were only 4 arrests.

The activists are supposedly prevented from chanting or waving their flags while walking as that would constitute a march.

O'Brien confirmed the protest was on the move through Aldgate High Street at the behest of police and there was chanting.

I don't know who thought that banning the EDL from chanting or flying their banners would work (higher plod probably), the EDL had already said if any attempt was made to stop them then they'd return on the 22nd of October ater the ban had been suspended. Fortunately the police on the ground have far more sympathy with the EDL than the political officers running the various forces.

Twitter:
Overheard in Brick Lane, copper: "The #EDL have done what they were told, it's you lot that haven't." 

Yes, the UAF idiots and assorted Muslims who were foolish enough to believe the propaganda the UAF put out proved incapable of behaving themselves yet again.
Despite the claims that there would be violence, there was none, what happens after the EDL have left is none of our concern.
Update, apparently there was talk that the EDL didn't make it actually into Tower Hamlets, though we do have pics of a bride crossing in front of the demo in Alie Street, Tower Hamlets, also at 7pm members of the EDL were still at Mile End right in the heart of Tower Hamlets.

Interfering with a democratic right

It's a democratic right to protest in this country as it's a democratic right to counterprotest. It's not however a democratic right to march as the idiots in the UAF found out when they called on the home secretary to ban the EDL march in Tower Hamlets and subsequently found their march banned as well. However the anti-democratic antics of the left have gone much further and their fantasy world where everyone "must" oppose the "knuckle dragging fascist/racist EDL" (their view, no-one else's) in that they have managed to secure funding and other aid from trade unions despite the fact this isn't an employment issue.
The Londonist.

Opposition groups including Unite Against Fascism are organising a counter demonstration Their website reported that the RMT had threatened to stop work on health and safety grounds if a planned muster at Liverpool Street station went ahead, which has to be one of the few occasions when Londoners might actually support a walkout. They are also calling on two Euston pubs to stop EDL members using their premises as meeting points.

I very much doubt other than in the fantasy world that much of the left inhabits that any Londoners would welcome the communist lead RMT calling a strike or a walkout on a busy Saturday in London, it really shows how much out of touch they are from reality to even express such views. I can't help wondering if the RMT remember just who set off the tube bombs and yet they have their leadership trying to stop those who seek a solution to the problem as opposed to just appeasing the problem. As it is, the EDL are not using Liverpool Street (it doesn't seem to have occurred to the imbecile left that the EDL will be coming from all over the place in all directions), nor are they using pubs in Euston, still it's typical of the left to try and deny struggling pub owners the right to make money hand over fist in these hard times.

The far-right group originally intended to march through the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Newham, Islington and Hackney but a 30-day ban was imposed after an appeal from the Metropolitan Police over public order concerns.

No they didn't that route is sheer guesswork from you, simply setting out the areas in which the ban is in force.

The decision to ban the march has been criticised by freedom of speech campaigners – Liberty’s legal director James Welch said:

‘The police and home secretary must realise how serious it is to ban marches in a free country.’

The Met points out that it wasn’t an easy decision to make:

‘We have not sought this power since 1981 – which shows how we do not take this lightly. As far as Saturday is concerned, both parties have requested a static demonstration and we will be negotiating with them suitable locations with the aim of minimising disorder.’

Yet the EDL would not have been the ones causing the trouble, it's the opposition to the EDL who cause the trouble by stirring up hatred and suspicion within the communities where the EDL intend to march. Police officers have admitted that the EDL are disciplined and obey instructions unlike the UAF and other groups who oppose the EDL and only come for a fight.
I'll leave the final word to the EDL though...

‘Placing a ban on the EDL march gives out completely the wrong message. It suggests that it is the EDL, and not the extremism that we demonstrate about, which needs to be kept in check.’

I'm sorry? Whose fault was it?

I blame the government for lots of things, mostly because they interfere when they shouldn't and act like kiddies in a sweetshop when it comes to spending taxpayers money. What I wouldn't do is blame them for not doing something which wasn't their concern in the first place.
BBC.

A couple held captive by Somali pirates for more than a year have criticised the British government in a book, for failing to support their family.

Paul and Rachel Chandler, formerly of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, but who now live in Devon, said assistance offered to relatives had been "derisory".

The couple's ordeal began when their yacht was seized in October 2009.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said it had been in "constant touch" with relatives.

The Chandlers, who now live in Dartmouth, make their claims in a book documenting their 388-day kidnap.

It wasn't the British governments fault that those two idiots decided to sail in pirate infested waters, though I do believe that the government could have dusted off the old rules of conduct when dealing with piracy and wiped them out if they caught them.
Nor was it the governments job to look after the families of the two idiots other than to give them updates if anything was happening, which is what appears to have happened.
It should not be the job of any government to support families other than the normal means of support as provided by the state, even that I have railed against when it moves from support to pampering.

A spokesman for the FCO said: "Throughout Paul and Rachel Chandler's ordeal, a dedicated team from across the region and in the UK did everything we could to secure the couple's safe release. 

"HMG's policy is long-standing and well-known - we do not make or facilitate ransom payments."

As it should be, nothing more should be allowed or required. If you go sailing into dangerous waters, you only have yourself to blame if you get kidnapped and it isn't the duty of the government to look after your family in any special way if you do get captured. Keep them informed, yes, attempt to secure your release, yes. Offer your family counselling, tea and sympathy, no.