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If you arrived here directly, then don't miss Holford Web Home of David's Mental Meanderings If you just want to find out who this strange bloke is, you'll need to go there as well. Your feedback about anything you read here is always welcome. Other blogs I enjoy reading: Doxos St. Stephen's Musings Robert's Cogitations This is Life Paradosis Natalie Solent Mere Comments Little Geneva Antioch Road The Edge of England's Sword flyingchair.net Samizdata Joshua Claybourn Between Heaven and Hell PC Watch Notes From a Hillside Farm Simeon's Hit and Miss of Filosofical Thought George Grant Lileks a conservative blog for peace You can also find me listed at Blogs4God Currently down from the bookshelf: Celtic Christianity in Early Medieval Wales: The Origins of the Welsh Spiritual Tradition by Oliver Davies Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium by Judith Herrin Recently finished: Give Me My Father's Body: The Life of Minik, The New York Eskimo by Kenn Harper John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel Lancaster & York: The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir Most recent acquisitions: John Major: The Autobiography Retreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics 1951-64 by Kevin Jefferys 
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Saturday, April 19, 2003
Another busy day, so not much time to blog. Sorry, campers. We went to see my father-in-law for an early celebration of his birthday. Aidie got Grampy a nice jumper (that's a sweater to the Americans out there) from Burton's. His mummy and daddy ordered something from Amazon, but it didn't manage to get here in time. This evening Mrs Holford wanted to rent a video. At her request, I obtained The Road to Perdition with Tom Hanks. I liked it and she didn't. I may review it here later, but it is too fresh to be objective. And I want to mention the link that Huw Raphael Richardson has include on his blog, Doxos. I especially wanted to mention it because he is the only person linking so far that has also mentioned the Mental Meanderings. Thanks Huw Raphael! For tomorrow I wish those in the Western churches a blessed and happy Easter, as those in the East observe Palm Sunday and the beginning to Holy Week. One day we may all celebrate the Paschal Feast of Feasts on the same day. Friday, April 18, 2003
What Local Councils are Good For When we moved house recently, we tried to find a public park near us. Not being familiar with the area, we rang the local council. No one there seemed to have a list of local parks. We were hoping to find a park better than the one across the street from our old flat. It had so many hypodermic needles and so much broken glass that we could let Aidie play. Mrs Holford remembered seeing a park not far from the Whitecross roundabout, so we went exploring and found it. It is not particular close to our current residence, but it has become our park. We took Aidie there today. There is a fenced in play area where he can run around freely. With him constantly getting into everything in the house, it is good to set him free to run off some energy. It is amazing how much energy can be trapped inside such a little body. Sometimes I think he is made out of the same stuff as those little superballs that we used to have � little rubber balls that seemed to bounce forever and in all directions. Aidan is all boy. The even at 15 months, he wants to do the slide himself. He doesn�t want interference in making sure he doesn�t flip out of the groove, even though one time he managed to turn himself from his seat to his belly on the way down. The swing is his favourite. He likes everything higher and faster. The wilder the ride, the harder he laughs. We remembered to take the digital camera with us on this trip to the park. I have posted the pictures on the Photos of Aidan page over on Holford Web. I even had to create a second photos page to fit everything. So thanks to Herefordshire Council for the park off Whitecross roundabout, even if they don�t know it exists. And now back to politics� If you only recently discovered these Daily Diversions, you might be surprised to learn that I don�t reserve all of my criticism for Tower Hamlets Council. In 1979 cousins Vincent and Michael Hickey were jailed for a murder they didn�t commit. It took until 1997 for the Court of Appeal to quash the convictions, so the Hickeys spent 18 years as tenants of HM Prison Service. Or at least that�s how the Home Office sees it. When Vince and Mike, now 48 and 41 years old respectively, were awarded compensation for the inconvenience of losing the prime of their lives, the Home Office (the UK department responsible for criminal justice) deducted �60,000 for room and board. I know you think I must be joking. Surely this is unthinkable. Surely the Government wouldn�t be a crass as this. This is the same Government that initially demanded repayment of 10 days pay from an Army widow after her husband was killed in the Gulf, because they took too long to identify his body and therefore didn�t stop his weekly salary from going into his bank account. (The Government changed its tune after the Leader of the Opposition brought it up at Prime Minister�s Questions in the House of Common.) But back to the Home Office. You might want to think that the Hickeys� situation was unique. No. Michael O�Brien from Cardiff was jailed for 11 years before his conviction was quashed. The Home Office reduced his compensation by �37,000 to pay for his keep. Fortunately, Mr Justice Maurice Kay determined that this sort of thing is, in typical British understatement, a �misdirection as to the common law�. Thursday, April 17, 2003
We�ve now had a link to the hot cross bun controversy from David Kenner at An Age Like This. If you have linked to this story on your website or blog, please let me know. As I mentioned yesterday, the Holford family took a day trip to Gloucester, about 40 miles from Hereford. Warm sunny days with temperature at or near 80 degrees are not common in this country. In mid-April they are even rarer. If in choosing a destination you are looking for a locality that is easy to navigate, then Gloucester is not for you. The city has many charms, but ease of access is not one of them. Getting to the city centre required a certain amount of fortitude, as it is a risky business rapidly crossing multiple lanes of traffic to get to the correct successive forks in the road. The city centre parking is all owned by NCP, a large national car park company. Unless you are a cripple, you are out of luck. NCP does not operate any sort of concessionary scheme (as local government car parks do), but with my trusty blue badge, I found street parking. Free parking is not worth losing a leg, but it is one of the small advantages I have. Those of you who know me know that I find it easier to make life changing decisions than to pick a restaurant or a subsequent menu item. We ended up at the Fountain Inn for lunch, more than anything because it was at the end of the street. The pub dates from sometime around the 14th or 15th century. I read it on the board outside and assumed they would say something about the history on the website so I wouldn�t have to remember. They don�t. Eating in a traditional English pub, you�d expect we�d have traditional English fare. Mrs Holford had the chicken fajitas. I had the beef. Fajitas, of course. They didn�t do a bad job for Brits, except that they forgot to cook some of the beef. I distinctly heard a mooing sound when I stabbed it with my fork, so I sent it back. The portions were large though. As Mrs Holford is quite the fan of Beatrix Potter, she wanted to visit the House of the Tailor of Gloucester. Just before we reached it down the narrow College Court, we stopped at a fudge shop. It�s not the sort of place easily passed. We managed to get out with just a piece of banoffee and a piece of lemon cheesecake. Fudge, of course. Very good fudge. The House of the Tailor of Gloucester is the actual shop originally sketched by Beatrix Potter and used as the setting for the eponymous story published in 1903. The downstairs is a shop and for the modest sum of �1, the upstairs is a little museum with displays based around the tale. It�s all quite well done, really. Though Mrs Holford has purchased all manner of Beatrix Potter books and related merchandise for Aidan, he didn�t seem particularly impressed with the museum. That�s okay, though. Children under 12 can be bored for free. College Court is right next to the Cathedral, so we thought we would drop in there for a moment, for me to see all the important dead people and for the Mrs to use the loo. We were stopped at the front door by an imposing nice man who informed us that the cathedral was closed in preparation for the arrival of the Queen for the Maundy Thursday service. Oh well� After Kelly less sanctified facilities, we stopped by a used bookstore. The last time we spent the day in the Gloucester city centre, back in the summer of 1998, I bought a book (John Davies� History of Wales), so I thought I should keep the tradition alive. I picked up a large collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, translated and edited by S.A.J. Bradley, and The Middle East: 2000 Years of History from the Rise of Christianity to the Present Day by Bernard Lewis. Not bad for �8. I hope you found this a refreshing break from the political controversies of late. But don�t worry, I�ll be back with more stories of government insanity tomorrow. Wednesday, April 16, 2003
I had hoped to just write today about our family outing to Gloucester. We had a lovely day. Maybe I will tell you about it tomorrow. But there�s just too much to say about Tower Hamlets Council and the Hot Cross Buns story. First I want to thank Iain Murray of The Edge of England�s Sword for his comments on my stand with this story. Check out his story posted at 10:48 today. He�s harder on Tower Hamlets than I am! I also want to thank Phil Ingram at flyingchair.net for linking to it as well. I also want to thank my web hosts for refusing to pull down my website when Tower Hamlets contacted them and had the audacity to tell them that it contained material which is contrary to British law. I believe my hosts informed them that as they are situated in the United States, Tower Hamlets could sod off. I�ve updated the original story to include Tower Hamlets� press release on the matter. I had so much fun with it that I have included it here for you. I hesitate to publish it, for fear that you might think I�ve somehow given in to them. Apparently, the existence of this piece will incite racial hatred in East London. Now my traffic stats would indicate that about the only people in East London reading David's Daily Diversions are apparatchiks of the Tower Hamlets Council. Now you do the math: if it will incite racial unrest and the only people reading it are with the Council, it sounds like the Council has plenty of internal problems to sort out without harassing people like me. As I have explained in my further story on this, I'm not removing what I have written. In the spirit of fair play, however, I am willing to append hereto the official press release from Tower Hamlets. Of course, as with any governmental statement, I reserve the right to comment upon it. So feel free to read the press release, giving it the same credibility you would give anything emanating from government sources in general and Tower Hamlets in particular: "Response to Sunday Telegraph article, 16.3.03 "In response to the article concerning Hot Cross Buns (pg 11) in the above newspaper: Tower Hamlets Council would like to make it clear that it has never ordered schools not to serve hot cross buns at Easter. This allegation is entirely without foundation. "In addition: "2. However, the Local Education Authority is not in a position to order any school on its religious requirements for food. That is a decision to be taken by each school. "3. The Council respects each school's choice as to whether it takes part in any marketing event regarding school catering. "4. All schools in the borough were given the option of whether they wanted pancakes to be provided on pancake day and we supplied pancakes to all schools that requested them. We are unaware of any complaints. "5. Tower Hamlets Council celebrates the rich cultural diversity of its community and the benefits that this brings. First of all let's cut the crap. Paragraphs 1 and 5 are irrelevant. Nothing wrong with them, but they have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the article in the Telegraph. Of course only a Liberal Democrat-controlled council could make perfectly legitimate statement sound like they don't actually stand for anything. According to paragraph 3, the serving of hot cross buns is a marketing event??? And most of paragraph 4 is again irrelevant. Neither the Sunday Telegraph nor I suggested that schools weren't given the option to serve pancakes. But paragraph 4 seems to taint the truthfulness of paragraph 2. If the LEA is not in a position to order, what is it doing giving options? So you decide. Which is more credible, the Sunday Telegraph or Tower Hamlets Council? Tuesday, April 15, 2003
First of all, I want to extend thanks to veteran blogger Natalie Solent for linking to and commenting upon yesterday�s Daily Diversion. She also posted it Samizdata. Even if she hadn�t, I would recommend both blogs to you. Keeping on our theme of what is and isn�t inciting racial hatred, if you are in the UK, you may have seen the rather shocking story of Sir Iain Noble. Sir Iain owns a merchant bank and an estate on the very beautiful Isle of Skye. In a speech to the Scottish Countryside Alliance, Sir Iain called himself a �racialist�. To clarify this, he said �It doesn�t mean that I don�t like foreigners. I love them, all colours. I have many Indian friends and even one or two black ones. But I don�t want them to settle and create ghettoes in my patch.� This is apparently because he believes there is some sort of genetic purity to be preserved by Scots. He tried to analogise efforts by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), the Government�s environment body, to ensure that trees were grown from local seeds. Digging himself further in a hole, he said, �I don�t have any English blood in my veins, a thing of which I am inordinately proud. I�m sure SNH would be pleased as well because they believe in purity of species.� But, by golly, I bet even has even one or two English friends. He hasn�t made any in the SNH office, of course. But let�s pause for a moment on this whole idea of racial purity. First of all, the whole concept of race is fuzzy at best. But how did the Scots become a race? This is a term that has lost any meaning whatsoever, so it is trotted out to mean anything whatsoever. This even true of the Race Relations Act, as mentioned yesterday. In declining to withdraw his comments, Sir Iain tried to explain, �I am not a racist in the sense of disliking people. I just don�t believe that ancient civilisations should be destroyed by aliens.� So the Scots are a race in the sense that they are an �ancient civilisation�? What does he mean by ancient? Surely he doesn�t refer to that epoch that historians generally term �ancient�, generally accepted in the West as anything before the fall of the Roman Empire. Who does he think was in Scotland then? In fact, it was around this time that the first of some Irish immigrants began disrupting the local Britons (ancestors of the Welsh) and Picts. Those foreigners were called the Scots. They created their first ghettos in the Kintyre peninsula. They kept their own language and generally made a nuisance of themselves. But wouldn�t you know it: they started mixing the other groups and lost their �purity�. Eventually one of their tribal leaders, Kenneth MacAlpin managed to get himself made ruler over the Scots and Picts and northern Britons, and everyone got amalgamated into the term Scot. This was true of the Scandinavians who invaded a couple of centuries later. And I hope that Sir Iain isn�t descended from any of the great Scottish noble families of the Middle Ages. They were all Anglo-Norman interlopers, after all. Methinks Sir Iain�s pure Scotland really means Scotland before predominantly 20th century immigration to the UK from Africa and Asia. Scotland before some of the people looked different enough from him that he could tell. But this is just another chapter in the long and continuous history of immigration into Scotland. So where does his pure Scottish blood come from? Well, our friends at the Telegraph have at least part of the answer: �Sir Iain may not have any English blood. But it turns out that his maternal grandfather was Johan Michelet of the Norwegian Diplomatic Service, while his grandmother, Amie Grogan, hailed from County Dublin. �Sir Iain himself was born in Germany and educated in England, Argentina and China. His family's fortune was made in England, at the Vickers-Armstrong armaments factory. If he obeys his own rules on local seed, Sir Iain will be on the next ferry to leave Skye.� By the way, since Tower Hamlets Council is careful to accommodate all ethnic groups and their celebrations, I hope they didn�t forget to serve haggis on Burns Day. Monday, April 14, 2003
Very Cross Councils So Sue Me If you have been a reader of David�s Daily Diversions from the beginning, you will remember the write up about certain local councils banning hot cross buns on school menus. On the 2 April, I received a threat from Tower Hamlets Council "requesting the immediate removal of the article (and any related response(s)/commentary) from the www.holford.org.uk web site and a correction with the same prominence given to the original comments." Like Pontius Pilate, what I have written I have written, though I have appended a note which will eventually link to this after it is archived and has a fixed URL. I am happy to provide a correction with the same prominence given the original. In fact, I hope it even gets more prominence. Tower Hamlets alleges that the basis of my piece �is an article on page 11 of the March 16th 2003 edition of British newspaper the Sunday Telegraph, entitled "Hot cross banned: councils decree buns could be 'offensive' to non-Christians".� Well, they are half-right. I originally found it in the March 17th 2003 edition of The Times. I also found a related op/ed piece by Mick Hume . It was only after this that I found the original Sunday Telegraph piece. I would have written something based on The Times, had I not found the Sunday Telegraph. Of course my article could have been based on a half-page in The Sun. It was soon all over the web. It seems there was a general capitulation when the Guardian published an article in which all of the councils in question denied ever banning the buns, or even having the power to ban the buns. Well, I�m not one so easily swayed, especially after I spoke to the legal department of the Sunday Telegraph and found out their reporter was sticking by his story. If I have to choose between believing something in the Guardian and something in the Sunday Telegraph, I pretty much pick the Sunday Telegraph every time. The council insisted to me, �The article was wrong and is without merit or foundation.� Further they said �The council has written to the Sunday Telegraph to demand a retraction and an apology and questioned the veracity of their quotes.� Well, it took several weeks, but the Sunday Telegraph finally published this on April 13th: "Hot cross buns "After our article "Hot cross banned: councils decree buns could be 'offensive' to non-Christians" (March 16) the councils concerned - Tower Hamlets, Liverpool, York, Wolverhampton, Wakefield and Birmingham - have asked us to point out that none of them has an official policy on hot cross buns and that their councillors have never discussed banning hot cross buns, nor have they ever instructed council caterers not to serve hot cross buns in schools. "Where council catering managers were quoted as saying that hot cross buns were not being served, for whatever reason, this was not as a consequence of any council policy. "We apologise for any confusion." The apology affirms a lot more truth than the councils in question would like. The Sunday Telegraph is sticking by the quotes. There may be a question of what is council policy, but there is no retraction that the statements were made by employees of the councils who were the actual people in charge of serving or not serving hot cross buns. So Prosecute Me But this isn�t the best bit. The most outrageous bit. Tower Hamlets actually threatened me with criminal prosecution for commenting on news published in the Telegraph, Times, Sun, et al. Criminal prosecution. They said, �We believe that the continued existence of the comment piece on your website has the potential to incite racial hatred, especially during these very sensitive times.� That�s right, incitement of racial hatred. Not a tort. A crime. The only hatred that might be incited over my article is the hatred of local councils. Last time I checked, local councils do not constitute a race, even under the broad definition of this as �race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin� in the Race Relations Act 1976, as amended by the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000. And not once in the article did I say anything negative about any group, whether or not they could be classified as covered by the act. In fact, the only group mentioned of which I am not a part (other than council officials of whatever level) were Muslims. I gave the Muslim quotes from the story lots of space. Why? Because they agreed with me. I hope this has been enough prominence for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. For the time being, anyway. If they want prominence so bad that they threaten to sue me or prosecute me, I�m happy to oblige. I�m sure there is a lot more that I can say about Tower Hamlets. And don�t worry: I�ll get all my facts straight. |