The Washington Post reports on how the British Army are truly getting to grips with the concept of asymmetrical warfare:
British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border
Hmmm. Surely the British can’t be trying to overthrow the Iraqi government already?
Earlier this week, I brought you the alarming news that cows had armed themselves, to fight for bovine freedom.
Today, from my home county of Somerset, comes the alarming news that cows are developing their own unique regional accents:
Farmer Lloyd Green of Glastonbury, one of the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers, said: “I spend a lot of time with my ones and they definitely moo with a Somerset drawl.
Clearly this demonstrates that cows are on the verge of developing identity politics. The outcome is now certain – the once unified cow camp will rapidly descend into inter-bovine conflict, the horrors of which we can scarcely imagine.
Maaaar!
Sir Ian Blair, head of the Metropolitan Police, explains just how safe London has become under his watch:
“People are opening their doors, leaving their doors open now, or leaving them unlocked, certainly, in a way they haven’t done for 25 years.”
I live in London, and I can confirm, for the record, that I continue to lock my door at night in a way that many Londoners have been doing for many a year. There’s a little handle thing on the door – I turn it to the left until I hear a click.
Then I rest, my sleep disturbed only by the wailing of police sirens.
The Guardian, in it’s Leader comment, implies that disputed sporting decisions make terrorists:
[The decision to abandon the England vs Pakistan cricket match] turned an incident that could have been resolved into a childish and destructive stand-off. The dispute was not between England and Pakistan, which may allow the forthcoming one day series to continue. But it can only fuel the alienation felt by some British Muslims at a time of great strain.
I don’t know what they were smoking at Guardian HQ, but I want some.
As the Test match between England and Pakistan is abandoned amid acrimony, Guardian sports columnist Mike Selvey displays some spectacularly poor judgement as he raises the finger of blame straight at the two umpires:
That an international match of such profile can be terminated simply because two officials have had their integrity questioned – for that is what we are talking about here – is a disgrace to the game.
The reaching of such a sorry state of affairs is the fault neither of England nor Pakistan.
I don’t know if Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove were correct when the awarded a 5 run penalty against Pakistan for ball tampering. But, if Pakistan really felt hard done by, they should have appealed the 5-run penalty to the match referee. It’s a relatively trivial amount of runs in the context of the game, and the decision could have comfortably been overturned at the end of the days play, had it been judged that the umpires’ decision was incorrect. This incident did, after all, only take place on the fourth day of five.
(To my American readers – yes, cricket games really do go on that long. And, yes, they are often drawn at the end of those five days).
But I am certain that they did the right thing in awarding the game to England when the Pakistan team refused to come out of their dressing room to resume the game.
Simply refusing to play the game is not the way to address any dispute. Imgaine if, in the World Cup final, France had refused to continue playing after Zidane was sent off. The press would have – rightly – had a field day, and France would have been thrown out of the tournament.
The ICC must back the umpires and their decision to the hilt. Anything less would damage the integrity of the game, by sending a message that Umpires decisions are not final, and that throwing temper tantrums is the only way to get ahead in the byzantine world of international cricket.
Update: Woohoo! I’ve been quoted by the BBC!
If you’ve come from the Test Match Special site, welcome. Feel free to take a look around. A good place to start is the homepage, or you could check out my two other posts on the forfeited match – For the love of the game and Cricket umpires make terrorists.
Two men of ‘Asian or Middle Eastern appearance’ were taken off a plane from Malaga to London because a number of passengers refused to fly if the two men remained on the plane”
Passengers on a Manchester-bound flight have described how two men were removed from the plane because they were acting suspiciously and speaking Arabic.
Heath Schofield, a passenger on the flight from Malaga, described it as being a “bit like Chinese whispers”.
The reaction of the passengers was a little scary, but possibly understandable. The reaction of the authorities at Malaga airport was even scarier, however.
I have no problem with airport security becoming involved and investigating, once passengers have aired their concerns. But it seems to have rapidly become clear that these men were innocent.
The plane should never have been allowed to continue on its delayed without these two unfortunate men. Instead of putting the up in a hotel and flying them back home later in the week, Monarch airlines should have allowed the two men back onto the plane, and told every other passenger on the plane that their choice was simple”
They could either stay on the plane and fly home with these two innocent men, or get off the plane and find their own way home.
Diane Abbott, the Labour MP talks about her journey to work:
I set off between 8 and 9 o’clock. I live in Hackney, so I get the bus to Liverpool Street and then the Tube. On the bus I invariably see someone looking at me and thinking: “Is that Diane Abbott?” But generally people are very British and ignore me, which is good.
Via the Independent:
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes
Don’t believe me – go check the government’s website for the full law, which was passed way back in 2004.
What has the Polish potato ever done to hurt Johnny Englishman???
(Oh, and while you’re busy sniggering at the stupidity of it all, consider this – in Tony Blair’s government has created a staggering 3,000 new criminal offences during its nine years in office).
Linguistic purists need not fear – Google’s lawyers are on the case:
Search engine giant Google, known for its mantra “don’t be evil”, has fired off a series of legal letters to media organisations, warning them against using its name as a verb.
[...] Bloggers have been making fun of the examples Google’s lawyers deem acceptable. They included: “Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party. Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.”
In the immortal words of someone whose name I can’t remember – they’re shoutycrackers. I’d google them, but I might get in trouble.
Craig Murray, ex Ambassador to Uzbekistan and now hardened left-wing hero raises some interesting points about the recently ‘foiled’ plot to blow up several planes heading for America:
None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some time.
[...] an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes – which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance.
And then completely blows his credibility, with statements like this:
We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for “Another 9/11″.
Frustrating.