blake

who's Thomas Cook?

somebody somewhere has to decide whether somebody is a British citizen or not. how do you know that Bergum was even the child's mother at all? You only have her word for it and that she looked sort of pregnant when the journalist who broke the story interviewed her.

no it wasn't. At the time of its birth neither of its parents were British. It might have become British later on in its life, but at the time it died, the child wasn't British. The child wasn't any nationality. It was a stateless person, or in this case, a stateless baby. somebody, somewhere, has to decide whether somebody else is a British subject. Nobody gets it 100% automatically. Of course if you're born in Britain and both your parents have valid British passports that haven't been cancelled, it is pretty much a slam dunk that you're British, but you're not totally 100% you are until you apply for a passport yourself.

what you don't realise is that it is nothing at all new. The far left have always, even decades ago, had a reputation for being appalling antisemites. The only thing new, is that they've never been in prominent positions in such numbers in the Labour party before. That is why the whole business has blown up now, and yes they provide the stock antisemite response to explain it, just as if they were Nazis ; 'Jewish conspiracy'.

no - they don't accept it at all. The left thinks the whole palaver of the Labour antisemitism row, is a Jewish conspiracy.

If they were to bring it back in Britain they would surely use the method they always used, hanging, which is not expensive at all, and very quick. The gallows is only built once and is used repeatedly. Even the rope could be used again, although in practice it never was. The best time ever recorded for a British execution, was 6.5 seconds. That was the amount of time it took for the key to turn in the lock of the cell into which the hangman entered and the drop in which everyone was killed instantly. There were no botched executions at all as far as I know in Britain in the 20th century and certainly not after 1918 - just a few that went on a little too long between the hangman's entrance to the cell, and the drop - the pressure was always on, to do it as quickly as possible. The average time by the by the end after 1945 was supposed to be about 12 seconds. It is hard to see how any method of execution can be much quicker and less expensive than hanging. Also with hangings, you can double or triple up, and only one person needs to 'pull the trigger' - although they stopped doing that in British prisons in the 1920s. In the Middle East it is today not unusual for even 6-8 people to stand on the same trap door and be hanged simultaneously.

The UK would have to import a hangman, almost certainly from Singapore or Malaysia, as nobody in Britain has a clue how to do the job after all this time. Nobody alive even has any experience of how to design and build gallows properly. the going rate per hanging is around 500 Singapore dollars ( about 280 GBP pounds) per execution, plus expenses. Malaysian hangmen are probably cheaper as they are about to become permanently unemployed by the looks of things as Malaysia is on the point of abolishing capital punishment.

Rosen, a former supporter of the Socialist Workers party and also a candidate under Galloway for Respect isn't exactly typical is he. so-called anti-Zionists like Galloway are always looking for 'good Jews' to share a platform with, although they invariably find that there is very few of them as the overwhelming majority of Jewish people worldwide, however they vote, left or right, support the notion of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East. there is a small number of extreme left wing 'good Jews' like Rosen they can get on board, but there is not all that many. So usually Galloway and his ilk are reduced to trying to persuade the Jewish religous nutjobs Neuteri Karta to appear with them, and which only shows their desperation, because Neuteri Karta are not anti-Zionist at all. They believe that Israel is only illegitimate because the Messiah is not yet here. When the Messiah comes, Neuteri Karta will morph into the most extreme Zionists you ever saw.

it was totally ridiculous that Galloway said that an entire nationality of 8 million diverse human beings was supposedly barred from showing up in his Bradford constituency in the first place, and demonstrated what a complete numbskull Galloway actually is. Perhaps some other MP of Greek Cypriot extraction or something, will similarly say that everybody that's got a Turkish passport will be barred from like Lewisham East. when Galloway said Israelis he didn't mean Israelis. He meant Jews, and especially to his way of thinking, a type of Zionist Jew he doesn't like, but couldn't say it because if he had said it, he would have sounded like a Nazi and it would have been even more obvious that Galloway is a racist than it is anyway.

1. The IHRA definition document includes as an example of anti-Semitism the making of demonizing allegations concerning the myth of a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institution. Galloway, Amman 2009 : “There is a conspiracy in this region all right – but it’s an American-Israeli conspiracy". on chemical weapons used against Syrian civilians Galloway said in 2013, without bothering to provide any evidence, of course : “If there has been use of chemical weapons, it was Al Qaeda who used the chemical weapons. Who gave Al Qaeda the chemical weapons? Here’s my theory: Israel gave them the chemical weapons. “the Zionists sent gunmen to the Maidan in Kiev to help a revolution…being done by outright Nazi anti-Semites…if these Nazis come to power in Kiev and they hate Jews so much, the remaining Ukrainian Jews will feel that they have to go and settle in Palestine.” 2. IHRA definition also says that “anti-Semitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others.” while he was MP there Galloway proclaimed that no Israelis should be allowed in Bradford saying, "We have declared Bradford an Israel-free zone. We don't want any Israeli goods, we don't want any Israeli services, we don't want any Israeli academics coming to the university or the college, we don't even want any Israeli tourists to come to Bradford, even if any of them had thought of doing so. We reject this illegal, barbarous, savage state that calls itself Israel. Galloway has in the past shared platforms with Arabs who are Israeli citizens. Galloway has no problem with those kind of Israelis. What Galloway has a problem with, is not Israelis as a whole at all - it's Jews.

I kind of like Galloway too. He does at least have a sense of theatre, and even if he talks nonsense, at least he does it with some style. Together with P.G. Wodehouse, and never having been a particular fan of TS Eliot, all things considered, George Galloway is my favourite antisemite. I'm not surprised if they're letting him back in together with Derek Hatton as it just confirms what everybody has now known for years - that left wing racist Jew haters like those two are warmly welcomed, in today's Jeremy Corbyn Labour party.

Corbyn referred to the terrorist-sympathising and terrorist-trained Syria ISIS girl's 'right to return' to the UK. it's just hilarious. The guy is a mental case - he has got Palestine on the brain. He would never have said that, were she not a Muslim, and was like a white person from a Christian background and in a pickle overseas somewhere else.

quite a lot of the time when they don't stand, it is because they know they'll get beat if they do. often they try to turn it round, to cast themselves in a heroic mould with Tony Benn being the classic example in Chesterfield in 2001. It was amazing how he managed to get away with that actually. Benn quit because he knew the voters were going to have him out on his ass and he had no chance in the upcoming general election. So he jumped first.

what was good about Finney in films - I never saw him on stage - was that he was always LIKEABLE. Even though not all that many of the films were all that good. people of my dad's generation always went on about Saturday Night and Sunday morning, and it was a revolutionary moment in British films. It did seem like a breath of fresh air to them, but it does look like a bit of a museum piece today. None of those 'kitchen sink' type movies have held up that well. The best of them was Kes, towards the end of the cycle. Kes just had a type of humanity in it, that none of the others had. Saturday Night, Sporting Life, Loneliness of the Long Distance etc were not bad movies. They were well made and well acted. But they were just whingeing and whining really and not all that entertaining. Finney's career was definitely remarkable. Thank goodness he turned down Lawrence of Arabia. He would not have been bad in it, but surely no way would he have been better than Peter O'Toole. Some of his later films like Murder on the Orient Express as Poirot, a part he did accept but should not have, he was so miscast it was embarrassing. He could have been on that train in any one of about half a dozen parts, but not that lead one. Tom Jones was just a terrible film considering it won a Best Picture Oscar, and is even more dated today in its way than the kitchen sink movies are. It made Finney a star. But he stayed in Britain. Charlie Bubbles which he directed is actually one of the very best swinging sixties movies. Miles better than garbage like Darling! which won the Best Picture Oscar. It is slight and contagious and nice and entertaining. It has a kind of charm that doesn't date. But it is half-forgotten now. but Finney's best picture was Gumshoe. What a movie. It is same level as Get Carter and Long Good Friday. One of the very best British films of the 1970s.

happy new year in blues heaven, Mr. Otis Rush. You were the very best. Even if Radio 4's Last Words obituary show didn't even mention you. They don't know what a real prince you were. That's their problem.

Shanghai is never called Shanghai City, like New York can sometimes be called New York City. It's just Shanghai. only when cities have states and provinces of the same name, like New York, Quebec, or Cebu is it necessary to attach the sobriquet city when you are talking about the principal metropolitan area within the state or province of the same name.

anybody that wins the first presidential election is always going to be the favourite to win the second one. the number of presidents that have lost an election after four years earlier winning one, since 1945 is 2 (Carter and Bush Snr). however the number of presidents that have won 2 elections in a row, since 1945 is 6. bit of a difference. The smart money has got to be on Trump getting another term.

Trump Should Have a 70% Chance of Winning in 2020 https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-should-have-a-70-percent-chance-of-winning-in-2020

so RIP then Pete Shelley. you were Punk's Prince Pooftah. you were also from Leigh where I snorted a couple of lines of speed in a pub bog once with this girl. she was called Shelley too. Isn't it amazing.

Russell was a very good actress who just didn't appear enough - she was brilliant in 'Straight Time' playing a wannabe gangsters mall who works in an LA dole office, opposite a miscast Dustin Hoffman. Everybody acted brilliant in that film, except him.

Bill Goldman the movie Marathon Man in full (get it while you can ; youtube will take it down soon). one of the best movies ever made and definitely one of the best New York movies. And it is all Bill Goldman. maybe it's safe after all.

Roeg will go down as one the best directors to start out as a cinematographer, few that come through by that route become really first-class filmakers. Chris Menges was also a brilliant photographer who made the plunge to become a director, however unlike Roeg, Menges had second thoughts about it. He packed directing in, and prudently decided to stick to photographing which is what he was best at. Roeg and Menges are very similar. They could make very good films but entertainment was not their strong suit. visually almost nobody could beat Roeg but the films did not always work all that well as dramas. His best work was with the camera beyond any doubt, not script and story but there are a couple of very good films in there as a director. Walkabout is the closest he ever got to making a really good entertainment. Don't Look Now also of course excellent.

I suspect the veracity of this report and that Mr Goldman being actually dead may not be true. He could be trying to scam something. Or somebody else could have kidnapped him, and be holding him in the cold store, for the life insurance. Nobody knows anything. Is it safe? I doubt it. RIP Bill.

it's what the rustbelt people will do that will be interesting. They voted for Obama twice but handed Trump the election by swinging to him by 30-40% in some cases. They either didn't vote at all four years ago, or if they did, they sure as hell didn't vote for the Republican. That is where Trump has been having his rallies and nobody can say he's been stupid can they, when they said he was stupid by campaigning in Michigan last time because he had no chance, but he ended up winning the state. Everyone will be watching to see what they will do.

"Trump actively wants it to be a referendum." so what if that is what Trump wants. That doesn't mean that all the voters are going to take him for his word. If some of them think that the Republican state governor they voted for last time has done a good job, but that Trump - who isn't even on any of the ballot papers - hasn't, they're not going to switch their vote just like that.