The Death of David Kelly, Withdrawl from Iraq, and the Lack of Sympathy for Pakistan…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 27.08.2010


A Re-Examination…

So now people in positions of legitimate authority are willing to admit there are ‘doubts’ concerning the official verdict concerning the death of Doctor David Kelly. Well, of course, they’re a few years behind the laymen and the conspiracy theorists in their suspicions.

A new inquest may re-examine the evidence and try to combat the shortcomings of the formal conclusions; however, it would be extremely unlikely that anything overly controversial would be brought to light. Good intentions or not, no official enquiry into ANY mysterious death or alleged conspiracy will EVER publicly reveal information that would threaten or damage the status quo. All previous evidence suggests that such exercises are merely for show, whether it concerns JFK, Princess Diana, Marylin Monroe, or in this case David Kelly, who was supposed to have committed suicide with a blunt instrument.

Not that I’m comparing David Kelly’s death to JFK’s or making any genuine comparison to the Warren Commission. But the fact is that if there was a conspiracy behind David Kelly’s death, particularly if it involved figures or agencies in power, it is quite simply not going to be made public.

The Withdrawal…
Interestingly, this week also marks the tail-end of the US withdrawal from Iraq; despite statements from some in the Iraqi government that the country isn’t ready to be left on its own yet. It begs the question of whether anything of any worth has been accomplished in Iraq, other than lots of death and the unceremonious execution of one dictator.

None of which is any reflection of Obama’s Presidency, of course. Obama’s popularity in the US has sunk unbelievably low unbelievably quickly; and now he’s being attacked from every side over this mosque and community centre being built close to the site of the World Trade Centre…


Lack of Aid, and the New Anti-Semitism…

Concerning the continued shortage of aid to Pakistan – America and Britain are the nations providing the most aid by far – people can postulate all the reasons they want (economic stresses, hard times, etc), but the implication that seems to be only thinly-veiled in the background of all this is a generally anti-Pakistani and specifically anti-Muslim attitude in the West. It becomes more and more apparent that attitudes towards Muslims in the Western Hemisphere are not all that dissimilar to what attitudes towards the Jewish minorities were in Europe in the nineteen thirties.

European nations can all pretend that anti-Semitism was a specifically German disease, but historically MOST OF EUROPE was anti-Jewish and this including DURING the war. It was only after discovering the concentration camps and the extent of the Nazi crimes that attitudes in some quarters started to soften. And a lot of anti-Semitism continued even after that. And, of course, there’s still plenty of racism towards Jewish communities today.


European Intolerance…?

There seems also to be a misapprehension in the West that Pakistan is somehow a terrorist state and doesn’t deserve aid or sympathy. This stems partly from the fact a large number of terrorists have come from Pakistan; which is true. And also from the blight of Taleban activity within Pakistan – which also is true. But the Taleban are an ILLEGAL entity in Pakistan, which the government and military has been fighting for years. And the terrorists are a minority; just like the criminal population of the UK is a minority – no one with an ounce of intelligence would call the UK a ‘Criminal State’ because there happens to be a lot of criminals.

The people dying, starving, or contracting diseases in the flood-afflicted areas – including a huge number of children – have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism or extremism.

And all this is regarding a country that, more than any other Muslim country, has been an ally of the West in fighting against terrorism and extremism, even if the competency of its government leaves a lot to be desired.

Surely, with all the modern political leaning towards ‘Globalisation’, the notion of a one-world community, the plight of millions of people in ANY country should warrant a concerted and unanimous international response, irrespective of religious biases…

Evidently, the main culprit of this new cultural Scrooge-ness isn’t the UK or the US, but other major European nations, whose intolerance towards the Muslim community has been steadily growing over the years, increasingly even being manifested now at governmental levels…

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Pakistan’s Disaster, Cameron’s Big Mouth, and Cappello’s Ill-Fated Decision…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 13.08.2010


England Are Still Shit, and Cappello Bars Beckham…

England’s first game after the disastrous and pitiful World Cup non-event proved to be no real improvement. Barely scraping a 2 – 1 victory over Hungary is no great comeback. But worse is Fabio Cappello’s decision to announce David Beckham’s expulsion from all future England games. Why? Why close the door to England’s greatest and most experienced player at a time when the national squad is in crisis? Not only the country’s best player, but a player who is both emblematic of England on the international stage and who is a true galvaniser on the pitch?

The England squad certainly doesn’t have anyone else to match him. And what’s the big issue about his age? Is 32 seriously too old to be playing effectively at international level? What about Alessandro Del Piero for Italy, who was well passed 32 and still featuring in the national squad? Del Piero, in fact, scored the winning goal in Italy’s World Cup semi final against Germany in 2006 and thus helped Italy to win that tournament.

What about Paolo Maldini? Huan Sebastian Veron for Argentina? What about Blanco, who at the age of almost forty in this last World Cup remained one of Mexico’s best players?

Surely, experience and calibre should count for something. Surely you want a seasoned player that you can count on. Surely you’re not going to pin your hopes on Wayne Rooney? Especially given that the player in question still very much WANTS to play for England. Cappello is definitely in error here; he should, perhaps, remember that Steve Maclaren made the same decision after taking over from Sven – he expelled Beckham from the squad, claiming he wanted to make room for new players.

And what happened? England FAILED TO QUALIFY for Euro 2008! In the end, Maclaren got desperate and recalled Beckham to the squad for that ill-fated game against Croatia. And what happened? Miraculously, England started to look decent again – Beckham came on as a sub and transformed the game, bringing England to the brink of victory and qualification. But, alas, the damage had already been done and England were out.

The point is that history appears to be repeating itself. There’s absolutely no valid reason why Beckham couldn’t still be for England what the Blancos and Maldinis have been for their countries. The ghost of Maclaren appears to Fabio Capello, bound in iron chains like Jacob Marley appearing to Ebeneezer Scrooge, and warns “Don’t make the same mistakes that I made, Fabio…”


Pakistan’s Hour of Need…

If you were living in Pakistan right now, you’d be wondering what your country had done to deserve the karmic avalanche it is presently crumbling under. It seems strange, to say the least, that in the space of a fortnight, David Cameron condemned Pakistan for it’s supposedly weak stance against extremism, an air accident resulted in a great many deaths, and then the worst flooding in recorded history resulted in well over a thousand fatalities and millions of people displaced, their homes and communities completely destroyed.

Stranger yet are indications that aid donations to Pakistan have been considerably less than expected, and that they presently do not match the level of donations after the Haiti earthquake or the asian tsunami. If this is true, how much of it is a reflection of the present economic stresses and how much of it is a reflection of unfriendly attitudes towards Muslims and towards Pakistan in particular? Either would be a sad state of affairs; in an ideal society one would hope that humanitarian issues would override racial, religious or political considerations.


Cameron Talks Tough (Not)…

Worse, news journalists have reported that in many areas where the Pakistani government has failed to provide adequate aid or response to the victims of the disaster organisations with links to extremist groups have been providing food, medicine and care – the fear being that many more people might sympathise with or side with the extremists hereafter; people who might otherwise have been on the government’s side.

There’s no doubt that there is great incompetency in the Pakistani government (and there has certainly been corruption in it for a long time), but one area where it hasn’t been soft is in the war on terror. So quite what the pretender to the throne, David Cameron, was getting at when he critised Pakistan’s position on terrorism is a mystery. The Pakistani government and military has been fighting terrorism, the Taleban, and al-Qaeda relentlessly for over a decade. And let’s not forget that even the British government hasn’t always managed to effectively curtail terrorists in the UK; there’ve been numerous UK-based and even UK-born terrorists in the passed ten years.

All that David Cameron appears to have been doing is waving his saber around, hoping to sound tough…

As for Pakistan, one can’t help but fear for its future, particularly with the government and the army being stretched by the growing humanitarian crisis. It is predicted that many more people will die in the coming weeks and months from starvation or malnutrition; people without homes now, and people who’ve lost whole families. And misery and resentment are the perfect breeding ground for militants and extremists, particularly if a government known to be corrupt is failing to adequately tend to the desperate needs of its people…

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Misleading Radio Broadcasts, Mass Panic, Churchill and the Flying Saucers…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 6.08.2010


War of the Worlds…

Most people have heard of the infamous Orson Welles broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’ in the nineteen thirties; the radio play caused a wave of panic and hysteria in Chicago when thousands of listeners tuned in halfway through and mistakenly believed they were hearing REAL news reports of a REAL Martian invasion. It caused a mass panic in the streets, with people trying to flee the city; there were even deaths and accidents attributed to the hysteria.

I always used to think these people must’ve been really stupid not to realise they were hearing a dramatisation and not reality.

That was until a few weeks ago when I turned my radio on and caught what appeared to be a news report about a terrorist attack on the London Underground. I listened for at least two minutes to reports about bombs going off in central London; it all sounded like it was happening in real-time and I was beginning to feel genuine anxiety…

Then, eventually, it became apparent that the station was REPLAYING news footage from 7/7, and that what I was catching was part of a programme looking back at the events of that day in 2005. Whew!

The point is it took me a while to realise that; and so I suddenly understood just how all those jittery Americans in the 30s were able to make the mistake with ‘War of the Worlds’. Either that, or I’m just particularly stupid; which is a distinct possibility.


The Coming of the Saucers…

Speaking of alien invasions, however, information has just been released revealing Sir Winston Churchill’s concerns about flying saucers and UFO activity during the Second World War. To UFOlogists or people familiar with the subject, these revelations won’t come as that much of a surprise; there were plenty of alleged UFO incidents during the war, many of them involving fighter pilots and aerial encounters with so-called ‘Foo Fighters’.

People forget that the modern flying saucer craze actually began right after World War II, with the first popularly reported incidents and sighting occurring in 1947. The timimg has led some to suggest that the American detonation of atomic bombs over Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945 drew attention from extra-terrestrial observers, who’s technologies detected the radiation from those blasts; the ETs then began visiting Earth to investigate, which would be why flying saucer sightings were so rampant in the nineteen forties and fifties.

Another hypothesis, however, has been that the saucers were some kind of top secret craft being developed by either the Americans, Russians or Germans. This seems unlikely, however, based on the fact that nothing remotely like a flying saucer has been developed or put out there in the seventy years since.

Churchill, Hitler, and ET…

Either way, SOMETHING was definitely going on, and it wasn’t just Churchill who was worried; there have long been indications that Hitler and his people were also aware of the anomalous activity and concerned about it. The recently released documenation reveals that Churchill wanted to cover up the existence of the UFOs from the public, his fear being that knowledge of their existence would jeapordise belief in God.

In the nineteen forties, especially while the devastating events of the war were still unfolding, that probably IS what would’ve happened: the last thing you want during the middle of all that war, destruction, death and uncertainty, is for the population’s belief-system to be thrown into chaos. The really interesting question is whether or not that still applies today: would knowledge of extra-terrestrial visitations shatter the world’s religions? Would it destroy people’s belief in God?

Or would those who presently believe in God remain true to their current convictions, with the athiestic community being the ones who embrace the otherworldly visitors?

It’s a fascinating question, and it makes me think right back to that mass panic of the nineteen thirties after the ‘War of the Worlds’ broadcast: is that how WE would react to real knowledge of UFOs and aliens? Would we freak out en masse? Would society collapse? Or are we mature enough, comfortable enough, to handle that information? If the answer is no, then it would only serve to justify the cover-up, if there is one…

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French Dictatorship, Personal Liberties, and Mad (Max) Telephone Rants…

Posted under Celebrity, News by Sajeel on 1.08.2010


The French Revolution…

So, the burqa has been banned in France, as it has been in several other European countries. But, alas, our Coalition Government has come down on the side of liberty and chosen not to impose the same prohibition. Thank God for that.

Not that the burqa is in any way something to be applauded. There’s nothing clever or endearing about people walking around with their faces hidden – I’d go so far as to call it anti-social and a deliberate choice to insulate oneself from the rest of the population. Some would also say that, historically speaking, it isn’t really an Islamic custom either, but a cultural one.

However, we should be far more bothered by the idea of governments dictating how people are allowed to dress. Liberty means the right to choose – legislating against the free expression of a perceived cultural identity is not liberty; it is dictatorial. No one would forbid a Nigerian woman from wearing a traditional tribal dress or head-dress, and no one would forbid a nun from wearing her habit; so why should Muslim women be singled out, just because it makes some people uncomfortable?

Certainly, in certain situations, such as in airports or in police scenarios – or in specific proffessions, such as in hospitals or in the police force, or in government – there should be certain requirements on appearance and dress code. But the French are banning women from covering up in public, FULL STOP. That makes a mockery of personal freedoms and liberties.

So, at least the British government values those principles more than our French neighbours do, apparently. No wonder Thierry Henry fled to America…

Speaking more broadly, I am always very wary when the establishment stigmatises non-conformity – and beyond wary when it legally ENFORCES conformity, whether it’s relating to opinions, beliefs, tastes, or, in this instance, clothing. There’s something very Communist about it; what next, a few years down the line? A ban on women wearing short skirts? A prohibition against hippies with long hair or punks with Mohicans?

Again, though I personally very much dislike the face veiling, I also dislike the idea of people being forced by LAW to conform to fashion norms. In this instance, it may only be an issue of clothing; but it could just as easily be something else one day. Even Pol Pot started somewhere…

Mad Max Calling…

Speaking of mistreatment on women, Mel Gibson is in the midst of another reputation-destroying scandal, this time for an abusive phone call he made to his lady-friend. Critics say his career is effectively over. I don’t particularly care about Mel Gibson anyway, but I can’t help but feel the whole episode is just meaningless trivia being amplified for the sake of sensationalism.

Clearly, the woman set him up by recording the conversation and sending it to the press; and most of what he said in the call seemed to consist of a standard, middle-of-the-road spousal rant. Nothing all that shocking.

In any case, I don’t see why private arguments between people in their personal relationships should have any business being blown up in the media, nor why such incidents should have any bearing on someone’s career or credentials. He’s not OJ Simpson – he just disapproved somewhat of some of his partner’s behaviour…

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Death and Tragedy, Strange Facebook Trends, and Really, Really Bad Football…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 18.07.2010

Sympathy For Killings…

The Raoul Moats story, clearly one of the saddest, most disturbing real-life dramas to play itself out in full public view in our country, has taken a strange turn in the form of all this much-hyped Facebook sympathising. The tributes to the disturbed and ultimately self-terminated killer have prompted indignation and condemnation from politicians, the PM David Cameron among them, and from journalists.

It’s a strange one, for sure; I can understand some people sympathising with Raoul Moats as a kind of tragic figure, or even as a modern type of anti-hero. But there’s a difference between sympathising out of basic compassion and LIONISING. There is surely something very perverse about trying to make a HERO out of someone who, essentially, murdered two people and then shot a cop IN THE FACE.

You wonder if all of this is genuine sympathising or if it’s just a case of more Internet-based bandwagonry; which is the social disease of our generation – people jumping onto a trend or collective ‘opinion’ en masse. The same kind of people who, for example, mobilised in their thousands to hound Johnothan Ross and Russell Brand out of the BBC.

On the other hand, there is a sense that the newspapers have deliberately exaggerated the Facebook thing in order to get more page-filler; half the people who joined the Facebook group were doing so in order to debate the matter, not just to express support or sympathy for Moats.

In my opinion, too many people don’t know the difference anymore between a tragic figure and a heroic figure; people feel sorry for someone and then it’s as if that person automatically becomes a saint. If true, this indicates a great degree of emotional and moral confusion in our society – which is hardly news. On a broader level, it may also reflect a lack of genuinely heroic figures in our country for people to latch onto, causing many to heroise anyone they can get their hands on.

All these people laying down flowers and the like can’t tell the difference anymore between Raoul Moats and Princess Diana or Jade Goody. It’s all the same to them.

At any rate, of COURSE it’s a sad story. Suicide in itself is a sad story, as are mental breakdowns; but both are going on all over the country every day. And the majority of those people who suffer it don’t achieve massive media coverage and don’t get turned into heroes by hundreds of morally confused internet users. And, for that matter, most of them don’t murder people along the way.


Comparable Sociopaths…

Something tells me that the same people wouldn’t be so quick to make a hero out of Mohammad Sidiqq Khan or the 7/7 bombers – yet, as far as I’m concerned, there’s very little difference, on a fundemantal level, between someone like Moats and someone like Sidiqq Khan; both were essentially mentally damaged sociopaths who turned against society and against people in general and came to devalue life so much that they were willing to kill themselves AND others at the same time.

On a broader level, the real sadness is that people can end up so alienated by society and so desensitised to violence and death…


No Dutch Courage…

Meanwhile, the World Cup came to a hugely anti-climatic end with one of the most boring finals in the competition’s history. Watching the pragmatic Spain and the lame Holland trudge out a tedious two hours of stilted football in what was supposed to be the biggest game in the world left me desperately wishing that Germany and Uruguay had won their semi-finals instead – we’d have had a better final, for sure.

Or better yet, that the likes of Ghana, Brazil or Japan had gotten through instead. How on earth did the Dutch get all the way to the final? They somehow fumbled their way through the competition, even fluking their way passed Brazil. Their complete non-performance ruined the tournament’s climaxe and left me even more peeved that they’d denied Brazil passage to the final – because Brazil would’ve given us a PROPER final against Spain.

Something has definitely gone downhill about the quality of international football performances, and it was in evidence all through this World Cup. It wasn’t South Africa’s fault – they hosted the World Cup beautifully; which makes it all the more irritating that the big footballing nations didn’t reciprocate the brilliant African spirit and atmoshphere with performances worthy of the World Cup stage. England weren’t the only culprits – Italy, France, and ultimatly Holland – did absolutely no credit to the sport.

Oh well, here’s hoping to a better party in four years time in Brazil. Assuming, of course, that the apocalypse doesn’t come in 2012…

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England’s Non-Event, MPs On the Bandwagon, and Big Black Lady Enters the Clone Wars…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 6.07.2010

Not So Merry Old England…

So, inevitably, all the hype and mania was revealed to be the bloated corporate overkill that it always is, and England stumble out of the World Cup with a pitiful whimper. The easiest group in the tournament and England could only manage one barely-scraped win over the distinctly unmighty Slovenia, before finally being mullered by the Germans.

We surely saw it coming from the Algeria game onwards. England were NEVER going to beat Germany. The only team in the last sixteen that they might’ve won against was Slovakia. Worse than the defeat itself was the tepid spectacle of watching eleven ego-centric, millionaire superstars fumbling about the pitch, tripping over the ball and huffing and puffing like tired old men, whilst a German side without a single star in its line-up made them look like San Marino.

I just hope the media has learnt its lesson: and that next time they won’t overhype an essentially average team of players with unrealistic expectations. The so-called Golden Generation has passed – deal with it. England’s only world-class footballer of recent times – David Beckham – is finished as a national player. Just as France has lost all its power and force without Zidane, so too has England without Beckham, and by the looks of it, Portugal too without Figo.

Against Germany, Lampard was the only exception; and if nothing else came out of that game for us, it at least demonstrated the need for some revisions in the technicalities of decision-making in football. FIFA has some changes to make to the game…


The Golden Era…

So, it’s over for England. I’ve said for months that England’s best international era has already passed, and that most of it was under Sven Gorran Errikson and under Beckham’s captaincy. There were two or three tournaments there in which England were one of the two or three best sides in the competition and were unlucky not to succeed (an unfortunate loss against Brazil in 2002, and two penalty shoot-outs to Portugal in 2006 and Euro 94).

Along with the French, England are now consigned to remaining a third or barely-second tier nation in world football, in the vein of the Sweden’s and Mexico’s. There’s no real shame in that. Mexico, for example, have played great in this World Cup – the shame is in not having any spirit or any devotion to the cause.

So, here’s to Ghana! A team with PLENTY of passion and devotion. They only lost their quarter final against Uruguay because Luiz Suarez CHEATED. But it was without doubt the most exciting and memorable match of what has been a broadly disappointing competition in which the big stars haven’t performed and the big nations have stumbled. Even Kaka and Brazil couldn’t get passed the quarter finals, and even Maradonna couldn’t lead Argentina to glory. That doesn’t let England off the hook; the difference is that Brazil and Argentina at least tried.

However, I have a major suggestion for future football. Having watched Ghana robbed of their place in the semis by a goal-line handball, I propose the following: that any time the ball is prevented from crossing the line by a handball, the goal should stand. Never mind red cards and penalties – the goal should be GIVEN, thus rendering any future handballs irrelevant. FIFA, take note! Also, should you take up this new rule, royalties must be paid to www.highstreetcircus.com…

Meanwhile, the MPs Say…

Despite England’s no-show, however, I wholly object to MPs in Westminster getting in on the act and calling for enquiries into the football squad’s underperformance. You would think our MPs would have more governmental issues to be dealing with instead of jumping on the bandwagon. It is invariably embarassing and irritating when our politicians contrive time to comment on matters of sport or entertainment. Given that the expenses scandal was less than a year ago, one would think our elected representitives would refrain from complaining too loudly about “overpaid footballers” and just keep their heads down and get on with running the country…

The Clone Wars Heat Up…

Meanwhile, the Labour Party leadership contest has fallen into the background lately, but Diane Abbot is firmly in the running. I, for one, would endorse Abbot’s leadership, if for no other reason than that she’s not another of the Freemasonic clones taking over Westminster. I couldn’t bear to see one of the Cameron-esque, Clegg-esque Milliband brothers lead Labour – we’d never be able to tell the difference between the three party leaders. At least with Diane Abbot there’ll be no confusion. Also, we can’t afford to have a Prime Minister named Balls; the comedy effect on the world stage would just undermine him every step of the way…

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England’s Uneventful World Cup, and the Problem with Hype…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 27.06.2010

Cappello’s Credentials…

It was extraordinary to me that following England’s dreary 0 – 0 scoreline with Algeria almost ALL football pundits placed the blame with Fabio Cappello. England hasn’t had a successful international campaign since Sir Bobby Robson in 1990 – are we going to blame Cappello for all of that too? Fabio Cappello is one of the most acclaimed and successful managers in football.

He has managed some of the biggest and best players in the modern game. For all the talk of Rooney, Gerrard, etc, as ’superstars’, remember that Cappello has managed the likes of Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Beckham and Raul at club level. He knows how to win football matches. The problem is that England are NOT one of the great footballing nations at World Cup level; no matter how many Sun headlines or Carlsberg adverts try to tell us otherwise.

Citing 1966 means nothing; after all, by that reckoning we should be regarding Greece as one of the top European sides, because they won Euro 2004. There are at least seven national teams with a much higher calibre and much better record than England. And in this particular tournament there’s more than seven.

Yes, the performance improved against Slovenia, but let’s not get carried away. Having watched Portugal put seven goals passed North Korea, and having watched Argentina and Brazil do the lambada all over their opposition, England’s scraped 1 – 0 win over Slovenia should be placed in context. The fact is that England should have WALKED this group stage – they had the easiest group possible.

The point is that it’s not Cappello’s fault any more than it was Erikkson’s fault before. The simple truth is that, though England has probably the best club league in the world, it does not have what it takes at national level to compete even with Portugal, letalone Brazil.


Beckham’s Example…

And, seriously, one of the big things England have been missing in this World Cup is not Joe Cole, but David Beckham. No one in the present squad can match Beckham for skill, for passion about playing for his country, or for the match-turning influence he can have on games. And one of the main reasons for this is that Beckham is the only truly international English footballer of his generation. Everyone else in the squad without exception has remained tethered to their Premier League club for years.

Beckham went and learned how to play in the Spannish League. Then he went and learned how to play in the Italian league. It influenced the nature of his play, expanded his technique. He played alongside the three greatest footballers in the world at that time, when he was at Real Madrid. He lines up alongside Ronaldinho at AC Milan. The Lampards and Gerrards and Gareth Barry’s have never spread their wings and gained that kind of experience.

The other related issue is that all of these players are so used to playing alongside FOREIGN players at club level that when they line up alongside other English players at national level, they look lost. If you’re Gerrard and you’ve got people like Mascherano or Xavi Alonso playing beside you at club level, or if you’re Lampard and you’ve got people like Deco and Michael Essien, OF COURSE you’re going to find it very different to what you’re used to.

There are probably several other reasons too for England’s lacklustre performance, but the point is that it’s not Fabio Cappello’s fault that his millionaire squad have forgotten how to play like it matters in national colours.


Corporate Hype…

It’s all the more hilarious when you see all these ridiculous overblown adverts and promotional campaigns that portray the likes of Wayne Rooney as pretty much gods, and then you watch the Algeria match and absolutely nothing happens. That’s the problem with overhyping people before anything’s happened – it’ll make you look stupid in the end. And it really is going too far, all this corporate glorification of individual players like Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. No wonder they’ve got massive egos. JESUS CHRIST never got bigged up as much as some of these guys have been. If Nike, Lucozade or whatever other corporate sponsors are to be believed, Rooney and Ronaldo are genuinely the second coming.

Ghana, on the other hand – now THAT’S how you approach a World Cup; enjoying yourself, APPRECIATING the privelage, loving every minute of it, and playing confident, sexy football. And not an overhyped player or corporate campaign in sight – just earnest, good-spirited sportsmanship.


At the Mos Eisley Cantina…

Although, speaking of adverts, the new Adidas ‘Star Wars’ advert with David Beckham and Snoop Dog really is the coolest ad I’ve seen since that Gene Kelly Volkswagen thing. If you haven’t seen it, check it out on-line. Though, frankly, anything that utilises Star Wars footage it bound to end up looking cool…

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Contrived Islamic Villainy, Persian Princes, and Deceased Celebrities…

Posted under Film, News by Sajeel on 4.06.2010

So the newspapers have found another ‘Islamic extremist’ scholar that they can make a fuss about; just another in a long line of annual ‘mad clerics’ the media seems to love getting their teeth into. This year it’s Dr Zakir Naik, an Indian Muslim scholar and lecturer, who’s come to our fine shores to give lectures at Wembley and Sheffield Arenas. And so, right on cue, was a big fuss about whether to ‘allow’ him into the country, on account of his ‘controversial’ views.

Note – by ‘controversial’ views, what they really mean is views that are normal and entirely logical for  anyone who follows the Koran (or the Bible, for that matter). Well, by that logic we shouldn’t allow  any orthodox Muslim, Christian or Jew in the country, should we? Anyone who suscribes to an Abrahamic belief system is going to, by default, have politically incorrect views on things like homosexuality, apostasy, sexuality, and so on. We can’t ban everyone from expressing those views, and it’s getting really tedious every time the papers try to sensationalise these issues or to villify anyone who expresses a religious viewpoint.

The problem with this specific scenario is that Zakir Naik really isn’t an extremist. He’s a fairly moderate preacher, as these things go, and is also extremely popular in Asia (both the Wembley and Sheffied shows are sold out, incidentally). Of course, he has some un-PC and very outdated views – so does EVERYONE who’s following a one-thousand-five-hundred year-old religion.

I personally disagree with most of what he has to say (and I doubt there’s a religious preacher in the whole world who I’d be in agreement with on many things); but the point is that you can’t outlaw beliefs and opinions, and we’re going down a dangerous road when we start to dictate – as a matter of LAW – what people are allowed to think and allowed to say.

Because where do we then draw the line? What about the Pope? Surely some of the things he’s said make him a Catholic extremist? Certainly politically incorrect, at least. Should he be banned from entering the country too?

What this really boils down to is Western Islamophobia and media scaremongering. I don’t want to make too much of a martyr out of Dr Naik – like I said, I disasgree with him on almost everything. His lectures are fatuous and deeply uninteresting. Most of his views are hopelessly naive and outdated, and some of them are offensive. But, again, the same can be said about the Pope. And about Nick Griffin and the BNP. And Bernard Manning.

But surely he has the right to express legitimate Islamic doctrine? He’s not Abu Hamza or Omar Bakhri, after all, but an internationally renowned and respected lecturer.

A big recommendation to go see ‘The Prince of Persia’, which is presently in cinemas. Video game movies don’t generally have a good track record, but this one is good fun; an old-style action-adventure-fantasy in an exotic world, which looks glorious, feels like it should’ve been released in 1983 at the same time was   Return of the Jedi and the  Indiana Jones movies, and has a great female lead in Gemma Aterton.

TV’s present fascination with 80s nostalgia seems to be continuing, with a few more programmes this passed week on terrestrial TV. I still say there’s something dodgy about that. Another part of the 80s, however, died this week in the form of Gary Coleman (weird to think that mad Californian Republicans chose the bionic Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor over Coleman). I can’t actually remember if ‘Different Strokes’ was funny or not; all I remember is that I watched it every week, because we only had four television channels, no internet, and even the Sega Master System hadn’t been invented yet. Also, does this mean that all three kids from that show have died young?

Also, Dennis Hopper passed away this week. Which means that someone else famous is going to die in the next few days – because famous people always die in threes…

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Misplaced 1980s Nostalgia, Alien Sheep Mutilations, and Stephen Hawking’s Warnings…

Posted under News, Random by Sajeel on 28.05.2010

In one of my recent posts I made a sarcastic remark about how a Conservatives election victory would mean a return to the 1980s and mullets and yuppies and cabbage patch dolls. I was only joking, of course; but, weirdly, terrestrial TV has suddenly gone 80s mad. Can it be merely coincidence that since Labour’s defeat there have been a number of programmes, particularly on the BBC, about nostalgia for the 8Os?

Even TOTP specials have gotten in on it, with a special programme this week devoted to Wham. Something very odd about all this…

Has anyone heard the strange reports out of Shropshire that multitudes of sheep are being found mutilated in fields? The tragic sheep in question are being found with their eyes and other organs SURGICALLY REMOVED with immaculate precision, while their bodies are broadly being left neat and intact, with no extraneous blood loss. UFO/alien theories, naturally, are cropping up in regard to these bizarre incidents, which have reportedly been going on for some time.

This bears more than a passing resemblance to stories that have come out of South America and the Carribean for decades (Puerto Rico, in particular) of cows and other cattle being found in similar conditions, and often in the vicinity of known UFO sightings. In those instances many of the attacks were attributed to the mysterious ‘Chupacabra’ creatures, which some believe to be some kind of hybrid chimera created by alien visitors.

If I lived in Shropshire, I sure as hell wouldn’t be going out for a walk in the woods at night…

On a related matter, Stephen Hawking has recently said not only that he believes in the existence of intelligent alien life, but that he believes we should NOT be trying to contact them. Proffessor Hawking says that we would be seen as primitive to said aliens and that they would more likely be a danger to us than a friend.

He may be right, but surely it’s the natural progression of our outgrowth as a species to both explore the galaxy and try to ascertain whether there are intelligent beings out there?

I’ve always thought, however, that we should be beaming episodes of Star Trek out into space so that any aliens picking up our transmissions can see that we’re very capable of coexisting with other lifeforms and being friendly with one-eyed monsters and rock creatures. At the same time, one look at William Shatner’s dashing, no-nonsense cowboy diplomacy will also make the aliens think twice about f*****g with us…

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Begun, this Clone War Has…

Posted under News by Sajeel on 21.05.2010

This coalition government, and in particular this Cameron-Clegg double-act, is taking some getting used to. Every time I watch the news I still feel like I’m having a weird dream and that I’ll wake up and find Gordon Brown still running the country.

Partly this is due to the uncanny likeness of Cameron and Clegg; idealogies aside, it’s sometimes like watching twin brothers from the same upper-class dynasty. I was finding this all quite strange… and then something even stranger got added into the surreal mix – the Labour leadership contest looks like it’ll come down to two main candidates: two BROTHERS, who BOTH look and sound like they’ve come out of the same cloning chamber as Cameron and Clegg!!!

What is going ON? British politics has gotten very peculiar in the passed fortnight.

Party politics aside, am I the only one not all that comfortable with the notion that some mad Etonian scientist has calculated the perfect age, height, manner, and background for ALL future Prime Ministers and is artificially manufacturing them from the same cloning chamber?

THINK about it: we’re going to have a version of the SAME MAN leading each of our three main political parties. Which means that, come the next election, no matter which party you vote for you’ll get the same leader!

It’s all becoming some weird Matrix - type political situation, like that scene where Agent Smith becomes about a hundred different people. You remember all those science fiction and horror movies where aliens pose as humans and secretly take over all the important positions in government and military? Well, it may just be happening for real.

In a few years time, you might all find yourselves wishing you’d been nicer to Gordon Brown instead of bullying him out of office because he had some grey hair and wasn’t a good actor. At least you could tell him apart from the others.

I just hope British politics doesn’t get any weirder for a while. In the words of Master Yoda, from  Star Wars: Episode II - “Begun, this Clone War has…”

On the other hand, just to provide a balanced view, this government deserves praise for scrapping the I.D cards nonsense and re-assessing the draconian anti-terror laws which Labour were unshakeable on. A victory for liberty, perhaps, and a validation of our democracy…

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