On Wednesday 11th May at 7.30pm, the Sisters of Nazareth are hosting a concert for the Earthquake Relief fund in the chapel at their Hammersmith Convent, 169 Hammersmith Road, W6 8DB.
Works by Tomas Luis de Victoria and J.S Bach are being performed in the chapel by Cantores Missae and Yu Yasuraoka, violin. The chapel is a wonderful performance space, decorated by a follower of William Morris, very seldom accesible except for Sunday Mass.
Tickets are £25 at the door or call 07886 176227
Reproduced with acknowledgements to Councillor Paul Lynch at ChiswickW4.com.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Friday, 6 May 2011
Ich Bin Ein Schotte
When he meant, of course, was that their struggle for freedom was his struggle too, that their aspirations were his aspirations. Is was an assertion of their common humanity and of the belief they shared in freedom and democracy.
Some of those in the crowd actually found his declaration slightly amusing. It was not that they didn't share his passion for freedom. More the fact that what he had actually said to the assembled throng, literally translated, had been "I am a jelly doughnut".
A "Berliner", you see, was and is actually a term given to a particular German pastry with a jelly filling. What he should have said, apparently, was "Ich bin Berliner", which is how a German-speaker who was actually from Berlin would have put it.
I hope that by proudly reminding the world of my distant Scottish ancestry, albeit only recently discovered, I have not inadvertently revealed myself to be some Caledonian delicacy. I mention it only because of the fierce sense of pride I have in the fact that, in contrast to the inane to-ing and fro-ing between equally discredited political options provided to the English people by the English establishment, the Scots would appear finally to have decided that enough is enough and have given the Scottish National Party (SNP) a clear overall majority in the Scottish Parliament and thereby a platform from which to launch a serious bid for Scottish independence.
Why should I, a resident of English Isleworth, be so enthusiastic about Scottish independence? I'm not, really, except for one thing. As with the AV debate (which it would appear has been lost, for the time being at least), an opportunity has been provided to wake people from their deep slumber, rooted in the belief that nothing will change because nothing can change and that, therefore, nothing should change. It is a deadly and debilitating mentality that allows the establishment to walk all over its subjects, and to lie to them and to deceive them with impunity without so much as a thank you for their tame and frankly embarrassing acquiescence.
The SNP now can, indeed will be expected to, press for the complete independence of Scotland from an English-dominated United Kingdom. English people have nothing to fear from this, and nothing to be defensive about. We should wish our Scottish cousins well, and help them to realise their aspirations in a spirit of goodwill and kind neighbourliness.
In the meantime, for the UK, nothing will quite be the same. Which is a good thing, because the "same" means the same lies, the same deceit, the same spin and the same coming together of squalid vested interests, even where those interests may on the surface of it appear to be antagonistic, just as we witnessed from the "No" campaign during the referendum.
So fundamentally corrupt and wicked is our present establishment that almost anything that shakes it up, knocks it down and generally gives it a good kicking has to be a good thing.
It had never occurred to me that English political life might have been done such a service by the Scottish National Party but politics can be a funny thing, and full of surprises.
Monday, 2 May 2011
Osama bin Laden is Dead
Of that I am in little doubt.
Inevitably the killing of the al-Qaeda leader by US Navy Seals and his almost instantaneous burial at sea has given rise to speculation that he is not really dead, that the media announcement of his demise was in fact a hoax and that he is really still alive and living in the Afghan mountains.
Personally I do not buy this.
According to Muslim burial requirements bin Laden's body needed to be laid to rest as quickly as possible. To have failed to have done this would not just have shown disrespect to bin Laden's memory but, far more importantly, to the entire Islamic faith.
A burial at sea is only permitted either when death has taken place at sea or when there would have been a significant danger that if buried under land the body would be exhumed or stolen. In bin Laden's case the latter obviously applies.
To announce his death when he was still alive would be an unacceptably high-risk strategy for Western leaders. He would only need to reappear at some later stage and their credibility, and that upon which the whole foundation of the New World Order is built, would be forever in tatters.
If any conspiracy theory has to be considered the only one with any legs is that that has it that bin Laden was already dead. Keeping him "alive" for several years in order to justify an relentlessly aggressive foreign policy does make some sense. As does "killing" him at a time when a war crime, already shielded from the world's news media to some extent by the Royal Wedding, has been committed in Libya by forces of the NWO bent on regime change for political, economic and strategic reasons.
The removal of bin Laden would in such an event serve the twin purpose of deflecting media attention from the Tripoli incident and of enabling the West, as soon as is practical and decent, to begin to close the book on the war with al-Qaeda at a time when Western foreign policy has shifted to the point where our "leaders" are to all intents and purposes making common cause with them in their war against Libya.
On balance I still tend to the view that bin Laden was killed last night, as per the official story. But what a shame it is that our leaders are so deceitful and untrustworthy then whenever something of this import occurs those of us who actually take the time and trouble to think for ourselves instinctively look for the "real" story before accepting the official one?
Inevitably the killing of the al-Qaeda leader by US Navy Seals and his almost instantaneous burial at sea has given rise to speculation that he is not really dead, that the media announcement of his demise was in fact a hoax and that he is really still alive and living in the Afghan mountains.
Personally I do not buy this.
According to Muslim burial requirements bin Laden's body needed to be laid to rest as quickly as possible. To have failed to have done this would not just have shown disrespect to bin Laden's memory but, far more importantly, to the entire Islamic faith.
A burial at sea is only permitted either when death has taken place at sea or when there would have been a significant danger that if buried under land the body would be exhumed or stolen. In bin Laden's case the latter obviously applies.
To announce his death when he was still alive would be an unacceptably high-risk strategy for Western leaders. He would only need to reappear at some later stage and their credibility, and that upon which the whole foundation of the New World Order is built, would be forever in tatters.
If any conspiracy theory has to be considered the only one with any legs is that that has it that bin Laden was already dead. Keeping him "alive" for several years in order to justify an relentlessly aggressive foreign policy does make some sense. As does "killing" him at a time when a war crime, already shielded from the world's news media to some extent by the Royal Wedding, has been committed in Libya by forces of the NWO bent on regime change for political, economic and strategic reasons.
The removal of bin Laden would in such an event serve the twin purpose of deflecting media attention from the Tripoli incident and of enabling the West, as soon as is practical and decent, to begin to close the book on the war with al-Qaeda at a time when Western foreign policy has shifted to the point where our "leaders" are to all intents and purposes making common cause with them in their war against Libya.
On balance I still tend to the view that bin Laden was killed last night, as per the official story. But what a shame it is that our leaders are so deceitful and untrustworthy then whenever something of this import occurs those of us who actually take the time and trouble to think for ourselves instinctively look for the "real" story before accepting the official one?
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