Mr Justice Cocklecarrot lives

Now that there is a programme in place to broaden the social mix of judges, I was wondering if we’d ever get another clanger along the hilarious lines of those uttered by the following judges. Over the past decade they have revealed in court just how out-of-touch they were with contemporary culture:

• Mr Justice Popplewell: “what is Linford Christie’s lunchbox?”
  
• Judge Francis Aglionby “what is a Teletubby?”
  
• Lord Irvine appeared not to have heard of B&Q
  
• Mr Justice Harman “Who is Gazza?”
  
• Judge Hubert Dunn: telling a court he had never heard of Pele
  

And one judge (I can't remember who at the moment) was even supposed to have asked "What is a T-shirt?"

Step forward Judge Seddon Cripps, who exibits a certain ignorance of modern furniture. Judge Cripps interrupted a fraud trial to ask what a sofa bed was. When a witness replied with a brief description, Cripps replied: “How can a bed be turned into a sofa?” Amid titters from barristers and jurors, the witness had to spend several minutes explaining how some sofas can be folded out to form makeshift beds. The judge had earlier told the court he was unfamiliar with a futon.

We are not so lame. 

Residents of southern W. Bank settlement want to be evacuated

Sign of the times I suppose. People voting with their feet. It also looks like elections coming here later this year. I find Israeli politics hard to fathom at times and the voting system is broken badly. Party list systems do not have a place for any potential Winston Churchills which must be one of the tests for a healthy body politic.

It also explains why the electorate is so split on who to vote for.

Who put Taysir el-Heyb in charge?

For those who haven't been following the story, this is about the Bedouin soldier who shot Tom Hurndall from the ISM. I have little in common with the ISM, but this is about Taysir el-Heyb and the mistakes that led up to a death. I found this all very disturbing.

That his community could accept all that happened and then boycott his family because his sisters joined the border police I find incredible. The ILA bulldozing their hut because it was built illegally I just note. There is so much to this story. Please read it. Try not to cry.

10 hurt, 2 seriously in blast outside bus station

Yet another suicide bomber strikes. More injuries, deaths, closures, arrests, debate and the whole wearying cycle continues.

Psychological warfare gets a new meaning

All I’ll say about the latest from Our Ken on terrorism and Israel is…typical!

I was very impressed with the well-organised, cool, calm, collected yet empathetic manner in which the marvellous IDF removed the settlers, the infiltrators and the out-ebbers including how the solders dealt with being on the receiving end of physical and verbal weapons. What I was not aware of was that Israeli soldiers at all levels have been for some time receiving highly specialist disengagement training – fascinating. I suppose most Israelis already knew this.

Combined with the - for once and hopefully now ongoing - productive and competent management of the global media by Israel, we have another nice little period in which Israel is covered in a slightly more balanced and in-depth fashion.

From yesterday’s dead tree JC - sadly still not yet available electronically without a paid subscription which pisses me off as I have a paid sub through my newsagent but that doesn’t count and even if it did I couldn’t link there for you:

“These were no random acts of kindness or indifference. About 50 army psychologists spent a year training thousands of soldiers and police how to conduct themselves in a battle where, as their commanders constantly reiterated, there was no enemy and no victory.

“The slogan was ‘sensitivity and determination' and the army and police evacuated thousands of settlers and their hotheaded supporters with unprecedented discipline and restraint.”

“First, army and police commanders were brought together and taught how to work as a team in a kind of operation for which they had never been trained. Then their men and women were put through intensive preparation. Every lieutenant-colonel had his or her own consultant. A psychologist was assigned to every company.

“Instructors showed them video footage of the 1982 evacuation of the Sinai town of Yamit under the peace treaty with Egypt. They also interviewed people who went through that disengagement.”

“The lessons were reviewed in simulations and workshops. All the potential challenges – the insults, the Holocaust imagery, the spitting, the struggling – were played out in advance.”

Israel arrests two for pig's-head attack on mosque

Sign. It appears it was two Jews who are suspected of having thrown a pigs head into a mosque.

getting it wrong

Well I really screwed up bigtime yesterday. One mistake with a database and workplace gets even more stressed than I thought possible. If you live in Northern Israel and your water tastes a bit funny I'm sorry. However, few people here drink from the tap unless you're in the lower quartile so I'll say sorry again. Normal service has been resumed. It didn't hurt you at all.

Blog and computers

My home computer has been around a while and now that it's banned from the bedroom and stuck in a corner it's slowly dying. Don't cry. I have taken a solemn oath that there will be no more BG/MS stuff now or forever. There will be yet another hiatus while I get Linux to talk to Bezeq.

I can still blog from work or the cellphone of course. Yes, I know.

Some jokes only work if they are heard not read

Heard on Radio 4’s Just a Minute: Clement Freud asking Nicholas Parsons, apropos of the Henley Regatta: “Is it true that you kiss the cox of the winning team?”

Listen to it for the next 7 days.

Latest safety measure for London: clear backpacks

Attention anyone who may fit the physical profile of a suicide bomber: rid yourself of stares and false alarms by using a clear backpack on London's tubes and buses.




An enterprising company has just launched a range of backpacks, messenger bags and sports bags – all entirely see-through. They say that they will give 10% of every bag sold to the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund.

Thanks to the beeb for the image.

Under US noses, brutal insurgents rule Sunni citadel

If this Guardian report is even partially true , the situation in Iraq is far, far worse than I thought it was.

The court caters solely for divorces and marriages. Alleged criminals are punished in the market. The Guardian witnessed a headmaster accused of adultery whipped 190 times with cables. Children laughed as he sobbed and his robe turned crimson.

Two men who robbed a foreign exchange shop were splayed on the ground. Masked men stood on their hands while others broke their arms with rocks. The shopkeeper offered the insurgents a reward but they declined.

DVDs of beheadings on the bridge are distributed free in the souk. Children prefer them to cartoons. "They should not watch such things," said one grandfather, but parents appeared not to object.

One DVD features a young, blond muscular man who had been disembowelled. He was said to have been a member of a six-strong US sniper team ambushed and killed on August 1. Residents said he had been paraded in town before being executed.

Now their strategy appears to be to wait out the Americans, calculating they will leave within a few years, and then escalate what some consider the real war against a government led by Shias, a rival sect which Sunni extremists consider apostasy.

I was right two years ago. It will take 10 years to sort Iraq out.

Treppenwitz

Just so you know why one of the best blogs around doesn't link here anymore.

Politicized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive - New York Times

Excuse me? The Discovery Foundation gets one million dollars per year from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? This is the pro 'Intelligent Design' people who want:

nothing less than the overthrow of materialism and its cultural legacies" in favor of a "broadly theistic understanding of nature"

Other than that I see that the comments section is getting hot under the collar. Always happy to have views expressed here of course. I'm finding what's going on here in Israel much more painful than I thought I would.

Chazirim or it must have been Christians wot done it…or not

Will someone over there please tell the Jaffa massive and the perpetrators that pigs are just as unclean for Jews as they are for Muslims?

Missiles narrowly miss US warship

Katyusha rockets from Aqaba ,Jordan into the local Jordanian port and Eilat? This is very strange. Stil, whatever the media say, I have a lot of faith in Jordan.

Endless days and nights

I'm still here. Yesterday was long , hot and sweaty updating software for water systems in the Jordan valley. Memo to self. Sun cream needed on feet and toes. Laptops really can't take the heat even shaded.

I'm still watching what's going on in Gaza with concern and admiration.

I just wish ..... well lots of things but I can't blog about them now.

Much ado about a lot

I was watching the news this morning and felt very bad about what's going on the Gaza. It's not the temperature for it either. I have a new contract to study as well. I expect to be starting a new job next month thank goodness. Otherwise we're keeping our head above water.

A friend of ours says he's not going to watch the TV, read a paper or hear the news for the next three weeks. I can understand how he feels.

Back again

Yes, I'm back. Mrs Egghead had to go off to India to bring our daughter back. Yes, she's been very silly but is expected to recover.

In the meantime, I've taken the blue and white ribbons off my car. I shall explain later.

Over there

I’m straying from here into there, but Adrian is otherwise engaged...

Now that day one of the settlements pullout is complete, it is nice to see from this distance that all settlers have peacefully left the northern Gaza and west bank settlements.

I guess crunch time will be tomorrow with the extremists and infiltrators (dare I say insurgents?) in Gush Katif. Here’s hoping for minimal casualties

Muslim fury at Israel-controlled BBC

Now we know for certain that what passes for Muslim leadership in Britain is seriously out of touch. The BBC has a “pro-Israel agenda”?! There is a “pro-Israel lobby at the BBC”?! Fnar. If only…

The odious views of the Muslim Council of Britain’s head Sickbag Scrawney and media spokesman Inandout Bungleblowup have caused continual concern. Now an investigation has proven their link to terrorist ideologies and groups including Pakistani.

And Ickball is the best Her Maj’s Govt could do to find a British muslim to award a knighthood solely it seems to balance awarding a knighthood to the Chief Rabbi. Note to Mr Saccharine: a knighthood can be rescinded for various reasons such as the recipient being convicted of an offence.

A very Hampstead protest

The Corporation of London’s slapstick comedy management of Hampstead Heath ponds continues. Their attempt to collect money voluntarily from swimmers by installing ticket machines has been widely opposed and ignored. Now the chattering classes have resorted to direct action. No superglue or spray paint for north and northwest London metrosexuals oh no. The ticket machine at the men’s pond was jammed…by stuffing it full of berries. Organic or freshly gathered no doubt.

BTW the reason Hampstead swimming is free is that you are swimming close to nature in ponds fed with spring water with minimal facilities -- unlike a swimming pool or lido where you are paying for chlorinated water, hot showers, lockers, indoor changing rooms and the like. If the Corporation were to install hot showers and lockers in the women’s pond then I wouldn’t mind paying a reasonable fee to swim there.

Bad bad Persians

Putting their nuke programme back in action! Caught out smuggling weapons into Iraq! UN sanctions on the cards! Oh and they’ve said some rather inflammatory things about civilisation as we know it. Looks like we’ll be cruising for a bruising in Iran soon. After the success in Afghanistan and the, er, not so success in Iraq the 5-year plan is creaking into phase 3. Oops, too many US and UK troops are still engaged in Iraq and Israel is busy unsettling settlers. Soon?

Warning following series of assaults…as if

Men have been warned not to go out alone after dark in a Northants town after a series of three rapes and two abduction attempts over 10 days.

Extra police patrols are now taking place in Northampton, after officers launched a hunt for a gang of tall, black men in their early 20s. They had South African accents and a blue BMW car and a light-coloured Fiat Punto were used in some of the attacks.

Det Ch Insp John Jones of Northants Police should have said:

“It has taken a lot of courage for for these women to come forward. Any man out after dark meeting this description is at risk: the risk of being picked up by us and being brought to justice”.

"We are asking all males to avoid being out alone at night or in the early hours of the morning."

British muslim traitors may face treason charges

Good one. The mere announcement has already made one of the more odious extremist islamist clerics leave the UK. Good riddance.

So now we have a robust framework being set up. Born-British citizens could be tried for treason. Naturalised British citizens could be stripped of their citizenship and deported. UK residents legal and illegal ditto. Much more effective than trying to ban particular groups, which can then simply reform.

As far as I’m concerned, I bust a gut and went through a lot in order to have the right to live here and become a citizen of my adopted home. Anyone who doesn’t like it here or who wants to destroy our way of life is free to leave. Make that should be compelled to leave.

Break

There where be a short break while I sort some things out.

Away and at home

The visit to the UK for my nephew's wedding didn't. Didn't as in I couldn't go. So, I am by the Kinneret trying to empty my head and get some rest time. In Tiberious getting breakfast and suncream , ( don't travel in Israel without it) I was approached by a very obvious Orthodox youth. He wanted money. "En Kessif", "Lo Avodah" was just about what I heard under the threads of his mind. All by the ATM.

Yes, I gave him 20 Shekels and walked down the road to the mall where I knew (this is Tiberious remember?) there would be a Torah group. I asked them if there was anyway they could help this guy. One of them spoke English very well. After an internal burst of Yiddish which I did not understand, they asked if I was Jewish. I said no, I'm Christian'. After another burst of Yiddish, they said we help people to Torah , there are other groups that help people like that.

I asked for a phone number. They said no. "No, it's not my problem."

I'm still trying. I don't know what bothers me most. Beggars I have met in many countries. This one, with a white shirt, tallit, curls past his ears really, really upset me. I'll look for him again Sunday morning. No, probably I won't and he will dim in my mind. I'll try again Saturday evening. After Shabbat.

As if.

Galloway spews. An Israeli kills and is killed.

During a tour of the Middle East, Mr Galloway spoke of "poor Israelis" using their weapons to write the names of their country "in the stars". He accused the muslim world of "raping" Israel and said the Palestinians and all muslims were losing their war. The problem was the Palestinians were killing people and he wanted to stop the bloodshed by withdrawing Palestinians from Israel. The Israeli orange resistance phenomenon arose out of the first withdrawal, the lack of final unity of Jerusalem and islamic states’ support for "corrupt" leaders, he argued. "If it is a question of quantum, there is far more blood on the hands of The House of Saud than there is on the hands of the Israeli murderer who killed those people on the bus."

How the UK gave Israel the bomb

Only heavy water though. Useful in it's own way of course.

Always a student…

Another advantage of this PhD lark is that after 19 years I once again am the proud holder of a student card which means I can get a student discount (typically 10%) in all manner of fab places such as Borders, Paperchase and TopShop...Now it’s back to that essay on classical contract law.

Islamic Jihad head: We may recognize the State of Israel

Abdel Halim Izzedine, known as Abu Qassam, begins to sound reasonable. Too reasonable.

After 12 years spent in Israeli prisons, Abu Qassam says he doesn't hate Israelis. "I would like to get to know their human side ... both sides see only the negative in one another," he said.

I can't wait for the full interview. Was this in Hebrew, English or Arabic I wonder.

Bush Remarks Roil Debate Over Teaching of Evolution

Even the President has joined in now. For those who wonder what the fuss is all about, read this.

Israel army says it will switch to sand bullets for riot control

Well, sand is something that there's no shortage off here. Interesting idea.

Old boy racer

A 100-year old driver with 82 accident-free years behind the wheel and a clean driving licence is demanding his driving licence back. His doctor recommended withdrawal even though Tom Soulby sailed through his three-yearly medical to determine his fitness to drive last summer. Since then he has suffered a mild heart attack, from which he feels he has recovered.

Mr. Soulby insists that both he and his car, a 1981 Austin Metro with only 24,000 miles on the clock, are good for many more years. Mr Soulby, who lives in Wimborne in Dorset said he has never had a crash or any convictions.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority, said that there was no upper age limit but drivers must renew their licence every three years after the age of 70. “Applicants are required to declare any relevant medical condition, including their ability to meet the statutory eyesight standard. If they do not renew, the licence automatically expires.”

Good universe: If he is otherwise healthy and able to drive safely why shouldn’t he keep driving?

Bad universe: Is he one of those men-with-hats who clog up country roads and irritate other drivers by driving over cautiously at less than the speed limit?