Crickets

For some days we have had a guest in the house. He seems to live in the kitchen and has proved rather shy. It was a cricket and he's lonely. The noise starts at night and drives three quarters of the household insane. Attempts to locate and remove him have failed.

Last night was the worst. I attempted to recreate a smoky atmosphere with incense and candles but at around 4 a.m. She Who Must Be Cuddled insisted on a weapon of mass destruction, namely the insect spray all Israeli households have. My lack-of-sleep muddled mind missed the dangers and I found out all to easily that the gas is inflammable. We have a sightly sorched small mat but otherwise no damage except to my pride and heart rate.

The cricket survived.

Fears over climate as Arctic ice melts at record level

The Artic sea ice is melting faster than ever. This could be bad news for Panama of course as the northwest passage becomes feasible for shipping. I also note that Canada and the USA are in a spat about whether this would be an open seaway or an inland Canadian waterway.

Weddings

A wedding last night. Israelis sure know how to eat.

New job

I've started my new job. Regretfully, they failed to provide a desk and computer so far. Ah well. Next month, due to the holidays, we only work 10 days. This is too easy.

IAF hits Gaza buildings after Hamas fires 25 Qassams

So some Hamas guy screws up and kills 19 people. They blame Israel of course and launch 25 Qassam rockets. 21 landed in the western Negev town of Sderot injuring three. The IDF hit targets in Northern Gaza. Just great.

Gulf Hurricane of Top Strength Menaces Texas

Best of luck to all those Texans facing Hurricane Rita.

Top Shop tops London Fashion Week

Normally I don’t write about ‘fashun’ but today I just can’t resist. Top Shop is one of my favourite places at the moment for casual clothes - and stuff I can bodge together for professional purposes where a suit is too dressy. They are reasonably priced, well trendy and very well cut. Not the best quality but excellent value for money. And most importantly TopShop has a large small collection eg. lots of petites.

For a vertically challenged person like me this means properly proportioned jeans and trousers of (nearly!) the appropriate length rather than having to lop off up to 8 inches of twouser length then having the crutch hang too low anyway. Way back when M & S served the nation, they had a great range of kids stuff that fit me very well. That went by the wayside in their slow, painful retreat from having anything useful or of value to buy at all.

In fact, the owner of Top Shop, Mister Philip Bling sorry Green should be put in control of M&S before it is too late. He tried a takeover last year but failed to convince enough shareholders. I’m convinced he will succeed sooner or later in reinstalling the reinvigourating Jewish retail magic to M&S.

This really made me larff:

The show was compelling and the front row was spectacular. Every blonde from Belsize Park to Brighton was there: Donna Air, Sara Cox, Laura Bailey, Davinia Murphy, Jenny Frost and Zoe Ball, taking up so many seats that Peaches and Pixie Geldof were in the second row. The Knightsbridge posse was also represented, though it is questionable whether Jemima Khan or Camilla Fayed have worn Topshop before.

The guests were well and truly outblinged, however, by the daughter of Philip Green. Sporting two necklaces, diamond stud earrings, a charm bracelet and a diamond encrusted watch from Jacob & Co (retail value: between £1,000 and £4,000), Chloe Green is one 13-yearold who is definitely her father's daughter. No wonder he needs to keep raking in the billions.

Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal, 'conscience of the Holocaust' dies at 96

A very great man has left us.

Connections

There is a word for having connections in Israel but I am unsure how to spell it in English. Proteczia?

When we had this house rebuilt, all the wiring was replaced. We have three phase available for improvements with other goodies. The electrician was supossed to submit plans of what was done to the local electricity board so that it could be checked. He didn't. The Kablan (foreman) who was supposed to make it happen didn't. After five months of phone calls, we went nuclear. Mrs E called her friend who's husband is a local electricity board bigwig. Five days later it's all done. This isn't the way it is supposed to work.

Thanks Mr D.

Raining

Lovely lovely rain. Of course, Son and I spent yesterday fitting drip irrigation for our 30 metres of new hedge yesterday and watered it well. I even heard thunder.

War crimes prosecution overseas: How should Israel respond?

I've been too busy to blog. When I did get to the computer the anti virus software had gone mad taking me a little while to smack it back to normal.

Now here's a thing. IDF officers facing prosection in the UK and abroad? I could put together a better list starting with military officers in Burma, North Korea etc. They don;t seem to travel though.

Pumped up petrol panic

Yesterday afternoon, having just been reunited with my car after spending a week and a k on a mega service, and, wanting to give it a good blast halfway up the country and back before dinner, I needed to fill up the petrol tank. Arriving at the petrol station, I was amazed to see (orderly! this is Britain) queues of cars snaking from the entrance back on the surrounding road. People were filling up not just their cars and but petrol containers as well . Oh dear, back to the panic buying attacks generated by militant truckers threatening to blockade petrol distributors for 3 days starting today. After a 15 minute wait I finally got some to the last petrol left at that petrol station. The guy at the counter told me they had just sold their week’s allocation in one day and were just closing. The queues were repeated at every petrol station I passed.

The demos have got off to a slow start. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Court slaps employer of illegal workers with 5-year sentence

Between 1998 and 2004 Bonfil supplied workers to restaurants and cafes in the center of the country. He was convicted of hiring them without working permits, medical insurance or regular pay slips, as well as housing them in substandard conditions.

Excellent news.

Last day

Last day in this job. A few days off, then I get to start again.

Posting

Again, a slight break but I'm back I think. The break is actually in my left foot. Ah well, I can still drive. Due to high levels of auto theft in our area and living in a house I've had to had an extra alarm added to the car. This thing doesn't seem to do much except fall of the dashboard when least expected and beep occasionally.

Blair advisers urge U.K. to cancel Holocaust Day

No. Really seriously no. The Shoah deserves it own day, museums and memorials. This is just disguised Holocaust denial. Whatever the wrongs and rights on Israel and the Palestinians the two do not match,

Israel accuses UN Lebanon mission of collaborating with Hezbollah

Yes. I for one, see little point in UNIFIL especially their role is keeping beer and hotel prices high in the North of Israel. Either they have a real job and do it or get out. Surprising views from a 'left winger'?
When it comes to the security of Israel I know who my enemies are.

Friends - or enemies?

The Quakers, generally known to be pacifists, did a u-turn and allowed banned extremist islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir to use their Friends Meeting Hall on the Euston Road. This is in spite of the group using that well-worn trick of booking the hall under a false name (not quite as cheeky as of ‘progressive modern Muslims for world peace’). The Friends were satisfied with a written statement along the lines of we don’t want to blow up innocent civilians, guv innit. Silly. It is in the Dictionary of Terrorism that when these groups say they don’t advocate terrorism against “innocent civilians” they are specifically excluding all Jews and Israelis (and some of them also mean Yanks and Brits), whether in Israel or anywhere else in the world.

The Fiends Hall is also the London spiritual home of Gorgeous. He performs his now renowned snake oil salesman routine here whenever he can drag himself away from supping with extremists or sunning himself in Spain.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - again

Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said this week that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for U.S. President George W. Bush's support for Israel's disengagement from Gaza.

Wonderful.Yedioth Ahronoth news has more details and again, the standard defence.

Shas official Tzvika Yaacobson did not deny Ovadia made the comments, but said they had been taken out of context.

Thai workers versus Israeli workers

Yes, it all makes so much sense. Employ Thai workers below minimum wage with no paid vacations or health benefits. Let the taxpayer pick up the tab for medical care when needed.

If this works so well for farmers, why not expand the programme? Replace software engineers with imported Indians. The IDF could recruit Gurkhas, change Israeli nurses with much cheaper Nigerians. If fact , we could replace the entire working population with foreigners.

People are always telling me 'Israelis don't like dirty work'. When I mention that all the sanitation workers are all Israeli, they say' Ah, but they get paid well'. Exactly. This is not about workshy Israelis, it's all about profits. As my friend Mr T always said about citrus and salad exports from Israel 'It's a expensive way of exporting water to the rest of the world.'

Israel set to join EU Galileo space project

Hooray! Israel gets to join Europe in something the USA is less than keen on for a change. Good news. I suspect that the US will pressure Israel to back out of this one.

The most popular painting in the UK.

Apparently the most popular painting in the United Kingdom. I approve. The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth To Be Broken Up, 1838 by Turner. Very evocative.

Muslims torch 14 Christian homes near Ramallah

The current Christian population stands at around 2.3%, a historically low point. You can understand why. Reviled by fellow Arabs, treated just like all the other Arabs by the Jewish population, generally better educated, they leave.

Well, at least they saved the beer factory.

Correction.

I have been informed that the Christian population in Israel has increased, rather than decreased due primarily to non Jewish partners of Jews making Aliyah from the CIS states. There do not appear to be specific figures breaking down these stats into ethnic groups.

Dim north Londoners

1. Would someone please tell members of the gangsta mugging community that a Friday night out holding guns to the heads of men in frum areas like Golders Green is unlikely to result in any readies, keys or bling.

2. Would someone please tell Rabbi Doctor Jeffrey Cohen of Stanmore and Canons Park United the difference between a self-hating anti-semitic Jew and the fabulous Amos Oz. Oz is one of the most effective, passionate and coherent writers and speakers on how the only future of Israel as a Jewish state is along a democratic secular path (separation of synagogue and state) and existing alongside a Palestinian state.

The latter story was in last Friday’s dead-tree JC.

Rabbi Cohen attacked the novelist Oz from the pulpit on Shabbat over a recent article on the Gaza withdrawal published in The Times and broadcast on Radio 4. “There can be no more pathetic sight than that of a Jew-hating Jew, or to be a little more charitable, a Jew embarrassed by his own people and their historical aspirations” the rabbi fuminated.

Department of Homeland Security

Just for the record, whatever anyone else says, it was gestated during the Clinton Administration and was picked up by the current US Government and born. Whatever else it did not or did do, it's still a good idea.

Bush sends marines as flood fury grows

I find it very hard to believe the message I am getting from the media about the crisi in the Gulf. I simply find it unbelieveable that this can happen in the USA and I will wait until the full story is known until I form a judgement.

I would very much like to help but feel so helpless.