Hijab hamlet

Tower Hamlet sets a new low in dhimmitude as it plans to use £1.8 million to put a hijab on the whole of Brick Lane.

Next up: Bradford gets a burkha.

Sir Keith Park

It's one of those "good news, bad news" stories. The good news is that a bronze statue of Battle of Britain hero Sir Keith Park was unveiled on the fourth plinth of Trafalgar Square. The bad news is that it will only stand in the place that it deserves for six months before being replaced by yet another in a string of artistic abominations that have for so many years disgraced the square and the heroes it honours.

You'd think Mr Boris Johnson would have the guts to say "here is stands and here it stays".

London Bridge redesigned

I swear that it's easy to pick out the architects who designed this atrocity to replace London Bridge. Go to a revival screening of The Battle of Britain and they're the ones cheering on the Luftwaffe all the way.

One day in London

Over at London Daily Photo we have this entry about a man making a gigantic sand sculpture in the sandy bed of the Thames by the Oxo Tower at low tide.

Sand sculpture is fun to watch and a harmless enough fad, but somehow practicing it anywhere in the estuary without a biohazard suit is asking for at least a nasty rash.

By the bye, they have found all those bombs the Jerries dropped, haven't they?

The Bombay Brasserie's £2000 Curry

It's the Samundari Khazana, or Seafood Treasure, and it's a mix of caviare, abalone, quail's eggs, a whole lobster, white truffles, edible gold, and bits of the Maltese Falcon. Two thousand quid a go and poppadoms are extra.

Never mind the gold leaf slapped on the inedible bits. I swear I can see ravioli in there.

Update: Not everyone is impressed.

Big Ben Birthday

Big Ben is 150 years old. Huzzah!

Unlike Mr Stephen Bayley, who has a piece in The Spectator commemorating the event, I didn't live near Westminster, I used to live in it–in fact, I was about 400 yard away from the Houses of Parliament, which meant that I had to sleep in fifteen minute bursts. It made for great training for fatherhood.

Plinth & Paintballs

According to The Times, 11,000 people with way too much spare time on their hands have volunteered to play the part of "living statues" on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square that was originally left open to leave room to honour future men famous for serving the Empire in deeds of blood and arms and not to indulge the asinine antics of pseudoartistic poseurs who don't give a scrap for tradition, honour, art, or even good taste.

Still, it's an ill wind that blows no one good, and if an enterprising chap can get his hands on one of these paintball sniper rifles and a selection of rooftop locations, it could be a chance to make a few bob by charging so much a shot and provide the public with some harmless amusement while chastising a load of imminently chastisable fools.

Extra points if you can catch them with straddling shots as they try to flee for the Underground.

Can of Ham

Because ham goes well with gherkins.

Freight*BUS

A "radical" redesign of London buses that combines passenger and freight service–or just freight, to be honest, because any potential passengers would run a mile at first sight of this thing.

Raven Reinforcement

At least someone is taking the credit crunch seriously.

How to Ride a Bus

The screen crackles with excitement.

Routemaster Revision

Good news: London Transport is looking for a new version of the classic Routemaster doubledecker.

Bad news: It's a "smiley face" contraption with inescapable telescreens televisions.

My Other Car

Oh, how I wish it was.

Inamo

ROOSTA:
It’d better be a good disco.

ZAPHOD:
Listen, if it was a good disco they wouldn’t have to give away body debit cards.

A London restaurant boasts tables with touch-sensitive surfaces that allow patrons to order meals, change the table pattern, look up "neighbourhood services" (whatever those are), and "preview" their food.

Something tells me that the preview tastes better than the real thing.

Memory Drain

A review of the Red Lion pub in Westminster, which I include because it was the first pub I visited when I moved to London back in the '80s.

Don't worry. I shan't include London's other 6000 I had a pint in.

Duck

In Seattle, the DUKW, a rather clever bit of Second World War engineering that converted a standard US Army truck into an amphibious transport, has been conscripted, quite against its will, into an attraction called Ride the Ducks.

If you've never encountered it, you are blessed. The "Duck" carts tourists about town and through the waters of Lake Union to the accompaniment of tour narration, twee music and duck quacks.

Amplified duck quacks.

Not surprisingly, you can find where the tours start by looking for a giant rubber duck, though why you would do so is beyond me. Personally, I give it as wide a berth as possible, which is why I keep a small mountain between me and it. Whenever I drive into town I have a hunted look as I crouch behind the wheel in case someone sees me within a hundred yards of the thing and my greatest dread is that my mother will see it on a visit, want to have a go and I'll be without my false beard.

My one bit of solace was the happy thought that when I go back to London I will be as far away from the "Duck" as one can get without bedding down in a yurt with a billy can full of boiled tea mixed with rancid yak butter. Unfortunately, that comforting thought has been ripped from me now that I've learned that a similar enterprise is operating under the very shadow of the Palace of Westminster.

And so another crack appears in the tarnished facade of civilisation.

Old Monks

Times headline:

Medieval monks foot bill for Tower Bridge’s £4m facelift

In other news, there are 800-year old monks running around.

Sandwich Boards Get Toasted!

Battersea Saved–If You Can Call It That

The good news is that a group of Irish developers have come up with a way to save Battersea power station from the wrecking ball.

The bad news is that it involves hooking it up to some happy-clappy "carbon neutral" architectural monstrosity that looks like it escaped from a 1980's lighting fixtures department.

Doctor Whippy

An ice cream machine that gives you bigger portions the more unhappy you sound.

Marvin was unavailable for comment as he's all sticky.

Red Ken's Oil Deal is Off

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has announced that he will end the deal set up between Ken Livingstone and Hugo Chavez to subsidise London buses using cut-price Venezuelan oil.

Hammering down this cynical attempt by Red Ken and Chavez to bribe London's poor into backing a tin-pot South American dictator shows that the windows are being opened and the fresh air of sanity is at last being allowed in.

Boris Johson Wins

Mr. Gordon Brown's bad day just got worse as voters tell Red Ken not to let the door hit him on the way out.

Mile-High Madness

Popular Architecture proposes that the answer to Britain's housing problems is a block of flats a mile high. According to the authors,

The tower allows a massive intensification of the city without the need for dramatic alteration of London's existing fabric.

That's no "dramatic alteration" as in, "Driving a stake through the man's heart was not a dramatic alteration of his existing fabric."

BREAKING NEWS: Camden Ablaze

A massive fire has broken out in the market area of Camden.

I used to live in Camden not a stone's throw away. Very sad.

Jor El, Call Your Service

The above is what architect Ken Shuttleworth's plans to build next to Christopher Wren's monument to the Great Fire of London.

Thrift, Horatio. Now you can visit both the Monument and the Kryptonian embassy at one go.

Night Train

A new sculpture is due to be unveiled at St. Pancras station. According to the BBC,

The sculpture is intended to reflect the romance of past train travel.

From the look of the piece, St. Pancaras must have once been very popular with horny vampires.

Many Eyes and None That See

• 10,524 CCTV cameras in London.
• Cost: £200 million
• Unsolved crime rate: 80%

As I've said, it isn't just that these totalitarians are taking away our liberties, it's that they can't even accomplish what they claimed was the reason for doing so.

When Oysters Go Bad

From the Guardian:

Up to a million people on income support will be eligible for half fares on London's buses under Ken Livingstone's oil deal with Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president.

Single parents, carers, the long-term sick and disabled people will benefit from the plan, first mooted during Mr Chávez's visit to the UK last year, paying 50p for a single journey if they use an Oystercard.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Red Ken has done a deal with the likes of Chavez. but I sincerely hope that freeborn Englishmen will prefer to walk from Whitechapel to Richmond rather than accept largess from a tin-pot Latin American dictator.

No Respect

The AP's Thomas Wagner puzzles over why all those doctors became involved in a terrorist plot and for all his research and pondering cannot come up with a single common denominator as to what could cause these professional men to plant car bombs in London and Glasgow. Could it be a religious motive. No, of course not. Don't be silly.

It is enough to make one show genuine sympathy for the Jihadists. I mean, here they are shouting from the rooftops that they're a load of crazed Muslim fanatics dedicated to establishing a worldwide Caliphate and have sworn war to the knife against any infidel or fellow Muslim who does not subscribe to their twisted brand of Islam and you can't even get the Western elite to give you a look in. What do you have to do to be taken seriously as a power-hungry megalomaniac around here?

The Australian Connection

In the wake of last week's bombing attempts in London & Glasgow, Australian authorities are carrying out raids and are questioning five more doctors with (if you read the BBC) nothing in common beyond being doctors.

By a staggering coincidence, at least one is named "Mohammed", so I suspect that they are not Methodists

We Have Met The Enemy And He is...

The Prime Minister Mr. Gordon Brown has finally stood up and addressed the threat of radical Islam by leaping boldly into action and... banning any use of the words "Muslim" and "War" in connection with the war being waged against us by radical Muslims.

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word “Muslim” in ­connection with the ­terrorism crisis.

The Prime Minister has also instructed his team – including new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – that the phrase “war on ­terror” is to be dropped.

The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more “consensual” tone than existed under Tony Blair.

Start as you intend to continue, I suppose.

Meanwhile, the BBC has finally found something to link together the perpetrators of the recent bombing attempts; they all worked for the NHS.

It's as I've always suspected. Now we must ask ourselves why does the National Health Service hate us?

Now We Are Eight

The bombing arrest toll has risen to eight.

It also brings the number of doctors under arrest to three.

Update: Make that five doctors. This is starting to slip into surrealism.

Update: Six doctors and arrests in Brisbane. Surrealism achieved.

And This Just In From Planet Livingstone

The capital is attacked by Jihadists and London Mayor "Red Ken" Lingstone steps up and confronts the real problem-- the inevitable, but always non-existent "backlash." Only this time he spices it up by comparing the Jihad to the far more pressing, but equally non-existent white terror campaign that London is not in the grip of.

Net Widens

Two more men have been arrested in connection with the recent bombings, bringing the total to seven. The BBC describes the suspects as "not thought to be of British origin," so I presume that they are Lithuanian Buddhists.

Also reported, one of the people arrested in Cheshire is named "Mohammed." What are the odds?

Update: The connection between the Glasgow and London bombings is more of a unity, according to CNN:

Authorities suspect the two men who rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into Glasgow's airport on Saturday are the same people who parked two car bombs in central London a day earlier.

Damn It, Jim; I'm a Doctor, Not a Jihadist!

Five people from Glasgow to Cheshire to Liverpool have been arrested in Britain in connection with the recent bombing attempts with more to follow over the next few days.

Interestingly, two of the five are physicians.

So much for the "poor and disenfranchised" theory of Jihadism.

Still, it's perplexing that we keep finding so many people from such diverse backgrounds and over such a wide area of the country involved in terrorist attacks. I keep looking at the news reports for something that they all have in common, but it still remains a mystery.

Catch and Release

According to ABC News, British police have identified the suspect and (surprise!) it isn't a rogue IRA operative or Mafia hit man, but is Al Qaeda (emphasis added):

British police have a "crystal clear" picture of the man who drove the bomb-rigged silver Mercedes outside a London nightclub, and officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com he bears "a close resemblance" to a man arrested by police in connection with another bomb plot but released for lack of evidence.

Officials say the suspect had been taken into custody in connection with the case of al Qaeda operative Dhiren Barot (pictured), who was convicted of orchestrating a vehicle bomb plot involving targets in London, New York, Newark, N.J. and Washington, D.C.

And some people can't understand why it's a bad idea to use the police and civilian courts to solve what is a military problem.

London Bombing Attempt

Authorities in London have neutralised a car bomb in the Haymarket. Planted outside of the Tiger Tiger nightclub, which has a maximum capacity of 1700, a green metallic Mercedes packed with petrol, propane and nails was discovered by an ambulance crew when it started emitting smoke at about 1:30 AM. Police destroyed the vehicle with a controlled explosion and a second car in Park Lane is under investigation.

This bomb smells so heavily of Al Qaeda that even the BBC can't skirt around the obvious, though the AP does a valiant effort by reporting that "Police were also investigating the possibility that the planned attack could have been criminal in nature."

Uh, yeah.

My impression is that this happening within two days of Gordon Brown becoming Prime Minister is no coincidence and that the Jihadis were hoping to pull a Madrid by killing hundreds, if not thousands within a stone's throw of Piccadilly Circus before Mr. Brown had a chance to finish unpacking his underwear at No. 10. Hopefully this misfire will turn into a backfire that will make Mr. Brown declare what his predecessor could never bring himself to do, which is that what is happening on the streets of Britain is nothing less than enemy action in time of war and that those who carry these acts out, those who aid them, and those who support their goals are nothing less than enemy agents or traitors to be treated accordingly..

But I'm not holding my breath.

Update: In a concerted effort to sweep things under the carpet, AP (no surprise here) is reporting that terror links were "not found," though a closer reading indicates that there isn't any positive evidence linking the bomb to specific terrorist suspects. It's important to keep an open mind in these situations, but until the police put the finger on someone who isn't named Mohammad, I'm leaving this in the Jihad basket.

Update: Fleet street has been closed off because of a third suspicious vehicle.

Update: CBS claims to have uncovered a connection to a posting on a Jihadist web site.

Cost of Living

London has been declared the second most expensive city in the world.

Come on, London! Don't stand for this. Call yourself a world capital? Get out there. Jack up those prices. Raise those rates.

No. 1! No. 1! No. 1!

Head Firmly Up His...

Michael Hodges in Time Out London argues that fears of Jihadists is nothing but a fantasy and that London would actually be much better off under Islam; healthier food, lots of exercise through praying, no racism, and all those bickering kuffar sects would learn to get along under the beneficent guidance of the Faithful.

In an Islamic London, Christians and Jews – with their allegiance to the Bible and the Talmud – would be protected as ‘peoples of the book’. Hindus and Sikhs manage to live alongside a large Muslim population in India, so why not here? Although England has a long tradition of religious bigotry against, for instance, Roman Catholics, it is reasonable to assume that under the guiding hand of Islam a civilised accommodation could be made among faith groups in London. This welcoming stance already exists in the capital in the form of the City Circle (see Yahya Birt interview), which encourages inter-faith dialogue and open discussion.

Even on its own terms, Mr. Hodges's argument flies off at a tangent from reality and refuses to see any trouble with Islam that can't be explained away by blaming those nasty British racists who are the real problem. Take the start of the article:

The noise from the expectant crowd hushed to a murmur as an open-backed lorry that had driven slowly up the Mall – known since the Islamic revolution of 2021 as The Way of the Martyrs – nudged its way through the thousands gathered in Mohammad Sidique Khan Square. On the lorry, two masked guards held a young man, black hood over his head; a quiver running through the material suggested he knew what was coming.

The lorry halted by the plinth that had once held Marc Quinn’s sculpture ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ – long since removed as an insult to decency – and was now the place of public execution. A rope noose attached to a wire cable hung from a mechanised hoist. The main doors of what had been the National Gallery flung open and an Imam walked down the steps of the new Institute of Islamic Jurisprudence, opened only a week before by Sultan Charles, Prince of Islam and protector of the faithful in England.

The official executioner placed a stepladder against the plinth. The lorry pulled up and the young man was pushed out, then forced up the ladder. The noose was forced over the condemned man’s head. The crowd chanted ‘Allahu akbar’ (God is greater than everything).The hoist driver put his finger on a green button … Okay, not really – that’s a hysterical, right-wing nightmare of a future Muslim London: where an cruel alien creed is forced on a liberal city. A society where women are second-class citizens, same sex relationships a crime and Sharia law enforces terrible public disfigurement and death. But the reality is a long, long way from this dark vision.

On the terms of sanity, it's the ravings of a man who will be the first to embrace dhimmitude and then be all surprised when it's literally his turn for the chop. What Mr. Hodges completely fails to grasp is that while his scenario might be a "right-wing nightmare" it is also a Jihadi dream-- one which evil men of violence will do anything (and I mean anything) to inflict on the rest of the world. Add to this an Islam on the verge of a theological crisis as moderate is confronted with Jihadist and a growing Muslim immigrant population that has an alarming percentage that sympathise with the goals of these villains, if not their means, and you have a self-lighting powder keg. Perhaps Trafalgar Square will never be a place of public execution where bearded fanatics ululate in glory, but that doesn't mean that a future London couldn't end up looking like Gaza City with a bit more rainfall as it becomes a battleground between civilised men and the barbarians come again.

I haven't seen such willful blindness since the days of the Cold War when Stalin worshipers in the chattering classes of Islington used to tell Solzhenitsyn to his face that he didn't know what he was talking about. It puts me in mind of nothing less than the start of the Dark Ages when Roman upper-class ladies were said to greet the arrival of the Visigoths by calling out "When do the rapes begin?"

It looks as if things don't change that much in a millennium and a half.

Update: From the comments that follow the article, it looks as the Time Out's readers don't think much of Mr. Hodes either.

The Terror of the Terrapins

Never mind the Royal Navy, Londoners are definitely not the men their fathers were. Once able to stoically face the worst that the Luftwaffe could offer, London is now trapped in a vice of fear as crazed terrapins terrorise Hampstead Heath.

I am not very worried about this, as no doubt they will eventually be seen off by hordes of half-gone sloths followed by wave upon wave of ninja snails, but at least Britain is not as bad off as Argentina, where a zookeeper was savaged to death by an anteater. Presumably the animal's claws were involved, otherwise it must have been the most brutal licking in history.

Swings & Roundabouts

London: World's greatest city with the world's worst mindset.

Another Nail

The first female Beefeater has been appointed at the Tower of London.

God help us all.