Peter Reynolds

If we lived in a world without religion there wouldn’t be any conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan.  The Twin Towers would still be standing.  We wouldn’t be hearing the dreadful news about child sexual abuse in Ireland.  The Christian Church and Islam are both condemned for thousands of years of violence and evil.  They are both as bad as each other.  If I had my way they would both be disgraced and proscribed by appropriate public ceremony.

“Too many have died in the name of Christ for anyone to heed the call”

Teach Your Children

These are the immortal words of Crosby Stills & Nash.  Substitute “Christ” with any deity you care to mention.

I accept that in all organised religions there are people who do good. However, an accounting of the last two thousand years: the Crusades, the Inquisition, Palestine, the vile behaviour of priests and nuns, so many wars – shows that religion is seriously in the red and, quite seriously, perhaps it should be illegal.

Worship who or what you want as you want.  The minute that two or more of you get together to promote ideas that lead to death and suffering – well then you’re in a conspiracy.

Shame on the Irish Catholic Church for what it has done to Ireland.  No consequences could be too great or severe for this godless institution.

I pray to the God I believe in for justice and healing.

Our so called leaders don’t listen to us.  They’ve abandoned any pretence of democracy by imposing a new European regime and president on us.  They don’t even listen to their expert advisors.  Instead they prolong an idiotic and discredited drugs strategy that brings violent crime to the streets of every town in the country and funds international terrorism.

Perhaps they will hear the crunch of Gulbeddin’s bullets as they smash into British flesh and bone?

Please listen!  Too many heroes have died or been cruelly maimed.  This foreign land is not worth it and the idea that this strategy is protecting us at home is nonsense.

Now is the time to abandon Afghanistan.  Leave behind the disgusting and corrupt Karzai for, sure enough, whatever we do, he is doomed to suffer a grisly and horrific fate.  Leave behind the Taliban for they are medieval evil but with no interest outside their own borders.  Leave behind the Afghan people because much as we may deplore their treatment of women and of each other that is their problem, not ours.  Bring our boys home!

As for Al Qaeda and the threat of a renegade nuclear Pakistan, let us install a small but powerful contingent of our most heavily armed troops, garrisoned in impregnable fortresses.  In conjunction with our allies they should be equipped with the very best that we have.  Mostly they can observe and use pilotless drones to interdict where necessary.  All movements should be done by helicopter because we have no real interest in “hearts and minds”.  When necessary, overwhelming, unrelenting and merciless force must be used against our enemies and yes, let our men have battlefield nuclear weapons too.  We need to blast these evil Islamists off the face of the earth.  There is no more time for patience or consideration or concern.

Evil Hypocrite

When you see an old man like Ayatollah Ali Khamenei talking such absolute drivel it is tempting to think that he is either senile or mad.  Clearly though, the truth is he is simply bad.  His conduct will do more to set back the cause of Islam than almost anything else.  This is why the name of Islam is shamed throughout the world.  If followers of the Prophet can not find some honest, intelligent and sincere spokesmen then their religion and the culture that surrounds it will be forever condemned as a medieval anachronism.

His speech today is a catastrophic mistake and misjudgment but it will lead to a better future.  I believe it will enrage the educated and intelligent people of Iran.  He obviously believes that the people are stupid and that they can be bullied or terrorised into accepting that the elections were fair and that there is no corruption.  It would be easier to claim that he is deluded but no, I think this man is simply evil and it would be in the best interest of all mankind, Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, non-believer if he were gone.

Who will rid us of this turbulent priest?

In a cold hearted, clinical and utterly callous way, we must bring “Sir” Fred Goodwin to heel, to the gutter, to grovel and to ignominy as he richly and deeply deserves.

There are many ways that the government can do this.  I suggest that the most effective is simply not to pay him and let him sue.  This is a pragmatic and commercial approach but, irrespective of its outcome, simultaneously we must prosecute this fundamentally evil individual with all the vigour that honourable and decent society can muster.

If we force him to sue for the rewards of failure then he will have to make his case and I do not believe he wil be able to under the overriding doctrine of “reasonableness”.

However, in the interests of justice, denying him money is insufficient.  Nothing less than criminal punishment will suffice.  Surely,  if our tradition of common law has any relevance, it must be able to sanction his behaviour.

Lawyers must consider whether there is a case for criminal negligence, for conspiracy, for perjury or for any derivative of theft.  Our Judges must package his offences in a way that can produce serious and effective penalties.

Without doubt though this “man”, this “Sir” has deceived.  He lied to the Select Committee saying that he had received no compensation for loss of office.  He has cheated us all.  Whether he retains his obscene pension or not he must be jailed.  Only then will justice be done.

Displaying their cynical cowardice and fundamental immorality, the Nazi Israelis withdrew their troops just in time for the inauguration.  Behind them they leave a trail of war crimes for which they must be held to account.  Any decent person would find it difficult to imagine how any group could behave so badly as to overshadow the evil perpertrated on them in the Holocaust but you bunch of brutal, evil thugs have surprised us all

Israel is now the Nazi power in the world.  It is beyond forgiveness or redemption.  Gaza is the new Auschwitz.  The only difference is that your method of death is not Zyklon B.  It may be bullet, shrapnel, falling masonry, illegal phosphorous bomb, starvation or something else. 

Israel  is running a death camp in Gaza and those responsible must be held to account as the Nazis were.

I’m back.  Apologies to those who have missed my posts.  Thanks to the hundreds who have asked where I am.

Truth is that I was under the cloud of a vile, vicious, unforgiving flu virus.  If anything ever deserved the unremitting attentions of the Israeli Army and everything that Mossad has to offer then it was this.  Misery, depression, lack of motivation – nothing could have been more unforgiving and merciless in its attack.

I survived.  Perhaps Palestine will not.

As I emerged from under this dark cloud there was one thing that helped me through.  I have read about it for  months.  The HBO series, The Wire.  I have seen it described as the best thing ever on television.  These superlatives seemed different from most and as I immersed myself in the stories of Baltimore I understood why.

This is magnificent television. Wonderful characterisations not based on “star quality” or reputation but on acting ability.  Utterly credible dialogue, surely much of it improvised.

What seems at first glance as just another American cop show is revealed as the very best in drama, capturing every nuance of the human condition.

I pray for the people of Palestine.  I curse the evil Jews. I look for hope in mutual understanding through drama like “The Wire”.

The property market is, once again, difficult for everyone.  In recent weeks we have even been asked to have some sympathy for that most despised group of parasites, estate agents – but I have none.  Truth is that their “profession” is a necessary evil and in good times as in bad it is only those with some standards and, maybe, a little integrity that are worth dealing with.

In the past twelve months I have had comprehensive experience of the estate agents in and around Emsworth, Portsmouth and Chichester.  There have been one or two who have been a pleasure to deal with, who have been professional, efficient and helpful.  Others have been uninterested and disinterested, unethical, inefficient and some are little short of crooked.

First, the positive.  There is one firm that shines out as example to all others – Henry Adams.  I have not bought, sold, rented or let a single property from them but I have viewed many and I can truthfully say that every transaction has been smooth, easy and as it should be.  If only I could say the same for the rest.

Borland & Bound of Emsworth, Charlotte and Alison in their lettings department are liars.  If you stalk the internet property sites, as I know how to do, you can catch the new properties immediately they come to market.  If you’re quick on the draw the truth becomes evident.  Agents which pick and choose who they sell or let to and at what price.  Whether it is their sister’s best friend’s cousin’s daughter or their next door neighbour’s husband who they share a bottle of cheap white wine with every Wednesday afternoon, there are  dishonest people out there that you cannot rely on to deal with you properly.  Borland & Bound told me for a week that they just couldn’t get hold of the landlord to arrange a viewing.  Then I met another prospective tenant outside another property who told me that they’d viewed the Borland & Bound property the day before.  Borland & Bound then told me they’d had a “bad” reference on me.  I ask, from who, on what authority, when did I give you the information or source from which to take a reference?  Is that the best bullshit you can come up with?  I wonder what the truth is?

Then there was “Zone” of Chichester.  What dreadful 1980s-type “brand” is that and can anyone take a firm with such a name seriously?  I had to try to because some unsuspecting property owner who had exactly what I wanted in Bosham had made the mistake of hiring this firm and apparently causing it all sorts of problems.  After all, business would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t for those dreadful people we call customers?

It was so much trouble to arrange a viewing.  Five or six telephone calls were never returned and eventually produced the reaction that “we might be able to arrange a viewing in a week or so”.  “Please don’t pester us.  You’re probably not the sort of tenant we want because you’d be on the phone all the time”.

Eventually a viewing was arranged but when I called to ask for directions I was told “I’m far too busy.  Ask someone in the street”.  Then surprise, surprise, “the landlord has a prior offer”, “the property is now off the market”.

It must be unpleasant to have to demean yourself, to lie, to cheat, to deceive but perhaps some of these estate agents enjoy their work.  I can think of no other explanation.

At last, some straight talking from the OFT about the way the Banks treat consumers.  As if we didn’t know it already but there is no excuse for the way these evil institutions have been allowed to operate and there can be no more compromise or filibuster about the consequences for them. They behave as if they are above the law.  They conduct themselves in ways which in any other context would be defined as theft and fraud.  Whilst they throw people out of their homes, deny legitimate business the means to operate, they let their cocaine-fuelled gamblers take ludicrous risks on ridiculous schemes and all the time present themselves as the backbone of our financial system.

Christ’s rage in the temple is the precise analogy.   It is time that we saw some of these silver haired, grey suited monsters in jail.  Their depth of corruption and manipulation and creation of misery has no comparison.  Right now the financial squeeze we are all suffering is entirely down to the incompetence of the banks in making lending decisions based only on the greed of individuals conspiring to create multi-million pound bonuses for themselves.  They deny honest, hard-working people the means to progress or recover but there is no consequence for themselves when things go wrong.

Let us pray that the OFT follows through on this properly and brings to heel these out of control, rabid dogs.