General Chat

Et vous?





The pen is mightier than the sword.

Et moi aussi.

But not in England.

Last night Steve Bell ( who else ? ) was on Newsnight. Asked if he thought that insulting a prophet was not the same thing as insulting somebody's father Bell accused the muslim cleric of wanting a universal blasphemy law and then really got into the swing of things talking about the joy of offending. At that point Emily Maitlis moved rapidly to "out of time" and images of the vigils. The CH cartoon on the show was of course censored.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04xtl0r/newsnight-07012015

It has been difficult for a long time to get French language newspapers and magazines outside of London and that applies in spades to Charlie Hebdo. Some newsagents in north London and Fulham/Putney have it.

No UK publisher has reprinted full size any of the cartoons not even the eye .... no doubt if they did the offended & religious hate crime brigade would be down on them like a ton of bricks. If not them then the lawyers and insurers would nay say. Where is OZ now it is needed?

Anybody here retweeted one of the cartoons? No. Eh bien. The cock crows three times.

For anybody who has a sub to C.H. I have heard that copies of the last issue are going for $50K on eBay which seems a bit steep. Ours hasn't arrived yet. I wonder if it will.

So now of all places the terrorists are being hunted nr Villers-Cotterêts, Compiegne. My GF fought the boche there during 1914. Not far away is Marest sur Matz, Compiegne where my bones will eventually end up - we buried one of ours there recently. Better known is the famous railway carriage.

It is a wild landscape where evading capture is not so hard if you are trained to do so. I hope that the police are not being led into a trap.

I wish I was in France right now.

vive la France

ps: the front page of the Independent today is wonderful. The web site only has a small version but in the print edition it is full front page. Amol Rajan has some bottle.

Thank you Rollo