THE MOTHERSHIP IS COMING

Finally getting round to recording which is good. Leaving the rum alone for a bit which is also good. I met up with Mr Waleed yesterday way out west. It was really nice to see Southall again as I haven't been over that way in ages.

"No one waits for the traffic lights to turn red before walking round here," he said as we crossed a road, "Everyone is driving illegal so they won't hit you!"

We had a really interesting chat over lunch about life "post ban". Saying that, although The London School of Shariah site which Mr Waleed's talks occasionally appeared on was banned, his own site slipped through the net, though he was telling me he thinks the whole situation is a good opportunity for a change in focus which he has felt brewing for a while. I'm not going into more detail yet as we filmed for about an hour and spoke about a whole range of stuff, so once I put a computer together I'll edit something so you can hear Mr Waleed speak for himself.

Although January is racing past I can feel a quiet determination to get things done this year. I'm in a good situation and I know what I want to do and what I need to change. I'm lucky to have health and opportunity.

I was chatting last weekend with an enthusiastic bunch of English raw foodists who have been living out in California. At 4 AM when my eyes were closing they were still full of energy so I have since armed myself with salad, nuts and grapefruit. I am taking it easy though. I ate some raw bread, raw butter and raw marmite last night and had a raw egg boiled in water for three minutes this morning. I tried eating salad every day before and I noticed I was happier so I will experiment carefully and see what happens.

Did I say I had turned veggie before Christmas? A Vegan Satanist friend of mine posted some video about how dairy cows are treated and I gave up milk, then he posted some stuff about fish having personalities so I stopped eating meat. There was thirteen different types of meat on the kitchen table Christmas day and I just ate nut roast and veg. I did cheat and have a bit of meat infused gravy which was the nicest thing I ate all day.

Ideologically I have been a vegetarian for a long while, I was just a hypocrite who ate meat. I couldn't kill anything, though we have unblocked the cat flap so these passing moggies can keep the mice down a bit. I think I am just getting my karma ready to hitch a ride on the mothership when it returns in 2012 innit.

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BAN DEM

So Mr Choudharys group has been banned under its current names. I heard that he and maybe twenty others had been interviewed by MI-5 for a number of months so maybe this isn't the knee jerk reaction to the Wooton Basset thing some news papers are touting it to be. I don't really want to stand up for Mr Choudhary as I don't agree with probably most of his views and he can speak for himself, that said I don't think a ban is a good idea, and I can't see it working.

Newsnight was vaguely interesting. I don't know why Mr Choudhary doesn't answer Majid Nawaz question about apostacy, if he is proud of Islamic law, and Islamic law says apostates should be killed why not say so? Majid's point about Choudhary receiving money from the government doesn't really mean a lot though does it? Surely this is two government sponsored people arguing with each other.

I do understand how "Moderate" Muslims might think Choudhary et al are causing them problems and I'm really not sure what the best thing is to do, but it is quite obvious from Paxman's body language that he doesn't find Mr Choudhary to be a scary person, and I never have done either. Their meetings aren't scary at all. People connected to terror have passed through his group? That is not a surprise. I am sure people passed through peaceful Irish Republican groups on their way to the IRA. Anyway lets see what happens.

As I have said before here, I did consider filming with Mr Choudhary a while back but I struggled with the concept of doing something useful which wouldn't end up rolling with the rest of the gravy. He suggested I make something about his work as judge of a Shariah court.

If you watch this edition to the end, thankfully there is something I would consider useful- Newsnight host a really interesting reunion between two of the "Tipton three" and one of their army jailors from Guantanamo
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NU YEAR

And a happy New Year one and all. Haven't written for ages I know. My computer blew up in a pretty spectacular fashion a month ago and I haven't been in a hurry to replace it. About six of the pins on the 20 pin connector between the motherboard and the power-pack actually fried themselves. I am not sure if the motherboard is bust or just the power-pack but I reckon its high time to upgrade anyway.

I spoke to Musa a while back who has recently lost his father. He was upset that the authorities didn't let Atilla out for his dads funeral. Hopefully he will come by soon and we can catch up. I am not sure if I am going to do any more filming this year, as I am concentrating a lot more on music. We did a really successful gig in Battersea for Acid Monkey, which was a really great party all round, heaving with 2 or 3 thousand people AND they got the bloody name right on the flyer! Probably our best audience ever, so thanks to all involved in getting us on the bill, and particularly to Orchid Star who it was really nice to hook up with again after many years.

I am recovering from xmas new year and my birthday which passed with lots of rum, so thanks to Wray and Nephews for that, and to the farmer for the knock out Calvados which is in the Pastis bottle on the right. I will be mainly focused on recording for the next coupla months but I will pop by.



Here is a really interesting chill mix for a mellow new year

Clifton's Cafeteria Winter '09 Mix by RandallRoberts

and just to pretend I am keeping my hand in here is an interesting article I found about division within Jihadi circles.

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