Beeee Happpeeeeee

OK I have been winding down for the last few days staying off the drink and stuff in a run up to another tangle with the gurgling toad Buddha. Bella has a really good summary of her experiences here. The first time I did Vipassna in Jaipur the experience was so funny I wrote it all down and have always been intending to publish it online but the story is still decomposing paper in a box somewhere. Maybe when I come out. Looking thru Bella's blog she has some other very interesting pictures too.


Anyway Mr Goenka says leave all that behind for ten days. Like Bella I struggle with his view of passion and morality in general but I had better knuckle down now or there is no point in going. I know I am going to struggle locked in with that gurgling again too. I hate Vipassna in loads of ways but it works for silencing the demons for a bit anyway. Nothing else does.

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Down by the Riverside

Ishmahil asked me to do the Q and A with Mousah Brown and himself at Riverside Studios so I thought I'd try my newly fixed bike for a night ride. Right. Crawling down the Kings Rd it completely cut out in the middle of the road. The traffic was moving so slowly I didn't bother anyone so once I got it started again I left it running for a bit with the lights off to charge the battery.

I tried a few roads to find The Riverside and ended up having to wheel the bike down a cycle lane. Anyway this is dangerously turning into a bike blog isn't it. My bike blog thankfully has a home of its own now so I'll shut up.

I watched the film for the third time now with a mixture of nerves about answering questions afterwards and nerves about trying to get my bike home. Stomping to the front with my bike boots I was glad Mousah and Ishmahil were there. After the first few questions I thought I was going to get away without saying anything, but someone who later turned out to work for the Islam channel asked me if the guys at Finsbury thought I was a spy.

I thought Mousah answered some of the audience's worries about radical Islam really well and I also got to hear a lot more about Ishmahil's past which I would like to ask him more about. Afterwards I hung around with the guy from the Islam channel and his wife and a few of the Rice and Peas crew. It was the first time I have spoken to a woman wearing a veil. Quite a strange experience as I had just watched a film which covered the topic.

My motorised pessimism was extinguished as my bike came to life with a roar, but it soon turned into a splutter as I headed down through Putney and got totally lost. It seemed to sort itself when I realised where I was again around Brixton. I thought it was quite a successful night and I got home without having to ring the breakdown service. Anyway I am off armed with DVD to see what Hajj and the guys think of the film- and if he is annoyed about appearing in it!

UPDATE:

Well Hajj, who is going on to Hajj (to Mecca) in a few weeks liked it, the others thought that if Muslims are going to speak on film they should only talk referring to Koran and Sunnah and that they shouldn't give their opinions. I ended up in quite a long debate, the same debate as usual. We all agree about problems with the financial system and those few controlling it, and about the gross injustices in the world but there is no way we are going to unite as a majority and do something about it, which is why I have fairly much given up film making or any sort of optimism.

I'm glad Hajj liked the film anyway. That meant a lot to me. The only thing he critisized was one of the girls in the film coming out with the stuff about evil Jihadi recruiters convincing wayward and ignorant Muslims to become suicide bombers. I must admit I thought that was a bit weird too as none of the 7/7 guys fitted this description. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing.

Hajj himself was indirectly accused of "brainwashing kids" by some MI-5 guys who visited a friend of his at his work place recently. They gave the guy the message to pass on as an aside as they were leaving. He is a bit worried about going on Hajj as he has been warned there are thieves who prey on the visitors but he is confident Allah has already written down what is going to happen to him.

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BOLLOTICS

I haven't really been drawn on the new Coalition too much. There seems for a long time to have been little difference with everyone fighting for the centre ground. I'm not on the centre ground so it all at a bit of a distance to me. I was enthused somewhat by Nick Clegg, I was also enthused by the idea of coalitions working in this country. I was very enthused when someone pointed this out to me from Grant Shapps.

...now I am Minister for Housing and Local Government I have the opportunity to transfer power to where it really belongs - local communities...

So I am obviously a bit disappointed to read this, but pleased a Cooperative movement is doing it for themselves. Maybe this is the big society.

...A co-operative movement has stepped in to offer assistance to the 82 communities left stranded by the cancellation of the Community Owned Pubs Support Programme.

Representatives from a variety of co-operative organisations have agreed to provide support to the organisations that expressed interest in the scheme...

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Who is Anderson Cooper?

Reposted from Pickled Politics here

AGE OF EXTREMES premiere TRICYCLE THEATRE

Haha well that worked out.

I haven't blogged about this before just in case. Handing over some of my precious one chip footage to someone else to make a film with has been totally out of the question for a long while, but there hasn't been a point at which I didn't like or trust Ishmahil from Rice and Peas who premièred Age of Extremes at the tricycle last night. He is a bit more anti "mainstream media" than I am, but talking to him about his own experiences he's had reason to be.

Over recent years I have seriously doubted I would do anything with my stuff, so it was good for me to let some out to someone with experience and passion to tell a story. Just chatting while we were transferring the tape dusted off a lot of memories, which was how I ended up actually being in the film as well!

I thought Ishmahil was just going to put a tiny section in but he's used a surprising amount. I was so stuttering and nervous when he was filming that later I asked if he wanted to have another go, but its all ended up just fine and it actually made me cry, seeing what I have been doing, or used to do as part of his story. Its obviously been a burden on my heart for a long time and its good to come out. It was very strange watching myself on the big screen without having seen any of it before. I don't think I have said anything I regret.

The "Helping British people not wanting to blow up" doesn't make grammatical sense, but to be included alongside a really good inside look at The Islamic channel, an insight into the debate amongst British Islamic women about the burkah, The BBC coverage of the floilla raid- I thought the whole film was a really good reflection of the UK and the story flowed really well.

Afterwards I had a bit of a chat with Moazzam Begg and Phil Rees. Moazzam seems like a man on a mission. I hope we can continue on a path with all this.

The next showing is at the Riverside Studios next Thursday, do come down.

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KEISER REPORT

This guy cracks me up. There was something in the Independent about RT trying to destablise America or something like that. What could be further from the truth?

USEFUL

RED RUBBER

Watched this series with utter amazement. Everyone hears about the Nazi holocaust but I was totally ignorant of all this. It beggars belief now how one person could shape the destiny of such a huge group of people without being called to account for such a long period of time.

Where was I and I yesterday

ZERO

I am sure everyone knows pretty much what I would think about this "Ground Zero mosque" thing, I have been debating it a bit with my republican buddies. Here is a debate on the radio which tells both sides pretty good.

PROPA TERR-R

Wow. There are actually some good statistics in this rather alarming article.

...More than 230 people were jailed in the UK over terror plots in the first decade of this century. But of those, just 105 remain in prison...

According to the think tank Jihadist's are working alone and want to bomb large sports events.

There is even more detail in The Independent:

...Britain faces a "new wave" of home-grown terrorist attacks led by up to 800 Muslim ex-prisoners who have been radicalised by jihadists while serving their sentences, a think-tank has warned...

shit..up to eight hundred? Fuck!

...The Ministry of Justice said it did not agree that radicalisation was widespread within the prison system. A spokesman said: "We run a dedicated expert unit to tackle the risk posed by those offenders with violent extremist views and those who may attempt to improperly influence others."...

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NORWEIGAN NUTS

I READ IT IN THE SUN

Terror Rant on Extremist Site

A CONVICTED British Muslim terrorist is urging fanatics to train with guns for a holy war in a rant on an internet site.MPs demanded the extremist website - which also features sermons by hate clerics Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada - be shut down. Evil Shah Jalal Hussain is heard slamming "fake jihadis" who do not prepare properly for holy war...

Doesn't mention the site, but it turns out to be Salafimedia.com and here is the terr-r rant. See what you think. I have only listened to part 1 but I can hear a hell of a lot about a covenant of security. He takes the piss out of people who don't believe a covenant of security applies here. Maybe that is just me. I often think a bit different to people who write in The Sun.

UPDATE: Shah Jalal Hussain has responded here
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NOT A SURPRISE

I would dispute the shape though. I and some republican buddies worked out a long time ago that this should be a globe and not a square as all these extremes meet up round the other side.

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STOP PRETENDING

INFINITY

I don't know how many more times Channel 4 can make documentaries like this with the same decriminalization message over and over, but I am glad they do.

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CHARACTERISATION

I saw this on Madam Miaows blog and thought it was great. This guy gets people he likes into his show then rants on and on while they sit there laughing. A German chick in my house watches RT all the time, she reckons this guy looks like a character from The Simpsons. RT.com is a very interesting mix of government propaganda and really really interesting stuff.

Otherwise I have been having small stabs at working out the electrics on my ailing chop which is making me laugh and cry at the same time, and very much enjoying Sons of Anarchy. The story is great, the acting not so good. It would have been better with less capable actors with more experience of the sort of stuff they are portraying. Which jobbing actor can get their head round the sort of character who would burn someones tattoo off their back? Anyway I just started series two and Henry Rollins has turned up as a white supremacist so things are looking up.

Also worth watching is Channel 4s mission doco series about some Amish kids coming to the UK. Thankfully they have left out the usual wanker presenter voices and let one of the kids narrate the thing themselves. The way these kids and the English kids discuss their differences gives me real hope for the rest of us- and both sides obviously had a lot to learn from each other. I particularly enjoyed the commentary of the Amish kids when spending time in our education system which is based on a lot of abstraction and playing compared to their education system which is based on teaching the to provide for their families.

Amish: The Worlds Squarest Teenagers

Last of all, I haven't watched this yet but am about to Panoramas Death in the Med about the recent attack of the IDF on a boat heading for Gaza
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THE POINT IS..

west point anti jihadi humour

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STOP PRESS

The Sun (Who owe me money) apologise. Although not to me for stealing my work off of Youtube.

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MORE MAD MUSLIMS

More mad Muslim stuff if anyone is still interested-

About The Quilliam Foundation putting out some kind of document labelling Muslim groups they don't like



this about an anti-terror training camp (no paintballing)

some bad bwoy journalism from Iraq,

some Al-Qaeda stuff from Afghanistan,

Oh and some anti disestablishmetarianist Islam from The Guardian.

I got no comment about any of this, I just got back from France so I'll probably be pissed for the next two weeks.

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