Call for a general boycott

"In a 'difficult' meeting at the Foreign Office, the UK minister Ivan Lewis told the Chinese ambassador Fu Ying that her government had failed in its basic human rights responsibilities by ignoring representations about Shaikh's mental health. 'It's a deeply depressing day for anyone with a modicum of compassion or commitment to justice,' Lewis said." (Guardian)

Where possible let's boycott goods from countries like China and other tyrannical, oppressive and corrupt regimes, including the US, Russia and Israel for their stupid and disastrous foreign policies and penal systems. Maybe if enough people do this the idiots in power might start to get the message. While we can't boycott our own goods, others overseas should do so in order to convey the same message to the UK government. If world trade is shut down, well "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?"

Feargal Mooney

Tokyo Chocolate

Morowa Yejidé - 2010 update: "Tokyo Chocolate", published in the Willesden Herald 2009 short story anthology & 2009 Pushcart Prize Nominee, will also appear in the upcoming print edition of Yomimono, a Japanese literary magazine out of Hiroshima.

This evening

Converging planes

Scenes like this can be seen continuously over King Edward Vii park in Willesden. This is not even a good example, often they seem to converge to the same point, which is puzzling - is it not? Trails can cross but for the leading points of two trails i.e. the planes to cross exactly at the point: this can be seen repeatedly, almost hourly from the park.*

Another thing you can see occasionally from this viewpoint is a plane flying surprisingly low though we're not near the airport. They made a mistake building Heathrow so that planes had to overfly built up London all the time, so let's back Boris Johnson's new estuary airport replacement all the way and close Heathrow. Otherwise it's only a matter of time before a disaster brings out all the hypocrites - if they survive - to wring their hands and puzzle over how it could possibly have happened. Yeah right! Just move the airport - get on with it.

Feargal Mooney

* I know this is probably daft but it makes me wonder if there aren't one or two rogue air traffic controllers practicing for or trying to create a collision - Al Qaeda? Ed.

Hark the old comment restoration completed

All the comments that were originally on the Squawkbox system from 2003 through part of 2004 have been copied and pasted into Blogger comments. The format is not all one could wish for but at least the text is there, preserved in Google's amber for however long that lasts.

Although the counts are wrong, because it will say one comment when there might be five or two when there are about ten etc, the layout is not very different to how it looked on the original Squawkbox system. As some of our technical geegurus have pointed out, a lot of the IP addresses are traceable to the Inbox Café, a local internet caf' that seems to have been piggybacked onto servers forming a technical hub for London and world communications at the time.

Hopefully this will please Mrs and long-suffering Mr Berries, Gladys Abanjo, Dr Gerald Francis, Rainbow Spike, Louisiana Lil, Alura in the Land of Giant Food, the Baroness of Canada and all of our many correspondents from that era. The messages even include one from Lenin - that's how far back they go.

Simon Moribund

Sparrow etc.

Frontenac snow message

To whom it concerns. Something nice to see out your window if you live in Frontenac tower & hopefully had the desired effect (?)

Snowy park

Wogan's last stand

BBC iPlayer - Wake Up to Wogan: 18/12/2009: "It's your last ever chance to Wake Up To Wogan, as the Togmeister entertains his loyal listeners over breakfast for the final time."

Terry plays his favourite tracks on this his swansong breakfast show. He has had me in stitches so many times he could be a master surgeon. Including the poleaxingly funny Janet & John stories. Terry, may you be in Heaven an hour before the divil knows you're dead!

Broadcast on: BBC Radio 2, 7:30am Friday 18th December 2009
Duration: 120 minutes
Available until: 9:32am Friday 25th December 2009

Today is the closing date for the short story competition

There is still time to enter online. I hope our publisher will be nominating some of the finalists for Pushcart prizes again next year. Six is the maximum nominations a publisher is allowed in one year. As well as the inestimable, one-off trophy mug inscribed "Willesden Short Story Prize 2010" there is £300 for the winning entry plus 2 x £150 for runners up. All ten shortlisted will be included in New Short Stories 4, which will be published on print on demand in both the US and the UK. If you don't win one of the main prizes you still get two copies of the anthology, and of course you keep all your copyright. So - last day! Approximately 300 entries as this is posted. Thanks to all who have entered and please send your best story if you haven't yet.

Willesden Herald short story competition link

Inspired Bicycles - Danny MacAskill April 2009

Has to be seen to be believed

Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa

Proceeds to charity

Petition to bring Tony Blair to trial for war crimes

BlairFoundation.Wordpress.Com - To bring Tony Blair to trial for war crimes Petition

Jack Straw was complicit and also the legal puppet who sold his soul for whatever he got - more than it was worth no doubt.

Sunny Sunday football in December

RIP Liam Clancy

A little bit less joy around today

I'll see you in my dreams - Django Reinhardt

If you think a little joy wouldn't go amiss, maybe try the above.

Saturday school project

 

Willesden Library education room

Who's asking and why?

Why is that an application form to join a the local sports centre has to ask people about their sexuality, religion and race? Is this the local council preparing the database for future BNP pogroms? In their stupidity they have turned what was supposed to be something about fairness and equity into something altogether sinister and oppressive. Why must people tolerate that sort of crap and pay for the privilege?

Feargal

BBC iPlayer - Desert Island Discs: Morrissey

BBC iPlayer - Desert Island Discs: Morrissey

Broadcast on: BBC Radio 4, 11:15am Sunday 29th November 2009
Duration: 45 minutes
Available until: 12:02pm Sunday 6th December 2009

"As the lead singer of The Smiths he captivated a generation of angst-ridden teenagers and, a quarter of a century later, he remains the outsider's outsider. As a child, he was enthralled by the emotion and beauty in pop music. He discovered the joy of public performance when, as a six-year-old boy, he stood on a table and started singing. But from an early age he felt he had to avoid everything conventional life had to offer. 'I just didn't want the norm in any way, he says, 'and I didn't get it. And I'm very glad.'"

The Pogues and Joe Strummer - London Calling

Kilburn, the Vienna of punk folk rock ("phock")?

The art of short story writing

Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story (edited by Vanessa Gebbie) is "a collection of 24 specially commissioned essays from well-published short story writers, many of them prize winners in some of the toughest short story competitions in the English language". The contributors between them have won "The Bridport Prize ... The National Short Story Award ... the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award ... The Asham Award for New Women Writers, The Fish Histories Prize, The Fish Short Story Prize, The BBC Short Story Prize, The Commonwealth Award, Writers Inc. Writer of the Year, The Willesden Herald Prize*, NAWG Millennium Award for Radio Short Story and the Per Contra Prize."

* I have highlighted the most important one. Ed

Quote of the Week. Yes, you guessed -

The tests say I have leukaemia... hang on a mo, that can’t be right: "But how these things are distributed is a mystery. Why does the angel of death fly over some houses but not others? There is no rhyme or reason."

It's Boris again. It's always Boris and always will be, unless Van Rompuy comes up with a new haiku.

War crimes trial for Blair?

Leaked documents reveal No 10 cover-up over Iraq invasion: "Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public." (Guardian)

A vote for the Liberals is a vote for Cameron

Nick Clegg dents Labour hopes of Lib-Lab alliance | Politics | The Guardian: "Whichever party have the strongest mandate from the British people … have the first right to seek to try and govern, either on their own or with others.'"

Hillman Imp