Memories of Club 18-30.
A few days ago, I mentioned on the Hendon Mob forum that I had gone on a Club 18-30 holiday in the mid 90s. I was asked to tell some more about the trip and so I wrote a lengthy expose of my week in Ibiza. Many people have written to me to say that they found it very funny. I'm a bit shocked by this, as I assumed that everyone would have had a similar story to tell.

For the sake of those who don't read the Hendon Mob forum, I attach the story in its entirety. I forgot to mention one other vignette of the week: the time that a girl tried to chat me up. I asked her what her hobbies and interests were. In response, she listed the drugs she was taking.

Here it is again:

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I was about 25 at the time and this made me a fossil by comparison with most people in the group. Despite the name, almost everyone was in their late teens. I went with a friend whom I had met on a skiing holiday the previous year.

I didn't know a lot about how such holidays worked. In particular I had no idea that the operator block booked the whole hotel. In a previous holiday to Spain I had enjoyed myself mostly by hanging out with some Germans and I expected to do this again. I brought some textbooks on German grammar to give my mind something to work on and improve my chances of communicating. It was a great disappointment to discover the lack of variety in the social mix of the hotel guests.

The first couple of days were OK but after that, drinking and dancing got rather stale for me. I looked for some Germans to mix with in town but there didn't seem to be many at that end of San Antonio. Desperately needing to give my mind something to do, I looked around the town for a language school where I might learn some Spanish. There were lots of schools offering English to the local Spaniards to help them work in the tourist trade. I wanted the opposite. I found someone who would teach me Spanish. By a weird irony, my teacher, a woman, was German.

I mentioned this to very few people in the hotel but word somehow got around. I was asked two questions about my lessons with the teacher.

Question 1 was 'What were her tits like?'.

Question 2 was 'So what's Spanish for "Do you like it doggy-style?"'

Another notable occasion was the Club 18-30 trip to an isolated beach further round the bay. It was awkward to reach over land as the roads were poor so we went there by a chartered boat. One guy, named Dan, the same guy who asked me Question 2, got so amazingly drunk that he went into a coma and an ambulance had to be called.

He wasn't seen for a couple of days after that but when I next bumped into him in the hotel corridor, the first thing he said to me was 'You know what ... they charged me #14 for that ambulance!' Failing to share his sense of outrage, I replied 'Dan, you stopped breathing!'.

My holiday coincided with the first week of Wimbledon and I read a report of a game between Henri Lecont and Boris Becker in a copy of the Star that one of the other guests had bought. I was shocked to see the use of WW2 stereotypes in the account of the game, in particular the line 'Becker crushed the token French Resistance of Henri Lecont ....'

I pointed this out to the guy who had bought the paper and said 'Look at this. It's disgusting to read this in the 1990s. Look at that "crushing the French Resistance" with capital F and capital R'.

I got a blank look in response; number unobtainable. I slowly recalled that he had told me that he worked in MacDonald's and that I was talking to someone who washed lettuce for a living and gave up.

I had somehow expected that I might bump into a few people who had just finished university or polytechnic with whom it might be possible to have a vaguely intelligent conversation. I never did.

The battle for law and order should concern our daily lives.
I'm puzzled by news that the government is creating a new agency, inevitably dubbed "the British FBI", to tackle organised crime. The agency, whose real name will be the Serious Organised Crime Agency or "SOCA" for short, will not deal with terrorism or murder cases.

You can read the story here.

I can see the merits of better co-ordination across the force and of course I want crime reduced, but the move seems based on old-fashioned concerns to me.

For a start, one of the targets of the new agency will be drug smuggling operations. I personally don't worry much about drugs for the simple reason that I don't take them. It affects my life very little whether one tonne of drugs enters Britain next week or one thousand, because I won't be taking any of them.

Of course there are knock-on effects when others around me start taking them. But much of that is due to the expense of the hit to which any local heroin user is addicted. A junky's risk of death by overdose is due to the inconsistency in the purity of the drug. His crime spree is the direct result of his need for ready cash. His decision to inject small quantities with dirty needles, rather than smoke larger amounts with no risk of catching AIDS, is due to the expense of the drug. The expense is due to the illegality.

Drug laws are killing people!

I differ in my view on how drug crime should be tackled. If you take the view that drugs should be illegal, which it so happens I don't, then it would make more sense to me to attack the people who worsen the quality of life for everyone.

That would mean arresting those who harrass young people into taking drugs, if this ever actually takes place. It means taking little notice of the "Mr Big" types who live in yachts off the south coast of France, for the simple reason that their actions are not affecting my life in a direct basis. I don't see the point in being lenient with the former in exchange for information about the latter Why bother? Preventing pushers from selling on the streets is enough for me. I don't care about the rest of the supply chain.

The zero-tolerance approach, which was so successful in New York was based on a focus on "quality of life" crimes. These included aggressive begging, petty vandalism and theft. The results have been dramatic and I can't understand why more cities haven't copied the measures.

But I would go in a different direction with respect to drug laws. I would make the government the provider of narcotics, clearly labelled and unadulterated. Before anyone shakes their head in horror, please remember that the government makes billions from duties on cigarettes and alcohol; two drugs that kill far more people than any of the illegal narcotics.

I'm not alone. North Wales police chief constable Richard Brunstrom said exactly the same thing recently. Click here! Many of us know that he is right, but few politicians have the courage to say it.

But you ask, "What message would this send the young?" I have a simple answer to that. It would send the message loud and clear that they won't be able to make a living selling drugs in the future and will have to focus harder on getting good grades at school to improve their employment prospects. The easy money that their elder brothers and sisters used to make by acting as lookouts or intermediaries will be gone. Back to class, kids.

What comes over again and again when listening to the views of the public is that most of us would like to see the rank and file police being more effective at dealing with the crimes that affect our daily lives, like burglary. I don't see how this new agency can achieve this.

Interesting footnote: The word "Heroin" is actually a trade name patented by the German drug company Bayer. The product was intended as a remedy for coughs. You can see an advert for it from 1897 if you Click here!

Update to my last post on 'I'm a celebrity'.
After I wrote about 'I'm a celebrity' I spoke to a friend who is VERY good at making money betting on TV elimination shows. He is a professional gambler who now spends most of his day trading the markets on Betfair and has never had to work in his whole life. In the first series of Big Brother, he correctly worked out the winner after only three days! I could not go ahead without consulting him first. His view on Saturday midday was:

He could not see Jordan winning. All her best 'assets' had already been on display. She has little to say and is lazy regarding the general duties of maintaining the camp. He encouraged me to lay her at the short prices available (3.75). His forecast said: 'As the group gets smaller, I think it will emphasise how little Jordan does'.

He agreed with me that Brocket was value in the 7 region.

He disagreed with my idea of laying Kerry, but agreed that Peter could be laid, although it would involve tying up a lot of capital.

He said that Alex Best should be bet at the high prices she was fetching (high 40s), with a view that she would last longer into the show and her price would shorten. He thinks that she could outlast Jordan. In particular, she had not yet performed a task and had no profile with the viewers. But that was soon to change as he explained: ...Alex doing task tonight, so her odds will now shorten. He stressed that last year, Linda Barker did absolutely nothing for the first four days yet still made it to the final three.

As a consequence of the discussion, I put #300 into Betfair and bet Brocket at 6.8, laid Jordan to potentially lose over #250 and bet a small amount on Alex. I have no other positions.

Since then, Jordan's price has drifted in the market, exactly as I want it to. As I write this she is at 4.9/5.0 to bet/lay. Early on this morning, my advisor was worried: Watching live feed, she has apologised for being lazy in first week, said she's ready to be herself and explained that since she left school and went into modelling she has always had everything done for her, so has never been in team environment; and is now getting on OK with Johnny.'

This was potentially a disaster and I had the dilemma of whether to hold out, given that he still didn't think she could win, or to take some profits. Luckily I had done nothing before his next e-mail: 'Forget last e-mail, Just got wind of The Sun front page about Beckham, that will go against her for sure.'

I had a look at the paper's website and found to my great relief that Jordan had made remarks insinuating a scandal involving David Beckham. What a close shave that was! This will turn the public against her, especially as she seems to be using the show to promote a forthcoming book. Good old-fashioned British jealousy should ensure that enough people hate her for trying to make more money from it. It's already been reported that she got #100,000 for the show and has ordered a Bentley.

This extract from the Sun is not likely to help either: JORDAN, tipped by The Sun to win, yesterday told Peter Andre she fancied him and was ready to dump lover Scott Sullivan. Jordan, who has already shared a steamy bedtime cuddle with Peter, moaned that Scott hadn't wished her luck before her jungle stint.

Exactly as he forecasted, Alex shortened from 46 to about 30 at time of writing. Brocket is unchanged. My best case scenario would be for Jordan to be eliminated and then for Johnny Lydon to walk out. That would be the 'perfect storm' for my positions. My advisor was in profit before the show started, as the advance market offered high prices on Johnny, which he knew would fall once it was clear that he wasn't a lunatic.

I'm hoping to reach that much revered 'all green' scenario, where you win whatever the outcome because of your successful trading. Wish me luck.

Thoughts on 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here'.
I don't watch much television these days. Since getting flat-rate home internet access three years ago, my TV viewing has dropped about 60 per cent. It doesn't help that much of what is available on screen falls into a small number of categories, all of which hold no interest to me: gardening, home-decoration/property speculation and elimination games.

But I've made an exception for one of the last category. I have somehow found time in my busy life to see bits of series three of 'I'm a celebrity, get me out of here'. I don't recall seeing any of the first two series and I must confess that I'm only watching this one because of the gambling aspect to it. In fact, I cannot grasp how anyone can watch elimination shows without having bet on them. It's like watching horse-racing for the sheer spectacle of observing equine movement. It never happens.

Anyway, the 'special bets' sections of both Betfair and Betdaq allow betting on the eventual winner of the series. Being betting exchanges rather than bookmakers, they permit me to 'lay' bets as well as making them. This is important, as the way I see it, there are only four people who can win.

A summary of how I categorise the ten contestants, with their proability of winning:

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No-hopers:

Alex Best - 0.5 per cent
Diane Modahl - 0.5 per cent
Jennie Bond - 0.5 per cent
Mike Read - 0.5 per cent

Slender chance:

Peter Andre - 4 per cent
Kerry McFadden - 4 per cent

Slight outsider:

Neil Ruddock - 15 per cent

Favourites:

Lord Brocket - 25 per cent
Johnny Lydon - 25 per cent
Jordan - 25 per cent
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Using these estimates, I can calculate the prices at which I am indifferent to laying or betting. I shall express them in decimal terms, where the number shown indicates the amount that a bettor would receive on a winning bet. For example, a winning bet on an even money chance would be 2.0, as the #1 bet is returned with a #1 profit. A figure of 4.0 means a 3-1 shot in the old-fashioned bookmaking parlance.

Alex Best 200
Diane Modahl 200
Jennie Bond 200
Mike Read 200
Peter Andre 25
Kerry McFadden 25
Neil Ruddock 6.66
Lord Brocket 4
Johnny Lydon 4
Jordan 4


I can compare these prices with those available on the exchanges. I must stress the importance of ignoring the prices you see in the high street bookmakers like Ladbrokes. As I have pointed out before, the high street chains are gradually withdrawing from the business of offering bets on anything that actually exists. They now make their money from roulette machines and slots principally. If they were forced to abandon the machines, many would close overnight. I once sat in a shop in Torquay with Neil Channing for part of an afternoon. In the time we were there, I saw about two other people place bets on horses in about two hours!

Comparison with the prices available at the exchanges reveals that Lord Brocket in a good bet, as is Neil Ruddock. Many of the others can be profitably laid. I haven't done it yet as I need to learn more about the eviction system but if it's run on a popular vote like Big Brother then I should act. It's all about having a variant perception.

So where do I get my estimates? Well, I see it as a big disadvantage to be young, as it's hard to display leadership, maturity and wisdom in your 20s when surrounded by others in their 30s, 40s and 50s. While many of those voting will be young themselves, they are not likely to remember the career of Peter Andre. You would need a microscope to find it now. The Atomic Kitten girl, Kerry, is too weak to last the course.

I also think it's a disadvantage to be muscular or big, as the shortage of food will be harder to bear. The effect is that Andre and Ruddock will tire and thus become boring to the viewers. The exception is Lord Brocket who despite being quite tall seems to be chirpy. But he's not as muscular as Peter Andre.

Johnny Rotten is the most chirpy of them all and to start with showed little tendancy to moan. He has been quite sensible thus far but I think he will start to irritate some viewers as the show goes on. He recently got annoyed by Jordan and ran away from the camp.

Why do I like Brocket's chances? Well, he is polite, speaks well and comes over as rather charming. He doesn't seem at all stuck up and is the only aristocrat I am aware of who starts an anecdote with 'I was at a Hell's Angel's party when....'.

The fact that he has been to prison (and public school) and served in the armed forces means that he is used to being stuck with people in a confined space and has had to learn how to get along with them. The only drawback is that he is a convicted criminal and this might deter some voters. On the other hand, many of us like to forgive people and Brocket doesn't excuse what he did. The prices available on him offer great value in my opinion.

The beauty of betting exchanges is that you don't have to get the winner right to make money. You can earn money merely be correctly anticipating the way that the prices move. If for example I lay Peter Andre at 17.5, as I could this morning, and his price drifts out to 40 as the show wears on, I merely have to make a bet on him at the bigger price to lock in a profit.

Many people make their money on Betfair merely by being good at forecasting how the betting money moves. They don't have to have any exposure to the actual outcome if they match their positions to their advantage later!!

There is one other exchange that I haven't mentioned. It's called SportingOptions.com and offers a far better commision structure than Betfair with far greater liquidity than Betdaq. Sadly it doesn't have a market for this show, which is a shame, as I would like to give it some business. In a later post, I will get someone to explain why it has long term cost advantages over Betfair.

Wish me luck!

Historical comparison.
A few months ago, I gave a link to a scanned-in copy of a feature from the January 1946 edition of Life magazine titled 'Americans are losing the peace in Europe'.

Germany went on to have the world's third largest economy and it's easy to assume that things must have turned around pretty quickly, but in fact this isn't the case at all. The article is overwhelmingly negative and is full of the sort of comment that we've heard from Iraq. Just exchange 'Germany' for 'Iraq' and 'Hitler' for 'Hussein' and you honestly wouldn't know that what you were reading didn't come from the Independent's Robert Fisk!

But we all know that Rome wasn't built in a day, so we shouldn't expect Iraq to be transformed in weeks or even months. In coming to a judgement about the success or otherwise of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq, we should be able to look at the German experience to give us an idea of the time-frame over which any improvements can be expected. I never see this from the mainstream media.

So once again, I'm so grateful to the internet and to the phenomenon of blogging for providing me with some sense of historical comparison. A site called 'The Counter Revolutionary' has run a series of reports called 'Ghosts of occupations past'. It consists of scanned-in articles from the early post-war years. They paint a very bleak picture. In some cases I think it's just the sort of negative nonsense that we still get today, but not all. It's easy to dig up the old newspaper cuttings. So why do I have to look at another obscure hobby website, like mine, in order to get this perspective?

You can go the the Counter Revolutionary yourself at http://thecr.blogspot.com/ but it is slow to download unless you have broadband. So for the sake of those using a narrowband connection, I provide a summary of the newspaper stories from the era, with a precis in italics. I have fought hard to restrain myself from sarcasm at many points.

The last item, which concerns food riots in Hamburg, shows that the post-war planning of today is far improved from that of the 1940s.


New York Times, Oct 21 1945
Reich girls want return of Nazism
German girls and young women are the most fanatical Nazis among the civilian population according to a survey by the United States Office of Military Government. Girls up to 19 and women in their 20s were reported to be yearning for a new Fuehrer, opposed de-Nazification and were ready to excuse Hitler as a good man with 'bad advisers'.

New York Times, Oct 31st 1945
Germans reveal hate of Americans
Key quotes: 'The German attitude towards the American occupation forces has swung from apathy and surface friendliness to active dislike', '...numerous anti-American organizations throughout the zone and ... a rapid increase in the number of attacks on American soldiers. There were more such attacks in the first week of October than in the preceding five months of the occupation.'

New York Times, Dec 3rd 1945
Germans declare Americans hated
An exhaustive compilation of opinions of Germans in all walks of life revealed 'bitter resentment and deep disappointment' with the Americans in the first six months of the occupation.

New York Times, Dec 27th 1945
Russians spread efficiency and Communism in Germany
It's enough to report the article's subtitle: 'US writers find zone ahead of ours in returning local rule - industry and farming revive, re-education gains'.

New York Times, Jan 13th 1946
US prestige drops after GI protests
US troops demonstrated in Berlin, Frankfurt and elsewhere demanding to be returned home.

New York Times, Jan 20th 1946
Dark German outlook encourages resistance
Quotes: 'Dissatisfaction with the occupation and with the state of Germany under occupation is growing. The German people have never had any respect for Americans as soldiers and recent demonstrations by homesick men in uniform have not increased our prestige'... 'The next ten years present a picture so sombre to the average German that it will not be surprising if young men and women turn from the exhausting sober tasks of reconstruction to the dramatic and dangerous life of the Underground'.

New York Times, Feb 15th 1946
US seen as 'fumbling' its job in Germany.
The newspaper's foreign correspondent speaks at a public gathering in New York and informs the crowd that the US has 'fumbled' its job of re-educating the Germans in democracy, while by contrast in the Soviet sector, a 'positive and explicit program' had made it 'only a matter of time' before all Germans there were Communists.

New York Times, Feb 25th 1946
Germans return to nationalism
Key quotes include 'young discontented Germans will build the resistance movement of tomorrow' and 'the German people, awakening from the trance into which they fell after May 1945, were denouncing the four-power partition and occupation', and '...former German officers and soldiers are the most active adherents of the new nationalism. They criticize but seldom support the political parties now in being and they are insolent, mischievous and bitter opponents of the Allies' occupation. German policemen say that the attacks made against Germans working for the military government in the various zones are almost invariably planned and carried out by war veterans.'

New York Times, Feb 28th 1946
Allies asked to pool food to avert crisis in Germany
In the British sector, daily rations were cut from 1,500 calories to 1,040 per day!

New York Times, March 2nd 1946
6,000 GIs in Europe are AWOL
This compared to a wartime peak of 15,000.

New York Times, March 24th 1946
British to quell Hamburg rioting
'British occupation officials announced today that they were prepared to use military armour to quell German hunger rioters in the British zone'. The British also mentioned 'sabotage groups taking advantage of the tension resulting from the general hunger'.

Right out of order.
My friend Dominic often remarks that one of the biggest mistakes that politicians and thinkers on the right ever made was to allow the term 'Far Right' to be used as a term for racists. I agree.

In conventional terms, 'Right' and 'Left' refer to different economic views. The Right believe in private property and free enterprise. The Left believe in state ownership or regulation of industry.

But somehow, the term 'Far Right' has come to mean 'racist' without it having any clear connection to an economic viewpoint. Are the parties considered to be 'Far Right' actually in agreement with right wing politics? Let's see what the British National Party has to say about economics:

Globalisation, with its export of jobs to the Third World, is bringing ruin and unemployment to British industries and the communities that depend on them. Accordingly, the BNP calls for the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that our manufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced in British factories, employing British workers. When this is done, unemployment in this country will be brought to an end, and secure, well-paid employment will flourish, at last getting our people back to work and ending the waste and injustice of having more than 4 million people in a hidden army of the unemployed concealed by Labour?s statistical fiddles.

We further believe that British industry, commerce, land and other economic and natural assets belong in the final analysis to the British nation and people. To that end we will restore our economy and land to British ownership. We also call for preference in the job market to be given to native Britons. We will take active steps to break up the socially, economically and politically damaging monopolies now being established by the supermarket giants. Finally we will seek to give British workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes.

That's from the BNP's own website. It's interesting to read an argument that globalisation is bad because it favours the third world at the expense of the western nations. I'm more used to hearing people arguing the opposite. Of course, both are wrong. Globalisation is good for both sides. The trouble is that there is so little of it going on.

And what of the National Front? Here are the NF's economic policies:

Restrict foreign imports so that the goods in our shops are made in Britain by British workers.

Ensure that the wealth created by British people is invested in the future of this country and not sent abroad.

Eliminate speculators and their take-over bids by giving British people direct ownership of their place of work.(!!!!!!!!!!)

Reduce VAT on all items and abolish it on some items.

Withdraw from the European Community so that British people can gain control of their own economy.

Reintroduce exchange controls(!!!!!!!!!!)

Introduce stable and low interest rates to give confidence to businesses.

I'm not suggesting that many people vote for the BNP or the NF because of their economic policies, but it's still interesting that when both had to come up with an industrial policy, they displayed the same sort of anti-globalisation and anti-private property rhetoric that one hears from the Left.

Or do I mean the 'Far Left'?

Indifferent strokes.
I found this article in the print version of the Independent today (can't find it online unfortunately). I shall quote it in full, as it's short. The italics at the end are mine.

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"Spanish Imam jailed over women-beating text"

The imam of Fuengirola, Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, has been sentenced by a court in Barcelona, Spain, to 15 months in jail for inciting violence against women in a book that described how to beat a woman without leaving marks. His lawyer is to appeal, saying the imam merely reproduced centuries-old Islamic principles and was the victim of 'unjust' media pressure.
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So I guess that makes it acceptable then?

Diff'rent strokes.
Isn't it annoying when someone says something similar to what you believe, but goes too far and makes a mess of it! Just such a thing has happened to me recently with the case of Robert Kilroy-Silk. Due to a secretarial error, an article that he wrote several months ago was re-published in the Sunday Express the week before last. Whereas before, the article appeared in the context of a discussion about whether Arab states were justified in having hostility towards the US, this time the article appeared in isolation and was altered by the newspaper to refer to Arabs individually rather than Arab states.

Kilroy-Silk made some mistakes in his piece, the most shocking of which was grouping Iranians (Persians) with Arabs, but his message contained a germ of truth. Many people have supported him in his dispute with the BBC because they feel he has expressed something that needed to be said: that Arab states have failed. Their economies are poor. Their societies produce little in the way of culture that most of us in the non-Arab world buy and their main diplomatic and commercial importance comes from pure luck: the possession of oil. The lack of proper democracy means that resources are not applied to the broadening of education or infrastucture for the many. In most states, the division of wealth is far less equitable than it is in the liberal democracies of western Europe, North America and Australasia.

This matters. In particular it's important because the chasm between the West and the Arab world is the main cause of the current wave of terrorism. Not everyone has grasped this. Last week I watched the BBC's Question Time and was dismayed to see that in the middle of a discussion about the usefulness of air marshalls on hijacked flights, someone in the audience made a remark about the need to address the 'root causes of terrorism'. He then went on to talk about poverty. Sadly this got a round of applause from certain members of the audience.

How can such ignorance persist? The majority of the hijackers on September 11 2001 came from wealthy Saudi families. They were not poor. Osama bin-Laden had a personal net worth of something in the region of half a billion dollars. What poverty were they talking about?

What has happened here is that audience members projected their own values on other people and ended up sympathising with a point of view that doesn't exist. When confronted by the fact that people were prepared to kill themselves in order to attack others, many people think that they would only do this under the most terrible provocation. It therefore follows to them that some awful provocation must have happened.

But it's not like that. There is resentment in the Arab world towards the West. It has a little to do with Israel. It has a little to do with the US's close relations with the Saudi princes who have sucked the country dry. But the main cause of the resentment comes from the chasm between the Islamic world's expectations of its own international significance and the reality of its relative unimportance.

Islam is a revealed religion. Its followers believe that they have the most recent word of God from the last messenger. The result of living the Islamic way of life is supposed to be the bliss of living as God intended we should. Islam is a social code in addition to a relationship with mankind's alleged creator.

And that's all very fine and dandy in isolation. The problem occurs when certain devout Muslims notice that in diplomatic, military, economic and cultural terms their nations are miles behind the West with no sign of catching up. "How can this be?", they ask.

One answer is to believe that the West has been seduced by the devil and is being rewarded in material terms in return for the sacrifice of its citizens' souls. That was the view of the Ayatollah Khomeni who led the 1979 revolution in Iran. That is why the US was called 'The Great Satan'. There are many in the West who believe that this term was justly applied because of Western actions in Israel, Vietnam, Cuba and elsewhere. They are wrong. They are merely projecting their own values onto another society.

Muslim fanatics believe that their societies are being punished by God for not following the strict word of God. What they cannot grasp is that in most causes their societies are hindered because they have followed the word. It's no surprise to us in the West that their societies suffer when they neglect the education and equality of women, place religious teaching as the equal of scientific enquiry and dismiss democracy.

Since the revelation of the word of God to Muhammed, the West has acquired another even more recent way of life: Liberal Democracy. The new Western 'religion' includes such heresies as secular government, equality for women, democratic elections every four or five years and full freedom for banks to charge interest on loans (strictly forbidden in Islam). The results are there for all to see.

It's like swimming. There are several styles: the Breaststroke, the Backstroke, the Butterfly and the Crawl. All move you through the water, but if you want to win a freestyle event you have no choice but to use the Crawl, even if you prefer the Breaststroke.

The West has the Crawl. The Arab nations have the Breaststroke. We will always beat them and some of their people will always hate us for it. Unless change is implemented, the chasm will grow wider and wider, especially if dependence on Arab oil is reduced.

And that's the real motive for what the US did in Iraq. The Neo-con agenda is to create a liberal democracy in a region of the world where anti-US resentment was incubating attacks like those on September 11 2001.

Iraq was the most secular country in the region, thus giving the project the greatest chance of success. The exact same thing was done to Japan after the war. A nation of suicide bombers (then called Kamikazi pilots) and women oppressors who believed in their own racial superiority and right to govern neighbouring states in a "co-prosperity sphere" was transformed in less than a decade to a democratic, roughly capitalist country. Attitudes take longer to change than laws, but 60 year later Japan is a nation at peace with itself and its neighbours, making huge contributions to science and culture.

The same is required in the middle east. Either we see this though or they kill us.

Blair understands this and was never a poodle in endorsing Bush's desire for regime change. It's his own gut feeling too, as stated in a little-reported article in the Telegraph of 14th July last year:

Click here!

Where are the WMD?
I must admit to being mildly surprised that no nuclear weapons have been found in Iraq. It seems so out of character of Saddam not to have been trying hard to acquire them. I question whether he was being lied to by his scientists about the extent of their progress. Who would want to be the one to break the bad news to him that the uranium enrichment programme was't quite on track?

It's also possible that Iraq was fooled into spending money on useless technology and research by foreigners in the same way that middle-class kids get sold oregano instead of cannabis when venturing into the ghetto for their weekend fix. It's not that far fetched. In fact something similar forms part of the plot of 'Back to the Future'.

Of course the coalition attack on Iraq did locate evidence of WMD construction ... in Libya! So it can't be said to have been a total failure if measured purely in terms of removing weapons from our enemies. The fact that Colonel Gaddafy started his discussions with the west around the time that he saw that Britain and the US were serious about removing Saddam cannot be a coincidence.

One of the drawbacks to Tony Blair's attempts to get UN approval for the war was that it gave the former Iraqi regime several months to hide anything that it wanted to get rid of over the Syrian border. It wouldn't be a great shock to me if this occured. After all, Syria is also run by a Ba'ath party. Part of me believes that something was moved there in that 'rush to war' that dragged on for months and months and months.

Now comes a report that the weapons were moved there. It comes from a Syrian journalist who recently defected. He has terminal cancer and thus now has no reason to fear retribution from his government.

You can read what he has to say if you Click here!

I don't know what to make of this. However, I am sure that the world is going to be a safer place since the fall of Saddam. I noted earlier this week that the countries that have been bombed by Islamic extremists are those that opposed the US actions. I forgot to mention in the list the Chechens who stormed into the theatre in Moscow. Their cause was not connected to the situation in Iraq, but to me it's notable that the Russian decision not to support the US against a muslim nation didn't lead the Chechens to relax in their war against the Russian government. I also forgot that the shoe-bomber Richard Reid boarded a flight from Paris to Miami for his attempt at mass murder and would have killed French people along with Americans had he succeeded.

In fact I can't think of any attack on any of the countries who did give support to the US. Poland, Australia, Portugal, Britain and Spain have not been targeted. What is the lesson here? Could it be that strength is respected and weakness attacked?

If only internet poker were fixed.
There is a common belief that internet poker sites 'juice-up' the hands dealt in order to create bigger pots and thus more rake. I wish it were true, as I would now be living in a mansion built for a Bond villain if it were.

Here's why: The only way to juice-up the action is to deal more situations than normal involving flush-over-flush, straight-over-straight, set-over-set and so on. If we are certain that this is going on and that most people are not aware of this, then the solution is simple: Never draw to non-nut flushes. Throw away small pairs and don't play small straightening cards. Make sure to have lots of money in front of you in all cash games in order to wipe out the people who haven't cottoned on to this and who still give action with dominated hands (small straights, small flushes, small trips, small full houses). Play three sites at once, play two tables on every site and within a year you will be a millionaire.

As I have already pointed out on the Hendon Mob forum, the best thing for a crooked internet poker operator to do would be to engineer the site to have more SPLIT POTS with big hands. This would ensure that everyone got some excitement, nobody ever lost and the site got the maximum rake. In all the years that I have listened to people making accusations about the integrity of online poker, I've never heard one person say that there is an unusual number of split pots going on.

Of course, if any of you do find a truly 'juiced-up' site, please tell me about it and I'll send you a postcard from a yacht off the Italian Riviera as a thank-you.

The innocent bystander
I was in a poker game last night when the subject turned to the cancellation of flights from Britain to the US on security grounds. One player at the table, whom I shall call 'the bystander' said 'This is all happening because we went along with George Bush's war'. I spluttered, but managed to be polite enough to limit my comments to 'That's total bollocks'. So astonished was I to hear this defeatist talk from someone who wasn't French, that I totally failed to give the correct response, which is 'So what if that's true?' The mere fact that evil people attack you for something you did doesn't make what you did wrong! If I give evidence against a paedophile and his relatives attack me, it doesn't mean that I was wrong to testify, does it?

But that wasn't the reasoning I had in mind last night. Instead I was thinking of the logical flaws in the argument. In order to believe that the UK-US flight was targeted because of our backing of the US in the war against Saddam Hussein's regime, it is also necessary to believe that countries that were opposed to the war have not been attacked by Islamic terrorists. So let's see then. Is that true?

In May 2002, a suicide attack in Karachi, Pakistan killed 11 French submarine technicians working for a company that was contracted to the Pakistani Navy. I don't recall that France has ever been an energetic supporter of George Bush. You can read about it if you Click here!

Terrorist also struck against a French oil tanker in October 2002, killing most of the crew. This was at a time when it was reasonably clear that France would not support a war against Iraq. You can read about it if you Click here!

The above story ends with a written statement from Al-Qaeda: 'We congratulate the Muslim Nation for the daring and heroic Jihad operations which our brave sons conducted in Yemen against the Christian oil tanker. By striking the oil tanker in Yemen with explosives, the attackers struck at the umbilical cord of the Christians, reminding the enemy of the bloody price they have to pay for continuing their aggression against our nation'.

No mention of France. No mention of Iraq. Just a clear mandate for the murder of Christians. Afterwards, a spokesman for the Islamic Army of Aden said: 'We would have preferred to hit a US frigate, but no problem because they are all infidels'.

And what of other Al-Qaeda actions? In 1998, three years before the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon were attacked, two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were destroyed on the same day. Only 11 Americans lost their lives, but over 200 Africans were murdered too. There is no way that the terrorists could have not expected this to happen.

And what of the Bali bombing? What was Bali's position on the Iraq conflict? I don't know and I don't care, because the man who confessed to planting the bomb used his day in court to say that the bombings had positive effects because they 'encouraged people to re-embrace religion and weakened the corrupting influence of foreign tourists'. If he instigated his attacks because of Israel, Iraq or to help the poor and needy, he certainly forgot to mention it, as you can see if you Click here!

Hundreds died on that day in a part of the world not known for being full of Americans or Jews. Islamic fascists instead saw Europeans and Australians. They saw women who dressed to please themselves and who considered themselves the equal of men. They saw people who did not worship Allah. That's what they saw and that's what they killed.

What will it take to make people like 'the bystander' realise that there is a trend of Islamic fascism that just wants to kill us? In recent months, Al-Qaeda's terrorism has focused on Islamic countries: Turkey and Saudi Arabia. I specifically recall that the Turks refused to allow the US army to enter Iraq through its border. Did that give them a 'Get out of Terrorism Free' card? No. They got bombed in Istanbul just the same.

Saudi Arabia refused to allow the US to fly from its bases to attack Iraq. Did Al-Qaeda decide to lay off attacking inside the kingdom? Certainly not! It instead blew up a residential compound that housed Arabs from other countries. These attacks may have finally woken the Saudi people to realise what is at stake. Several clerics who had previously encouraged the use of terror against the West have realised that it's backfired on their own doorstep.

You can read about this if you Click here!

Please take the time to click on some or all of these links.

I don't recall this sort of reaction with Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murray building in Oklahoma City. I don't recall people saying 'this is the inevitable consequence of expanding the federal government and was thus highly provocative to the small-government survivalist cults'.

Why should this be any different?

A fist full of traveller's cheques.
I'm astonished to see how weak the dollar is going against the pound. I understand that the expenditure on the war against Iraq and the subsequent reconstruction is bound to have some effect, but I'm not used to seeing the pound being worth $1.79.

I recall over a decade ago working in Midland Bank (now HSBC) and seeing sterling rise to $1.99. I thought that it was ridiculous at the time. I wondered whether it was worth speculating on a dollar recovery, but couldn't figure out a way of doing it. It briefly entered my mind to buy US$ traveller's cheques from Thomas Cook or American Express with the intention of selling them back when the pound weakened.

I quickly dismissed the idea because it would have involved paying a spread on both sides of the transaction. The pound soon fell back down as I expected it to. It was only a few months later, when I was planning holidays in Europe that it dawned on me that I could have bought US$ travellers cheques and kept them for my next holiday, regardless of whether I was going to the US or not. Everywhere accepts them.

I have no crystal ball, but if you know that you are going abroad this year and don't think that sterling can hold at $1.79, why not save some money by buying US$ traveller's cheques now? Sadly I can't plan that far ahead, as everything in my life is 'subject to solvency', but some of you lucky people with regular salaries might be able to save a few quid on your Sangria.

Happy New Year.
I wish you all the best in 2004. I don't make New Year Resolutions (if it's such a good idea, why didn't I do it last year?), so don't expect to see a list of promises here.

Instead I thought I would pass on a story from the Independent that perfectly illustrates the arrogance of the ruling elite in this country.

Click here!

The story concerns a poll conducted by BBC Radio 4 in which listeners were invited to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Britain, with the promise that an MP would then attempt to get it onto the statute books.

As the paper reports:

But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a "ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation" - by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament.

Mr Pound's reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today's "Listeners' Law" poll was a plan to allow homeowners "to use any means to defend their home from intruders" - a prospect that could see householders free to kill burglars, without question.

"The people have spoken," the Labour MP replied to the programme, "... the bastards."

Having recovered his composure, Mr Pound told The Independent: "We are going to have to re-evaluate the listenership of Radio 4. I would have expected this result if there had been a poll in The Sun. Do we really want a law that says you can slaughter anyone who climbs in your window?"

Well, funnily enough, Mr Pound, YES THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE DO WANT! How dare you judge people for wanting to protect themselves, their family or even their property?

I certainly hope that Pound's views get the widest possible audience to show just what happens when some people get to Westminster. And I also hope that his constituency dispatches him at the earliest opportunity, so he can go home and make scones and cocoa for the next burglar who drops by to loot his valuables.

I also love the idea that Radio 4's audience will have to be re-evaluated after this! What a disappointment for a politician to actually be confronted by the reality of what the public really wants! It brings to mind the famous Bertold Brecht quip.

Back in 1953, East German workers staged a revolt against the Communist regime that had failed to deliver the workers' paradise that it had promised earlier. The leader of the Communist Party issued a statement regretting that the people had lost the confidence of the government. Poet and Playwright Berthold Brecht wrote a sardonic poem suggesting that the government should dissolve the people and elect a new one.

Pound would no doubt approve.

Can I count on your support?
I don't know whether to believe my hit-counter. Recently it's recorded some very high daily results. It tells me that on December 25th I got over 350 hits! I got over 200 a few days earlier.

It's possible that my debates with James Butler's Armchair Angst ( http://james.butler.name/weblog/blogger.html ) have brought me more readers but I can't believe that this is all there is to it. So if anyone has seen a link to this blog from another site, please let me know at sleeplessyoung@aol.com

If someone has listed me on their blogroll I'm delighted to hear about it.

Happy Holidays! Season's Greetings!
Notice how I didn't use the words Christ or Christmas? I enjoy this time of year. Mankind has celebrated it for centuries. Long before Christ is supposed to have been born, the Romans called it Saturnalia. It's the time of the year when the days start to get longer in the northern hemisphere. When the early Christians wanted to popularise their religion they hijacked this winter festival. I resent this, because I always enjoy it for what it is: an orgy of consumerism, a break from work and a fun time with friends and relatives. But the church tries to make us feel guilty about losing the `true meaning of Christmas' when it itself stole the real message:

The sun, not the Son, is coming back.

The good news of the Gospel isn't really good news at all. We are all on a journey to damnation but we can be saved provided that we believe in something for which there is no evidence. Most of us will fail and be tortured for eternity when we die.

Jimmy Cagney never said `You dirty rat!'. Humphrey Bogart never said `Play it again, Sam.' None of the old Tarzan films featured the line `Me Tarzan, You Jane'. No episode of Star Trek has ever featured the line `Beam me up Scotty'. No Sherlock Holmes book includes the line `Elementary, my dear Watson'. Like a game of Chinese Whispers, people `remember' things that were never uttered in the first place. A similar false memory shapes the common view of Christ.

Many people think Jesus was a good person. They can't have read the New Testament. He did do some nice things, like saving the woman who was due to be stoned for adultery, but he also said some terrible things and I don't find it appropriate that we should celebrate what he said and did. Of all the religious leaders, Christ stands out as probably the most anti-family. The way that Christianity is presented as having 'family values' has to be one of the most amazing examples of 'spin' of all time. Again and again, Christ speaks out against the family.

Here are some actual quotes from Jesus as related in the King James Version -

St Luke Chapter14 Verse26:
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and even his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Go and look for it yourself. It's clearly stated. You must HATE your family members. I know that some of you think that there is probably some context in which it means something different. I don't see any. It's clearly designed to make people abandon their families to follow him. It is just what I would expect from the leader of a brainwashing cult. In fact I'm sure that such cults use this passage to separate followers from loved ones. It's one of many reasons I can't be a Christian. There is simply no way that I am going to hate my mother, father or sister because of someone I've never met.

In case you think that this is an isolated incident, check out:

St Matthew Chapter10 Verse21:
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

So I guess as long as I get all my family killed before any of them get to me, I'm OK. Thanks, "Prince-of-peace". Christ makes it clear that he is going to split families. He does this when he tells people that he has NOT come on Earth to bring peace:

St Matthew Chapter10 Verse34
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

So now you know whom to blame if you end up fighting with Mum and Dad over the turkey. We are even rewarded if we abandon our families!

St Mark Chapter10 Verse29:
And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

This is made clearer elsewhere:

St Matthew Chapter 19 Verse 29:
And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

We are not supposed to refer to our own fathers as `father'. How ridiculous is that?

St Matthew Chapter23 Verse9:
Call no man your father upon the earth.

In St Luke Chapter 9 Verse 60 he tells a young man not to bother attending the funeral of his own father with the meaningless nonsense `Let the dead bury their dead'. To say that this is inconsiderate of a bereaved person's feelings is putting it mildly. If someone said that to me in the same situation, they would be unconscious before they hit the floor.

Christ clearly has little understanding of human emotions. One of the big reasons to believe in any religion is the hope of meeting loved ones again in the afterlife. I think most of us imagine such reunions. They are the carrot. So what does he do? Faced with enquiries from people wanting to know what happens to a woman who marries several times in her life, he is forced to admit:

St Luke Chapter 20 Verse 35:
But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.

Does this mean that married people can't get into Heaven or just that marriage ends with death? It's not well expressed. Why can't an all-powerful deity come up with some way of making us reunite with those we loved on earth? Frankly that's the main thing I would want from the afterlife. There is of course the other problem of how I'm supposed to be happy in Heaven if people I knew went to Hell. How could I tolerate that? Would I have no conscience?

Elsewhere, Christ advocates mass murder.

St Luke Chapter 19 Verse 27:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.

Now that's a call to arms! Bad things are planned for those who reject Christ's messengers. Any city that rejects him suffers a fate worse than Sodom and Gomorrha. Quite how Mecca is still standing today must remain a continuing mystery. He tells his discilples:

St Mark Chapter6 Verse11:
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

Some of you might know some ardent Christians. How do the men react to the advice he offers to seek self-castration?

St Matthew Chapter19 Verse12:
For there are some eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

How do the women react to being told that if their husbands divorce them, then they themselves become adulterers and that anyone who subsequently marries them is guilty of adultery too?

St Matthew Chapter5 Verse31:
But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever that shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.

Was Christ racist? It's hard to know what to make of the next passage. When confronted by a woman whose daughter was possessed by demons, he declines to help and compares her to a dog. The woman was Greek and he told her that his priority was to treat the `children'. Does this mean that he only wanted to treat Semitic people? It's only when the woman goes along with the insult and agrees to be called a dog that he relents and treats the afflicted girl. Who is the better person in this story?

St Mark Chapter7 Verse25:
For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Christians unless they happen to be bigots. Many admirable people want a path to doing good in the world. Most don't know about the horrors that I have just related. It's just a shame that the person they worship didn't hold such worthy ideals.

Enjoy your mince pies!