Sentencing “terrorists”.

The Filton Four, Palestine Action activists who smashed up drones and other equipment at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK factory, have been sentenced as terrorists after the judge ruled that there was a “terrorist connection” to their offending.

Charlotte Head, 30, and Leona Kamio, 30, were each jailed for five years and Fatema Rajwani, 21, was sentenced to four years and 8 months for criminal damage in relation to a 2024 break-in at the Elbit Systems UK site in Gloucestershire. Samuel Corner, 23, who was additionally convicted of grievous bodily harm without intent for striking Sgt Kate Evans with a sledgehammer, was sentenced to seven years and eight months. Each will also spend an additional year on licence and be subject to 15 years of terrorist notification requirements.

Approximately 500 protesters gathered outside Woolwich crown court in south-east London, including some holding placards that read “Saving lives is not terrorism. I support Palestine Action”. More than 100 people were arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action, which remains proscribed under the Terrorism Act pending the court of appeal’s judgment on Monday on the lawfulness of the ban.

So that’s another 100 people who could be facing charges. Someone pointed out that under the Palestine Action proscription naming them as terrorists, the suffragettes would have been terrorists, as would the women who surrounded Greenham Common. 

Here’s something I “borrowed” from social media:

“The 1960s apartheid govt of South Africa labelled the ANC as terrorists and used a compliant judiciary to suppress their activists and supporters. Today's British govt uses the same tactics against Palestine Action and its supporters.

Here's a photo of Judge Quartus de Wet who sentenced Nelson Mandela to life in prison, and one of Judge Jeremy Johnson who yesterday sentenced four Palestine Action activists as terrorists, even though they were never charged with terrorism, because such a charge would have been thrown out by every jury in the land.

Johnson would have fitted in very well in South Africa's apartheid regime.”

Here’s Jonathan Cook’s comment on the sentencing: 

“There are lots of people drinking the security services Kool Aid over the sentencing of the Filton Four.

They believe the judge was right to overturn the jury's decision to convict four anti-genocide activists of criminal damage and make it a terrorism offence instead, overturning centuries of legal precedent.

Why? Because, they claim, the four activists broke / smashed / shattered a police woman's spine.

But that obviously can't be the explanation because three of the activists had nothing to do with that incident and yet they were convicted as terrorists by the judge anyway.

Even Samuel Corner, the activist who was convicted over this incident (which left the police woman with a minor fracture, according to the medical authorities who testified), shouldn't have been sentenced as a terrorist for it because that is not what the jury, which heard the actual evidence, decided.

The jury convicted Samuel Corner of grievous bodily harm *without intent*. The prosecution had charged him with GBH *with intent* because they needed that as his conviction to build a public mood in support of the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

If Corner could be presented as having entered Israel's Elbit weapons factory with intent to commit violence, then the implication would be that the other activists were in on that plan – a conspiracy – and the government would be off the hook of violating fundamental legal norms by proscribing Palestine Action.

By stripping out intent, the jury pulled the rug from under the government's feet.

Judge Johnson's task was put the rug firmly back in place by riding roughshod over the jury's decision and sentencing them as terrorists anyway. 

The timing couldn't be more convenient. On Monday, the Appeal Court will be deciding on the government's appeal against the High Court declaring its proscription of Palestine Action unlawful.

If you're peddling the "But they smashed the back of a police woman" line you've been fed by the Daily Mail and BBC, it's because that is exactly what the government needs you spouting as it upends our age-old rights to jury trials, as it stamps out an honourable tradition of direct action dating back to the Suffragettes and before, and as it gives itself cover for continuing complicity in a genocide.”

That’s all.

Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone!

More rain. Thinking about arts and artists. Evacuating planes.

 I ran (well, actually mostly walked) in the drizzle this morning. Drizzle still gets you wet! I might not have bothered but we needed bread for toast for breakfast. That’s how it goes. By early afternoon the rain/drizzle had mostly abated and the sun even tried to shine. I am told that we might have some fine weather over the weekend.

So today we say farewell to David Hockney, artistic adventurer, the artist who inspired me to experiment with drawing on the iPad, the artist whose work I would love to emulate - fat chance! The news reports are undecided about how old he was, some say 88, some say 89. There we go, another hero departed.

I caught a little bit of a programme where Melvyn Bragg discussed the importance of the arts in modern life - a topical issue considering how funding for the arts has been cut. 

He spoke to Tracey Emin (Dame Tracey Emin, no less) an artist I used to find extremely annoying with all her posturing, but who has grown on me as she has grown older and who seems to be doing good work for the arts in her home town of Margate. 

They made her a freewoman of the town, in a ceremony with robes and a fancy hat. She had a choice of title: Freeman, Freeperson or Freewoman. She opted for the last as she had always wanted to be a free woman of Margate?

She said that this honour made it possible for her to bring influence to bear on the council to get things done for the arts. Well, good for her! 

As we have travelled by plane more than once this year so far, we have had to listen to the onboard safety announcement quite a few times. Like many passengers we have heard it all before and really only give it half an ear. On one occasion the pilot intervened to ask passengers please to be quiet - like unruly children they were chattering away! I have always been struck by the reminder in the event of a loss of cabin pressure to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others + common sense really. The other thing is being told that if we have to make an emergency landing and evaxuate the aircraft we must leave all our hand luggage behind. 

However, I found this interesting bit of information regarding that:

“Research on travellers in the UK, US, Singapore and UAE found that only 61% were aware of the rules. “Four in 10 passengers don’t even realise it’s an expectation to leave their shit behind,” Careen said, speaking at the Iata annual meeting in Rio de Janeiro.

Evacuations are rare in aviation, with only an estimated 30 annually. Last year at least two-UK bound flights were evacuated on the asphalt before departure after suspicions of fire, with 18 passengers sustaining minor injuries leaving a Ryanair plane at Palma airport last July. Passengers described the evacuation as “utter carnage”.”

You only need to see the chaos that ensues as people try to reclaim their cabin bags from the overhead lockers to disembark when a plane lands normally to be able to image now dangerous it would be to do the same for an emergency landing. Most people are cooperative and helpful to each other while waiting to leave the aircraft but some just forget what manners they might once have had and insist on almost knocking you on the head with their suitcase. Others determinedly push you out of the way as they try to go against the flow in order to retrieve a bag they were obliged to stow in an overhead lockers half a plane-length away from their seat. 

Another problem during emergency evacuations apparently is people stopping to get out their phones to  video what is going on. You have to wonder what goes through their minds. Is an opportunity to get some exciting footage on your Instagram or on a Facebook reel worth risking your life for? But then perhaps it’s the modern version cars slowing down on the motorway to take a look at an accident which has just occurred! 

For a supposedly intelligent species human beings can be very strange!!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Not running in the rain. Beaches. Environmental problems. Weddings disrupting city life.

 I say that I don’t mind running in the rain but what I really mean is that I don’t mind running in the drizzle. Proper rain is a different matter. So when my alarm rang this morning and I heard the rain hammering down , I reset it and went back to sleep. Exercise will have to wait. 

They don’t have a rain problem as a rule in southern Europe. However, a beach  in Sardinia is reported to be banning sun umbrellas for people aged between 10 and 65. They have decided to impose stricter rules in order to preserve the natural beauty of Punta Molentis, which is located within a designated conservation area. Mind you, if you look at photos of the beach full of sun umbrellas there’s not a lot of beach to see, just a lot of umbrellas.

It’s a strange habit the Italians seem to have of privatising beaches. We first came across it when we went to a language school in Viareggio in Tuscany. The school gave us passes to alllow us to access the beach “owned” by one of the hotels. If you wanted a ‘free’ beach you had to go some distance out of town. Here’s a link to the article about Sardinia.

Here’s another environmental issue and new word for today: “bycatch”. It’s the term used for the accidental capture and killing of non-target species by fishing vessels, and it is having a quite devastating effect on marine species such as dolphins and whales as well as smaller creatures. Modern methods of fishing are causing environmental problems. 

I wrote about actors protesting at audience members using mobile phoes and even laptops during performances. Well, here’s a link to an article about a gurgling baby disrupting a performance by Kenneth Branagh at the RSC. The baby wasn’t crying, just awake and making baby noises, “chirping” as one complainer put it. People queued up to complain and asked that the mother and baby not be allowed back for the second half. 

My, oh, my! 

What was she doing with a baby at the performance is not explained. Long, long ago our son managed to disrupt a friend’s wedding by “chirping” throughout the service. Nobody minded.

On the subject of weddings, the singer Dua Lipa has followed so many celebrities by getting married in Italy, wel, she didn’t actually get married in Italy. The wedding took place in London and she featured in fashion pages for wearing a suit rather than a frothy frock.

But she and her new husband, the actor Callum Turner, held a two- or three-day-long party in Palermo, Sicily, to celebrate. I have an Italian friend who comes from Palermo. She expressed indignation on the part of her fellow Palermitanos (Palermitani?) because whole sections of the city were closed, streets were cut off, public transport was disrupted for the celebrations. People going about their ordinary, but now disrupted, lives, people who had no idea who Dua Lipa is, declared that closing the town for a visit from the Pope was understandable but that this was really not acceptable. Quite so! But I suspect that some people in the catering sector were leased to host them.

Such is modern living.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!

Butterflies. Times tables. Silliness. World Cup. Bayeux Tapestry

 It may not feel much like summer but according to experts it’s summer enough for us to expect lots of painted lady butterflies this year. Whoopee!

“The painted lady flies north from sub-Saharan Africa at the start of every year. Successive generations breed in north Africa and then the southern Mediterranean before reaching northern Europe later in the summer. In September, the offspring of these migrants fly south again.

In some summers, hardly any reach British shores, but Butterfly Conservation experts said a combination of favourable early spring conditions in southern Europe, the recent heatwave and benign southerly winds had turned 2026 into a once -in-a-decade “painted lady summer”.

Personally I’d be happy see a lot of butterflies of any kind. The presence of butterflies usually indicates that the day is going to be fine. At least that’s my experience. 

During our recent trip to Silves, Portugal, we saw some rather impressive butterflies. 

Today I hold out few hopes of seeing butterflies. In the small hours of the morning I woke up to the sound of torrential rain. Fortunately it had stopped by the time I went out but the River Tame is running rather full through our village.

Scanning the papers over the last few days, I discovered from the letters page that there has been some sort of debate about times tables. Why do times tables, the bane of our lives in 1950s primary schools when we were regularly tested on them, figure in  newspapers? No idea, anyway I came across this bit of correspondence in the Letters page:

 “Your correspondents suggest unnecessarily difficult ways to do the nine times table (Letters, 25 May). The answer always adds up to nine. The first digit is one less than the multiplier and the second is what is what you add to the first to get nine. So 7 x 9 = 63. Simples! 

Jeff Warren

London”

In answer to that someone whose name I failed to note, said:

“Jeff Warren (Letters, 31 May) says that in computing the nine times table, “the answer always adds up to nine”. Eleven nines are 99.”

Well, of course. The first method works if you only learn times tables up to 10 x, rather than 12 x which those of us who had 1950s primary education had to suffer. And we worked on a base of 12 because that was the imperial way: 12 inches to a foot and 12 pennies to a shilling. Of course we had to learn 12 x tables. I personally had no trouble with the 9s, it was the 7s that bugged me. 

Here’s a link to a silly story about people coming out of manholes , like Ninja Turtles, in New York. That’s another sign of summer - silly stories in the news. 

Here’s another one:

N

“Fifa has canceled World Cup tickets issued to about 60 fans who mistakenly got them for free because of a website error, and soccer’s governing body is now asking for them to be paid in full.

The tickets were “allocated at no charge [0 USD] due to a prior payment issue during the checkout process,” Fifa said in a statement Thursday.

“Fifa regrets the error and any inconvenience caused,” it said. “The tickets requested by these fans remain reserved, and the affected fans have been invited to complete payment of the correct amount.””

Imagine the moments of delight some football fans must have had, believing they had free tickets! 

The World Cup keeps popping up in the news for all the wrong reasons too: Somali referee Omar Artan has been denied entry to the USA, presumably because he might be a terrorist. 

And Talal Salah, an Iraqi sports photographer, was refused admission into the US, depriving the team of its official photographer prior to the competition. He is reported to have been held by U.S. immigration officials at Chicago O’Hare International Airport for around ten hours, during which time his electronic devices were checked before he was officially denied entrance. And then he was sent back to Baghdad! 

So it goes!

There have also been some letters about the Bayeux Tapestry again. Experts are questioning the longstanding belief that Good Old Harold dies with an arrow in his eye at the Battle of Hastings. This is what happens when you start examining old stitch-work really closely. I am more amused by those who grow indignant at the suggestion that the Norman invasion marked the birth of the English nation

Is the French minister of culture, Catherine Pégard, accurate in stating that the loan of the Bayeux tapestry would “allow the English people to contemplate on their own soil the act that was the birth of their nation”? If King Æthelstan could be contacted for comment, he may well demur.

Tim Wicks

Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

 Catherine Pégard appears to think that the Norman conquest of 1066 was for “the English people … the birth of their nation”. This is utterly outrageous. Instead of the return of the Bayeux tapestry signalling a new era of mutual understanding between the French and the English, the old French prejudices are clearly alive and well. A little respect for our pre-1066 Anglo-Saxon culture, and the real origins of the English nation, would be welcome from our one-time invaders. Let’s hope that they learn a thing or two from the Sutton Hoo treasures.

Rev Dr John Caperon

Crowborough, East Sussex

So much for entente cordial! 

Life goes on l stay safe and well, everyone!

Early mornings. Strange not-summer weather. The mad mayhem of the modern world goes on.

It may well be officially summer but this is a very strange June weather-wise. This morning I was up extra early because Phil had to go and catch an early bus into Oldham, consequently I was out running just after eight o”clock, running in the windy sunshine. I debated putting on an insurance raincoat but decided that the sky looked clear enough to suggest that there were no showers imminent. I even stood and basked in the sunshine from the shelter of the front porch when I got back. 

Then Granddaughter Number One sent a message, in her inimitable fashion: ‘What IS this weather?” I messaged back our acceptable sunshine and wind, and she sent me a photo and  video of ‘sideways’ hailstones. 

She lives a only few miles away on the other side of the Grains Bar hill but that hill makes all the difference. Rain, hail, snow, thunder - she always experiences it before we do. And, lo and behold, a few minutes later the sun disappeared and we too had hailstones. By midday the sun was back! Odd weather!

I checked up on the Goose Family on the millpond when I was out and about. All doing well,  it seems, but I’m pretty sure there were originally more than two. Nature can be cruel!

Out in the wider world mayhem continues. I should be used to it by now but it still seems odd that people are warned in advance tonleave their homes before a bombardment takes place. I suppose it means the perpetrator can say that if someone is killed or injured it is largely their own fault; they shoule have moved away from the target zone. And it still seems odd to hear news reports about places that for so long were just names in Bible stories?

“Israel issues forced evacuation order for residents of Lebanese city of Tyre

The Israeli army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, has issued the latest forced evacuation order for residents of Tyre, Lebanon’s fifth biggest city, ahead of attacks.

“Urgent warning to the residents of the city of Tyre, including the Christian quarter, and the camps and surrounding neighbourhoods,” he wrote, urging residents in the southern Lebanese city to “evacuate immediately” and “move north beyond the Zahrani river”.

And here’s a link to an article about a Palestinian doctor, arrested almost a year and half ago, and now moved into solitary confinement. His crime? Not evacuating patients from his hospital when it was about to be attacked again - continuing to try to save lives. 

Such is the modern reality. 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!