This particular edition of "Things you probably didn't know about London" may contain very offensive language. I am sorry, but it's unavoidable.
This particular article could just as easily been named "Something You Probably Didn't Know about York" or any number of English cities. Many location names in England are very literal, even if the nature of what the particular place was named after over the years have changed. For instance, Fleet Street was named after the River Fleet which still flows beneath it, and Pudding Lane, source of the devastating fire in the 17th century, was not named after the baker who made delicious puddings and who started the fire, but the Middle English word for entrails spilled from carts on their way from the butchers on Cheapside.
Of course many English cities have what we now call a red light district. Well, they weren't so much districts as streets. And most weren't so much streets as little lanes were men could poke skirts, visit bordellos, and grope cunts. So, they were named things like "Puppekirty Lane", "Bordhawelane", and "Groppecountelane". The latter eventually evolved to "Grope Cunt Lane" and then onto things a little more polite like "Grope Lane" or "Grape Lane". I suppose it not only confined prostitution to an area to keep it out of the view of those who didn't want to see it, but it served as a way for travellers to know where to head when visiting a new city.
I probably should have written about this when I first found out about it, because, apparantly Wikipedia made Gropecunt Lane a featured article earlier this month. Ah well. It is a pretty cool article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2004/apr/18/property.homebuying1
17 July 2009
The prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;-Commonly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Even when I was in the depths of my atheism, I could see the beauty and truth in this prayer. It's probably this prayer, along with a few other writings and prayers (not all of them Christian), that brought me back into spirituality.
Once I get past the simple yearning for this in my life, I wonder how my life would be different if I could truly live up to the ideals of this prayer. If I could let go of my own self-interests and neediness to look for others' interests or where I am needed. To see the opportunities to make the world just a tiny bit better.
But I rarely remember this in practice. Maybe there is some secret to link your spiritual ideals to your actions.
29 April 2008
My new blog...
...is right here. I probably should have updated this sooner, but I suppose late is better than never. I am also doing a low carb themed blog here on Blogger, and I am not totally ruling out updating this one.
Please let me know what you think about the change.
Please let me know what you think about the change.
27 February 2008
And the Thames flows with honey...
Sometimes I forget about the animosity some people in other parts of the UK feel towards Londoners. I don't really get it, but then again, I have only been briefly outside the capital. This jealousy seems to extend to the Expat community.
Maybe life here is relatively easy compared to other parts of the UK. I don't know. I do know that just because you can probably find anything you want in London, it doesn't mean that it's easy or cheap to get to. London is massive geographically, congested, full of fees if you do drive (congestion charges, parking fees, huge fines if you misinterpret signs and park in the wrong place at the wrong time), and while we have extensive public transport, it's very expensive and not always up and running. Many of the places where people in smaller cities or towns shop routinely lie on the outskirts of London.
Sure we have access to some fabulous places to see and do and wonderful things to buy. It doesn't mean that it's all easy to get to. In a way, it was easier for me to live without a car in my small city in the States than here in London.
I guess a lot of the criticism come from the generalisation that Londoners are very centred upon the capital and don't think about life outside the region. I don't know how much this is the case. I used to hear similar things in New York State about the New York Metropolitan area. Even if it were true, this view often ignores the importance of major financial and commercial centres to the economic health of an entire nation. You may need to invest or focus more on the huge cities if you want to be able to live comfortably in your small town. Of course, if you are ready to reject all forms of dependence on institutionalized capitalism, you probably don't need to worry about places like London. You wouldn't have to worry about the time and financial investment. But I somehow doubt that the people who bitch about this most are freegans (who arguably need traditional capitalism to survive) or off the grid living a simple, barter based lifestyle that is largely self-sufficient.
When I walk out my door, the streets are not paved with gold. The Thames doesn't flow with honey within the limits of London. I can't go down and search for cockles and diamonds on its banks within the Greater London area. I am not bombarded with thousands of choices. Usually it's the same choices over and over repeated every mile or so. Starbucks. Tesco. Nero. Next. Boots. KFC. McDonalds. Sainsburys. Curry's. Repeat with a few variations thrown in. And guess what? None of it is that close to me. I reckon most people in London don't live within a mile of the closest High Street.
Enough ranting from me, I suppose. We had an earthquake here last night. I felt it despite the fact we were 150 miles away. Only one reported casualty, which is good. Just a lot of excitement as earthquakes, particularly those over 5.0 on the Richter Scale are pretty rare here.
Maybe life here is relatively easy compared to other parts of the UK. I don't know. I do know that just because you can probably find anything you want in London, it doesn't mean that it's easy or cheap to get to. London is massive geographically, congested, full of fees if you do drive (congestion charges, parking fees, huge fines if you misinterpret signs and park in the wrong place at the wrong time), and while we have extensive public transport, it's very expensive and not always up and running. Many of the places where people in smaller cities or towns shop routinely lie on the outskirts of London.
Sure we have access to some fabulous places to see and do and wonderful things to buy. It doesn't mean that it's all easy to get to. In a way, it was easier for me to live without a car in my small city in the States than here in London.
I guess a lot of the criticism come from the generalisation that Londoners are very centred upon the capital and don't think about life outside the region. I don't know how much this is the case. I used to hear similar things in New York State about the New York Metropolitan area. Even if it were true, this view often ignores the importance of major financial and commercial centres to the economic health of an entire nation. You may need to invest or focus more on the huge cities if you want to be able to live comfortably in your small town. Of course, if you are ready to reject all forms of dependence on institutionalized capitalism, you probably don't need to worry about places like London. You wouldn't have to worry about the time and financial investment. But I somehow doubt that the people who bitch about this most are freegans (who arguably need traditional capitalism to survive) or off the grid living a simple, barter based lifestyle that is largely self-sufficient.
When I walk out my door, the streets are not paved with gold. The Thames doesn't flow with honey within the limits of London. I can't go down and search for cockles and diamonds on its banks within the Greater London area. I am not bombarded with thousands of choices. Usually it's the same choices over and over repeated every mile or so. Starbucks. Tesco. Nero. Next. Boots. KFC. McDonalds. Sainsburys. Curry's. Repeat with a few variations thrown in. And guess what? None of it is that close to me. I reckon most people in London don't live within a mile of the closest High Street.
Enough ranting from me, I suppose. We had an earthquake here last night. I felt it despite the fact we were 150 miles away. Only one reported casualty, which is good. Just a lot of excitement as earthquakes, particularly those over 5.0 on the Richter Scale are pretty rare here.
26 February 2008
Get your one pound bars of Hershey here...
I am an advocate of adapting to a culture you're in as much as possible. When friends and family from the States ask me if I'd like anything (or if there's something that I miss that I can't get here), I usually draw a blank. That isn't to say that there aren't things I miss, but usually it's fleeting. Since I don't bake traditional grained based food, I can't rue the fact that the ingredients here might perform differently than those from home (although I did make some really odd fudge for Christmas from UK products that came out like a cross between a brownie and fudge). Much of what I love from back home has either been replaced by UK equivalents, isn't a part of my diet, available here, or not an urgent craving.
There are a few things that I do yearn for. I can't eat the tuna here. When I open a can for my husband, I always swear that I will try a bite, but the cultural connection between dark tuna and cat food is too strong. Intellectually I know that it's healthier to eat dark tuna, but I was raised on white. The pickles here are more like our sweet pickles, and while I like those, they have too much sugar in them. The closest thing I could find to a dill pickle was a can of kosher cucumbers in brine. No dill whatsoever.
So Mr. Yumi and I headed to Partridge's, a store which specializes in hard to find food, which includes American foods. When we found the American food section, it was a little disorienting. There was a section of shelves full of things that I have heard other Americans ask for, all for premium prices (for example, I paid over $10 for a big jar of baby dill pickles). But even if I were not off sugars and grains, I doubt I would be tempted by much of it. It wasn't that I am above such food, it's just that it isn't the best we have to offer. There was a shelf of Betty Crocker cake mixes and Goober peanut butter and jelly, but the very best of our food wouldn't have made the trip. Or they can be made from quality ingredients from the UK. But when you strip away all the other foods, you get a view of cheap and highly processed food.
I don't expect people to want to know my culture. "Cultural Imperialism" is a real thing, even if it's a bit more complicated than a pithy phrase. But if we fall into the trap of believing that America is just something you can get in a box or in a McDonald's Happy Meal, we ignore the very real cultural richness of our country. Sometimes it's easier to assume that anything that we have to offer the world is cheap, fast, and full of chemicals. Or that our art is equal to the latest blockbuster out of Hollywood. I have to admit that there was a moment when I looked at the wall of Lucky Charms and Duncan Hines frosting that I felt self loathing.
But then I did what any good American does and bought something. I bought us some canned pumpkin, tuna, ranch dressing, and pickles. We bought "gifts" for our family. But I still felt sad and disoriented.
When people ask me if seeing a McDonald's makes me feel like I am home, I try to explain that apart from the time I worked there, I have probably eaten there less than 150 times in my life. Probably less than 100. By the time I was a full fledged adult, I ate at fast food places a couple of times a year. Of course I am a fat American, but not all fat Americans get that way on Big Macs.
When people complain about the Americanization of culture, what they are complaining about is the commercialization of their culture. Yes, US companies tend to have more money for more chains and imports, and the US franchise signs blink the loudest, but few Americans truly benefit from a Dutch Subway franchise being opened. I doubt much trickles down to the average American from a years worth of American blockbusters. What would other countries' cultures look like to outsiders (or even insiders) if the dominating corporate influence were based in say France, China, Japan, or the UK?
I am an unlikely defender of the US. I am usually a critic. I just wonder how much reflection is actually made when we resort to generalities. This is my version of homesickness, I suppose, an unlikely case of bittersweet yearning tinged with embarrassment and defensiveness.
There are a few things that I do yearn for. I can't eat the tuna here. When I open a can for my husband, I always swear that I will try a bite, but the cultural connection between dark tuna and cat food is too strong. Intellectually I know that it's healthier to eat dark tuna, but I was raised on white. The pickles here are more like our sweet pickles, and while I like those, they have too much sugar in them. The closest thing I could find to a dill pickle was a can of kosher cucumbers in brine. No dill whatsoever.
So Mr. Yumi and I headed to Partridge's, a store which specializes in hard to find food, which includes American foods. When we found the American food section, it was a little disorienting. There was a section of shelves full of things that I have heard other Americans ask for, all for premium prices (for example, I paid over $10 for a big jar of baby dill pickles). But even if I were not off sugars and grains, I doubt I would be tempted by much of it. It wasn't that I am above such food, it's just that it isn't the best we have to offer. There was a shelf of Betty Crocker cake mixes and Goober peanut butter and jelly, but the very best of our food wouldn't have made the trip. Or they can be made from quality ingredients from the UK. But when you strip away all the other foods, you get a view of cheap and highly processed food.
I don't expect people to want to know my culture. "Cultural Imperialism" is a real thing, even if it's a bit more complicated than a pithy phrase. But if we fall into the trap of believing that America is just something you can get in a box or in a McDonald's Happy Meal, we ignore the very real cultural richness of our country. Sometimes it's easier to assume that anything that we have to offer the world is cheap, fast, and full of chemicals. Or that our art is equal to the latest blockbuster out of Hollywood. I have to admit that there was a moment when I looked at the wall of Lucky Charms and Duncan Hines frosting that I felt self loathing.
But then I did what any good American does and bought something. I bought us some canned pumpkin, tuna, ranch dressing, and pickles. We bought "gifts" for our family. But I still felt sad and disoriented.
When people ask me if seeing a McDonald's makes me feel like I am home, I try to explain that apart from the time I worked there, I have probably eaten there less than 150 times in my life. Probably less than 100. By the time I was a full fledged adult, I ate at fast food places a couple of times a year. Of course I am a fat American, but not all fat Americans get that way on Big Macs.
When people complain about the Americanization of culture, what they are complaining about is the commercialization of their culture. Yes, US companies tend to have more money for more chains and imports, and the US franchise signs blink the loudest, but few Americans truly benefit from a Dutch Subway franchise being opened. I doubt much trickles down to the average American from a years worth of American blockbusters. What would other countries' cultures look like to outsiders (or even insiders) if the dominating corporate influence were based in say France, China, Japan, or the UK?
I am an unlikely defender of the US. I am usually a critic. I just wonder how much reflection is actually made when we resort to generalities. This is my version of homesickness, I suppose, an unlikely case of bittersweet yearning tinged with embarrassment and defensiveness.
25 February 2008
ROY BUS
I haven't posted in a few days due to a family emergency that is resolving itself, but still took a lot out of us.
Amid all the rushing around, I found a new thing to add to my list of a few of my favourite things. It's not new to many people. It's been popular here for a few years, and it's been a traditional drink in Africa since long before the Afrikaners gave it its name , but I had not tried rooibos (Afrikaners for red bush) tea until a few nights ago. I was expecting it to taste like a strong herb drink, or perhaps very close to black tea, but it really has a nice floral, slightly medicinal taste. Some people think it tastes nutty, but I didn't really pick that up. Of course, the devoted tea drinkers in our family dislike it. It's close enough to a traditional tea to taste odd to them.
After my first few sips, I thought I had found the answer to my "tea drinking problem". The water here is very hard and can smell funny. I still drink a lot of water, but I can understand why I am the only one that drinks much of it straight from the tap. Yet, I am not a big tea drinker. I am really sensitive to tannins (I can't drink most red wines without having strong stomach pains). Once in a while I will have a cup of Darjeeling, green, or white tea. I just am not that into it. I love my coffee, but I cannot replace water with coffee. Buying bottled water is really out of the question.
So, trying not to get my hopes up too much, I looked into what could be the effects of drinking a lot of rooibos. I stumbled upon a very interesting story to a pretty amazing plant.
The Cederberg Mountains aren't hospitable to most plants. It's dry, the soil is poor, and it's hot in the summer. The rooibos plant (a type of legume) thrives here, due in part to its extremely long taproot. However, it seems that rooibos is perfectly adapted to this region, because all attempts to cultivate this plant outside this region have failed.
The Khoisan drank a tea from the needles of the rooibos plant, and when the Dutch settled in the area, they adopted this infusion to avoid the high price of imported black tea. However, its use wasn't very widespread until a Russian immigrant named Benjamin Ginsberg decided to try to market the drink more widely in the region. This eventually lead to the Eleven O'Clock brand of red bush tea.
During his attempts to cultivate the plant, Ginsberg inadvertently lead to the reduction in the size of the seed of the plant, making it very difficult find seeds to replant the crops. The price soon soared to over £80 for a pound of the sand-like seeds. One woman seemed to consistently deliver large quantities of the seeds, and Ginsberg finally convinced her to reveal her source. She had found that ants would take the seeds to their nests, and by breaking into these nests, she could find large quantities of seeds in one place. The seeds are now collected through a mechanical process.
Rooibos has been used in South Africa to treat skin conditions, allergies, colic, and asthma. Due to its high anti-oxidant content, it may be shown to help slow or stop cancer growth. There's a whole laundry list of diseases that may be treated with this plant (depression, headaches, insomnia, urinary system problems, stomach spasms), and as of yet, no adverse effects have been shown.
If you're really used to and attached to black tea, this tea might be a bit hard to adapt to having as a replacement. In South Africa, it's prepared with milk and sweetener (and that's how I make it), but in other parts of the world, it's usually consumed black and with or without sweetener. It has a natural sweetness that might be enough for some people. Overall, I find it to be a nice, comforting drink, and I urge you to give it a try.
Amid all the rushing around, I found a new thing to add to my list of a few of my favourite things. It's not new to many people. It's been popular here for a few years, and it's been a traditional drink in Africa since long before the Afrikaners gave it its name , but I had not tried rooibos (Afrikaners for red bush) tea until a few nights ago. I was expecting it to taste like a strong herb drink, or perhaps very close to black tea, but it really has a nice floral, slightly medicinal taste. Some people think it tastes nutty, but I didn't really pick that up. Of course, the devoted tea drinkers in our family dislike it. It's close enough to a traditional tea to taste odd to them.
After my first few sips, I thought I had found the answer to my "tea drinking problem". The water here is very hard and can smell funny. I still drink a lot of water, but I can understand why I am the only one that drinks much of it straight from the tap. Yet, I am not a big tea drinker. I am really sensitive to tannins (I can't drink most red wines without having strong stomach pains). Once in a while I will have a cup of Darjeeling, green, or white tea. I just am not that into it. I love my coffee, but I cannot replace water with coffee. Buying bottled water is really out of the question.
So, trying not to get my hopes up too much, I looked into what could be the effects of drinking a lot of rooibos. I stumbled upon a very interesting story to a pretty amazing plant.
The Cederberg Mountains aren't hospitable to most plants. It's dry, the soil is poor, and it's hot in the summer. The rooibos plant (a type of legume) thrives here, due in part to its extremely long taproot. However, it seems that rooibos is perfectly adapted to this region, because all attempts to cultivate this plant outside this region have failed.
The Khoisan drank a tea from the needles of the rooibos plant, and when the Dutch settled in the area, they adopted this infusion to avoid the high price of imported black tea. However, its use wasn't very widespread until a Russian immigrant named Benjamin Ginsberg decided to try to market the drink more widely in the region. This eventually lead to the Eleven O'Clock brand of red bush tea.
During his attempts to cultivate the plant, Ginsberg inadvertently lead to the reduction in the size of the seed of the plant, making it very difficult find seeds to replant the crops. The price soon soared to over £80 for a pound of the sand-like seeds. One woman seemed to consistently deliver large quantities of the seeds, and Ginsberg finally convinced her to reveal her source. She had found that ants would take the seeds to their nests, and by breaking into these nests, she could find large quantities of seeds in one place. The seeds are now collected through a mechanical process.
Rooibos has been used in South Africa to treat skin conditions, allergies, colic, and asthma. Due to its high anti-oxidant content, it may be shown to help slow or stop cancer growth. There's a whole laundry list of diseases that may be treated with this plant (depression, headaches, insomnia, urinary system problems, stomach spasms), and as of yet, no adverse effects have been shown.
If you're really used to and attached to black tea, this tea might be a bit hard to adapt to having as a replacement. In South Africa, it's prepared with milk and sweetener (and that's how I make it), but in other parts of the world, it's usually consumed black and with or without sweetener. It has a natural sweetness that might be enough for some people. Overall, I find it to be a nice, comforting drink, and I urge you to give it a try.
21 February 2008
The Daily Mail
I could write about a lot of things today since there's a lot of news that has caught my eye lately, but instead, I'd like to write a review and history of the venerable old publication known as The Daily Mail.
First, for those of you who are reading this outside the UK, British people read papers. I know! Nothing more intellectually stimulating than a good newspaper. It's something that is being mournfully lost in the US, and many of us would love to find a way to sustain the Fourth Estate in the age of 24 hour cable news coverage and easy digital access to online news. Somehow, the UK has managed to hold onto tradition and has many national, regional, and local newspapers.
Not all British papers are created the same. You have "serious-minded" newspapers, often called broadsheets because they used to all be massive in size even though some are now printed in compact or Berliner format, and tabloids. Then there's the so called "middle-market" papers. The Daily Mail is usually placed in this category. The Daily Mail is the second best selling UK newspaper after the tabloid The Sun (which incidentally is owned by Rupert Murdoch).
In the UK, the editorial political leanings are usually open and obvious. For example, The Guardian tends to be Centre-Left, and currently tends to support Labour. The Daily Telegraph tends to be Centre-Right with Tory sympathies. The Daily Mail tends to follow a right-wing editorial stance. For All Intensive Porpoises has a definite left liberal editorial bent and doesn't currently support any political party. Now that that's all out in the open, let's get down to business.
First of all, since its founding in 1896, The Daily Mail has never printed an untrue word. If you read it in the Mail, it must be a fact. Even when they supported the fascists during the periods between the two world wars, they remained true to their readers and to the good of the country. Integrity...it's a word closely associated with this publication.
In recent years, The Daily Mail has managed to balance hard news, advertisements, and bringing the country the news that they want to hear. Currently, you can follow the developments of the Madeleine McCann story almost daily just by glancing at the Mail's front page. It truly is a great service to this little girl to ensure her face is seared into our collective memories and to provide a roadmap to the complicated investigations and salacious developments of this story. Even though people might call The Daily Mail "The Daily Maddy", it's surely all worth it if one person might be able to bring forth the piece of the puzzle to solve this case. The publishers of this paper deserve a medal.
They may also deserve a medal for their coverage of the immigration issue. We are being overrun as a country by benefit sponging Swedes, job stealing Poles, violent and non-conforming Asians, sneaky North Americans, and a whole tide of people with brown faces. While we can't do much as a country about migrants from the EU, and closing benefit loopholes while dealing harshly with the abusers would just deal with most problems brought to attention of Brits in the media, a full scale closure of the borders seems in order. Asylum seekers get set up in posh council flats with tea towels and bog roll supplied while our youth are left to aimlessly wander the streets and cause problems. It's the mere dilution of British values by the unwashed hordes that are causing this problem with crime anyway. By God, thankfully The Daily Mail is there to point it out!
When I talk about immigration with many Mail readers, they gladly point out some polygamist from a Middle Eastern country (I am not sure which because they couldn't name it) was sending benefits to his wives back home or that some classes are being taught in Polish in UK's public schools. It's because of the Mail's diligent ability to point out the failures of the system that we can all easily come to the conclusion that we should scrap the system, even for those exercising their human rights to live with and have normal family lives with a British Citizen. As for the EU migrant worker concern, we'll get to them soon enough, but in the meantime, it's glaringly obvious that the costs of such migration, even if they can't accurately be calculated and offset by any gains by the country for allowing migration and immigration, should be paid for by a totally separate group of people who have little political voice (and probably brown faces). Besides, it's only logical that the way to crack down on illegal immigration is to make it harder to legally immigrate. Like, duh?
The Daily Mail has stood strong in this stance. They opposed Jewish immigration during WWII, and they oppose immigration now.
So, if you want some quality writing about the Bebo suicide cult, the latest news on products that will save your life or make it a lot easier in features that look more like news than advertisement, immigration, degradation of society, and strong Middle English values, check out The Daily Mail's website today.
First, for those of you who are reading this outside the UK, British people read papers. I know! Nothing more intellectually stimulating than a good newspaper. It's something that is being mournfully lost in the US, and many of us would love to find a way to sustain the Fourth Estate in the age of 24 hour cable news coverage and easy digital access to online news. Somehow, the UK has managed to hold onto tradition and has many national, regional, and local newspapers.
Not all British papers are created the same. You have "serious-minded" newspapers, often called broadsheets because they used to all be massive in size even though some are now printed in compact or Berliner format, and tabloids. Then there's the so called "middle-market" papers. The Daily Mail is usually placed in this category. The Daily Mail is the second best selling UK newspaper after the tabloid The Sun (which incidentally is owned by Rupert Murdoch).
In the UK, the editorial political leanings are usually open and obvious. For example, The Guardian tends to be Centre-Left, and currently tends to support Labour. The Daily Telegraph tends to be Centre-Right with Tory sympathies. The Daily Mail tends to follow a right-wing editorial stance. For All Intensive Porpoises has a definite left liberal editorial bent and doesn't currently support any political party. Now that that's all out in the open, let's get down to business.
First of all, since its founding in 1896, The Daily Mail has never printed an untrue word. If you read it in the Mail, it must be a fact. Even when they supported the fascists during the periods between the two world wars, they remained true to their readers and to the good of the country. Integrity...it's a word closely associated with this publication.
In recent years, The Daily Mail has managed to balance hard news, advertisements, and bringing the country the news that they want to hear. Currently, you can follow the developments of the Madeleine McCann story almost daily just by glancing at the Mail's front page. It truly is a great service to this little girl to ensure her face is seared into our collective memories and to provide a roadmap to the complicated investigations and salacious developments of this story. Even though people might call The Daily Mail "The Daily Maddy", it's surely all worth it if one person might be able to bring forth the piece of the puzzle to solve this case. The publishers of this paper deserve a medal.
They may also deserve a medal for their coverage of the immigration issue. We are being overrun as a country by benefit sponging Swedes, job stealing Poles, violent and non-conforming Asians, sneaky North Americans, and a whole tide of people with brown faces. While we can't do much as a country about migrants from the EU, and closing benefit loopholes while dealing harshly with the abusers would just deal with most problems brought to attention of Brits in the media, a full scale closure of the borders seems in order. Asylum seekers get set up in posh council flats with tea towels and bog roll supplied while our youth are left to aimlessly wander the streets and cause problems. It's the mere dilution of British values by the unwashed hordes that are causing this problem with crime anyway. By God, thankfully The Daily Mail is there to point it out!
When I talk about immigration with many Mail readers, they gladly point out some polygamist from a Middle Eastern country (I am not sure which because they couldn't name it) was sending benefits to his wives back home or that some classes are being taught in Polish in UK's public schools. It's because of the Mail's diligent ability to point out the failures of the system that we can all easily come to the conclusion that we should scrap the system, even for those exercising their human rights to live with and have normal family lives with a British Citizen. As for the EU migrant worker concern, we'll get to them soon enough, but in the meantime, it's glaringly obvious that the costs of such migration, even if they can't accurately be calculated and offset by any gains by the country for allowing migration and immigration, should be paid for by a totally separate group of people who have little political voice (and probably brown faces). Besides, it's only logical that the way to crack down on illegal immigration is to make it harder to legally immigrate. Like, duh?
The Daily Mail has stood strong in this stance. They opposed Jewish immigration during WWII, and they oppose immigration now.
So, if you want some quality writing about the Bebo suicide cult, the latest news on products that will save your life or make it a lot easier in features that look more like news than advertisement, immigration, degradation of society, and strong Middle English values, check out The Daily Mail's website today.
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