42 days: government loses the argument

Hurrah for the House of Lords who threw out 42 days last night. Resoundingly, and thumpingly, in one of the biggest votes against the government ever. Normally this would be big news, especially after all the political capital invested in it by Gordon Brown but Bankmageddon drew the fire.

UPDATE: Great piece from Shami who has done more than perhaps anyone else to nail this.

I was up in Leeds with Kate Allen and the campaign team from Amnesty when I heard, at the launch of their new film. On the train back, Davide from Blairwatch filled me in on Jacqui Smith's live reaction, holding the phone close to the TV so I could hear her.

It sounded like a lot of petulant squawking to me. We toasted the 42 days demise with relief.
On closer examination, the Home Secretary's speech was even more awful than it sounded.
It is ludicrous to say that people like Eliza Manningham Buller, recently-retired head of M15, the director of public prosecutions Ken McDonald and the former Labour attourney general Lord Goldsmith are people who are 'prepared to ignore the terrorist threat'. In fact it was their extremely detailed knowledge of the terrorist threat that led them to point out that the bill was dangerous and counter-productive.

And to prove that this is all about using fear to play politics, now there's a one-pager to be whipped out if there's another terrorist attack, described by the shadow home secretary as 'one of the most bizarre things I have ever read'.

42 days won't go through when people are calm and rational and have time to think about it, so we'll stuff it away for now only to shove it through when everyone's in a highly emotional state instead. Classy.

Guardian's timeline of 42 days detention and editorial
BBC 'have your say' reaction (most recommended)
BBC - Campaigners hail 42 days defeat
Spectator - 'a good day to bury bad legislation'
Chicken Yogurt '42 days: Stick a fork in it'
Times

However, 42 days is not the only dodgy and disturbing part of the counter terrorism bill.
See Marcel Berlins on secret inquests.

When I enquired about this, I was told by an insider that the motivation for this part of the bill is so that wiretap evidence or evidence which could not be used in public court because it would endanger, or identify, say, a security services officer working undercover could be shown to the family of the deceased, privately.

I can see the point of this, but unfortunately good intentions are no excuse for bad law. The Lords will debate the rest of the bill on 15th and 21st October.

I was against 28 days, by the way. Hopefully we can get some traction to repeal that next.

David Davis: An man of honour

Wow.

Just - wow.

I have met Charles Clarke, John Reid and Jacqui Smith in the course of campaigning for an inquiry into 7/7, and whilst I was pleased that they agreed to meet me and other families and survivors asking for an inquiry, the meetings were ultimately disappointing.

I met David Davis, and Nick Clegg when I had the honour of standing beside them to give evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, about this wretched terrorism bill that was voted on yesterday. I was glad and proud that we all said the same thing: we do not defeat terrorism by throwing away what we hold dearest of all, our liberties. We said it again and again. And the comittee agreed.

I met Mr Davis again afterwards, and I have to say that before the meeting I was a little wary, because I didn't think the 7/7 inquiry campaign should be used as a political football by the Opposition, because the people who were directly affected that day have all sorts of different political opinions, (obviously) and important matters of terrorism and liberty should be above politics in any case.

But Mr Davis was so obviously sincere about his support for the 7/7 inquiry campaign, and then I saw how he lit up and was clearly so passionate about civil liberties and freedom, that after the meeting I walked out with a much lighter heart, because I had seen that this was not political, but personal, and that he really believed it. And that could only be a good thing for Parliament and his party and for all of us who want to preserve freedom and what we stand for and not be cowed or bullied by terrorists or anyone else.

I applaud Mr Davis for this brave and rather wonderful thing that he is doing ( yes, I know it is a safe seat. So?)

I can't stop smiling. I want to cheer. I woke feeling very gloomy this morning after yesterday's disappointment, and squalid show, ( even though I had high hopes for the Lords fightback to come over 42 days). But now it feels as if the sun has come out and the rain has stopped falling.

Well bloody done sir. Well done.

You have done yourself and the cause of freedom proud.

I salute also my MP, Diane Abbott, who I have just written to, thanking her for her inspiring performance in the Commons yesterday.

Who said politics is boring?

Some good news

I have just spoken to my uncle on the bedside phone! He is just out of theatre. They don't know what it is, but they know it is not a blood clot or a swollen artery in the brain, or a tumour, or a stroke, as first thought. It is a great relief to hear his voice after surgery and have a good chat and to tell him my news. He is very happy to hear about how many people have been wishing him well. He'll probably have to have another operation, to explore more, but at least, for now, he's flat on his back, getting excellent care, and somewhat reassured to know that he is not in immediate danger, though he still can't use his eye and is in a lot of pain. Third nerve palsy. Cause unknown.That's all we know so far. I'm going to visit him tomorrow morning, he needs to rest today and Dad is going this afternoon. Thank you for the messages wishing him a return to good health which are very much appreciated and have been passed on.

The other good news.

A while ago I wrote about my publishers, The Friday Project, going into liquidation. The deal with the liquidator is now completed, and I am pleased to confirm that my book, Out of the Tunnel has been taken over by Harper Collins and will now be sold and published by them.

Whilst stock moves over to the new distributors it might be hard to get hold of for a few weeks, but that should iron out soon and it's still in bookshops because I saw a copy the other day. I'm pleased, and I will get my royalties after all. So the small charity I support will get some money as I promised and it will help pay for the new kitchen. Which is almost completed, so I can start to put the house back together and bring order out of chaos. At the moment the pans are in the garden, the glasses in the kitchen, the dried goods in the study and everywhere is a total mess, covered in plaster dust and it is driving me mad.

I hope you get some time to chill over the Bank Holiday weekend - I'm going to drop into the Cambridge Beer Festival after visiting my uncle as a mate is managing one of the bars.

Wedding anniversary

Can't believe it was a year ago today. We went to Norwich for the weekend and spent Saturday in a haze of golden sunshine, ( the weather just as beautiful as it was a year ago), then had a sumptuous meal and stayed over at the same place we spent our wedding night.

I'm so lucky to have this wonderful man at my side; I don't think I could have got through the last nine years without him.

Blackstock Road raids

Well done and thank you to the cops. I have got pig-sick of the verbal and sometimes physical harassment walking home, the intimidation of passers-by, (especially unveiled women) by posturing, disrespectful gangs of youths, the blatant selling of stolen goods, and the take-over of my neighbourhood by racist, abusive criminals.

UPDATE: Watch the BBC footage here - ( top right, video and audio news)

My local Turkish shopkeepers were all thrilled as well; they have cut out the article and stuck it on the wall of the shop. Everyone in the shop was talking about it. I'm sorry I missed the big bust: I was writing up interview notes, but if I had known I would have gone down and taken pictures. And cheered.

Last month I was hemmed in and groped by a pack of Algerian teenagers outside an internet cafe: they pushed me up against the wall as I walked home at 9.30pm. I screamed at them - roared at them - to stop; they let me go, then they advanced on me, shouting the most filthy sexist and racial abuse and threatening me. I was near a shop where I knew the owners, and knew they had a baseball bat under the counter, otherwise I would never have dared raise my voice back to them. It was the sixth time I have had to shout back at street harassers in the last six months. I didn't bother calling the police because I couldn't face making a statement and wasting more time on these idiots. I went home, had a double whisky and shook for an hour instead.

Late last summer I had to slap away the marrauding hands that grabbed at my thighs and my bag whilst voices hissed at me that I was a XXXX-sucking XXXX English dirty whore who needed to be taught a XXXX-ing lesson.

My 'crime'? Going out of the house in muddy shorts, gardening boots, no make up and a long-sleeved T shirt to buy a bag of compost at 3pm in the afternoon.

I looked at the shops and cafes that were closed today. I was not in the least bit surprised. I could have predicted which ones would be targeted by the police.

I hope these vicious little turds get
a) jailed for a good stretch b) separated from each other whilst in prison c) deported

My tolerance for bullies, criminals, racists and liars is at an all-time low these days. I want my neighbourhood back. This is a very good start.

Taking Liberties movie nominated for BAFTA!

Chris Atkins, the director of acclaimed political movie Taking Liberties ( now available to buy as a DVD, and there's also a accompanying book which you can buy on amazon ) has just told me that the film is up for a BAFTA!

Well done Chris! Fingers crossed.

THE CARL FOREMAN AWARD

for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer in their First Feature Film

CHRIS ATKINS (Director/Writer) – Taking Liberties
MIA BAYS (Producer) – Scott Walker: 30 Century Man
SARAH GAVRON (Director) – Brick Lane
MATT GREENHALGH (Writer) – Control
ANDREW PIDDINGTON (Director/Writer) – The Killing of John Lennon

So there's another reason to see it if you haven't already ( and its available to rent off cable as well if you have Virgin Media).

Also up for five BAFTAs the gripping final installment of the Bourne trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum, directed by Paul Greengrass. Bourne III is up for Best British film, best director, best visual effects, best sound and best editing

Paul Greengrass's harrowing film about 9/11, United 93 won a BAFTA in 2006, a Variety Award, numerous other awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. I was honoured to be invited to the to the cast and crew screening of United 93 in 2006 and met Paul, who expressed his strong support for a 7/7 inquiry, a cause he has continued to support, writing a piece for the Mirror newspaper and mentioning it in interviews for the BBC and other international broadcasters. Last time I caught up with him he said he was reading Out of the Tunnel. Woot!

A final piece of good news - congratulations to reader Graham the Funky Ardvark, who is getting married in a few days time. Every happiness, Graham!

Over £500 raised for CORDA

Thank you so very much, all of you who contributed to the charity memorial collection in memory of my Mum who died on 22 August this year after a sudden illness and stroke. The fund is still open for donations, for CORDA, a heart disease and stroke charity, but I wanted to pass this on in the meantime, with grateful appreciation from me and my family.

Dear Rachel

Thank you so much for setting up the fundraising page on Just Giving in memory of your mother, Brenda McFadyen. I am so sorry to hear about her death, and would like to send you and all your family our sympathy. Her death so suddenly must have been devastating to you all

I am extremely grateful you decided to support CORDA. We are, as you know, a very small charity involved in funding what we believe is extremely important work trying to help diagnose heart disease at an early stage and so stop others die so unexpectedly. I am not sure where your mother was treated, and if it was at Royal Brompton Hospital (where we fund research in the Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Unit).You and your friends and family have so far raised £539.48 for us which is a marvellous result.

With my very grateful thanks and best wishes

Jennifer Jenks, Executive Director, CORDA

New blow for PM on terror detention

Today's encouraging sign that sanity might prevail...

• Ex-attorney general to tell MPs he opposes new limit.

• Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of public prosecutions, is likely to tell the committee at a separate evidence session that he has not been calling for an extension.

• No 10 may have to back down on 56-day maximum

More in today's Guardian

A break at last - Richard & Judy!

At long last my luck seems to have changed with the book promotion.

Launching a book on Friday 13th vs. Alistair Campbell's diaries, followed by JK Rowling mania was tough. Mum's stroke on the 9th July - the first day of book launch week ensued all launch plans including the party were scuppered as all I wanted to do was rush to her side. This Morning blew me out at the 11th hour, ( damn, I bought a new dress specially) and GMTV had me on at 6am and wouldn't let me mention the book at all! Since then I have been plugging away on a gruelling local radio schedule on Fridays, the day when I am in London, doing back to back interviews in a small studio, talking about being attacked again and again and coming home like a weepy wrung-out wet dishcloth.

But now - joy! I have been asked to appear on Richard and Judy this afternoon.

This is a minor miracle, especially as the show is shorter than usual this week because of the Goodwood races. I was first asked to be on Wednesday, which was exciting enough but would have meant I couldn't mention the book because Wednesday is Summer Reading Day, when the fortunate few titles who have been picked to be the Richard and Judy Summer Reads are plugged and their lucky authors bask in the knowledge that their books will be sure-fire bestsellers. As you can only mention one book per show, if I had gone on Wednesday, I would not have been able to mention the book at all, though it would have been mentioned on the website, which has over 250,000 hits a week.

But being on today instead means I can talk about the book. Even nicer is I get to go on with my father! We will be talking about how you deal with two hammer blows ( three now, with mum's stroke) and what it does to your beliefs, how you cope. The call came because of a Relative Values piece in the Sunday Times, which Judy noticed, and which my ex-colleague Matt wrote, about me and Dad. So I'm not on because of the book. I'm on because of the story behind the book. But it's a break, it's a chance, it's a dream answered. At last, some good news.

The Richard and Judy effect can be phenomenal, even for books that are not picked for the stellar heights of Summer Reading. So now I have to iron the dress and wash my hair and try not to panic, and hope that Mum will be watching with the nurses at 5pm, and hope that Dad and I will do her proud. Cross your fingers for us.

UPDATE: MD Clare is very excited
So is Commercial Director Scott

Author Penelope Farmer reviews Out of the Tunnel

Author and publisher Penelope Farmer has written many wonderful books, two of which are old friends. Charlotte Sometimes is a classic children's book, about friendship, sisterhood and loss, and Eve: her Story is what Mrs. Milton might have written secretly whilst her husband laboured over Paradise Lost, a juicy feminist retelling of the oldest story of all.

Penelope has reviewed Out of the Tunnel on bookarazzi and here is her review.

''I managed to get hold of "Out of the Tunnel" while I was in London recently and can confirm everything Clare says. Rachel is a wonderful writer: how anyone can go through all that and end up so sane...It's also a complex story the thread of which she never loses and nor do you, her reader. What is so particularly impressive - and makes it much more interesting than it would be if the story had just stayed with Rachel herself - was the way she got together with other survivers, her emergence as a spokeswoman and campaigner. It's a compulsive read, you can feel the adrenaline - the pain - hammering off the pages; even the occasional repetitions play their part in that. As does the understanding of Islam she already had and uses - that's very important - and still more the intelligence which she brings to the aid of fine writing to knit it alltogether. Add to that a novelist's eye for detail: for conveying what her senses tell and told her, for communicating other people - and animals... Oh I did so like her cat!''


Yay! Thanks so much Penelope! There are now 7 reader reviews on amazon, including two from fellow-passengers, one review on Waterstones, and two on play.com, as well as the reviews in the sidebar from bloggers Netherworld, Rachel, Hendo and authors Clare Sudbery, Sarah Salway and Caroline Smailes . All reviews by readers so far have been extremely positive which is fantastic. I've let the good people of urban 75 know that the book is out as well. Urban 75, a hugely popular London-based website is featured in 5 chapters, and played a key role after the bombings. There is a dedication to urban 75 in the book.

I am extremely grateful to all my reviewers so far, and to anyone who feels like reviewing it on amazon, play, waterstones or their blog. I'm going to see if I can get some blog buttons made as well.

Note: The book is not available in supermarkets or WH Smith, only in book shops, like Borders or Waterstones, or online (although you can order it from stores that don't sell it, including stores abroad). This means it is particularly dependent on word of mouth and reader recommendations. So that's why I am plugging away like mad on my blog. I'll be writing about some othe stuff as well besides the book. But the next four weeks are crucial, and as I am trying to make a career out of writing, this is a nail-biting time.


The book launch party, which was cancelled when the terrible news broke of Mum's stroke on the Monday of the week the book came out, threw all the plans for launch stuff into disarray as all the family rushed to her side. I am very sorry to everyone who was invited and especially sorry to those who did not get to hear of the cancellation in time. It will be reinstated in the diary soon and I will let you know as soon as I can.

I am hoping to get some book shop readings organised as well, although I am still scared about what happened to author, and peace activist Milan Rai, when his national book tour about his book ''7/7, Islam and the Iraq War'' was disgracefully targeted by conspiracy theorists, who barracked and heckled him everywhere he went to speak, demanding a platform to talk about '9/11 was an inside job' and behaving in a way that was not only obnoxiously rude, but intimidating. Yes, really. Here they are discussing how to wreck Milan's 7/7 tour on their forums, the *little charmers.

''I am pleased to say that we were accused by the organisers of wrecking their meeting - that is we heckled him everytime he made an outrageous remark or dismissed something which was of paramount importance''( 'Justin, on the '9/11 Truth forum')

''Good work gents, I hope the London crew put this piece of sh*t straight about things, seems to be 'willfully' ignorant like *team rachil. I beg those in London to hijack this fool's meeting and use it to disseminate what we know.'' ( 'Ally', on the '9/11 Truth forum')

* refers to them thinking I am a team of 'shills', or dis-information agents, funded by M15 to Conceal The Truth

If that happens again with me, and they all turn up again to barrack and heckle and try to hijack the reading, it will be a real problem. But I really don't see why I should be intimidated by them, (although at first I did feel intimidated, and I said to the publishers I couldn't do any store activity. That was before everything went wrong with the launch week. ) So I am now going to see if I can do things after all, at book stores where there are security guards and CCTV who can ask people to leave if they are disruptive or threatening. And maybe we can rescue things a bit.

*Which reminds me, Digital Toast has got a grab of the BBC Radio 4 Jon Ronson show where Jon tells David Shayler, ex. M15 and now conspiracy theorist extraordinaire to 'f*ck off'. Enjoy.

Mum news

My mother has changed since the beginning of July.

On 7th July, she was laughing and lovely, at my father's side, at her brother's 70th birthday, smiling at all his friends who had come to Norwich to see him.

On 8th July, she was pale and tired, but thrilled, as her whole family waited to eat lunch in the scented courtyard garden, her baby grandson playing at her feet in the sunshine, the lillies about to open.

She told me how excited she was about my book launch that Thursday: she had just started to read the book, and she wanted to come to the party in London later in the week, with Dad. I kissed her and Dad goodbye and J and I headed back to London in the late afternoon.
Later that night I spoke to her as we ate a late dinner. She was still so excited about Out of the Tunnel, and its very first reader reviews ever. And she had just been reading my blog and she wanted to warn me about a troll who had been leaving obnoxious comments. I thanked her, told her I'd put comment moderator straight back on, how I was sorry it had upset her.

On Monday 9th July, before 8.00am, (the time you never get calls, unless it is terrible news), I got a call from my uncle, her brother, to say she had a severe stroke, totally out of the blue.

My husband, my sister and I ran to get back on a train to be at her side.

Mum has never smoked, she is fit, and only in her early sixties. The only time she has been in hospital is to have her three children. Oh God, why her, why now? It did not make sense.

In the first few hours after her stroke, there was this great leaping spike of hope that carried us on, as we rushed to be with Mum and Dad in Norwich. We had heard, through Dad, who was at Mum's side in hospital, of a chance to give her a new clot-busting, effects-reversing drug, TPA. It was being trialled at the hospital where she was. There was a tiny chance she might die if she had it, but a strong chance she might massively improve.

It had to be administered intravenously, by a neurologist, within 3-6 hours of the stroke.

I remember that moment: how my desire for a miracle hardened into a white hot rock in my chest. I remember how I had spent the train journey to Norwich telling my sister, it's okay, go on, you can cry, but then dry your eyes, because Mum and Dad need to see you, looking normal, not distraught. They need to know there is hope; show them.

I remember how there was no time for me to cry: I was too busy finding out about strokes online, ( via a borrowed Blackberry). Talking to Amar, my sister's beloved companion, who is a senior registrar at an A&E, staying clear-eyed, focused, technical: tell me everything, all I need to know, what can I do, what can I say, to make sure they save her? This miracle drug: tell me, tell me it all. Costs. Risks. Benefits.

(This is what I do in a crisis. I go ice calm, seek information, and hells bells, it all goes in, like it never does normally. My memory becomes photographic, everything becomes hallucinogenically, inhumanly clear. Every detail, every breath, every thought: I remember it all, then and after.

The trouble is - afterwards - when the shock fades. The over-intense memories loop, loop, jam and fast-forward, and my real-time short-term memory crashes out completely. But still. It is a damn useful state to be in whilst it lasts.)

Dad called whilst we were an hour away from the hospital. He had signed the consent forms.

J held me. He held my hand and my sister's hand: he had bought the train tickets, bought tea, made us drink it, found a taxi to the hospital; held me together just by being there. I love him so much.

As we arrived at the hospital we found my father, grey-faced, shaking, telling us the ''computer says no'' to the mum having the drug on trial. My uncle, mum's brother, was with him, looking straight into my face. There was nothing much to say.

The randomised trial-allocating software had disallowed mum getting the treatment.

But I had already prepared for this possibilty with Amar.We got to the hospital and I went straight to the desk. 'Please', I said. 'I need to speak to the consultant, the neurologist, about our mum'.

'Your mum, she's in there', the desk nurse told me.

'I know, but can't go and see her yet, not until I have spoken to the consultant,'I said, 'I am so sorry, but what we have to say, is too important, even to wait five minutes. We can't even see Mum 'til we have seen him. Please. We are running out of time. There is a drug that could save her, but it has to be injected in the next twenty minutes. Please. Please, can we talk to him?'

The consultant came. His face was kind.

I begged. Very calmly. Still dry-eyed.

Please, sir. We would pay, if it was a paying thing, please, it didn't matter about money, we would find it. My husband was a lawyer, he would draft a waiver, a disclaimer, whatever, there would be no comeback, no blame if it failed. Please. My sister's partner was a registrar, he was suggesting Mum had the drug on compassionate grounds....Please, please . Please...

He was so kind to us, us, the worst kind of patient's families, I expect, with a little knowledge, and desperate enough to argue, to beg. He explained, carefully: Mum had heart problems. She had in fact been due for an EPG the next day. After a month of explaining to her GP about chest pains and water retention and breathlessness, they had finally got around to doing the damn obvious, and checking her heart out. But the stroke had struck, twenty four hours too early: it was too late now to diagnose the minor heart attack.

The heart attack that should have been picked up earlier.

If she had the EPG 3 weeks ago.

When she first complained of chest pains and breathlessness and swollen ankles.

How I hated Mum's GP at that moment.

Amar spoke to the consultant. Fast, technical language was exchanged: I struggled to follow, with my new knowledge that I had inhaled so greedily about strokes on the internet in the last three hours, and my basic anatomy and physiology from years ago. The consultant smiled at me sadly, passed the phone back over.

'I agree with them, he is right, I'm sorry', Amar said, his voice cracking. 'They can't give the drug to your Mum'.

And so, we went in to see her.

When I first saw Mum in hospital, she could not speak, nor move her right side, not focus, only try to hold our gaze, as her eyes, flickered, as if she was watching railways tracks pass through the a window of a fast train. Flick-flick. Flick-flick.
The light inside that was Mum was still there, but the candle guttered.

We were not sure, then, if she would live. We were not sure if she would speak, or walk, or do anything for herself ever again. We were too scared to hope. We were too numb to pray.

And now the hope about the drug was over, and that was that. No miracle.
Dad was blank-faced, frozen, terrified. Looking at him, I could see that he wanted to die at Mum's side. The shock and grief was too much: hope had gone.

I walked into the cupboard where Mum was being kept, next to the nurse's station, and I stared it down: a future without her, whilst I held her hand.

But.
Wait. There was hope after all.

By the end of week one, she was drinking tea, with the wrong hand, looking straight into our faces. She could say 'yes' and 'hello'.
By the beginning of week two, she could sit in a chair, then stand, with support, briefly, and wriggle her toes on the right foot. Say a few words, and smile, and wave. (Always smiling: she smiled and waved from the second day: Princess Mum, eyes shining with dignity and humour, determination. )

And now. Week three. You know what she does?

She walks. She damn well walks. 40, 50 steps. Her arm is still paralysed, but her legs work again. She walks with a stick, careful as a ballet girl on a trapeeze wire, smiling at me, proud.
She speaks, she talks, she listens.
Words, sentences, laughing.
Conversations. Slow, but they are there.

Oh, sweet Lady Lazarus. Dad believes in the future now; his love is returned. All is well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Her heart is swollen, but her spirit is bigger.
Mum is back and we are so damn proud of her, so thankful, so grateful.

I know how many of you have been reading this blog and thinking of her. How many have sent emails, texts, cards. flowers, love. So I am sharing the news.

Thank you.

Mum...

...is trying to talk and is managing to say several whole sentences. Already! She is completely able to understand everyone but speaking is really hard. She is eating solid food left handedly and she moved her right hand a bit. It exhausts her, but she is a fighter, and she is getting better so fast after the stroke (which was a week ago) that everyone is very, very impressed and proud of her.
Especially me.

Glasgow airport & London car bombs -Terrorists: 0

As The Register points out, and several kind people have just emailed me to say, this week's *terrorism incidents have displayed a staggering lack of competence.

'' Yes, it could have been a real horror. Only, the device could not have detonated. Not under any circumstances. You see, the terrorist wannabe clown who built it left out a crucial element: an oxidiser. The device was pure pre-teen boy fantasy.
"We'll heat up these propane cylinders with burning petrol, and they'll go off like bombs", boys the world over have remarked with glee. They don't realise that air is a poor oxidiser, and the only "explosion" they will get is when gas pressure inside the cylinders is great enough to burst them. Then the propane will ignite, and a nice fireball will blossom. A fireball, not an explosion.
Oh, the Piccadilly fireball would have blown the car's windows out, and popped its doors open, and sent various bits like mirrors and so forth into the air at velocities possibly fatal to people nearby. It would have looked really cool, that's for sure. But an explosive event...a detonation? Not in a million years. Sorry lads: you failed car bombing 101; you did not attend a single lecture; you did not even open the textbook''

( Beavis & Butthead in London jihad)

Which is encouraging, at least as a thought. Cottage-industry terrorism, by under-achievers who are too clueless to do the maths/science stuff about fuel bombs, and who can't drive without crashing into bins, - or who are so Darwinian-Award dim that they set themselves on fire before throwing the Molotov cocktail is clearly preferable to highly-trained steely-eyed holy warriors battling away in an epic global struggle. The 21/7 lot got the chemistry mix wrong too, it seems. The intention may well be the there, but the expertise...nah. Anxiety to amusement, up, down, up, down, it's an emotional rollercoaster today.

Meanwhile the effects of the rainy weather have now killed eight people, and thousands are unable to go home or work because of flood damage to homes and businesses.

*I'm classing Glasgow airport fire-jeep farrago as ''terrorism''. It doesn't appear to have been an accident, and the intention seems to have been to frighten people, so ''terrorism'' it is. Crap terrorism.

Talking of 'news'....

Well done that woman. Round of applause for MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski who refused to lead on the Paris Hilton story, attempting to set fire to the script, then shredding it in protest. Hurrah for journalistic integrity. Her co-presenters then proceed to act like boorish idiots,('why are you such a journalist?') which makes her look even more ace by comparison, particularly when she says 'I am about to snap', and 'I'm going to do the NEWS now'. Yay!

Hurray! War hero given leave to remain

...and quite right too. Story here.
A massive response from the public, lots of this sort of thing, petitions, pressure, people power - and lo, justice and right prevails. I love it when good things happen, for all the right reasons. People are amazing, and compassion and natural justice are some of the most powerful things in the world. And now I hope with all my heart that that Alan comes home, safe.

Candles in the dark can be seen half a mile away.

A light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness overcometh it not

Submitted

Well, I've done it. My book has been submitted to the publisher. Of course, the minute I sent it I found all these grammatical errors, argh, which I'll tighten up over the weekend. That's what comes of working too long and too late and faffing. There's a few weeks of tweaks to do with the editor, whom I'm looking forward to meeting, but basically, it's in and I made the extended deadline. Woo hoo! \o/

I've been working flat out in a lovely, airy office in central London, looking out over the rooftops of Soho, loaned to me by David G, (the utter star). Much nicer than my little study full of drying washing, mess and muddle and no fatso cat to jump on the keyboard and spill my tea.

Now the book's been handed in, I can paint and tidy the study so it becomes a nicer place to work. I'm going to spend my birthday Homebase voucher from Jane on some paints, and shelves, and plants...put up some pictures, file away all the old research that stuff that is currently in tottering heaps...

I am giving myself a little break for a week, looking after myself, going to the gym and cinema, going for walks and catching up with friends. I've barely surfaced all last month - well, all year really - yesterday I did a marathon stint in David's office and then got home and carried on working til 3.00am. It has been a bit all-consuming.

I am finally coming up for air, I have thought of little else but making the deadline and not letting anything distract me from that. Even the wedding has taken a back seat. But I can change that now, and enjoy waiting to be a bride...

Some fabric swatches have just arrived for me to look at for my wedding dress. I have a hundred invites to send out. I missed 3 days of gym training this week and I can't wait to get back on it. I have lost eight pounds in just over two weeks, eating lots of fish and veg, going to the gym first thing, and power-walking home then home, quick shower and straight back out to work on the book. My back is rock-solid and achy-stiff with typing. 80,000 words and fiteen chapters and a lot of my heart and soul.

I'm not drinking, but I think this calls for a small whiskey, and a deep hot bath.

Cheers.

Good news!

A few days ago I told you about Annabel ( not her real name) , one of this blog's readers who had been in contact with me to tell me that she was in the midst of a rape trial. We have been emailing each other and I asked blog readers to send her their prayers and good wishes. I've just heard that the jury returned a unaminous guilty verdict. Sentencing will be in a few weeks, once pre-sentencing reports have been carried out.

Annabel deserves huge praise and thanks for her bravery and determination in bringing this rapist to justice. As well as attacking Annabel, the rapist had in the past attacked other people, one of whom was a child.

If you want to pass on a message to Annabel you can send me an email and I will pass it on, or leave a comment below. Thank you Annabel and I hope that you are able to take some time out to feel justifiably proud for the great service you have done society - all of us. And thanks to all the dedicated people who helped Annabel; the police, the hospital and medical staff and the Witness services volunteer, whom Annabel tells me have been 'fantastic' and given her 'amazing support'.

It is good to know that justice can be done. Well done Annabel, you complete star.