Blah Blah Flowers

The whole cartoonsofMohammedbystupidDanesagate has left me confused as to where exactly I stand on the whole freedom of speech issue, other than thinking that taking the attitude of being surprised if you piss other people off being really dumb and unhelpful, but in the meantime I can't help but take pleasure in David Irving getting three years porridge in Austria for denying the Holocaust. He claimed that, based on documents he'd found in 1992, he'd realised that the Holocaust had indeed happened, unfortunately for him the judge remembers the case between him and Penguin books/Deborah Lipstadt in 2000.

However, those of us in Britain, you remember, that plucky little country of shopkeepers that stood up to the Bosche and said "nein danke!" to Mr Hitler, shouldn't laugh too long. We have ID Cards and the ban on Incitement to Religious Hatred to look forward to and despite a craven Government all to happy to agree to whatever bollocks bLiar, Golden Brown or Charles 'Bunter' Clarke spout, Parliament is now going to be asked to sign off on a Bill that would make them obsolete and allow ministers and other Government officials, some of whom aren't elected but appointed, to amend and introduce new laws without oversight.



With slouch and swing around the ring
We trod the Fool's Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
The Devil's Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
We passed an open grave.