NEWS FROM THE FAR SIDE

October 12, 2005

Well what a month and a bit we have had in South Africa and unfortunately as I am on my way to Mozambique for a little break, this will be a mini version of the Farside for this month.

On the political business side, Brett Kebble, was shot dead on Tuesday evening 27 September. No one knows whether it was a hijacking gone wrong or whether it was a direct hit. Brett Kebble was a very well known and very contraversial business man, who had recently been asked to step down as CEO of several of his companies. He has also been facing a pending prosecution for charges of fraud and contravention of the Stock Exchange Act. Interesting to note that today, the forensic examiner/investigator the family brought in to help with the murder investigation, has been removed from his role.

You may remember, Jacob Zuma, the ex Deputy President of South Africa, Zuma faces two charges of contravening the Corruption Act, brought after the conviction and sentencing of his former financial adviser Schabir Shaik on fraud and corruption charges. This case has been postponed until 12 November. I'd be amazed if the case actually starts then or whether there will be yet another postponement. (This after Zuma's lawyer asked for a speedy trial?? Something fishy?)

And a little story to warm your heart...

Gina, the miniature Doberman Pinscher presumed to have been stolen by three burglars last week during a break-in at a house in Pretoria, is safely home again. Gina's owner said they went to fetch her on Saturday morning from kind-hearted people who'd looked after her since last week. Gina turned up at about midnight on Wednesday at a house a few kilometres from the Van der Sandt's and had scratched on the back door.

And a South African things most people won't understand:

Northern Cape police invited almost 200 of the province’s most-wanted criminals to a surprise party on Tuesday night – and then arrested those that arrived!

Police spokesperson Superintendent Mashay Gamieldien said that invitations were posted to 194 suspects linked to serious crimes in the province.

The invitations promised surprise celebrity guests, live entertainment and a guaranteed prize for all invitees.

The sting, dubbed Operation Nice Surprise, lured 20 suspected criminals right into the hands of police, who nabbed them after the “lucky” draw had taken place.

Gamieldien said the operation had been initiated by the Diamond Fields deputy area commissioner of police, Pieter Myburgh. Most of the suspects' addresses were known, but they had escaped being arrested whenever police visited their homes.

A story on the Feel Good network on a local radio station:

My husband went hunting on the farm of a friend. A very old field guide went with him. This guide had been in the service of the family for many years and he knew every tree, animal and bird on the farm. As they walked he pointed out the trees, animals and birds to my husband, telling them their names. When they saw a particularly beautiful bird, he pointed and said: 'Daardie is 'n 'Lilac-brested Roller'. (Translated: That is a Lilac Breated Roller) Maar ek weet nie hoekom sê hulle hy's 'lilac' nie, want hy's eintlik baie mooi!' (Translation: But I don't know why they call him Lilac, because he's actually very pretty!) This story made me feel so good about being South African, because it is only in South Africa that such an error could make one smile and actually love our language diversities. Now you may not understand this, until you know that the word for UGLY in afrikaans is pronounced almost the same as Lilac.

Over and out until I return from the coast of Bilene, Mozambique.

August 2, 2005

Mail from the farside - Part 3 - Labor Strikes hit South Africa

Well this week’s mail will not be too long… perhaps I should join the rest of South Africa in their strike action.

It amazes me about the unions and strike action. While I am all for unions, if they are used for their proper functions, it amazes me when the union bosses call for strikes, all the while, they sit back and watch.

This past week saw SAA (South African Airways – the national carrier) have a week long strike. I was personally affected and was away on conference. Unfortunately I needed to change flights and had to rebook on another airline at a substantially higher cost. Most absurd was the fact that the SAA customer services person said should I require my bookings to be changed or cancelled, I needed to pay an upgrade fee or cancellation fee equal to 25% of the price. The mind boggles that I should be made to pay not only an extra flight ticket on another airline, but accommodation and car rental due to the fact that I was not in my home town, and then to still have the cheek of the airline who is striking to charge me for having to make alternative arrangements?

Not only was the airline on strike, but Pick ‘n Pay, which I would place to be similar to your Wal-Mart was also on strike… Their dispute was that they wanted an extra $61 a month and Pick n Pay management was offering $48. Well, after a week of ranting and raving and chanting and toyi-toying outside their respective workplaces, they accepted … wait for it…$50 increase!!!

So all things come in threes, I am told… and strikes are included… all the municipal workers went on strike too… and went on the rampage, tearing through rubbish and littering streets… they forget that when their strike is over…. They are the ones to clean it all up again!

The only good thing from this past week, was the fact that I got to stay at the most awesome venue I have in a long time. Francshoek Country House ( www.fch.co.za for those interested ). The food was awesome, thanks to an amazing chef named Adrian Buchanan. The venue, to die for! In the winelands, just outside of Cape Town. Perhaps I should have stayed longer there and billed it to South African Airways! ;-)

Till next time… and let’s hope the striking ends here!

June 20, 2005

Mail from the farside - Part II - Special Edition

And so the saga continues... and that's not the Star Wars saga but rather the saga of Deputy President Jacob Zuma and Shabir Shaik....

Last I reported, Shabir Shaik got sentenced to an effective 15 years in prison. Our President Thabo Mbeki after a week of deliberation, made an announcement that he was releasing Deputy President Jacob Zuma from duty as deputy president as well as member of parliament as it was the "best thing to do". There's no place in the government for corruption!!! (Which immediately made the "travelgate" scammers get scared as they now face the firing squad too!) Jacob Zuma, ordinary citizen, now has stated he is not guilty etc etc, and the ANC (African National Congress), the leading/ruling party of South Africa faces a huge problem. Half their members stand by Zuma, and the other half stand by Mbeki. Could we be seeing a split in the ruling party?

And now, the National Prosecuting Authority has stated that they will be charging Jacob Zuma with corruption. I quote: "We have decided to bring criminal charges against former deputy president Jacob Zuma, among them two counts of corruption," NPA spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi told a news conference.

I would not be surprised if the ANC splits into two. I do believe that in the best interests of world trade and industry, President Mbeki has done the right thing, but at the potential cost of his presidency should the ANC split into two and become a minority party.

On a lighter note, our Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said in her budget speech in parliament a week or two ago (on the obesity of South Africans) that she "hopes people do not eat McDonalds, Nando's and such things". Now you all know McDonalds, but Nando's I am not sure you know about. Nando's is a chicken take-away, who Flame grill their chicken to get rid of excess fat, only use meat trimmed of excess fat etc... in a nutshell, it is one of the healthiest, if not healthiest take-aways around.

Now Nando's is also know for their brilliant Advertising. As Minister Msimang herself is no slim young chicken, Nando's released an advert: "Let's see whose thighs are slimmer, Minister Tshabalala-Msimang". Take that Minister! (Let it be known that Minister Msimang believes that garlic, lemon, olive oil and onions are a cure for AIDS)

And finally onto Michael Jackson… Apparently he is looking to move to either Switzerland or South Africa!!!!!! *runs for the hills*

This weeks Language Lesson: This week Zulu

Hello - Sawubona (First person singular) pronounced (Sour borna) / Sanibona (First person plural) pronounce Sunny borna How are you? - Unjani? Pronounce OON Jani

yes - yebo I love you. - Ngiyakuthanda (Don't ask me to pronounce it!!!!)

Signing out from the farside…

June 9, 2005

Shabir Shaik:

Well this week we saw a business man Shabir Shaik, get sentenced to two x 15 years and 1 x 3 year sentence all to run concurrently, for his fraud and corruption for paying bribes and a host of other fraudulent activities. These activities also included our Deputy President, Jacob Zuma. Now, my belief is that if there is a member of parliament, who should be setting a good precedent for the country, who is involved in fraud and corruption, they should be removed from such high office/power. The whole country is up in arms as to what to do, must he leave or can he stay! <to be continued in my next farside mail>

South African Police Service:

Something close to my heart, having served in the SA Reserve Police Services. Our policemen are being attacked left right and centre. We’ve recently had a funeral of a dedicated constable who was doing his job and in doing so, got shot in the head and passed away a week later. The same week another police constable, was shot in the chest, thankfully not dead. The same week…a policeman was shot in the hands. And then there is another police man from the Metro Police unit (primarily traffic police) who pulled a taxi over and the taxi driver shot the policeman 8 times. (He's still alive and recovering) The fine was maybe R200 ($30) but he believed he should rather shoot the policeman! It's time for the members of public to start respecting the police again... but how?

On the nature side:

I’m off to the Highland Run (one of the Top 10 trout fishing spots in the world) for the weekend, and then off to Kruger Park or Mozambique. Kruger Park is one of the best parks in the world (my opinion). You are able to see Lions on the side of the road, giraffes, leopards, a million and one types of buck, hippos, crocodiles (I think you call them alligators) If you want to see photo’s, let me know!!!!

On the cultural/South African side:

Some humor for you:

Your traffic lights, are what we call robots!

Your sneakers, are what we call takkies!

And for this month’s language lesson:

Afrikaans – English:

Goeie More (Pronunciation: g - gutteral sound like ch in loch) so it will be

G(ch) wee-a More-A = Good morning

That’s all from the farside this month…

Astra Bester

Peter McNamara

Peter McNamara (left) with Australia's Prime Minister John Howard

THE FAR SIDE NEWS 2 JANUARY 2006

THE AUSTRALIAN RACE RIOTS – MULTI-CULTURALISM, FREE SPEECH AND ANTI-TERROR LAWS

The much publicized image of Australians is of the beach, a beer, a shrimp on the BBQ and a fair go for all. This image has been promoted by a variety of cultural “exports” from Paul Hogan and Barry Humphries to the Australian football, cricket and netball teams that have enjoyed so much dominance at the top of the sporting world. This naive and complacent view of Australia has been a particularly enduring feature of the self-identity of many Anglo-ethnic Australians and has now been profoundly shaken. Australians are passionate about all things Australian and we do love the beach but our national pride is now dented by the ugly aspect of racism – which would appear to be a by product of a multicultural society. Historically speaking Australian has been established through the millions of migrants from all walks of life and race who now call Australia home (Australia was originally started as a colony of criminals exiled from England). These migrants have arrived to build projects of importance for the national infrastructure such as the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme and the Sydney Harbour Bridge to their own individual desires to improve their own lot in life. In the main this multi-cultural importation of peoples has been successful. Under the slogan 'populate or perish', Robert Gordon Menzies as Australian Prime Minister opened the Australian door to greater European migration after the Second World War to keep the communists at bay. The Italians, Greeks, Polish, Lebanese and others have become outstanding citizens and contributors to the community.

Keith Windschuttle (McLeay Press – The White Australia Policy 2004) writes that Lebanon is one of the oldest sources of Australian migration. People have been coming from that country since the 1880s. They were never defined as aliens under the old White Australia Policy and their numbers gradually grew from 601 in 1891 to 2670 in 1933. Until 1975, almost all were Maronites or Christian Lebanese. These first groups of Lebanese prospered here, married into the local community and, within two generations, became largely indistinguishable from the Australian mainstream.

Nick Shehadie, a former lord mayor of Sydney and the husband of NSW Governor Marie Bashir, captained the Wallabies in three of 30 Tests for his country. How Australian can you get? After 1975, the onset of civil war brought Lebanese Muslims here on grounds of humanitarian resettlement concurrently the policy of multiculturalism was initiated by the Whitlam Labour Government and then entrenched under Malcolm Fraser Liberals.

Multiculturalism began and, until recently, was regarded by most Australians as a civilized concept to ease immigrants into their new environment. But it became corrupted by partisan politics. As former Labor Government minister Barry Jones has admitted, immigration became "a tremendously important element" in building up a long-term, non-English-speaking political constituency for his party.

In the 1980s immigration policy switched from national interest to ethnic preference, from demographic and labour market need to family reunion. In the name of cultural diversity, the bureaucrats in charge used welfare and housing policy to promote ethnic community building. Most affected were the post-1975 Lebanese Muslims. By 2001, 73 per cent of all Lebanese in Australia were living in these Sydney suburbs. Multicultural policy was always justified by the assumption that the xenophobia of old Australia was the problem.

What has happened though is that whilst the arriving worker generations of migrants get Government support and assistance to assimilate into society the first generation born in Australia are left to grow in a confused society of two worlds. This is evidenced by the Muslim youth who roam in gangs of their own culture, torn between the worlds of the old land of their fathers and mothers and the new land of their birth. They see themselves as stateless peoples in some respects as being born of one culture, raised through another and wanted by neither.

The Anglo youths of the Australian surf, beer and BBQ culture have seen the arrival of the Lebanese youths with the gold chains and greasy slick black hair in their gangs taking control of some beaches and blocking out the way of life that they themselves hold dear as intolerable. Then the emergence of problems such as some Lebanese youths referring to Australian bikini clad girls on the beach as being of sexually loose morals and open to abuse of all types as compared to the strict Muslim image of women has been challenging and confrontational for the Australian Anglo youth.

The "2005 Sydney race riots" began with an incident of mob confrontation which took place at Cronulla Beach, a southern coastal suburb of Sydney, Australia's largest city. On Sunday 2005 December 11, approximately 5000 people had gathered in an ad-hoc protest to "reclaim the beach" from recently-reported incidents of antisocial and intimidatory behaviour by groups of non-locals, most of whom were identified in the earlier media reports as Lebanese Muslim youths from the western suburbs of Sydney. The crowd had assembled following a widely-reported series of earlier confrontations, and an assault on three volunteer lifesavers which had taken place the previous weekend. In the week leading up to the major incident of the 11th, these confrontations and the subsequent circulation of anonymous calls (spread via SMS text messaging and other means) to gather at the beach were the subject of much publicity and media commentary.

After initially assembling without incident, violence broke out after a large segment of the mostly white crowd chased a man of middle-eastern appearance into a hotel. The ensuing mêlée soon became widespread, in the course of which a number of police, ambulance officers and individual members of the public perceived to be of Middle Eastern appearance were assaulted.

The following nights saw incidents of retaliatory violence and vandalism in Cronulla and other suburbs throughout the southern Sydney Metropolitan Area, by people of Lebanese ethnicity, and an unprecedented police lock-down of the beaches in Sydney and surrounding areas, from Wollongong to Newcastle.

Many Australians are now genuinely shocked and revolted about what has happened and the alleged retaliations that have seen police patrolling suburban streets. Predictably the NSW state government has vowed to take back control of the streets and promised crackdowns and tough legislation and more police to arrest "criminals, thugs and hooligans".

But this Government and Police action misses fundamental changes in Australian society in the last ten years that has given a sense of freedom to groups to conduct racist campaigns. Professor Peter Kell who is a researcher at the Centre for Asia Pacific Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong, Australia suggests that part of the problem cannot be addressed by tough arrest and detention laws. Further, Prof Kell states in a recent article published in the Jakarta Post “that there is a new generation of Australians who have grown up in the ten years since John Howard was elected as Prime Minister who now think racism is OK”. The Prime Minister, Mr. Howard though is extremely unwilling to accept such an idea and stubbornly rejects the notion that there is underlying racism in Australian society. The preferred view of Mr. Howard is to take a more positive view of Australians and ignore the bigoted, intolerant and selfish attitudes that his Government years have spawned.

This presumption still reverberates in the voices of politicians and journalists who have responded to this week's events as if Australian youths are the real culprits.

This attitude of the Prime Minister identifies with the denial process of past countries in history that have gone on, after putting their heads in the sand to experience World Wars, racial unrest, civil war and vilification of religious or ethnic peoples by nationalistic groups. Arguably therefore the John Howard Government can be seen as the cause of the Cronulla debacle. The signals that the right wing reactionary groups receive here then is that racism is okay because we must protect the white working and middle class voters. All foreigners are seen as a threat to the Australian way of life. Note that the Howard Government is saying that Australia is a welcoming country to migrants but me must detain refugees, including small children, in prisons. Prof Kell cites that the government talks about welcoming Asian students in Australian universities but institutes a draconian visa and surveillance regime that assumes students will work illegally and seek to stay in Australia illegally. It is a climate that also sees the deportation of Australian citizens as OK because they are Asian, don't have English as their first language (Vivian Alvarez Solon), are disabled or unable to advocate for themselves (Cornelia Rau). A balanced view would say that Government processes are driven by people who are fallible and therefore may break down so the Howard Government cannot be held accountable for all official acts that go wrong. This belies the fact that Government responsibility within roles, authority and accountability states otherwise.

Dissent with Government

The Freedom of Speech is one that many countries have fought long and hard for to protect with many lives lost. Robert Gordon Menzies (1894-1977) was Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister. He held the office twice, from 1939 to 1941 and from 1949 to 1966. Altogether he was Prime Minister for over 17 years – still the record term for an Australian Prime Minister. His words on Free Speech are “the greatest tragedy that could overcome a country would be for it to fight a successful war in defence of liberty and to lose its own liberty in the process. These are the words from a man who tried to have the communist party banned in Australia. Populate or Perish became the slogan after WW11 and immigration the tonic to keep Australia safe. The slogan reflected a fear that communists would take over Australia. "There was a feeling of crisis in the community because these communists had really set out to take charge, and something had to be done about them" (Menzies). Menzies in held a referendum, hoping Australians would vote to ban the communist party. This was defeated. And free speech in Australia was guaranteed for the time being.

The comments of Assoc Prof Kell, my own views along with the views of many others may be seen under the tough new Anti-Terrorist Laws as being words of dissent and could be used against us in criminal prosecution if found to be inciting race hatred or violence against the community. This I believe jeopardizes free speech but in saying that I amplify that no fair minded man is supportive of terrorism or criminal acts and these are to be condemned by all and punished with vigour at the highest level. The need is to be wary of confusing dissent with disloyalty. Considered and strong views should not be denigrated as treason.

The Australian Law Council is seriously concerned about the introduction of control and detention orders for terror suspects as these orders would allow the Government to imprison and restrict the freedoms of people for whom there is insufficient evidence to prosecute for a criminal offence. The basic democratic rights that our Government long ago agreed to is that, without trial, citizens would not be imprisoned, or have their freedoms seriously curtailed. This is now challenged. What concerns Australians most is that we will see these laws abused and misused by police or spy agencies before the Australian people as a whole realise what rights have been allowed the executive. For example the community will be gagged, with public debate potentially stifled. People will be pulled off the street, locked up for 14 days and held without charges being laid.

Much of Australia is in agreement with the President of The Australian Legal Council, who states that the laws are excessive, draconian and archaic. The Government of John Howard has also been criticised for its attempts to rush these laws through Parliament and gag any debate on the subject. The enquiring mind would be tempted to ponder as to why a government such as John Howards’ would rush through laws that deny civil liberties to its citizens when the great statesman Winston Churchill himself is quoted as saying that “the power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the laws, and particularly to deny him judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist”.

According to the Law Council of Australia (with a membership of about 50,000 lawyers), the Government is capitalising on the threat of terrorism to introduce laws that put our most basic civil rights under threat. The legal profession believes that the ramifications of these laws have the potential to be as terrifying as terrorism itself. It is my belief that we in Australia have strayed from the path of law and turned accusation into proof of guilt and forgotten that conviction depends on evidence and due process of law. We now risk blackening reputations and tarnishing people as guilty without evidentiary standards being met. We proclaim ourselves as defenders of freedom but have deserted the cause by allowing ourselves to be blinded by hysteria, fear and suspicion. The politicians we have elected to public office have allowed the atmosphere of the community they represent to be changed to one inhabited by fearful men with fearful hearts who will be afraid to speak out and defend unpopular causes for risk of being called heretic and incarcerated without trial.

How far has Australia’s shame to go?

Peter McNamara MBA, AFM3, JP(Qual)

October 15, 2005

Peter McNamara 's latest column from Australia comes in a form of a letter to Jerry Pippin in response to his question about how the new anti- terrorism laws passed last week called for severe penalties for anti war demonstrators and critics of government. Some of the new laws seem to be more for the protection of the political establishment than to prevent terrorism. Unfortunately the same movement is underway here in the US as well. Peter said: "You may print this as my mantra."

Fear cannot quell the truth by Peter McNamara

Jerry my friend – the world in Australia is now different to what I have known and fought to defend over nearly 23 years of Army life. If by terrorist act or design much has altered this field of dreams that I call my paradise. I have fought the good fight, lived and loved and made many pitiful mistakes of the flesh as my good wife will attest. Those experiences have made me the man I am. Will I be cowed by the legislation of the self-serving political ideologists? – I think not. Will I be circumspect or more cautious?. Perhaps!! As the cautious fighter lives to fight another day, so should I. I will not brag the empty words of a drunken bar-room brawler trying to live on old dreams and past glories but perhaps use the power of thought and reason to address my points and not the knock out punch of a man who has lost the art of the pugilist.

I think of words of George Bernard Shaw and ask why some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" when I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" Jesse Jackson tells us that no one should negotiate their dreams as dreams must be free to flee and fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams”.

The good men of the world have spoken loud and long over many a decade whilst the mighty iron fist of government in many countries has tried innumerable times to quell the visions of the masses – yet I am but a simple man of simple ways knowing only simple things whom feels the need to rise above his humble calling and not sell his dreams for silver and gold or a fearful existence.

My fights must be wiser and my blows more telling and my aim must never flinch nor should my heart fail to carry the cause.

Stay strong friends – the world is a beautiful place inhabited by beautiful people. If the human body is truly a sign of the perfect love of God’s creation that still needs an arsehole to survive then I can understand why we have politicians in this glorious place.

Peter McNamara

Peter McNamara MBA, AFM3, JP(Qual)

August 15, 2005

Military and Political Intrigue – Part 1

Justify a war

It has been reported recently from Baghdad where US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a secret visit last month that accusations have been made by Rumsfeld, pointedly accusing Iran as well as Syria of seeking to undermine the US-backed transition in Iraq.

In southern Iraq where the British commander of a multinational division, Major General James Dutton stated to reporters on Friday 5th August 05 – “here there has been a lot of speculation", but few facts, about Iranian activities in this sector, would seem to show veiled support that Iranian terrorist activity may be on the rise. This was prompted by an Iraqi border enforcement unit in southern Iraq found a major arms cache about two weeks ago near Route Six, which runs from Basra to al-Amarah. Al-Amarah is a stronghold of Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr and is predominately a Shiite city of 300,000 people and lies near the Iranian border, 150km north of the main southern city of Basra.

The origin of the shipment is unknown and investigations are continuing but speculation is again that the shipment has come from Iran. Now the cooler heads state that nothing can be proved however US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Iran of allowing the weapons to be smuggled across its border, warning that "ultimately, it's a problem for Iran". Being the wily fox that he is Rumsfeld has been quick to state that he did not know whether there was official Iranian involvement in the weapons smuggling as it’s a big border but the politicians svelte tongue again pointed out that "it is very unhelpful for Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to be crossing the border," he said. "It's a problem for the Iraqi government. It's a problem for the coalition forces. It's a problem for the international community. And ultimately, it's a problem for Iran," he said. When asked to amplify what his points were meant to mean, Rumsfeld reportedly said, "Well, they live in the neighborhood. the people in that region want this situation stabilised with exception of Iran and Syria,".

Bitter experiences from the past

With discussions about possible military action involving Iran, the spotlight in Australia will definitely be on the intelligence (and who delivers the messages) from the Office of National Assessment (ONA). It was not all that long ago that Andrew Wilkie was a senior analyst in Australia's premier intelligence agency the ONA, however he was forced to resign March 11, 2003 for his conscience would not allow him to sign onto a needless war, one which his studies showed could well become a nightmare of death and misery visited upon the Iraqi’s and the innocents ordered to do a country’s bidding.

At the point that he could take no more of the lies concocted by the Cheney-dominated Bush Administration, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Australia's Prime Minister John Howard, to justify a baseless war against Iraq, Wilkie walked out the door of the ONA that day, and into the bright relentless glare of a world media spotlight. Then the broadside attacks from the Howard Government commenced on this man who had served his country well but dared to not toe the government line. The criticism’s and attacks appeared to be orchestrated with the personal direction of the most senior politician in Australia. The Australian government set out to destroy Wilkie, precisely as Tony Blair and his government had destroyed whistleblower Dr. David Kelly, one of the world's top experts on weapons of mass destruction (WMD), who had debunked the Blair government's lies in statements to the BBC, and who apparently committed suicide in the aftermath of those events; and as Vice President Dick Cheney and his friends tried to destroy Ambassador Joe Wilson for discrediting the myth of Iraq securing "yellow-cake" uranium from Niger for an alleged nuclear weapons program.

In a move that closely resembles the "outing" of Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) passed to a neo-conservative toe-cutter at Rupert Murdoch's Melbourne Herald-Sun, Andrew Bolt, a supposed "above-Top Secret" report that had been authored by Wilkie before the war. Bolt cited Wilkie's evaluations from the report, including the likelihood of "huge casualties," and claimed that everything Wilkie had said was wrong. "Yet he wanted us to trust his judgment on something he was not expert in—Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," Bolt ranted.

The truth comes out

Wilkie has now released his book - Axis of Deceit, where he focuses on policy decisions of the Howard Government and how the coalition of the willing manipulated the intelligence and the Australian public to justify a war in Iraq that we more about a strategic play to insert a stable and friendly government in the Middle East and create a new ally that would allow the US to rely less on Saudi Arabia for its oil and political support. Indeed, this view was regularly relayed to the Australian government as ONA also produced a "prolific" amount of assessments on the US and its motivations toward Iraq. (Note now how the price of oil crude has risen and the resultant petrol prices are draining your hip pockets!!)

Wilkie was able to write his book from an experienced and qualified end, serving in the lead-up to the Iraq War as a senior analyst at the ONA, with access to most of the intelligence on Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Military and Political Intrigue – Part 2

The support of others

Lt. Col. Lance Collins, a highly respected Army analyst and the Australian military's top intelligence officer in Timor, spoke out after Wilkie had aired the dirty laundry and further charged that Australia's intelligence system had failed in the Iraq debacle and in several other cases going back a decade earlier. The government's response was to charge Lt Col Collins with leaking sensitive material. Under Australian Military Law a soldier can redress supposed grievances and Collins was not slow to use this form of arbitration. Capt Martin Toohey conducted the Redress of Grievance and found that Collins charges had considerable truth and showed considerable similarities to the recent Dr. Kelly scandal in the United Kingdom and the Wilkie departure from the ONA. Toohey charged that the Defence Intelligence Organization "distorts intelligence estimates to the extent those estimates are heavily driven by government policy. In other words, DIO reports what the government wants to hear."

The Australian Government response was then to release another report which attempted to discredit Toohey. Capt Toohey responded by calling this "despicable and duplicitous," and he joined Collins in his call for a Royal Commission inquiry (the highest form of inquiry) into the "putrefaction" of Australian intelligence. Howard flatly rejected the call.

Others supported Collins' claims. Maj. Gen. Mike Smith, Australia's former deputy force commander in East Timor, said that "the spy agencies had been influenced by Government pressure, and that military personnel feared their careers would suffer if they gave frank and fearless advice." Jane Errey, a senior advisor to former Chief Defence Scientist Dr. Ian Chessell, the head of the Australian contingent in Hans Blix's UN Iraq WMD inspection team, charged that she was sacked because, she, too, disagreed with cooking the intelligence. An engineer and analyst at the Department of Defence for nine years, Errey had refused to write briefings that claimed that Iraq had WMD. "I felt like I was part of the propaganda machine. As a public servant, I shouldn't be expected to write propaganda. Anything that I was doing with respect to the war was making me uncomfortable. Then to have to brief the minister and fundamentally give him—even though I didn't write it—lines of propaganda that I didn't believe with respect to the war, was beyond what I was prepared to do. I wouldn't lie or mislead the public," she said.

To justify a war

It is rumored that sometime in late August or September... another terrorist attack with nuclear overtones is in the works...read the dispatch from deep inside the Pentagon: http://www.militarycorruption.com/byrnes.htm, and check us out daily for Coup D'tat updates: read www.bushbusiness.com  for further information. With all the evidence pointing towards an Iranian issue arising and more wasted lives on all sides we would all do well to understand the whistleblowers of the world deserve our praise. Gen Byrnes now rises as all good men have done before him and like Wilkie, Lt. Col. Collins, Dr Kelly, Amb. Wilson, Capt. Toohey and Jane Errey decided to act. The world, and particularly the citizens of the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, owes them a debt of gratitude.

Sources:

http://members.iimetro.com.au/~hubbca/public_html/wilkie.htm 

http://www.greens.org.au/axisofdeceit/ 

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/lawyer-cleared-over-whistleblower-book/2005/06/22/1119321789211.html 

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3693 

Peter McNamara MBA, AFM3, JP(Qual)

June 18, 2005

Australia Speaks to the World

Australia is aglow with joy at the release this week of one of its own prodigal sons from 47 days of captivity by Iraqi terrorists. Douglas Wood was captured 6 weeks ago in Iraq whilst completing work for his company involved in the rebuilding program for Iraq. The events surrounding the release of Douglas Wood are still unclear but certainly the campaign for his release and the PR campaign orchestrated by his family and delivered into the Muslim world via Al Jazeera can be seen as extremely effective. The image passed to the world by the Wood PR machine was one of Douglas Wood as being a simple family man who was in Iraq only to help the people rebuild after the war. This position never faltered or deviated across all spectrums of the media and is a tribute to the Wood family in Australia who were responsible for the campaign and its delivery.

The close liaison established with the Australian Muslim cleric Sheik Taj el-Din al Hilaly, the Islamic cleric who traveled to Iraq to help secure the release of Douglas Wood, cannot be underestimated. This mission and its contribution alone denies the attempts by terrorists and gangsters to legitimize the acts of perversion and gross inhumanity visited upon the innocents (whether occupiers or the occupied of that great land) that seem to have a stranglehold on the attention of the worlds media. The strength of the strong bonds of democratic freedom and respect for the individual expression of religion between the Muslim and Christian Australians prove that religious tolerance is possible and Australia serves as a great example of this freedom. Dr Ameer Ali, President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, has stated Sheik Hilaly's “selfless actions” boost the standing of the local Muslim community and that of the Sheik. Sheik Hilaly who had traveled to Iraq at risk to his health, had made contact with the kidnappers and possibly pinpointed the location of the hostage takers. "All people are now realizing that the Muslim community is part and parcel of the wider Australian community and when fellow Australians are in danger they come forward even at great risk to themselves," Dr Ali said.

Sport – Thunder Down-under

On a note of inter-state rivalry but one that can serve to demonstrate the attitudes of Australians when it comes to sport, the second match of the three match series of State of Origin Rugby League was played to a sellout crowd of 82,300 people in Sydney on Wednesday night 15 June 05. This football series is one that stops the two states and demonstrates the intensity of interstate rivalry with all the passion of the North and the South from the American Civil War days. History shows the Queenslanders for many years were battling to be free men and represent the good State of Queensland on their own merits on the football field, whilst the all powerful New South Wales, rich with money and authority to do as the whim allowed purchased the cream of football talent from the north and usurped the players into captivity. When money and power provide absolute authority the less fortunate miss out and this was the norm for many years. It was only in 1980 that the first true interstate game as a State of Origin series came about when the idea was promoted that the State where you were born or played your initial games of football was who you should be able to represent. This idea led to the modern era of interstate football – known as “State of Origin”.

This annual inter-state clash between Queensland and New South Wales has proved a sensation to the sporting world of Rugby League. In the first match for 2005 on the 25 May on Queensland’s home turf, SUNCORP Stadium Queensland (colloquially named the cane toads or the Maroons) beat New South Wales (cockroaches or Blues) in extra time 24 - 20. After 25 years of intense struggle at three games per year only one point separated the two sides in scores for and against going into game 2 in Sydney.

In game 2 despite leading 12-8 at halftime Queensland couldn’t match the free-flowing attack of the Blues. A superb exhibition for New South Wales by maestro Andrew Johns who made a Lazarus like comeback from the dead after severe injury problems and only having played 9 first grade games in two years was the talking point of the match. After falling well behind in the scores, a late try to the excitement machine for Queensland Matt Bowen sparked a hope of a Maroons comeback, yet it was not to be and the series was squared at one-all. The final score ended at 36 – 22 and will ensure that game 3 to be played at SUNCORP Stadium on July 6 will be an explosive game.

Regards from down-under,

Peter McNamara, MBA, AFM3, JP(Qual)

ONE of the worries besetting the boosters of the joys of Britain following the horrifying London bombings was that tourists would be scared away from the capital, though I must say that, during my recent wanderings there, I met plenty of unworried overseas folk clutching their guidebooks.

But something has raised its head which is perhaps more disturbing to the wider British tourist trade. I mention it with trepidation here within the boundaries of the great Jerry Pippin Empire but the fact must be faced. The lads in the UFOs seem to be giving Britain the cold shoulder!

It is a trend I have suspected for some time though it is only a couple of years since my sister and my niece and others were intrigued by a peculiar sight over the sea on the north-west coast. Overall, however, reports of sightings which suggest something worth investigating are dwindling.

An article by Stephen Moss in the Guardian newspaper drew attention to it, remarking that, in Cumbria, a region of northern England, there were 60 UFO sightings in 2003 and 40 in 2004 but none at all so far this year. Mr. Moss says that a similar dearth of sightings is reported from places like Indiana and New Jersey in the US while, in England, it would appear that there is a general falling away of interest and UFO groups are having a thin time of it.

Certainly, from my own admittedly cursory look at the field recently, it seems that there is less readiness to take alleged UFO activity at face value. The bottom appears to have fallen out of even the much publicized Rendleshan Forest incident in 1980, once played up a Britain's own Roswell affair. The phenomena reported from there, it would seem, was due to the positioning of a lighthouse on the coast several miles away.

In his Guardian article, Stephen Moss quotes Susan Blackmore, a psychologist who has studied the field for some time and who thinks the UFO craze is finished, will go away for a long time but will come back.

Further, he illustrates how interest in UFO related affairs has dwindled by writing: "Contrast the panic generated by Orson Welles' radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938 with the indifference which greeted Tom Cruise's recent version."

I do not see that as a particularly strong observation but Mr Moss is touching on something about which I have long thought because I am interested in Welles and I can claim to know something about 1938 - a peculiar date in world affairs.

Firstly, the nature of Welles' brilliant but disturbing broadcast was revolutionary in terms of radio. The whole thing was done not as a play but in the form of an on the spot news report of an invasion from space taking place in New Jersey, with the reporter excitedly and fearfully describing what was supposedly going on before his eyes with interspersions from alleged eye witnesses. Now, remember this - only the previous year, a horrified and eventually hysterical reporter, in that very same state of New Jersey, had described over the air the dreadful sight of the huge German airship Hindenburg crashing in flames which engulfed fleeing passengers.

Many of those who heard the Welles play would have recent and vivid memories of that genuine news broadcast and would not realize that they were being fooled. Furthermore, the fear of war and invasion was very strong in the western world in at that point in 1938. Hitler had annexed Czechoslovakia and Austria and, in September, only one month before the Welles broadcast, there occurred what Britain remembers as the "Munich" crisis. An unprepared Britain stood on the very brink of war. Old soldiers from the first world war went into their gardens and dug trenches in which to shelter when the German bombers arrived.

In the US, science-fiction was becoming popular. the comic strips Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers had a strong following and I own reprints of a Buck Rogers set entitled Martian War Threat. The date? Why, 1938, of course.

What I'm saying is that the public mind of America was to some degree conditioned to the idea of an invasion from space while Tom Cruise's more recent version of The war of the Worlds was merely another big movie released into a less innocent world, accustomed to being bombarded by the media and blasé about science-fiction.

Similar to 1938, the public mood was probably geared to take the notion of visitors from outer space when, later the big UFO boom occurred. Atomic science, the first decisive advances in rocketry, the Cold War watching of the skies - and, again, the boom in science-fiction of the 1950's probably played their part in creating what Ms Susan Blackmore describes as a "craze".

I can't speak for the state of affairs in the US and elsewhere, of course and whether the British UFO craze is really over remains to be seen, so don't imagine I'm taking sides.

I'm just an observer on the sidelines, wondering when the UFO tourists are going to return to Britain - if they ever came in the first place!

In the wake of the London bombings, much ink was spilled and every kind of emotion and reaction expressed from every quarter but perhaps the sentiment which impressed me most came from a young woman who was caught up in one of the underground rail blasts.

TV showed her being brought from the wreckage, not badly hurt but dazed and bewildered. Then the cameras caught up with her a few days later, recovered, thoughtful and articulate. She said she did not harbor any bitterness or hatred toward those who perpetrated the bombings but felt they must have resulted from a grievance. And, if there was such a grievance, it should be discovered and remedied. It struck me that she provided much food for thought in a few words.

But can such a grievance and resultant bombings be connected to British involvement in Iraq? A couple of days later, Prime Minister Tony Blair came out with an emphatic denial that British foreign policy in regard to Iraq increased the threat of terrorism. The first reaction to that statement I encountered was from the gent who sells me my morning paper. Indicating the Guardian's front page coverage of it, he asked heatedly: "How can he say something like that?"

The following day, there came indications of his incredulity - and mine - being shared by a large proportion of the British public. The Guardian carried the results of a Guardian/ICM poll, showing that two thirds of the British people believe there is a link between Blair's decision to invade Iraq and the London bombings and seventy-five percent felt there would be more bombings.

As for grievances, a BBC TV reporter in Luton, a town with a heavy Muslim population found that, among young Muslims, there was anger at the involvement in Iraq. There was no suggestion that the young people interviewed were in any way involved in terrorist actions or contemplated them, nevertheless, as one put it, they were angered by their brothers and sisters being under attack. Ah, yes, food for thought indeed - and very little for anyone's comfort in any of it!

A specter stalks England's green and pleasant land! It is the specter of drought!

The driest spring and summer for 30 years has brought prophesies of hardship to come for farmers who require rain for their crops. Wildlife, too, is apt to suffer. There are newspaper photos of dry, cracked earth which should be rich and moist and there are reports of dire effects of the lack of water on birds, particularly the waders whose natural habitat is watery. The lack is particularly severe in the south of England and there are warnings that measures to save domestic water might have to be introduced.

But, in the midst of all the dire predictions, Charters and Caldicott came to mind. If you are a confirmed fan of old movies, you will know this pair. They are two magnificently gentlemanly Englishmen, played by two glorious British character actors of yesteryear, Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford. They appear in The Lady Vanishes, the highly entertaining movie made by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, only a short time before he left for the US.

In this drama, Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave, backed by a strong cast, become involved in international intrigue while journeying through an un-named European country by train, returning to England. Charters and Caldicott are two fellow passengers who are desperate to to reach home at all costs for they are cricket fans - though to call them fans is an understatement. They are devoted to cricket; indeed obsessed by this most mysterious of English rituals. It is doubtful if either ever had a thought in his whole life which was unconnected to cricket. Throughout their journey, they discuss great cricket matches of the past and watch the miles pass, deeply anxious to reach Manchester in time for the opening of a huge event at that city's Old Trafford cricket ground - a Test match between England and the old cricketing enemy, Australia. Let me explain that a Test match between these two nations is something of tremendous importance to the cricket buffs of both countries.

Charters and Caldicott scarcely notice that something very sinister is going on aboard the train or that world peace, perhaps even the very fate of nations, might be at stake because of it. Although they take a soldierly part in the climax, coolly shooting it out with the villains, they treat the whole scenario merely as an annoying nuisance, delaying their progress toward Manchester and their beloved cricket.

Finally, reaching England with just enough time to take a train to Manchester for the opening of the match, their joy is rudely deflated. They spot a newspaper poster declaring that there is rain at Manchester and the Test match has been cancelled!

Well, far be it from me to dampen the pleasures of to-day's cricketing fanatics - and, believe me, real-life equivalents of Charters and Caldicott do exist -but on the very day that the worries about drought were expressed in the papers, the sports pages were anticipating the 2005 Test series against the visiting Australians due to open only a couple of days later.

And, knowing the way the English weather so often behaves during Test matches, I shouldn't be a bit surprised to find the farmers soon rejoicing while maddened cricket fans tear their hair at that all too familiar cricketing announcement: "RAIN STOPPED PLAY!"

I never knew the Old Seven Stars Inn in Manchester because it was demolished before I was born, but my grandfather knew it and, when I was a youngster, it was from him that I first heard the story of the horseshoe nailed to the rafter therein.

The Old Seven Stars was hundreds of years old a noted landmark from the days when Manchester was merely a large village. One day, a couple of hundred years or so ago, a strapping young farmer walked into the hostelry. He had been to market and was carrying a new horseshoe, bought for an animal back at the farm. No sooner did he arrive than in marched an officer of His Majesty’s Navy, backed by a squad of sailors. The officer told the young man that he was being enlisted to serve the Crown as a seaman and he better not resist or he would be clubbed and carried off bodily.

The farmer knew it was hopeless to object so he asked the landlord for a nail and a hammer. He nailed the horseshoe to one of the low rafters and declared that he would return for it when he came back from the wars.

You can probably guess the rest. He never did return and the horseshoe was still on the rafter when the old inn was pulled down in the nineteen-twenties. It was pointed out as a Manchester curiosity and the tale was told many times.

The officer and the sailors were, of course, the dreaded press gang, who prowled in search of likely young men because conditions in the British Navy were so appalling that few ever entered the service of their own free will. If the story has a flaw in it is that Manchester was not a seaport and the press gangs usually operated in ports because of the better chances of finding experienced merchant mariners or fishermen who already knew one end of a vessel from the other. Never mind, it is a good yarn and it had a long life in Manchester.

I thought of it during the huge two-day event in the waters off Portsmouth, the British naval stronghold, held to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, forever associated with the greatest of all British naval heroes, Admiral Lord Nelson. Though he met his death in this battle against the French and the Spanish, he had engineered a victory Britain has glorified ever since. This celebration was spectacular. The Queen and members of the royal family were there and there was a gathering of naval ships from Britain and a host of other countries, including France and Spain, now our friends. A re-enactment of the battle was not too accurate in order not to offend the French or Spanish. There were hosts of sightseers on shore and afloat in every kind of ship and boat, amid a sea of bunting and flags and blaring fanfares. And there was, apparently, the greatest fireworks display in living British memory. It was a grand picnic which set television and radio reporters gushing in breathless wonderment.

But here’s a strange thing. A descendent of Lord Nelson, a lady, was reported on radio to be unimpressed and to have described the event as “twaddle”. Perhaps that can be simply translated as “hokum”.

More, there was a most interesting article in the Guardian by Adam Nicolson, author of a book, Men of Honor: Trafalgar, the Making of The English Hero. He knows a great deal about sea-war in Nelson’s day and he described the celebrations at Portsmouth as “sanitized tea-partying and hoop-la.”

The reality of such war was brutal, he wrote. It entailed a relentless cannonading, which left the decks, spars, sails and other portions of the ships splattered with bits of flesh, blood, bones and brains, which had once constituted living men. He summed up Trafalgar as victory by sheer bloodletting. In short…no picnic.

Mr. Nicolson conjectured something which struck a chord with me. He wondered if, in 2017, there will be similar “sanitized tea-partying and hoopla” to mark the centenary of the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, in the First World War.

No, as a young reporter in Cheshire, one of the first people I ever interviewed was the retiring deputy principal of the local grammar school who, in his own youth, had fought at Passchendaele. From him, I learned of a horror peculiar to that engagement. Not only was it a bloodletting typical of that war, it was fought in constant rain over a battlefield which was a sea of mud. In places, this mud was so deep that soldiers of both sides who slipped into it were dragged down by the weight of their packs and rifles and drowned. Again, no picnic. An event to be remembered but certainly not celebrated with joviality.

Celebrating historically distant slaughter with happy and smiling jamborees does not sit right with me. The recent Trafalgar merriment occurred while a decidedly unpopular military adventure is in progress and the parents, wives, brothers and sisters of a number of men killed in Iraq are demanding explanations for it all better than the excuses given for launching the conflict.

Into the bargain, Tony Blair’s government is set of bringing in legislation to issue every British citizen with highly sophisticated ID cards and have the personal details of every soul in the realm compulsory recorded on a vast computer base. Oh, and it seems it will cost each individual money out of his or her very own pocket or purse.

And I wouldn’t mind betting that some similar excuse was made of the young farmer in the Old Seven Stars as they dragged him off to whatever horrors awaited him as a pressed sailor of the King.

PARDON MY SHIVERING

.... I hear that certain personalities not unconnected with the great Jerry Pippin enterprise were recently ghost-hunting in Texas. I don't know how ghost-ridden the Lone Star State is but, if it's ghost stories you're after, you can't do better than search the British Isles. Note that I say "ghost stories" for, though you might not discover actual ghosts, you'll certainly find stories in town and country. There is an ongoing one in the ancient city of York, for instance, concerning a squad of Roman soldiers, from that era beginning in 55 BC when the Legions of Rome swept into these barbaric islands, bringing the civilization of the Caesars. It is claimed that, in a certain cellar in that city, the ghostly warriors are regularly seen to march out of one wall, cross the floor and disappear through the other wall. There are those who swear they have witnessed this phenomenon.

Taverns and theatres are always good for a ghost yarn. In my native city of Manchester - which, incidentally, was founded as a fort by those very same Romans, as were all British cities whose names end in "chester", "caster" or "cestra" - there is such a yarn connected with an old pub called the Shakespeare, in the heart of the city. There has been a hostelry on the site of this pub for at least 300 years. Every so often, reports emerge of certain disturbances - noises and objects thrown about and such - occurring in the kitchen of the Shakespeare and it is put down to the ghost of kitchen maid who, long, long ago, was burned to death there.

Of course, cynics will point out that, with hostelries, there can be advantages in having a ghost around for he or she can be an added attraction to bring in customers. Theatres, too, are rich grounds for ghost yarns and many an old theatrical hand has a tale to tell. Take the old Abbey Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, for instance. This was the home of the pioneering Irish National Theatre Company one of whose great names was the brilliant dramatist John Millington Synge, who died relatively young of tuberculosis. When she was young, the actress Eileen Delaney, who lived on to play many character parts in British movies, was waiting to go on stage in a Synge play when she noticed a gaunt, dark-mustached man standing close to one of the theater officials in the wings. When she came off stage, she asked the official about the man who was with him. He said there was no one with him, he was standing in the wings alone.

Eileen Delaney, who never met Synge when he as alive described the dark man she saw. "My God!" exclaimed the man. "You've just described John Millington Synge!"

I can vouch for the roots of two ghost stories in my old newspaper town, ancient Eccles, close to Manchester. One concerns a pub and the other a theatre and, as is the way with ghost stories, each is connected with a tragedy. I investigated both myself through the dusty files and microfilms of our newspaper, the Journal, which was founded in 1875.

In Eccles, there is a pub called the Packet House, standing beside the Bridgewater Canal, one of the waterways which revolutionized British transport in the 18th Century and it has a ghost story connected to it. Not unlike the one at the Shakespeare in Manchester, it has to do with the tragic demise of a young barmaid who, in the late 19th Century, walked out of the pub, cast herself into the canal and drowned. Thereafter, at certain times, she was said to make her presence felt within the pub.

I found that the basis of the yarn was true by discovering the report of the inquest into her death which we published. It occurred just before the turn of the 19th Century and it was an all too familiar and unhappy story for the medical evidence revealed that the unmarried girl was with child and had no support. In that harsh day, of course, she could expect only shame.

The root of the other story I found when writing up the fascinating history of the Crown Theatre in Eccles which, by that time had become a bingo hall though it had once been part of the rollicking British music-hall tradition, called vaudeville in the US. The theatre dated from the 19th Century and to read the Journal's reports of the performances there as well as the regular ads we carried was to trawl through greasepaint, music and laughter. Many of the performers later became big names on stage and screen but there were the great legion of small timers who traveled from town to town, week after week, doing their stuff behind the footlights only to be eventually lost to history. They were the baggy pants comedians, the jugglers, the ventriloquists, the vocalists, the dancers and the soloists on everything from the automobile horn to the musical saw.

Then there was the ghost. Everyone in Eccles had heard of the ghost at the Crown Theatre but nobody seemed to have actually seen it. The story was consistent. The ghost was said to be that of a painter who fell from a scaffold while working near the high ceiling of the auditorium. A man whose father had been a member of the orchestra at the Crown assured me that his father spoke of disturbances in the theatre which were put down to the ghost of the painter.

Again, an inquest report in our paper verified the facts. It occurred around 1902 when, indeed, a painter had fallen to his death from scaffolding. It was a straightforward accident, but this was theatre and theatres do attract ghost stories.

I suppose, in hard-headed terms, the pattern is clear: a tragedy occurs, this goes into the collective memory of the locality and a ghost story develops. Whether there really are ghosts can be argued forever. And, anyway, perhaps they all belong in the past.

Or do they? I'm going to London in a couple of weeks and hope to visit Hampstead, a spot I love. London is really a collection of villages and Hampstead, the "Village on the Hill", long the haunt of writers and artists and full of interest, still remains much of a village.

I have just read the recently published London - the Biography, a richly detailed book by Peter Ackroyd. Mr Ackroyd seems to know every stone of the vast city of London and he tells dozens of London stories from all ages. One concerns ghosts to be seen in a lane running out of Hampstead and alongside Highgate Cemetery. Regularly, he tells us, the shades of a man and a woman in Victorian dress are to be seen in this lane around the onset of evening. He gives details of sightings experienced only very recently.

If I get the chance, I'll investigate that lane myself.

Not that I believe in ghosts, but would anyone care to come with me and hold my hand while I do it?