Eurovision latest....

Some more selections...

Iceland have gone with a joke entry that unfortunately isn't in the least funny and is musically horrible. i didn't think anything could be worse than the danish entry, but this is.

Belgium have opted for formulaic disco-kiddy-pop sung badly

Better news from ireland - a fine ballad from Bryan Kennedy.

And Switzerland have an excellent, uplifting harmony ballad which I think will do very well indeed.

Hoping for Annette to be selected for Cyprus tomorrow evening

Meadows, expert witnesses and the old boys network

Meadows is a charlatan. His so-called expert witness statements, based on nothing but his own supposition, sent three people to prison.

No way should these so-called 'experts' who I think should be banned from trials other than establishing facts be free from comeback if they make a mistake.

I wonder if the judge, salivating and fawning over meadows, celebrated with him in their gentlemens club or the funny handshake brigade afterwards?

By-elections , Everton and the Eurovison 2006!

An interesting result in last nights by-election. No real surprise for voters to have a bash at a Government during a third term, but it appears to me that in some areas such as education, New Labour appears to have dropped off the radar with regard to social democratic principles. We have our own local by-election in this ward in early March. The LibDem councillor who spearheaded their eventual success here was thrown off the council after a six month absence which itself followed a second drink driving conviction. By all accounts it was as a result of a technicality in that she hadn't given formal apologies.

I haven't as yet decided how I am going to vote - and it does appear rather incongrous that given the fact that local authorities directly provide very little these days and most councillors have no say at all in the policy direction of the authority, that the number of local concillors remains the same. The presence of a BNP candidate may increase the turnout. I hope they will be humiliated. The first example of their filth arrived through the door last week.

Everton are now out of the FA Cup after losing to Chelsea. No disgrace - everyone else loses at Stamford Bridge, but the match showed what can be done with plenty of cash. We were simply outclassed and outpaced. We need external investment - and urgently.

And Eurovision season is amongst us.
Selected so far (best to worst)
Norway - wonderful Celtic-influenced ethereal mid-paced ballad
Poland - catchy multi-lingual , well-sung pop
Albania - slightly ethnic, nice lazy feel
Malta - Pretty-boy Fabrizio is back, eye candy rating a 10 but the song is a bit bland
Estonia - yeawn
Slovenia - Retro disco stuff, camp and cliched

A couple of national finalists worth listening for - Irene Dorocheeva in Belarus, Cosmos in Latvia, Biber in Serbia/Montenegro, a couple of good ballads in Iceland, and Peter Evrard in Belgium (unlikely to be selected, unfortunately)

Sion Jenkins - guilty as hell

Let's hope that there are plenty of people around to keep reminding him. How can such an obvious conviction end in acquittal?

and yet more religion.....

So, we once again have the usual suspects jumping up and down in anger about 'those evil Muslims'
I don't have a lot of time for any conservative religion - yet I can see that there is quite a systematic campaign against Muslims and that they are very much fair game for those who would defend all sorts of other wacky nonsense - notably far-right Christians, who hide behind the safety of an established religion. A lot of the current antagonism does appear to be centred on the treatment of the Palestinians and the way that Israel's behaviour appears to be appeased at all times - in hindsight, Israel should never have been created. There are plenty of other places where a safe space for Jewish people could have been constructed without the subsequent havoc and the illegal occupation of other countries.

What isn't going to help at the moment are contributions which are clearly trying to be as unpleasant as possible about Islam in all its varieities

Religious Hatred Bill

Its an interesting one.

I kept changing my mind about it. On the one hand, I have long been of the view that religion itself cannot and should not be protected, any more than any other personal opinion. Yet I do see how groups like the BNP use Islam in place of Asian and that is wrong and provocative. The compromise seems reasonable, yet when you see the BNP being able to get away with saying stuff which is very clearly racist, it does make me ask whether we need to be quite clear about what is acceptable and what isn't.