It might not necessarily be a sign of equality, but I wish we treat could treat our legs like men's faces

A friend in the pub said to me 'we should just treat leg/pit hair like men treat their facial hair, and have real freedom of choice'.

Now I don't think that all men are completely free to have facial hair if they want, after-all Gillette markets clean shaven as the 'professional' kind of look. Having a beard is not without connotations either, people may think you are a wise, a leftie vegetarian or very religious depending on your racialised group, and what kind of shoes you wear. Nor do I think the comparison between men's facial hair and women's body hair is really a true analogy - if we were really talking about equality we would be comparing body with body, but seen as we are so far away from the freedom to be hairy, I think it is an analogy worth pursuing.

In my experience as a hetero who likes to discuss and admire the faces of men, it transpires that women tend to like a variety of levels of shaving. I know one woman who is mad for beards, and considers facial hair long enough to braid as the pinnacle of sex. I also know women for whom clean shaven is the only acceptable option, I have even met someone who thinks that handlebar moustaches are actually cool.

Personally I am down with anything up to light beard, and think that stubble ( though itchy) can be attractive in a 'rugged' kind of way, that on the right person a beard can hide a weird chin, and that not having the hormonal requirements to grow much hair can equally be very attractive.

Having said that I would suspect that someone with a handlebar moustache is either very pretentious, or very evil or both.



I think it would be fantastic if women's bodily hair could be viewed the same way, that when I am stubbly a man might go 'mmm rugged, she didn't shave for a few days, she must be a bit wild'
or 'that armpit hair looks really natural and smooth I would like to stroke it'
Or even - 'she wears her legs hairy with those square glasses, how indie...'

I know a lot of women who consider their own hairiness to be deeply unattractive, but I think that is wholly due to the fact that it is constructed to be so. I mean if every man in every film was shown clean shaven, if literally no public figures had beards, if beards were seen as repulsive by the public at large and mocked in magazines, I doubt there would be many beards.

From personal experience ( which is not completely de-constructed, and I acknowledge that I too am a product of this beastly patriarchy) the two most comfortable states of leg/pit hair are totally shaved, or 4 days growth minimum. Anything in between is really annoying - and considering option A requires shaving every day and option B requires no shaving ever - I think I know what I will be doing if we ever get post patriarchy.

At present I like to dabble with option A and option B, but I do feel wary of showing my body when I am in option B.

This is a lot like being a hairy man who lives in a world without beards. A world where everyone seems to shave every day just to look normal, where all women everywhere are apparently repulsed by facial hair. One day the hairy man says 'no, this is stupid, I can't be bothered to spend money on razors any more. This hair grows naturally on my face, I am going to let it grow. I know I am hetero, and women are supposed to be repulsed by beards, but the right woman should just like me anyway damnit.' So he doesn't shave and he feels liberated at first - but when he goes out of his house the idea that he is repulsive and weird to everyone he sees, and has no hope of ever going out with a woman, plays on his mind so much that he has to buy a balaclava*, and eventually decides to shave.

I have a list of other hair based demands for women....

• twiddling armpit hair to be the same as twiddling a beard, a sign of wisdom and being deep in thought.
• leg hair to be seen as quite cool if you are in a band.
• leg hair to be essential if you want to make folksy music.
• armpit hair growing competitions along the lines of the world beard and moustache
• armpit and leg hair to be desirable necessary for the ageing academic woman.
• some sort of fad centred around shaving words or patterns into our leg hair ( good for teenagers)
  

Alix Olson does quite a funny song on the subject, (from a queer perspective, I know plenty of lesbians shave and all, but it is slightly different for hetero women)

Anyway I know there are more pressing issues for the modern feminist, but these are my thoughts for today.

* In 'this 'world without beards' there was never any connection between the balaclava and terrorism...

The Edinburgh Dungeons- another childhood memory shattered

I went to the Edinburgh dungeons today on a 'staff development outing' ( I know sounds scarily like something that actual proper grown ups do, but I mostly went for the free lunch)




I didn't know what to think about the dungeons. I had previously been a bit of a fan, I went to the York dungeons for my 10th birthday and thought it was just about the best thing ever. This was during my 'outbreak/horrible history' phase, very much into infectious diseases and gruesome things in general. I was fascinated by every disgusting symptom of the plague and found torture disconcerting but intreguing. I have since visited all the dungeon franchise in the uk, though not for quite a while.

Before today I had a vague notion that feminists don't like the dungeons, and thinking about it I can understand why. The glorification ( or perhaps gorification) of violence against women in the form of the horrific treatment of women accused of witchery/prostitution, seems like simple enough anti-feminism - but still it is part of our past, and it can be good to leave the gory bits in history if it's done properly.
Unfortuntely the Edinburgh dungeons does not manage this, mostly as a result of their heavy reliance on attention seeking twerpy students who shout a lot and make humourless lewd innuendos.

I mean most of the acting was bad, that's ok, I expect that - these are not ex RADA they are a tourist attraction; the first guy though was not just a bad actor, but a complete jerk. Now I know that his role was supposed to be that of the complete jerk, but there are ways if pretending to be a nasty judge ( he was supposed to be a nasty judge - judge mental I think was his character, hmm clever) without resorting to racism and sexual harassment.

It was the bit where you are supposed to be at a trial, and he calls a member of our group up to the dock, who happens to come from India. He says ' Where are you from' she says 'India' to which he replies 'Well that's enough for me, go home - you're guilty, go back to where you came from'.

!

I think that counts as racism, and I think he sort of realised as he said after 'well that would have been more funny if you had come from Glasgow'. Perhaps, it certainly would have been less racist ( though you know quite regionalist/classist - but that's a whole other minefield).

Throughout his act he made lewd sexual comments to the women in the audience, accused women of being skanks - kept saying 'you love it don't you, you love it' over and over and over to various different women and girls. He looked in my direction at one point and said 'you love it don't you' to which I replied 'love what?'. Funnily enough at that point he started picking on someone else.The one man he called to the dock he accused of being gay and made loads of intensely homophobic comments(before ending with some Wales sheep shagging hilarity), and he called up a pre-teen girl and called her ugly. Good work.

I know these things are supposed to be mean, but it would be possible to do this without being hideously offensive (yes I do realise the contradiction in demanding that someone offends people in a non offensive manner, but you know what I mean, nastiness that doesn't emphasise or reflect societal opression)

He could have stuck to the surreal - like ' you have really smelly elbows' general weirdness, or witchcraft and the supernatural:-

'You are a witch' ' you like to eat pies made out of poo' 'you have been stealing other people's flowers and shoving them up your nostrils' etc etc....

Still at least acting the part of 'unpleasant human being number 01' wasn't much of a challenge for him.

Most of the actors were like this, and they were all, with only 1 exception - white men. The only female actor lead us from the boat bit into another room, and didn't do much performing. I remember the dungeons used to have some historical content but that seems to have almost totally disappeared.
As with much history there was 100% male narration, with women only featuring as vampires or victims of violence.There was a bit in the anatomy part where a guy tried to force one of the other women in our group to kiss this heart thing (I tried to touch it, but he wouldn't let me, would have perhaps de-mystified the whole thing if everyone had found out it was just a bit of brown rubber) whilst repeating 'I bet you've had worse on a Friday night'.
To top this off the blackboard it said 'women's brains are scientifically proven to be smaller than human brains'.
Now I know the past is sexist, damnit I know the present is sexist - but this wasn't about showing how unfair the past was - it was about yet another unfunny joke. It may have been more acceptable if there were female actors but the only women there seemed to work behind the reception or in the gift shop.

Anyway the whole thing is a pile of crap, and I am sad to add it to the 'list of things that I actually quite enjoyed as a child but will unfortunately not be letting my children experience*' along with Disneyland, MacDonalds food and caravan sites in Hornsea.




* should I ever have any, that is one ridiculously grown up thing that will not be happening for a long while

Um I know you're probably not the manager here but.....

So I had this T shirt on my concience for a while, it is in this shop on North Bridge called Star. I don't wear little jackts with coloured stars on, but if I did I would certainly buy them elsewhere...

It has a little swoosh and it says Pikey, Just Nick It, though I misread it, I thought it said pikey 'just kick it' The first time I saw it I was suitabley appaled at what seemed to be the incitement of violence against a racialised group, but I was late for work, ok that's a convenient enough reason to just leave it for now...



Then on it continued with the mental excuses, like when you tell yourself you are too poor to buy the big issue, or sign up to give Oxfam a fiver a week . Still the little voice inside my head which whispers things like 'you know if you don't actively oppose this, you condone it' wouldn't shut up, so I decided to cross the road ( I had taken to walking on the other side - I think ' I can't go and say something because it's on the other side of the road' is the most pitiful of mental excuses)

So I went in and there was a woman with long black hair working at the till. Now I know the people in the shop didn't make the T shirt, and they probably hate their shitty jobs - which is why I feel bad complaining to them. Hence my approach is woefully sheepish, which is stupid because I know my point to be valid and ultimately right. Also I don't see why I should be the only one to have a pricking conscience, and someone did decide to order and sell that T shirt.

'Um I know you are probably not the manager here but, you're selling this T shirt that is kind of, well it's incitement of violence against a racialised group - that one that says pikey just kick it'
It was then pointed out that it says 'Pikey just nick it' which is worse really, but it meant a change in my argument ' Well um, that's just as bad, I mean it makes out that Gypsies just steal things'

An Emo guy came along and pointed out that the police had been in, and that they had a good laugh at it.

Aaaah the police, I thought, that well known force of justice, fairness and not being racist pricks.

'Yeah, but the police are a bunch of racist pricks' - I did indeed say that, I sensed it might give me a bit of crediblity. I mean these guys had lots of piercings, that necessitates a mistrust of the 'pigs' doesn't it?

(I am aware that there are probably some fanatastic anti racist individuals in the police force, and what I said was a generalisation and I should perhaps have said ' yes well, the police force is reported to suffer from problems of racism, both institutional and personal, though no doubt some individuals have good intentions, such a position of power is particularly open to abuse, and that the victims and purpotraters of crimes are really victims of an intrinsically unjust social system which the police form an opressive part of'. Still I think the basic point is the same.)

This made them smile and I think showed them that I had a sense of humour, god forfend we British ever be accused of not having a sense of humour. I sometimes think it is our biggest concern, something that has been shown in the recent london Mayoral elections, still I digress.

'People who call themselves pikeys have been in and they thought it was funny'

Now I am 99.9998% sure that is bullshit. I try to imagine the situation 'Hello there, I am a Romany Gypsy, with a long lasting heritage and I find the term pikey really rather amusing, and in no way offensive. I also find the fact that you reduce our historic lifestyle to mere theft to be particularly funny, which is afterall much more important than the fact that it encourages people to hate and mistreat us - do you know where I could pick up a copy of the Daily Mail?'


On the offchance that gypsy travellers did happen upon the T shirt, and laughed, this obviously does not make it ok. I also wonder if the term 'pikey' is understood in Scotland, and maybe he think it just means 'Ned'.

Anyway I mutter something about Edinburgh Lothian Race Equality Council, and leave, probably having made little difference but at least I don't have to cross the street to avoid my concience. Unless of course there are big issue sellers, or Oxfam direct debit recruiters..

My Atheism is My Privalage

I am an athiest, but that hasn't always been the case. I was brought up in a Salvation Army family, I played carols on my trombone for old folks at christmas and believed in a god. Specifically Mr Christian God, though Jesus Mary and all the rest of it didn't always ring true.

I regard my athiesm as a faith because I think the most logical approach to religion is agnostocism. I mean there could be a large rabbit in the sky that generates solar systems simply by wiggling its ears, our measly
galaxy have been shat out by a 10 ton parrot in another dimension - nobody really knows*.

The reason I am an atheist is partly because of feminism. Somewhere along the line it occoured that the people who suffer most in this world tend to be a combination of black, non western, women. It may seem simplistic, but I came to the conclusion that no God worth following would shit so consistently on those who aren't white male and rich.

I know there are ways in which the problem of evil can be explained, and that there are deeper philosophical arguments which I am completely ignoring. It's not that I think these arguments are irrelevant, but because I had a more important revalation today.

That my Athiesm is one of my privalages as a white western woman, and that it is vital that a discussion on faith and feminism should understand what religion means from a non western perspective.

In the white western world (and here I am specifically talking about the US and the UK though this counts for much of Europe too)
we veiw religion as a sort of personal faith. Religion is an individual thing, about what you believe more than what you actually do. This has not come out of nowhere, it is the product of hundreds of years of Protestant Christianity dominating politics and culture. No matter how secularised we feel as a nation, we live with this legacy.

This legacy dictates that we tend to veiw other religons in terms of protestant christianity. This is clearly flawed, as many non protestant religions define themselves by practice, rather than through faith alone. We cannot talk about other religions in terms of belief and ignore their important social functions.

Similarly we shouldn't misunderstand the connection between religion and identity. This is what I mean by athiesm being my privalage.

I am white and from the west, and my previous religious identity was protestant christian, therefore it is very easy for me to abandon.
I can say 'hey guess what, I'm an athiest now' and no one will say to me, 'but you're really jewish aren't you?' or 'I thought you were a sikh?'. That is one of the privalages connected to the colour of my skin and the country of my birth.

For the protestant christian, their religion need not be a part of their identity because for so many years it has been the norm. This is not the case for muslims, jews, sikhs, hindus, catholics etc. If you are born into one of these religions it is likely to be a part of your identity whether you want it to be or not. Even if you abandon all religous practice, you may still be identified with that particular religion. This is because these religions are the 'other' and protestant christianity is the norm - just as white skin and having a willy are also viewed as normative.

Abandoning your religion may not be an option, nor may it be desireable because it is so connected to an 'othered' identity. Religion may be a source of strength and community where a community is opressed,the practices of religion may serve an important social function which cannot be cast aside in the name of ideology.

This is why my athiesm is very much my privalage. I think one of the problems that could be connected to faith and feminism is the misunderstanding of religion, and of athiesm itself. It is important to understand that athiesm is actually an intrinsic part of protestant christianity.
Even though I can give up my christianity, I cannot give up my privalage which arises from that particular religion, and its history of political dominiance.

I am not saying that there are only white athiests, or that it is impossible to become an athiest if you were not previously protestant christian. Of course that is possible, but more of a previous religious identity is likely to be retained.
Nor do I wish to suggest that white protestants do not view their christianity as part of their identity. I know many that do, and I know it can be complex. The Salvation Army for example has an important social function and it does remain a part of my identity despite my lack of belief in god and copious consumption of alcohol.

Thus I guess what I am saying is that even athiests cannot seperate religion from culture, even if you abandon religion it is still a vital part of your cultural context.
This is a result of history which we cannot just ignore, but the fact that protestant christianity is so normative makes it harder to see. Particularly for the dawkins generation.

So then though I am an athiest I think this is my privalage as a resident of a protestant christian coountry. I don't think you have to be an athiest to be a feminist, (even though I think Mr Christian God, and indeed Mr Allah and any of the other male conceptions of a deity are patriachal**) because the social function of a religion may be seperate from actual belief. Nor am I saying that you can't be a feminist and believe in a god - but I think it probably makes it harder.

Phew...


* Not even Douglas Adams
** I do not wish to imply that all conceptions of the deity are masculine. Having said that if there is a female god then she is a maschocist.

A silly song/poem/distraction

A song dedicated to the bad mood which is just not romantic in any way. And to the possible failing of impending exams.

Even Morrissey lets me down…….

When even Tuesday morning
Is silent and grey
And the working classes
Have got nothing good to say

When you are no-one’s fatty
Or even someone’s lass
And there’s nothing less poetic
Than being middle class

One thing I wonder
As I brood around this town
Is why continue to respire
Even Morrissey lets me down

I used to think you got me
That you really knew
But there’s more to life than books you know
And more to life than you

I tried hiding in my room
When I felt I was ignored
I did it for 10 minutes
and just got really bored

I mooched around a council block
And a factory floor
I didn’t find my muse
They were all just rather poor

I thought then I’d be celibate
You made it seem so great
But all I do is think of sex
And often masturbate ( am I doing it wrong Morissey?)

I hated my successful friends
I tried it once or twice
But that was also difficult
They’re all just really nice

I tried to hang the DJ
But they kicked me out the pub
They thought I was a mentalist
And hit me with a club

I gave up eating meat for you
I gave up eating fish
Now I’d swap my copy of ‘The queen is dead’
For a large bacon sandwich

One thing I wonder
As I brood around this town
Is why continue to respire
Even Morrissey lets me down

Asexuality

One of the wonderful things about the internet is how much it facilitates learning stuff, lots of stuff, stuff you never even thought about thinking about. This week I have been learning about asexuality through a fantastic website AVEN. Asexuality seems like one of those things that it seems obvious exists, like the stock market or electricity. And like the electricity and the international markets, I have no idea how asexuality works, or at least didn't until I became fascinated by this website (it didn't tell me anything about the nasdaq but that's ok, I'm not really interested)

I am not asexual, I have known I had a sex drive for a very long time, pretty much ever since I bought Pulp's, 'Different Class' .
Not only that, but I think sex is pretty much the most interesting thing ever. How ,when, why, with whom, how what we do is connected to and/or constructed by the world in which we live. I could talk about sex until the cows come (yup there it is, the worst joke I have ever made) I appreciate that some people like to keep these things private, which is probably why it is all so interesting.

So learning that there are a whole group of people out there who just don't have sexual attraction to anybody, seemed like a bit of an alien concept to me. Hard to get to grips with, what do they do in relationships? how come they don't want to have sex, I mean that's like not wanting to eat surely?
The more I read of this site the more I realised that asexuality is a perfectly valid thing, and the fact that the world we live in is so hyper-sexual (at least our western one) explains why few people understand asexuality. Part of me was like, 'huh, lucky them - never have to worry about going ages without sex'. This is a completely stupid reaction; in a world where everybody expects sexuality being asexual could be very isolating. It must be very difficult having people think that there is something wrong with you (probably more tough than extended dry periods)
Asexuality is probably less understood than homosexuality even though it is not a particularly difficult concept. You may be attracted to men, women , (trans men trans women queers tick as many boxes as you wish) or just nobody. There are people I am attracted to and people I am not, it is perfectly logical and valid that a person just might not be attracted to anybody.

The AVEN website is fascinating because people are so open about their relationships and sex lives, I guess because they frequently encounter so much curiosity. Where I do think that it would totally be within their rights to say - 'we are asexual, deal with it, and fuck right off with your patronising curiosity' I do find it fascinating hearing so many people talk about how their relationships work in a totally non-sexual context. (Even though again, it's not very difficult to understand, I have very emotionally involved friendships with people I am not sexual with.)
Most of the relationships people speak about, do seem very deep and worthwhile and there is even something appealing about the way that they are always looking for something which to me seems 'beyond sex'. Though thinking about it, it's not really 'beyond sex' it's just without it. An absence of something that has never been there anyway. For a sexual person, the mutual understanding and emotional connection may be 'beyond sex', because we tend to measure our relationships by the act of intercourse. Sex first, other stuff later. People we sleep with, people we don't. It's romanticising asexuality to assume that their relationships are automatically 'deep and meaningful', they may or may not be, asexuals are just not oriented toward sexuality so they just won't want sex, or at least they won't have sexual attraction. They are not choosing something very deep over something shallow, they just don't want sex. It's like if a person just doesn't like chocolate so they don't eat it. They may or may not be healthy ( they might stick to fruit and veg, or they might always eat fry ups for example)
Still I find myself admiring these relationships that don't have sex at their core, and can't help thinking that maybe sexuals have something to learn from asexuals in the way we value relationships.

Then again, I also can't help fancying the pants off the main spokesperson for asexuality David Jay....



This is a trailer for a documentary on asexuality which looks quite interesting.



I guess it's good to understand other people, and there are so many things in life that make us aware of the massive multiplicity of experiences, and allow us to step outside our own.
It does make me wonder where asexuality and feminism all fits together. if you believe sexuality to be socially constructed then that goes for asexuality too. We don't want to be hetero-normative, how does asexuality fit into that? How does one avoid being 'sexual-normative'? Perhaps this is all rather individualistic and there are plenty of much more pressing issues out there above and beyond the sexuality of individuals.
Anyway that's all for now, would be interested in the thoughts of others.

Bits of inconsequential unconnected minor good stuff

Something I have got quite into lately is pulling,( the programme, not the process of going out and acquiring a sexual partner, that's not bad either). I didn't expect it to be all that good, but turns out it's funny and honest with some good female characters. In the first episode Sharon Horgan's character is miffed because all her friends went out and had wild adventures on a night she stayed in. Definately one of those 'Damn I'm so like that' moments of TV
(the first time I ever felt that I was 10 years old and it was whilst watching an episode of the simpsons where Lisa gets pissed off because there is nothing left to protest about. Luckily as I grew up I realised there is always something to protest about)



I guess I mention this because I am in and it is half past 11 on a friday. Prime adventure having time. Tonight instead of an adventure I went to lidl, but I must have been in the adventure frame of mind as my shopping bag resembled a game of 'when I went to the supermarket I bought' played by precocious middle class children.
I always thought planning meals was for losers, but I may have to start doing it as I came home with blueberries, wine, little ranch farmyard jelly creatures, green tea and most excitingly crabs - 8 for £4 complete with shells and faces. Now I am thinking about defrosting one of them and carefully placing it in various uexpected locations within our flat. mwah haha.

I was in a good mood today for no reason, so I thought I'd blog as I generally tend to write when pissed off. It started off well, I got 2 fantastic books in the post, Black British Feminism - a reader, and Blue Pills. Read quite a bit of the feminism book, it has some really good essays in though I felt guilty for sitting about reading academic stuff which is completely not related to my impending exams. Blue Pills I read in one sitting and is just wonderful. It's a graphic novel about one man's relationship with someone he learns early on is HIV+. It is absolutely fantastic, I never thought I could love a graphic novel so much.

Blue Pills was so good my walk to work was almost joyful, and I noticed all the things about Edinburgh that make me feel happy, and strangers didn't seem like a sea of morons but interesting people with lives and stories..
my thoughts were somewhere along the lines of
'SOLIDARITY, EQUALITY , ORGANISE REVOLUTION!! Hell yes, I'm with you, when does it start? what brilliant graffitti- someone wants things to change so much they have sprayed it on the wall, look that pigeon has a tuft on it's head that looks like a mohecian, brilliant - hey look at that EMO girl wearing flares and a big black T shirt just to hang out, how fantastic, isn't youth brilliant'
and so on and so forth. Far too happy, in retrospect.

Up yours Enoch and The BBC

I got a letter from the BBC complaints department which I thought I would re-produce here for shits and giggles. I was quite excited to get a personal email back after my complaint about their 'Enoch Powell might have been right, everybody better go out and buy the Daily Mail so they can beat a black person to death with it' - 'documentary'.
Ok , so I don't think it was called that, but the whole thing basically tried to suggest that old Enoch was right, a patriot and that his concerns were legitimate. It had a definate pro Powell bias, it's horrible and can be veiwed here ( for the next 6 days) should you wish.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b009g794.shtml?q=enoch+powell&start=1&scope=iplayersearch&go=Find+Programmes&version_pid=b009n4mb

Naturally the idea of someone complaining to the BBC conjours up the image of some grey haired old fusspot, with too much time on their hands, whinging because someone said fuck before the watershed. All this has changed with the internet and if you are annoyed you can complain very easily.
Now this isn't a very well written complaint because it was late, and its rushed - but here it is anyway :-

"I am writing to make a complaint about the so-called examination of enoch powell's speech which was both racist and inflamatory. I found the documentary to be very oversimplifying, it completely failed to look into racist immigration legislation, the consequences of imperial history or infact the way the media was itself racist in the 60s and 70s. The programme continually asked if enoch was right, which is completely objectionable. It harked back to some kind of working class nostalgia by portraying working class white people as somehow the voice of the british.
>It made multiculturalism and immigration seem like the problem, without ever asking if it might be something to do with the fact that racism is, and always has been inherent within British society.
>Dockers were not portrayed as racist, but the students were labelled 'radical' for taking a stand against racism. Enoch's speech was called a 'prophecy', you said without any proof that communities are divided, there was large amounts of racist footage without any qualifiers, and the programme ended in a way that suggested that Powell was right
>The whole thing was objectionable and highly offensive, racist veiwing. I thought the BBC was better than that."

If you want a much more academic veiw from an actual historian, Joe Street* wrote a much better letter of complaint here:-

http://www.irr.org.uk/2008/march/ha000020.html

It has a lot of proper facts and makes the point much better than I did.

Anyway the BBC responded - however I have just noticed that the email they sent me is apparently 'confidential' and may not be republished anywhere without their permission. I am very tempted to ignore this - but instead I will paraphrase their response. If you want to see the real thing then ask me and you can read it.The BBC did not say the following...

" I can see that you thought our documentary was a racist piece of crap because that's what you said in your lettter'

" Powell was super dooper, he was a very smart man who had a lot of ideas on different policy areas (economic/identitiy which are still pretty important now" ( ideas like send home the 'pecanninnies'? Hitler was a very smart guy but you don't see documentaries waxing lyrical about his intelligence and foresight - I am not saying he was Hitler but my point remains)

" There were more anti powell than pro powell commentators" I don't think this is actually the case, but still you don't see many pro hitler comment on documentaries about him. There is a reason for that.

" We used footage of people in the 50s 60s and 70s with veiws that make us feel squirmish' exactly yes you did, without every condemning them as racist, you made that all seem ok and normal.

"Look we did try and challenge Powell's use of language and criticised his racism" ahem no, you didn't, I watched the documentary and work for an anti racist organisation. I can tell a challenge to racism when I see one, that was not it.

"Immigration is important and a real concern for loads of people, and even big important people think so, like MPs and opinion formers and even the arch bishop of cantebury, so stop moaning"

Who the fuck is an 'opinion former'- what kind of creepy thing is that? Am I an opinion former cos I write this blog, do you mean Richard Littlejohn and his satanic ilk? Is it some kind of computer telling us all what normal people think? Who are these opinion formers and what do they do? Also I never said immigration was not a worthy debate, it is one that should be examined in a non simplifyingway which considers the issue from many sides, not just the racist side of one Tory MP. Also the arch-bishop of Cantebury? Whoopdie shit, who cares!


* is it me or is that the coolest name for a historian ever?