I wrote a web-site a few years ago based entirely on a long out of print book by Mervyn Peake called “Figures of Speech”. This book was published in 1954 and although it’s terrific I never imagined that anyone apart from a few like-minded people would be interested in it. I have been re-designing the site over the last couple of months and yesterday it was finally ready to be unveiled. Imagine my sinking heart when I read on the Official Website of Mervyn Peake, which is run by the author’s son Sebastian, that “Figures of Speech” has been re-issued. I have written to Sebastian Peake asking him if he wants me to take the site down. Somehow the copyright infringement seems worse when a book is freshly re-issued 
Monthly Archive for September, 2004
Also on the BBC news site is this telling analysis into some of the causes of the slaughter in Beslan. In interviews with two British newspapers Putin apparently ruled out any negotiation with anyone from Chechnya, calling them all child-killers. Very statesman-like. He has also said that there will be no public enquiry into the incompetence of the Russian special forces, just like there wasn’t after they cocked up the Moscow theatre siege two years ago. Blair won’t admit he was wrong about the WMD in Iraq, Bush still maintains that the invasion of Iraq was a success and Putin is committed to his disastrous policy in Chechnya. This tendency of our leaders towards totalitarianism is frightening.
Every time a government performs brutal acts like this in ‘revenge’ for some other atrocity they make the world a more dangerous place for our children.
Terrorists, freedom-fighters, insurgents, call them what you like; they can never be stopped through violence. There is only one solution in Israel, in Chechnya, in Kashmir and in all those other places where violent people are licensed by their communities or their governments to behave so appallingly. That solution is always a political one. Most politicians don’t have the courage to turn the other cheek and ignore provocations and it is they who are ultimately responsible for allowing these spirals of violence and misery to continue. These cowardly people who pretend that tough-talking and threats will lead to anything but more suffering shouldn’t be given authority over a dog, let alone a country.
I just bought a vapouriser made by a company called Vapir. The idea is that instead of burning your tobacco, tea leaves, banana skins or whatever to extract the pleasurable chemicals you heat the ground leaves up with hot air and inhale the relatively pure vapours. The effects are very similar to smoking except that the vapours are so cool and mild that you hardly know that you’re inhaling anything at all. People claim that this is much healthier than smoking because there are none of the harmful by-products that are produced by burning. Without tar and carbon-monoxide this may be less carcinogenic. What’s great is that it also produces virtually no smell so I can finally come in from the cold and puff away while sitting in front of my powerbook.
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