Should we be so joyful that Christian missionary Norman Kember was rescued from his captors last week? Since flying home, he seems to have been less than grateful to his rescuers for his freedom, choosing to believe instead that his deliverance was more an act of God.
He doesn't say which God, the Christian God, the Islamic God, the Jewish God, the... well we could go on but which God exactly does get the credit? Though I'm sure Mr Kember wants to believe that it's his Christian God.

This dotty old man even seems slightly resentful that he was recued at all, reminding us that the Iraq invasion shouldn't have happened. Yes, but it did. What shouldn't have happened was a group of naïve missionaries expecting the British, American and Canadian governments to bail them out if they ventured into hostile areas where they made themselves targets for the loony insurgents roaming that tortured land.

I wonder just what Mr Kember - a lifelong pacifist - really thought he was doing there. Missionary work of some sort yes, no doubt. And no doubt that made him feel quite serene and spiritually pleased with himself, even though he must have known what danger he was in. But did he not realise or care what a liability he might be to the military forces trying to maintain peace in Iraq? Or was it his plan to embarrass them maybe by getting under their feet.

Did he, I wonder, ever see any of the videos of what these insurgents do to their victims if they decide to murder them for propaganda video. They are readily available on the internet. Perhaps someone should force Mr Kember to view one of these horrific incidents. It might make him think a bit more clearly next time. It might make him consider just what the soldiers who freed him, risked to get him out. It has a sobering effect watching a man with a kitchen knife saw a live man's head off! Funny how no amount of prayer saved those others from such a barbaric death, Daniel Perl, Kenneth Bigley and others. What was God's great plan there I wonder. Why did deliverance elude them? Did others not pray enough? No, it was a case of the military not being as lucky at tracking them down as they were with Kember. Divine intervention is a nice idea when it turns out okay. You can't help wondering why during the last world war, 6 million plus jews, men, women and children, all of whom must have been praying like mad for their deliverance, weren't delivered from their ordeal.

Frankly, Norman Kember and his family and colleagues should get down on their knees and give thanks to the vigilance and bravery of the army, the SAS and others who cooperated to free them. That is the miracle. The miracle of communication, intelligence and guts Mr Kember.

Can there be anything so gross as being forced to marry someone you hardly know, and all for what? Family honour.

Family honour my arse, selfish personal pride brought on by repressive indoctrination and brain washing at an early age more like. The deal being: on the one side you marry someone your parents thought was right for you - and convenient for them - and that should you refuse, you bring dishonour on your family and they then disown you and worse. Can you imagine your family turning on you because you didn't want to marry some pig you didn't love and couldn't stand - male or female? It would never happen in our culture. It cannot happen in our culture... by law! We marry for love or lust or whatever but the choice is up to us individually. There is more honour in that than being forced and threatened by your parents and other family members merely so they don't lose face. It beats me how a parent or brother could be so animal and derranged or selfish. No loving parent would treat their child like that.

However, this primitive medieval tradition - which is all that it is in the west - is being enforced by migrant parents on their westernised offspring. They want all the benefits of the west, though many refuse to integrate or even learn our language. Many of them want to be a micro culture of the world they came here to escape. Meanwhile they want the education and the opportunities. They want the health care and the welfare benefits. They want the good life and the opportunity to succeed and they want the laws to protect them, when it suits them. However, they don't want our culture and remain steadfastly welded to their archaic customs, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't hurt anyone; but forced marriage does hurt people and so too does honour killing, part of the deal for non compliance.

It seems incredible how tolerant the west is of this appalling practice and many other confrontational issues. We seem to be standing for so many of their cultural demands which have a direct bearing on our own freedoms and culture. Why are we allowing this to happen. Have we become a soft touch, particularly in the UK?

We are forced to endure militant immigrants who either don't like this or don't like that; They have become isolated, resistant to our culture whilst maintaining theirs. They want to run their communities like satellites of the countries they left.

Now they want plays stopped because they don't like what they say - suppression; they don't like some religious cartoon so they riot and preach death and destruction and holy war - suppression and intimidation. By the way what happened to the British police during this incident, why did they do nothing? Well what about our freedoms of speech, our freedom to criticise? They want to force their children to marry even though it is illegal in our society - repression, intimidation and violence. And what else will they object to once they get the bit between their teeth. What objections will they raise concerning our freedoms and ways previously taken for granted. They forget they came to the free west to be free. Yet they want to impose their traditional repressions here and undermine our ways. And what is happening in the government about this, what protection is being afforded to our society and our way of life. Virtually none. All the happy clappy socialist live-and-let-live philosophy is slowly selling us down the river. When will we be more like the Dutch and the French and the others who stand up and say, enough is enough. Love our ways or go back to where you came from. In fact if they don't like the status quo, they should be repatriated by force, if necessary.

Frankly if such people love their primitive traditions so much, and ours not at all, why did they come here in the first place. The whole thing is a recipe for future disaster unless it is addressed very soon.

It was a grey morning. The light filtered through a dusty window but wasn't even strong enough to cast shadow on the floor of suite 158 on the sixteenth floor of the private New York hospital. Connery was groggy but still managed to stretch out a hand. He longed to feel the cold texture and ever familiar contours that had nestled inside his jacket, next to his arm pit, through countless encounters and tense circumstances. Yes his wallet was still there. Carefully he fumbled and then gripped the smooth leather and pulled it towards him. The leather was cold against his cheek. It smelled of him. Old Spice, Tabac, Coal Tar soap and the sweat of 75 year old film star. There were some notes in it that were now out of date.

Connery was recovering from an operation. He'd recently undergone surgery to remove the wallet from his inside pocket. The operation was a success but the surgeon was worried. "Obviously..." he began, gazing at the press agent over the rims of his Foster Grant cheapo reading glasses, "... there will be some side effects. A man doesn't carry a wallet unopened in his pocket for all those years, then expect a straight run to normality once it's been removed." The doctor drew a deep breath and let it hiss out between clenched buttocks. "Noooo no." he intoned, "It'll require weeks of recouperation, some councelling probably. His bank manager might be the best one to do that."
"Maybe he should return home for some R&R." said the agent.
"That would be a good idea." agreed the surgeon, "Familiar things will be good for him. They'll evoke memories of childhood and help him to rebuild himself."

Two days later, Connery was stepping off the plane. The familiar surroundings made his chest swell with pride. Scottish to his roots, being back in his homeland had an immediate cathartic effect. Yes, it was good to get back to the familiarity of the grand old Scottish province of Bahamas. How he glowed at the sight of the familiar Scottish vegetation. The palm trees, the bannana groves, the worked out sugar cane plantations. There had been a moment of tension but once he saw the tax free banking houses in the main street, it passed quickly.

He arrived at his house, a traditional Scottish lodge of pale pink stucco nestling in a housing development of exclusive traditional Scottish houses called Lyford Cay. It was a pretty house a bagpipes throw from the traditional Scottish coral beach where traditionally warm clear Scottish water lapped the traditionally Scottish pink coral beach.

Mrs Connery was there to greet him. "Now Sean, you need to rest. But we should have something to eat before you do anything else. I've got the barby going. What about some traditional Scottish fare, haggis washed down with a dram before you pop into the studio to record that message for the SNP."
"Fuck that Micheline." retorted Sean "Chuck a couple of Lobshters on the barby and crack open the Crishtal. I'm in the mood for dancshing."

Just when I had great plans to rant on in misogynistic fashion about some sharp-eyed bitch stealing the silver but not before she'd barfed on her man's shoes, pissed on the rug right in front of him, allowed herself to get shagged by both her neighbours, as well as sinking her teeth into the milkman's buttocks before she left home to get herself shagged again up some dark alley and then perform in front of thousands, nay, millions of people, a bloody Australian Sheep DOG wins Crufts and screws up my plans. Ah well. Maybe he was a son-of-a-bitch... almost certainly, and cocked his leg in a few awkward places, shagged a couple of bitches - by arrangement of course - and took a dump in front of one of the judges. We can but hope.

Crufts, you might say, is the annual festival of the dog. They probably market it in Korea as the Masterchef equivalent. A Smörgåsbord of the tastiest varieties to grace any pot. A lip smacking treat for dog lovers... wishing to try something different in their diet. Actually, maybe they should hold Crufts in Korea one year, to help them appreciate that dog is man's best friend and not just a main course dish. In Korea bumper stickers on their cars read "A dog is not just for Christmas... try one at Easter too." Of course we in the west get very emotional about the way others treat animals, but then we aren't starving as so many of them are. That's why bush meat - monkeys etc. - are also eaten, though to my way of thinking, it's almost a form of cannibalism.

Rather than educate them about how wonderful and varied these animals are, perhaps we should help them by teaching them intensive animal husbandry techniques. Of course, that would lead to other abuses - for sure - as we have seen happens here, even with all the protective legislations there are. Man is generally cruel and insensitive to the pain of others unless kept in check by those who have the ability to imagine how unpleasant pain is. Clearly in some societies, they have little regard for the others in pain and to some it is even a form of recreation to see others suffer. Presumeably on the basis that if it isn't happening to them, it's something to enjoy. You only have to look at how some people treat their own children to know they have little regard for the well being of others. But if you grow up in a cruel world, you become cruel yourself, to survive. If your father is a bully, chances are you'll become one too. If you see others butchering terrified dogs without a moment's hesitation, you believe that is the norm.

Personally, I'd like to see the bear baters and monkey keepers who drug them and torture them to make them perform in the streets for coppers, taken, put into cages not much bigger than they are, drug them and prod them with sharp sticks, electrocute them and see how long it takes before they are begging for mercy. Then I'd like to see them stay imprisoned and humiliated for another few months. It would drive them insane too. Don't get me wrong, I don't support the Animal rights cretins who are just barking insane and nothing more than a bunch of violence loving hypocrites anymore than I would support people who hurt animals and their own, just because they can. We just have to keep on educating them.

Who knows, one day, maybe life will be more like Star Trek. We'll be better educated about the suffering of others. There will be no racisim or religion to screw up our heads. Pain will be easily conquered by more sophistcated drugs and there will be a food synthesiser in every home. Of course, chickens, cows, pigs - and dogs, will no longer be in demand and may well become extinct. And of course, the synthesisers will be made in... Korea.

A man must be sure that a woman has agreed to have sex to avoid being accused of rape - a new campaign launched by the Home Office is to warn.
Mmm. Sounds okay in theory but could it really work. "Hey sauce box, before you get smashed out of your brains, pee your pants and throw up in my lav, how d'you feel about sex later... on second thoughts, forget it I've gone off the whole idea."
But what happens if the woman says she consents, then denies it the day after. Just how do you prove it one way or the other. Aren't the odds rather stacked against the man. Is it going to be another of those court rulings where the woman is going to be given the benefit of the doubt over the man just because he is a man and is traditionally in control of a situation like consentual sex. It isn't always the case. How do you prove that one person is being honest in such matters and that emotions and ego aren't playing a major part in the whole event. Just how daft is this going to get. Perhaps the man should therefore get something in writing first.

"I (Name Goes Here) and the undersigned, being of sound mind (before I downed a quart of Jack Daniels and a prawn Bhuna)and in full control of my faculties, for the moment, do hereby declare that on consideration of the facts, namely that (Name Goes Here) is a bit of a stud and looks like he's set up a community of squirrels in the underpant department and is therefore entitled to slip me : 1-2-3-4-5-6-Unlimited (circle where applicable)lengths during the course of the evening, even if I am rat arsed, pissed and smacked-out-of-my-head unconscious, on the dance floor or behind the bin area of any club where we've been downing as much liquor as we can before closing time. I also agree/disagree (circle where applicable) that he can/can not (circle where applicable) pass me round his mates, provided that: a)they wear condoms, b)do not kiss me, especially if they've just vomited, c)do not urinate over me just for the crack and d)promise to clean me up and prop me in a corner before they stagger off in search of another club or girl or boy or both. Signed :

Clubs will need to have little signing booths, photocopy machines and secretarial services. Maybe it would help to have a notary public standing by too. As a sideline, guys who aren't pulling could get other benefits such as a will service, which in the circumstances might not be a bad move. Perhaps Royal Mail should set up their services in a club to allow people to do their tax discs and buy stamps. It would pass the time. But in order to ensure there are no wrongful accusations over the sex issue, it would make sense for a man to take his solicitor with him whenever he goes for a night out. Just to be on the safe side. Yes, going clubbing might turn into something quite radical with the new laws they're proposing. I wonder what's on the telly!