Monday Feb 6th

Today is really sunny. I can't remember the last time I saw the sun, or felt it on me face! It feels like Spring all of a sudden. There are even some crocuses out! Aww...

How about the kerfuffle about those cartoons, eh? It's all getting well out of hand now, but I guess it shows the different world views knocking around. Scratch the surface with something innocuous, (like a cartoon!) and BAM! It all comes out. I was listening to the World Service as I was writing a paper (by rights, if I was in a Graham Greene novel , I should have been wearing a white suit and bashing copy out on a rickety old typewriter in the stifling heat whilst Catholic guilt and local concerns collide in my tortured mind...). Anyway, there was an interview with an ultra-fundamentalist young British Muslim and an older moderate British Muslim. And of course, the young guy was ranting about how anyone who depicts the Prophet M******* (I am not risking a fatwah just for this blog!) should be killed. He justified it by repeating something that M*******'s grandson said about the need to murder Danish cartoonists. The moderate guy kept getting shouted down when he tried to give the voice of reasonable Islam. It wasdepressing, but I remind myself that the Fundies are just a minority, and there are plenty of equally repugnant Christian version knocking about over here. The argument about free speech is kind of interesting. Just ask Google about their new Chinese venture. I suppose the debate there is about whether it's better to be involved with a censorious government or to opt out and protest. Someone else will fill your shoes, although there must be times when enough is enough. I think that Google is probably right. Better to be involved in this case. The debate in the Cartoon issue is surely about how to compromise, how non-Muslims can understand how important the issue is to Muslims and how Muslims can register their disapproval in a productive way. Sermon over.

Having solved that diplomatic incident in a few minutes, I go off to the Mall to get the groceries in. I am amazed by the realization that Americans don't drink squash. In fact I know this because I have asked some of them. They look at me as if I am an alien.
"No, honestly, we buy this really sweet, orange liquid and just pour water into it and there you go- class in a glass."
"Is it fruit juice?"
"No, it's fruit squash. SSSSQQQQQUUUUAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHHHH."
"We drink juice. Why don't you drink juice."
"Erm..."
"?"
"Well, you can carry a lot of potential drink in a small bottle."
"Hmm. Does it taste like fruit juice?"
"No, not really. It tastes like... squash."

I cause my own minor diplomatic incident by trying to pay for my shopping with a traveller's cheque. The lady at the checkout looks like a Jewish Granny somehow. She gives me this look when I produce my cheque, as if I just spilled coffee on her new shoes. We get through it.

In the evening I make another chocolate brownie- this time it is Pillsbury and yes, there is a big dough boy on the front. That is what I will look like if I am not careful. I watch a bit of "Dr Phil" onTV. A walking talking dough boy! Just look at his revolting website. He is a pretend Psychologist and agony Uncle. Tonight he was helping a young woman (mental age of about 4) who had turned into Bridezilla and fallen out with her Mom about, Oh I don't know, what colour paper hankies to have as serviettes! It was absolutely pathetic. My right foot was twitching with an urge to boot the screen. If only to put her poor emasculated drip of a husband out of his misery. If he's thick enough to marry that sack of neuroses on stillettoes, he will need all of Dr Phil's wisdom and more. Ooh, that was harsh, wasn't it?

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