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Q. When is it okay to tell a blind man to go play on the M1?

Goodness Gracious Meme

16:34 / 09.12.01

A.now.

16:46 / 09.12.01

in the kingdom of the partially sighted the blind man is home secutary.

I'd just like to know how he assesses obscenity - it being part of his job and all…

16:48 / 09.12.01

Actually, this function has now passed over to the department for culture, media and sport.

I read my Guardian more closely than you

- although that reminds me I haven't read Simon Hoggart's diary this weekend.

edited to add: These proposals seem pretty dodgy to me. I was listening to the world service last night (insomnia) and couldn't believe my ears.

Especially as the news followed Alistair Cooke's letter from America - which he basically used to call for dictatorship and for the American constitution to be ignored.

'Speak proper or go back where you came from' seems to be the gist of Blunkett's proposals.

Well... fuck that.

I don't understand David Blunkett. Sometimes he seems like the most liberal Home Secretary going, then at others he seems closer to a dictator.

HAving said that, I must say: when was it ever OK to make a joke out of someone's disability?

[ 09-12-2001: Message edited by: Not Me Again ]

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:52 / 10.12.01

I was joking, just partly needed to get my reaction of huge anger and screaming out somehow.

But nobody else cares it would seem.

Hey-ho. Off I go for citizenship classes/english lessons.

16:00 / 10.12.01

This makes me depressed rather than angry, Plums. If it'd happened six months ago, there'd be a different reaction; in the current climate, it seems all too within context. Bleugh.

I wonder how some individuals will prove their marriages weren't 'arranged'?

17:19 / 10.12.01

Probably by reading the rules and looking for the loopholes- there are always some good juicy ones in new legislation. There's law, then there's life.

Aren't the Lords throwing out most of his stuff anyway?

10:59 / 11.12.01

Isn't Britsh politics completely bizarre at the moment?

The Labour government is coming up with scary right-wing legislation and the Lords is trying to block it..

10 years ago, wouldn't that have been completely insane..

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:31 / 11.12.01

quote:Originally posted by Not Me Again:

HAving said that, I must say: when was it ever OK to make a joke out of someone's disability?

[ 09-12-2001: Message edited by: Not Me Again ]

Who's going to be offended? The blind? They can't read this!

Ahem. Sorry. Serious discussion of this seems to have moved to the "David Blunkett on race" thread.

15:22 / 11.12.01

[shurg] It's almost like one those Barbelith moments where someone says something utterly appalling and then we end up having a good discussion. The report's out today and says a few things Blair and Blunkett will hate and a few things they'll love - down with Church schools, viva mulitcultural schools, for example...

I'd quite like to get a few mad radicals from all sides on a panel on t.v., and let them say whatever they want. Then when all the shouting's over and the worst possible crap has all been spouted (all Muslems are in league with Bin Laden, the Jews sacrifice Christian children, white people harvest the organs of poor immigrants, whatever) maybe the unsayable things will be sayable and some of the logjams will be over.

It's like a good relationship gone bad. Everyone knows there are problems, but no one is willing to discuss them for fear of being accused of racism. If you can't say what it looks like from your end, no one can put you right on where you're wrong...