Four married couples feature in this play which presents their very different relationships over the course of one farcical evening, on into the early hours. Delia and Ernest are celebrating their wedding anniversary while Malcolm and Kate are having a housewarming party. Nick has a bad back so has to stay at home in bed; his wife Jan goes to the party without him, where she bumps into old flame Trevor who is having a row with his depressed and distracted wife Susannah.
The stage set cleverly presents three bedrooms; lighting and action moves audience attention from one to another, and there is an intelligent use of space and timing. Moments of intensity from neurotic Trevor and Susannah are relieved by comedy, while Jan and Nick’s bickering and jibes are also offset with some humour.
Herford directs a well known cast but it is always apparent that they are acting. Only James Midgley and Natalie Cassidy work with perfect comic timing, which makes an audience forget they are delivering lines. They both fully engage with other members of the cast which makes for convincing theatre and excellent entertainment. Hannah Yelland, whilst having strong, clear enunciation, delivers all her lines to the audience and not to her fellow actors which feels surprisingly uncomfortable. She and Beth Cordingly are given parts to play which are never going to evoke audience sympathy: Jan is brittle and Susannah is a casualty. Trevor’s self-obsession is worse. Unfortunately, he is so repellent that one wonders why any woman would want to be married to him, even Susannah.
Marital sniping is not a pleasant thing to watch but the comedy is nicely done. Audience comments were that it felt a bit dated, and that the ending was inconclusive. It may be fair to say there are elements of the 1950s about Delia and Ernest and the lack of chemistry between the two dysfunctional couples does not suggest satisfying resolution at the end but, on the whole, Jolly Good Show.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
TAKING LIBERTIES. Dir Chris Atkins. 2007
Atkins weaves graphics, documentary and news footage, personal stories and information about legislation to expose the deeply disturbing changes that have come about in the UK over the last ten years.
Comments are from human rights organizations, politicians, academics and lawyers, and the film focuses on ordinary people who have had enough. They feel compelled to protest and complain about the loss of civil liberties such as freedom of speech, (which has always been sacrosanct in Britain), being presumed innocent until proven guilty, our rights to privacy, the illegality of torture, and the rest.
The Police are used as Government tools to control the unruly population who, when peacefully protesting, are now considered a security risk and a terrorist threat. One busload of women on their way to a peaceful protest were imprisoned in their coach and escorted back to London by a motorcade of police outriders and vans. They were unable to get off the coach for a toilet or drink stop. Distressed, but not daunted, the women took the case to court and won.
A couple of elderly ladies were filmed outside a military base. Standing in lovely open countryside, chatting amiably, a policeman approached and wanted to know what they were doing there. He asked for their details. Now savvy, these women know that they are not required by law to provide this information unless there is a good reason for requiring it. He went away. I felt a bit sorry for him, for having to carry out such a ridiculous task. It insults the intelligence of officers to be used in this way by the arms industry.
Other protesters who sit quietly outside companies where Guantanamo shackles are made, or where missile parts are manufactured are subjected to heavy-handed policing. Whilst protesters outside your factory may be unsightly and a nuisance, their presence is not illegal. It is now.
New Labour has also presided over a rise in house prices so great that the UK now has a seriously divided population, hardly a socialist achievement. There has not been such a gulf between rich and poor for about forty years.
Of all the examples shown in the film, the persecution and harassment of Muslims is very troubling. One young man, despite being acquitted, remains under house arrest. It looks like racism, and suggests a Government view that all Muslims must be potential terrorists, but this would be like saying that, in the time of the Irish troubles, that all Irish were IRA terrorists.
Making and exploding bombs is a criminal act, possibly a psychotic act. Such people are murderers. Isolated terrorist attacks have produced a Government hysteria that has resulted in blanket policies which restrict innocent law abiding citizens. If people protest they become labelled as criminals for objecting to unreasonable imposed limitations. ID cards will not prevent murders.
But, by far the most disturbing part of the documentary for me was being made aware of the level of surveillance in the UK today. Information is necessary and useful but any unqualified idiot can be employed to sit and watch CCTV cameras, medical and tax records can be misused, and computers can fail. These records provide a directory which makes ‘ethnic cleansing’ swift and efficient. The parallels with Nazi Germany are too terrifying to contemplate.
And what do I hear on the news this morning? That the Government Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, believes it must be compulsory for our bodies to be cut up and used for the benefit of other people when we die. Our bodies. Make that government bodies. I pray this is not true. Being an organ donor must be a choice. Anything else brings up connotations of farming or, God forbid, our skin being used for lampshades, our hair being used to stuff mattresses. The root of all evil is fear. This organ donor panic is about fear of death. It’s inevitable. Becoming a virtual prisoner in your own country is not.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
Do something. Write to your MP. Something. You have a voice. We all do. Use it.
Comments are from human rights organizations, politicians, academics and lawyers, and the film focuses on ordinary people who have had enough. They feel compelled to protest and complain about the loss of civil liberties such as freedom of speech, (which has always been sacrosanct in Britain), being presumed innocent until proven guilty, our rights to privacy, the illegality of torture, and the rest.
The Police are used as Government tools to control the unruly population who, when peacefully protesting, are now considered a security risk and a terrorist threat. One busload of women on their way to a peaceful protest were imprisoned in their coach and escorted back to London by a motorcade of police outriders and vans. They were unable to get off the coach for a toilet or drink stop. Distressed, but not daunted, the women took the case to court and won.
A couple of elderly ladies were filmed outside a military base. Standing in lovely open countryside, chatting amiably, a policeman approached and wanted to know what they were doing there. He asked for their details. Now savvy, these women know that they are not required by law to provide this information unless there is a good reason for requiring it. He went away. I felt a bit sorry for him, for having to carry out such a ridiculous task. It insults the intelligence of officers to be used in this way by the arms industry.
Other protesters who sit quietly outside companies where Guantanamo shackles are made, or where missile parts are manufactured are subjected to heavy-handed policing. Whilst protesters outside your factory may be unsightly and a nuisance, their presence is not illegal. It is now.
New Labour has also presided over a rise in house prices so great that the UK now has a seriously divided population, hardly a socialist achievement. There has not been such a gulf between rich and poor for about forty years.
Of all the examples shown in the film, the persecution and harassment of Muslims is very troubling. One young man, despite being acquitted, remains under house arrest. It looks like racism, and suggests a Government view that all Muslims must be potential terrorists, but this would be like saying that, in the time of the Irish troubles, that all Irish were IRA terrorists.
Making and exploding bombs is a criminal act, possibly a psychotic act. Such people are murderers. Isolated terrorist attacks have produced a Government hysteria that has resulted in blanket policies which restrict innocent law abiding citizens. If people protest they become labelled as criminals for objecting to unreasonable imposed limitations. ID cards will not prevent murders.
But, by far the most disturbing part of the documentary for me was being made aware of the level of surveillance in the UK today. Information is necessary and useful but any unqualified idiot can be employed to sit and watch CCTV cameras, medical and tax records can be misused, and computers can fail. These records provide a directory which makes ‘ethnic cleansing’ swift and efficient. The parallels with Nazi Germany are too terrifying to contemplate.
And what do I hear on the news this morning? That the Government Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, believes it must be compulsory for our bodies to be cut up and used for the benefit of other people when we die. Our bodies. Make that government bodies. I pray this is not true. Being an organ donor must be a choice. Anything else brings up connotations of farming or, God forbid, our skin being used for lampshades, our hair being used to stuff mattresses. The root of all evil is fear. This organ donor panic is about fear of death. It’s inevitable. Becoming a virtual prisoner in your own country is not.
All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.
Do something. Write to your MP. Something. You have a voice. We all do. Use it.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Enlightened at Dartington Literature Festival
Just spent a happy few days at the Festival of Words and Ideas at Dartington. Hard to know whether the talks are more fascinating than the audience. Am sated with stimulating conversation. Heaven on earth to spend time with other writers and avid readers, people of passion.
On Resurgence Day we were treated to talks by Brian Goodwin and Satish Kumar. Goodwin says he is ‘embedded in the evolutionary process’ and his desire is to articulate that ‘culture is embedded in nature’ not something separate, a construct, apart from it.
He emphasizes that, at Schumacher College, study is focussed on the ‘meaning’ in the natural world, which is different from studying the natural world in order to control it. In nature, all is death and transformation.
His argument that meaning tends to be associated with language and culture rather than the existence and life of things implies a chasm between the two, that thought and the intellect have moved to inhabit a separate sphere from nature. He says ‘we are trying to control the uncontrollable – the basis of creativity.’
Instead he suggests we participate, and go into the heart of what is going on in any system: in our bodies for health, in our environments, and the economy or businesses. At Schumacher the idea is to analyze the whole of any organization, whether that be the study of beauty, health, wellbeing – the holistic vigour of a system.
Goodwin is a Biologist and says that qualities such as happiness or pain have usually been discounted in scientific studies as these are not easily quantifiable. But, he affirms, these are important indicators of complex systems, and we must not ignore them.
We need to ‘do science in a more complete way.’ It must be analytical, qualitative, measurable, quantitative, but it must also study emergent qualities. He says the traditional form of knowledge, pre-Enlightenment, was Shamanic, that is with regard to the regulation of rhythm. Rhythms are everywhere in nature and in all systems; we can see this in flowers and plants, but can we test for them?
He believes that mechanical causality is useful but a deeper principle is more important. He suggests that ‘people need to be become invisible, as do other organisms, through integration and participation,’ and that this ‘will bring meaning back into our lives big time.’ This reminds me of an exercise children are sometimes asked to do in primary school – to sit, silent and motionless, amongst foliage, and simply ‘be’ to see how it feels and what they notice. A very powerful exercise if you can get the child to understand why he is there.
Returning to language and culture, he seeks to remind us that ‘conversation goes on in nature all the time,’ that language is everywhere, metaphorically and literally.’
His message is a very optimistic one: that we are recovering a sense of our role which, although not easy is so worthwhile. Although we may have no clearly defined objective we can feel the direction, become engaged, embedded. He calls this our ‘transition culture’ and says he welcomes this ‘age of meaning.’
It’s an interesting reversal. How long it has taken for a general shift away from the empirical, scientific ways of understanding the world. He says that our ‘new way of seeing the world is also the old way – which had become fragmented.’ This puts me in mind of agriculture. Farming was always carried out in rhythm with the seasons until science analyzed it to death.
Since the 1960s food production has become increasingly isolated from peoples’ lives and supermarket shopping is the result, with animal welfare, haulage and chemical sprays being the obvious concerns.
He emphasizes that ‘local is where the power is,’ that civil society is in transition, and we have a new respect for place. Community, co-operation and communication are the answer.
Satish Kumar adds that Art and Science meet in the same place. He believes that they will cease to exist separately. He also believes that intuition – our organ of perception – needs to be developed, along with our feelings.
Nature, death, transformation. All is circular. Beauty and creativity is central to life. This is not to say that the Enlightenment principles must be thrown out with the bathwater, but knowledge must be integrated with intuition and creativity. Hallelujah.
Let’s hear it for the small, local producers, theatre collectives, small businesses, community vegetable growing co-operatives, and team-work. Way to go. I so prefer this positive, life-affirming approach to the current, brow-beating, guilt-inducing, minute-by-minute assault by the whole range of media about the dangers of climate change.
For a whole hour I did not hear the dreaded phrase which makes me want to rebel, turn all my electrical equipment on and fly around the world. Goodwin and Kumar make me want to plant vegetables and share them with my neighbours.
On Resurgence Day we were treated to talks by Brian Goodwin and Satish Kumar. Goodwin says he is ‘embedded in the evolutionary process’ and his desire is to articulate that ‘culture is embedded in nature’ not something separate, a construct, apart from it.
He emphasizes that, at Schumacher College, study is focussed on the ‘meaning’ in the natural world, which is different from studying the natural world in order to control it. In nature, all is death and transformation.
His argument that meaning tends to be associated with language and culture rather than the existence and life of things implies a chasm between the two, that thought and the intellect have moved to inhabit a separate sphere from nature. He says ‘we are trying to control the uncontrollable – the basis of creativity.’
Instead he suggests we participate, and go into the heart of what is going on in any system: in our bodies for health, in our environments, and the economy or businesses. At Schumacher the idea is to analyze the whole of any organization, whether that be the study of beauty, health, wellbeing – the holistic vigour of a system.
Goodwin is a Biologist and says that qualities such as happiness or pain have usually been discounted in scientific studies as these are not easily quantifiable. But, he affirms, these are important indicators of complex systems, and we must not ignore them.
We need to ‘do science in a more complete way.’ It must be analytical, qualitative, measurable, quantitative, but it must also study emergent qualities. He says the traditional form of knowledge, pre-Enlightenment, was Shamanic, that is with regard to the regulation of rhythm. Rhythms are everywhere in nature and in all systems; we can see this in flowers and plants, but can we test for them?
He believes that mechanical causality is useful but a deeper principle is more important. He suggests that ‘people need to be become invisible, as do other organisms, through integration and participation,’ and that this ‘will bring meaning back into our lives big time.’ This reminds me of an exercise children are sometimes asked to do in primary school – to sit, silent and motionless, amongst foliage, and simply ‘be’ to see how it feels and what they notice. A very powerful exercise if you can get the child to understand why he is there.
Returning to language and culture, he seeks to remind us that ‘conversation goes on in nature all the time,’ that language is everywhere, metaphorically and literally.’
His message is a very optimistic one: that we are recovering a sense of our role which, although not easy is so worthwhile. Although we may have no clearly defined objective we can feel the direction, become engaged, embedded. He calls this our ‘transition culture’ and says he welcomes this ‘age of meaning.’
It’s an interesting reversal. How long it has taken for a general shift away from the empirical, scientific ways of understanding the world. He says that our ‘new way of seeing the world is also the old way – which had become fragmented.’ This puts me in mind of agriculture. Farming was always carried out in rhythm with the seasons until science analyzed it to death.
Since the 1960s food production has become increasingly isolated from peoples’ lives and supermarket shopping is the result, with animal welfare, haulage and chemical sprays being the obvious concerns.
He emphasizes that ‘local is where the power is,’ that civil society is in transition, and we have a new respect for place. Community, co-operation and communication are the answer.
Satish Kumar adds that Art and Science meet in the same place. He believes that they will cease to exist separately. He also believes that intuition – our organ of perception – needs to be developed, along with our feelings.
Nature, death, transformation. All is circular. Beauty and creativity is central to life. This is not to say that the Enlightenment principles must be thrown out with the bathwater, but knowledge must be integrated with intuition and creativity. Hallelujah.
Let’s hear it for the small, local producers, theatre collectives, small businesses, community vegetable growing co-operatives, and team-work. Way to go. I so prefer this positive, life-affirming approach to the current, brow-beating, guilt-inducing, minute-by-minute assault by the whole range of media about the dangers of climate change.
For a whole hour I did not hear the dreaded phrase which makes me want to rebel, turn all my electrical equipment on and fly around the world. Goodwin and Kumar make me want to plant vegetables and share them with my neighbours.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Interior Life of an Estate Agent - part 26
Okay. Another interest rise. The market has ground to a halt here.
The smart people had put their properties on the market in May, to avoid having to have the HIP. If they accepted offers then, they’re alright now.
The market has become saturated with properties. Overpriced, unattractive properties down here. So, it’s a buyer’s market. There’s so much to choose from that no-one’s choosing.
However, in an auction I attended last week, a 3.8 acre parcel of pasture land sold for 60K. Buy land, they ain't makin' it anymore. In fifty years you could maybe get planning permission for your grandchildren.
I’ve only been in this job for nine months and, in that time, we’ve gone from being rushed off our feet and selling houses before we’ve had a chance to get them advertised in the paper, to being stuck with hundreds of them.
My own job, doing all the Saturday viewings, has changed from racing about like a headless chicken to try and fit in all the appointments, missing lunch etc, whining about that quite a lot, trying to fit 13 viewings into a seven hour day to only having 3 appointments today, one of which was cancelled.
I noticed a month or two ago that landlords are beginning to sell off their rental properties here. Now, the houses we’re selling are starting to come down in price. Not much; between 3-5K. Sellers are nervous; buyers are being cautious. At the end of last month we had seven properties fall through. One or two is usual. This looks like last minute doubts because of increased mortgage repayments.
Not good. I wonder what Chancellor Gordon will do to prevent freefall.
I have a feeling I may be let go at the end of my contract. Could be a whole new life up ahead.
The smart people had put their properties on the market in May, to avoid having to have the HIP. If they accepted offers then, they’re alright now.
The market has become saturated with properties. Overpriced, unattractive properties down here. So, it’s a buyer’s market. There’s so much to choose from that no-one’s choosing.
However, in an auction I attended last week, a 3.8 acre parcel of pasture land sold for 60K. Buy land, they ain't makin' it anymore. In fifty years you could maybe get planning permission for your grandchildren.
I’ve only been in this job for nine months and, in that time, we’ve gone from being rushed off our feet and selling houses before we’ve had a chance to get them advertised in the paper, to being stuck with hundreds of them.
My own job, doing all the Saturday viewings, has changed from racing about like a headless chicken to try and fit in all the appointments, missing lunch etc, whining about that quite a lot, trying to fit 13 viewings into a seven hour day to only having 3 appointments today, one of which was cancelled.
I noticed a month or two ago that landlords are beginning to sell off their rental properties here. Now, the houses we’re selling are starting to come down in price. Not much; between 3-5K. Sellers are nervous; buyers are being cautious. At the end of last month we had seven properties fall through. One or two is usual. This looks like last minute doubts because of increased mortgage repayments.
Not good. I wonder what Chancellor Gordon will do to prevent freefall.
I have a feeling I may be let go at the end of my contract. Could be a whole new life up ahead.
Monday, July 02, 2007
JINDABYNE. Dir Ray Lawrence. 2006
Set in Australia and based on a short story by Raymond Carver, ‘So Much Water So Close To Home,’ Jindabyne is a slow moving psychological drama. The town of the title is small, enclosed, and stifling. Everyone knows everyone’s business yet there is sense of real unease percolating through every piece of dialogue from the beginning. There is no soundtrack; the film is shot in silence and minimal dialogue, but singing overlaid on the landscape shots is very disturbing. Hostility is everywhere.
Stewart and his friends go off on a weekend fishing trip, and, on the Friday, find the dead body of a murdered woman floating in the water. Their decision to leave her there, and not report the crime until they return is a mistake in judgement that has repercussions which reverberate throughout their community on their return.
Misunderstanding, failure to tell the truth, and the apportionment of blame are the themes here. Laura Linney is superb as Clare, Stewart’s wife, who has also made a mistake – that of falling victim to post natal depression. She is reminded of her lapse throughout the film; by her husband, mother-in-law, and supposed friends. In a community this parochial, nothing is forgotten or, it seems, forgiven.
There is also stigma to consider, and there are various victims. The murdered girl is Aboriginal, and the partially divided community fractures further. Stewart’s apparent callousness in not reporting his find is socially repellent and it drives Clare away from him. There is also a stigmatized motherless child whose motives are constantly misread.
Clare needs to understand, to seek reparation but Stewart is a pragmatist who does not feel the need to justify himself. He says, “She was beyond help,” but one needs to be seen to be doing the right thing. He loses the respect of the community: Clare never had it. He needs to reclaim it. The murderer remains outside the drama.
Acting is first-class although American accents in an Australian film are a bit confusing. The scenery is as arid and empty as the relationships, and there is a strong sense that there is no social glue. The contrast between the colonial settlers and the native people couldn’t be more marked and the tightness of the little Aboriginal community is subtly portrayed. The privacy of the funeral scene sets up the white people as invaders of an ancient culture, intruding upon their dignity and suffering. Fascinating but would have benefited from more pace.
Stewart and his friends go off on a weekend fishing trip, and, on the Friday, find the dead body of a murdered woman floating in the water. Their decision to leave her there, and not report the crime until they return is a mistake in judgement that has repercussions which reverberate throughout their community on their return.
Misunderstanding, failure to tell the truth, and the apportionment of blame are the themes here. Laura Linney is superb as Clare, Stewart’s wife, who has also made a mistake – that of falling victim to post natal depression. She is reminded of her lapse throughout the film; by her husband, mother-in-law, and supposed friends. In a community this parochial, nothing is forgotten or, it seems, forgiven.
There is also stigma to consider, and there are various victims. The murdered girl is Aboriginal, and the partially divided community fractures further. Stewart’s apparent callousness in not reporting his find is socially repellent and it drives Clare away from him. There is also a stigmatized motherless child whose motives are constantly misread.
Clare needs to understand, to seek reparation but Stewart is a pragmatist who does not feel the need to justify himself. He says, “She was beyond help,” but one needs to be seen to be doing the right thing. He loses the respect of the community: Clare never had it. He needs to reclaim it. The murderer remains outside the drama.
Acting is first-class although American accents in an Australian film are a bit confusing. The scenery is as arid and empty as the relationships, and there is a strong sense that there is no social glue. The contrast between the colonial settlers and the native people couldn’t be more marked and the tightness of the little Aboriginal community is subtly portrayed. The privacy of the funeral scene sets up the white people as invaders of an ancient culture, intruding upon their dignity and suffering. Fascinating but would have benefited from more pace.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Sex-Less-Clothes
There’s a lot of excitement in the Press just now, with two car bomb threats averted in London and another at Glasgow Airport. It strikes me as deeply chilling that the London bomb attempts were targeted near nightclubs where hundreds of young people and, in particular, slags (sic) would have been killed or maimed. This is not a terrorist attack against capitalism or even Christianity, or a general lack of faith in the UK but an attack on our women.
In the same newspaper I read an article about a magistrate who is apologizing for his unprofessional conduct when he walked out of the Courtroom because a young Muslim woman appeared before him in a hijab with a mere slit for her eyes to peep through.
I have no idea what she had done to require a presence before the beak, but identity must surely be called into question in Court. She is apparently hurt and outraged at being asked to unveil where men are present. However, anyone could have been under that veil, her uncle for instance, sent along in disguise to act on her behalf.
In post offices up and down the country, sample photographs demonstrate the acceptable identification requirement for a passport. A woman can be veiled around the face but her face needs to be visible in a UK court of law. Being tried by a panel of women is a possibility but UK laws apply in UK Courts, as surely as western women need to comply when in Muslim countries, as did the female naval officer who was obliged to be veiled during the period of her captivity in the recent detention of sailors.
The most terrifying thing to me about the whole need for a Muslim woman to be veiled and covered is the stated impossibility for Muslim men to ‘control themselves’ in the presence of a woman revealing any hair or skin. Even westernized Muslim women talk about the need to cover up in their home countries because they feel so vulnerable; at risk of attack or rape.
Friends laugh at me for saying that western young women show off too much flesh, and that I’m a bit old fashioned as far as cleavage and thigh flashing goes. I am generally in favour of modesty, and nicely cut clothes – elegance over obviousness. A bit of mystery is quite attractive I think, and I’d far rather see a man in a good shirt and well tailored pair of trousers than walking along the street in a wife-beater vest and too-short shorts, with all his skin on display. Men look good in suits as they create the illusion that there's a pair of shoulders under there.
But, as for these two extremes of women’s dressing, the very idea that a young woman in her prime, wanting to put all her goods on display for late night revellers in London should be murdered for doing so is too bizarre to comprehend.
The sub-text here is that certain extremist Muslim men are thwarted and severely repressed by the tight restrictions on their own and their countrywomen’s sexuality. They therefore seek to release that frustration by destroying free, healthy, uninhibited young British women. Such extremists have no understanding of what it is to be carefree and sexually confident.
I don’t advocate going out on the town jiggling around in a low cut top and too-short skirt and ridiculous heels but aren’t these girls just showing off? They are not saying they want to be raped, or that they will have sex with anyone, indiscriminately. If we put goods for sale on market stalls and in shops up and down the country, however tempting the fruit or produce may be to the browser, the shopkeeper is not saying “here, just help yourself,” but, “isn’t my produce the most appealing in the street?” But, if they don't cover up a bit, they'll catch their death.
Tolerance, gentleman, please. Self-control. Restraint. Education. Understanding. Live and let live. Mind your own business. Live within a culture that you can respect, not within one you despise.
In the same newspaper I read an article about a magistrate who is apologizing for his unprofessional conduct when he walked out of the Courtroom because a young Muslim woman appeared before him in a hijab with a mere slit for her eyes to peep through.
I have no idea what she had done to require a presence before the beak, but identity must surely be called into question in Court. She is apparently hurt and outraged at being asked to unveil where men are present. However, anyone could have been under that veil, her uncle for instance, sent along in disguise to act on her behalf.
In post offices up and down the country, sample photographs demonstrate the acceptable identification requirement for a passport. A woman can be veiled around the face but her face needs to be visible in a UK court of law. Being tried by a panel of women is a possibility but UK laws apply in UK Courts, as surely as western women need to comply when in Muslim countries, as did the female naval officer who was obliged to be veiled during the period of her captivity in the recent detention of sailors.
The most terrifying thing to me about the whole need for a Muslim woman to be veiled and covered is the stated impossibility for Muslim men to ‘control themselves’ in the presence of a woman revealing any hair or skin. Even westernized Muslim women talk about the need to cover up in their home countries because they feel so vulnerable; at risk of attack or rape.
Friends laugh at me for saying that western young women show off too much flesh, and that I’m a bit old fashioned as far as cleavage and thigh flashing goes. I am generally in favour of modesty, and nicely cut clothes – elegance over obviousness. A bit of mystery is quite attractive I think, and I’d far rather see a man in a good shirt and well tailored pair of trousers than walking along the street in a wife-beater vest and too-short shorts, with all his skin on display. Men look good in suits as they create the illusion that there's a pair of shoulders under there.
But, as for these two extremes of women’s dressing, the very idea that a young woman in her prime, wanting to put all her goods on display for late night revellers in London should be murdered for doing so is too bizarre to comprehend.
The sub-text here is that certain extremist Muslim men are thwarted and severely repressed by the tight restrictions on their own and their countrywomen’s sexuality. They therefore seek to release that frustration by destroying free, healthy, uninhibited young British women. Such extremists have no understanding of what it is to be carefree and sexually confident.
I don’t advocate going out on the town jiggling around in a low cut top and too-short skirt and ridiculous heels but aren’t these girls just showing off? They are not saying they want to be raped, or that they will have sex with anyone, indiscriminately. If we put goods for sale on market stalls and in shops up and down the country, however tempting the fruit or produce may be to the browser, the shopkeeper is not saying “here, just help yourself,” but, “isn’t my produce the most appealing in the street?” But, if they don't cover up a bit, they'll catch their death.
Tolerance, gentleman, please. Self-control. Restraint. Education. Understanding. Live and let live. Mind your own business. Live within a culture that you can respect, not within one you despise.
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