I was so impressed by this cartoon in the Times I went out and bought a copy as I felt Mr Murdoch deserved my money today. Also great to see Vince Cable of the Lib Dems making a good stand on the issue by boycotting the event. Full marks.

Saudi Arabia is a terrible abuser of human rights whose corrupt and obscurantist regime has spawned the worst excesses of modern terrorism, and exported financial corruption throughout the world. I am stunned by Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells statement today that the UK and Saudi Arabia share “common values”. But on reflection, I think our governments do share common values – a worship of money, and a disregard for common people.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/transcript_of_t.html

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/08/theres_good_mon.html

I flew back from Ghana yesterday. As ever, long periods of blog silence from me mean I am in Africa and my internet access plans did not work out.

We are now very close to recovering the craigmurray.co.uk address, which will get many thousand old links across the internet working again.

My eye is caught today by this story from the Telegraph.

A man has been placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/cgi-bin/mt.cgi?tab=comments&__mode=list_comments&blog_id=2&saved_deleted=1

Of course this lends itself to humour. Questions of “What? How?” spring immediately to mind. Never having claimed to be politically correct, I can make jokes about having slept with a few bikes myself. (That joke may not work outside the UK).

But in fact this raises very serious questions indeed, and I believe Mr Robert Stewart’s rights have been very seriously infringed. It is plain from the report that he was conducting his sex act in a locked room. What is the difference in principle between pleasuring yourself with a dildo, a blow up doll or a bicycle, your pillow or a vibrator? People masturbate with all kinds of things – is masturbation in private a crime? The consequences of being on the sex offenders register are very severe, especially for employment. Mr Stewart’s rights have been most severely infringed. We should stop sniggering and start being outraged.

I am off this afternoon to speak to the annual conference of Action by Christians Against Torture (ACAT) in Bristol. Meantime a nice little report of the Malvern meeting for Amnesty International, which hopefully raised them quite a bit of money.

Amnesty event a great success

SACKED ambassador Craig Murray’s visit to Malvern was a great success, with about 600 people crowding into the Forum to hear him speak.

http://www.malverngazette.co.uk/mostpopular.var.1745984.mostviewed.amnesty_event_a_great_success.php

Interestingly, I always get bigger audiences where people are sold tickets (£10 at Malvern, I think) than when the meeting is free. I think this is perhaps because of the incentive for the organising group to publicise.

I thought I might give a quick round up of views on some of the stuff that happened while I was off the web. These might each have got a full article had I been able. But for those who have been missing some eclecticism:

Brown dithers over general election. I really don’t care. Four year fixed terms, abolishing the duck and weave potential of the Prime Minister on this issue, are a necessary constitutional change – one of many.

Boris for London Mayor I am seriously considering voting Boris, mostly because of his high profile stance against the calamitous bendy buses which are eternally preventing me from crossing when there is a little green man. I also strongly approve of his stance on bonking. Doubt it will happen as have never voted Tory, but another candidate needs at least as strong a bendy bus stance to get my vote. Bonking more optional.

Iraq – the long defeat Gordon perfects the art of dithering with his plans for prolonged pull-out from Iraq. While various competing thug militias in different Iraqi “security force” uniforms divide up Basra and the other Southern provinces, dwindling numbers of our lads will occupy a bit of the airport. Why?

Do we really believe all Europeans are stupid and inherently comic? I have resisted commenting on the terrible case of poor little Madeleine McCann, but have been driven past endurance by the rash of spin produced since the suspects took on a PR man from the Cabinet Office. The Portuguese police are foreign and (amazement) funny foreigners have different systems and laws to us! They must be wrong and the Brits must be persecuted.

I have no idea what happened to the poor little girl. I do know that the restaurant where her parents were dining was much further from their apartment than the compliant British media indicated, across a lawn, a swimming pool, another lawn and a wall and not within earshot if the children were crying. As a parent there is absolutely no way I would have left my children at those ages unattended and out of contact for two minutes, let alone several hours.

I comment at all against my better judgement, but the PR campaign has sickened me and drives me to it.

Non-domiciles and Private Equity Tax the rich tax-dodging bastards!

Inheritance Tax Ditto!

Memoirs I have signed a contract for the next volume – a prequel. Yippee! Sadly the publisher has not yet coughed up the money for the advance, which is now overdue.

Mobile Phone Lost it again, and all my phone numbers with it. If I used to have your phone number or you think I should do, please email it to me on [email protected] or text it from Friday to 07979 691085. Don’t be shy – rather have too many than be searching for them. This could be a cunning dating ploy, of course. Speaking of which, am now on Facebook.

It is good to be blogging again. Many thanks to everyone for your tremendous support while I was down, and especially all those bloggers who protested against this censorship, achieved just by the layout of cash, with nothing being tested in court. I have still had no contact at any time from Usmanov or the shysters of Schillings.

We are back on craigmurray.org.uk. We hope that craigmurray.co.uk will be back too very soon. I have a plan for dealing with Usmanov and getting this matter into court, but am holding fire for a couple of days until we get the co.uk address back, where most people look for me. Meanwhile anyone remember this?

Alisher Usmanov, potential Arsenal* chairman, is a Vicious Thug,

Criminal, Racketeer, Heroin Trafficker and Accused Rapist

by Craig Murray

I thought I should make my views on Alisher Usmanov quite plain to you.

You are unlikely to see much plain talking on Usmanov elsewhere in the

media becuase he has already used his billions and his lawyers in a

pre-emptive strike. They have written to all major UK newspapers,

including the latter:

“Mr Usmanov was imprisoned for various offences under the old Soviet

regime. We wish to make it clear our client did not commit any of the

offences with which he was charged. He was fully pardoned after

President Mikhail Gorbachev took office. All references to these

matters have now been expunged from police records . . . Mr Usmanov

does not have any criminal record.”

Let me make it quite clear that Alisher Usmanov is a criminal. He was

in no sense a political prisoner, but a gangster and racketeer who

rightly did six years in jail. The lawyers cunningly evoke “Gorbachev”,

a name respected in the West, to make us think that justice prevailed.

That is completely untrue.

Usmanov’s pardon was nothing to do with Gorbachev. It was achieved

through the growing autonomy of another thug, President Karimov, at

first President of the Uzbek Soviet Socilist Republic and from 1991

President of Uzbekistan. Karimov ordered the “Pardon” because of his

alliance with Usmanov’s mentor, Uzbek mafia boss and major

international heroin overlord Gafur Rakimov. Far from being on

Gorbachev’s side, Karimov was one of the Politburo hardliners who had

Gorbachev arrested in the attempted coup that was thwarted by Yeltsin

standing on the tanks outside the White House.

Usmanov is just a criminal whose gangster connections with one of the

World’s most corrupt regimes got him out of jail. He then plunged into

the “privatisation” process at a time when gangster muscle was used to

secure physical control of assets, and the alliance between the Russian

Mafia and Russian security services was being formed.

Usmanov has two key alliances. he is very close indeed to President

Karimov, and especially to his daughter Gulnara. It was Usmanov who

engineered the 2005 diplomatic reversal in which the United States was

kicked out of its airbase in Uzbekistan and Gazprom took over the

country’s natural gas assets. Usmanov, as chairman of Gazprom

Investholdings paid a bribe of $88 million to Gulnara Karimova to

secure this. This is set out on page 366 of Murder in Samarkand.

Alisher Usmanov had risen to chair of Gazprom Investholdings because of

his close personal friendship with Putin, He had accessed Putin through

Putin’s long time secretary and now chef de cabinet, Piotr Jastrzebski.

Usmanov and Jastrzebski were roommates at college.

Gazprominvestholdings is the group that handles Gazproms interests

outside Russia, Usmanov’s role is, in effect, to handle Gazprom’s

bribery and sleaze on the international arena, and the use of gas

supply cuts as a threat to uncooperative satellite states.

Gazprom has also been the tool which Putin has used to attack internal

democracy and close down the independent media in Russia. Gazprom has

bought out – with the owners having no choice – the only independent

national TV station and numerous rgional TV stations, several radio

stations and two formerly independent national newspapers. These have

been changed into slavish adulation of Putin. Usmanov helped accomplish

this through Gazprom. The major financial newspaper, Kommersant, he

bought personally. He immediately replaced the editor-in-chief with a

pro-Putin hack, and three months later the long-serving campaigning

defence correspondent, Ivan Safronov, mysteriously fell to his death

from a window.

All this, both on Gazprom and the journalist’s death, is set out in

great detail here:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2007/06/russian_journal.html

Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he

was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and

the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that

this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an

everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand

page 120. If anyone has more detail on the specific case involving

Usmanov please add a comment.

I reported back in 2002 or 2003 in an Ambassadorial top secret telegram

to the Foreign Office that Usmanov was the most likely favoured

successor of President Karimov as totalitarian leader of Uzbekistan. I

also outlined the Gazprom deal (before it happened) and the present by

Usmanov to Putin (though in Jastrzebski’s name) of half of Mapobank, a

Russian commercial bank owned by Usmanov. I will never forget the

priceless reply from our Embassy in Moscow. They said that they had

never even heard of Alisher Usmanov, and that Jastrzebski was a jolly

nice friend of the Ambassador who would never do anything crooked.

Sadly, I expect the football authorities will be as purblind. Football

now is about nothing but money, and even Arsenal supporters – as

tight-knit and homespun a football community as any – can be heard

saying they don’t care where the money comes from as long as they can

compete with Chelsea*.

I fear that is very wrong. Letting as diseased a figure as Alisher

Usmanov into your club can only do harm in the long term.

* I withdraw this – the majority of Arsenal fans turn out to have values that shame supporters at many other clubs.

The worst bit of journalism yet on the Usmanov case comes, unsurprisingly, from the Guardian. For arse-licking, unquestioning repetition of the claims of Usmanov’s lawyers, this takes the biscuit.

Usmanov aims legal arsenal at bloggers

Paul Kelso

Thursday September 13, 2007

The Guardian

Arsenal’s newest shareholder, the Uzbek minerals billionaire Alisher Usmanov, continues to police discussion of his past and of his intentions for the Gunners after paying ’75m for David Dein’s 14.58% share in the club.

Schillings, the lawyers acting for Usmanov, have been in touch with several independent Arsenal supporters’ websites and blogs warning them to remove postings referring to allegations made against him by Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Usmanov was jailed under the old Soviet regime but says that he was a political prisoner who was then freed and granted a full pardon once Mikhail Gorbachev came to power as president. Schillings have warned the websites that repetition of Murray’s allegations were regarded as “false, indefensible and grossly defamatory”.

Most sites have complied and removed the allegations. Murray himself is yet to receive any correspondence from Usmanov’s lawyers, though the hosts of his website have complied with Schillings’ demands. The former ambassador says that he has contacted Schillings to ensure they know where to send any writ.

Usmanov’s Arsenal investment vehicle, Red & White, has purchased further shares in the club since taking a major stake but as yet has not arranged a meeting with the club. Existing board members have become remarkably vocal since his purchase, barely a day passing without a senior figure from the club talking up Arsenal’s financial position. The club’s results, due next week, are expected to show a healthy position, with as much as ‘3m generated by each match at the Emirates.

The bit about

Schillings have warned the websites that repetition of Murray’s allegations were regarded as “false, indefensible and grossly defamatory”.

is particularly egregious. It makes it sound as though there has been some kind of judgement in the case. In fact the facts as I stated them are regarded as false by nobody to my knowlege except Schillings; other people may regard then as fals, but I am to date unaware of a single person saying so. And Schillings of course are paid to regard them as false. Has anybody else seen anything from a respectable source arguing that what I said about Usmanov was false?

Paul Kelso contacted me before writing his article, and here is the email I sent him:

Hi Paul;

no – Schillings have had no contact with me, except I phoned them to make sure they could find me for a writ! My webhost received a legal threat from Schillings, and my webhost responded to the threat of legal action by taking down one of my articles. I withdraw nothing. I want Usmanov to sue me. He is a <removed on legal recommendation>, and I know enough about him, and enough

potential witnesses, to give him a torrid time in a UK court beyond even the ability of Schillings to cover up.

Usmanov knows that, and Schillings are obviously bluffing – although they are writing that my book is “libellous”, it has been out for over a year now, sold over 25,000 copies already, and they have done nothing but spout bollocks.

As you may know, my book is being made into a film next year by Michael Winterbottom and Paramount. Don’t know who will play Usmanov – sadly Fatty Arbuckle is dead.

Craig

Now how fair and balanced was Kelso’s article?

– Legal note – 2 edits made by webhost on legal advice

My son Jamie is on his gap year and has been working as a barman for an events company at Test Matches, Olympia exhibitions, etc. This is casual employment but offering in practice quite a lot of hours per week on average, just concentrated in heavy bursts.

Jamie was planning to finish shortly and to set off on a cheap hostel holiday around Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, the wages for one of the events at which he had worked did not come through in the expected week, This resulted in him slipping over – by less than ’50 – his ‘250 overdraft limit.

That does not sound like a disaster. But he had been booking his hostels online with his debit card, putting down the tiny deposits required.

8 deposits came in total to only a bit over ’30. But the Halifax allowed each transaction on the card, and then charged him ’30 penalty per transaction. That is a fine of ‘240 on ’34 worth of payments. As a result he has to cancel his holiday, as I have no cash either.

He spoke today to the Halifax, who said this was an “Adminstration charge”. But, as the payments went through normally, where precisely is the extra administration cost? The Halifax also said that pending the resolution of the current High Court case on the legality of such charges, they are not prepared to consider the case.

This is appalling. ‘240 of charges on ’34 of expenditure is plainly disproportionate. I was walking past a bank in Shepherd’s Bush yesterday and saw that a vandal had cracked one of the windows, which was being replaced. I tut-tutted with disapproval at the stupid violence. This morning if I see the vandal who did it, I will shake his hand.

This blog has won second prize in the Witangemot political blog awards, in the human rights/civil liberties category.

http://www.toque.co.uk/consult/results/Winners_Enclosure.pdf

As W S Gilbert once said, modified rapture. Modified because I have never heard of Witangemot, because we only came second, and because there are severe problems with some of their ideas. The ultra-right Harry’s Place blog, possibly the nastiest authoritarian site on the web (and I do include the BNP) astonishingly comes second in the “Left Wing Blogs”. How did that happen?

I was reading an article by David Aaronovitch in which he argued that the recent floods in the UK were a blip and we certainly should not waste money on flood defences. I am not going to provide a link to the fat thug – google it if you must.

It caused me to ponder the curious link between climate change denial and support for the War in Iraq. High profile climate change deniers like Aaronovitch and barking Melanie Phillips are a major part of the hardcore rump of those who still support the Iraq War. (Adam Bolton on Sky News assured us this morning “The Surge is starting to work”. He was of course saying that from the safety of a Washington street. I should like to see Adam stand in a Baghdad street outside the Green Zone and tell us that). But to return to my tenuous thread of thought, why are climate change deniers particularly keen on the Iraq war? There is a common factor in hydrocarbons, but the two don’t link together in an irresistible way.

Climate change is especially on my mind at the moment as I am trying to help Ghana with power generation. Ghana’s marvellous hydroelectric system – the Akosombo Dam and Volta Lake – has been suffering long term decline through dwindling rainfall, that now threatens to become long term catastrophic, and to undermine one of Africa’s best developed and managed economies. In searching for solutions I discover that very similar factors are now causing major problems to established hydro schemes in both Turkey and Tajikistan, and presumably elsewhere too. I do not merely believe in man-made climate change, I believe it is impacting at a rate far quicker than we have generally appreciated.

Iain Dale is organising a vote for a publication on the UK’s best political blogs.

In September Harriman House will publish the 2007 Guide to Political Blogging in the UK, sponsored by APCO Online. It will contain articles on blogging by some of Britain’s leading bloggers, together with a directory of UK political blogs, and a series of Top 20s and Top 10s.

Instead of me picking my Top 100 UK political blogs (as I did last year) I’d like fellow bloggers and blog readers to send me their Top 20 UK Political Blogs by email. I’ll then compile the Top 100 from those that you send in. Just order them from 1 to 20. Your top blog gets 20 points and your twentieth gets 1 point.

The deadline for submitting your Top 20 to me is August 15th. Please email me your list to iain AT iaindale DOT com and type Top 20 in the subject line. You don’t have to send 20, but try to do 10 as a minimum.

If you have a blog, please feel free to encourage your own readers to take part.

I like this kind of thing, just like I watch the Eurovision Song Contest for the voting, not the songs. So do vote. You don’t have to vote for this blog, because I have an unshakeable faith it is the greatest that would not be altered by any result. I am going to vote for Steph, just in case that really is a photo of her. British blogs only, please. And in sending your email note there are a lot of i’s in Iain.

I have just accepted an invitation to speak at the Oxford Union next term, to oppose the motion

This House believes that in the war on terror the best defence is a good offence.

I thought you might enjoy my reply:

Corey,

Thank you for your invitation to speak at the Oxford Union, which I am happy to accept. The debate does sound most enjoyable.

I am slightly concerned that we may have linguistic difficulties. For example Luke Tryl’s kind letter of invitation includes the phrase “Last term alone we were lucky enough to host the likes of President Musharraf, Michael Douglas and Cherie Blair”. Plainly we have different definitions of lucky.

Look forward to seeing you.

Craig

I could do worse than arm myself for the debate with some quotations from this tremendous compendium, into which I somehow snuck.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=55710729&blogID=287336913

Now I have had a secret hope to get “Selling our souls for dross” (my official Ambassadorial complaint to London about receiving intelligence from torture) into the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. But this one seems to have caught on better.

I am not going to be at all cynical about Live Earth. I think it is a wonderful event which will do a huge amount to raise consciousness on global warming, and lead both to support for the green movement, and improved personal energy-saving. The benefits will far outweigh the energy use of the production, and to pretend otherwise is nonsense.

Watching on TV, I am pleasantly surprised by how very much I have enjoyed pretty well all the music. Even some of the musically more dubious momemts were entertaining. I thought Paolo Nutini was a Spike Milligan impersonator until I relaised that really was supposed to be singing, but I ignored that and as a Spike Milligan impersonation it was wonderful.

The only grating note has been Jonathon Ross on the BBC. I am generally a fan, but his inability to treat any of the global warming information at all seriously is annoying. He seems to want to treat the event like the Eurovision Song Contest. By comparison, Graham Norton comes across as someone who knows how to mix comedy with a serious message.

Al Gore’s message and his pledges were very well put over. We all think so much about what a horror we got in Bush, we overlook what we lost in Gore. I still view the fraudulent election of 2000 with disbelief. The extraordinary thing is, at the time it didn’t seem that important, to me at least. What a fool I was.

I thought the Black Eyed Peas were superb, and they seemed very much connected to the message and politics of the event. They were the only thing so far that has bordered on rap. though what they sing about is very different from urban rap. It is in fact probably the lack of rap that explains why I am enjoying the music so much. My guess is that rappers are absent because it involves playing for free to help a movement to save the planet. The rappers are too busy beating up women, driving their hummers, shooting people and writing lyrics to encourage young Londoners to stab each other. There is nothing that annoys me more than trendies in Britain who refuse to accept that an ultra-materialist, violence worshipping, openly extreme misogynistic culture is a bad thing.

Ironing uses a great deal of energy for heating and is completely unnecessary. Next time you see someone in a neatly pressed garment or with a crease in their trousers, shun them. I am going to start a campaign against ironing to save the planet.

Possibly that only seems a good idea because I opened the third bottle of wine to celebrate the arrival of Spinal Tap.

I had not realised just what an interesting story I had picked up, when I noted on this blog that Asraf Marwan had died very suspiciously a few hundred yards from the Haymarket car bomb, some 24 hours before. The two events may well be completely unconnected, but I seem to have inspired others to some fascinating digging.

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2007/07/london-terror-and-egyptian-mystery-man.html

A friend just emailed me this link, in which my entry is used as an example of biases on Wikipedia:

http://suraci.blogspot.com/2007/06/wikiliedia-constantly.html

It is certainly true that my Wikipedia entry contains terminology which is expressly used to inculcate doubt. For example I “claimed” that Uzbekistan is not a functioning democracy. I should not have thought that was a dubious statement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray

More significant, I think, is the curious entry that Murray “claims” he complained to the British government about the use of intelligence obtained under torture. This is a strange place to try to insinuate doubt. I have testified that I did this to the European Parliament and the Council of Europe in person, and in writing to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, and on pretty well every major media outlet in the World. The British government has never, once, denied that I did this. I have also provided documentary evidence like this,

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/documents/Telegram.pdf

This document was also submitted to, and republished by, the European Parliament, and the British Government has never denied its authenticity.

Furthermore my book, Murder in Samarkand, which details all of this, was submitted to the British government for clearance. They produced a document requesting what they distinguished as either factual or policy motivated changes. I have also published this document:

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/documents/FCO_Comment.pdf

This is undoubtedly a real document as the British Government has claimed copyright over it. Other than where noted in this document (and I made most of the changes requested) there is therefore no dispute over the factual accuracy of Murder in Samarkand.

I do not however think it is necessary to believe in an institutional conspiracy at Wikipedia. The negative slanting of my entry is, I think, just the work of pro-Bush and pro-Karimov trolls.

Events in Palestine are terribly sad. Forgive the banality, but it needs to be said. The terrible plight of the Palestinian people is a sore on the world. They have been uprooted from their homes and decamped into appalling conditions, with what little land they have left being constantly squeezed, hemmed in and deprived of water.

I thought I was well-informed on Palestine, but still reading Hilda Reilly’s The Prickly Pears of Palestine was an eye-opening experience. It is a difficult book to read. At first I found the constant repetition of the word “Martyr” to describe the dead annoying. But then, as misery piles upon misery, it brings a full understanding of just how devastating and all-pervasive is the reach of Israeli violence into the lives of Palestinian families. Reilly also does much to explain the disillusionment with Fatah, its corruption and lack of achievement, and the enthusiasm for Hamas, particularly among younger people.

In these circumstances appalling distortion of Palestinian society is inevitable. Those of us concerned for the Palestinians have been, rightly I think, concerned to correct the one dimensional view of Hamas portrayed in the Western media, and concerned to expose Western hypocrisy in seeking to penalise Palestinians for their democratic choice.

But it was nonetheless not a good choice. The Palestinians are victims of terrible racial persecution. Turning to religious fundamentalism is an understandable process, but very unhelpful. Above all, the Palestinians have never been a religious mono-culture. A former girlfriend of mine was a Palestinian Christian.

She and I used to campaign for a unitary, secular, democratic state in Palestine, that would encompass Palestinians, Jews and others who live there, in the combined lands of Israel and the occupied territories. That is what I still believe to be the solution. I am not sure how and when it became de rigeur to support a so-called “Two state” solution, with a tiny, fractured, walled, dry and non-viable Palestinian “state”. I don’t believe the UK was committed to that idea until Blair supported it in the Rose Garden all those years ago.

By associating themselves so completely with Islamic fundamentalism, the Palestinians are making the situation worse, and the Zionists very happy. But what did we expect? Palestine has been a prolonged genocide for sixty years, the worst example of ethnic cleansing since the eradication of Native Americans. Desperate people do things that seem stupid from the comfort of our armchairs. It is our comfort and indifference that has brought them to this.

Half the Met were turned out last night at taxpayers’ expense to guard the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park, where a “Charity” event was hosted by Rupert Murdoch. Guests included Gordon Brown, John Reid, Jack Straw and Margaret Beckett, as well as “Sir” Alan Sugar and the Israeli and US Ambassadors. Cherie Blair was not present, or she would presumably have left as usual with the “Charity” money in her handbag.

I struggle to maintain a vague deism lately, but I cannot believe any deity is benevolent when yet again catacysmic floods are killing innocents in Bangladesh, but God couldn’t even produce a very small meteor on target where really needed.

Rupert Mudoch arrived in the Foreign Secretary’s car with Margaret Beckett, and she was the last guest to leave; it took time for her to quaff so much of the Dirty Digger’s champagne. Whatever can this mean?

We have made the New Statesman’s Blog roundup again.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200706080001

I am just giving the link as, ironically, the only two copyright action threats to this website for posting stuff have come from the FCO and the New Statesman!

Craig

I have received a pleasant email from Kate Davies, which points out that she is married to a different Nick Johnson than the oily creep from the CRE (not her description). Kate deserves marks for sense of humour, and for the possibility that her taste in men could be better than I thought (I haven’t seen her Mr Johnson yet). She also points out that her bit of Sussex Gardens does have prostitutes.

So unreserved apologies for incorrect marital attribution. However, whether her quango job really deserves a salary on the same scale as Ambassador to Washington or Permanent Under Secretary at the Treasury, is something on which I am afraid I remain sceptical. So apologies Kate swam into our sights by mistake, but fair game nonetheless.

Tiscali have now admitted to their email service not working. Not only that, but other email addresses have not been working through Tiscali as an ISP (if used through Outlook.) That is why I have not been able to communicate with anyone on either of my email addresses.

I am furious with Tiscali, who failed to warn their customers of the problem. I had been sending emails into oblivion for a week before I twigged. I missed appointments and lost work in consequence. What is more, the emails will not have been stored by Tiscali and resent once the system was up, and I had not saved all, as I regularly clean out my sent items.

The system is now allegedly working. Anyone awaiting a response from me on anything, please email me again.