Griselda writes of rugger, roses and rubbers

Introducing Griselda again, readers. You can catch her previous two posts here and here. Her website is here. A very warm welcome again to the columnist from the Greater Titcup Echo, in the west country.


More advice for the lovelorn

Dear Griselda,

You seem like a sensible sort of girl, a good sort a man could get along with – a girl with common sense. So perhaps you could explain my lady love’s recent moods.

I just don’t understand her any more. Only the other day, for instance, she went into a sulk forever because I hadn’t noticed her change in hair style. All right, it used to be waist length and brunette and now it’s cropped and a golden colour but still … how is a busy man supposed to notice these things?

Lately she keeps asking me what colour her eyes are – well, how should I know that? I hardly stare at them, do I? Even last weekend, she went beserk when she found that the Aber Rugger Club’s annual do was players and officials only and she’d gone and spent £500 on some dressy thing which hit the wallet pretty badly, I can tell you.

It took ages calming her down and I missed the sports results on the Beeb, damn it.

Everything came to a head yesterday when she asked me if I loved her and I said she was a part of me, almost part of the furniture, in fact. For some reason I had a chair thrown at me for that and it just missed poking my eye out.

I really don’t want to make a mistake now her birthday’s coming up sometime (she keeps dropping hints) and I’m at a loss what to buy. I thought maybe some Aber Rugger Club earmuffs might go well with her new evening dressy thing.

What do you think, Griselda? I’m at my wits’ end. If you can sort this one out for me, there’s a pint of Brains coming your way.

Dai Llewellyn-Jones

Well, Dai

I think I too would have been a little put out to be compared to furniture and you were probably quite lucky it was only a chair. My best advice is to watch this video below and by the way, mine is a Pimms N1, boyo.

Griselda

Dear Griselda

I’d prefer to keep my identity to myself if you don’t mind but the thing is, it’s all so tedious.

Well, I suppose I should start at the beginning, yes. It’s all well and fine, you know, his ex-wife moaning about three in a marriage but those were exciting times, being the other woman, you might say.

And now?

I knew public life was never going to be a bed of roses, what with his sense of destiny and so on but I feel more than a little sympathy with Cecilia Sarkozy, I can tell you.

You’re probably wondering why I would be writing to a provincial rag like yours but your fame has spread beyond Lower Titcup, you have to understand – my son and yourself are both budding cookery writers, after all.

So the thing is – what to do? Perhaps you could throw this open to your readers.

Ex-Gloucestershire Lady

Dear Ex-Gloucestershire Lady

Well, as you say, it’s best to throw this open to the readers and without further ado, over to you, readers.

Love and kisses,

Griselda


And finally, Griselda’s household tip to sign off with, stolen from Woman's Realm: Tips and Wrinkles [Pan, 1972]

Rubbers and how to use them. Make rubber gloves last twice as long: turn them inside out and stick plasters on the tips of the fingers. Before throwing them away, cut the cuffs into strips and they make wonderful rubber bands. Lastly, if you put a few drops of glycerine in water, this makes the rubber more flexible.

See you soon.

[illegal immigrants] to exclude or to house?

Please look at Welshcakes' current post on the incidents in the Cathedral. Illegal immigrants went into a church and occupied it, from which action police were then involved. Welshcakes concludes:

Does a country have a right, or even a duty, to look after its own citizens first? On the other hand, surely everyone has a right to be treated with some human dignity? What would any of us do if we suddenly found ourselves homeless through no fault of our own?

Many, many questions to think on and I have others too. I was reading in La Sicilia [dead wood version] how in Genoa there is also a bunfight over a proposed mosque being built.

Phew!

Am I an extremist? I hope not, I really do, as I lived among muslims for 13 years, worked with and for them and can only say they were fine people in my eyes. There's no ingratitude here. There were mosques everywhere and I sometimes went into them with muslims and discussed their religion.

More recently, some readers know I was close to some Indonesian friends [and still consider myself a friend.]

One of the reasons for the Italian intransigence on Islam coming in is their observation of what went wrong in Britain. Having said that, I have now invited trouble upon myself. So be it. On the other hand, the plight of the refugees is a humanitarian one - these people need to have something to eat, they need to have the dignity to be able to just wash or lay the head down somewhere.

They are mainly muslim and their desperation to flee their countries or die is an indictment of those countries. I strongly suspect that the powers that be in those countries know full well what they're doing through their oppression - both offloading excess population and indirectly bringing Islam back into southern Italy.

Welshcakes took the point of view - how can a country say yes to a Christian church, yes to a Buddhist and Jewish but no to a mosque? My answer is that you have to look at the track records of each of these. I ask you now - would most Brits feel that the Jewish synagogue was a major threat to Britain? How about a Christian church? And so on. Of course not.

And why not? Assimilation of the group - most groups coming in do assimilate with the local society. Not necessarily adopting all so-called "British culture" per se but certainly willing to get on with life here as a Brit.

They don't demand special rooms during Ramadan or refuse to accept public housing because it is not to their specifications. Most religions and other groups coming in don't have houses of worship in which trouble is stirred up by extremists. Most don't even have extremists.

And don't forget the question of sheer numbers.

In the end, this question comes down to two things - firstly, are all religions and cultures equivalent or are there, possibly, some groups which really do have a track record of trouble coming out of them and export that trouble en masse? Secondly - is democracy their inalienable right, the right to incite etc.?

Or does the classic liberal maxim apply - freedom to do anything as long as it doesn't impinge on anyone else? The Italians have a fierce attachment to democracy but they've drawn the line at Islamic inroads along the British pattern. That's their decision. Democracy yes - but for registered citizens.

So to return to the poor boat people in the cathedral. Why would they have chosen to go to a Christian cathedral and not, say, to the local police station or hostel or mission for homeless people? Why would a group of muslims choose a Christian church to occupy? Minor point perhaps.

I don't believe we can trot out relativistic and equivalent positions without also considering track records of certain populations. For example, the Somalis are well known here for their intransigence. They can argue this out with the Italians - I'm just mentioning it. I'm certainly not getting into the Roms.

Whilst reasonable people would surely concede that the trouble comes from a small proportion of a population, it still happens though, doesn't it?

The Italians have decided that they don't want a bar of it and this is a proud nation which reveres its tolerance in these matters, which is evident in all other dealings with the Clandestini. But now a state of emergency has been declared in this country and no one really knows what to do.

I certainly don't know either.

You might like to look at my previous post on the Clandestini and Tony Sharp's post link within it.

[the doha dodo] logically impossible

The whole point in trade is that you get access to their markets and can access their technology, whilst protecting your own producers, e.g. in grain and minerals.

At a meeting like Doha, it's slightly ridiculous because each side is never going to concede protection of its farmers but at the same time, it wants access to the other nations' markets.

Pascal Lamy's 12% protection proposal is fraught because the very 12% each nation protects is precisely the one which the other countries wish to access. No one's going to settle for second best and offer their best to partners. China in particular is not going to do that.

Therefore Doha is still a Dodo, even before its official close.

[bart simpson] now the exhibition

From late July to August, you can see the exhibition inspired by Bart Simpson.

All you have to do is motor up to Glasgow, catch a flight to Iceland and ask at the nearest bar. Should be well worth going to see.

Presuming you're crazy about Bart that is, as seen through Icelandic eyes.

[terrorist attack] perhaps

They may well be as claimed by Turkish security:

Police said they believed the attackers were members of a Turkish Sunni fundamentalist group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders Front.

... or they may not. There've been a number of instances of groups being slow to claim responsibility and that smacks of a broader destabilization plan. I always think one must look at the net effect of such a thing - whose attitudes does it harden and why would anyone want those attitudes hardened?

In other words, who are all the groups or countries who stand to gain overall?

I can't see the killing itself as the main object. On the other hand, there is a type of law-unto-himself person who just gets a kick out of seeing the big explosion. The sniper killings in the U.S. spring to mind here.

Might well be wrong.

[british seaside resorts] one beneficiary of the recession

Rather pleased, actually, that many Brits are turning back to a long neglected part of their country - the seaside resort. Morecambe in particular holds an interest for me.

When it lost out to Blackpool with its greatly overrated illuminations, even the Winter Gardens, Frontierland, the Midland Hotel and the rest of it couldn't save it - that is, until now. Now the British holidaymakers are returning due to soaring costs elsewhere but it's a sorry sight to return to.

It's a bit like neglecting a trusty car which had served you well for some new-fangled piece of machinery, only to have to sell it and return to your old faithful, now half corroded and careworn but with a smile on its grill that you have returned.

Morecambe's tides made the news not so long ago with the deaths of those Chinese fishermen; it has always been a problem, necessitating a Queen's Guide to the Sands and yet ... and yet ... isn't that part of the adventure, like Lindisfarne on the other coast?

It would be lovely to see places like this drag themselves into the 21st century and offer some of the things overseas holiday spots offer, with just that touch of Britishness to them and a rich history to boot. Drop some of the tackiness and it could take off in the new millennium.

UPDATE at No Clue on seaside resorts.

UPDATE UPDATE at Weston-super-Mare