With friends (and MPs) like these…

There’s a big furore here over the potential bugging of a conversation between an MP and his friend and constituent. This MP happens to be my MP. This constituent lives within easy walking distance from my house. That is he lives there when he’s not in jail – on terror charges.

Sadiq Khan is at the center of a controversy about whether his jailhouse conversation with Babar Ahmad should have been taped without his knowledge. Doubtless, all of Mr Ahmad’s conversations are bugged (except probably privileged conversations with his lawyer) – given that he is, in fact, a terror suspect awaiting extradition to America. It’s all so very complicated why he’s to stand trial in the US and not in the UK. But what appears to not be in dispute is that the man helped raise money for the Taliban.

He raised money for them, but this wasn’t a crime in the UK at the time he was doing it because the Taliban wasn’t a proscribed organisation at the time. Not that we didn’t know they were nasty pre-9/11, just that they weren’t outlawed.

From the Washington Post:

In late 1996, while a 22-year-o.ld undergraduate at Imperial College in London, Ahmad launched a Web site dedicated to promoting Islamic fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, according to U.S. federal prosecutors. Dubbed Azzam.com, in honor of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian who served as bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, the Web site rapidly became a prominent and influential English-language platform for Islamic militants.

…snip…

“It was the very first real al Qaeda Web site,” said Evan Kohlmann, a New York-based terrorism researcher who has tracked Azzam.com since the late 1990s. “It taught an entire generation about jihad. Even in its nascency, it was professional. It wasn’t technically sophisticated, but it was professional looking, definitely more professional than any other jihadi Web sites out there.”

…snip…

According to a U.S. indictment filed in October, Ahmad used Azzam.com to
solicit donations for Chechen rebels and the Taliban, and arranged for the
training and transportation of Islamic fighters. Among the specific charges is
one alleging that Azzam.com posted messages in early 2001 containing specific
instructions for supporters to deliver cash payments of up to $20,000 to
Taliban officials in Pakistan

And I blogged about this two and a half years ago (post has links to US extradition request).

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Now, Sadiq Khan, MP feels aggrieved because there is an established convention that MPs’ conversations won’t be bugged. I guess I can understand that, though it was Mr Ahmad and not Mr Khan who was the explicit subject of surveillance.

But in news story after news story Babar Ahmad is listed as both a constituent and a friend. They did grow up in the same area, so childhood friends they may be – and I’m sure we all had playmates who turned out not as well as might be hoped. But Mr Khan should consider whether he really wants friends like Mr Ahmad. And Tooting constituents should consider whether we want an MP with friends like that.

What are the chances?

This year retailers must be desperate to make their Yuletide targets. Today for example, someone brought their wares to me.

“Eh,” shouted a man from an unmarked white van “you want to buy a new plasma tv?”

Hell and highwater

There’s been a lot of flooding in England over the last two days. Fortunately, we’re still high and only slightly damp. Or rather we’re slightly damp and nervously quite low. The local cemetery, which lies in the same flood plain that our house is built in (but lower down the gradient) experienced some temporary high water after yesterday’s torrential rains.

There was even more water yesterday, but much of it has drained away. This photo was taken today in the very low lying “memorial garden” section of the cemetery. There are only markers and urns of ashes (at that) – so no fear of bodies floating in the streets of Tooting.

Putting the fun in funeral

Last year I missed the Lambeth Cemetery Open Day. I had a previous engagement. But I was excited to learn that there would be another one this year when we went on one of our frequent walks in the nearby boneyard. I was dying to go. And so we went. And this was the first public event outing for Baby Cletus.

Now, you might think that a cemetery open day would be a moribund affair – and you would largely be right. There was, as far as I could see, a poor turnout. There were not throngs of onlookers crowding the roads as the parade of hearses toured the cemetery.

A gaggle of coffin cars

The famous Harley Davidson motorcycle hearse

And we didn’t manage to get one of the offered rides in the hearses. This one looked quite fun:

But we did manage to go on the Tomb Trek during which the cemetery manager went around showing us special graves and sharing the history of the cemetery. We learned:

• around 250,000 people are buried in Lambeth Cemetery. Stacked like hotcakes or buried in between the spaces of old graves. Many of the original graves are long, long gone.
• The cemetery is chock full of London music hall and variety greats. None of whom I’d heard of – but there were bullet catchers and Wild West type acts and circus folk, too. And that’s kinda cool.
• Charlie Chaplin’s father is buried in a mass grave there and Ida Lupino’s father and other kinfolk are also buried there (in a private plot).
• A quarter of an acre of fresh burial space can generate a revenue of £1.5 million

wet, wet Wimbledon

Although my neighbourhood is considerably further down market, I’m really just around the corner from Wimbledon. It’s technically walkable – but it’s a long walk – made longer by the way the roads are cut. If I were a crow, it would be a pretty short flight.

My point is, I’ve lived really close to Wimbledon for a number of years and I’ve never been. In the opening days of the tournament you can queue for tickets at the grounds and it’s quite likely, with a little luck and a little patience that you’ll get to see someone quite famous. And I don’t even think it’s that expensive really – not in the early days.

But the truth is, I’ve never really gotten in to tennis. I can’t play it and I can’t follow it. When my c-section anaesthetist suggested that we might be anticipating the imminent arrival of a Wimbledon tennis star – me and the Vol-in-Law just scoffed. His tennis skills are almost as low as mine.

But I have to admit that I usually really like the buzz around Wimbledon. There’s the usual hope and aspiration that maybe this year there’ll be a British tennis star who’ll win the big giant cup. This year -despite lack of play from rain – the British hopes were dashed astonishingly early.

Financial spillover

I know someone who lives in Wimbledon who rents his house out every year for the tournament and makes a bucket load of money. Although we don’t live that close, we live close enough (you can pick up a special tournament time bus to Wimbledon near our house). Soon we should have a new bus route that stops almost right in front of our house (though thankfully in just the next road over – so we don’t have buses going in front of us). Maybe next year we could at least organise a house swap? That might be cool.

The real spillover

Of course, the real spillover effect we get is the weather. It’s a quite a cliche to say “Oh, it’s Wimbledon – so it must be rainy” – and indeed this year that’s been the case. And we get Wimbledon’s weather. During this tourney, it seems like it rains almost exclusively during the hours of play. Early in the morning, it’s lovely – blue skies, but ten the sky is leaden and by the time of kick off (or whatever the tennis equivalent might be) which is around 11 it seems to be pitching it down.

But at least we didn’t get this.

cha-ching

My neighbourhood in the news….

Tooting, once a byword for a run-down, inner-city ward on the Northern Line – famously dubbed the commuters’ Misery Line for its haphazard service and over-crowded trains – is rapidly coming up in the world.

It’s about the Conservative party pinning its hopes on the Tooting [type] voter.

Terror in Tooting

Hey, guess what y’all. New links to terror in my neighbourhood.

But this time, it’s not like before. No. Not at all. This time it’s Tamil separatist Hindus.

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Actually, this is why I never, ever, ever give to non-Western charities – e.g. after the Boxing Day Tsunami and Pakistani Earthquake.

my neighbourhood

Fellow American expat – who also lives in Tooting – (but in the Northern bit) tell us why she loves living here.

I like this neighborhood, too. And I’ve liked it more since I’ve been more involved with the local area. Recently, I’ve been reflecting on my relationship with this house, this neighbourhood, this city and my hometown(s).

• I’ve lived in the house I’m in now for longer than I’ve lived in any house.
• But I’ve lived in Knoxville longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in the world.
• Only recently, I’ve lived in London continuously, longer than I’ve lived anywhere. (My Knoxville years have been broken up)
• I’ve had (and maintain) Lawrenceburg, TN as a permanent address longer than any place else – even though it’s a distant third to Knoxville and London as places I’ve actually lived.
• I’ve lived in Tennessee longer than anywhere.

cemetery ramblings

Yesterday the ViL and I went for a walk in the nearby cemetery. It’s a lazy day option, but I do like checking out whether there are any new and interesting floral tributes.

We’d noted that many of the headstones had been staked with great, giant dowels. It looks absolutely attrocious. I’ve blogged about the desecration of cemeteries in the past – when headstones had been laid flat – but now Lambeth council has gone for the “headstone on a stick” option.

The workmen were there staking headstones as we were taking our walk. The ViL and I, as we are wont to do, started grumbling about it. We are grumblers and under-the-breath mutterers. Well, apparently we weren’t under-the-breath enough about it, because a great giant, grey bearded fellow (picture Santa’s evil twin wearing muddy coveralls) whose job it is to stake the headstones approached us and asked if we “understood the work being done.”

Now mostly, I just wanted to get away from crazy greybeard. I’ve got nothing against people who work in cemeteries for a living, but you have to wonder what other career they might have pursued had they scored just a little higher in the charisma section of the personality test of life. But crazy greybeard was trying to appeal to my husband’s sense of reason and logic. No, crazy greybeard – don’t do it! – I thought. The ViL is a PhD lawyer – he’s all trained in out arguing you – and let’s face it – this headstone staking isn’t really logical. But I suppose that crazy greybeard has to deal with plenty of irate or unsettled relatives, and figures it’s best to head them off at the emotional pass.

The ViL starts out all reasonable “Yes, I understand the theory…” and then the ViL starts expounding on all the arguments we’d been muttering about – e.g. there being greater hazards in the (very) uneven paving and pathways that old people often tread to visit the graves in this particularly cemetery.

Crazy greybeard said that 5 children had died over the last 10 years, and that many of the graves were unsafe. Apparently the new fangled headstones come in two chunks (or more) of marble cemented together and are much less rugged than the old ones.

The ViL pointed to the staked marker at our feet. The plastic straps weren’t even touching the headstone, which was one of those low lying ones that barely rose 12 inches from the ground. Sure it was at risk of crumbling – if you jumped on it, a bunch – but the stake rising from the ground at a 45 degree angle posed a greater safety hazard. Crazy greybeard had to concede that this marker was unlikely to hurt even a baby – and he scanned the cemetery for a headstone that might kill you if it fell on you. “See that cross over there, that would hurt if it fell on you,” he pointed to an old monument many staked rows away.

The ViL asked the man if he was a private contractor – (yes). I wanted to ask the fellow how the contract was written (was he also the tester? was he paid a flat fee to make the cemetery safe or was he paid by the stake? how much was he getting per headstone “made safe”?) – but mostly I wanted to get home to pee – so I said nothing. The crazy greybeard gave up on us and suggested that we ask the fellow in the office if we had any more questions. We didn’t. But I am thankful indeed that it’s not our local taxes paying for this.

The ViL also, and perhaps rather uncharitably, suggested that perhaps the children killed by falling headstones had been attempting to pull them down – and that it was more a case of natural justice than unsafe memorials.

On our way out, we saw a young woman standing outside the cemetery fence watching the stakes driven into the ground with some kind of nifty hydraulic hammer system. Crazy greybeard strode through the tall grass and not-yet-safe headstones to ask her if she “understood the work being done.” She said “I’m just waiting for my boyfriend to come back to the car.” But he explained the life-saving necessity of his work anyway.

Tory tipping point?

The Telegraph has written about Tooting as a potential conservative tipping point. Is that Tooting the constituency? (which takes in the very swoosh Wandsworth Common) Does that include Tooting the ward, where I live? Some people seem to think so.

It’s an interesting article which covers some of the demographic shifts and changing attitudes in our area.

Hat Tip: Mark Clarke, who told me about the article last night.