Eddie Nketiah

I have just finished watching the Arsenal game. The commentators were singing the praises of Eddie Nketiah on Match of the Day. I have discussed him with friends and my view is that he is perfect for games such as these. We have seen that he has a lot of potential but in previous seasons he has failed to play at such a level in a more consistent manner when the pressure is on. 

With Kai Havertz around, competition for places and goals will be tough. Nketiah has the goals a striker needs under his belt, the question is if he will continue to score in bigger games against tougher opponents. 

Gaza and democracy

There have been a few good video's explaining what has happened in Gaza, but one thing many forget when it comes to Hamas, is how the USA is responsible for them still being in power.  Basically after the democratic elections that had been held in Gaza were won by Hamas, not liking the democracy the Palestinian people deserve, the USA tried to overthrow it.

For some reason, many nations are suspicious of the USA when it comes to democracy.  This link explains why. 

The Holy Land

I have seen some tweets on the internet indicating that people have to support one side or the other this month when it comes to the appalling situation in The Holy Land.

This video looks at how this has been the case with too many.

This video tries to sum up the complex situation in less than two minutes.

And this looks at the dangers faced to the IDF and Palestinian civilians with a ground attack into The Gaza Strip.

My mother and I had a disagreement on Sunday about this matter.  She ended up hanging up on me.  At least she did not say what she said to me to my children.  I suspect that they would have been more forthright in challenging what she said.

Second in the table

We are still second in the league. It is annoying that this was the game that Chelski decided to remember how to play, but we did well to come back down after being 2-0 down. I was hoping that we would win like we did in the past. 

The first casualty when war comes is truth

Too many Christians, Jews and Muslims have been killed and are dying in The Holy Land. However it appears that the truth is also the casualty when it comes to the attack on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital. 

Looking at the images, it appears that the car park was hit. Claims that 500 people died in the attack have been made, and they do not add up. There is no doubt that too many people in Gaza have been killed, and the number of dead and wounded so far exceeds the 500 who were claimed to be the casualties in this attack, or misfire by Gaza’s’defenders’ (as claimed by Israel). 

My wife said that she does not trust Israel when it comes to this. I do not trust either side. Do I think Israel attacked the car park? No, I think that this was the result of those firing rockets into Israel. Do I think that almost 500 people died in this incident? No. However, well over 500 civilians of the population of Gaza have been killed already and I suspect that more than 500 deaths are to come. 

British forces in Palestine

In 1947, our great nation had anti-Jewish riots. This was because of the murder of two British army sergeants by Irgun paramilitaries in Palestine. The Irgun killed the two sergeants and hung their booby-trapped bodies in a eucalyptus grove near Netanya. 

This is no justification for the appalling riots that happened afterwards. 

The reason I make this post is because many on the right have posted images of British soldiers from the second world war implying that they did not fight for the right to protest, or if they did, not the right for protestors to defend Christians in Palestine.  

Working towards peace in The Holy Land involves learning from history, not forgetting it so we repeat mistakes from the past. We can learn lessons from what has happened in history where peace has resulted, examples being Northern Ireland. Here is hoping that a just peace can happen.

Party time!

My daughter had her 18th birthday last night.  The garden is now tidier than it was at the end of last night.  Friends of ours came over and kept us company allowing us to relax as much as we could, distracting us from what was going on in the garden.  

While normal parents allow parties to take place inside a house, after hearing what had happened at other parties, my wife and I decided that there was to be no party indoors.  We had offered to hold the party in a bar elsewhere, but many of the friends of my daughter are under the age of 18, and I have reasons to believe that alcohol was consumed last night.  

I did insist that the firepit that we have was put into use, and considering the cold, and the fact that boys were present, it was quite popular.  I was concerned that they were to run out of firewood, but this did not happen. 

Anyway, time to iron my scrubs for the coming week...

The Eras Tour

Have been to watch most of The Eras Tour, by Taylor Swift, with my son.  I say most, we missed the beginning as I was ordering pizza for dinner, and we missed the end, as he needed to get to a sleep over. 

If I had my time again, I might have watched it in a cinema with better sound and one which switched the lights off. But if I did that, the quality of the food would not have been as good, and they would not have brought my pizza to the outside of the screen where we were watching it.

I think he loved it, and while I wanted to watch it, it was more for him. I had invited my daughter, but she is to watch it on another day with a friend of hers. I will let her know my views on where to watch it as the quality of the food is not as much an issue for her as it is for me.  Mind you, my wife, who is away on a course, may want to watch it. We all were disappointed that we did not get tickets for her tour, but then so we’re most the people who wanted them. This is a film that is a consolation, but I do think she would be even better live. 

A late post about Arsenal

It appears that I have missed a post on Arsenal. Needless to say, the weekend was busy on a personal and international level. Put simply, I was convinced that Arsenal were to lose the match. I was very surprised to find out otherwise. Admittedly there were few actual highlights, other than when Arsenal almost lost the game. The great thing is that we are almost top of the league. The downside it that it is the scum that is actually top. 

Kfar Aza and the cycle of violence

I want to be able to attend a rally which wants a just peace for both sides in the Holy Land. I mean one which does not involve Israel stealing land for settlers & one where Palestinians have the same Human Rights from their governments that Israelis have from theirs.

I do not know if that is possible.  Protestors in Australia apparently have been anti-semitic.  I know that many who want a just peace, do not want anything to do with people who make such chants. 

What I do know is that the way that Hamas has killed Israeli civilians is at a level worse than that which has happened to Palestinian civilians.  Not just murdering someone and posting the murder on their own Facebook account, but the cold blooded murder of children and babies.  Many are describing this as terrorism, but it is wrong to do so.  The government of the Gaza Strip have declared war on Israel by these actions, and they have taken part in war crimes worse than what Israel has done before.  Civilians are to be killed in the Gaza Strip as Israel will retaliate, that is sadly the nature of war.  The refusal of Israel to allow the population of Gaza to flee means that a massacre may result, one that would have less casualties if people are allowed to escape.  

Yesterday morning, I heard an Israeli civilian talking in a manner that means that they have fallen for the half truths told about how Palestinians are treated.  Truth is said by many to be the first casualty of war, and that casualty was wounded decades ago.      

It will be interesting to see how outlets such as Novara media respond to the atrocities inflicted upon Israeli civilians.  I hope that even if they do not modify their message (I am sure that they will), they will not end up banned by Cruella. 

The COVID inquiry

 

Listening to this brought back memories.  The anxiety that I have about seeing patients who are ill is better, still present in that I am one of two people at work who use face masks in the building.  But I have noted that I do not enjoy my job as much as before.  I do not think that I have PTSD, but the pandemic and the stress it caused me has affected me.  It is good to know that I am not alone.

Israel and Hamas are both in the wrong

There is no justification for the attacks by Hamas into Israel, but the same applies to the murder of Labib Dumaidi, a Palestinian killed in Israeli settler attack on the West Bank town of Huwara.

I hate it how this discussion has become a binary one for many.

I disagree with how Israel has been taking more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank.  I do not like how it seems that settlers there can kill Palestinians and get away with it.

I also disagree with the way that Palestinians treat their own people.  If you are Muslim or Christian and are Israeli, you have more rights than the Palestinian authorities give Palestinians!  Women's rights in Gaza have been restricted since Hamas took control.  Being straight is essentially the only option if you are Palestinian.  

Murdering civilians because of the deaths of civilians on your own is just collective punishment and neither side should be carrying this out.

I pray that this can be resolved in a just manner, but considering the hatred on both sides, I doubt it.

An exhausting weekend

We are back from seeing Sally, Tony and their son this weekend.  It is to be his 50th this month hence a meet up.  We were to meet David as well, but he felt that he had to pull out of the meet.  We did miss him, but we still had a great time.  We arrived on Friday, I was more exhausted than normal having had my COVID and influenza vaccinations the day before.  However, I was well enough to partake in the general merriment and was back to normal for Saturday when we had a cook come round to prepare what I felt was an amazing meal.  And of course, today we left. 

We do not meet up with them often enough.  Hopefully we will be able to do so next year.

Smoking kills

As those who follow this blog know, I am not a Conservative.  I have disagreed with much which has been said in the Conservative party conference.  What I do agree with, are the plans to follow New Zealand and gradually ban smoking. There are those who argue that this is a blow against freedom of choice and that the government should not be banning things.  But the fact is that if tobacco was discovered now, it would be banned.

Of course, this does put me in a situation where I think that tobacco should be banned, but we should look at legalising and regulating the sale of drugs!

Suella Braverman and making the toxicity of the Conservatives more acceptable

 

Suella Braverman has made another speech.  The video is one that is her best/worst bits. Let me address many of her issues one by one.

Her claim to stop the boats.  This is an issue that has come into place under the Conservatives.  A decision not to stop them was made in 2021.France urged our government to open a safe and legal route for asylum seekers, they were willing to allow claims to be processed by applicants in France.  We refused.  If we had a decent system of processing applications for those in safe third nations, like we had for those refugees from Ukraine, we would not be housing loads in hotels (and other places).  This issue has been weaponised and people have a view that we are housing refugees at the expense of housing the homeless.  I do not see why this should be an either or issue.  If we can house refugees (and we should) we can house the homeless (and we should).  Processing applications quickly for those here will help, but it would be better to process them quicker for those abroad.

She then moves onto the European Convention on Human Rights.  My view on this is simple.  Do we deserve the same or less rights than those living in the EU?  If we take a holiday in Spain or France, should we have more rights there which we lose when we return home?

Next is the allegation about racism.  Yes, the Conservatives have had the first leader of a major UK political party and Prime Minister of colour.  In addition to this, they have the most ethnically representative  But look at how they categorise asylum seekers.  I would argue that Islamophobia is more of an issue with them than racism.  Sadiq Khan has faced the brunt of this, both in the current campaign and in past ones.

  

Yes, Labour cares about the planet.  Many Conservatives do as well.   It was a headline grabber to bring up grooming gangs, considering the lies she told about them before.  She then claims that PREVENT, a strategy to prevent radicalisation, should focus on extremist Muslims, again ignoring the facts on this that the Far Right is a huge threat.

She claims that politically correct critics of the Conservatives have privilege.  That is an interesting take on things considering how the Conservatives are funded! 

She brings up how patriotism is embarrassing to many on the left.  Sadly, for many it is and the right and the media that back them focus on that, not on the many on the left (including myself) who are proud of our great nation.  She is also correct about how Starmer is viewed.  Personally, I would sell the boring side of him, the man who gets the job done.  Sadly, he has allowed the Conservatives to say that he has flipped on many promises, and as those who follow my blog know, I do not like the way he threw Sadiq Khan under the ULEZ bus.

If the Conservatives do let Farage back into the party, he will help to retain the Red Wall seats that Labour need to win back.            

  

This speech shows that Labour needs to do more to fight the battles it can win, and move the battle to ground it can win on with other issues.  I do not think that Labour will have as eye catching a speech as hers next week.

House of ill (again)

The family are unwell.  Well, Leia (our dog) and I am not.  Yet.  My son has been the latest to fall to the viral illness.  My son, daughter and wife are to rest at home today and are all hoping that they should be better tomorrow.  I am hoping that I do not come down with what they have.  Yesterday, I was exhausted and did my best to recharge my batteries after vaccinating so many (I have just found out that I vaccinated the most on Saturday).  My energy levels are not back to normal, but are better than before.  I just hope that the rest of the family are feeling better soon.  We think that it is probably COVID, but they have tested negative so far, but the same happened when I was unwell when I returned from Greece.  I am negative as well, my latest test just being a few minutes ago.

On to other things, it was Leia's third birthday yesterday and she was puzzled when she was given steak as her birthday dinner.  The rest of the family have bought her toys (they do not know that I have bought her one as well).  Overall, she was spoilt for the day.  While she has to live a dog's life, I think that she has a good one, and she is as lucky to have us as owners as we are to have her.  

On a lighter note, I did get time to watch the Arsenal highlights yesterday, but it was quite one sided game, but the reason that the game was not covered in more depth was because of the loss of The Team That Rhymes With City losing to Wolves, and the loss of Liverpool to VAR along with other results being much more dramatic.  It is great that we are so high up in the table, it is annoying that the Scum are above us still.

Eddi Reader

Last night was great. My wife and I had not been to the Apex before and we loved the place. Watching music from the upper balcony was great. Both Eddi Reader and her support act were amazing. I love listening to live music, but the only downside was the ban on standing on the upper floors. We would love to listen to both in a live event again, and we may be returning to The Apex in the future as well!