Back soon
Thank you. The counter may have started late, but the number it displays is gratifyingly high. I feared at first that I'd have to stay up all night hitting the refresh button to get the total into three figures.
But recent events have made it impossible for Salut! to get properly into its stride. There have been days when access to the internet has been difficult, and there have been - still are - lots of things concerning my future to sort out.
I do have plans for building on what you have seen here so far. There is scope to do so much more and I intend to explore it.
For now, please accept my sincere appreciation of your support and feedback. Word is spreading, I am pleased to report, and it would be excellent if some new faces turned up in Comments.
The next few days will find me out of France, and my visits to the blog are likely to be patchy. I do not know how often I will be able to check in to see what is happening here.
But check in I shall, since I have decided that in the great traditions of Another Place, I should show my readers a degree of trust and let them - you - decide what to talk about until I get back.
Feel free to range over previous posts - I promise to keep a look-out for new comments.
By Colin Randall @ Friday, October 27, 2006 ¦
35 Comments:
Colin , I was thinking about you when I read this post at Shane Richmond's blog,
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/shanerichmond/oct06/rickwaghorn.htm
All about journalist's going it alone. Worth a read and some thought.
Sorry Bill Taylor, not a dogfight just a request for information. I hope we can rely on you to keep us up to date with the trial of Nathalie Getliffe which I believe starts in November. I suspect CR may not do so.
SH
Isn't that the point, Bill? That no one in BC, or Canada generally, cares? Maybe pregnant women are thrown into jail so often that it doesn't make anyone stop and think about perfectly feasible options for granting bail. I would be no less horrified if British judges were acting in an equally appalling fashion.
No one will persuade me to take Nathalie Gettliffe's side on the substantive issues, which have yet to be canvassed in the proper place. That will be the time to form a fair view of the facts.
But neither should anyone assume that I will rely solely on Canadian reports when commenting on the trial once it starts.
Bugger me - I literally only just found this while needing a reference from La Petite Anglaise.
Colin's erudition speaks voumes for the clarity that can come from good use of the English language.
For goodness sake Colin - blog on your passion. Like you i'm an ex-hack (you are ex- I assume) and yet I derive a reasonable but most important enjoyable living from this medium.
And I'd been off the scene for two years before wading back in. It's been worth the ride.
Thank you Bill Taylor for your update on Nathalie Getliffe. There was no mention of the case in the British press, there seems to be no interest in the French press now and I still wonder why CR chose to highlight it. Unfortunately many women give birth while in prison.
SH
Since the Duchess of Cornwall recently visited the war graves of her father's comrades in France, she is obviously constantly remembering fallen soldiers. Is it really a crime not to wear a poppy more than a week before Remembrance Day? It seems to be the fashion now to wear a poppy even before the month of November starts. Is this a question of "I remember better than you?" How pathetic!
SH
What's with Anne Gilbert's fixation with Colin Berry and his barmy hippo blog? Have you been over there and looked at it? People are staying away in droves. The guy's a nutcase with verbal diarrhoea.
No poppies here in France. Except in the fields, of course. Well, not at this time of year, but you know what I mean.
Dear Anonymous
Maybe you find my hippo companion a pest. But at least he doesn't troll his own Comments section, trying to massage his site statistics.
Do grow up, Bill Taylor. Any previous resolutions on my part to avoid this site become null and void if I am attacked by name, especially when it's my real name, and I'm being attacked by someone who hides behind the name "Anonymous".
"Anonymous" wouldn't be you, by any chance, I suppose ?
Don't change the subject. Yes, R/O has a real viewpoint, alright, which he repeats, ad nauseam, month after month. He's a one issue man. Unlike Bill Taylor, who's a no-issue man.
And now he's away on his hols, poor Bill Taylor is all on his own, with nothing of his own to contribute, except vacuous ramblings, always taking his cue from others. So what does he do, prompted by our Anonymous interloper: he tries to resurrect old battles, by joining in, jackal-like, on Anonymous's attack on someone who's left this blog for fresh pastures.
It would be funny, if it weren't so pathetic...
PS Your denials are worthless. In your James Hamilton guise, you continued to insist you had arrived in my home town, in a yellow Fiat, Rome registration plates, seeking confrontation, and causing considerable worry to my family at the time. Don't you think this has gone far enough ? Do the sensible thing - let it drop. Leave my name out of your witterings on this site.
Bill Taylor
I am back on this site for one reason, and one reason only: it's because my name, or blog, has been mentioned three times, no less. What's the matter ? Are you all missing me, and afraid to admit it ?
If you think I have spare time, then I suggest you try setting up your own blog, with one or two posts a day, and tell me if you have free time. All this is a needless distraction.
Of course comments on my blog are welcome, but comments that are life-enhancing, not the snide kind of backbiting we are accustomed to seeing here. I have topics galore to post to my blog that will keep it going for months to come. You may judge its success by the number of comments receeived. I do not. It is not an MSM blog. Neither is it Salut! I am not in competition with Colin Randall, and certainly not competing for his clientele.
I'd agree with you entirely, Anne Gilbert - if I had the faintest idea what you were going on about. Soon after your first appearance on Colin Randall's blog for the Telly, I reprimanded you (school-masterly expression) for having an "opaque prose style". I now withdraw that charge. It's your verse that I now find opaque.
Dear Anne Gilbert, have you ever done any genealogy ? To judge from your "verse" you must be a direct descendant of William McGonagal. To paraphrase another Scot
"O wad some power the giftie gie ye
Tae see yersel' as ithers see ye"
I would like to mention a more serious topic. While the French authorities have withdrawn the security clearance of 70 workers at Roissy airport because of concerns over their links to Islamic extremists, London has a Mayor who seems happy to allow a Muslim with a conviction for terrorist offences to work on Tube maintenance. I admit it does depend on which day of the week you ask the Mayor about it. This worries me.
There's too many anonymouses on this blog. I'm not sure now which one I am.
You surely don't expect me to put all my personal affairs into the public domain, do you, Bill Taylor ? If you do, then kindly tell us your own first, to show us what a free, open spirit you are.
While you are about it, kindly list the services that you think I have obtained, free of charge, at the expense of the French taxpayer.
I don't promise to answer every point, for the reasons mentioned. In fact, I think your silly juvenile questions are
on a par with your claims to be on my doorstep, seeking confrontation. In other words, personally intrusive, and overstepping the mark of what one expects from participating in a blog. I say it again, Bill Taylor. GROW UP!
I know your game - you of the Toronto Star are trying to create a story - one that will put blogging fisticuffs into the public domain. So I repeat the question: tell me precisely why you think I'm not entitled to live in France, and I will shoot you down in flames.
Just remember one thing, and I say this coming as I do from a family whose most eminent members were journalists. Stories, or the pursuit thereof, have a habit of rebounding on those who try to manufacture them.
Sorry Anonymous
I forgot to add my initials - that's the effect Ken Livingstone has on me.
SH
Ahhhhhhh!
soul
Restructuring comments would make way for new faces?
What about a vote?
What's the question?
Here's a question.
Should any of the following leave "post a comment" ?
Anne Gilbert
Bill Taylor
Colin Berry
Richard of Orleans.
Feel free to give your vote or opinion.
I first became aware of this Ken Livingstone incident through the BBC News at 10 on the 1st November. It turned out that this son of Abu Hamza had been hired by a subcontractor to do maintenance work on the Tube system at night. I'm not sure whether he lied on his application form or whether the subcontractors did not check carefully. Initially Livingstone was supportive of this man, suggesting that his court case in Yemen was a bit dubious. Then he seemed to change his mind, before reverting to his original opinion that this character was a welcome addition to the Tube work force. Livingstone obviously preferred to keep his PC credentials untarnished rather than worry about the safety of people in London. You might be interested to read Mary Ann Sieghart's article in The Times today where she refers to this.
I did read somewhere that a group of French Concorde enthusiasts have ensured that their plane has not been stripped and that its systems are still functioning. They are keen to see it fly again.
SH
From what I have heard, there are no technical reasons why the Concorde at Paris couldn't fly again. However the DGAC (the aviation authority in France) will almost certainly come up with thousands of reasons why it shouldn't. Am living in hope though!
Yes, all the British ones are kept outside and have been since retirement.
I heard a nasty rumour that when Richard Branson originally floated the idea of taking on some Concordes. BA approached Airbus (who provided technical support for them) and told them that if they continued to support Concorde at Virgin, then they (BA) would take a dim view and would take this into consideration when ordering any new aircraft.
Of course, I am sure there's not an ounce of truth in it!
Isn't it Branston's Pickle?
oh this blog is so fickle
from hippos to great pickle
it all gets debated
and many get berated
it sure gives me a good tickle
I have restricted myself to keeping an eye on things from afar but should be back and blogging again by Monday pm. Plenty to talk about, whether or not I rise to Bill T's bait and point out for the umpteenth time what I do object to about Nathalie Gettliffe's treatment (denial of bail as punishment) and what I do not. Alert readers will remember that I have already referred to Scott Grant's long interview with the Vancouver Sun (but please point me again to where it deals with the bail issue). I also tried repeatedly to speak to Mr Grant, without success, before writing a word about the case.
I'm not sure NG would make good presidential material. They are supposed to at least pretend not to be manipulative lying perpetrators of crime.
I have tried to follow the NG case over the past weeks and still can't make head nor tail of it, mainly as I only seem to see articles or TV interviews defending Nathalie and virtually no comment from her ex-husband. I see she has put in a plea of guilty which should hasten her release from prison. I am just wondering if there would have been so much media coverage if she hadn't been pregnant?
I suppose that media coverage in such cases is hopefully good for one's cause - what I didn't like was the fact that her family got in a lot of publicity for her running for the presidential elections (???) and would have liked to have heard more from Nathalie and her family of the plight of many, many divorced couples of either mixed religion or nationality and the custodial problems it poses. I hope that instead of trying to run for president she uses this unfortunate incident to help those who find themselves in the same cicumstances.
Despite whether for or against NG, the losers in the battle are still the children who are being pushed from pillar to post - I wonder if anyone has asked them who they want to live with? At their age they are capable of making a decision, which may change in a couple of years' time, but would at least offer them security and stability that they obviously cannot have at the present time.
Having been away, I don't seem to have missed much - Bill and Colin bickering and something about hippos which means perhaps I shall have to trawl around for hours to try and see how that all started...is it worth it? Anne seems to fully back into poetry mode!
Talking of poppies, I remember as a child the gorgeous great big wax poppies that one could buy to put on the car radiator. But they too have disappeared along with the Concorde (the most beautiful plane ever designed), Routemaster buses, hunting to hounds and virtually anything else one cares to mention that was so very English - even tea seems to be replaced by those great big cups of awful frothy coffee stuff or enormous plastic mugs of Starbuck's brown liquid that for some reason one drinks through a tiny hole in the plastic top. England seems now to be a 24/7, 7/7, 365/365 or whatever you like, society of shop 'til you drop.
Sorry, a grumpy old woman talking!
Hi Louise. Nice to hear you're still around. We've all been missing you.
Here's a tip to save time. Google the followng: "colin berry" hippo
It takes you to my Blogger profile, which has a link to my sprogblog.
See Bill, even that "childish" hippo symbol can have its uses.
PS Clicking on hippo himself is even quicker
Don't stop now Anne! We want to see how it ends.
Hello, Colin. I read about this blog in "Private Eye". I was appalled to read that the Telegraph had been daft enough to "let you go" - more the fools them - so good luck with this and all best wishes. I will keep reading you.
I hope Welshcakes Limoncello, now making a new life in Sicily according to her own blog, feels as supportive when she reads my views about driving on the island
Four score and six
Well, how's that for tricks ?
But our labour's not done
Let's go for the ton !
(in the style of Anne Gilbert)
Bill Taylor. And anyone else who admires Anne Gilbert's verse. You might be interested in this article from the Scotland section of the Sunday Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2764-2438461,00.html
SH
Colin is right about the Canadian press not covering the Scott Grant- Nathalie Gettliffe case fairly and adequately...
Bill Taylor, you want controversy, here it is, Mate:
Go to our blogs,www.canadachildrenfirst.com and www.nathaliegettliffeandhaguehostages.blogspot.com to read the dirt on this case which is continuously growing - especially regarding the involvement of a convicted priest who assaulted two children in Saskatchewan in 1992 - the same Father Lucien Larre "employed" by the father, Scott Grant, to "coax" the children out of France by telling them that their mother would be set free.
In October, we wrote to the Archdiocese in Vancouver requesting information about Larre...we were informed, in writing, that although the Archdiocese was fully aware of Lucien Larre's criminal background which involved 2 convictions, one for slapping a child and another for choking a child, plus 9 other charges, including one for sexual assault, the Church felt it was alright to allow this priest to continue practising as a psychologist with children!
Then, amazingly enough, and Colin will LOVE this - on October 19, some days after we penned the letter, the CBC, Radio One, suddenly runs a program on the Radio to say what a remarkable man he is!
Back in 1992/1003, another CBC(Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) programme, the Fifth Estate, an excellent investigative journalist documentary, ran a show on Lucien Larre, including an interview which showed his arrogance, and interviews with adult survivors of his abuse who detailed how he had traumatised them.
The archives of this program have been pulled from the Fifth Estate website - but we have a copy which we are setting up for broadcast...so watch the blogs...
Anyway, the problem relating to the young children, Max and Jo, is that Larre has consistant, uninterrupted access to the children because he has won over the father's trust.
Scary shit this.
Stay tuned and bloody well done, Colin - you give honor to investigate journalism.
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