Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning/
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning/
- popular 19th C Irish song, after which the disused pub, above, was named.
It would be going too far to suggest that the recent stabbing of two police officers in Ealing, at or near the bus stop where I catch the E2, is a nasty illustration of the decline of what was once known as the Queen of Boroughs.
Violence lurks everywhere. Drugs, unhinged minds and pure evil all play their parts. Ealing is no worse in that respect, and much safer, than many other areas of London and elsewhere.
Salut! offers festive greetings to all those readers who visit the site because they believe they will enjoy or be stimulated by what they see here, and to those who arrive by accident and find their visits worthwhile.
To the very occasional visitor whose journey is motivated by negative thoughts, I can say only that pleasing everyone all of the time is an objective that defeats most people.
Come to think of it, they can have a spot of seasonal goodwill from me, too: be merry and if you cannot be merry without getting merry, so to speak, be careful.
There is plenty of recent material to read here if your visit is the first, or the first for a while, and you are also welcome to check out what I have been up to at Salut! Sunderland and Salut! Live.
Salut! North is still there, too, but has maintained a discreet silence for some time. Those who regret the lack of activity there will easily work out what my parting image represents.
Since I am a journalist, I am the last person from whom the Business Secretary, who told "undercover" Daily Telegraph journalists he was "declaring war" on Rupert Murdoch, and Tommy Sheridan, exposed as a perjurer who lied to claim damages from the News of the World, would wish to receive sympathy.
So I won't pretend.
But both cases raise issues of their own about press behaviour.
A hypersensitive American soul who for some reason goes by the name of CD-Host sees political impulses at play in my views on US justice.
For those who missed what was a comment posted to a rather old article at Salut!, it arose from a piece I wrote on the outcome of the trial of Amanda Knox, and others, fore the murder of Meredith Kercher in Italy.
Most people will know that in the past few days, Knox has won the right to have a review of the scientific evidence on which, in part, she was convicted. If it shows her to be innocent, or for there to be reasonable doubt about her guilt, I would wish her to be freed forthwith.
But the innocence or guilt of this young woman was not the main issue I sought to address in the original posting, which can be seen by clicking here.
I wished to caution against the easy but flawed practice of reaching absolute conclusions about this or that court case based on what has been published by the media. And this was how I ended my piece:
The caution mentioned in my headline - Amanda Knox: caution and consolation - is the sort I urge people to exercise when considering the way this trial has ended. The consolation, for Amanda Knox, is that she was tried and convicted in the relatively civilised environment of a European justice system.
Such are the infantile sentencing policies adopted by American courts that supposing she had stood trial in her native country, and assuming further that the case was not in a state with capital punishment as a likely or available option, she would have faced a prison sentence measured in multiples of life expectancy.
At this late stage, CD-Host has entered the fray, commenting on what I have just reproduced:
"The last 2 paragraphs of your story are total BS. Amanda Knox would have been found not guilty in the American system. Some evidence that she was involved somehow doesn't come close to the burdon of proof required in the USA. The prosecution would have had to prove specific murderous acts. If they speculate that Amanda Knox held Ketchner down during the rape they would have had to prove that and prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. As far as the sentence. Motive would play a role here. Most likely even if the evidence had been overwhelming which is was not, with no clear motive and no evidence of premeditation she would have been convicted of manslaughter not murder. And even if she was convicted of murder she is an excellent rehabilitation candidate and would likely have done about 10 years. But yes the US does have a death penalty. We don't pretend that taking away most of persons productive life is no big deal. We have the moral courage that if we are going to end someone's life to really do it."
My reply:
"Since neither Cd Host nor I is ever likely to act as judge or juror in the case of Amanda Knox, his/her opinion is just that: an opinion (as, of coure, is mine). And if the US penal system is really as enlightened as suggested, perhaps we can look forward to a follow up posting on the merits of the three-strikes-and-you're-out policy. This should deal at least in passing with some of the lunacy the policy has inspired in specific examples."
And his/her response:
"Well sure. But I'm not likely to hold most political offices which doesn't mean I don't have political opinions. And your assault on the US system was fundamentally political not fact based. And I'm defending everything about the US system. I'm charging that the italian system failed in a specific case and that in this case the US system would have done much much better when that is total nonsense. What happened in Italy is exactly what the US system was designed to prevent. As for the 3 strikes law. That's not relevant to Amanda who would be on her 1st strike at worst. If I believed that Amanda Knox did what the Italians claimed she did I wouldn't have a problem with her dying for it. And I think if they intended to hang her, rather than just take her life away in a prison the disgusting lack of evidence would be a big deal. And the attitude wouldn't be yours of who gives a damn because she's only going to lose her 20's 30's and 40's to cover up for a lying prosecutor. As for 3 strikes specifically, I don't have a huge problem with the system used as intended, i.e. no multiple strikes without an intervening prison term. In CA they cheat voter intent. I also don't think this should apply to parole violations. But if you exclude those two cases, yeah I favor 3 strikes. In fact I favor the old 40s version where the 3rd strike was hanging. 3 major felonies are and should be a big deal."
For CD-Host's information, I have no "political" axe to grind with the US justice and penal systems. I am simply against what I feel to be wrong, whether it occurs in America or anywhere else.
I deplore sentences passed by American judges if they run into three figures. If you want someone to die in jail, just pass a life sentence without possibility of parole. I may still disagree, since in very few cases would I go that far, but I could not then label the practice "infantile", which is what it is.
And I deplore any action to dispatch to the US those individuals - the English computer hacker and the Wikileaks man, even Roman Polanski, spring to mind - who would face several times the sentences they could expect in European jurisdictions.
Cd-Host defends three-strikes-and-you're-out. Does that mean it is OK to incarcerate for ever a misfit who steals a slice of pizza, having already been convicted of two similar crimes perhaps involving whole pizzas? Since it seems to happen, give or take some of the detail, that is is a reasonable test of the policy. And is it also OK to convict people of murder, and execute them, when their level of criminal responsibility is clearly diminished by mental health factors? That also appears to happens, though like CD-Host I am going to a large extent on what I have read (that's a product of human nature, as I have readily acknowledged).
When these things happen, though, they reflect what I have called tabloid justice. And they happen here too.
The Times reports today that a man has been released from a life sentence for murdering his wife ONLY on condition that he no longer protests his innocence*.
I find this outrageous. What may well be a false declaration or acceptance of guilt should never be a test of whether a prisoner's debt to society has been paid.
I have written about other cases where judges have passed what I consider to be indefensible sentences, absurdly lenient or absurdly harsh.
Nothing political in that. Just a sense of fair play. I leave others to judge on whether I get it right some of the time, all of the time or never.
.
*A man convicted of murdering his pregnant wife has been cleared for release from a Derbyshire prison after 18 years amid reports of a gagging condition.
Eddie Gilfoyle, 49, was freed from Sudbury open prison in Derbyshire on Wednesday on the condition he did not directly or indirectly contact the media, according to The Times.
Gilfoyle's wife Paula was found hanged in the garage of their home in Upton, Merseyside, in 1992.
A source said Gilfoyle had appeared before a parole board and had been cleared for release. A statement released on Gilfoyle's behalf through a campaign group protesting his innocence suggested his legal team would be appealing against the gagging condition, which reportedly includes his family, supporters and lawyers.
It said: "We are not able to provide a response because the Parole Board has imposed a condition on Eddie's life licence that prohibits him contacting the media either directly or indirectly whether this is regarding his release or his appeal.
"This is a matter that we will be challenging through the courts but until that time we cannot comment."
What are people's recent experiences of Paris hotels?
Someone I know travelled from Abu Dhabi on business, with a reservation in or off the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and was staggered to find himself charged €560 a night even before he contemplated so much as coffee and croissant for breakfast.
Since he said it was a decent hotel but, by implication, nothing too extravagant, I assume it was not the Bristol, which is rather grand. So even allowing for what is undoubtedly a chic and expensive area, he paid through the nose.
A return to Darlington, with the pictorial evidence, is imminent, and the police stabbings will force me to take a look before long (as urged by Bill and Keith) at the terrible decline of Ealing. First, because time is short, some welcome news plus some more plugs ...
Click on any Amazon link down the sidebar columns or here if you wish to use Salut! to buy vouchers, Kindles, books mentioned here or any product they sell. There's another link at the end of this posting but clicking on the images themselves won't take you anywhere ...
Another update on books you can order via Salut! for Christmas, and this time an occasion for a minor, almost family celebration.
Back when I was a humble Telegraph blogger, Sarah Hague was one of my earliest and most regular electronic correspondents.
When the humbling turned to tumbling, as in the fall of the axe on the Telegraph Paris blogger's head, Sarah joined the droves of readers flocking in Salut!'s direction and has remained an intermittent visitor ever since.
Many of us knew her to be not only a French blogger in her own right, but on the verge of publishing real books.
I thought the time had come to congratulate her on her debut as an author, but it turns out to be a follow-up.
Let Sarah take up her own story:
"Actually I have two books out and a story builder with another on the way, all part of the educational resources I've been writing with Bongo LLP.
The story builder helps children write their own version of Slim the Ogre as a downloadable software which can then be sent to a professional printer and turned into a real book. There's a home version for individual stories and a school version where the whole class gets to write a story each and each one is published in a class book. That is available at Bongo LLP.
I've also set up Facebook pages for Slim and Floppy. Just type in the search box Slim the Ogre or Floppy the Monster and they'll come up.
Slim the Ogre (aimed at ages 9-12) is about an ogre who is a vegetarian in a world of human-meat eaters. He gets sick eating vegetables but doesn't like the taste of human meat. His doctor suggests he help organise a food festival 'Human Food or Humans for Food' where human chefs and ogre chefs compete against each other in a fierce competition to find the best food.
It's full of disgusting snot and bad behaviour, with some fantastic drawings by Russell Young, one of the UK's most promising up and coming young artists (currently studying at the RCA).
Floppy the Monster is for younger children (2-6) and tells the story of Emily and her soft toy. Floppy gets dropped in the supermarket in the first story and is found by the mean and horrid Momo Morris who doesn't want to give him back. Floppy discovers he has some magic powers which help save the day but not without coming off the worse for wear in a tugging struggle.
The illustrations by Sybil Harris capture perfectly the humour and charm of the story and ensure that both boys and girls will enjoy it."
Happy to give you the career-break Salut! plug, Sarah. I expect no less when my turn comes.
And here's a reminder of what else can be had from these parts. All dirt cheap, and no need to fear the Amazon commission is likely to make Monsieur Salut rich:
One late addition to my list: Victoria Hislop's The Return has an intriguing if implausible contemporary story wrapped around a gripping account of what the Spanish Civil War was like for ordinary people. See more here.
When this posting first appeared, I threatened to bring it to the top every so often in the hope of concentrating minds and getting at least some Salut! readers to buy their Amazon-marketed products here.
In the months that followed, I have done no such thing. But while hoping to restore normal service soon, I will settle for now for giving the item a fresh top-of-the-pile outing to cover me until my hand has recovered from a recent op.
To recap, Salut! costs more in incidental expenses to run than it has ever earned. If its author's time has any value, the profit and loss account begins to look sad indeed.
You can help Salut! try to make ends meet, at the same time as helping yourselves, by buying Amazon products via this site.
I am not the world's fastest of book-readers (and am even slower when it comes to writing them), but have a few titles from this year that I am happy to recommend:
* Philip Delves Broughton
Bel Ombra, a flawed but beautifully written and captivating account of the war years as experienced by inhabitants and occupying Nazi forces on Porquerolles, one of the lovely islands lying in the Med just off Toulon
* Katharine McMahon
The Crimson Rooms
In London in the 1920s, a nation struggles to meet the challenges of life after war, men trying to rebuild broken lives, women demanding professional equality. McMahon's novel combines astute observation of the period with a clever approach to the whodunnit.
* Michael Simkins
Detour de France: An Englishman in Search of a Continental Education: Simkins, actor and writer, broadly fails in his mission to convince us he is a bumbling know-nothing lost in a foreign country, but recounts with humour and charm his journeys around France. It is easy to skip the bits you know or suspect won't appeal, but some encounters and experiences are a delight. He's insane and wrong in his loathing for andouillettes, for example, but it still makes for an entertaining story
Any book mentioned here, and virtually any not mentioned here for that matter, plus CDs, films, vouchers, gadgetry and all the other things available from Amazon, can be bought at the usual knockdown prices at:
Before I leave St Petersburg - and I may still not be finished - here are a few random images, taken on my mobile phone, of the fascinating little Museum of Political Police.
Just three rooms, advertised very sparingly outside, but containing relics of the various phases of Russian political police activity, from the beady eye Tsars kept on troublesome citizens (the last photo is of a recreation of the office of Nicholas II's political police chief) to the post-revolutionary zealots and Cold War KGB agents.
Well I've had my say about the way lastminute.com dealt with the issue of obtainina Russian visa for a brief trip to St Petersburg. Despite my kind words about the city, I suspect Vladimir Putin's invitation to the 2018 World Cup is not yet in the post.
The following response from lastminute.com does not fully answer my complaints and criticisms, but they have been detailed already so I shall leave the last word - unless they come back with more, and not in any way to rule out further comments below - to them:
We’re sorry that you feel we didn’t adequately signpost visa requirements during the booking of your recent holiday to St Petersburg, however we do ask our customers at two stages during the booking process to confirm that they are fully aware of any visa, health or other country specific information required to go to the holiday destination of their choice. We also ask our customers to confirm that they have read our Package Holiday Booking Conditions and General Terms and Conditions where visa requirements are highlighted before progressing with their booking.
We also provide a direct link to the Foreign Office Information page for those customers who are unsure of the entry requirements to the holiday destination of their choice.
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