Gaza book!

Obviously I'm supposed to be slogging away on my Leila Khaled book at this moment, but everyone deserves a little displacement activity and I'm overexcited about Sharyn and my book being on Amazon now. That kind of puts it out there in the real world – it's been getting more and more real, with finalised cover designs (including an afterward from Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and blurb quotes from Jeremy Hardy: ‘An honest, forthright account full of compassion and insight. It plunges the reader into Gaza.’) and page proofs. But that's behind doors; Amazon is out in the real world. Woohoo.
This also seems like an appropriate time to flag up that people in the UK can get the book for £10 direct from Sharyn or me – that's £2.99 discount on cover price and includes P&P. From Sharyn, see http://talestotell.wordpress.com. I think she's taking cheques only at the moment. From me, people with Paypal accounts can transfer the tenner to Paypal account ID mail [at] sarahirving.net (that needs typing out as a proper email address but I'm not writing it out as one for anti-spam purposes). Don't forget to include a postal address in the Paypal message field. Cheques, made payable to Sarah Irving, should be sent to my Openspace address, which is Unit 1, 41 Old Birley St, Manchester M15 5RF – and again, don't forget a postal address. I know from my days at Ethical Consumer how many people manage to send cheques without adding information on what they're for or who they're from... and please note that Sharyn and I won't actually be getting our stocks of the book until early January, but if anyone wants them as Christmas (and other seasonal celebration) presents we can do vouchers to give to people.

Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust - bottling it under right-wing pressure

Last week, representatives of Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, an internationally respected human rights organisation, were scheduled to speak at MRI. As a result of threats by the Zionist Central Council, MRI bosses cancelled the meeting at just a few hours' notice and disseminated false information, ie that the meeting had been cancelled rather than just moved across the road. This was an invitation-only meeting for health professionals on a topic of concern to them as health workers. Below is the story, from organiser Asad Khan, of what happened and what action people can take to congratulate the Pennine Acute Trust which refused to bow to Zionist bullying, to highlight the pathetic cowardice of Central Manchester Trust and to condemn the racist lies of the ZCC.

PHYSICIANS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS IN MANCHESTER: AFTER THE EVENT, WE NEED YOUR HELP

Dear all
A big thank you to all who attended, publicized or supported Miri Weingarten's day (The Right to Health in a Conflict Zone: a Rendezvous with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel) in the Greater Manchester area.
I think you need to know the full story of how it nearly didn't take place.
The MRI lecture theatre was booked on 14 August and the Grand Round at the Education Centre at Bury on 14 Sep- both by local consultants and well in advance of the date of 22 Oct.
Everything seemed to be going well with the organization of the day, and we were getting a phenomenal level of interest. Nobody at either institution expressed any doubts/disapproval.
However on the evening of 20 Oct I found this on the website of the Zionist Central Council of Greater Manchester:

START
Urgent Call To Stop Anti-Israel Meeting at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Fairfield Hospital
The anti Israel Group, Pysicians for Human Rights - Israel are arranging a talk called 'The Right to Health in a Conflict Zone' at 1830 on 22 October 2009 at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) and at Fairfield General Hospital, Bury at 1230.

An example of their anti Israel sentiment can be found on the website below
( http://www.facebook.com/l/fccbc;www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/07/israel-gaza-human-rights-report)
and an example of one of their sponsors is as below:
http://www.facebook.com/l/fccbc;pimapalestine.com/site/Cats/view_main/80

If you are upset that an Institution like MRI or Fairfield Hospital could allow such an organistion to speak on its premises.
Contact (this is followed by the contact details for both hospitals' press offices)
and let them know in your own words that their reputation will be tarnished allowing such a group to speak.
END

Needless to say, I was worried sick. First thing on the 21st, we made some enquiries which revealed that someone had already contacted the Press Office of Pennine Acute Hospitals (of which Fairfield is a part) to complain and demand that this 'anti-Semitic' talk be cancelled. We managed to meet the Chief Executive of Pennine that day and he was appalled at this interference in the hospital's affairs by an external agent. He reassured us that he would investigate and within hours he gave orders that the talk was to go ahead.

That day, enquiries to the MRI revealed that they had received a few complaints but the Education Centre were not prepared to bow to pressure and the talk was going ahead.

On the 22nd itself, the talk at Fairfield was a grand success with the highest Grand Round attendance for a long time (approximately 50). However at 1430- 4 hours before Miri's MRI talk- I learned that due to continued threats and complaints, the management of Central Manchester University Hospitals (of which MRI is a part) had cancelled the event. The exact content of the complaints is not known to us but what I have heard is that the hospital cancelled to 'avoid trouble'. With hardly any time to spare, it looked like there would be no lecture but luckily we managed to find an alternative venue across the road from the hospital. We stationed people outside the MRI postgrad to direct them to the new venue and also put up a notice. In the end, we had a brilliant meeting lasting two hours attended by approximately 100 people- mostly healthcare professionals. However I have come to know that some people- especially within MRI- did not make it to the new venue as the Trust intranet had put up a notice about the cancellation. Also, there are reports that MRI security personnel were asking guests to leave the hospital premises as the event was no longer taking place. Interestingly, by 9 pm (when the talk finished) the call to block the meeting had disappeared from the ZCC website.

At neither of the meetings did anyone object to- or even disagree with- what was said. Miri is wonderfully charismatic, with a real passion for justice, and an excellent speaker. I have already received enquiries from people wanting to host her and even some who wish to go to work in Israel/Palestine.

The whole idea that Physicians for Human Rights-Israel is anti-Semitic or even anti-Israel is ludicrous given that the organization is overwhelmingly comprised of Jewish Israelis of whom Miri is one. The talk itself was about the violation of the right to access healthcare, and was entirely appropriate for an audience of healthcare professionals. The orchestrated bullying tactics of the Zionist Central Council are well-known in the Northwest and violate the fundamental right of freedom of expression. If they disagreed with what was going to be said, they were welcome to come and express an alternative viewpoint. However, their objective has always been solely to silence any criticism of Israel. In this case, they failed.

PIMA is a registered charity which takes healthcare professionals and equipment to the Palestinian territories. It is not a political organization. And to use a brief newspaper report as 'proof' of an organization's 'anti-Israel sentiment' is ridiculous.

As for Central Manchester University Hospitals- it is regrettable that they panicked in the face of pressure and an event that had been booked for two months was cancelled with a few hours' notice. No attempt was made to determine if indeed there was anything objectionable in the subject matter of the talk and the Trust took the easiest option of simply stopping the talk. Had we not been fortunate enough to find the alternative venue, over 100 people- some of whom had travelled from Liverpool and Bradford- would have been deprived of the opportunity to hear a speaker from an internationally respected human rights organization.

Using the above points, I am asking you to do as many of the following things as you can-

1. Congratulate Pennine Acute Hospitals: If you were at the Fairfield talk or study/work within Pennine Acute, please convey your appreciation to Mr John Saxby, Chief Executive for his principled stance in favour of freedom of expression and institutional autonomy in the face of external pressure.

You can email him via his executive assistant: Janette.Melia [at] pat.nhs.uk
Or phone him on 0161 604 5462
Or write to him at
Mr John Saxby, Chief Executive, The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, North Manchester General Hospital, Manchester M8 5RB

2. Make your disgust known to the Zionist Central Council
Let them know that their allegations that the talk was anti-Semitic or that PHR-I is an anti-Israel group are baseless (for the reasons outlined above). Also tell them that the talk was a grand success and therefore they failed in their motive. Their attempts to silence any meaningful criticism of Israel will only be met with further determination on our part to organize and support such events. Inform them that we will be working to expose their primitive attempts at censorship by spreading the word in the wider media.
ZCC tel no 0161 740 8835 email zccoffice@zcc.org.uk

3. Complain to Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust
Convey your disappointment at the fact that they took the easy option and bowed to external pressure. Say that it was extremely impolite to cancel at a few hours' notice a meeting with an internationally respected human rights organization booked months in advance. This was a medical meeting by invitation only in a hospital and was no business of the general public. Seek reassurance that in the future, they will seek to establish the facts first before caving in to pressure. They also ignored the fact that among the organizers were Medsin and Medact, which are nationally respected networks of medical students and doctors concerned about global health inequalities.

Email the Chief Executive via his PA at Michelle.Green@cmft.nhs.uk
Or telephone her (via switchboard unfortunately) 0161 2761234
Or write a formal complaint to
The Chief Executive, Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Headquarters, Cobbett House, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9WL

PLEASE REMEMBER- be brief, stick to the facts, use polite language and stay calm. Write/phone as individuals giving your name and designation (rather than as an organization). However, be firm and make it clear that you expect a response.

4. Disseminate this in the wider media
Email the local/national press. And if any of you are Jewish and object to the tactics of the ZCC, please consider writing to papers such as the Jewish Chronicle to express your disapproval.
Please do not ignore this email. It is too easy to shrug our shoulders and say 'the Zionist lobby are so powerful'. For they are not- if we get our act together.
Best wishes
Asad Khan

Jan Moir's career to die of perfectly natural causes

Just a quick little post to share an amusing bit of biteback to the vile Jan Moir column on the death of Stephen Gately, from Newsarse, which is funny without falling into the otherwise marvellous Onion's trap of going on FAR too long.
And here is a less frothy but more pertinent piece on why Moir might have been made by her bosses at the Hate Mail to do some grovelling... the power of advertising.

Signs o' the times

It was very odd the other morning to witness the Mail and the Express using the word Bigot in big headline letters to describe the execrable Nick Griffin of the BNP in the wake of his BBC TV debut. Mainly because the gap between the views on immigrants and women regularly espoused by said papers is usually pretty damn close to those of Mr Griffin. But I supposed they prefer their reactionary racism to be spouted by people at least one remove from out-and-out fascism, so they need to put some clear blue water between him and themselves. Weird to watch though.
On the subject of clear blue water - and, indeed, borderline fascism - a lurking cold, brain fatigue (the Leila Khaled book is due in in a week) and the NHS's ongoing slowness in offering any solution to my knackered hip have driven me once again into the arms of NCIS. A truly appalling show, but my goodness Mark Harmon is some quality eye candy. Hence the gratuitous pic. Just look at those lovely twinkly eyes.
Brian Candeland of Manchester Green Party has some good points to make about the decline of the local press here, as well as also pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because it's a less tangible Thing, the internet doesn't have a whopping environmental impact. To add to his info, I'll point out that the average server has similar climate change emissions to that bugbear of environmentalists, the SUV.
I suspect that Candeland and other Manchester G/greens will have their work cut out on coming months opposing Tesco's plans for one of its biggest grounds in the UK, being plotted in collusion with the corporate whores at Lancashire Cricket Club. There's a new campaign website here and I suspect that if Trafford council are stupid enough to let the proposals through the planning stage, this will turn into a big campaign - as one south Manchester environmentalist, a veteran of the Newbury and Manchester Second Runway direct action campaigns and now aspiring to a quiet life and parenthood (if those two are remotely compatible), said a while back, "Oh God, I hope it doesn't go through, or I'll have to go and sit on diggers and down tunnels again, won't I?" Well, there was an opening demo last week, and probably loads more to come. I'll be with you, guys, just as soon as I get that new hip...

Manchester food

There are some brilliant local food projects happening in Manchester at the moment. One of them is Abundance, which, inspired by a similar initiative in Sheffield, picks surplus fruit and veg and - in a proper example of joined-up thinking - distributes it to places like homeless hostels, projects supporting destitute asylum seekers and inner-city programmes supporting people with mental health needs. That is, the kind of people who are often excluded from getting good-quality, beautifully fresh local fruit.
Today, though, I'm excited about the news that the lovely Dig, who deliver my Tuesday morning veg box (today featuring a really spectacular bright purple cauliflower) are branching out from delivery into growing their own supplies. They're taking on some of the land at Dunham Massey, where a lot of the veg they deliver comes from already, and experimenting with new polytunnels to get a wider variety of veg over longer seasons. And being thoughtful kinds of people, they're also busy having a think about how environmentally focused food projects like this will get their produce into urban centres in the most sustainable way.

Plums image pinched from Abundance Manchester.

Blog Action Day on climate change

Well, today's Blog Action Day on climate change, so I have a specific incentive to blog and to focus on climate change, which isn't unusual for me (see tags) but isn't the main thing I waffle on about.
There are various things I could have picked for this - including the head-exploding fatuousness of Radio4's perky little headline this morning that 'in ten years the Arctic Ocean might be open to shipping' - presented as an interesting and potentially useful bit of information rather than something REALLY FUCKING TERRIFYING. But there's the halfwittedness of BBC climate coverage for you.
But instead I'm going to harp on a bit about the secondhand bookstall outside Manchester Metropolitan University. This may not seem an obvious climate change issue, but of course given that - despite campaigning by Greenpeace on the subject - many books are still printed on unsustainable virgin-timber paper, contributing to climate-damaging deforestation, secondhand books are definitely an eco option.
But MMU's management are - after the best part of twenty years offering cheap, quality books to both students and the local community - trying to drive the bookstall out of its place at the front of the MMU student union. There's a strong student and community campaign and some unflattering coverage, though, and other organisations in the area have made it clear that they see the bookstall as an asset not a threat, so hopefully MMU's attempt to clean them off its steps will crash and burn.
This is an interesting choice of timing for MMU, since it should be busy trying to enhance its green and community credentials, given that it's attempting to stress the potential values of its massive new planned development in Hulme, on some of the few remaining green spaces within any kind of reach of Manchester city centre and a valuable biodiversity site for a whole range of interesting plants, as well as for goldfinches in the summer and migrant species like redwings and fieldfares in the autumn and winter. I'm not sure what's gotten into MMU at the moment - it also seems to be trying to shaft a few other community initiatives attached to the university, which must needs remain nameless, but I fear it's caught a bad attack of corporateness from its neighbours at Manchester University, and that bodes ill for academic freedom, community relations and Manchester generally.

Tories in Manchester...

On tonight's Channel 4 news coverage of the closing day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, I just saw Alan Duncan fulminating against a tweeted question about Dave C's homophobic friends in Europe.
Duncan's concentration on the fact that he, as a gay man, doesn't feel threatened was unfortunately typical of Tories – in the upper classes, you've always been able to get away with behaviour outside of bourgeois respectability, because the highest strata of society is always cushioned by its money and privilege, even if it does things that get less affluent people – at best – ostracised and - at worst - kicked to death.
The question had been put online by that nasty little Manc Labour hack Kevin Peel, who was probably thrilled to get a pasting from a Tory on primetime TV. On this occasion, though, I have to acknowledge that he has a point, given the extremely unpleasant nature of the some of the right-wing, racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynistic etc etc etc characters that Cameron's MEPs are hobnobbing with in the European Parliament.
I have to confess that, currently being a cripple with little incentive to head into the city centre this week, Conservative Conference has largely passed me by. I did actually want to go to one of the fringe meetings (quite an embarrassing confession, that) – one on future Tory Middle East policy, run by the Conservative Middle East Council and CAABU, the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
Unfortunately, it was behind the security cordon and therefore I would have had to fork out an eye-popping two hundred quid to get there. Which given that the Tories are trying to insist on their accessibility and relevance seems a little steep. It's also disappointing on CAABU's part. I used to be a member, and I always got the impression that they're rather desperate for members, and their research and other work is quite interesting. But my joining a few years back seemed to coincide with them giving up any attempt to run events outside London, and I am increasingly sick of the capital's assumption that it's the centre of the bloody universe and we should all be heading down there on a regular basis if we want to have any decent cultural, intellectual or political experiences. It is, therefore, a pity that their first non-London event in quite some years was in such a patrician and pricey environment.
So I just got to indulge in a little cheap schadenfreude last Friday at the 'we've still got a few places left...' round-robin from CMEC, apparently trying to drum up a little trade for their event-beyond-the-barricades.
So, as the Tories clear out, Manchester gets ready for a visit from a really, really nasty bunch of dirty little fascists.

More Moss Side wildlife

(No Mr Grayling that's not a euphemism, you tosser).
Not content with delivering up a lovely bat flickering around 'midst the streetlights and terraces, Moss Side's quota of interesting wildlife has gone up yet again. Hulme, with its threatened (thanks to MMU) green spaces may get goldfinches and redwings and all sorts of interesting bird life, but Moss Side is usually a bit of a desert on that front. Crows, magpies (hissssss...), scraggy pigeons, black-headed gulls, starlings and the occasional satanic little cute fluffy bluetit shredding my mint and baby lettuces.
But not once but twice in the last week, a Greater Spotted Woodpecker - a quite substantial and very handsome black and white bird with red highlights - has turned up to have a very comprehensive-looking working through of ever possible insect-bearing nook and cranny of the tree 3 yards down. Miraculously, none of the vast tribe of local cats has got it yet. That makes me happy (in a somewhat shite week).

Moss Side +/-

A bat just flew past my front window. In Moss Side. How cool is that? Never seen one round here before (except in Alexandra Park where there are big trees and the derelict Victorian mansion to roost in, and the lake to attract insects). Fingers crossed it's planning to be a local bat.
Of course, it might get frightened off by Tory descriptions of the neighbourhood. If it's stupid enough to believe anything a white upperclass Tory male has to say about anything other than moats and duckponds.
Less positive encounter today: the nasty little man at the bus stop this morning, complaining about how the Council was trying to stop the English Defence League - yet another bunch of horrible fascists trying to appropriate other people's identities as justification for their own revolting views/personal inadequacies - from marching in Manchester on October 10th. Apparently, according to my vile neighbour, it's England V Russia that day so no club matches to keep nice patriotic footie fans from turning out for a fight with the police. Great. A counter-demo on crutches, that'll be fun.

noborders event, Saturday 12th

"no borders activists have been active during the summer in some of the European flashpoints of migrant struggles. This Saturday, we invite you to hear back from Calais/France and Lesbos/Greece.
There will be film clips and feedback from the continuous no borders presence in Calais, where the threat of creating a 'migrant-free zone' is ongoing; and from the international no border camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Saturday 12 September, 7pm in Jabez Clegg pub (the back room) on Dover Street
by Manchester Uni.
All welcome!"

www.manchesternoborders.org.uk

Exploitpatriots.com

Scanning through a list of posts from a writers' group on the LinkedIn networking site (probably the only 'social networking' site I've ever found professionally useful, although SheWrites looks like it may be competition), I noticed the following post, and feeling particularly masochistic followed it up:

Patriotic Supporters
Read wonderful comments made by users of HirePatriots.com.
By Mark Baird

(LinkedIn is, of course, a US site and therefore most of the posts are American-focused, in case you were wondering which 'patriots' we're talking about here.)
HirePatriots.com is a website which uses social networking technology to find work for US military veterans, which is a pretty worthwhile effort. I fully acknowledge that there are many US squaddies who are racist scumbags who do appalling things in Iraq, Afghanistan etc - but there are also a lot of young men with feck all else in the way of job prospects who end up in hideous situations for which they have no political, emotional or other preparation. What is a bayonet? A weapon with a worker at both ends. Etc.
But what's interesting about this predictably jingoistic website is the bizarre perspective on who it's peddling these demobbed squaddies to, and what for. The site - especially the element of it being plugged by Mr Baird as worthy of people going to read, ie the effusive comments of HirePatriots.com hirers - show just how that wonderful Free Market that sundry Yank squaddies get sent off to fight and die for, also seems to entail paying them absolutely squat once they get home - and bragging about it.
Take the comments by Ron & Dee N, who've "had two Camp Pendleton marines working for us at our home for the last 5 weeks."

"If we could have had employees like these two men at our different businesses, we would have been thrilled. Our point is: We ARE THRILLED we these two service men. They show up on time. They speak perfect English. They are hard-working, they are CLEAN and they clean up after each work period. They are happy and appreciative of the opportunity! They gladly work for us for $8.00 an hour- doing everything. Weeding, planting, painting, staining, electrical work etc. They don’t blast rap music and they DON’T WASTE TIME. They are here to do a job-and that is what they do. They arrive on time- they do their job- and they leave. We don’t worry about things going missing- or being broken."

Anyone notice that rate of pay? Yep, $8 per hour. I checked that on the Financial Times currency converter today, and that works out at about £4.70 an hour - well below UK minimum wage. Last time I checked the US cost of living was not significantly below that of the UK, and no-one outside the British Tory Party thinks that the minimum wage actually constitutes a living wage.
HirePatriots.com says that its primary role is "honoring our veterans for their valiant service." Maybe there is some massive UK-US cultural gap I'm missing here. Or maybe not.

My First Book Cover and Openspace launches its documentary films

Nearly a month since I posted anything on here, so this is just a quick one to keep my hand in until I come back up for air after finishing an edition of Enterprising, the social enterprise magazine for Greater Manchester and a product report on Toys for the Christmas edition Ethical Consumer magazine.
The main thing I've been up to over recent months is helping Sharyn to edit her amazing blogs from Gaza into a book for Pluto Press. We now have a draft of the cover, which I got very excited about even if it feels very wrong that I should be deriving excitement from a book about something so grim. But I guess that's the bind of writing about this kind of thing... anyway, this image is a draft of the cover; the real one will have my name in smaller letters (at my request).
Secondly I need to give a little plug to the co-operative documentation film launch at my home-from-home at Openspace this evening. The press release is below, including links to Damien Mahoney's films...

Openspace launches Co-operative documentation film series

This evening, Wednesday 9th September, Openspace workspace co-operative, based in Hulme, Manchester, will launch the series of five short films by Damien Mahoney which document the founding and development of this successful social enterprise.

The films will be showcased at an event at Openspace this evening, to an invited audience of social and creative entrepreneurs and co-operators. Featuring in-depth interviews with founding and early members of the co-operative including eco web specialists Finn Lewis and Luke Geaney, social entrepreneur Jonathan Atkinson, gender consultant Hannah Berry and cartoonist Paul 'Polyp' Fitzgerald, the films will be introduced by Openspace's newest member, illustrator Ben Tallon.

Openspace's model, which provides affordable co-operatively managed workspace for ethical and creative freelancers and small businesses and freelancers, has bucked recessionary trends and attracted a full complement of tenants. A grant from the Co-operative Fund is due to be invested in refurbishment work on Openspace's offices, which will include a major extension.

Notes:

Last-minute requests to attend the launch should be made to Jonathan Atkinson at jonathan [at] lowwintersun.info or to the Openspace office on 0161 209 9930. Space is limited so please do get in touch before coming. Directions can be found at: http://www.openspace.coop/location

Openspace is a co-operative co-working project, offering cheap, flexible office space in a creative, friendly atmosphere. “We are all freelancers and small businesses who were sick of working out of our bedrooms and spare rooms. We created an office where we could work, meet clients and be around other nice people. Because we run the space ourselves we get cheap rent and to be our own landlord. We work for good people doing creative community or environmental work.” Openspace is also part of the second-tier Work For Change co-operative, http://www.work.change.coop/. More information on Openspace can be found at http://www.openspace.coop/

The full range of Damien Mahoney's videos documenting the vision and processes behind the establishment of Openspace can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/user/OpenSpaceCoop

Openspace Co-operative members currently include:
Ben and Ink
Ecobee and Ecohost Co-ops
Entreprenurses
The GAP Unit
lowwintersun
Polyp
Sarah Irving
Streamengine

Non-co-operative-member tenants include:
Columbidae Conservation
Helen Clifton – freelance journalist
Pow Wow Eco Arts
Proper Job Theatre Company

Politics of food on a Tuesday morning

Tuesday is the morning when I often get woken up at about 6.30 by the sound of the delightful Alan from Dig dropping off the weekly organic vegbox on our doorstep. Since I moved out veg delivery over from another Manchester box scheme, which shall remain nameless, this has been a genuinely exciting event more – although maybe that just says I need to get out more.
In this week's box, we had:
- courgettes from Glebelands, a market garden in Sale which is, I believe, the closest producer of commercial veg to central Manchester;
- romanesco (those mad trippy-looking green cauliflowers), new potatoes (lovely purple ones), tomatoes, broccoli and green chilis from Dunham Massey (in Cheshire, not far from Altrincham);
- French beans with an 'L' mark which means that come from within 50 miles of Manchester;
- apples from Herefordshire;
- some amazing rich purpley-red carrots from Lincolnshire
- beautiful black plums from France
- and, the environmental baddy – but shipped not flown – bananas from Ecador.

Before it just looks like I'm going on some kind of self-indulgent Nigella-style riff about the glories of food, I want to stress that while obviously the object of this lovely box of food is keeping OA and me fed, there are also some major politics going on here.
Firstly, of course, there is the ethical quagmire that is food sourcing, and the need to reduce our carbon footprints versus the necessity of supporting majority world farmers, especially those producing under fair trade conditions.
There is also the issue of the shameful amount of food we waste in this country – an estimated 1/3 of that which we buy – and the amount of land, water, energy, agrochemicals, transport and packaging that is taken up before we even get our hands on that food to leave it in the fridge too long and end up binning it. I find these figures completely shocking because I was brought up with the influence of my grandfather, who had a terrifically poor upbringing in York before WWI and was so obsessive about not wasting food that he once downed a cup of Dettol mix my mum had left on the counter after cleaning off my grazed knee – he'd thought it was milk. But luckily for me, my mum taught me to cook – and I enjoyed and was fascinated by it – so I am confident and happy with food in a way that people who've spent their lives surrounded by ready meals just can't be. And that says a lot about how our society should be addressing cooking and our general relationship with food in school and in supporting families.
The other set of politics that came into my food decision making and led me to Dig are also – quelle surprise – those of the Middle East. I'd already become slightly sceptical of my previous vegbox suppliers when they switched their tofu brand from Clear Spring, a fairly small ethical company, at least last time I checked their credentials, to Cauldron, which is owned by Premier, one of the biggest processed food companies in the UK.
But the final straw was when a former colleague from Ethical Consumer mentioned in passing that her vegbox from the same company had included Tivall sausages. She'd done exactly what I always did, which was just sent an email in requesting 'veggie sausages' without specifying a brand, but assuming it would be the Taifan or organic Cauldron ones usually supplied. But, tracing back from the apologetic email I got from the company when I wrote to tell them they were losing a regular customer, they seem to have a 'special dietary request' from another customer for which they'd sourced Tivall sausages, and then without checking the company's ethics decided for ease to switch more supply over to these.
My objections to Tivall are two-fold. The brand is owned by Osem Industries, an Israeli company which is majority owned by Nestle – the subject of the longest-running consumer boycott in the world over its deeply unethical practices in marketing breast milk substitutes, as well as a despoiler of ecosystems through its bottled water activities in Brazil.
Osem is also a company group which includes a firm in Bet Shean, a town in the Galilee, just north of the string of illegal Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley which grow large quantities of fresh produce for export to Europe, and which use Palestinian labour working under appalling conditions and with risible pay. This company was set up – according to Osem's website – to market the produce from these settlements.
So not only was I fairly disgusted with my original vegbox scheme for selling this stuff, but it also led me to question my trust in the 'UK-only' vegbox which I got from them, which I knew from the fine print was sometimes, in the toughest seasons, topped up with veg from outside the UK – but where?
So I did a bit of a ring-round some other schemes, and found Dig, who very specifically said they know their stuff on the ethics of Israeli produce and don't buy it, and who have good policies on where else they'll source their produce from.
And they also do amazing Cheshire cheese which is so concentrated it's almost like Parmesan – from Leagram's, the nearest organic cheese producer to Manchester, based in Chipping, near Preston. Yummm...

Mule in Guardian plug shocker

Nice one to the Mule newspaper - not just for its shiny new website, but particularly to Andys Bowman and Lockhart for being listed on the Guardian's Liberty Central list of recommended reading on civil libs and human rights, for their article on the lack of transparency in local government.

How the hell did I get here?

I spent a very strange Monday evening this week burning up my phone bill on a call to a Syrian mobile phone number.
On the other end of the line with Khalil Maqdesi, head of the English language section of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
I was interviewing Mr Maqdesi for a number of purposes. Partly for the biography of aeroplane hijacker Leila Khaled which I'm writing for Pluto Press and which – heh heh heh – is due finished in about 8 weeks. And partly for some prospective articles for Electronic Intifada on the Palestinian Left and where exactly it's at nowadays...
Once upon a time, it wasn't Hamas that made people in the West think of Palestinian terrorism, it was the PFLP and Fatah. Israel and the USA – as with the mujahideen in Afghanistan – tolerated, even encouraged, the growth of the Islamic movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad because they thought they would break the strength of the Left, which in the Cold War days they feared immeasurably more.
The PFLP is still firmly on the EU's list of Banned Terror Organisations. But its strength in this post-Soviet era is massively diminished, and like left-wing parties and organisations the world over it's looking for ways to be seen as relevant, especially by younger generations. I'm sure there are people who will see my biog of Leila as part of that attempt. I think she's really interesting, so I'll risk it.
I have to admit, despite a lurking fear of the potential repercussions (beyond the financial) of spending an hour and a quarter chatting away to a PFLP official, to having rather enjoyed it. There's something about a voice which drops in 'yanni' when it can't find a word, and punctuates statements with the sound of a cigarette being lit and drawn heavily on, that takes me right back to the West Bank, and I love and miss it. He was a quick, knowledgeable interviewee (it's his job, after all) and he had a cracking sense of humour. The political content of the interview I'll save for the articles and book, at this point I'm just musing on it.
I recently finished re-reading for the umpteenth time one of my Sara Paretsky VI Warshawski novels. It would be wrong to call them candyfloss for the brain – more the sort of chocolate you tell yourself is Good Quality and Probably Has Antioxidants In It – detective novels with some decent feminist leftie politics to make the car chases seem less dumb.
In this one (Fire Sale, also with lots of political undercurrents about the exploitation of unauthorised immigrants in the USA) the feisty female journo, veteran of warzones, is a gorgeous Prada-wearing shagmonster who nearly gets herself killed (again) in the passionate search for The Story and the thrills.
Now I'm a female journo (of sorts) and I've done a certain amount of warzoning, but let's face it – I'd look ever so silly in Prada, am tediously monogamous, have very little in the way of physical courage and have never properly had my moral courage tested, that I can really think of. While I can muster a certain amount of enthusiasm for fine wine or good whisky I'm generally much happier with A Nice Cup of Tea. As the lovely David Mitchell said on the radio the other week, I may have been born with tweed on the inside... I went to uni to study archaeology, for heaven's sake, and for reasons more to do with labelling mediaeval potsherds and correct use of a theodolite than Indiana Jones. I suppose I have a vague attachment to the journalistic pursuit of The Truth but I think most of the time I'm just kind of curious about stuff...
Which, to bring me back to my original subject, makes me wonder how the hell I ended up happily chatting to PFLP guy, wondering what little notes might be accumulating on some governmental computer somewhere, on Monday evening?

Observer Woman

Makes me spit...
This is actually the title of a very funny blog which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have been updated since 2007. It catalogues some of the particularly nauseating drivel perpetrated by that smug, vacuous waste of ink, the Observer Woman supplement.
Even my mum, who can still tolerate the Guardian, thinks Observer Woman is terrible.
And then today (hence a blog post about blogs which haven't been live for 2 years), OA sent me a link to another highly entertaining piece taking apart a particularly dreadful sounding Observer Woman article, in which some especially self-satisfied Londonista hack manages, with no apparent irony, to include herself in an article about Beautiful People. Hannah Betts. You can't fucking believe some people.
My personal brush with Observer Woman was pitching an interview piece about a fairly major woman writer to them. I was expecting to get knocked back, but this was in the days when I thought I wanted to be published in a broadsheet and hadn't realised that they pay late, pay badly, and despite the kudos are just as much tomorrow's litter tray liner as any other publication. What I wasn't expecting was that their response to the idea - the interviewee in question wasn't just a fairly significant player in late 60s/early 70s feminism and a reasonbly big name in various literary genres, but also had interesting things to say about issues like Jewish perspective on Palestine and Israel - was 'we've got a piece on feminism coming out in a couple of months.'
So, the position of the women's supplement for what purports to be Britain's main centre-left Sunday paper is that 'feminism' - defined as anyone vaguely feminist, or just not about clothes, makeup, cooking or, of course 'beautiful people' - is something to be covered, oooh, about twice a year. I knew there was a reason I can't even bear to read the Observer, let alone hand over cold hard cash for it.

Domestic green-ness

OK, this is probably all terribly middle-class and boring, but in the last few days I've had an interesting (to me, anyway) insight into barriers to taking steps towards more sustainable homes.
There is currently a disturbing amount of water coming through the (probably shoddily built, ageing) flat roof of our bathroom. The bitumen roofing is on its last legs, probably not helped by being pecked at by the evil bloody magpies which make me want to own an air rifle. And to be honest, the dripping has been getting steadily worse for quite some time, which just goes to show that Denial is not a good home management technique.
But anyway, having gritted my teeth and got some quotes, OA and I decided that we'd have to fork out to have the roof repaired, obviously. But finding that it was going to cost a lot less than we thought, we figured we'd also be good little green pioneers in the non-recycling zone that is Moss Side (though I bet our street's collective carbon footprint is about the same as one three-flying-holidays-a-year-recycling-every-week-Chorltonite), and have a green roof installed at the same time as the repairs.
It all looked like a fairly easy option - it would all be done in one go, the price would be about doubled but still come in at less than I feared the repairs alone would, and I did some copywriting for Natural Economy Northwest last year on the benefits of green roofs in terms of rainwater runoff, insulation and especially biodiversity, so it was something I was really keen on.
Then I happened to do a little extra websurfing, just to check some details, and realised that although having it put in place will mean very little for the overall height of our extension and will have lots of benefits, I would have to:
a) fork out a good 10-15% extra on the price of the ENTIRE project (not just the green roof bit) in building notice or building regulations applications, and
b) apply for planning permission - and when I saw that horror I didn't even get as far as checking out what the fee structure might be.
So, there you go, Manchester City Council and your Green Action Plan process - a nice concrete action you can take to encourage a measure that financially is within the reach of a fair number of householders (hell, I discovered the other day that I'm in the bottom 10% earning bracket nationwide) and isn't just good for the environment but quite simply makes places look nicer. Building regs and planning waivers. Not rocket science.

Reporting 'reality'

I have an interesting contrast in my head at the moment, between the attitudes of two women, both brave in their own way, to what kind of information it's important to report about world events.
On the one hand, we have the Kate Adie autobiography I'm reading. I have a certain amount of respect for Adie, for some of the places she's been risks she's taken and professional strides she's made in a pretty male-dominated environment. She's got some fairly odd views, particularly on feminism, but it's an account of an incident during her time reporting for the BBC in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s that interests me right now:

“I went into the hall and looked through into the front room. A small boy, seven or eight perhaps, was standing by the fireplace. 'Me Daddy,' he said to me immediately, 'me Daddy won't get up.' Under the Christmas tree was a man's body, awkwardly splayed.
...
You wonder what good reporting does, being at these events, a spectator, unable even to extend a reassuring arm because you feel such as intruder.
You go back to the office, with some pictures of a terraced house with a tiny hole in the front-room window made by a motorbike passenger's bullet, and type out a little list of facts: the only Protestant family who'd chosen to remain, the wife out working her nurse's night-shift, the name of the dead man.
You omit the Christmas tree and the little boy's words.”
[The Kindness of Strangers, Kate Adie, Hodder Headline 2002]

In complete contrast to this, at the moment I have the privilege of helping to edit my friend Sharyn's book for Pluto press, based on her writings from Gaza during the Israeli airstrikes and invasion of December and January just past and the months afterwards.
Working on her stuff is on one level a bloody nightmare, because it's so powerfully written and so desperately upsetting and trying to edit on-screen when your eyes keep tearing up is a right pain, and on another uplifting because of the strength and uprightness of spirit that just shines through from the people she writes about.
It rather makes me feel sorry for Kate Adie; she firmly asserts a good old-fashioned solid positivist idea of journalism, that there is A Truth somewhere which just presenting The Facts will somehow reveal. And as the incident with the little boy in Belfast seems to me to show, that reduces the news she devotedly puts (put) out on the BBC to list of numbers and the doings of the People Who Matter.
Adie also, at another point in the book, debates the extent to which journalists can and should allow what they feel about a situation to come through into what they report, and claims that when a journalist - at least a TV one - allows some sentiment to show, it's because they've been specifically given 'permission' to do so, because it suits the situation. The increasing number of such moments is, you feel, not something she sees as a positive development.
Obviously, if you are reporting news then there has to be some effort at fairness - at representing different sides of a story or versions of an event. But I've given up believing that it is possible for anyone to report anything truly 'neutrally.' The moment you decide what aspects of a story are or are not worth reporting, or whose quotes are or are not more reliable, you've taken a position. I'm not taking a completely relativist position, that anyone's views carry equal weight or are equally reliable, there will always be those with more knowledge or experience of a given situation, but once you start choosing between those who have any decently reportable level of information or opinion, you've taken a stance.
And I can't help thinking that 99% of the supposedly important news from those People Who Matter actually matters rather little – that another defunct peace plan or another empty set of climate change commitments that everyone involved knows will never by implemented or acted on – is actually pretty meaningless against something which actually impacts profoundly on the lives of a group of people – not just in terms of the depth of their immediate grief, but also of the decisions they will make in the future.
Those agreements and treaties made by governments and so on may provide the framework within which other events may occur, but if it wasn't for the pain and rage, or the dignity and mercy and compassion, of the ordinary people under the boot-heels of the Matterers then those agreement and treaties would mean nothing. You can't understand the pieces of paper without the blood and shrapnel and tears, and you can't implement it, whatever it says, without fear or hate or loyalty or belief that makes people kill and be killed. In the end, a string of mouldering official documents in some archive (as reported by Kate Adie) will mean very little if someone (like Sharyn) hasn't recorded the grief and anger of the little boy – in Belfast, or in Gaza City – that will drive the next turn of the wheel.

Egypt and Israel: hand in hand to crush the Palestinians

There is an enduring myth amongst many Palestine solidarity campaigners that there is a single anti-Palestinian force, Israel, and that despite the odd blip, Arab/Muslim states are basically on-side. My own experiences of the Jordanian and - most recently and frustratingly - Syrian authorities have taught me that this is far from true, but I've tended to put it by on the basis that I can understand why they might be suspicious of some random white woman bimbling round the Middle East in an unaffiliated kind of way.
But the following terrifically powerful and horrible account of the brutality of the Egyptian forces at the Rafah crossing out of Gaza is a graphic illustration of how completely Egypt is happy to collaborate with Israel to crush the people of Gaza. The FreeGaza Movement is appealing for people to contact their own governments and that of Egypt to demand that Jenny and Natalie of FreeGaza/ISM and all Palestinians wanting to cross through Rafah are allowed to do so.

"WHO WILL HOLD US ACCOUNTABLE?"
Natalie Abou Shakra, The Electronic Intifada, 15 July 2009

I will never forget the image of the elderly woman whose son was dying in a hospital in Egypt. She only wanted to be with him. Crying, her hand touching the glass window of the office of the Egyptian intelligence services, she pleaded, "Please, please. I beg you, show mercy, let me go in." Another woman sat by the State Security office, looking up at an officer blocking her path. "You promised to let me in," she said with her soft, tired and drained voice. "Please let me in" she repeated calmly with her tired voice, then she looked at me with wide, tearful, sad eyes.

I came to Gaza a week before Israel's winter invasion began. After seven months, I spent two days at Rafah crossing with the Egyptian authorities refusing to allow me to return to Lebanon, despite having all the necessary coordination documents, approval and permission from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Egyptian authorities made people wait in the arrival hall at the Rafah crossing, sitting on filthy floors where names for either the entry to Egypt or to return to Gaza were called by the voices of aggressive Egyptian police officers, or state security or intelligence personnel. After hours of waiting, two officers headed towards us: "you are being returned to Gaza." "No!" we would reply, "We have coordination documents!" But, the officers and intelligence personnel grew angrier and threw the papers in our faces humiliatingly: "This means nothing! Move on! Hurry!"

After being asked numerous times "what were you doing in Palestine for seven months," I answered the intelligence officer simply, "what you didn't do." Another officer asked, "How did you come to Gaza?" "By the boats" I replied, referring to the Free Gaza Movement ship that brought me. "So, now you know why you ... can't leave," he answered back.

It was a simple message to the Free Gaza Movement and anyone hoping to break the siege: they and the Palestinians will be punished. Yet, it must be done, something must be said, this injustice cannot be allowed to stand in silence, whatever the price. And there is a huge price to pay -- that of not being able to go back.

As I was explaining the situation to someone on the phone, a sick, elderly Palestinian man fell to the ground unconscious. I approached as a state security officer began dragging the elderly man across the floor. I was intercepted by Said, the intelligence officer, who pointed his finger at me and said in a cruel and wicked tone, "I will make sure you will never get out of here." I countered, quoting the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, "all that you have done to our people is registered in notebooks." He replied in a vindictive tone, "Really? Who will hold us accountable?"

I watched as my International Solidarity Movement (ISM) colleague Jenny was dragged across the floor by security officers screaming, "Get off of me! Get off of me!" I watched her disappear behind a wall as I clung to a window and the officers came for me. I looked at each of the men in the eye, knowing I had to humanize them to humanize myself. I asked them, "You have a daughter my age? I am 21." There was no reply. I tried again, "Would you accept your daughter being treated this way? I am your daughter, and your daughter and your daughter." I was pulled away by my wrists and dragged along the dirty floor, and the man dragging me said, "You are lucky my shoe is not in your mouth."

At Rafah, I saw a voiceless Palestinian man in a wheelchair being pulled and shaken. I watched women begging on their knees, children and the elderly sitting on dirty floors. And all us were dragged by the Egyptian security officers and thrown out.

At Rafah I also saw laughter and love. A little girl on a bus asked her mother, "Can we gather a shekel from each to give to the Egyptians to pass through?" I watched as people shared bread and water, share laughter as well as pain and tears. Yes, we laughed. Laughter and love under the bombs, to laugh and love under racism, degradation, humiliation, by monsters clad in the uniforms of a brotherly Arab state.

Coming from Lebanon to Gaza initially seemed surreal. Larnaca, Cyprus was the checkpoint, and the sea was the road to Palestine. In the beginning, breaking the siege was all that came to mind. It was almost three years to the medieval, hermetic siege that the apartheid state of Israel had imposed on Gaza's million and a half residents. All I thought of then was: Israel, the occupation, the monster. But, the monster, as I later became aware, was not one but many, who were all devouring the souls of Palestinians in Gaza. The official Arab regimes were sharing the crimes that Israel was committing. These regimes, especially Egypt, are not complicit -- their participation is direct, clear, observable, noticeable, felt and lived directly, and therefore has transcended complicity into direct participation.

In Gaza, I have lived the "quintessential Palestinian experience." I have lived a nakba, a man-made disaster, a disease of hatred, racism to the bone. In Gaza, I have
lived under occupation, a brutal, savage blockade. The epitome of the Palestinian experience comes in what historian Rashid Khalidi says is lived "at a border, an airport, a checkpoint ... at any one of those modern barriers where identities are checked and verified." It is what the eminent Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani
described in Men in the Sun. It is Laila El-Haddad's description of how she and her children lived suspended, humiliated, and stranded in a Cairo airport waiting and wanting to return home to Gaza.

It is the experience of every Palestinian. I became a Gazan -- I am now a refugee, a prisoner. I am now, as El-Haddad explained, holding a passport "that allows no passage. A passport that denied me entry ... to mark me, brand me, so that I am easily identified and cast aside without questions; it is convenient for those giving the orders. It is a system for the collective identification of those with no identification."

I came to stand with the suffering, besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. I came to learn from their resistance, in all its forms, and to fight hand in hand with local activists in acts of non-violent civil resistance. After all, I came from a supposed "resisting Lebanon" and therefore, resistance was no stranger to me. I came to Gaza to confront the occupation and know it through a window other than that of the biased petrol-dollar media of our times. And I did.

I learned that the Arab regimes were Israel's best friends in the region, not out of love of the colonizer, but out of the intense hatred they hold for the Palestinians and their own people. Oh, Palestinians, you are on your own! Where has the cause of Jerusalem gone? It was certainly not in the eyes, hearts and minds of those intelligence agents and members of the security services based at the Rafah crossing, one of Gaza prison's gates. All I could find there was hate.

The psychological and physical torture Palestinians are subjected to at the Rafah crossing is a clear message from the Egyptian authorities. It is intended to frighten and punish the Palestinian people and all those who stand in solidarity with them. The Egyptian authorities at the crossing violated our basic human rights, a daily reality for Palestinians. The degrading and the humiliating manner in which we were treated also violated our rights as women.

During my time in Gaza, as in July 2006 in Lebanon, I endured a hellish assault and massacre designed to break a people but which once again only revealed the criminality of the apartheid regime and the complicity of the international community. Gaza is our South Africa, our Guernica. The Palestinian people exceed their unworthy leadership, and if there is a victory it is that of the people who endured, who drank tea above the rubble of their destroyed homes, who still stand up high, steadfastly against their uprooted olive trees, against occupation, betrayal, complicit silence, and neglect.

Natalie Abou Shakra is an activist from Lebanon and is affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement and Free Gaza Movement. She defied Israeli orders for Lebanese citizens not to go to Gaza and was able to get in with the Free Gaza movement's SS Dignity on the 20 December, 2008.

Copenhagen wheeze

Sometimes, PR folks just really, really fail to Get It. A prime example of this turned up in my email inbox today: a press release from the Danish tourist board promoting the country as a ecotourism destination during the Copenhagen climate change summit this autumn. As a sop to the environmental interests they're trying to tap into, the release's writers did suggest that:

"Those inspired by the Danes’ low-impact lifestyle can follow the ‘flight-free’ route by visiting the country by sea. DFDS Seaways (www.dfds.co.uk) offers a regular service of overnight departures between Harwich and Esbjerg, with prices starting from £222, based on two people and one car travelling one way with a sea view cabin."

Getting back to the Real World, however, they then followed it with:

"Alternatively, fly Norwegian airlines (www.norwegian.com), Ryanair (www.ryanair.com), bmi (www.flybmi.com or SAS Scandinavian Airlines (www.flysas.co.uk) to various Danish gateways from several UK airports and opt to offset your flight’s carbon emissions..."

Humans. What can you do.