Recent content by gashonthenail

During the 1947-48 civil war in the Mandate of Palestine: German and Bosnian WWII veterans, including a handful of former intelligence, Wehrmacht, and Waffen SS officers, were among the volunteers fighting for the Palestinian cause.[42] Veterans of WWII Axis militaries were represented in the...

Sure enough the doorbell rings. Trick or treat?

Mentioning the UN vote was not an attempt to 'appeal' to anything. I mentioned it merely as a fact of history. We can deny facts, of course, but we can never escape the consequences of denying facts. Mark Twain put it very well - one day of all us, whether we like it or not, will dine on a...

Agreed. No doubt you support teaching that about Islam too? Good luck doing that in any modern, Western 'secular' society.

You are an intelligent man, Aubs, but on the subject of Israel you seem to delight in 'black and white thinking' - whereas, like most subjects involving conflict between human beings, there is a sea of grey. And this simplistic narrative - Israel = agressor and oppressor, Palestine = victim and...

Is that a serious question? A group that crosses the border into Israel, carries out a pogrom against Jews, including gunning down people at a music festival, and then bleats about civilian deaths back in Gaza when Israel, quite naturally, retaliates. A group that uses the civilian population of...

That is just not the case. Are you seriously suggesting that this is the first time we have seen such brutal, indiscriminate, systematic violence etc. (to use your words) carried out by a state actor in real time? You have described our television screens for the past few decades. And to suggest...

You left out Hamas.

Very different in many ways - and very similar in others. Marc has a great line about as a teenager learning more from listening to David Bowie than he ever learned in school - which I'm sure is a line Moz would agree with. I'm a big fan of the 3 Soft Cell albums released in the 80s. Marc's solo...

What's your favourite shop? Morrissey: Rymans, the stationers. To me it's like a sweet shop. I go in there for hours, smelling the envelopes. As I grew up I used to love stationery and pens and booklets and binders. I can get incredibly erotic about blotting paper. So for me, going into Rymans...

Lovely words from Marc: Dana sings the life she lives and what a life indeed. The last of the great ladies of Bohemia, exotic troubadour and muse of Legends. An open mystery. A treasure waiting to be rediscovered, and famous for being unknown. The secret is out.

No, was merely suggesting that such views are 'mainstream' and not 'controversial', given their widespread prevalence across Europe. With regard as to whether they are 'left' or 'right' leaning, I think most people would agree that the traditional left and right spectrum is not helpful in many...

No, I think it's this chap: She told BANG Showbiz Managing Director Rick Sky during an outrageous two-hour video interview at London's Sanctum Hotel in Soho...

The other interesting aspect of all this, of course, is - who gets to decide who is 'right wing', or 'left wing', or 'far right', or 'far left'? The media? The government? Malarkey? Interesting too that 'the left' has now realised, even if Malarkey is still catching up, that these right and left...