The Boy and The Coconut Tree

This is my rant about the horrible events in Paris this weekend I love Paris, always have, since my first visit when I was 11 to my multiple visits since. I think I've been to Paris over 15 times including 3 times for work and it never fails to impress me and now my French has improved from the school learnt "Je voudrais un kilo de pommes" I am comfortable going there alone and not needing to speak  English.  Paris is huge but feels less crowded than London, Parisians are reputed to be rude yet I've never experienced the level of rudeness I experience in London on a daily basis.  Stereotypes abound but taken on face value Paris is wonderful and I hope to return to her soon, I've promised that my first weekend abroad in 2016 will be Paris to revisit my favourites and hopefully discover something new. Musee D'Orsay So I turn to the bullying, the terrorists, bullies, hate filled and armed.  That is what they are, yes they are angry but do I r...

According to our chancellor, the British and our politicians will have some soul searching to do following the government's defeat in  parliament last night. Soul searching to do? The British people have a soul and they expressed it yesterday via their parliamentary democracy. We are not cowards, we are not racists, we are not helping the enemy but we are tired of imperialism masked as intervention, of regime change masked as "emergencies" and we are tired of helping out the USA, being the fig leaf to its naked militarism of recent times. The soul of the UK remembers that we helped create the international laws and conventions that we were about to break. We want international interventions to be backed by the international community, most of it not some of it and we want to do the right thing for the people here and in the world's worst places and our politicians cannot accuse us of being cowards or traitors for not wanting to attack Syria. And since the...