Turn The Page

The New Republic reiterates a current American concern that 2008 was a lucky year for Obama, rather than a good one. The Telegraph mirrors popular public desire for Brown to comment on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, further articulating the Prime Minister’s silence. Meanwhile at The Telegraph, Boris Johnson talks lower exam requirements, and Janet Daley writes about the elections in Afganistan.

Back across the Atlantic, leftovers from yesterday include The Washington Post’s questionning of “Is he Weak?” Finally Politico has quotes from McCain saying Ted Kennedy’s absense from the house makes a “huge, huge difference” to the Health care debates that have been dominating this week’s press cycle.

Feel very tired, tried going to bed aroud one last night and just couldn’t do it. Must have been up for at leasst an hour and a half rolling aroud, listening to Bon Iver.

Today’s Observer leaks details on a conversation six weeks ago between brown and Gaddafi concerning the release of the Lockerbie bomber. The Guardian is fastly becoming the most critical newspaper of Brown’s premiership, and this example is simply by posting news, let alone debating opinion.

As previously mentioned, I think the release is a disgrace, if it turns out there has been a month and a half long plan in place involving Brown, then this will become even worse. At the moment Scottish Parliament is far enough detached from UK Government as a whole that I don’t feel responsible, but Brown’s involvement encompasses Britain. The U.S. opinion has fallen dramatically toward Scotland, and now this could extend to England as well. No longer is Brown simply putting our country in jeopardy with itself, but also worsening foreign relations further.

Personally I think William Hague will make a fantastic Foreign Secretary, and am looking forward to a government that doesn’t cause permanent embrassment for the British people.

As it truly feels like our summer is coming to an end; with friends heading back to Universities, summer jobs ending, and workloads getting heavier, a quick head turns to the holidays of political figures. Politico criticises Obama’s choice of holiday resort in Martha’s Vinyard; at a  reported $50,000 a week. In British politics last year I remember the papers condemning British politicans who took holidays abroad, or took holidays deemed too extravagent. Now Obama is being dealt the same treatment.

Yes the resort is out of the average American’s price range, but so what, he is the President; he deserves a holiday. These people run countries, and a few weeks can be spent anywhere they damn-well please for all I care, everyone else goes to the best they are willing to spend, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t too.

Photography: Beehives.

I adore coffee, and I have loved coffee for much longer than I would even drink a cup of tea. Coffee stimulates, coffee concetrates, and coffee surpresses lethargy. Coffee is great to wake up to, its great to revise to, and its great to write to. Yet on a Sunday afternoon, with the news-sites open, and a laptop poised for leisure, I feel like the anti-christ with a cup of coffee by my bedside.

This summer I have had a temporary job as a ‘General Assistant’, amongst other jobs serving tea and coffee was one of those duties. Throughout the furore of complaints about the sub-standard coffee, the noise from teamakers always came out on top; all in desperate need for a ‘good cup of tea’.

The good cup of tea is about as steeped in British tradition as one gets; Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ would be considered entertaining material, if it wasn’t for the fact that he is amogst millions that take tea making, very seriously.

I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial.

He writes before his page-long essay on the ins and outs on a perfect Orwellian cup of tea. Indeed I agree with him on a lot of points, but where I fall down, and this is a point that my summer of tea making has also reiterated, is my desire to put sugar in tea.

Lastly, tea—unless one is drinking it in the Russian style—should be
drunk WITHOUT SUGAR. I know very well that I am in a minority here.
But still, how can you call yourself a true tea-lover ifyou destroy
the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally
reasonable to put in pepper or salt.

Orwell would be proud of today’s tea climate, unlike his post-war Evening Standard audience, contemporary Britain seems devoted to the lack of sugar.

Indeed my addition of sugar is not something I do to retract from the taste of tea, moreso it combines my love for sugar and all things sweet. My coffee has two and a half sugars, my Earl Gray only has two. Yet re-reading Orwell’s essay now is making me recosider the merits of trying something new. I know very well that I am now in the minority, and so perhaps I will take a leaf from his essay, and try it for a fortnight without sugar.

My journey with tea has only been existent for a couple of years, I am by no means a tea-snob (for how can I be when I take sugar with my tea?), nor am I an expert, but I’m excited about where my future with tea goes. The subculture and even culture of tea and tea-drinkers is suprisingly encompassing; everyone has an opinion, everyone knows an anecdote, everyone has their own special way. I’m looking forward to exploring more, and in the mean time I’m going to have my first cup of Earl Grey; milk, no sugar.

George Orwell’s ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ (orig. 1946 - Evening Standard)

THE SICKENING hero’s welcome accorded by Libya on Thursday to the mass murderer convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing is an indictment both of the government in Tripoli that choreographed his homecoming and of the Scottish justice minister who ordered his release on “compassionate” grounds.

The Scottish minister, Kenny MacAskill, said he released Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, because he is suffering from prostate cancer and is expected to die within three months. His decision to free Mr. Megrahi after he had served just eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence is a travesty of justice. It suggests indifference for the 270 innocent victims who died at Lockerbie and contempt for their anguished relatives.

For a blood-soaked killer like Mr. Megrahi, it was quite enough compassion that he was permitted visits from his wife and family in the Scottish prison where he was serving his sentence. To bestow freedom and the comforts of home on a man serving a life sentence for one of the most horrific acts of terrorism in modern times is a breathtaking abuse of power. Having shown not the slightest trace of mercy for his innocent victims, there was only one appropriate way for Mr. Megrahi to have returned home: in a box.

To recap: Mr. Megrahi was found guilty by a panel of three Scottish judges of planting the bomb that exploded Dec. 21, 1988, aboard Pan Am Flight 103, en route from London to New York. The resulting fireball transformed Lockerbie, a small Scottish village, into a ghastly tableau of carnage. The 189 Americans who died included many children and youths, among them several dozen students from Syracuse University. In addition to the passengers and crew, 11 people were killed on the ground.

Mr. Megrahi’s joyful airport homecoming, which featured flag-waving crowds bused to the airport by the authorities, is proof that the government of Moammar Gaddafi feels not the slightest trace of remorse for the slaughter at Lockerbie, despite having admitted its complicity in the bombing and paid $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims’ families. It makes a mockery of Washington’s decision to elevate Libya’s status from international pariah to the community of civilized nations. If the Libyan regime does not heed the U.S. demand that Mr. Megrahi remain under house arrest until his death, the Obama administration should consider reinstituting sanctions.

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082103326.html

There are few issues that really anger me. Yes there are things that come from politics, or governments, or monarchies, that are disgraceful, embarassing, and upsetting, but rarely do they incite enough emotion to actually anger. For something to actually anger me, it usually must have a personal connection; a relationship must be built whereby I feel personally angered by an action.

The release of the Lockerbie bomber does not hold any personal connection to me, but boy has it angered me. Here we have a committed mass-murderer, and despite the appeals from mindless libertarians, he was tried and found guilty, despite other claims. If we are to start doubting his guilt, then the same must be said of all criminals who plead innocence but were convicted otherwise. We have released back into the throngs of applause and celebration, a murderer who had no concern for humanity, no cocern for empathy, and certainly, no concern for compassion. He should never have been given any such release; the dowside of his cancer is that he will never serve the full length of his term; death is the easy escape for a person I dare not even grace with the titling of ‘person’, for without humanity he certainly is no huma.