Albion’s Alchemist

Sois Musulman et tais tois! You cheese eating surrender Muslims…

Ooh, controversial!

In may of nineteen sixty eight the students of France, almost as one man, went on the warpath. No two people will ever agree on what exactly they were angry about, generally things like the Vietnam War and anti-fascist ideologies are cited and then the respectable historians move on to something more fun. So far as we are concerned the causes don’t really matter.

The recent riots in France are generally blamed on the poor conditions in which immigrant Muslims live. Commentators cite low income, unemployment and racism.
The Poosh makes a good point when he says that these privations are suffered by people who are neither immigrants, nor Muslims, yet they do not riot. In fact one imagines they are rioting, but they did not start the riot, and this is the good point.

France’s reaction to the riots has been execrable. In ’68 de Gaul reacted by laying down the law. He set up a military counter-riot office, and he authorised the police to use all necessary force. The riots nearly cost him his office (in fact they may have, but not immediately), but he crushed them swiftly enough. He prevented the sort of death and carnage which would have grown even greater had he pussy-footed around like the current administration.

Where are the water cannons? Where are the legions of armoured riot police? Where is the flash and staccato rhythm of sub-machineguns felling the unassimilated Mohammedan horde? I’ll tell you. Nowhere. Y’see Chirac has looked at the past, oh yes, and seen that de Gaul’s more, er, robust, response to the rioters made him unpopular with the left wing. Now the left wing are a powerful bunch in France today, and Chirac will not risk his les than sound position by doing his job.

In short, Chirac would rather people die than loose his job, and the left wing (not to mention the larger part of the global media) would rather see people die than see poor immigrant brown people made to abbey the law.

Actually, that’s not true, because of course the media, and the left wing, and most everyone else will not see anybody die. That don’t mean there will not be any death, just that the media will turn a blind eye, and no-one else will look.

This is the essence of the matter, regardless of the privations one might suffer, nothing grants the right to riot, to steal, to burn or to kill. If a man riots, then the Alchemist for one will look upon his plight with less, rather than more sympathy.

Today’s post is sparked by an email from Alchemy correspondent in Germany, Fräulein Merci H. She believes she has formulated a solution for France’s current problems.

At it’s most basic level it does involve foreign soldiers marching down the Champs Elise. Fräulein H forces the Alchemist to admit that this has done France a power of good in the past, and that said soldiers would be far more orderly than the current rif raf who are rioting nightly. Now typically the flaw in plans such as this is Albion – give us a few years and we can generally drive the invaders out of France. Therefore Fräulein H has charged me with rallying my countrymen to her side, and the glorious cause of sorting Marcel out once and for all. We’ll cross the channel at the start of December, the French will surrender after a fortnight and we’ll meet the Germans in Paris for Christmas. We could play football - that was fun last time.

Now, in case you cannot tell, Fräulein H and I are joking. We both of us think it is a very fine thing that we can make jokes about this sort of thing.

It is November, the month when we ought remember that millions have died for us, for our right to make cheep little jokes. I’d like to offer some thoughts not about those who have given their lives for us – I’m far to poor a wordsmith to do the least of them justice – so instead I will talk about the organization which represents them and their dependants.

The Royal British Legion is quite simply, one of the most magnificent institutions which has appeared in our age of the world.

Many years ago I decided that as far as charity goes, one can either give a little to everyone, or give all one can spare to one charity. I choose the latter, and I chose the Royal British Legion. Animals and children have many charities but what the devil have animals and children done for The Alchemist? I might donate to the Earth-lobby, but they are a pack of soap-dogging weirdoes and the Earth is big and old enough to look after herself. After decades of pouring money into Africa where has that got us, I will not put my donations into the African black hole. As for the homeless, well I have been known to buy lunch for one particular vagrant, but she is a friend so it is not proper charity.

No, as far as I am concerned the only people worthy of my money are those who have done something for me.
The Royal British Legion represent those people. People who have had the courage to make MY safety their personal responsibility. People who have DIED for me. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I know there are uncountable millions who have spent the only life they will ever have, just to secure a little peace and safety for your author.

When you see a politician wearing a poppy, he is only wearing it for appearance sake, after ordering British and Commonwealth soldiers to die in some god-forsaken Iraqi sandpit more than likely.

When I wear it, it is real.

Let’s look at the Royal British Legion.

It was founded in 1921 to support veterans and their families and to make sure that we do not forget those who have sacrificed themselves for us.

The Legion is almost the UK ’s largest membership organisation, with 519,000 members (including the Women’s Section this total is 589,000). twenty percent of people in the UK are eligible for it’s help in some way, 5.5 million ex-service people and 7.5 million dependants.
In total it spends more than £50 million a year but the poppy appeal raises less than half of that. the rest comes from year-round donations.

The 38 million poppies, 98,000 wreaths and sprays, 730,000 Remembrance Crosses are all made in a factory in Surrey. The factory, owned by the Legion employs about 60 people more than half of whom suffer from serious disabilities or illnesses as a result of their work, defending you and I around the world. It was designed to offer such people jobs and it always will.
Which is good when you consider that There has only been one year since the Second World War when a British Service person hasn’t been killed on active service, and that was 1968. There has not been any year since the inception of the United Kingdom when no British service person has not been injured.

So read this, and then, when Children in need or Live aid or comic relief or any of these other big-impact high-fat television extravaganzas ask you for money say no. Give Geldof a dose of his own foul language and damn Pudsey’s remaining eye.

Instead think about those who have died for you, and who are remembered not with a night of television fun, or a star studded concert, but with a simple paper flower, and give your money to the Royal British Legion.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

I have before me an email from Fräulein Merci H, Alchemy correspondent in Germany. It is not so joyful as I believed it would be.

For those of you who still do not know, Angela Merkel is now Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany – or at least she will be by the middle of next month. We knew this would happen, or at least Fräulein H told me that it would and I believed her. However earlier this year it was intimated to me that Merkel’s CDU would win by a small landslide (if’ee see what I mean). As the date of the election approached though, Merkel’s lead slipped, until the incumbent Schroeder was almost level with her.

Truth be told Fräulein H is rather venomous about her countrymen – blaming those who voted for Schroeder despite his crimes (her words) for hobbling then new Chancellery.

Fräulein H is a thorough Merkel supporter, and has sung her praises on a number of occasions, though fewer than the occasions on which she has derided Schroeder.

Angela ‘the knife’ Merkel acquired her nickname from the way she treated her former mentor Helmut Kohl. When he was accused of financial impropriety (the little scamp) it was Merkel who was his most vociferous attacker, and it was she who brought down Kohl’s names successor taking the job herself.

Certain parties have expressed doubt as to her ability to solve Germany’s crippling unemployment, a task which will be made harder yet by the fact that Schroeder’s Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands still control the Labour Ministry. One idea floated is to increase the size of Germany’s armed forces, Fräulein H informs me that I ought think twice before making any ‘humorous’ comment about this – the thought never even crossed my mind.

The German Home Office is under Merkel’s Christlich-Demokratische Union as is Defence and economics. But with the two main parties so evenly split, every decision made by the new Chancellor will be fought through the Bundestag. Fräulein H intends to lay all future national woes on those Germans who voted for the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and thus prevented Merkel from achieving a decisive victory.

Merkel is the first female woman to lead Germany in a little over a thousand years. Lesbians with short hair and dirty finger-nails are making a big thing of this, at least that is how Fräulein H reports it. Your Author subscribes to the theory that, even in our modern age, for a woman to rise to high power, she must be twice as big-and-bad as a man, and that this is no bad thing in a leader. Look at our own Mrs. Thatcher – The Knife and the Iron Lady are two for a pair and I envy the Federal Republic her new leader. Merkel has a strong sense of national interest (do’ee remember when Albion had a leader with any national interest at all?) and is, as we have seen, not the sort to let personal feelings get in the way of the job at hand. She’s not going to put up with Europe co-opting her nations freedom, and she ain’t going to use Europe to co-opt Albion’s either.

Now it is of course true that distance can masque incompetence, and under the leadership of TB, almost any other government looks preferable, but I shall say it again, I envy Fräulein H her new leader.

There’s an old journalistic maxim which runs ‘If you’re not offending someone, you’re not doing it right’. With his in mind the Alchemist has to assume he is doing something right.
You no doubt read my little mockery of the site Wander-Cures.com (Alchemy passim) and it may even have brought a smile to your face.

What is certain is that you clicked through the link to Mr. Jaisinghani’s site, because he followed you back to this Alchemy. And he did not like what he saw, oh no.

Certain aspects of the British mentality have rubbed of on our former colonies over the years and centuries, for instance Mr. Jaisinghani’s first instinct, upon finding himself offended, was to write a stiff letter. Here it is.

Message Received: Oct 11 2005, 08:11 AM
From: “Ashok T. Jaisinghani”
To: thealchemist@fsmail.net
Cc:
Subject: White Racist Nitwits!

So there. The Alchemist whole-heartedly recommends his reads do go to Nutritionist-No-1.com it’s a lot of fun. As to whether you will suffer the sort of debilitating nightmares threatened, well, that is purely a matter your own personal mental constitution.

The Alchemist replied to Mr. Jaisinghani. It’s only polite, what.

Sir,
Whilst I am white (I’m a nitwit too sometimes), I am by no means racist - I grew up in Saudi Arabia and if I had been racist, I would not be alive today.

The Alchemist

I think I was polite, and made a couple of good points. If There are any further responses suitable for public viewing then I shall probably post them too. I’d like to ask all of m’fellow Stumble-Upon users to visit Wonder-Cures.com and give it a thumbs up, we shall increase it’s ranking and show the world the truth about Aids, halleluiah!

Well here’s a turn-up – your author has before commented on the lack of international news to be had from the mainstream media, so you will appreciate his feelings when he caught a report about the current German leadership contest on the BBC’s ten o’clock news broadcast. Good for the Beeb. Alas it was unsubtly biased and indicated the corporations doubts concerning Angela Merkel’s ability, and right, to govern, but as I said to m’good friend Poosh I am a grown up boy and expect nothing better from the BBC. Alas.

Id the Alchemist knows his German correspondent then she will even now be writing a joyful missive to him – the which shall be the basis of a post in the very near future.

However, this is by the by. Today we are going to talk about the Conservative party. I cannot wait.

They say (the Telegraph but other sources too) that David Cameron (Alchemy Passim) has overtaken Kenneth Clarke and is the second favorite to lead the Tories into the next election. As I have said before, I believe Dr. Fox to be the best man for the job, but will reluctantly be supporting David Davis as the lesser of the two evils (t’other evil being Mr. Cameron). It is of course well known that we Tories are a capricious bunch where our leaders are concerned, but I think the question of why this Cameron chap is rising so fast in the race is one which could bare a little examination.

You will recall that I have said all along that what we really need is a leader with charisma. Well, Cameron has that in spades no-doubt, added to that he is young and he has not split the party with his opinions, like Mr. Clarke and Dr. Fox had. All to the good you may say. Cameron is significantly more popular among activists when compared to Foxy and has a real backing amongst the rank and file of the party too.

The fact of the matter is that Cameron has founded a ‘cult of personality’ I use Dr. Fox’s own words on Cameron. This is his greatest strength (charisma!) and also his greatest weakness.

Y’see, the Great British public have already a Prime Minister who’s sole weapon is his personality. Given the choice between Tony ‘all mouth and no trousers’ Blair and David ‘all mouth and no trousers’ Cameron, the electorate will choose the devil they know and we shall have lost another election.

Certainly we need a leader with charisma, but that will not be enough, our leader must have something more. He must not merely equal Blair, but beat him, on more than one element. Writing in the Telegraph Cameron claimed that this was the case, he said that he had more than mere charisma, but if that is so, we have yet to see it.

So far 70 mp’s have declared for Davis, 33 for Cameron and a mere 21 for our Foxy, this is why the Alchemist supports Davis even though he prefers Dr. Fox.

Incidentaly, whilst we are talking about the Conservatives, have’ee ever noticed that the Conservative homepage has buttons for Scottish Conservatives and Welsh Conservatives, but not a murmer about English Conservatives…

I was going to write about last night’s excitement in Basra – no really, it seemed like the sort of thing etc, but when it came to it I didn’t have any real insight or inspiration. Instead I hit the ‘Stumble’ button in m’Firefox browser so I’d have something to look at whilst I dreamt up a new subject for today’s post.

What should appear but a site I myself had suggested to Stumble Upon so many moons ago – there’s a coincidence.

Taking this as inspiration the Alchemist is pleased to announce a new regular feature (if he can be bothered to read this sort of crapola regularly) to be called ‘Hooray for the Differently Sane!’ since that is in toto the review I gave for the site I stumbled.

To the site.

Wander-Cures.com is a site apparently written by, and solely of interest to an Indian chap called Ashok T. Jaisinghani.
In numerous garishly coloured pages Mr. Jaisinghani discusses the various ways multinational companies are oppressing/killing Indians with tainted water and pharmaceuticals. He goes on to express his belief that exercise and sex can cause constipation (and he knows of what he speaks because he has read’ about 500 books and thousands of articles on different systems of medicine and allied fields over a period of about 27 years’). Indeed he promises to pay a prize of one hundred thousand Rupees (a hair under £1’300) to anyone who can prove him wrong.

He goes on to discus his own quaint ideas about nutrition – ‘ Taking any nutrient in adequate amounts does not ensure that all the benefits due to that nutrient will be obtained.’.

Now if’ee want to say I’m being difficult then go ahead, but my gut tells me that the definition of an ‘adequate amount’ is the amount required to obtain all of the benefits, and therefore if one does not obtain all the benefits, then one has not taken an adequate amount. Still the Alchemist hasn’t been trying to understand the interrelationships between various nutrients for 35 years, so he may be wrong…

The nutritional laws of this man are as baroque as they are arcane and I shan’t attempt to give you a précis here, that would be a work of days.

The real meat of Mr. Jaisinghani’s site is that part which deals with Aids. Most anything can cause Aids according to Mr. Jaisinghani, including (but not limited to) sexual abstinence, iodine, antimony, vitamin D, phosphoric acid, chromium, benzene, sex, tea (oh dear), zinc, manganese, paraffin, magnesium, castor oil and ‘the Fury of the Sun’.

In fact the danger of Aids is so great that Mr.Jaisinghani has no choice but to break in to verse (no, I don’t know either).
It goes something like this.

AIDS is not caused by sexy Laila and Lola,
AIDS is due to the phosphoric acid in cola.

Will Americans think my article is a big joke?
They’ll be terribly sorry for any fun they poke!

But wait, for this is an anthology, further poetry explains other causes of Aids!
Throwing away their shirt and pant, or frock,
At the blazing Sun, all the great fools mock;
Their immunity gets the most mighty knock;
Advocates of long Sun baths are in the dock.
With great awe, Hindus bow to the mighty Sun;
Exposing himself, western man has a lot of fun;
Does the fellow really know what he has done?
To AIDS’ total cases, he has added a new one.
Well, on behalf of all Western Men, allow the Alchemist to apologise, we knew not what we did…

The website finishes with a heartfelt ‘Dedicated also to ALL the victims of medical maltreatment.’ – these victims are presumably Mr. Jaisinghani’s own.

Hooray for the Differently Sane!

I don’t know if you have been following the German elections as closely as you ought recently, but the cricket season is closed now so there is little excuse for continued ignorance. Generous soul that she is, Fräulein Merci H has written for me several emails over the last month each one expanding upon the horror story that is the German leadership struggle.

In the elections last month Angela Merkel’s Christlich-Demokratische Union and their Bavarian allies the Christlich-Soziale Union won only three seats more than Schroeder’s Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (I don’t know who would win if a German played a Welshman at Scrabble, but I think it would be as close to ‘extreme sport’ as board games could ever get).

This three seat lead is not near enough to form a government and neither side has been able to employ the sort of dishonourable coalition-forming small party co-opting shenanigans which ensconced Labour and the Lib-Dems in the Scottish parliament. Aye, we could learn a thing or two here.

In an attempt to settle this there have been conferences between the two parties – essentially one side says ‘Oh please, I’ll be your friend…’ and t’other says ‘Nien’.
There was floated the idea of a coalition of the two big parties forming a collation between themselves but neither side finds that very palatable and who can blame them. The SPD particularly dislike it, as they would certainly get the short end of the stick should it happen.

The CDU is laying down the law, saying that they have the majority of seats in the Bundestag (however narrow that majority is) and that they have the right to decide the next Chancellor (Merkel, our heroin). The danger is that with such a narrow majority Merkel will have to fight every issue and can hardly claim a mandate from the equivocal people. Nevertheless the issue must be decided by the eighteenth, when the new Chancellor will be elected.

Merkel’s popularity waned throughout September, but now appears to be back on the rise, largely due to the statesmanlike way she is handling this furore according to Fräulein H – who goes on to say that she finds it baffling that anyone can still support Schroeder after proving his incompetence so manifestly.

The alchemist waits with bated breath, as I’m sure do you.

Now I don’t want to cause alarm, but there are certain aspects of the Iranian nuclear programme which really could bare closer inspection.

I suspect you are alarmed now, most likely you are thinking ‘oh god he’s going to talk about Iranian nuclear ambitions and I know slightly less than zilch on the subject.’ That’s ok, I know you have enough to do just keeping up with Big Brother, that’s exactly why I am going to talk about it. That, and it actually is important.

Ali Larijani is the man to watch, he is the right hand of Khamenei and he has been badgering Albion, Germany and France recently over our views on Iranian atomic development.

Specifically we (the UK, Germany and France, acting on behalf of the EU) have expressed concerns over plans to build one or more Westinghouse type breeders, and hexafluoride centrifuges to generate enriched uranium for ‘peaceful purposes’. Larijani insists that Iran has the right to do these things, and as far as right goes, he probably is. Our quibble is the eventual use to which enriched uranium might be put.

From an unbiased perspective one can see why Iran desires nuclear weapons. Believe me every time I watch the ten o’clock news I start desiring a bomb or two m’self, it is an unsafe world and deterrents are tempting, nay necessary.

Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad – Iranian president and world-beating scrabble score insists that the only goal is energy, but he would, and as I say, we can hardly blame Iran for wanting a nuclear deterrent. However, the operative word is ‘deterrent’.

Larijani has threatened to go over the EU’s head straight to the International Atomic Energy Association, but that ain’t going to happen because the US dominates the IAEA and there’s no way on god’s green that the States will let Iran have nukes (they no-longer arm their future enemies, lesson learned, eh brother Jonathan). Alternatively, Iran may enter negotiations with South Africa, but it is difficult to see why, when there is so little to gain, and so much to loose should they snub the EU.

Besides which Larijani actually used the phrase ‘Nuclear Apartheid’ in a speech and that’s not they way to win the South African’s friendship.

The earlier threatened economic sanctions seem unlikely at this stage of the game and it is difficult to discount the internet rumour to the effect that France and Germany (Albion too, if not our leaders) actually want Iran to have a deterrent with which to deter the big friendly dog across the pond.

You’ll call me a cynic, but such a policy would work, and better than ‘diplomacy’, no?

In any event, at least you know a little about Iran now, my work here is done…

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari has said he is confident that the country’s politicians will reach an agreement on a new constitution.

-BBC website

Yup, the Alchemist is confident too. Specifically I am confident every man jack of ‘em will agree it is worthless. You will recall my making one post intermissio reference to the Iraqi Constitution last month (Alchemy Passim). I predicted that the three main groups would all bitch about it and I have been proved right, haven’t I just?

The damned document hasn’t even been finalised and the Iraqi powers that be are already falling into the patterns of dispute which I assigned to them. Hell but I wish I could be wrong from time to time.

Humam Hammoudi, the johny in charge of drafting the constitution has said the three-day extension just granted will not be enough. If he gets his extra time, and let’s face it, there is not a real alternative, then the arguments will, I suppose, expand to fill the time allowed, this being the nature of politics, especially Arab politics. I said that a September referendum was unlikely, and it grows more unlikely still as the date approaches.

The Sunnis are digging their heels in because the constitution threatens their already precarious position in the incestuous and rickety oil-ministry. Since the allied Shi’ahs/Kurds outnumber the Sunnis the Constitution could be forced through against Sunni wishes, however if this were to occur one can envision the Sunnis picking up their ball and going home, which in political terms spells instability on an Arabic scale.

If’ee were to ask the Alchemist (why thank you) I’d have to side with the Sunnis. Not that I care for their precious oil, but simply because I cannot see a federal Iraq as a good thing. God knows there is enough potential violence in that land to be getting on with – the idea of splitting it into separate battlin’ cantons seems lunacy. A ready made civil war waiting to happen, and I’ll give you three guesses as to who will have to clear up that mess, but the second two don’t count.

Incidentaly although it will fall to us to sort out this putative civil war, it will be the Sunnis who come of worse. Y’see the Kurds want to keep their little patch of the country to the north, and the Shi’ahs want to set up their own canton in the south part of the country so the Sunnis will end up between them, and although the Kurds and Shi’ahs are friends now (sort of) there’s certainly no love lost and it hasn’t been so many years since they were shooting the hell out of each other now has it?

Naturally al-Jaafari is in favour of federalism since the only thing that appeals to a Shi’ah more than carving out their own patch of Iraq is getting one over on the godamn heretic Sunnis.

The Alchemist’s correspondent in the Federal Republic, Fräulein Merci H is a calm, even melancholic girl not given to the sort of righteous fury she displays in the email I received from her but an hour ago.

No-doubt you crave to know what it is which upsets her so. Well rumour has it that current but soon-to-be former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has been nominated for the Nobel Peace-Prize. Now we all know that Herr Schroeder is not exactly flavour of the month in the Vaterland and that Fräulein H has never liked him, but your author confesses his curiosity as to exactly why she is so upset about this (rumoured) nomination. No doubt further correspondence will bring the answer to light, if time does not prove rumour inaccurate.