Britain’s “Naked” Body Scans
by Muhammad on March 5, 2010
in Uncategorized
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
Two Muslim women have been the first to reject going into the controversial body scanners at Manchester airport.
I think Ben Franklin had a very legitimate point and the consequences of the actions of the current British government (and the US), with their gross insecurity, keep coming to light. I think the problem stems from the “Us and Them” mindset which is so prevalent in Western Society. It’s childish and not very constructive to building a vision for humanity which is sustainable.
When will people learn from history? NO Nation rules for long and all glory is short-lived save by being remembered for great action in the service of humanity. What they are currently doing serves nothing but their own purpose and everyone can see it. wasn anybody even listening when tehy watched Spiderman? “with great power comes great responsibility” not “with great power comes great arrogance”, which could be true from we’ve seen in history, anyway.
It all depends on which side you fall on and your actions will betray your intention. The line between the hero and the villain is very thin indeed.
The Night-Time Prayer Fiasco
Was treated to an interesting bit of information just before taraweeh prayer (the special night-time Ramadan prayer) yesterday. Apparently some of the Muslims were being attacked with eggs while leaving the mosque after the taraweeh prayer. A black car (didn’t get all the details) driving around the Epsom mosque and blasting people walking home with eggs. Now that I think back, I was attacked as well… but they missed me.. I remember hearing a ‘Smack!’ while walking home, but they missed me… so I carried on walking… I remember a black car though.
Anyway… I have to give the Epsom Police here major props. The mosque executive members contacted the police gave them details etc. and within 24 hours of the report, the police commissioner (yeah the top dog) knew about it, placed cops outside the mosque, had unmarked cars parked on the road around the mosque, tracked down the car and arrested the perpetrators.
That bit of info blew me away… coming from South Africa where you hardly ever hear of cops working so fast, let alone catching any perpetrators, ever (well regarding crimes that happen particular to you) anyway. All I remember thinking was that I heard the one day that this was and the next day it was over. Guys caught, cops outside. Problem Solved. Damn… that was FAST.
Technorati Tags: Islam, Life, Taraweeh, Epsom, London
Design Remix: London Underground
A brief has been put out to redesign the London Underground, specifically the fabric on the seats. Compared to it’s counterpart in New York, the London Underground has generally always tilted a little bit more toward providing some sort of palatable colour and design to enhance the experience of the 3.5 million commuters.
The Underground’s Design history includes Edward Johnston’s sans serif font, Harry Beck’s map and Paul Nash’s fabric.
Wallpaper explains the brief…
The colours should respond well to natural and artificial light (there’s even a pantone reference wheel allocating percentage allowances), the pattern must wear and tear well and the fabric must be comfortable and durable. This might sound fairly restrictive but entrants are also encouraged to challenge convention where possible, being mindful not to create a repeat pattern that’s too small to ‘dazzle’ the 3.5 million commuters who will see it each day.
The competition ends on September 14th. More details may be found here.
Designers Get on it! w00t! :)))
(via PSFK)
Technorati Tags: London, Underground, Design, Competition, Remix
Review: In The Loop
by Muhammad on August 27, 2009
in Uncategorized
Promotional Poster for the movie parodying Obama’s famous Campaign Poster
One thing you have to admit… British Comedy has the uncanny ability to force the laughter out of you. With its heavily-laden sarcasm loaded with metaphors and similes and utterly, utterly offensive bad language. Some of it will make you cringe while you’re splitting your sides.
‘In The Loop’ is one of those comedies you really must watch. It’s a political satire split halfway between America and the UK and deals with different political relationships and the ‘politics’ behind them. It also puts politics as a heavy-handed one-up-manship between countries (USA and UK) and within the governments of those countries. Now this all sounds very serious but look at only two aspects… the relationships and comedy. These are the classic hallmarks of great comedy. Pissed off Brits taking the mick out of each other doesn’t fail to please either.
I loved the movie and I highly recommend it.
To get the nitty gritties out of the way (director, plot, etc.)… here’s the excerpt from Wikipedia…
In the Loop is a feature film directed by Armando Iannucci. It is an spinoff from the BBC TV series The Thick of It satirising Anglo-American politics in the 21st century. The film was released on 17 April 2009 in the United Kingdom.
In the film, the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom are looking to launch a war in the Middle East. The plot follows government officials and advisers in their behind-the-scenes efforts either to promote the war or prevent it. It stars Tom Hollander, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Peter Capaldi, Anna Chlumsky, Gina McKee, Steve Coogan and David Rasche. The film is a joint collaboration between BBC Films and the UK Film Council.
Enough talk.. Go See it :)
The Edgware Road Diet
Edgware Road, City of Westminster, London… a.k.a. Little Beirut, Little Cairo… you get the picture. I love the place. Well it’s one of my favourite places in London mainly because of the food and also because of the atmosphere. It buzzes with busses, a myriad of people (not just middle-eastern), shisha smoke billows (I love that word) from the ubiquitous Lebanese, Persian and Arabian restaurants. You occasionally get the police and ambulance noisily running through Edgware road (more often than not) and you don’t always know where they’re going, so I can’t say whether it’s the road itself that’s dangerous or maybe some adjacent area that’s the cause of the constant traffic disturbances.
The reason I’m writing this? Because I think I need to document a certain experience I had there as well as some really cool advice given by one of the coolest guys I know in London… Mash. So anyway, I had Mint Tea and Shisha (pictured above) at a Persian restaurant called Palace something, I can’t remember but the decor was really well done and the tea and shisha was delicious!
The place also has it’s setbacks… you can’t get too much of it. It’s an occasional stop off point, but go there often enough and it will bore the hell out of you. What it is is a great place to go out with friends, especially small groups. Big groups have a problem, or would have a problem, only if they want to smoke, most of the middle-eastern restaurants won’t allow 1 or 2 shisha’s for big groups, they’ll insist on you buying more than a few or you can’t smoke.
The best place in London for Shawarma’s (according to Mash) is ‘Cafe Helena’, ‘Melur’ is a brilliant Indonesian restaurant. There are tons of other tid bits of info regarding food on Edgware Road, but I wasn’t taking notes at the time.
This narrative will hopefully be extended in future :)
UK Government plan to tax Broadband, WTF!
by Muhammad on June 17, 2009
in Uncategorized
“The UK Government is planning a 50p-per-month levy on fixed-line connections to pay for next-generation broadband. The Government claims that market forces alone will bring fiber connections to only two thirds of the country, so it plans to use the ‘broadband tax’ to pay for the final third by 2017. The plans form part of the Government’s Digital Britain report, which also see the UK guarantee connections of 2Mbits/sec for every citizen by 2012.”
The report also threatens legal action and bandwidth restriction for repeat file sharers.
(via Slashdot)
This is Bloody ridiculous! What is it with governments and the need to tax everything they can. Pretty soon I’m expecting them to instil a Sunrise Tax when summer comes in. Maybe Tax you from when you’re born for how much air you might breathe in your lifetime.
With the entire scandal of MP’s very blatantly misusing Taxpayers money to fund their second homes and claim ridiculous expenses (even £5 charity donations). This new initiative is a real kick in the arse. If they used the budget they have properly they could not and should not be asking for more money from us. All it looks like is that these greedy bastards are too lazy to set up a and manage their own budgets properly and so when the shit hits the fan they just up the taxes some more to offset all the shit they’ve caused.
Bastards.
Technorati Tags: Ridiculous, British, United Kingdom, Tax, Broadband
Quick, Someone Yell ‘Cut!’
Came across this brilliant ad for the UK Women’s Charity organisation. Starring Keira Knightley, I think the ad is very hard-hitting and it goes straight to the truth of the matter. Donate.
I’d also like to add that I think the very wide spread use of alcohol in Britain is a very definite contributor to domestic violence… and yet there’s still tons of pubs all over the place and Beer is still seen as a staple of British Culture. Well if it remains a staple, you can assume bad behaviour of all kinds will remain as well, no matter how controlled the city is and no matter how many CCTV camera’s watch on.
Brits will get this ad…
by Muhammad on February 11, 2009
in Uncategorized
Fresh off the “Dawkins and Co.” Advertising campaign claiming “There probably isn’t a God…”. Some Brits made some light of the entire issue without getting into anything religious but making some very good use of British Humour!
Very, very awesome.
Link
Technorati Tags: British, Humour, Buses, Dawkins, Advertising, Cool
