February 2008 Archives

The American presidential election seldom fails to hold my attention - since the 1980 Reagan v Carter clash - the first one I remember - up to the current Obama/Clinton/McCain battle, which have sent me furiously reading up on the previous ones!

I'd love to see Obama win it - a man of hope, inspiration, youth and vision. It's so refreshing to see his campaign proceed without going negative. I just can't take 'Hilarious' Clinton seriously - either as a person and particularly not as a president.

I've been aware of her since 1991 but I can't remember seeing her so much as crack a smile up until her campaign began. What, have her lips been sewn together all this time?!

I admire McCain, an ex-prisoner of war and a straight talker, however he seems to be cut from the same cloth as Bush - although this guy can read, string a sentence together and eat a bag of crisps without ending up in A&E!

Come on America, elect Barack because we Brits are forever copying you. Lord knows we need someone with fresh ideas and a positive, rational attitude to shake up the UK political scene.

You don't have to talk about football for long without hearing about the excessive wages the top players are on. However when you see injuries like that poor Eduardo Da Silva of Arsenal sustained the other day, it bears mentioning that there is flip side to taking in all that fame and fortune.

The man's foot was partially severed from his leg at the ankle in a triple break!

As an ex-boxer, I've long had contempt for the way some players fall and roll around like big girl's blouses after the slightest touch but footballers really put themselves on the line each time they cross that white line.

Having said that, do these soccer stars deserve our sympathy or are these injuries just an occupational hazard which every working person faces?

I wonder how many of you were as sickened as I was by convicted murderer Mark Dixie's pathetic defence that he didn't kill model Sally Anne Bowman but that he 'only' had sex with her dead body?

I am so glad that this 'person' has been sent down for 34 years - though it should have been longer. Killing someone in cold blood is bad enough but to sexually violate them afterward is lower than animalistic behaviour, truly evil.

It's cases like this, plus that of Suffolk's prostitute-murdering psycho Steve Wright, which are making me think long and hard about whether the death penalty should be brought back in cases that are as clear-cut as these.

The government has been banging on about being tough on crime for so long and it's high time they backed up the rhetoric with some swift action. Just listen to/ read the comments of Helen Newlove, who has called for the 'frying' of the three thugs who kicked her husband to death last summer.

Recognise this as a by-product of the authorities' wholesale failure to adequately punish lawbreakers - more and more normally rational people, yours truly included, are contemplating the death penalty is the only real solution.

Am I over-reacting or voicing a common view?

Girding myself to endure the stigma attached to backing anything Conservative leader David Cameron comes up with, I have to agree with his call to bring back the infamous 'sus' laws.

I'm tired of the spate of violence blighting the nation and, although stats would suggest that as a black male, I'm more likely to be stopped and searched than most, I am prepared to endure that.