Daily Archive

Thankfully, the star columnist of The Independent speaks out at last:

…Poor British Airways. They can’t even ship off a crying man to Nigeria with the boys in blue to keep him quiet without passengers objecting and disrupting and disturbing their lovely aeroplanes. No wonder all the economy-class passengers were chucked off flight BA075 to Lagos on 27 March rather than have them object to the deportation of a crying man…

…Of course, it’s easy to be snotty with an airline that can be so haughty that it regards its own customers as an inconvenience. I won’t recount the episode some years ago when I was asked at Heathrow if I had any sharp implements in my hand baggage. I do not have any sharp implements in my hand baggage, I replied. That was not good enough. “Answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’, Sir,” I was admonished…

…I don’t mean to be rude, but – after the catastrophe of Terminal Five – don’t you realise that the most disruptive institution at Heathrow is called British Airways?…

Ah, but there is an escape, we are told:

…I fly Air France – everywhere – and say this in all innocence. Other than a frequent-flyer card I have no financial interest in this excellent airline, and I urge British Airways passengers to transfer their affections to Air France next time they have to travel long distance…

It is saddening to discover that all of us regular BA customers will not as a result ever enjoy his scintillating on board conversation. Yet we do understand why. We had simply had had no idea how, in contrast to the appalling BA . . .

“…passengers on an Air France flight to Lagos tried to prevent the plane from taking off when they learned that a Nigerian youth was being deported against his will…”

“Air France flights to and from Los Angeles, California, were canceled … amid fears of a possible terrorist strike…”

“Thousands stranded on day five of Air France strike“

. . . traveling on Air France is toujours le bliss.

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UPDATE: Then again, perhaps Mr Fisk is just a bit put out . . .

“I feel very proud to be part of something so professional and good-looking.”
John Simpson, columnist and BBC world affairs editor

. . . over not being a headlining, regular contributor to BA’s “High Life” magazine, when a certain someone else is?

The Press Association:

Further warnings urging motorists not to panic-buy have been issued on the eve of a planned strike at a giant oil refinery.

It is feared the walkout by 1,200 workers at the Grangemouth site in Scotland could hit fuel supplies, potentially causing disruption to services across the country…

…Over the last week the Government has sought to assure the public that the country has enough fuel to cope with the strike. Despite this, there have already been reports of shortages and queues at some forecourts.

After having worked people all up with worry, typical media, now passing along government statements not to “panic”. Actually, most people probably feel that when this Government says “Don’t panic!” . . . is precisely when they should probably start to think about doing so. We are about as far from Scotland as one can get, and the three nearest petrol stations this morning were even more packed than they were late yesterday afternoon.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “One of the most important messages to give is that people should not change their normal fuel buying patterns. We urge the people of Scotland to be sensible and only to buy the fuel that they need.”

Incidentally, is there an independent Scotland, that it has a “Government”, you ask? Well, not quite yet. For the moment, call it (r)evolution by marketing.

Consul-at-Arms:

re: “New State Department lexicon forbids use of the words “jihad” or “jihadist”"

Has it really? He above, who might have been one of those who’d been passed the good word, says, urr, he hasn’t:

Rather than saying something like “while I can neither confirm nor deny,” let me say this: while I’ve seen this elsewhere in the blogosphere (and showing every sign of being circular reporting), I haven’t seen this in any official guidance from the State Dept.

Obviously, that State employee hasn’t gotten the memo, of which “Jihad Watch”, which is in possession of the “scoop”, tells us:

…I will publish more information on this when possible.

We look forward to it. Although, in the short term, some information, period, actually might have been nice. However, the concerns of that blogger are understandable, given the name of his blog.

So lacking an insider’s insider take, and unwilling to wait for the sequel, yours truly chose to undertake some time-consuming personal research into this matter, and can now publish this information:

In a search that took “0.28 seconds”, there were 1,590 mentions of “jihad” on the State web site as of April 25. Then, minutes later, yesterday:

. . . another search of the exact same word turned up an additional 60 mentions. It is hard to know what may be in a pipeline, of course. However, this blog is willing to go out on an informational limb and assert that if indeed already promulgated it doesn’t appear that the Secretary’s demand “absolutely forbidding the use” of the terms has made it ’round the official houses just yet.

Obviously, its use is not quite “forbidden”. It seems this is typically overheated web carrying on. For as another State employee notes:

…I looked around a bit and found that there is indeed official Department guidance [I emphasize "guidance," not a ban of any kind] for talking about terrorism with those pesky foreigners. What’s more, it says pretty much what Jihad Watch alleges: that officials should avoid using various terms that would have unintended effects, one of those terms is “Jihad,” and one of the unintended effects of using it would be to legitimize our enemies actions in the mind of our audience…

Essentially, they are to be thoughtful and careful.  Which is what diplomacy is about.  And which we had also thought blogging was about.  But never mind.