This bit must have been confusing for the reporter, looking from one to the other and not knowing which was which

During our time in Romania, Galloway and I also met Nicu Ceausescu, the despised son of the dictator, in the hospital wing of Jilava jail, on the south side of Bucharest.

By then he was dying of cirrhosis of the liver.

The entry to the show was obtained through negotiation with Nicu’s redoubtable lawyer Paula Jacob. The gate money was the purchase of two sirloin stakes and two cartons of Kent cigarettes for the Dauphin of Romania.

He was 39 when we meet, but thin and drawn, and looked at least 10 years older.

His odd unmatched clothes and red anorak looked more Victor Hugo than Hugo Boss. He chain smoked the Kents throughout the interview.

We quizzed him about his legendary ways with women – including the once delectable Olympian, Nadia Comaneci.

Qawasmeh, huh? In Hebron? Now there’s an independent voice for you, fully in keeping with the UN’s rigidly neutral approach to Arab-Israeli affairs.

I read it. As expected most of of it was clearly the product of a biased writer. The data was not set in context and some of it was speculation.

“Calling someone “dishonest” is libel, isn’t it?”

Well Melanie is at liberty to sue me, isn’t she.

This is romanticization isn’t it?

Subsistence herding for example – is this the best use of land, is it environmentally sound or does it actually harm the land over time (creating more desert due to overgrazing and degradation of topsoil and the land’s water-holding capabilities) – and – does it provide much of a living for anybody let alone a lot of people in a region where the population is booming?

Is it possible that one of the problems confronting Israel is simply that Westerners like to think of poor Arabs as early Christians, ie “the Holy Land”?

How often do we read romantic renditions of this or that as “right out of the Bible”?

What’s so good about being “right out of the Bible” anyway especially when it’s probably an inaccurate vision of the past?

Is there something per se wrong with progress and actually improving the land through modern agricultural, irrigation and reforestation practices?

No doubt the BBC will do a thoughtful analysis of these questions vis a vis Israel and other Middle Eastern/North African nations.

Right?

I come here because you attack me and the BNP. Stop attacking us and I will not post here.

OoooH! That slipped out didn’t it.

I am sure that this site’s owners will be overjoyed to read that. It probobly justifies one of the reasons for their existence. (To expose the BNP for what it is and not what it tries to project itself as being)

Merry Christmas, though.