Ground Elder

Anyone who has done any gardening whatsoever has some weed that they see as the mortal enemy. In my parents' garden in Surrey it was ground elder. It just kept coming back and choking off anything else trying to grow near it. It took an inordinate amount of time and nasty chemicals, but we got rid of that bugger in the end. Then you had to keep on it for some time afterwards to stop it coming back.

And thus with Al Quaeda so we are told. Any of my American friends who don't like hearing the name of their President dissed should put their fingers in their ears now and go 'Lalaalalalalalala...'.
On TV last night, a congratulatory George Bush said that as far as was known, none of the plotting was done in the US. Now, sad to say, I have noticed this, George seems to equate not finding any with there not being any and vice versa. When the RCMP pulled out a whole ground elder root, this seemed to send a red flag to Dubya that Canada was (yet again) harbouring terrorists. The fact that the British police have done an absolutely storming job and found a handful of the blighters doesn't mean that they were working in isolation. Far from it. I'd stake quite a lot on this meaning that there's a HUGE amount of evil plotting happening on both sides of the Atlantic. Of course, I may be doing George a greater disservice than he warrants - hard to imagine, but anyway - he may have just been saying that to the camera to keep the American people calm, and then went straight to the bat-phone and called his head of Homeland Security,
'Why the hell haven't WE found a bomb-making cell? WHatdya mean you can't find them, bring some to me NOW!!!' (fists clenched and face all red). He probably asked for their heads on plates, which would be reasonable under the circumstances. If you have your fingers in your ears, then at ease now.

It was odd however when the headline came on that the Bank of England had released the names of the suspects. Odd, and yet comforting.

I was glad that the media was making it clear that Pakistan had played a big role in giving information to the police. One of the worst aspects of all of this is that it seems likely that the suspects were Pakistani-Brits. Worst because there is already a lot of racial tension in many parts of the country between Pakistanis and whites. And yet it is also true that most people have friends who are of Pakistani origins and there is no tension. I personally see a greater hope for relations with the muslim state of Pakistan than with that of Turkey, riddled as it is with disease and corruption. Pakistanis have been an ordinary part of British culture for a very long time, so it hurts to see that compromised.

In the Guardian, the picture of two Bobbies standing outside a terraced house in Walthamstow, is shocking in its ordinariness.

The general mayhem at Heathrow terminal 4 just seemed like the regular mayhem you get there in the summer, but I ached with empathy for those people, their patience already over-stretched and having to re-pack and so on. Extraordinarily stiff-upper lipped though.

Thank goodness that this particular and awful plot has been foiled. Praise should be heaped on the heads of the British police, and it was nice to see John Reid being able to announce something good. But the weeding and pulling has to go on and on until the whole root system has been lifted and put to the flames. And I trust that despite the whingers, it bloody well will.