a Dirty Martini

Very Entertaining

James runs a wonderful blog full of wonderfully fresh thinking, quirky pieces and sometimes a great recipe post. Plus he has been noted in my top true gentleman blogger list ever since I read this piece. 

Today I was busy buying up stocks of food for weeks of Summer hostessing starting...now. I love cooking. I find it relaxing even if it's for huge groups. I planned an easy supper with the milder weather this week, consisting of spagbol. Your basic Spaghetti Bolognaise. Coincidentally James posted his favourite version of the recipe which sounds delish. So this is mine - based on Heston Blumenthal's. 

He's a chef who fascinates me. He's wonderful. Even if his food is super complex and artsy fun and even if he is busy overcomplicating a simple spagbol (6 hours cooking time? C'mon).  I cut the cooking time by a huge amount and this still comes out tasting amazing. My other favourite is a huge piece of slow cooked leg of lamb done Greek style with lemons in an oven, on a BBQ, in a pitfire or on a spit, until it pulls away like cotton candy.

If any of you have any great entertaining recipes then please drop them in below :) I need more please and I'll show my gratitude!

• Make a soffrito - fry onions, garlic, celery and star anise, add a slosh of rice wine vinegar and set aside
• Fry off pork and beef mince or chunkier cuts until browned not cooked, I like mine quick burned
• Deglaze the pan with a splash of vermouth :)
• Cook off the meat and soffrito with some milk until meat is tender and cooked through
• Make a tomato sauce - using a LOT of red wine, fresh cherry vine tomatoes and canned variety (i'm sad and make this stuff when I need to cook to unwind and then freeze it)
• Add the tomato sauce to the meat and soffrito and leave to slow simmer until you are a) bored b) pasta is ready c) guests are starving and about to eat their own legs. But the longer you leave it the better.
• Serve with wholewheat pasta if you are sugar/carb averse like me with LOADS of fresh parmesan

If you feel like being a tart you can serve like it Heston (and this guy who copied him on Flickr) all twisty fancy like, eh:

Better get going...and apologies for not stopping by your blogs to say hello. Gordon has some amazing smoke recipes up I noticed!

London at War

a kid after a bombing raid in London during the war

I am pleased the 7/7 victims families now have a memorial. I am sure it offers them some kind of personal peace and focus for their grief. 

As a Londoner I don't know how I feel about remembering 7/7 other than that today none of us really talked about it, some of us didn't remember it. I think I know why. 

The day it happened I recall knowing something was wrong before I arrived at work and feeling lucky to be alive walking home slowly that same day with hundreds of Londoners, gently  joking and laughing. I remember seeing a documentary about a woman, a vicar, who lost her daughter and her faith in God. I felt intense empathy with her. Reading about a doctor at Kings Cross which is 5 minutes from where I live, who watched life slowly leave a woman who was pulled from the wreckage, nothing more than a torso. I felt absolute hatred. 

I have felt hate before. For the Irish. At an early age I remember my mum gently explaining yet another ghastly atrocity committed in their name as "something people do". In the grand scale of things Irish terrorism has had a more protracted impact on this city and my life generally and certainly even more hideous in Northern Ireland. 

As far as this city goes, I remember watching a programme about the Blitz. A man came home from the war to find that his London home had been raised to the ground and his family wiped out. He spoke gently, stoicly and only briefly - his voice cracked momentarily. I wonder is his tragedy noted anywhere in detail? Would he want it to be? 

Here is a list of terrorist atrocities in London. This is a memorial in south London where I was born which commemorates roughly the same number of people killed in a single bomb blast in the Blitz as the number killed on 7/7. It was cobbled together by Marks and Spencers.

42,000, half of them Londoners, died. Here is a list of Top Ten War Memorials commemorated for Armistice Day - worth a  look. 

This city stole my mother's quality of life in no less violent a fashion than what happened to people on 7/7. I remember thinking exactly that. This city. This city. This city. This city. 

My gut instinct about people who pointlessly attack my city for some pathetic cause that involves a focus on innocent people's lives is this - and it would remain this should I get wiped out or maimed by a bomb tomorrow: fuck you. do your worst. no surrender. 

Apologies if that is blunt, unemotional or devoid of political correctness.

My dad, 5th from left top with a bat, and his friends build a huge bonfire to celebrate the end of the war - 

either in Wales where he was evacuated to or back in London's East End, his home

Images of Afghanistan

 

Royal Marines and soldiers from 42 Commando take an opportunity to play rugby, during a stand down from Operation Aabi Toorah - February 2009

 

A medic checks an x-ray image of a gunshot wound victim at the field hospital at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. The Medical Treatment Facility (MTF), which is housed in one of the few solid buildings at Bastion replaces the tented field hospital that has been used since 2003. The temperature-controlled building allows the medics to better avoid the heat, cold or dust that come with the Helmand territory. With a fully equipped operating theatre supporting two operating tables, the MTF also supports up to six beds for the most critically injured in an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU). Two general wards handle patients with recovery needs and there are an additional two separate, private rooms, supplying a total capacity of 37 beds, with room for expansion.

 

August 2008: Picture 3 of 5 in a sequence. A Paratrooper from 3 Para stumbles and recovers whilst underfire during Operation Oqab Tsuka in Afghanistan. Meanwhile another soldier provides return fire from an opening in the compound. Operation Oqab Tsuka was of vital importance providing a hydro-electric turbine to the dam at Kajaki in Helmand Province.

 

Soldiers of the Parachute Regiment take a brief opportunity to relax during a patrol at Zabol, summer 2008

  

A soldier from the Parachute Regiment crouches awaiting the order to move during a patrol

Feb 2009: Royal Marines and soldiers from Plymouth based 42 Commando on patrol during the initial stages of Operation Aabi Toorah, in the southern most regions of Helmand. Their mission was to provide critical information and intelligence for subsequent operations, in an area never before visited in such strength by allied forces.

 
A Paratrooper from 3 Para prepares to return fire on the enemy from an opening in a compound during Operation Oqab Tsuka in Helmand Province.

Op Oqab Tsuka was of vital importance to deliver a hydro-electric turbine to the Dam at Kajaki, thus giving 2 million Afghans access to electricity.

 

A Paratrooper mortar platoon team fires 81mm shells at Taliban positions in support of a patrol from X Company, 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment at FOB Zeebrugge near Kajaki. It was of vital importance that security was maintained around the area of the power station, so that engineers could continue to provide electricity to the local population of Southern Afghanistan. The operation to provide a second hydro-electric turbine to Kajaki Dam and thus bring power to over 2 million peeople, was the biggest reconstruction project to take place in Afghanistan up to that time

 

Troops from 16 Air Assault Brigade sit in the rear of a C130 Hercules transport aircraft at the end of their 7 month operational tour in Afghanistan in 2008 and start the first leg of their journey home. The Hercules C130 will fly out of Camp Bastion under the cover of darkness and deliver the transiting troops to Kandahar Air force base ready for the next part of their journey back to the UK.

 

A Royal Marine who lost both legs whilst on duty in Afghaistan in 2008, is treated by a civilian physiotherapist on the Military Ward at University Hospital, Selly Oak, Birmingham for the exclusive use of military patients

Check Ross Kemp in Afghanistan via youtube for the last two years coverage.

I'm not gonna tell you what I think of Maggie's Place hyperbolic vox pop reviews of "unfree" " in-slave chains" "socialist" nations such as mine right now - whilst these guys have been out there all this time doing the above. Not that I vote Labour or subscribe to socialist views.  But...ah never mind. I can only offer that site two words and they ain't very poetic!

Help for Heroes - a charity to which we'll be donating money we raise from a summer triatholon. I'll fill you in on it sometime later this year!

Update:

Can't find the Kemp footage shown on TV for the last 2 years of our men in Afghanistan. All removed from Youtube. But these guys were featured. And this is who we will turn the country over to when we can leave. Hmmmm. I can see that working out if we don't buy up that drug supply and opium crop, can't you?

Summer Evenings

Our Summer evening, June 2007, Ibiza - view from dinner - my sister's wedding rehearsal dinner

Thanks. I love you all. And, thanks for the reminder about comments moderation. I hadn't thought of that in all seriousness until this morning :P I will post the odd photo to keep this place ticking over til Autumn. I have trips planned and guests staying and look forward to pissing people off with my camera.  It is beautiful here right now. Delicious. I love the long slow summery evenings filled with light, margaritas or wine.  I'm seriously looking forward to a summer in which I can make some decisions, look at options and choices re work and location. The start of the year has produced some mixed personal news. After an amazing start on holiday in the US, life delivered a chunk of sadness that sometimes I deal with okay and other times leaves me feeling exhausted and occasionally actually pretty damn vulnerable. But it looks like I may have some cool personal news to share by the end of this Summer. Life never ceases to amaze me. A box of chocolates kind of moment. Have a good one - and hook me into your...

Red Nuthins

I took the last post and thread down. It's a subject I really care about and I don't feel happy that the topic and personal family elements in it acted as a sort of gateway return for spurious and nasty minded commenting from the left over dregs at A Tangled Web ( see Monday post below, man I enjoyed that last bit).  With luck the dweeb will lose his bizarre obsession with link-rolling this blog onto his hate site, and sling his hook. I'll save my Iran stuff for Twitter. Talking to Iranians via that platform is way more interesting and educational than engaging in a pointless thread with some little boy called "Red Avenger" who can't read and sucks Amhadinajad's cock. Besides, that post on Iran was merely personally anecdotal more than anything else.  

It goes on elsewhere on other blogs too. Weird obsessive sad stalkers. I think I am done with being forced into corners I don't want to fight from on this little patch of internet, for now. It's become a personal space away from most blog nonsense. I have even paid tribute to my father here. Sad obsessive nutjobs with pointless protracted spats in true Old Irish form...   I don't want to welcome that crap into this blogpad and frankly I don't have to. This is not a forum site like ATW. Hell, it's not even a blog worthy enough of attracting more than a handful of (cherished) commenters who make pleasant, share some great thoughts or opinions and say hello. That was all it was intended to be. I cannot imagine what a fucked up Billy No Mates you need to be to take the time and effort to stalk a blog?!

Anyway. 

I've been doing a bit of watercolour here and there lately with some strong wonderful female characters in mind. I linked them to the "shadow women" I put up here a few weeks ago you may remember? Guess it's a theme anyway, who knows. 

This one is called Neda. 

That's it from me for a while. I'll be over on Etsy, Twitter and Flickr with summery stuff as it emerges. All the links are here - please loop me in to you if I am not already. Keep me on your blogrolls please and I'll certainly be commenting chez vous all still. 

Hope you all have a lovely Summer.

Mellow Hot Monday.....

What.a.GORGEOUS.day! Sun at 30, blue skies and cool breeze....

Relax with a coffee for a few minutes watching this. Paste the below video link into your browser. I would link it but better not :) You will have seen the tech before. It's on Sky sports and BBC nature programming a LOT. Screengrab below. 

http://www.massmotionmedia.com/#expertise

SprintCam V3 HD is the only HD native fully integrated ultra slow-motion system for broadcast, offering unmatched frame rates and high definition native resolution image quality. The system allows the user to capture from 500 to 1,000 frames per second and to replay them without delay. Thus 20 to 40 times slower than usual speed, with HD native resolution image quality. This new technology has applications in live sports and other live TV productions, but also in the production of commercials, documentaries, and movies.

And I totally get how the hockey player feels. I wished I'd jumped a few more times when I used to play.

Reds..

Strawberries are the easiest peasiest thing in the whole wide world to grow. 

They are prolific in fields all around England, wild and farmed, gardens, small plots of land... They're consumed by the gallon load at Wimbledon, Glasto, wherever. They are also growing out of every pot available on my balcony and purchased at any farmers market.  They've been served up in Prosecco today, on a glorious hot sunny day in the back garden. And mascerated with balsamic vinegar , pepper and sugar to be dolloped generously on egg submerged fried bread in the morning. Or for my two Yank guests, served up on French toast with that funny dusting sugar that makes me choke. I talk and snort with laughter too easy which is dangerous around that powdery sweet stuff. I prefer the egg dunked fried bread version with good grilled bacon. Not the streaky overfried kind, but proper British rashers! Just sharing my hospitality (and germs). I have fond memories of mum and dad and the family-famous "orange ceramic casserole pan" which was hauled out of the top of the cupboard every year, weighing half a tonne, and over which my dad hawked, carefully controlling the sugar temperature. Delicious sweet alchemy.  Meanwhile mum wondered just how many pots of jam we would wind up with and where to store them. Or who to endlessly gift them to with a smile and the distinct sensation that your friends, family and neighbours had all been gifted jam so often they probably had a cupboard overflowing. Gallon upon gallon of strawberries were unloaded from the car after an overly enthusiastic all day pick. I loved that cooked sugary strawberry smell. I did try to recreate that delicious memory last year and make some jam but it was a disaster. You need to focus which I didn't.  I had to throw the casserole and burned-in contents away and sustained a third degree burn into the bargain. No patience. Stuck my finger into the volcanic red gloop for a taste. I can make cheese though. Not strawberry cheese. Although,.. that could work.... 

I Hate Women

Banksy rework I did for Neda - hey HuffPo beatch - wanna ask yourself the primary reasons for her selection by the death squads in Iran?

Hey why not? Everyone else does. But seriously it's getting that way. Not all women. Just particular ones over here in what we term "the West" with either a platform or some degree of power. I'm sick to death of the endless discussions around women where actually? Reality doesn't really count for shit. Say, women who hate on women for the hell of it  -ooh a feminist, lance her! and no doubt preferably with a big fat ****) -, men who hate on women with an opinion that doesn't gel with ass kissing their every move, and above all right now two kinds of women...the kind that hasn't shown a blind bit of interest in what is going on around the globe while masquerading as academic political feminists. 

And women bosses.

This article is the most stuck up piece of bullshit I have read in a long while. What the fuck does she know? Years of morality police brutality, fines, a lot of which are handed out by conservative religious women who like ass kissing da man. But hey no we mustn't let this current situation and long overdue highlight, focus on the veil or beauty, oh no ...even if that particular religion has a pathological hatred of beauty. And my guess is that Neda, who was picked off a week ago today, died because she was a) a woman b) beautiful and c) wearing a baseball cap over her black shroud with jeans. 

Women like the HuffyPo beatch have flat out IGNORED them all these years. And now, all of a sudden, it's a focal point into which to introduce complex liberal opinion about freedoms alongside commentary on their motivations while projecting onto their cares. And for a priceless example of how we over here conversely indulge in a pathological debasement and trivialisation of beauty, have a read of the disgusting rape fantasy tweets under the feminist's article seeded out to no doubt some sad male dweeb who would enjoy that kind of thing. In our wonderful, wonderful modern world never let an opportunity to slip some dick into an issue, pass on by.

Back over here in reality, there's my sister and her story, in an overnight email. It acted as the fire under the embers for this post, shall we say. 

A women who was raised with a level of decency, manners, consideration and enthusiasm for everything in life including the ability to stand on her own two feet and make a real go of things. She's carved herself out a reasonable career in America - but guess who and what stands in the way of not just any career progression but between her and some honest to God dignity? That woman boss of hers. That mendacious bitch has once again spent an entire afternoon attempting to pointlessly humiliate her. The fact that she won't stand for it propels the woman on to an ever higher obsession with, I guess, a potential threat to her throne and a flat out refusal to kiss her butt. Though if she took her head out of that tight skinny LA arse for one second, she would realise my sister is an excellent team player worth rewarding rather than any screwy rottweiler with lipstick. The fact that she is so highly regarded is what has her boss's wet nose so wacked out of joint.

My conclusion, since women are apparently a group and not individuals? In distinction to men who were always afforded standard legal rights as a group, and fought for them!.. while being 'allowed' to have diverse individual opinions of course. My conclusions is that women are honest to God vile, nasty pieces of shit when it comes to 'seizing on' other women they view as a threat in ANY capacity. They never, ever cut each other any slack over whatever and any issue that bubbles to the surface in life. I've watched my sister soldier through enough crap, with her head held high, knowing full well that this boss of hers persistent bullying crap scratches away at her needlessly and stems entirely from jealous surly single minded bitchyness. Though that fucked up woman will just as soon bat her eyelids and play the dumb female to the nearest Big Swinging Dick she reports to. If I was my sister I'd slap the woman in the chops, tell her to fuck off and get another job. A better one. One that doesn't involve working for a woman. Having gone through this exact same woman-boss-shit myself, I've made that break and it was the best move I ever made.

Women with some degree of power are exceptional when they drop the bitchy crap and roll their sleeves up, either as focused righteous leaders with no gender agenda, or humble sincere challengers to honest to God injustice. But as a rule of thumb and right now? Women who a) have it made over here and b) find themselves in positions of unique power - are flat out mean spirited, trivial, pedantic dickheads. 

MJ: Music for Iran

A 27 year old Iranian (I think he is Iranian, he is certainly 27) has put together a tribute to the Iranians of the last week using a Michael Jackson number called "Young Folks". It's certainly been circulated by Iranian tweeters (one called Ary). I thought it was pretty clever so thought I'd post it even if the images are brutal.  Makes you feel privileged to live where you are, right?  

The general consensus in Iran is (acc BBC) "it might seem 'quiet' now to an outsider but there is fire below the ashes".  I expect that will be true whatever happens now.

Two thirds of the population is under 30, the median age is 27. The lyrics to the Jackson song are as follows: Brighter tomorrows are in our eyes You better make a way for the young folks We're marching with signs We're standing in lines, Protesting your rights To turn out the lights in our lives Here's the deal, accept it if you will We're coming on strong, It's our turn to build My old friend, I thought you knew by now

Oh and here's the hottest damn philsopher on the planet Bernard Henry-Levy on Iran: The Swansong of the Islamic Republic: Whatever Happens Now....

...ooh..Another one. 

An Iranian on Twitter posts this video with the note, "BEAT IT U FANATICS.". 

Love it.

Cheers, Persian Kiwi and Life

I should have tweeted Laura a cheers too, scary audiotweets were  all her idea! I just saw Buck's beer, wandered into the kitchen, rustled up a martini and tweeted or recorded in this case, that. I love the man's a propos of nothing posts!

Ok yup, tweeting is the daftest sounding thing ever. Someone has already come up with a Twatter to compete with Twitter (ahem) but honestly it only came into it's own (for me) this last week. I have literally been glued to Twitter following the excitement, uprising, heartache and hope of Iran's tweeting revolution. 

It is not that they haven't been protesting before. They have. We just ignored them here. On my old blog I used to chuck up pictures all the time of women and trades union activists and dissidents rallying, protesting, being arrested and trying to get international support. But this election and Twitter has given them new and collective momentum.

Today one of the most reliable twitterers "PersianKiwi" who has been keeping the world and the MSM up to date, posted a heartbreaking tweet that suggested he and others were about to be rounded up. You feel kind of helpless here. But watching this all unfold and keeping the faith for them is not just one of life's "up and down" moments, it's watching a major shift take place in the ever fractured Middle East that could be a change for the better? And nothing less than they fully deserve. A whole generation who have been denied a voice in the world while that Thug-in-Chief of theirs pretends his population are wholly anti-American and anti-Western. 

I think I mentioned that the original Ayatollah wanted an Army of young people to preserve the Islamic Republic. What he ended up with was an army of pro western 20 somethings desperate for change. The median age of the Iranian population is 27. Two thirds are under 30. Think about that!  Women activists have by far and away played the biggest role in what we are seeing now. I've always firmly believed that the whole Islamist nutcase number would be diffused by women. Naturally.  

What is going on there right now, if you do follow Twitter is horrific. Nightime arrests, crackdowns, limited internet access, hacking protestors to death in the streets and of course the Neda footage which first showed up Saturday afternoon. I wish I had never clicked on it.  All of this a big leap from the happy green protests that first appeared last week. The chants of the young women I posted on flickr on the right have swung from Where is My Vote to Death to the Dictator. I hope western governments find the cojones to refer to this man in the same way.

"Persiankiwi" the kid who disappeared for 24 hours, has had someone post that he is safe but in hiding and not yet ready to get back to Twitter. Another who has been posting updates regularly was too beaten up to find the strength to post. But he's back. I'm not sure if you all want to follow this issue but if you do I'm updating Twitter all the time. Click on the bespectacled cute little bird on the left.

If not - well cheers to you all! 

The sun is shining here, life is good, I have flu but hey who cares, work is busy...I am safe, secure, privileged and frankly right now? Disgusted by the way our MSM op-eds on an issue on the back of a medium they have no control over. I haven't watched a single news report on Iran. With Twitter I don't have to get into any stupid discussion on a political blog with people who pretend to care but really just want to blow hard on their views. Just short and perfunctionary - news. People speaking to other people to let them know they give a damn instead of leaving that to our Noble Leaders and their Not So Noble Dictator to hash it out through the ponsey , contriving MSM. Long may Twitter reign over us. 

A Saturday Afternoon

Paris, about April of this year

It wasn't quite Summer. A cooler kind of Spring Paris day. Lighter nights that start to last til 10pm, extending the days by half as much again. A cigarette on the go, blue smoke rising. A foamy coffee sinking and cooling in a cup.  My favourite time of year. I hang around with friends. I travel when I want and enjoy what I want, comment as I see fit. For all my troubles, I have fond memories of weeks on end of paid holidays to take when I please. Notably in America this year. My society is just, healthy, accessible to all and free. I can make what I want of myself. Or not. Though I know I won't disappear into any rotten underworld abyss here unless I truly want to. I always feel lucky to have been born here. And sipping a slow drink this afternoon with friends in peace and relative safety, when I look at Iran via Twitter today, I appreciate that no time more than now. In spite of my home city, London, being used as a focal point for progress, joy and hatred over the centuries, I usually feel bolstered not diminished by it's history, it's values. A city with the strength and comfort of a wise old man with strong welcoming arms and a face etched with both kindness and experience. It's just I guess, that sometimes, I wish I had lived in other times. Maybe I feel betrayed by the age I live in.

3 weeks ago or so. No tripod, handheld, light bounces off the sides of the Eiffel Tower like specs of golddust. 

You Got Somethin'

This song is almost seedy it's so sexy.  Man, I had to sneak away to post it for posterity and almost lost my martini. Yup, someday I intend to look back at this blog and laugh about all my little ditzy stories with the daughter I'll never have. I say that because, per the post below, the thought of me with a kid is frankly too bizarre!

It's ironic the week I kind of spill a little teeny tiny portion of the fun and underbelly of a music drug genre I was addicted to so for long (below x 2), that I've people round playing it tonight and... I'm not interested! Why?

I found JJ Cale again. 

and again

Oh and we have a diagnosed case of swine flu in our office. No I'm not kidding. But can't say I'm remotely worried either. But just in case I snuff it? You read it here first ;) Seriously - we do.

Hugh Grant kicks a jerk in the gonads. I enjoyed it. Guess it's my line of work.

***********************

It all seems to have gone beyond the vote fraud now. Momentum. 

My favourite picture of the year so far, front page of The Times yesterday and whizzed straight over to Iran via Twitter. Great, great, great shot. Serious moment though. And a number of kids and people didn't make it this far even. See below links for updates (or my twitter, links left)

Carousel

Nice - France, June - click to enlarge and check the little kid's face.

If I weren't so frenzied and frantic,

So foolish and fol-de-rol,

I'd give up this dizzying antic,

I'd get off this carousel.

But the circle is stronger than I am,

And my head is all in a whirl.

I cling to the dashing pink horses,

My vision wound up like a curl.

Orbital

Mmmm. Nope. I'm not posting those pics (re the post below). I did look and well.... yikes! I look like a mad owl in the ones that are decent enough to share. 

Here's some music instead. 

Orbital are a duo named after the M25 Orbital "rave road" I mentioned in my post below.  The m25 is a ring road around London by the way. Where we used to meet up to clue ourselves in. Their music needs to be listened to stoned, off your face somehow, or in a peaceful state with a beautiful smooth drink at your side, on your i-pod. I chose this track because someone has artfully meshed the track Halcyon with images from the sublime movie 2001 Space Odyssey. .

My personal favourites of theirs are Chime and  BELFAST.

 

The thing's hollow.. it goes on forever... and..oh my God...it's full of stars :) I know you are gonna hate these tracks so I may have to call in British reinforcements :D

**********************

Still looking up tracks. I couldn't find a good version of Cocaine (the drug that Trooper below notes killed the scene) - and a fine track by JJ Cale. It has to be by JJCale and NOT Clapton. I love the Cale. BUt I did find Travellin' Light. And Ride me High. Yay! Sexy stuff. Video's crap and remix kind of sucks but the music still rocks. Dad used to rock this stuff out full whack on a pair of 70s JBLs. Damn! Those speakers are worth a bloody fortune. I only just finished hooking them up a few months back.

Iran

Azamehr is doing a fantastic job as usual covering the situation in Iran with unseen video, photos also. Winston at Spirit of Man is also brilliantly blogging it all too.

Briton caught up in Iran's internet wars. 

There is a whole fascinating real time revolution with people taking real risks "tweeting" going on via Twitter. Finally Twitter becomes more than navel gazing:-

Miriam (tweeting from Iran): -

Iranian ppl showed they dont support Mr ahmadinejad & dont approve his actions. we want peaceful relation with other countries#iranelection

I am proud of my countrymen. they r fighting and trying to change their situation. we wont surrender to force and coercion #iranelection

mom says "either u go to sleep or i will throw the pc out of window" jee. such violence :D seems i have to go. will be in touch. tnx u all

hi. i'm twting about iran's situation and i want to hide my identity. could u plz help me?

****************

Athanasiadis described an extraordinary scene in central Tehran when a teenage girl, cornered by police, ripped off her headscarf and exposed her highlighted hair. "She screams insults at a policeman who begs her to put back on her hijab and stop causing a scene," wrote Athanasiadis. "Taking it from his hand, she throws it back in his face in one violent gesture, her indignant screams growing louder."

A middle-aged Iranian woman accompanying the photo-journalist told him: "This is the new generation. They're not scared at all. If I was stopped and told to fix my scarf, I'd be so terrified I'd pull it over my nose. But today's girls are not afraid, they will take the scarf off their head and throw it in the face of the police, even the basiji [Islamic militia]."

These are the same young people, unimpressed by the clerics who run their country, unmoved by Shia orthodoxy, and now unafraid to stand on the streets of Tehran and shout 'Death to the Dictator!' as the paramilitary basiji chase after them, wielding their sticks.

\fwiw the above was first posted by yours truly at ATW two years ago\

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twazzup