Meanwhile in a Dutch cell...

More cutting edge legal blogging natch...

A Dutch prisoner giant has gone to court over the size of his single cell, arguing that it is inhumanely small. The prisoner, 2.07m tall (6ft 9in) and 230kg (36st - multiply by 14 for pounds American readers!), says he cannot properly sleep or use the toilet. Prison officials have tried to relieve his discomfort by adding a a 2.15m plank and an extra mattress to his bed. While the plank and extra mattress supplied by the prison authorities were meant to make him more comfortable, he now has to 'sleep with one eye open in case he falls out of bed' explained his lawyer, one Mr Martens.

It is emphasised by his lawyer that the prisoner is a natural giant and not obese. The rabbit is slightly troubled by this one. Even taking on board (so to speak) that he is 6 ft 9 ins, erm, 36 stones??? He is doing 2 years for fraud as you ask. He is not arguing that he shouldn't finish his sentence, but that he should finish it somewhere else. To take a shower, he must first wedge himself into the cubicle, then crouch down under the head. So tiny and low is his toilet, he complains, that - erm - visits must be kept to the absolute minimum. Mr Martens, who has argued before a court at The Hague that the prisoner - known as - Angelo McD has had his European Convention rights breached (cue Daily Mail type howls of rage) by his conditions of detention. there will be a ruling in February and the rabbit will be playing close attention but is saying nuffin save that overweight Dutchmen put him in mind of the rather wonderful Dutch pancakes - for the unitiated called poffertjes (see below). Yums!

Scambaiting revisited

Way, way back in the beginning of time the rabbit did a posting about his brief career as a scambaiter. Nice unicorn I'm sure all will agree. Being still time pressed, I thought I'd let the excellent scamorama website do the work today. A particular favourite scambaiter of the rabbit's is Lonslo Tossov. Follow the link for his latest romantic tryst - this time with the lovely Jane. The link has further links to Lonslo's previous amours. For the unaware, Lonslo's photographs are actually of the doctor and prolific serial killer Harold Shipman. The website 419eater (419 is the article of the Nigerian penal code prohibiting advance fee fraud) has a most splendid trophy room in which photos of would-be scammers holding up ridiculous signs or doing dumb things are displayed, Hat Tip to 419eater for the following.

No doubt he is...

Ditto this fellow. The scammers are either irredeemably stupid or desperate - or both.

Quite so... On a totally different topic, the rabbit is currently reading Kitty Kelley's The Royals. THIS IS PURELY IN THE INTERESTS OF RESEARCH! I have a literary project and some background reading is needed - otherwise I'd never dream of reading such a book. Having said that, it is actually quite a good scurrilous read and has reinforced the rabbit in his republicanism. A review will follow when I've finished it. On another completely different topic, the rabbit was shocked to come across the image below. Letting the side down if you ask me...

And here is the rabbit's latest masterpiece using the Julian Assange coloring (sic) book website (link below)...

Twelve Angry Cats...

The above feline is named Sal Esposito and if she is looking distinctly startled, there is a good reason. Ever at the cutting edge of legal blogging, the rabbit can reveal that Sal has been summoned for jury service in Boston, Massachusetts, despite being - erm - a cat. Let Sal's owner, Anna Esposito take up the story: 'Sal is a member of the family so I listed her on the last census form under pets but there has clearly been a mix-up'.

Quite so. The rabbit scratches his head at the idea of a census form that requires details of resident pets in the first place but that's by the way.

A jury summons duly appeared for Sal, much to the bemusement of his - one may suspect intellectually challenged - owners. Anna Esposito filed to have her pet disqualified from the service requirement on the grounds he is 'unable to speak and understand English'. She even included a letter from her vet explaining that Sal is not a human being but a 'domestic short-haired neutered feline'.

Very reasonable points too, I am sure all will agree but the court rejected the request, and as things stand, Sal will have to report for duty to Suffolk Superior Court in Boston on March 23.

The rabbit awaits developments but does recall that his youth (or early adulthood more strictly) he lived in a house with a TV Licence holding cat. The relevant licence was in the name of Ms B. A. Catt - the relevant cat being called Brian despite being female for reasons too convoluted and dull to explain. He also recalls a cat named Florence who was on the electoral roll as Florence A Catt. Unlike Sal, Florence's entry was deliberate and a joke. Also unlike Sal (I assume) Florence actually voted in a general election via a human representative who presented herself at the polling station and gave Florence's name. Florence voted Liberal if you were wondering. Hat Tip to Mahal.

Caligula and pigeon

Here follows a couple of stories which have amused the rabbit. Above is the Roman Emperor Caligula (statue of the same from the Louvre), or Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus To Mention But A Few to give him his real name. For the classically challenged, Caligula was bonkers even by the standards of the Caesars and noted for unfortunate activities such as sleeping with his sisters, turning the royal palace into a brothel and once, while watching some games, throwing an entire section of the crowd into the arena to be eaten by animals as there were no criminals left and he was bored, a point of view I am sure all will readily understand.

The rabbit's favourite Caligula story is that he had his favourite Horse, Incitatus by name, made a Roman Citizen and Senator and planned to have him made consul. Very sensible too. A jolly good sport, Incitatus would apparently invite various dignitaries round for dinner. What happened to Incitatus after caligula's death at the hands of his Praetorian Guard who had plainly decided that eh had got a bit much remains obscure. Robert Graves has Claudius in Claudius The God withdrawing Incitatus' status as Senator as, despite the fact he could find no moral fault with Incitatus, he no longer passed the property qualification but the more likely theory is that he was killed. This may have come as a relief after a life of eating gold leaf, drinking wine and larging it in a purple horse blanket. Oh and Caligula said he was to be revered as a god. Double-oh and he was married to a horse called Penelope.

The topicality of all this is that Caligula's grave has never been found. But there have been developments. A tomb raider was arrested near Italy's Lake Nemi, about 20 miles south of Rome, as he loaded part of a 2.5-metre statue of our man into a lorry. Caligula undoubtedly had a villa nearby, as well as a floating temple and a floating palace. As one does. The statue is thought to be worth over £800,000. Now it has been claimed that the tomb raider has shown Italian police where the grave of Caligula is and excavations are to commence. Some experts, notably Cambridge classicist Mary Beard have expressed scepticism. the rabbit will be keeping an eye on this story. Below is John Hurt totally larging it as Caligula in the absolutely astounding BBC serial I Claudius...



Oh okay, from the same series, here is John Hurt camping it up outrageously as Caligula with the Troggs Wild Thing overdubbed. You gotta admit that the combination works. Enjoy...



Meanwhile in Colombia, all is not well. Some naughty jailbirds (as it were) have been using a carrier pigeon to fly cannabis and cocaine paste into prison. Unfortunately the poor bird was somewhat overloaded with drugs and - well - couldn't quite make it and crash landed just short of the prison in somewhere called Bucaramanga. A case of greed defeating ingenuity.

Eheu Fugaces

The rabbit was sad, and in a way shocked, to learn of the death from cancer of Susannah York , aged 72. The shock is from remembering her from when he was an adolescent - a beautiful, as well as talented actress. And talented she undoubtedly was, while viewing fame and celebrity with an appropriate indifference. By all accounts a lovely woman, she was a passionate supporter of such causes as she thought merited support. 72 isn't that old and cancer is a cruel disease. The above pic is of her as I would like to remember her - young and sexy as hell.

There are consolations, though. Another Nickel In The Machine has become one of the rabbit's all time favourite blogs. Postings are highly irregular but when they come they are quality. A couple have been posted recently. Enjoy.

Oh and a more major consolation is the news that the rabbit is to become a grandfather for the first time in July. I've got the ultrasound scan pic but I can't really post it without permission - it just blew me away, though. I'll ask...

Go on, you know you want to!

With Hat Tip to Tony, rabbit this will drive you nuts but you can't help it services is pleased to bring the Julian Assange Coloring Book. Stupid but compulsive or what?

Mocking Politicians......

The above chappie is Hugo Chavez who - for the benefit of the unitiated - is the President of Venezuela. Mahal prompts the rabbit that it the nazis were not the only members of the political class to have a huge sense of humour failure in the face of mockery (see Jackie the dog below). A Colombia soap opera called Chepe Fortuna does the rounds in Latin America and stars a character called Colombia and her sister Venezuela, who owns a dog called - erm - Little Hugo.

It is shown on the Televen channel in Venezuela. Could it be that Chavez - and Venezuala generally - is being mocked? The Venezuelan regulator Conatel thinks so complaining that the character named Venezuela was 'repeatedly characterised as associated with crime, interference and vulgarity'. One can but tut at such stereotyping.

Her gossipy and unscrupulous manner, continued Conatel, showed 'the shameless manipulation of the plot to demoralise the Venezuelan people'.

Um righty...

Conatel ordered the Televen channel to take the programme off air on Thursday night. So far no response from Televen. The rabbit will keep an eye on the situation - as he will on the situation of the Venezuelan Judge presently banged up for some reason the rabbit doesn't quite follow.

Funny lot politicians... Evidently British Prime Minister David Cameron is very sensitive about his admittedly odd shaped bald patch and even hired an official photographer at £35,000 a year to not photograph it. A very sensible use of public funds, I'm sure all will agree. Here rabbit mockery services presents to an unsuspecting world the funny shaped bald patch in all its horror. The result of such hypersensitivity is of course that various of the media have become somewhat obsessed with the bald patch and spend half their working hours trying to spot it...

Way back in the 60s, there was a New Zealand politician - and later prime minister - called Robert Muldoon who was greatly offended by the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore song 'The ballad of Spotty Muldoon' During his time as Finance Minister, New Zealand National Radio banned 'The ballad of Spotty Muldoon'. Very reasonable too. I'm sure all will agree but as 'Spotty' is dead now, who cares? Let it rip...

Conviction and Jackie the Dog...

The rabbit has never been invited to the pre-release screening of a film before. But he was today at 20th Century Fox offices in central London. The film is called Conviction and the rabbit got the invite as a lawyer and blogger.

The storyline is based on real life. A Massachusetts woman named Betty-Ann Waters (Hilary Swank) life was turned upside down when her older brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) was arrested for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983. She set out on an 18 year mission to have her brother's conviction quashed, putting herself through high school, college and, finally, law school. Does she succeed? Take a wild guess. The particularly interesting part of the story is that the appeal was one of the first to use DNA evidence

Did the rabbit get to the pre-release screening? Nope. Until very near close of business on Friday, it looked like that all was good for his attendance. Then at the last minute a case in Oxford arrived in his diary. The way it works is that there was no alternative to heading off to Oxford, which the rabbit duly did.

But the kind PR lady who arranged the rabbit's attendance at the pre-release screening has sent a load of promotional clips. Here they are - fresh as can be.

Four of them plus the trailer..

I will go and see it - even as a paying customer! But that is the story of how the rabbit nearly mixed with the cinematic great and good. Heigh ho...

Introducing Jackie the Dog. How cool is a dog in shades? Jackie' story has recently come to the rabbit's attention as causing offence to the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular. Now it takes little imagination to appreciate that the Nazis were not strong on self-deprecating humour. Jackie (a dalmatian as you ask) was taught by his owner's wife to raise his paw in a Nazi salute every time he heard the word 'Hitler'. This was not well-received in German government circles and historians have found thirty official files about the dog, despite the German government having other things on its collective mind at the time such as - erm - invading Russia.

Jackie's owner was a Finnish businessman named Tor Borg. His wife was an anti-Nazi German. Borg was reported by an informer to the German Consulate in Helsinki and summoned for interrogation.He said he had never done anything 'that could be seen as an insult against the Reich'

Oh no not much.. Happily he got away with it and there were no consequences, save to Hitler's 'dignity'.

the rabbit doesn't usually do requests...

but simply wondered asked for the Mitchell Johnson song to make his happiness complete. Here are the Barmies, led from the field by KP with aforesaid song, words as follows...

He bowls to the left
He bowls to the right
But that Mitchell Johnson
His bowling is shite

Pleasing in its simplicity, I am sure all will agree. The rabbit is coming to the conclusion that the mockery is all getting a bit much. What for example can comedian Bill Bailey mean by the following?

'Let's not mention the Ashes and the 3 innings defeats. It would be unseemly to mention the 3 innings defeats, in the Ashes, 3 - 1'

The rabbit can only concur. Former England captain Michael Vaughan seems to have plans on becoming a comedian himself. I quote...

What do you call an Australian with a bottle of champagne? A waiter.
What do you call an Australian with 100 runs to his name? A bowler.
What do you call an Australian who can hold a catch? A fisherman.

One can but tut at this gloating and move on.

On a completely different topic, the rabbit read an article today about Sandy Denny and was put in mind of her exquisite song Who Knows Where The Time Goes? Amazingly, she wrote this song aged 20. She died of a brain haemorrhage after falling down stairs aged 31 in 1978. Here is the original demo of this song from Sandy Denny/Fairport Convention.

Good God...

With Hat Tip to Laci the Dog, here is something from the Thames Water sewermen... This is either late for Christmas or early for Mental Health Week or somesuch....

The time poor rabbit is hopping off leaving the above in his wake. Oh and with Hat Tip to Earl, try this for size too...

Sprinkler Dance...

Does sport get any better than this? Nope! Do I have the slightest sympathy for the Australians? Nope. I thought it was the Poms who were supposed to do the whinging but the Australians - team and public - went down gracelessly and - erm - whinging.

And here is a 2011 factoid with Hat Tip to Charon QC: 2011 is a prime number/sum of 11 consecutive primes ...

2011=157+163+167+173+179+181+191+193+197+199+211

Informative here, you have to admit.

An Ideal Husband and other stuff...

The rabbit is coming up for air briefly after seasonal stuff. The seasonal stuff included a first ever visit to the Vaudeville Theatre to see Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. The rabbit and his companions got box seats at day ticket prices of £10, which induced smugness all round as we waved graciously to the common herd down in the stalls from our box seats. An Ideal Husband isn't Oscar's best play - The Importance of Being Earnest is perfection - delicious zingy one liner after delicious zingy one liner - and perfection by definition cannot be improved on. But An Ideal Husband is pretty good. Follow the Oscar gems on the clip above.

OSCAR WILDE ROCKS!

The rabbit also caught Love and Other Drugs - this was not and would not have been the rabbit's choice - asort of romcom cum weepie but the rabbit was generally entertained and found Anne Hathaway most pleasing to the eye. It also has a rather good soundtrack, including a rabbit favourite - Fatboy Slim's Praise You.Like sooooo.....

Lengthier postings to follow soon. Australian readers will notice that the rabbit - with commendable forbearance - hasn't even mentioned The Ashes. This is a gloating-free zone!

Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Hee!

A happy Christmas to all...

...from rabbit on the hop.

About to hop...

...down from Birmingham to London but as a parting shot for now here a couple of links pointed out by the indefatigable Mahal - one is the seven most horrifying cost cutting measures of all time - the other is a mystery to the rabbit who has led a sheltered life...

Okay I said 'normal' service...

The rabbit was sad to read of the death of Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart. Apparently his real name was Don Glen Vliet but he changed the Glen to Van which seems to work in some odd way. Beefheart's Mirror Man was the first album the young rabbit bought. Strange I know but there ya go...



The young rabbit also saw Beefheart live at the Rainbow, Finsbury Park way back in the late middle ages but the abiding memory has to be his vocal on the Willie the Pimp track on Zappa's Hot Rats album - way up there in the top demented vocal performances list. Oddly, the album took its title not from a title track but from a phrase - from the lyrics of Willie the Pimp. All together now...

I'm a little pimp with my hair gassed back
Pair a khaki pants with my shoe shined black
Got a little lady . . . walk the street
Tellin' all the boys that she cain't be beat
Twenny dollah bill (I can set you straight)
Meet me onna corner boy 'n don't be late
Man in a suit with a bow-tie neck
Wanna buy a grunt with a third party check
Standin' onna porch of the Lido Hotel
Floozies in the lobby love the way I sell:
HOT MEAT
HOT RATS
HOT CATS
HOT RITZ
HOT ROOTS
HOT SOOTS



Beefheart always dabbled in art and in later life gave up music to concentrate on being an artist. We will not see his like again.



Meanwhile in another part of the world of popular music, the now (as in as from last year) traditional attempt to knock the latest piece of Simon Cowell X-Factor dreck [German, dirt, trash and Yiddish drek, excrement, both from Middle High German drec, from Old High German; see sker-3 in Indo-European roots - definition brought to you by rabbit copy and paste services] from the top of the UK Christmas charts has failed due to a failure to agree on one candidate for the alternative. Last year all people of goodwill rallied around Rage Against The Machine but this year dissent has spread itself too widely and thinly. The above demented video is for The Trashmen's Surfin' Bird which came nearest to knocking the Cowell dreck off its Christmas perch, reaching number three while the other alternative candidate - John Cage's silent song '4:33' spilt the troops while only reaching number 21. Beefheart would have approved of all of this no doubt!

Meanwhile as a cutting edge law blog - albeit somewhat belatedly, the rabbit would like to draw the attention of a wider world to the activities of Judge Beatrice Bolton on finding herself on the receiving end of the criminal law. Woof! Woof!

Back...

Well I've effected the move back to London. It was a bit of a nightmare as the rabbit and removal van and two nice Lithuanian guys (not Polish) were whizzing nicely down the M40 until we found it was closed down at Juncytion 11 and we were stuck in an enormous tailback which took about an hour and a half of stop and crawl to get through. The knock on effect was hitting the evening rush hour in London and another crawl. Someone from the agents stayed behind to give me the keys, which was nice, and unloading happened very rapidly. My furniture etc is coming out if storage on Sunday so i'm sleeping on a blow up bed for the moment! To be honest, I don't like the flat much but I had to do something and have a six month break clause, which I will invoke. It's good to be back in London, though - apparently pursued from northern parts by another very cold front (see pic from Belfast above). Here are a few more photos of the snowy weather from the BBC website.

Devon.

M4 between Junctions 30 and 32

Gwent, Wales. Must dash...Normal service resumed very soon.

If that Jubilee don't come...

The rabbit is on the move down to London tomorrow. Normal service (if 'normal' comes into it) will be resumed very soon. For the record, the photo is not actually the rabbit's method of travel (as is traditional these days it's a Polish man with a van) but is a covered wagon in a migratory carrot pullers' camp (circa February 1939). This is all good - a new adventure.

Winter is here and the time is right etc...

This has to be the photographic image of the week. London - where the rabbit is now due to return next Wednesday - seems to have decided that winter is here and the time is right for fighting in the streets. The heir to the throne and pal are attacked in their limousine on the way to the theatre last Thursday night to noisy universal condemnation. For overseas readers and those who have been fast asleep under a stone for several months, the issue was a proposal being voted on in the House of Commons that night to create a new framework for student tuition fees, potentially tripling them in some cases. The proposal was carried by 21 votes in the middle of scenes of general uproar on the streets. Interestingly, all the YouTube clips of the attack on the Charles and Camilla car have been taken down so here is what can be found online from something called Access Hollywood - intermixed with a lot of other guff for the benefit of the hard of thinking (after some advert).

The other 'celebrity' dimension of the day of rioting was that the son of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gimour attracted considerable odium after swinging from the Union Jack on the Cenotaph - that's the national war memorial overseas readers. He subsequently claimed he didn't know what it was. He is a Cambridge University student doing an - erm - history degree.

In the meantime and more seriously than either of the above, a student protester had emergency brain surgery after a police officer hit him on the head with a baton. This story has got somewhat buried in tthe froth about Charles, Camilla and son of Dave Gilmour. There is a general surprise at the extent to which the protests have spilled into violent or - perhaps more accurately - destructive behaviour. Of course this is the behaviour of a minority but the size and determination of the minority is somewhat surprising. Although finding monarchy absurd, I bear Charles no personal ill-will - the tragedy of his life is probably that he finds himself well into his sixties and still in a seemingly endless rehearsal for a part he probably has no wish to play. He would surely be happier as a gentleman farmer being left in peace to indulge such eccentric theories as he may hold - and there are many. The attack on his vehicle added nothing to anything like other outbreaks of deeply unattractive behaviour.

Of course there is a lot of standard issue huffing and puffing about the disorder - although so far as I can gather no police officer or bystander was seriously injured and there was nothing on the same scale as the November Millbank events. Of course there have been counter-accusations as regards police over-reaction - no doubt with considerable force (so to speak) in many cases - how a student comes to be in need of emergency brain surgery requires some serious explaining - which no doubt will not be forthcoming. Certainly the practice of 'kettling' seems a recipe for cranking up the disorder by giving people a sense of being trapped in a kind of cage which they then try to break out of as a fairly elementary response. Just two points for the moment: firstly, although the protests are about tuition fees I suspect that there are a number of other issues bubbling under the surface, which presently lack articulation. If the protests spill over from the narrow issue of tuition fees to broader issues then the government is in huge trouble. When the rabbit was a revolting student the approach to any issue was to look for links with other issues. Secondly, where is the articulation - and in particular the generalising of disparate issues - to come from? It may even be that the extent of the disorder is a kind of blind rage - reflecting the lack of a coherent process of linking. The English notoriously dislike theory but some theorising seems in order. Do not expect the quintessentially useless Labour opposition to provide any of it, though. There's only one song to end with...

I married a Deadhead...

A flying visit as time pressured with move back to London imminent. The above is I suppose a minority taste but raised a smile from the rabbit. Also of interest is a short piece by Deborah Orr in the Grauniad today on Julian Assange's little difficulties with the Swedish criminal justice system. I suspect that she's got about the right feel for the topic. I liked 'Assange hardly comes over as Prince Charming, but...'

Uh-huh.

The latest on WikiLeaks and what you can use your card for...

The rabbit's curiosity is aroused. Basically, there are two stories running here. Conspiracy theorists would say that there is one story with two threads. The first is the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. He appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday in relation to extradition proceedings brought by Sweden. To be exact as there has been much rumour and assertion and counter-assertion on the topic, the charges in respect of which extradition is sought are as follows:

The first involves complainant A, who said she was the victim of 'unlawful coercion' on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
The second charge alleged Assange 'sexually molested' Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her 'express wish' one should be used.
The third charge claimed Assange 'deliberately molested' Miss A on 18 August 'in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity'. The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on 17 August without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.

Apparently in Swedish law rape is not founded on lack of consent but on the concept of 'sexual integrity'.

Assange was remanded in custody on the ground that he may fail to appear, a point underpinned in the mind of the District Judge by his 'lack of community ties' in the UK. This is despite an array of the great and the good including Jemima Khan and Ken Loach presenting themselves to the court to offer themselves as surety. Assange is of good character and had handed himself in voluntarily at Kentish Town Police Station. If he is extradited, apparently all defendants in Sweden go into custody (this somewhat surprises the rabbit as he was brought up to believe that the presumption of bail follows the presumption of innocence) but there is a two week timescale for charges and a three week timescale for trial. It would be interesting to know what the maximum penalties are for these offences - no doubt all will become clear. Below is the car carrying Assange arriving at court.

Now the US is undoubtedly out to get Assange. Are the extradition proceedings a part of this attack? At the risk of getting all lawyerish I think that the answer at the moment is 'no evidence'. At present, I don't buy it. The more likely view on present information is that Swedish prosecutors are doing some serious grandstanding. The US attack takes different forms. There is a lot of extreme rhetoric emanating form the US right calling for Assange to be variously executed, 'taken out' or 'neutralised'. It will be interesting to see if there is a serious attempt to extradite him to the US in due course. The problem appears to be that it is highly debatable whether he has committed an offence under US law. Oh and Swedish prosecutors say they will not hand him over - though whether such resolve would last following an extradition request remains to be seen.

For the moment, the attack appears to be twofold. Firstly, WikiLeaks links keep being taken down. The rabbit link here is frozen. It hasn't gone down but it is generally stuck. Secondly, US pressure is undoubtedly being brought to bear on commercial bodies to cut off WikiLeaks' sources of finance. Mastercard and Visa have suspended their links with WikiLeaks. PayPal and Swiss Bank Post Finance have also removed support for WikiLeaks. In the meantime hackers or 'hacktivists' have launched a counterattack named 'Operation Payback' and succeeded in closing down the Mastercard website. PayPal and Post Finance have also been on the receiving end of the hackers' attention.

Some comment has been made as regards things you can still do with your Mastercard etc. Well you can still join the Ku Klux Klan. They do have certain rather rigorous criteria. 'You must be a free white male or female of European descent, at least 18 years of age' they announce. Warming to their theme the would be member gathers that 'you must not be married to or date people of other races, nor have mixed race dependants, this includes adopted children'. Uh-huh. Furthermore
'under NO circumstances will we accept for associateship: homosexuals, atheists, or those who have been found mentally insane'. The capitalised NO presumably makes these things clear enough.

Above are some Klan members not being mentally insane (what other sort of insanity is there, by the way?) Is any of this a problem for Visa, Mastercard or Amex? Nope. The rabbit purported to buy a KKK flag from their website. Is this a problem? Nah! Course not... The Klan linked 'Christian books and things' are graciously please to accept Visa, Mastercard and Amex.

Nearer to home, anyone wishing to join the BNP can do so using an array of plastic: Visa/Visa Electron, Mastercard, Solo and Delta.

Then seek help.

Of course the BNP had to comply with that pesky equality legislation to render itself legal. The British People's Party , the body for people who consider the BNP insufficiently nuts, has no such grudging compliance with equality legislation. Would be members have to 'declare that I am of European descent and that I will work in whatever way I can to further the aims of White Nationalism'. We are in KKK territory here. They have lots of jolly merchandising, including a classy Adolf Hitler bust previously featured on White Rabbit, but with lots of new stuff too such as a tasteful SS Death's Head patch.


Visa, Mastercard etc do not deal with the BPP but there is a link to a PayPal account - another body to remove its link with WikiLeaks. In fairness, PayPal may not know who they are dealing with. If they did no doubt they would remove the link pronto. Wouldn't they?

By way of a little light relief, here are some Cadbury's Smash adverts. Smash was an instant mashed potato mixture from the 1960s/70s when such a thing was considered a pretty neat idea. Smash (they may still make it for all I know) tasted thoroughly nasty but their ads were pure quality. Enjoy!

!