Appetite for distraction

Congratulations go to the editorial team at the Mail for inspiring the third successive post this week - the ambassador really is spoiling us.

Today's foaming-at-the-mouthpiece is the latest chapter in the Mail's ongoing battle with Islam, as they uncover the 'shocking truth' about the widespread use of halal meat. Of course, it would be easy to accuse the Mail of bigotry for its incessant attacks on Muslims, so they've taken a different route this time.

Shifting the blame away from their own cynical fear-mongering, the article's writers focuses on issues of animal welfare, despite having no compelling evidence that the animals suffer in any greater degree than in non-halal slaughterhouses. Churnalists Simon McGee and Martin Delgardo have shared their reactionary report with an RSPCA 'spokesman' who helpfully gave them a quote: "The public have a right to know how their meat is produced. Many people are extremely concerned about animal welfare. What The Mail on Sunday has discovered shows that people are not being kept informed."

This argument is disingenuous at best, since most members of the British public seem only loosely aware that their food is even animal in origin. High profile campaigns to eradicate battery farming have been met with the kind of apathetic ambivalence usually reserved for party political broadcasts. And when Jamie Oliver tried to get parents focused on the food their kids were eating, we saw desperate mothers poking Turkey Twizzlers through the school gates.

In a world of mechanically-recovered animal derivatives, the plight of Bessie the Cow in her final moments on Earth seem to be of minimal concern to the general public. I'm sure if people actually gave a moment's thought to the way our farmed animals are slaughtered and processed, there'd be a mass conversion to vegetarianism overnight. But that's not the way the world works, and McGee and Delgardo know that.

The real clue to how these purchasing decisions are made, can be found in a quote from a spokesman for Whitbread, which 'admitted' (a far more powerful word than 'confirmed' or 'said') that 80 percent of its chicken comes from halal poultry suppliers: "We don’t specify halal as a requirement in our procurement. We base our decision on quality and price. It just turns out that we source that amount of chicken from suppliers that happen to be halal."

The facts may suggest that meat is sourced according to price, and that the general public don't interrogate the origins of every value burger they cram into their mouths. But that doesn't stop the Mail from carefully choosing its examples to portray the full extent of this insidious Islamification of Great British institutions.

They're concerned that "famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public." The article is even illustrated with a hilarious picture of two rather posh-looking race-goers "indulging in fast food" at the famous racecourse, despite the fact that the 'fast food' in question is clearly a cardboard box of cod and chips. I'm no expert, but I imagine that the North Sea fishing boats have very few Muslim elders on hand to bless the floundering fish as it breathes its last.

It's clear that the real issue here is the fact that unsuspecting white people are tucking into food intended for Muslim mouths - why else would the writers investigate the sourcing policies of Marlborough and Cheltenham Colleges? They're hardly hotbeds of racial and cultural diversity.

With every passing day, the Mail is becoming more and more of a caricature of itself, as if it's being pieced together by Maggie and Judy from Little Britain.

There's no smoke without ire

The phrase 'be careful what you wish for' has never been more apt. Quick-tempered right wingers have spent the last few years, both here and in the States, attempting to demonise Islam as a religion of terrorists and radicals. On both sides of the pond reactionary rhetoric has been cleverly composed to manipulate the populace into a position of fear and intolerance.

The most recent hot-button issue has been the announcement of plans to build a mosque at 'Ground Zero' - interpreted by certain news organisations and commentators as an opportunity to dance on the graves of the 3,000+ people who lost their lives on 9/11.

A wide variety of politicians and pundits have been quick to add their voices to the mix, usually taking the stance that the concept of 'freedom of religion' was never meant to include Muslims. There have been a number of protests - with one Muslim cab-driver even being stabbed in New York. Ironically, his attacker was later identified as a "volunteer with a nonprofit organization that works to promote cross-cultural understanding." I guess they need to work a bit harder at that.

But the anti-Muslim sentiment reached its nadir last week when the Pastor of a little-known church in Florida announced his plans to organise an international 'Quran Burning Day'. Despite arguing that he's not a bigot, Terry Jones, head of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, intends to burn a pile of Islamic holy books on the anniversary of 9/11. He told the press, who were quick to pick up the story, "It's something that we feel we need to do. It's a message that we feel we need to send."

But there's a silver lining to the cloud of acrid smoke that will gather in the skies over Gainesville on Saturday. Key Republican mouthpieces, who have previously been keen to stoke the fires of anti-Islamic sentiment, have spoken out against the pastor's plans, seemingly horrified by the antagonism they've helped to create.

Fox New lunatic Glenn Beck and photogenic brain-donor Sarah Palin have both written eloquently (the latter, likely using a ghost-writer who understands basic sentence construction) about the fact that burning religious books is 'antithetical' to American ideals. Sure, freedom of speech might entitle people to demonstrate their displeasure, but that doesn't make it acceptable or appropriate.

Even more comforting, is the fact that Tennessee Pastor Steve Stone is doing his bit to open minds and hearts in his (red) neck of the woods. When he heard 18 months ago that a new Islamic Center (American news source, American spelling) was opening in Memphis, he was quick to post a sign that read "Heartsong Church welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood."

The local Muslim community were apparently overwhelmed by this welcoming gesture, and as a result a thriving interfaith network has been forged between the two constituencies. Stone and his counterpart Dr. Bashar Shala have even appeared on news shows together to talk about their mutually respectful relationship.

Stone recently blogged that "The majority of the response both locally, nationally and internationally has been positive and affirming. And honestly, that has been both surprising and heartening to me. My guess would be that 90+% have responded that way."

Whether it's God at work, or simply the natural order of things, it's comforting to see that the universe has a way of correcting itself. The appeal of extremism (on either side) tends to be fairly short-lived.

Here come the girls

When the first Sex and the City movie came out, the movie industry was left scratching its head about how they didn't see this one coming. Here was a movie aimed at women, based on a TV-show, about a fickle footwear-fetishist dithering over whether or not to get married, and it made over $400 million dollars at the global box office.

After a performance like that, it's safe to say that expectations for the sequel are higher than the heels on one of Sarah Jessica Parker's ridiculous shoes. The buzz has been building for months, with the film being pitched as ideal counter-programming for World Cup widows, and gays with nothing better to do for a couple of hours.

The movie's trailer gave audiences a pretty comprehensive peek into what the movie has to offer - lots of female bonding over pink drinks, Carrie and her pals dressing like a group of clowns who charge by the hour, and a whole lot of camel toe. I'm not being disgusting there, they actually go to Dubai and ride camels.

Well, the movie might be set in Dubai but it was filmed in Morocco, which was a little more welcoming to a film about four sexually promiscuous Cosmo-quaffers. Put off by the UAE's somewhat conservative views on women and alcohol consumption, director Michael Patrick King thought that the North African country would be a more workable location, sensitively describing it as "Muslim light".

Not that we should expect a thorough examination of the role of women in contemporary Muslim culture from a film in which Carrie describes the girls' Middle-Eastern jaunt as being "just like Jasmine [the Disney princess from Aladdin] but with cocktails." Judging by the sneak peaks released so far, Sex and the City 2 looks set to make Carry On Up The Khyber seem like the height of anthropological veracity.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh here. After all, this is a film about sex, shopping and slingbacks. Audiences will be far more interested in seeing how extreme the fab foursome's outfits can get without one of them being sectioned. There's a reason why the film's costume budget has been rumoured to be as much as $10 million.

More importantly, the real question on fans' minds is whether or not Carrie will succumb to hunky carpenter Aiden's charms and cheat on husband Mr. Big. The trailer tries hard to give nothing away, but eagle-eyed viewers have noticed that there are other clues pointing towards Carrie's penchant for infidelity.

Carrie's ever-present Macbook is as central to her character as a closet full of Manolos. OK, I never said this was deep. And from the pilot episode, right through to the last movie, we've always seen our heroine sitting in the window, tapping out her thoughts in the glow of little white Apple. But not anymore.



She's done the dirty on her beloved laptop, and picked up an HP instead. Which I'm sure has everything to do with consistent character development, and nothing to do with the fact the PC giant signed a massive product placement deal with the film's producers.

Even the Guardian has weighed in on this important subject, with Zoe Williams arguing that "Macs were invented for [people like Carrie], people without IT support, with no skills or office training, with very little likelihood of ever accruing any knowledge or expertise, with no backbone or basic housekeeping procedures."

More importantly, the Macbook is the Louis Vuitton holdall of the computer world. Depicting Carrie working on a generic laptop is like expecting her to go swinging down the street in a pair of Hi-Tec trainers, with a Lidl carrier bag over her arm.

This is one franchise that owes Mac a little loyalty. After all, it must have taken a whole warehouse full of them to muster the necessary computing power needed to generate the poster artwork for the new sequel.

Testament to the power of Photoshop, the posters have been rightly slated for making the girls look about as realistic as Jessica Rabbit. In particular, Kim Catrall is completely unrecognisable, almost as though she's undergone an experimental facial treatment using a PedEgg and a bottle of Tipp-Ex.

So much for the female empowerment and sisterhood that the series always prided itself on.

Whodunnit?

Over the last few years, Islam has turned into a convenient bogeyman for Middle Englanders. From the 'preachers of hate' who renounce western indulgences, through to girls who wish to wear a ḥijāb to school, Muslims represent a one-size-fits-all villain for guardians of Great British traditions, such as bigotry, ignorance and intolerance.

Mindful that their opinions might be considered racist, the vocal minority has astutely embraced the notion that the best form of offence is defence. This simply means that, in order to voice their noxious viewpoints, they need to play the part of innocent victim. If they can convince people that they are being persecuted or oppressed, they can give a name to their pain - in fact, they can call it any name they like.

It's a cunning bit of wordplay, but it's extraordinarily effective. So we shouldn't really be surprised that an experienced writer would feel comfortable applying the technique. Lynda La Plante, who seems to be transforming into a Spitting Image puppet of Nerys Hughes, has spoken out in an interview with the Telegraph, and opted to blame young Muslims for her lack of work.

She believes that the BBC is in the grip of an obsession with 'political correctness' (another imaginary but shadowy threat to our very existence), and as a consequence, is overlooking the 25 years she's spent trotting out the same three plots again and again.

"If you were to go to the BBC and say to them, ‘Listen, Lynda La Plante’s written a new drama, or I have this little Muslim boy who's just written one’, they’d say: ‘Oh, we’d like to see his script.’ If my name were Usafi Iqbadal and I was 19, then they’d probably bring me in and talk.”

Ben Stephenson, BBC Controller of Drama, was quick to respond, pointing out that "Lynda had two pieces in development with [the BBC]". Could it be that Lynda is simply using BBC commissioning policy as a way of legitimising her ugly opinions?

It's a little depressing to hear Lynda express such knee-jerk (with the emphasis on jerk) opinions, given that she must have been very much in the minority when she began writing dramas back in the mid-eighties. Diversity policies and progressive commissioners have no doubt supported Lynda throughout her career, but now that it's someone else's turn to reap the benefits, these factors suddenly become the death knell for quality TV.

After quarter of a century writing crime thrillers, Lynda's become pretty adept at uncovering who's really at fault. Like when the Sydney Morning Herald discovered the fact that she may have plagiarised whole sections of her 1993 Holocaust novel Entwined, from a book by an Auschwitz survivor called Olga Lengyel. Lynda responded to the accusations, through lawyers of course, blaming a research assistant who no longer worked for her - a researcher who received no credit or reference in the book itself. If only Jane Tennyson was around to unpick this complicated mystery...

Lynda's work is littered with hard-nosed, cold-hearted women constantly searching for someone to blame. I guess the old adage is true - write what you know.