Monday, 19 June 2017

Gee

It's boiling hot today. Boiling hot. It was boiling hot yesterday as well. By the end of the day I'd almost melted. My pillow was solid with sweat when I woke up. I didn't do anything all day yesterday. I moped about a bit, feeling flat and a little sorry for myself, waiting for Nathan to get back from an interminable rehearsal. I should have found myself something to do. I should have been walking, swimming or picnicking on the Heath.

I woke up this morning to the news that there's been another terrorist attack in London. This one seems to have been carried out by an Islamaphobe. I was incredibly moved to read that the attacker was protected from an angry mob by an Imam. For some reason I find myself wanting to refer to this particular attack as a hate crime rather than an act of terrorism. I think an element of planning and ideology is required for something to be defined as terrorism. By that token I wouldn't describe the Orlando attack as terrorism. It was a hate crime against gay people. I think the term terrorism actually waters down the essential facts, which in the case of Finsbury Park is that a man who hates Muslim people decided to kill Muslim people. It was specifically an act of Islamophobia and it's important that we treat it as such.

Obviously, we don't know any true information about the perpetrator. He may well have been part of some ghastly white supremacist group. However the attack is defined, it's ghastly and it shouldn't be happening and, I predict, it will do nothing other than bring Londoners further together.

True to form, The Sun newspaper didn't have news of the attack on its front page. I was actually fairly shocked, particular as their headline instead was about Ant from Ant and Dec going into rehab. Great to know these newspapers that are so pro Brexit and so right wing have such integrity when it comes to reporting news.

The other piece of news today was that the number of people killed in the Grenfell Tower has risen to 80. Those who have lost their homes are to be given £5500 by the government, which seems like a brutally small amount. These people have been treated in a disgusting way. I've read about one (relatively young) bloke being sent to an old people's home. Others are in hotels and have no idea whether they'll be rehoused in the area.

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