Outside the Russian Consulate earlier this evening

Two pictures taken of the rally (not a very large one but not too bad for a week-day evening) outside the Russian Consulate this evening to promote Strategy-31. The slogan on the poster in the second picture says: "Obey your own Constitution". Not only is this a reference to Article 31 in the Russian Constitution that guarantees freedom of political assembly but is usually broken by, as it has been rightly pointed out to me, the local authorities who summon the police, but it also harks back to a similar slogan often displayed by Soviet dissidents, especially by Alec Esenin-Volpin, who was deemed to be mentally disturbed.

Show time

One number in yesterday's prom, Hooray for Hollywood, reminded me of the original in Funny Face. Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson in Clay Yo' Hands.

Two causes - two rallies in London

It is hard to tell whether rallies for a cause achieve anything but one goes on trying to show that there are people out there who care. Tomorrow, August 31, there will be the usual demonstration outside the Russian Embassy and Consulate (actually, it is nearer to the Consulate) in Bayswater Road in London to show solidarity with Strategy-31 in Russia, that is with people who, despite Article 31 in the Russian Constitution, are not allowed to have political rallies. It will start at 6 and carry on till about 8.30 or so. Nearest tube stations are Notting Hill Gate and Queensway, both on the Central Line; there are lots of buses in that part of the world.

The other rally will be outside the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday, also starting at 6. It is organized by the British-Israel Coalition, which is a very diverse and a seriously all-inclusive group, as I know from my participation in Sunday's rally in Trafalgar Square. The reason for Thursday's rally is that the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is playing at the Proms (a blameless programme) and there are rumours that anti-Israeli demonstrators will be bussed in to protest this "appalling event". Mustn't have cultural exchanges or diversity - that is not what we are about. So, a counter-rally is being planned. The nearest tube station to that is South Kensington on the District, Circle and Piccadilly lines and there are plenty of buses going past the RAH.

This is very funny

Of all the various denizens of the now defunct Living Marxism, the only one worth reading is Brendan O'Neill, not least because of his ability to skewer stupid lefties. This piece is very funny. It would appear that the egregious organization Unite Against Fascism has been hoist by its own petard.

Having demanded vociferously and repeatedly that the EDL should be banned from marching here, there or anywhere, they have now found that the government has responded in the way anyone would know the government would respond by banning all marches in five East London boroughs for the month of September (and what's the betting the ban will be extended until it becomes permanent?)

Now, UAF has issued what must rank as one of the silliest political statements of the year so far. “We the undersigned welcome the banning of the racist English Defence League’s march through Tower Hamlets,” it says. “But we are appalled to discover that the Metropolitan Police are applying for a blanket ban on ALL marches across five London boroughs… It is our human right to peacefully march in Tower Hamlets.” Wait – how come UAF has a “human right” to march, but the EDL does not? Are EDL members not human? Moreover, it really is spectacularly daft to talk about the importance of the right to march in the same breath as you welcome a government decision to ban a march. What UAF is effectively saying is: “We should have the freedom to march, but they shouldn’t.”

Mr O'Neill thinks that UAF has no idea what freedom means. No, of course, not. But, to be fair, it also has no real understanding what fascism means either. Something to do with banning political activity one disagrees with, perchance?

Of course, marching is not a human right. That is nonsense. But peaceful marching and rallying should be a civic right in any country that values freedom.

Just a thought

Autumn is approaching and is, indeed, nigh, which would be easier to bear if we had had a reasonable summer. However, the end of August does mean that I really need to spend more time on actual work rather than pretend stuff. On the whole, this blog counts as work, though, obviously, not the paid kind.

Part of the week-end was spent reading various books to do with history of cooking and cookery books (there is method in my madness, as it happens), one being Kate Colquhoun's fascinating though at times slightly tendentious Taste - The Story of Britain through its Cooking. It is full of fascinating tit-bits of information.

For example, we find this on page 111, as part of a chapter on the vast amount of sugar consumed by the Tudors and the presentation of the many and varied sweetmeats that became an enormous part of their dinners and banquets:

Silver or gilt bowls were used, and English green glass and valuable imported Venetian glass were prized - vessels beautifully etched with mottoes and devices or rolled over water while being blown to produce a fine tissue of lines.

Nothing too unusual there: Venetian glass was highly prized and many attempts - some successful, some less so - were made to create local industries that would compete.

The interesting detail is found in the notes where Ms Colquhoun explains:

Venice protected its lucrative glass-blowing industry by forbidding its artisans to work abroad, on pain of death. Realising the profit to be made from an appreciative British market, and taking his life into his hands, the first Venetian did establish a glass studio in London in 1572.

How interesting, I thought to myself, if somewhat badly edited, particularly the note (once an editor, always an editor). Of course, if we had had the European Arrest Warrant at the time, things would have been very different.

This afternoon in Trafalgar Square

With a number of people I attended a small and hastily organized rally in Trafalgar Square that said We Stand With Israel. It was in response to the number of anti-Israeli rallies across the country because, as we know that country has the nerve to hit back when its population is attacked by terrorists. The event was quite small, though bigger than the picture implies, as it was taken just after a shower and a number of people had dispersed. Some came back and new ones appeared.

Can't help wondering why I did not see people who are jumping up and down with joy at the thought of possible though improbable democratic development in Libya. Should they not be supporting the one existing democracy in that part of the world?

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked

A retired Russian police officer has been arrested in connection with the five-year old murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

During the first hearing for the case, retired police officer Lt. Col. Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov appeared as a witness for state prosecutors. Now, however, he has become a suspect. Investigators believe he may have accepted payment from "a person whose identity is still unknown" for organizing the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Russian news agencies on Tuesday.

The suspect is also believed to have arranged for the alleged murderer Rustam Makhmudov to receive money, a pistol and a silencer to complete the act in 2006. Arrested in late May of this year in Chechnya, Makhmudov stands accused of having shot Politkovskaya in the elevator of her apartment building some 5 years ago.

But police remain uncertain who might have commissioned Pavlyuchenkov to arrange the killing, the spokesman said, adding that he appears to be just one link in a chain of those involved.

The Moscow Times describes Lt. Col. Pavlyuchenkov as "a mumbling secret witness for prosecutors at a failed trial into her killing".

Investigators believe that Pavlyuchenkov arranged the murder of Politkovskaya, a Novaya Gazeta reporter who was shot dead in her apartment building in downtown Moscow, after being contacted by the mastermind, the committee said in a statement Wednesday.

The committee did not specify the price of the contract killing but said it "has information about the alleged mastermind of the crime." No details were available.

The committee said Pavlyuchenkov assembled a team to carry out the killing. Earlier reports said the team comprised three Chechen brothers with the surname Makhmudov — Rustam, Ibragim and Dzhabrail — and a former officer with Moscow police's anti-mafia department, Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.

Pavlyuchenkov, who served as chief of a Moscow police investigative unit at the time, ordered his police subordinates to trail Politkovskaya to "determine her daily routes around the city," it said.

He is also suspected of procuring the gun used by the suspected triggerman, Rustam Makhmudov, who spent five years on the run in Europe but was arrested in May upon his return to Chechnya.

The other two Makhmudovs are accused of helping track Politkovskaya, while Khadzhikurbanov is considered a middleman in the case.

The case against the three fell apart when a jury acquitted them in 2009. But the Supreme Court overturned the verdict, prompting a new investigation, which is in progress.

Well, now, I wonder who that "mastermind" could be. The Investigative Committee's statement [in Russian]states that revealing that information is deemed to be premature.