The “Oxford Sex Gang” was convicted today. The Telegraph reports that girls as young as 11 were forced into prostitution and trafficked about the country for paedophiles. They used and abused their victims over long periods of time, subjecting them to “extreme depravity”, including biting and being horse-whipped. Oh, and as always, “opportunities to stop the abuse were missed time and again”, with one victim even being threatened with arrest for wasting police time.

Don’t we have alot of nonce gangs abusing young girls? I dunno, it’s just an odd feeling, but there’s something about the gang that I can’t quite put my finger on. Do you think there’s anything they have in common?

Happy Beltane everyone (we’ll have none of that commie May Day nonsense around here).

Beltane is the Celtic fire festival that celebrates the beginning of summer, an extravagent holiday and a time for frolicking and feasting around the traditional bonfires lit after moon-rise the evening before. The opposite side of the wheel is Samhain (31st October/1st November), which welcomes dark winter. Much has been written about the origins of these festivities and rituals. Julius Caeser reported on them in typically propagandistic manner when he came here. Being intimitately related to the land and the seasons, I suspect they originate way, way further back than is reported.

Of course, to Christians, these pagan feast days were regarded as sinful. Like the many churches which were built on and over ancient, sacred pagan sites, the ceremonies were replaced in the calendar with Christian celebrations. Thankfully the knowledge and cultural habits of what came before were preserved in many ways. We observe many of them still without even thinking about it, which I love. I’m not a pagan, but pre-Christian civilisation is as much a part our heritage as any.

Right, I’m off out to slaughter a boar, ravish a maiden and then burn something. Oh, and if you’re of Germanic stock – Happy Walpurgisnacht!

I’ve just found out a new series of this sort of thing begins this evening –

At last, a reason to turn on the old goggle box.

BB2, 8.00pm

… no-one complains to the Police

The Power Elite is prepping, so shouldn’t everyone else do so?

Can you spot the Goldman Sachs headquarters?

There’s no doubt that Hurricane Sandy packed a punch, but despite the devastation of the last few days it could have been worse. Sandy was a Category 2 hurricane on a scale which rises in intensity to 5. In just the last few years the 2004 tsunami, Katrina, the Japanese tsunami (and Fukushima) and now Sandy have all reminded us that no place can possibly be fully prepared for disaster and that when it hits you are on your own at the critical moments.

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I had a go earlier with the shotgun. Strange to say mine turned out slightly different, but it took me less time to finish.

A bit of a kerfuffle at the Paralympics, where an Iranian athlete is accused of snubbing the Duchess of Cambridge. Discus thrower Mehrdad Karam Zadeh finished second behind Briton Aled Davies. The Duchess presented Zadeh with his medal, whereupon he failed to shake her hand. Apparently it wasn’t personal, with suggestions being that he was just sticking to his cultural habit.

No problem. He can stick to his cultural norm of not shaking hands with women, and we’ll stick with ours, which is beating foreigners.

Read with interest of the Bangladeshi woman whose parents arranged for her marriage. Nothing particularly unusual, you may think, that sort of thing happens all the time, in  a culture in which that is normality. But the problem is that the woman is a virtual vegetable, or has ‘severe learning difficulties’ as we are supposed to state these PC days. But apparently this is also the norm in these ‘backward’ cultures, where the ageing parents know that they have found someone who will look after their new ‘bride’, despite all the problems attached to this union.

But a British judge has nullified the wedding, stating that the bride could not consciously agree to the match, because she literally could not have understood what was arranged.

So, folks who is right; the parents, for doing their best for their handicapped daughter, or the judge, who was after all applying British Law?

Tricky one; eh?

And should anyone be surprised, especially after she presided over the formulation of rubbish like this?

ATW commentator The Troll brings to our attention a “mantyhose” thing. Someone shoot me in the head before the The Pussification of the Western Male is total.

No, I never did imagine and it’s not April Fool’s Day; a quick google shows that the abomination is real. “The underwear staple for women is making its way into wardrobes of the opposite sex – and the look is gaining popularity” reports the Daily Mail. Not in my house it’s not.

Men, have respect for yourselves. Look at your yourself now. If you’re wearing anything your old grandad wouldn’t have understood then get rid of it.

Reports are that “the mantyhose are most popular with customers from Germany, France, Scandinavia, Canada and the U.S”. It’s some small relief that stout yeomen of England are unaffected, but you can’t be too careful. If you live in a city, move out soon. It’s in such places that these things catch on.

I’m off now to pour acid in my eyes.