Forty-seven seconds into this match Dean Marney swung in a free kick from the right hand side, Michael Turner rose salmon like in the centre of the box and powered an unstoppable header into the bottom corner of the goal. I leapt out of my seat, threw my head back and let out what can only be described as a visceral roar, then the ataxia kicked in….

But that for that split second I, along with a sell out Walton Street crowd was transported into what now seems the inevitable destiny of this Club; a place in the Premiership which is what this great City of ours and it’s unique people truly deserve.

A blistering run of form has propelled City to within two points of winning the Title, and whilst there will be twists and turns along the way, I fully believe that based on recent form, ours and that of others we are going up automatically, and in all probability as Champions.

Since the four nil capitulation at Saint Mary’s in December we have only been vanquished on three occasions, won five straight games at home and more importantly we have achieved ten shut outs, a remarkable statistic in this, the most volatile of Divisions. But four wins out of six on the road in recent times has been the key and we are third on merit.

There is the usual guff about this being a “poor Division”, and Aidy Boothroyd described his Watford side’s performance as “the worst of the season”. Funnily enough that’s exactly what Ian Holloway and Nigel Pearson said regarding their Leicester City and Southampton team’s efforts.

A pattern is emerging. We are a good powerful side with a rock solid defence, a well balanced mid field and the best striker outside the Premiership in Frazier Campbell.

The Manure loanee is the best player I have ever seen in a Hull City shirt, and the ranks below us were packed with scouts, including Chris Hutchings, all captivated by the exceptional pace and skill of a man who has scored 14 goals in as many games for the Tigers.

We have a two-week break due to Barnsley’s continued involvement in this year’s weird and wonderful FA Cup.

Time to rest some tired limbs and re charge the batteries for the most exciting and important end of season in this Club’s history.

 When Chris Rees texted me with a taunt about how Arsenal were losing 2-0 at Bolton, it barely registered and just proves that no matter what, when your home town Club is involved in such momentous times nothing else in football really matters. 

When Ian Bell offered the softest of soft caught and bowleds to leave England reeling at 36/4, it appeared that once again a supine batting performance would see the tourist succumb to defeat in Napier against one of the weakest Kiwi sides of the modern era.

And yet throughout this yearlong bad trot the selectors have laid the blame for England’s series defeats to India and Sri Lanka firmly at the feet of the bowlers.

Why?

It was only when Strauss, Bell and to a certain extent KP found themselves drinking at last chance saloon that we put together a decent total (467/7 dec) and gave the bowlers something to get stuck into, and Monty stepped up to the plate to record his best test haul of 6/126.

But the left armer only found himself in the position of being able to toss it up, vary his pace and flight due to having runs on the board.

The dropping of Harmison came one Test too soon as I felt that he was getting his act together and the pitch, hard and with decent carry, would have suited him, as indeed Stuart Broad showed with his similar style by bagging five wickets in the game.

Over the last eighteen months or so Harmison has been on the one hand encouraged to exist in a thumb sucking comfort zone one minute, and the next he is axed just when he started to show some form.

He has been handled poorly, and whilst you expect players to take personal responsibility Harmison’s supreme ability determines that a one size fits all approach is counterproductive.

If Strauss had been the Ashes Captain then Harmison would have been required to do the business and be on the money from ball one, whereas Best Mate Fred was loath to take him off, or to suggest that he pull his finger out or face being dropped.

Harmison should have not played in the first Test on this tour and instead have replaced Jimmy Anderson in Auckland’s side to get match fit.

The Burnley Express got into the groove in State cricket, coming back with a Michelle as the hosts subsided and despite two more under par totals we had enough to win in Wellington.

Runs win matches. Whatever cliché you choose relating to cricket it boils down to the simple fact that unless you have runs on the board it’s fairly irrelevant what the bowlers do.

Day One of the epic 2005 Ashes Series saw Harmison blow the Aussies away with 5/43, bloody Ponting’s face and put England in by Tea chasing just 190 to take the lead.

It was all for nothing (at the time) as the batting folded ignominiously to hand the tourists a crushing 239 victory.

Move on to Birmingham and the series initiative was wrested by England as we smashed 400 in a day and at last the bowlers had runs to play with.

My main points are these.

+ Vaughan, Bell, and Strauss seem bombproof selection wise. It’s great to show loyalty and no one wants to go back to the chopping and changing that went on in the ‘Eighties nadir when we failed to win a single home test match between 1985 and 1990. But there is a fine line between loyalty and inertia.

I exempt Cook (young), KP (supreme talent and the best batter I have seen in an England jumper) and Collingwood (graft, graft and more graft to regain form) from criticism at the current time and I would continue to back them for the time being.

+ What do Key, Joyce, Denley, Ramprakash and especially Owais Shah have to do to earn the nod? The message has always been that if you do the business in the Championship then you will get the call. It’s another admission that the ECB don’t rate County Cricket. Sidebottom was evidence that Moores would take more notice of domestic cricket, but now he is a year away from it matters seem to have reverted back to type.

+ Hoggard has been treated abysmally. One poor game and the best swing bowler since Statham is out. Bloody stupid, in our Yorkshire vernacular. BUT Anderson, Broad and Sidebottom are the men in possession, and it means he can play for Yorkshire tee, hee.

+ Matt Prior scored a ton on debut, had a few wobbles behind the stumps and a bad trot with the bat. He works his proverbials off and has a grand series with the gloves in broiling Sri Lanka, acknowledged as torture for ‘keepers due to the extreme humidity and then makes 79 at Colombo to bump up a potentially losing first innings total and finishes off with a match saving 100 ball rearguard action to save the final match.

Reward. You are dropped matey.

Solutions?

+ Strauss, Bell and KP came good at Napier but the first tow should remain on probation with Shah as first choice replacement.

+ Vaughan has gone on too long as Skipper. His knee problems mean that crease occupation would be a problem assuming he could remain intact for long enough. He has been our best Captain since Brearley.  Acknowledge this and give it to Collingwood and move on. 2005 must be a spur, not a reason to stick with what we know. The Aussies wouldn’t think twice. Dean Jones. I rest my case. Yes I know he wasn’t Captain but you get the gist.

+ Read is the best gloveman we have. And his batting is coming on well. If not then at least stick with Ambrose.

+ Send Harmison back to Durham by all means, and let him win his place back from either Broad or Tremlett. The Hampshire man now knows how Anderson must feel and talking of which, the selectors should show the same confidence in the Lancashire quick as they have to Harmison in the past.

This would be my starting eleven v New Zealand in May.

Strauss, Cook, Bell, Shah, Pietersen, Collingwood ©, Read, Broad, Sidebottom, Anderson, Panesar.

 Stand by; Denley, Ramprakash, Ambrose, Hoggard, Tremlett.

Ten minutes into the Fall’s set. We have been exposed to what can only be described as ear bleeding nihilism via a bizarre video featuring various iconic artists, and a soundtrack that the CIA should appropriate, as another ten minutes or so of that would have made anyone swear John Major was their bastard offspring. Andy says; “is Mark E. Smith indisposed and this is Plan B?”

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of the Fall.

I saw Smith interviewed on telly sometime in the mid ‘Eighties and just thought, “What a ninny”, thus denying myself twenty odd years of pleasure.

Annoying, infuriating but ultimately challenging, interesting and in a bizarre way uplifting, positive and well, just darn funny is my take on Mark E. Smith and his merry band.

My starting point for the Fall was the Totally Wired compilation, charting the band’s best work from the late seventies until the late nineties when it appeared to be finally all over for a very volatile outfit.

Smith is the only permanent member and the group is prone to wholesale personnel changes such as what happened in 2007 just before the Reformation Post TLC record.

The studio in Phoenix, Arizona was booked but, depending on who you believe an incident that may or may not have involved a banana-skin, a corkscrew, a guitar-amp, and some whiskey resulted in Smith coming down to breakfast only to be informed by the Hotel Manager that all the band had checked out, no contact details available, only 48 hours shy of starting to cut this record. Ooops.

The Fall’s musical style is pretty free form. Repetition is deployed and on the records this is used as a backdrop for Smith’s idiosyncratic “vocals” which are almost more like poetry reading than conventional singing.

In a live setting this style produces a hypnotic almost ambient effect, and I certainly learnt a lot more about the Fall’s music through this context.

It doesn’t matter if you aren’t familiar with the specific songs because the gig is almost like a live art happening, rather than the audience singing back a band’s greatest hits to them.

Thus I would confidently say that along with Julian Cope and Morrissey, I would automatically say a big Yes to seeing the Fall again.

 There can’t be a bigger endorsement for an artist in my book.

On arrival back at the Park and Ride in Hessle we were greeted by a squally blizzard in the teeth of a nithering nor’ easterly gale.

But the real storm had taken place at Walton Street as an unstoppable Leeds outfit completely outclassed Hull FC, and whilst the Airlie Birds can point to a crippling injury list this was a very anodyne display with only Gareth Raynor offering any cutting edge going forward, and it was the wingman who deservedly became the first man to touch down against the Rhinos in 240 minutes of rugby with a last gasp try.

The game had been over as a serious contest for some time as the visitors slick offloading game tore the hosts defence apart at will, and Sinfield’s try in the early part of the second half was an absolute triumph of positive handling and the confidence that the West Yorkshire outfit have in each other.

Hull FC were forced to defend three sets of six in a row right from the kick off, and did so manfully but once Leeds got into their stride and managed to overcome a bitter swirling wind, it was one-way traffic.

Rob Burrow, Kevin Sinfield, Matt Diskin and Jamie Jones Buchanan were all absolutely outstanding for the visitors and when you factor in the likes of Sam Burgess, Leon Pryce, Jimmy Graham and Gareth Roby then England must feel confident that something good may happen when we go Down Under for the World Cup in the Autumn.

As for Hull FC only Raynor and Tom Lee caught the eye today. There were far too many silly errors and heads went down far too easily. No excuses, we need to buck up and soon.

The penalty count was high today, confirming an upward trend this season across the game.

There are those who are far too quick to criticise the man in the middle and I found this aspect of the experience quite draining, as I had to point out a number of times to the guys behind me that if we persist in blatant stripping of the football, lying on at the play the ball and tackles that border on the reckless, then we leave Mr. Bentham with few alternatives do we?

The players are responsible for conceding brainless, stupid penalties and I certainly want to void the bilious vitriol dished out to soccer refs.

I bet I wasn’t the only one who thought that Steve Bennett struck a blow for common decency when he sent off Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano for a disgusting display of arrogant petulance during the game against Manchester United yesterday.

  Hull FC: Tony, Byrne, Hall, Yeaman, Raynor, Berrigan, Dykes, Wheeldon, Lee, Cusack, Radford, Tickle, Washbrook.
Replacements: R. Horne, Fellous, Burnett, Briscoe.

The pace is even handed meaning there are no slack bits making this as fine a Cops and Robbers book that you will ever read, and I just hope that in the hands of ITV the feeling of gritty realism isn't sacrificed at the altar of ratings.

Hull FC: Tony, Sing, Yeaman, Byrne, Raynor, Berrigan, Dykes, King, Lee, Cusack, Radford, Tickle, Washbrook.
Replacements: G. Horne, Wheeldon, Houghton, Fellous.

This is a brilliant book and one of the best I’ve read for ages due to it’s juxtaposition of style, genre and above all time which allows your imagination to roam and I often caught myself staring into space as I continued a particular scene in my head.

The book is set in a remote village called Macondo, which has no real contact with the outside world except when a band of travelling gypsies pass through.

The author uses time in a circular way so you are left to ponder whether this is set in ancient times, or if it is contemporary which is a bit weird. But it really works well because Marquez is exploring the human condition via the rites of passage of his characters.

After the initial idyllic phase war and disasters hit the town, and themes of betrayal, plus power and how it is wielded take centre stage.

Marquez uses sequences where it appears that natural laws are suspended, and elements of surrealism are introduced but these never deter from the immediacy in the narrative, and if I’m honest the only comparison I can make in Literature is with the Old Testament with it themes of existence, history and human interaction on an individual and corporate level.

 I would sum up by saying that this novel is important because of the issues that it raises both politically, (especially in terms of Latin America) ethically and spiritually in terms of why we are here, and the purpose of life itself.

Where there is greed you can be assured vengeance will ensue, just as night follows day.

That’s what Capitalism boils down to, and why conflicts past and future all have one common denominator; resources and the struggle for them.

This film is like reading a tough book such as Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre. You know it’s good for you. Challenging, making you think about how things are on an existential level, questioning basic values and precepts. But you wouldn’t want to read it again.

There Will Be Blood is a long picture and a film that requires a great deal of concentration, but it is worth it. And how, as we delve into the soul of Daniel Plainview and his ambition to make as much cash as is imaginable from the California desert and it’s black gold in oil desperate early 20^th Century America.

Daniel Day Lewis is simply awesome as the completely amoral oil prospector for whom there are no sacred cows that remained un slain in his quest for wealth and power.

The Irishman’s Oscar is uncontested in my view, and Plainview is the most convincing, awe-inspiring, and downright mortifyingly scary character to take the big screen for a very long time.

Daniel Plainview will do absolutely anything and personifies why naked and unfettered Capitalism is, along with Religious Fundamentalism the biggest threat to our very existence on the planet.

I paid a monumental £5 for a small box of popcorn and a Coke so it was with some interest that I read the below article. Too right. Rip Off Britain at it’s worst.

  http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/Cinema-food-prices-are-a.3823222.jp

Att: 16,829

This bleak and nihilistic film by Mike Leigh has the potential to be a truly great British film in the realism genre, right up there with Ken Loach’s Raining Stones and Gary Oldman’s autobiographical masterpiece Nil by Mouth, but it is hamstrung by two characters who are relatively superfluous, but are in the film enough to derail it through poor dialogue and woeful acting.

Leigh’s traditional modus oporendi is perhaps the cause of the problem, as he presents the actors with a basic outline and allows them to develop the script through improvisation during rehearsals.

This film exhibits the best and worse outcomes of this methodology, as David Thewlis delivers one of the best performances by a British actor of the last twenty years in the role of Johnny, a highly intelligent but socially disadvantaged Mancunian who also has mental health issues (we assume) and ends up at his ex girlfriends flat in London in the wake of a violent sexual encounter up North.

Thewlis’ blistering performance is simply stunning, and through him we are encouraged to reflect of a wide variety of social and philosophical issues, from misogyny through to the very meaning and purpose of our existence.

Leigh differs from Ken Loach insofar as his films, though heavily politicised, are not as overtly didactic and the viewer is more at leave to muse on the issues raised. There is no real resolution plot wise and we are left to wonder at what would have happened next.

Thewlis’ genius is to portray Johnny’s scattergun and chaotic approach to life, but also to unlock his deeper feelings and innermost thoughts, articulating them through a variety of encounters over a couple of days.

In addition Lesley Sharp plays the ex girlfriend as an understated complement to the manic flatmate (the late Katrin Cartlidge) whom Johnny seduces and then discards, and Thewlis himself.

There are two other main characters and this is where the problems begin.

Greg Crutwell portrays the toff landlord who comes around to seduce the females but ends up being a violent bully. The character is a cardboard cut out, and just seems totally out of kilter with the Leigh oeuvre and whilst I appreciate the writer's aim of (I assume) comparing Johnny with him from the perspective of him being very similar but with money and aspiration, it just didn't work.

Sandra (Claire Skinner), the leaseholder comes back unexpectedly early from a sojourn in Zimbabwe only to discover this ménage of dysfunctional humanity, but her reactions are bafflingly inappropriate and the dialogue involving her is woeful.

 But these gripes accepted, Naked is a worthwhile and important commentary on our times, still feeling fresh and relevant as Raining Stones does fully fifteen years on

This was a thoroughly professional performance from the team on a winning streak in this Division, and if we carry on in this rich vein of form then it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that we could secure a top two finish and automatic promotion.

The top sides namely West Brom, Stoke, and Watford have all suffered bad results of late and whilst I expect us to drop points we need not be afraid of any team in this League.

“The only thing to fear is fear itself”, and this famous FDR quote is the only factor that may disrupt what seems to be our unstoppable march to the Premiership.

The “fearful symmetry” is thus.

On 26^th May 1989, my last “significant” birthday, Arsenal went to Liverpool requiring an unlikely 2-0 victory to secure the Title. Mickey Thomas “it’s up for grabs now” injury time strike produced the necessary result.

 On 26^th May 2008 I will be forty. It’s the day of the Championship Play Off Final at Wembley.

It is 1971, a major league Royal has been a “scallywag” and a Black Power radical has the photographic evidence to prove it. This is a job for MI5. Or is it?….

Instead of the Security Services getting directly involved, a gang of petty thieves is unwittingly recruited to bust into the branch of Lloyds Bank on Baker Street with the aim of stealing the safety deposit boxes, the de facto arrangement is that once the photos have been recovered by Martine, MI5’s woman on the inside, then the ne’er-do-wells get to keep the rest of the loot.

This is a classical British heist movie with a twist as it is based on a true story. The Royal connection is well known and resulted in a D Notice gagging press coverage on the grounds on “National Security”, something I bet the current degenerate lot would like to see used on a regular basis, Jug Ears especially given that now we all know his wacko fantasies regarding Camilla and sanitary products.

The box also contained photos of several leading Tory Ministers giving a whole new meaning to the Parliamentary term “Three Line Whip”, and considering what was a stake, the idea of getting some small fry London minor criminals to do the job seems risible.

Needless to say complications arise which culminate in dodgy deals involving none other than Earl Mountbatten delivering false passports under the clock at Paddington Station in order to recover the evidence, and at least three of the protagonists meeting a sticky end.

Because this is a Clement- Le Frenais penned picture, there seems to be a feeling abroad that film should be funnier. There are the trademark witty lines, but this is a gritty film and no one comes out of it with a great deal of credit from the Establishment who sanction it, to the Black Power guy who will murder to continue blackmail possibilities, down to the gang themselves.

 I enjoyed the film and found the pace, dialogue and acting to be very competently done with Jason Statham surprisingly good as the heist leader, and the ambience of the times is excellently portrayed, all of which makes this a very good effort.

The first half saw City shred a very decent Burnley team into pieces, and the visitors were relieved to get back to the dressing room only two goals down.

No hyperbole. No over blown claims. This was the best Tiger’s performance that I can remember since that fateful day in 1975 when I walked through the gates of Boothferry Park for the first time as a callow seven year old for a game against Fulham.

From the first whistle we totally dominated the game. An amber shirt won any disputed ball. The passing was neat, crisp and incisive and Jay Jay Okocha was absolutely outstanding in a pushed forward midfield role, which was compensated for by Pedersen and Garcia tucking inside when we lost the ball.

The Nigerian has been like a new signing since his re invigoration in the wake of constant minor niggles injury wise.

He is now fully fit, and I for one apologise unreservedly for suggesting that he, Pedersen and Hughes were only here for one last agent brokered contract.

These senior players, complemented by Ian Ashbee, Nick Barmby and the irrepressible Dean Windass, have been absolutely key in catapulting City to within two points of the business end of the table with a game in hand.

Burnley are no mugs and we deservedly leapfrogged them in the table and sit in eighth place with eleven games to go.

We are performing consistently well and given that Hughes, Windass and Barmby were all absent, it bodes well for the run in and being utterly objective I can honestly say that we need fear no one in this Division.

Mr. Riley who had an absolute stinker of a game with the whistle ruined the second half as a contest, but at least he was even handedly incompetent, dismissing two players from each team from a match that showed no hint of malfeasance.

Riley is England’s number one whistle man having reffed the 2002 FA Cup Final (which I was at, when Arsenal beat Chavski 2-0), and officiated at Euro 2004 plus Champions League games and major World Cup matches.

As a result I paid more than usual attention to how he went about matters to see what justifies his position in the game.

Some comments.

+ His signalling was poor. Often there was confusion about which way a free kick had gone.

+ He let the game flow initially but then booked Garcia for diving, but the Australian, nor for that matter any other City player appealed for a free kick.

+ He didn’t talk to the players. Ashbee, the Captain was waved away when he calmly asked for clarification regarding Garcia’s yellow card.

+ Folan was dismissed for an off the ball incident. I’m not going all Wenger here, but I didn’t see anything untoward. There was some pushing as the ball came over from a cross and one player from each side ended up on the deck, but he red carded our striker without consulting the assistant.

+ Realising his error he sent off a Burnley player for a totally innocuous challenge which

even Phil Brown felt minded to commiserate with the lad concerned.

+ The next incident unfolded thus (I think)…. Something happened between Okocha and Joey Gudjonssen, which resulted in the Icelander going down and rolling around as if pole axed. The Burnley skipper rushed over, pulled the ex Villa man to his feet and told him to get on with it. Riley went to consult the assistant who had NOT flagged despite being less than ten yards away. A red card was shown to Okocha. Riley then booked Gudjonssen and called for the game to re start. He then realised that the Burnley player had already been booked and there was some confusion before he produced a red card. But afterwards he confirmed it was a straight red. So why the yellow at all?

The whole thing was a complete farce, and if Riley is the face of full time professional referees, then the game is in deep trouble.

In the car on the way home it occurred to me that the guy has form for totally losing the plot as it was he that was the official at the 2004 PizzaGate match which saw Arsenal lose our 49 match unbeaten run at ManUre, when Riley gave some inexplicable decisions resulting in a great deal of negative press.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Riley_%28referee%29

This page is worth a visit as it describes in depth Mr. Riley’s serial controversies.

No matter. We are in fine fettle, confident and seemingly have clearly understood aims and objectives.

Scunny next at the Circle on Saturday and the air of expectation is palpable.

Hull City: Myhill, Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Dawson, Garcia (Marney 81), Ashbee, Okocha, Pedersen (Walton 90), Folan, Campbell (France 79).
Subs Not Used: Tyler, Clement.

Att: 15,838

Statement from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (March 1^st);

'Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and the Fourth Geneva Convention.  It is, in effect, a war crime and Israel must be held to account.  It is not sufficient for the International communities and the UN to express ‘concern’.  The International Community and UN must take firm and immediate action to stop this catastrophe."  Gaza needs action not talks to stop Israeli aggression.'

I simply can’t get my head around the reporting on the recent bloodshed on the Gaza Strip.

The BBC STILL keeps referring to Hamas as “Militants”, and reported on Thursday’s Today Programme that the group had “seized power” from Fatah in 2006.

They “seized” power the same way that the Labour Party did in the UK via the 1997 Landslide, through the ballot box.

The inference is clear. That the listener is meant to be encouraged to think that Hamas’ authority comes through the armelite, that somehow the whole thing was engineered through violence.

The Bush/ Blair Axis stated aim when they invaded Iraq in 2003 was to “spread democracy in the region”.

In January 2006 the Palestinian people took up the challenge in Elections that were supervised and ratified by UN and EU observers as, “free, fair and without prejudice”.

The reaction? The EU/ US funding that guaranteed that Gaza could function and provide basics such as medical care and sanitation was frozen costing the Palestinian Authority $50 million with immediate effect.

The consequences? Israel now felt able to withhold tax revenues owed to the PA as they were simply following the example International Community.

This from the Washington Post;

“the Palestinian Authority will face a cash deficit of at least $110 million a month, or more than $1 billion a year, which it needs to pay full salaries to its 140,000 employees, who are the breadwinners for at least one-third of the Palestinian population. The employment figure includes some 58,000 members of the security forces.”

In addition Israel stepped up it’s Warsaw Ghetto style walling in of the Gaza people, and then began switching off the electricity supply when ever they felt like it. Not for any purpose. Just because they could.

So just who are the “militants” here, dear Auntie Beeb? Those tunnelling under the wall, as you described them, in order to feed their kids?

All of Israel’s actions are against International Law and have attracted oppropium from the EU and other Governments.

But the standard of morality has been set by the disgraceful reaction to the 2006 election results, and whilst all viloence is to be condemned, can anyone think of a better way to recriut young Palestinians to Hizbullah and other groups who will only lead their followers down blind alleys?

Just as a means of comparison, this from today’s Gruniard;

“European Union official observers this morning condemned Russia's presidential election, won overwhelmingly by Dmitry Medvedev, as "not fair" and a denial of the "democratic potential" of the country's voters.”

Gordon Brown’s reaction?

“Gordon Brown has attempted to soothe fraught relations between London and Moscow by writing to Russia's president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, to offer his congratulations.”

Laughable, if it wasn’t so tragic.

Meanwhile this from Rory McCarthy for the Gruniard in Gaza.

“First came an explosion in the street outside. Then the sound of a single rifle bullet slicing through the sky in a sharp crack and into the apartment directly above the home of Raed Abu Saif, the same apartment into which his young daughter Safa had just gone. It was Saturday afternoon, about 4pm.

Abu Saif hurried upstairs and found, lying on the floor of the front room, Safa, aged 12. There was a hole in her chest where the bullet had entered and a hole in her back where it had exited. It took her three hours to die.”

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband started his reaction to the bloodshed thus;

"Israel's right to security and self-defence is clear and must be reiterated and supported”.

 So at least we know where our Government’s priorites and symapathies truly lie. Good word that. Lie. A fair summary of our Foreign Policy since 2003.

When Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour sold his London mansion for £3.6m, he was putting into practice his 'house for a house' philosophy: the belief that the wealthy should sell one of their palaces to provide hundreds of homes for those who are less well-off.

It’s easy to sniff and accuse Gilmour of seeking to appease his conscience regarding his vast wealth accrued from being a decent songwriter and guitarist, but he did it against all advice from his finacial advisors and on the condition that his name be kept out matters. Unfortunatley an individual working for Crisis leaked confidential information to the Daily Mirror forcing the Pink Floyd frontman into the open.

Gilmour felt forced into this measure because of, as he sees it the “obscene” cost of housing for ordinary people.

The Halifax Bank defines a town as unaffordable for first-time buyers if the average property price was more than 4.37 times the average salary.

Using this method, Halifax found that 95% of towns in the South East, East Anglia and the South West were unaffordable for first-time buyers.

An example of how matters have changed is thus…

In 1994 we purchased an end of terrace home on the edge of Sandy Hill Estate in Farnham, non too salubrious for £50,000.

Five years later it was worth £82K, a tidy profit that we used to move to the much cheaper Hull area where we bought a house in up market Kirk Ella for the same price.

A similar house on Sandy Hill is on the market this week for a whopping £235K.

Assuming we still lived there, and I was on the same pay scale as when I quit (£36K) that would equate to more than SIX TIMES my salary. Madness.

But why is there such an apalling squeeze in the market?

Ah ha, easy. Too may people in the UK and not enough space. A standard BNP argument.

This is what I have found out from the  book  “Who Owns Britain” by Kevin Cahill and bbc.co.uk….

There is actually a land surplus with 60 million of us are crammed into only 7.5% of the landmass.

This reveals myth spun by the propaganda machine that insists there is “concreting over of the countryside” and “urban sprawl” – nothing could be further from the truth.

This cramming of the population into 7.5% of the land mass has created an artificial land shortage ramping up land prices to the point that 2/3^rds of the value of UK homes is the value of the land.

As a result UK homes are in comparison to other similar countries very small and vastly overpriced.

This is in comparison to Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland where the large estates were broken up and this has resulted in acreage values being only 10% of what they are in the UK.

Here 160,000 families, 0.3% of the population, own 37 million acres, two thirds of Britain, on average 230 acres each.

Just 1,252 of them own 57% of Scotland.

They pay no land tax.

Instead every government gives them £2.3 billion a year and the EU gives them a further £2 billion in subsidies. Each family gets on average £26,875 per annum in rebates.

By contrast, 57.5 million of us pay £10 billion a year in council tax, a land tax, at an average of £550 per household.

The Crown Estate owns nearly 400,000 acres, and is worth over £5 billion, with profits in the region of £180 million per annum.

This body owns land ‘in the right of the crown’ and pays a fraction its profits into the coffers of the exchequer, which in return repays a large chunk of the income to the Monarchy for its annual expenses, that is the Civil List.

As an individual, The Prince of Wales has an institutional estate - the Duchy of Cornwall – of 141,000 acres; this includes freehold on much of Kensington area of London worth an estimated £500 million.

The Queen is also the Duke of Lancaster and the size of this estate, which is separate to the Crown Estate, is estimated to be 50,000 acres.

Finally the Queen has private lands of another 75,000 acres, and this includes the Balmoral estate in Scotland.

Until very recently the Windsors paid no tax, not one single penny on income from their lands.

In 2005 figures for the distribution of subsidies were published for the first time, the Duke of Westminster, that renown pauper, received £799,000 over 2 years.

The highest payout was to a Sir Richard Sutton who received £2.2 million. Some small farmers received only £25 and one received 31p!

The elite only pay council tax on their houses as everyone has to do, but nothing on the vast assets they own.

The whole thing is a total obscenity, but what is even worse is that this issue isn’t open for debate.

Why should the Crown, the Church of England an these other anachronisms be allowed to plug the flow of affordable land and not pay a single penny towards the Exchequer, which is used to fund the Public Services and improve our quality of life?

Why indeed.

 Solutions of the back of a postage stamp…..