Eric Pickles declares war on infidels

There's been a lot of concern in the press recently about Militant Secularists, who are as despised as much as Militant Cyclists and feared as much as proponents of Sharia Law.

The cabinet has come up with a three pronged plan to encourage more prayer and religion in our streets

1. George Osborne will encourage everyone in the country to pray that his austerity plan will actually work, despite evidence to the contrary.
2. Andrew Lansley will be encourage people to pray for their friends and family to get better, and in fact this will become the primary front line medical care. When Britain was a Christian nation -right up until the militant secularists and their so-called Enlightenment brought evidence-driven medicine to the country, prayer was the only medicine people had. The NHS reforms will return Britain to its roots.
3. Eric Pickles will do more to encourage prayer in our cities.

The last is what interests us, as he has come up with a plan to encourage prayer not only in our local councils, but in our city streets. 

In a special over-skype interview with us, Eric Pickles declared

For too long the militants -be they secularists or cyclists- have had free reign of our cities. I propose to correct this by encouraging cyclists to pray regularly. I have come up with a cost-effective plan to achieve this, which I call "doing absolutely nothing". This, combined with cost-cutting measures and the wrapping up of even half-arsed attempts to fund cycling in British cities -a European invention, I hasten to add- will make the cyclists less militant and more religious.

We are glad to agree with him, and include a video Eric was particularly proud of that shows how it only took one HGV at a roundabout to turn a Glaswegian cyclist back into a devout Glasweigan who now knows that cycling is not an acceptable form of transport.

Eric closed:

Having rediscovered God, we expect Magnatom to return to the traditions of this great country --going to Celtic and Rangers matches and paying for right to hate your fellow Christians. 

We hesitated about pointing out to Eric that Rangers FC is currently in administration, as it would have made him appear out of touch. Nor did we raise the fact that here in the south west, we follow Other Gods. While our Queen declared that she is a defender of all faiths, we are not convinced those that involve human sacrifice were on the list of "all faiths" that she imagined.

Riots, Root Causes and Random Opinions

It became clear during the week that even Boris Johnson was out of his depth. After some final words of advice from Sarkozy -whose strategy of containment doesn't actually work when we have to drive through the areas of unrest, we finally jetted home. And then drove down to Stokes Croft

Tesco is boarded up. It's not clear whether this was due to attacks on it, or the supermarket chain accepting the inevitable and adopting this as their decor. It is still open, providing a reason to park in the bike lane, as KT04TWZ has done.

In the distance there's a woman pushing a fixie along the pavement. Given the abuse of bicycles in the English Riots (to separate them from the Ulster Riots and the regular Scottish "fixtures"), she and the cyclist heading into the city on the road should be pre-emptively arrested.



Further down, the windows of the Croft and Rodak Polish Food at the bottom of ninetree are broken -you can see them behind the bike lane/paveparking van Properbread HK07UKR. If one were to view the riots as either a popular uprising against The Man or a mass looting by consumer-hungry troublemakers, it's hard to say why either establishment was targeted. These establishments are not The Establishment. 

There are other places boarded up, but the presence of quality art by Petro, Epok, Sepr and others shows that this is not recent. Overall then, for the area that is now associated in Bristol and the country's mind as "the first 2011 riot" is quiet and back its normal life. 

On that topic, can we point out that the graffiti covering Annabel's at No 9 actually predates the sex-shop art we covered previously. We apologise to the Annabel staff for this accidental neglect.

People have asked us who, given all the people like Max Hastings are writing bollocks, and David Starkey saying "it is because they is all black", why aren't we being paid to appear on television and spout some random bullshit about the causes of the riots and the measures that need to be taken?

Most of the shallow bollocks has already been written. You can blame thirty years of liberal thought, two years of government cuts, and then make up some opinions on what needs to be done next. When the Evening Post did ask for some opinions we provided some defensible data showing how civil unrest is strongly correlated with economic downturns -at which point they hung up the phone.

It seems that to get the TV and press coverage we deserve, and the appearance money- we need to have an agenda more outrageous, which blames the recent events to some downfall in society. The obvious events are, in no particular order

• Legalising same sex marriages.
• Banning slavery.
• The creation of the NHS.
• Making it legal for two men to hold hands in public.
• Allowing people of different racial groups to settle in the country (ignoring Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Romans, and all other pre-20th migrations except those from Ireland)
• Banning schools from being able to beat children.
• The end of capital punishment.
• The end of internment in Northern Ireland, rather than its rollout across the rest of the country.
• The end of National Service. 
• Rap Music.
• Jazz Music.
• Rock and Roll Music.
• Punk Rock.
• The rollout of 3G networks and the addition of TCP/IP protocol stacks to mobile telephones.
• The World Wide Web.
• Twitter and Facebook. 
• Television.
• The publishing press.
• Widespread literacy.
• The Human Rights Act
• The ending of the death penalty.
• The ending of deportation.

Many of these have been covered by other commentators. Even so, these are mostly symptoms. The root cause hasn't been addressed, namely that we aren't able to execute people based on verbal evidence from a single witness. If we had that, all the criminals would have been dealt with a long time ago.

That's right: since we stopped executing people for alleged witchcraft, Britain hasn't been the same.

Bring back Burning Witches based on hearsay! It's the only way to save the country!

Push back the darkness

Today, December 21 is the solstice, when the night is longest, the day the coldest.

This year we are reminded, as it is as cold and grim as places north, like Birmingham and Leeds.

The Christians have been saying we, the British, have forgotten the reason for their festival.

We, the Bristolians, say they have forgotten the real reason for the midwinter festivities. It is to push back winter, to give us our day back.

Many of us remember this, but not enough, not this year. That is why it is so dark, so bleak.

But do not fear! Together we can bring back the sun. All it takes is for every reader to spill a drop of blood on the last relics of the Elder Gods in our houses, the so-called christmas trees, and together we can regain spring. Do it for the sake of the city!

As we in B.T. have to do more advanced sacrifices, we shall be a bit distracted over the next few days. Expect intermittent coverage. And if the days get longer, thank us.

Kingsdown: stranger than you think

We often discuss our suspicion that Kingsdown is the home to various pagan rituals, traditions that have gone on in the Avon and Somerset area since before the Romans arrived. The Mayday Tree festival, the darker, midwinter tree. Some people think we jest. But know, there are strange goings on here.

This week, a two-headed goose is on top of one of the buildings. Evil, that is what this creature is -pure evil.

We hear a rumour that one of the houses here has a tunnel going down to the centre, to the original harbour. Smuggling, some people think. We suspect something worse. How else do you get human and non-human sacrifices straight from your boat that has been to strange countries into your part of the city without outsiders seeing, and trying to stop you? How do you retain your close links with Bristol outposts in New England, towns like Innsmouth and Arkham, when your in-laws from abroad don't look fully human any more.

Things have gone on in Kingsdown over the centuries, things only whispered about, but even those whispers gives us nightmares. The fact that the residents feel able to put a two-headed goose up on the corner of one of houses shows they feel stronger now, less need to hide, proud of their heritage.

Is it a co-incidence that this happens within a few weeks of a new leadership for the country, one with two people, both of whom share the same physical features -no neck, shiny foreheads, webbed feet they can't show in public? People who had to be hidden in childhood in special educational establishments, places where their defects wouldn't be so obvious? Places where both sides of the family being related to each other, boarding schools where the odd burning alive of the outsider wouldn't get a mention?

We think not.

Heed the call of darkness

More footage of the 2009 Bristol Tree Festival, time spent understanding why they were doing this.

This was filmed during the pub crawl preamble, before they got to the common and whatever happens there -the sacrifice, the cannibalism, the burnings- takes place. Here they are still dancing round, looking for whoever is going to end up in the Punch Costume or wearing the tree when the music stops.


If you look at the official web site, they describe the process. "Jack dies at Horfield", they say. Is that a metaphor, or are they really spelling out what is going to happen? If you believe the old stories, the old gods, then yes, as the web site says: "Jack must die, to release the Spirit of Summer." We have had a long and hard winter this year, summer is late. If we want a good summer, a good harvest, the gods must be placated.

We know what has to be done. This year, we are going to help. See you all the Highbury, and later, at Horfield Common. Just keep out of the Punch costume if you want to make May 2nd.

A tree for the railway path

Look! The Bristol-Bath Railway Path has its own Yule tree.

Apparently another viking tradition was sacrificing a goat; the Yule Goat. Going down to St. Werburghs on Thursday lunchtime and sacrificing one of their goats has more appeal than watching the Queen's speech. Maybe it's time to bring that tradition back.

the Auld Festivals

The winter solstice. A time of darkness and fear, fear that summer will return. The new gods, the christian ones, have tried to put their brand to our celebrations, but we know better, we remember. Whether it is called Christmas or even Hogmanay, we know that the longest night of the year is a time to remember the auld gods, the ancient rituals, and their dark, dark demands.

In the centre of Kingsdown, the "quaint" part of the city there is a tree in the middle of the road. It apparently appeared on the 21st, on the solstice. Some people will view this as quaint local celebration. Some people. Outsiders. New folk.

Those people don't know that Kingsdown always celebrates the auld festivals. They may hide them, make them look pretty, but these community events always come out on the old days: December 21, May 1, and others. In May: the dancing round dressed as a tree, a tree later burned a few miles north. In December, another tree, and perhaps a more discreet burning. Because modern society frowns on human sacrifice. As usual, it's the same people who eat meat but don't like the way animals have to die for it, if we want our daylight back, if we want decent weather, somebody has to pay the price. And in Kingsdown, enough people remember the auld ways, the auld, dark rituals, and the price that we have to pay for everyone's benefit. It's not that these are happy enjoyable events -no, the old gods don't do happy, but they have needs that must be met.

Alternative Transport

For some reason, walking and cycling is often categorised as "Alternative Transport". Historically speaking, walking is in fact the primary form of transport ever used, since mankind first used it to render the mammoths extinct; travelling by water probably comes second.

Sometimes, though, you encounter really alternative transport, such as that documented by these photos.

There is nothing more alternative than walking round Bristol dressed as a tree

Except maybe following the tree dressed as market garden vegetable and singing while waving a stick or a tambourine.

That's what Bristol has to offer over London. London: Transport for London, congestion charging, the tube and the soundtrack of whatever the other tube passengers want to play on their phones.

Bristol: painting yourself green and dancing from pub to pub to music only you hear in your head.