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A friend of mine yesterday alleged that ‘all children’s BBC presenters are gay’. He went on to claim that Dick and Dom were both gay, something he said he knew because he ‘once kissed somebody who has kissed Dick’.

Hmmm…..

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I’ve just watched Penny Woolcock’s frankly phenomenal film version of John Adams’ opera The Death of Klinghoffer, his dramatisation of the Achille Lauro hijacking in 1985. This is something I feel every schoolkid – or better still every politician – should be made to watch, not least because it demonstrates the power and importance of the arts, but moreso because of its relevance to the times we live in and its unusually rounded approach towards the topic of terrorism.

The opera is still considered controversial because in depicting a relatively recent event it dares to show the terrorists’ perspective. But this is the reason for its importance; without condoning the actions of the terrorists or diminishing the horror of the experience, the opera (particularly in the film version with its astonishing use of archive documentary footage) puts the hijacking into the context of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, showing the decades of violence suffered by the terrorists from childhood. We see them as people who have lost family and wept in the street for murdered friends; in short, these killers, these terrorists, also become human beings.

What the film demonstrates is the possibility that we can sympathise with and actually understand the reasons why people are led to extremist terrorist actions – and surely understanding them is the very first thing we need to do if we are ever going to deal with the problem?

And yet the government – and I’m talking especially about you, Mr Blair – is apparently yet to grasp that brazenly obvious fact, as it continues to insist on explaining terrorist actions with simplistic labels like ‘evil ideology’.

YES, terrorist actions are evil. But to write off terrorists in terms that imply we are in a basic B-movie ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ situation, is to belittle the complexity of the situation and to evade our responsibilities – until we see the government taking any accountability for the circumstances that have caused terrorism to arise in the first place, we will never begin to tackle the problem at its roots.

I don’t mean that the government should give in to terrorist threats, or change its policies at every terrorist whim. I don’t even mean that admitting some responsibility would lead to an immediate ceasing of terrorism and reasonable conversation suddenly breaking out with everyone. But the government’s resolute black-and-white mentality is surely one of the things that is generating extremism in the first place – it’s no wonder people feel that it’s necessary to blow up trains when their whole ideology, which has grown out of conflict and hardships and wrongs going back generations, is labelled simply as ‘evil’.

This afternoon, Osama Bin Laden’s lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri said that Tony Blair’s foreign policy decisions were to blame for the London bombings. Here’s a little prediction for you: Blair will issue an official response insisting that his foreign policy is irrelevant to the situation because we are facing a far bigger threat from people who are fundamentally evil and we all need to unite in fighting that. Prove me wrong, by all means, but I’m expecting a response in that kind of blinkered, don’t-point-the-finger-at-me, we’re ‘good’ and they’re ‘bad’ vein. Because compared to Woolcock/Adams, it seems to me that the politicians’ approach towards terrorism is fucking immature.

…this being the third day in a row that he’s walked past me looking shifty.

As far as one can deduce (or possibly allege, since my basis for deduction is somewhat shakey), a good night out for Rory involves a trip to my local with his wife or lady friend, where he has a glass of wine and plays on a slot machine, then leaves again with said wife or lady friend.

I can only assume he lives very close to me, because it seems unlikely that he is following me around, and he always looks very annoyed to see me even though I have never so much as said to him ‘hey, you’re Rory McGrath!’

I am not a particular devotee of Neighbours, though readers of this weblog will be aware that I have become more interested in it since Paul Robinson returned and has been acting in a suitably villainous manner. Today, because I had more important activities to attend to, I missed it, but my housemate Tim and his girlfriend Jessica (who is an Australian no less) didn’t; so when I got home they acted out the whole episode for me.

Some of the scenes had the hallmark of absolute authenticity, and it seemed that they had remembered much of it line for line (when Jessica delivered the line “there isn’t any us because there isn’t any trust!” I could almost have been in Ramsey Street).

Tim did a passable Harold, and Jessica’s Izzy was very commendable, though her Cindy was the most entertaining part of the spectacle. And as a viewing experience it was ten times more enjoyable than Neighbours itself.

So I’m wondering whether I ought to make it a regular institution. As long as Tim and Jessica are happy to do it I think it will be fun for all. And perhaps some other Neighbours watchers might like to come round and join in? I imagine that in a few years’ time, my living room might fill up with people at about 6 o’clock, eager to see the spectacle of the superior, live-action Neighbours Reconstructed…

I am planning to give my website a thorough overhall as it’s currently merely adequate but nothing special. Was talking about this with somebody on MSN messenger earlier and he told me I would need Corel design and all sorts of fancy PHP or PMT or something.

“Can’t I use paintbrush?” I innocently enquired. But no, no, apparently it’s impossible to design anything in the least bit good on paintbrush…..HE THOUGHT.

Hah! I soon showed him!

Tony Blair on those naughty terrorists:

“Let us expose the obscenity of these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them?”

Roughly translates as: “Let us describe as obscene anyone who implies that people have been driven to terrorism by any of my policies. If I make a reference to children, I will hopefully disguise the fact that it is also a non-sequitur.”

“We are not going to deal with this problem, with the roots as deep as they are, until we confront these people at every single level – and not just their methods but their ideas.”

Roughly translates as: “We are not going to deal with this problem. We are going to talk about roots, levels, methods and ideas (specifically evil IDeologies), to reinforce the fact that terrorism is just evil people and unrelated to any of our policies.”

Now our human rights are being defended against creeping governmentitis by … Michael Howard. How did we get here?

Well thank you, Mr Blair. I hadn’t realised! I thought that certain people were always going to become terrorists, since nature wins over nurture, we’re all subject to predestination, and the Lord God Made Us All (in his image, although we must suppose he ran out of crayons by the time he got to western Europe).

The problem isn’t that people don’t have the option not to become terrorists – of course they do. To trot this out with a heartfelt face as if everything will sort itself out now is either incredibly naive or incredibly optimistic.

What’s needed is for people not only to have the option but to have a reason not to become terrorists. Potential terrorists aren’t using Iraq as “an excuse” for what they do – he’s right on that, at least – because Iraq is merely one more time we’ve gone stomping around the world causing havoc under the guise of kissing it better. (And before that, when we just considered it our God-given right. And before that, when we just considered it our Gods-given right.)

If we’re going to “stand up and confront the ideology of this evil”, then this means standing up and confronting what we’ve done, as well as bitching about what they’ve done – and we’ve done some evil things ourselves.

Sarah Jane Smith is to return in the new series of Dr Who. This is surely the best news since – oh, since Paul Robinson returned to Neighbours.

And I’m sure that David Tennant’s new costume will grow on me. Not quite so sure about Billie Piper’s decision to dress as a marshmallow.