Nordwave Great Britain

Nigroid David Harewood plays martial arts expert Friar Tuck in the new series of Robin Hood

Jovial monk: Phil Rose as Tuck  in the 1984 series Robin of Sherwood

He is typically remembered as Robin Hood’s white, fat and balding companion.

But for the latest instalment of the BBC show, producers have reinvented Friar Tuck  – as a black marital arts expert.

The fighting monk is played by Criminal Justice actor David Harewood, who had to undergo gruelling training sessions for the role.

The image overhaul appears to be keeping in line with some interpretations that Tuck was physically fit and ‘proficient with clubbes and staves.’

But the radical transformation has sparked fury among professors who believe the portrayal is historically inaccurate.

English professor Helen Phillips, from Exeter University, told The Times: ‘Sub-Saharan Africans wouldn’t have been converted by that point, they would have had other religions. North Africans would have been mostly Muslims.

‘Also, friars came from upper-class families, as did monks. The kind of families from which friars were drawn wouldn’t have been in any sense African.’

Harewood, who was the first black actor to play Othello at the National Theatre,  admits he found the idea ridiculous at first.

He said: ‘ I actually laughed.’

‘My stunt double was a kind of capoeira champion and there’s quite a lot of marital arts that my character does later on in the series, which was really, really fun to do and very physical.’

However, the actor, 43, admits he was keen to take the on the role, which was originally rumoured to be played by Little Britain star Matt Lucas.

He said: ‘Funnily enough, when I first saw Robin Hood when it started three years ago, I though they’d missed a trick adn they they should have ahad a black character.

‘It turns out that I am the black character so I think it adds a modern dimension to it, as well.’

In the first episode, airing tonight on BBC1, Tuck returns to England in hopes of resurrecting the legend of Robin Hood.

Harwood said:’ He wants England to be a place of hope but he comes back to find the people are slightly broken, much like they are now with the credit crunch.

‘The people need a hero and that’s what Tuck very much wants, to stand behind a symbol of good.’

The Labour politician with the highest expenses claim of any London MP has denied that he was cheating taxpayers by claiming a second-home allowance while maintaining that his main home is a single-bedroom schoolhouse and seaside caravan 70 miles from his constituency.

Defiant Left-winger Harry Cohen said: ‘When MPs were given this allowance they were told “Go and spend it, boys” and that is what I have done. It is my right.’

His comments come as The Mail on Sunday launches a petition to demand a full enquiry into MPs’ expenses, to report within three months and NOT after the general election as is currently suggested.

Mr Cohen has claimed every single penny of the maximum £104,701 in Commons expenses in the past five years for his £375,000 property in his Leyton and Wanstead constituency in East London, on the basis that it is his ’second home’.

Astonishingly, he says he has claimed the full second-home allowance since 1990.

It means he has pocketed a staggering £310,714 in total – believed to be the largest amount ever claimed by any MP.

Yet he declares on his Labour website that he and wife Ellen ‘live’ in Leyton and ’spend weekends at their static caravan’ on Mersea Island, an unspoilt stretch of the East Anglian coast.

If his real main residence is the Leyton house, it means his Commons allowance has funded a holiday home completely unconnected with either his parliamentary or constituency duties.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165337/We-told-Go-spend-boys-says-MP-claimed-310-000-holiday-home.html

Landser Hey Jew

“Blue Shirted Soldier” is from volkish artist Eric Owen’s 1998 album Res Gestae and pays tribute to Eoin O’Duffy’s Irish Blueshirts who volunteered to fight for Franco in the Spanish Civil War. I can’t think of any other songs in English which support the nationalist side in that crusade against Satanic Communism. This is a good one.

Victim: Brian Cherry

Negroid Cannibal Beast Peter Bryan

But mental health campaigners called for it to be published immediately so that lessons could be learned. Charity Sane said delay would cause further distress to the victims’ families. Chief executive Marjorie Wallace said: “We are surprised that what should be a transparent, public, independent inquiry should apparently be delayed for no given reason, raising concerns about how disturbing the findings may be.”

The judge who jailed Bryan, now 39, described him as “uniquely dangerous”. The mental patient from Forest Gate had spent time in a secure hospital after killing his first victim, 20-year-old shop assistant Nisha Sheth, in 1993.

But he was released in 2001 after applying to a mental health review tribunal. Bryan was allowed to live as a “care in the community” outpatient but was taken back onto a ward at Newham Centre for Mental Health.

It was there he was assessed by social worker Roland Silcott who wrote to the Home Office saying he was “no longer a danger”. In February 2004, Bryan was told he could have as much leave as he wanted just hours before he went to Mr Cherry’s flat and killed him.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23667833-details/NHS+%27sitting+on%27+damning+report+into+cannibal+blunders/article.do

LONDON (Reuters) – Social networking websites like Facebook could be forced to pass on details of users’ friends and contacts under government proposals to fight terrorism.

Millions of Britons use sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to chat with friends, but ministers are concerned the rapidly evolving technology could be exploited by extremists.

Critics have attacked the plans as more evidence of big government intruding into people’s lives.

The Home Office confirmed on Wednesday that the government was looking into the possibility of monitoring networking sites, but said the idea was only at a consultation stage.

It also insisted it had no interest in the content of private conversations, simply on who is talking to whom.

“We have been clear that the communications revolution has been rapid in this country and the way in which we collect communications data needs to change so that law enforcement agencies can maintain their ability to tackle terrorism and gather evidence,” a Home Office spokesman said.

“We have been very clear that there are no plans for a database containing the content of emails, texts, conversations or social networking sites,” he added.

The spokesman said the government would begin consulting industry and the public on ways of closing potential loopholes created by technology used by social sites soon.

Facebook’s chief privacy officer and head of global public policy, Chris Kelly, criticised the plans as excessive.

In an interview with IT website ZDNET.co.uk he said: “We think monitoring all user traffic is overkill.” 

There was sufficient legislation, he added, to allow law enforcement access to traffic data of suspects.

Kelly was responding to comments made by Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker earlier this month at a meeting of the House of Commons Fourth Delegated Legislation Committee.

Coaker said the EU Data Retention Directive, which requires internet service providers to retain traffic data for at least 12 months, did not go far enough because it did not apply to social-networking providers.

Coaker said the government was considering retaining traffic data for all instant messaging and communications on networking sites as part of its Intercept Modernisation Programme.

At the same meeting, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Tom Brake called plans to include the sites in mass surveillance of citizens alarming.

“Plans to monitor our phone and email records threaten to be the most expensive snooper’s charter in history,” he said in comments published in the Independent newspaper on Wednesday.

A group has claimed responsibility for attacking the home of former bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin and warned “this is just the beginning”.

Windows were smashed at the Edinburgh villa and a car parked in the driveway was also damaged.

Sir Fred and his family were not living at the property at the time but the former RBS chief was said to be “shaken” by news of the attack and his friends said those responsible had “gone too far”.

Two emails sent to the Edinburgh Evening News in the early hours of the morning appeared to take responsibility for the vandalism.

Sent from an email account called bankbossesarecriminals@mail.com, one said: “We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless.

“This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.”

The attack was caught on CCTV cameras at Sir Fred’s home and the footage was handed to police, sources said, adding that officers had arrived within three minutes.

The windows of a Mercedes were also smashed.

Sir Fred, ex-chief executive of Royal Bank Of Scotland (RBS), was criticised after he was given a pension worth £700,000 a year, despite the bank being bailed-out by the Government.

One of Britain’s leading thinkers has told Sky News that the attack on Sir Fred’s home is a “wake up call” to the people at the very top of our society.

There are rumours he may be in Spain but no one has seen him for quite some time.”

She added: “He’s refused to give up his pension and a lot of people see him as the face of the banking crisis and there is a lot of anger towards him.”

An RBS spokesman said: “There are security arrangements in place for Sir Fred, as is normal practice for departing executives.”

The former RBS chief executive, who stepped down from the post last October, rejected Government pressure to accept a reduction in his package.

He insisted that changes to the early retirement deal he negotiated when he was forced out in the autumn were “not warranted”.

The massive payout was branded “obscene” and “grotesque” by MPs and “unjustifiable and unacceptable” by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Dubbed “Fred the Shred” for his ruthless cost-cutting, Sir Fred boasted of catapulting RBS “to the top of the premier league” with a £49bn deal to capture Dutch rival ABN Amro in 2007.

But the acquisition proved disastrous for RBS as the credit crunch gripped markets – exposing the bank’s weak balance sheet and bringing the firm to the brink of collapse.

RBS is now nearly 70%-owned by the taxpayer after a £20bn bail-out. Last month, the bank unveiled a record £24.1bn loss and plans to raise up to £25.5bn from the taxpayer.

Sixty members of the Aryan Guard marched carrying WPWW banners in downtown Calgary, Alberta, where they were attacked by violent Marxist thugs who enjoyed the protection of the police. Three people were arrested, and the violent “anti-racist” protestors hurled rocks and projectiles, a typical unlawful act usually indulged in by these groups of violent ideological Marxist thugs.

The “anti-racists” are actually violent anarchists, Marxist-Leninsts, and revolutionary terrorists who use the cover of “anti-racism” as a means to promote their ideology of the violent overthrow of freedom and liberty. They are a ruthless and criminal cult.

Upon their arrival, several Communists and assorted riff-raff proceeded to pelt the activists with rocks, cans and assorted debris.

A number of individuals assaulted participants in the march, and were beaten down by Guards.

More than a dozen people off the street joined in the march, and attended the post-march celebration with the Aryan Guard and friends.

A headteacher has come under fire from parents and pupils after banning two 16-year-olds from school for being ‘too blonde’.

Raegan Booth, 16, and Aby Western, 15, say they were threatened with expulsion by David Alexander unless they dyed their hair brown.

The girls claim they are being forced to adhere to the strict dress code of Rednock School in Dursley, Gloucestershire, in order to sit GCSE exams.

But Raegan remains adamant that her hair is a natural shade of blonde.

She said:’The school rules clearly state that there are to be no “unnatural” hair colours on students.

‘Unnatural hair colours are blue, purple, green and bright red. Blonde is considered a natural hair colour and there are many different shades.

‘The head claims that he must follow the rules. To me this suggests that certain students are being made to look a way which is against their will.

‘I believe this is wrong and no amount of hair dye affects a person’s ability in school.’

The teenager, who is refusing to dye her hair a darker shade, added: ‘As we are in the middle of our GCSE year, we should not be excluded over something so petty.

‘This is a crucial time for us and we should be focusing solely on our grades as opposed to our level of appearance.’

Martin Booth, Raegan’s father said: ‘Raegan is a model pupil and is working very hard towards her exams.