Pussy cat pussy cat …

In one of the more astonishing little stories of the silly season, we’ve been treated by several websites to video footage of a woman – apparently one Mary Bale, aka Cat Bin Woman stroking a domestic cat she was passing, before throwing it in a wheelie bin.

Well as every Daily Mail reader knows, this is the kind of behaviour up with which the British public will not put. Cat bin woman Mary Bale: Please forgive me, says bank worker | Mail Online . Just have a read of some of those indignant outraged comments :

(and remember that they’ve been ‘moderated in advance’ ! )

Clearly these people are in no mood for forgiveness –

You think you deserve to be forgiven?!?!=

Absolutley no forgiveness here lady. Despicable evil specimen

(all spelling errors are verbatim by the way – not mine !)

Remember though, this woman’s been subjected to death threats. Over the top ? Not necessarily …

Death threats over the top? If they were actually carried out, yes.

On the other hand, I would say that the fear this woman now (rightly) feels for her personal safety is more or less proportionate to the terror felt by her small, uncomprehending, innocent victim trapped in the wheelie bin.

And in case we’re in any doubt about just how low the Cat Bin Woman has sunk, and how swift and harsh society’s vengeance should be …

Let the public reaction to this case put the nation’s law enforcement authorities on notice that a weak response (such as that with which the public has become depressingly familiar in recent years) will not be tolerated. This behaviour warrants a custodial prison sentence. The public snivelling the woman has treated us to today certainly demonstrates that she has a classic criminal mindset.

And plenty more commentators agree :

Keep covering this monster!!! Make her life miserable like she made the cat’s life miserable.

Not even if hell froze over could i forgive you for what you have done to this animal.

But some of the outraged members of  the public are worried that the punishment might not fit the crime :

… this wicked,cruel woman …  deserves all the criticism she gets. No doubt in our present sick society she will end up with her own TV show or a judge on the X-Factor.

A judge on X factor ? – whoo ! – that’s going some – you’d have to be pretty evil to deserve a fate like that.

Lest we allow ourselves to diminish her wickedness though, another commentator reminds us –

some people are just instinctivly evil, and shes clearly one of them.

This disgusting woman represents all that is wrong with our society

And while we’re occupying the moral high ground let’s get another thing straight :

she is pretending to be a “good woman of god” wearing that dispicable karaoke compere style pearl sequin blouse

The mob is well and truly baying now …

*JAIL*

Miss Bale, honestly..who are you to decide to mess with innocent lives?

and this time it’s personal …

No wonder she’s not married.

which clearly makes her even more worthy of eternal damnation. After all …

I don’t see what the police protection is about, she’s only a rather unpleasant spinster.

Yes this is Britain damn it ! We can’t be letting unpleasant spinsters do what the hell they like. Wait though, it’s not as though this unpleasant old spinster is really all that old …

I can’t believe this woman is only 45 years old !

Outrageous – not really an old witch at all (who’d obviously be quite entitled to put a cat in a bin), not someone who casts spells or puts plagues on people.

No that’s left to our commentator from Australia who sends her hex halfway round the world to dissenting Mail readers :

I’d like to wish a special pox upon every person who said ‘it’s just a cat’. It was part of somebody’s family and a little girl’s pet. That sort of remark just proves that the humanity has been totally sucked out of the human race.

All of which obviously demonstrates the Mail readers’ compassion for those living beings less fortunate than themselves, and if they are so vociferous in defence of a mere cat (not ‘just’ a cat – I don’t want a special pox !), then surely they will be even more compassionate about unfortunate human beings.

What about this man –Manchester railway staff ignored disabled man’s pleas for wheelchair ramp | Mail Online who was ignored (allegedly) by railway staff in Manchester as he sat helpless in his wheelchair, unable to board his train. Surely the Mail readers will give those guards a piece of their mind !

But wait – what’s this :

Looks like the thin edge of a compensation claim to me. Where were his family? why was he not accompanied by them knowing he would need assistance getting on and off public transport, had any effort been made to notify the station of his needs. A set up if ever I saw one.

A set up ? Ooh never thought of that. I  wonder, could the Cat in the Bin thing have been a set up as well – what with the video and everything – STOP -I won’t go there ! That poor animal doesn’t deserve such doubt. (And I don’t deserve a special pox) – Let’s see what else they had to say …

i do think there is more to this than the disabled man just being ignored. I find it disturbing that one of the first comments he makes is about the other driver being sacked. I find it amazing to believe that 3 men all working on the railways would put their jobs at risk just to cause him an inconvenience. We only have his side after he started recording and I am sorry but he came across to me as someone out to cause trouble

A trouble causer eh ? Of course –

Being disabled does not exclude you from being a prat.

Oh right. So he’s a trouble causer AND a prat – well I suppose it could be worse – he could be a foreigner  –

Maybe he should go back to Saudi Arabia or wherever he’s from

And the hits just keep on coming …

maybe he’s the kind of guy who loves causing trouble and stirring things up! He’s acting like a dork – no sympathy for him…

What a real nasty little man being in a wheelchair ..does not give him the right to be rude & offensive..he se out looking for trouble ..and will no doubt now be asking for compensation..

Oh right. Obviously I’ve picked a bad example – this man must be EVIL like the Cat Bin Woman – my bad !

Let’s try and find another one, one where something really bad’s happened to someone, like being put in a bin, or … I don’t know … stabbed to death or something.

Here’s one from year or so back. I’m sure they’ll demonstrate some positive humanitarian concern here :

Refugee stabbed to death during illegal immigrant gang battle in Paris | Mail Online

This tells the story of a young 18 year old Afghani refugee was stabbed to death near the Gare du Nord in Paris – and within a few hours someone else was found near the channel tunnel – imagine that – I mean there’s a railway line linking Paris and Calais – if this young man had wanted he could have gone there too. If he hadn’t been stabbed to death.

I’m not quite sure about the details of this one, as the story says they were illegal immigrants who were fighting, but since they hadn’t come to Britain yet I don’t know how they could have been illegal immigrants.  Anyway though, if it says it in the Mail – it must be true. Fact is, a very young man was murdered – 18 years old. Whatever the ins and outs of this, it’s a tragedy. As the French Police said “He was just a kid who clearly fell into the wrong company”

Surely the Mail readers were up in arms about this. Let’s have a look –

Well thats one less parasite we have to worry about. We doesnt this stupid Government stop all the benefits and hand outs. they will soon stop coming.

That’s the best rated comment – surely some mistake – this man’s from Afghanistan – the country where our troops are dying each day in order to make it safer for the people who live there, surely he’s our friend not a parasite.

A spokesman says ‘Tragically this man was stabbed….’. The real tragedy is ours, the people of Britain, seeing more and more scum like him

Well I don’t know anything about him, except he was only 18 and came all the way from Afghanistan to Paris only to die of stab wounds. Sounds like “real tragedy” to me.

Have we not got enough violence in this country without more dangerous people heading for the UK

Well there’s a fair bit of violence in the UK. Not many roadside bombs. Not many Improvised Explosive Devices, not many Rocket Propelled Grenades. Not many troop surges by thousands of foreign troops. This man was a refugee – maybe he was looking for somewhere with a little less violence.

Well I had thought the Mail readers might care about this but no –

I really don’t care, sorry. If your stupid enough to get into such a horrid trade, then I don’t care what happens to you

and the bottom line is :

Oh dear, what a shame…one less person to ruin this country…

Joking aside, I can’t defend anyone who puts cats in bins. It’s a stupid act which anyone with any knowledge of the United Kingdom would realise is guaranteed to deeply upset many millions of animal lovers – it’s what our country is like. It’s not a particularly evil act though.

Evil is more like murdering an 18 year old man with a knife. Or perhaps hearing of such an atrocity, and saying that the victim was merely a parasite – an animal. If only he was an animal –  perhaps Mail readers might have more respect for him.

People are entitled to be outraged and angered by a crime against a cat. I’d like to suggest though that they’re only entitled to, if they are just as angered by offences against human beings as well.

Sporting Rivalry & Racist Comments

I got into a slightly heated Twitter exchange this afternoon after responding to @conorpope’s tweet to @BevaniteEllie’s statement that she was visiting Burnley. It simply said – “You’re in Burnley ? I hope you’ve had your jabs.”

I took some offence at this – although from the very first I know full well that @Conorpope is no racist – I’ve followed him on Twitter for some time, and guessed that the likelihood was that this comment was in connection with some rivalry between Burnley and some other local town – quite possibly Blackburn, or Bolton. (and it later transpired that this was indeed a comment relating to Blackburn Rovers rivalry with Burnley)

It bothered me though that a town in Lancashire – well known for it’s Asian population, was inadvertently being compared to a country, where one would be likely to need injections before travelling to. Perhaps Pakistan or India

Was I over reacting ? – maybe – but it wasn’t by accident –

I’d just like to relate a couple of anecdotes to give you a clue as to why it bothered me – both relate to me personally, and to sporting rivalry in the North of England – so are roughly analogous to this situation :

The first is about my memories of supporting Bradford Northern Rugby League team (now Bradford Bulls)  throughout the 70’s and early 80’s – Our biggest rivals were Leeds, now the Rhinos.

There was a popular “joke” amongst Leeds fans. This was that Bradford was “over run” by Asian immigrants, to the extent that it was really a foreign country, and that all or most of it’s inhabitants were Asian.

Similarly there was a “joke” amongst Northern supporters that Leeds was actually a Jewish enclave within the UK, and that all Leeds supporters were Jewish

At the games between the two teams the two sets of fans would amuse themselves by hurling racial abuse at each other despite the fact that almost all of the supporters for both teams, were white, vaguely Christian, working class people.

Many’s the time when I’ve walked through a crowd of Leeds RL supporters, wearing my Northern scarf whilst they shouted things like “You black Bastard !”   or “Acky Acky Acky – I can smell a Paki !” (I’m white and English)

I’ve also been in the middle of crowds chanting “Four by, Four by, Four by two, Four by two, Four by two” at passing Leeds supporters (four by two = Rhyming Slang for “Jew”)  and shouted out “hilarious” comments about them having had the ends of their penises cut off.

If anyone was going shopping to Bradford in those days, a typical response might be “Hope you’ve got your passport !”

Less commonly you’d be told to be careful in Leeds if you went to the toilet – “they’ll have you circumcised as soon as look at you !”

It was all done in friendly banter, good humoured, and actually some of it was genuinely very funny.

Make no mistake though, it was very very racist. I’m very glad it stopped as well.

But before you start accusing me of getting on my high horse – I can assure you that I was an active part of that mob yelling anti-semitic chants – my voice was as loud as anyone’s, and I didn’t need much encouragement. Nor did I see it at odds with my activity with groups like Rock Against Racism or the Anti-Nazi League

Looking back though I’m embarrassed about my behaviour then – it was childish, it was racist, and I’d prefer not to have done it. I hope I didn’t cause offence to anyone (although I WAS deliberately trying to offend Leeds supporters).

Rugby League wasn’t my main sport though – football was, and I’ve been a lifelong supporter of Huddersfield Town. Our key rivals are Leeds  United. There were often racist chants in the early 70’s – I’m happy to say that I didn’t get drawn in to them – the racism was far more overt than the teasing at the rugby matches.

One of the worst went like this : (to tune of Oh when the Saints)

“The Bradford End. Is always full.

The Bradford End is always full

FULL OF WHAT ?

Full of wogs full of niggers, full of pakis !

The Bradford End is always full”

Nasty eh ? I never sang it, but lots did. It would have been a brave man that told them not to. I wasn’t that brave.

Many of those who sang it (and some of them were black) justified it on the grounds that it was making fun of Bradford, that everyone knew that most City fans were white, and it was obviously a joke. It wasn’t racist. Anyone who objected needed to get a sense of humour (Where have I heard that today ?)

But I didn’t resort to chanting it. What I did do though, like many Huddersfield supporters, was fall into another habit : That of never referring to rivals Leeds United by name. In writing it would be either L**ds or L666ds.

In spoken words it would simply be “Yids”

Why ? Well the derivation is the same as that at the rugby league games in Bradford. Leeds has a significant Jewish population, and several Jewish businessman have been involved with the club. Notably Manny Cussins.

The rest of it was just spite really. Spite and racism – not that any of us had anything against Jews – it was just a nasty name which could just as easily apply to Leeds supporters.

Several years later, long after I had thankfully grown out of all this obnoxious racist rubbish (for which I feel some guilt, but mainly acute embarrassment) I became a contributor to various on-line supporters forums for Huddersfield Town.

Now these email lists and discussion groups have evolved a code of ethics. Top of the list is this : NO RACIST COMMENTS !

And usually there are none. However it became apparent that several younger fans were still using the word “Yids” to refer to Leeds. They were quickly taken to task, and threatened with expulsion by the other members, and by list owners

Most of them were bewildered – they had no idea that “Yid” was an abusive word for Jew. They simply thought that “Yids” was a deliberate mispronunciation of “Leeds”, and whilst they had no intention of offending Jews, they had every intention of offending Leeds (which is of course within the code of conduct).

This felt uncomfortable to me. I’d never intended to offend people of any race – but I realised over the years that I’d said some really quite unacceptable things, and stood by and done nothing while others showed totally nasty racist behaviour.

As a result I’ve grown into someone who has a sharp eye for comments that could be construed as racist. Some might say I’m hypersensitive – I prefer to think that I have a highly tuned awareness. If I spot racist remarks, in whatever arena, I tend to speak up and say that I don’t like it. That’s not to say that I am particularly judgemental of the people who make the comments – very few of them are intentionally racist – and as I’ve related I’ve been as guilty as anyone of doing this in the past. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter though – I really think that it does.

So all those people who want me to stop being hypersensitive, to get a sense of humour and so on. Well I’m sorry I won’t be changing.

I have incidentally had discussions via Direct Messages with @conorpope since this afternoon, which show that he’s definitely not a racist, and that he does understand my position – it’s not a problem for either of us – despite some people who seem to be rather hoping that it was.

Sorry to disappoint.

@conorpope contributes to the excellent Political Scrap Book blog by the way – which today carries a blog on a far more interesting “race row” “Bring back slavery” row returns to haunt Conservative Future candidate Craig Cox | Political Scrapbook