CHAPEL END CHARLIE

A recipe for endless war if ever I saw one. History teaches us that one day - a long time from now perhaps - the surviving extremists will grow old and tire of war. They will then rediscover the many advantages of peaceful coexistence, just as Humanity always has done periodically throughout its long history. Then - and only then - all sides will have to sit down together and work out some form of compromise that results in everyone living peacefully together on this small planet of ours. Modern secular individualism and devout Islam must find some form of accommodation or our future is a bleak one. While it may be hard to see that brighter future from the dark place we are in today, it is nevertheless out there somewhere - I hope so anyway. The past lights the path to the future. Britain's religious wars for example endured for decades, with many on each side utterly convinced that the other's interpretation of Christian teachings represented the Devil's own work on Earth ... and the Devil's work must be exterminated of course. After all that pointless bloodshed - bloody murder that at times far exceeded anything we saw yesterday - Catholics and Protestants are still with us today. No, Religious faith is a idea in the final analysis, and ideas can't be easily destroyed with bombs and tanks. I think they can only be countered with better ideas. They say that 'only the dead have seen the end of war' but as a organised faith Islam is perhaps 600 years younger than Christianity is - so in a sense they are today where we were back in Tudor times. We can only hope that this war of ours doesn't take another 600 years to resolve itself.

He can speak for himself of course, but it seems to me that SOG is making the eminently reasonable point that ultimately, more often than not, conflict has to be ended by negotiation. He's not claiming that we should sit down tomorrow with ISIS and 'talk it out' because that clearly is not going to happen for a variety of reasons. Ironically, the brutal efficiency with which modern Western airpower (and associated Intelligence gathering operations) can now locate and eliminate the ISIS leadership may actually make negotiation harder one day. None of which has anything to do with the prevalence of homophobia in UK society!

Well you're right in that most wars either end in defeat for one side, or around a negotiating table. That latter situation is afterall what happened in Ulster's 'long war' - but only of course after decades of bloody slaughter. Frankly, we are nowhere near sitting down and talking to ISIL extremists at this time, primarily because they don't accept that victory for their cause is impossible. This war is as yet a young one I'm sorry to say. Now I can see that you require no lectures from me on this (obvious) fact of historical life SOG. The usual suspects on here however seem more interested in tiresome point scoring, rather than engaging in a proper debate. Which is in pretty bad taste today of all days I think.

Indeed it is. It surely takes no great leap of imagination to see that the relationship formed between a immigrant coming from a former colony, and someone arriving who has no connection at all between their old home and new will be subtly different to some degree. There may well be other cultural differences between African and Middle Eastern cultures too. Having said that, those responsible for the earlier 'Charlie Hebdo' massacre were indeed second generation French citizens of N African descent. Therefore, those claiming that our enemy now comes from 'within' do have a reasonable point.

Do try to adopt a more stoic attitude in the face of such provocation ...

Well the first thing to say is that this series of murderous attacks in Paris is an appalling atrocity of course. I suppose those fanatics responsible would have said that appalling atrocities happen every day in Syria and Iraq and we are responsible for that. For what it is worth, I think they hate us more because of what we are, rather than what we do. From a selfish British perspective, what is to stop a similiar crime occurring here? The answer to the question is both terrible and clear enough I think - i.e. next to nothing. In the face of such a 'clear and present' danger I wonder how much longer can the cherished British tradition of a (mostly) unarmed police force be maintained? Do we change policy now, or wait until a 100 people lay dead on the streets of London first? History shows us that our police were routinely armed back during World War II and some might argue that something akin to a state of war now exists between the west and fundamentalist Islam. Even if we did arm all our police then the problem would hardly be adaquatly addressed because the French police are armed now and that obviously did not stop what happened in Paris yesterday. In the short term we might look towards a greater Army presence on our streets - but our army has been so reduced now that this may not be a practicable suggestion. Perhaps we should establish regional air mobile counter-terrorist teams that are ready to respond rapidly 24/7 to any incident here - remember that terror can strike anywhere not just in our capitol. If this awful situation carries on then the day may soon come when we need to regain full control of our borders from the EU once again. We may well need to reverse the recent cutbacks in the size of the army, police and customs force too. However, there is only so much that can be done and the brutal truth is we live in dangerous times and we'll just have to get used to it. Vive la france

The very last thing you want to see in politics are parties or politicians so wedded to their 'principles' that they refuse to enter into compromise or seek some form of consensus on contentious issues. If you really doubt that then remember what Ulster's political scene looked like in the 1960's and 70's for example. Remember, only the Sith deal in absolutes ...

Did your Grandfather ever mention the story I heard years ago that the glue holding de Haviland's famous 'wooden wonder' together, in the hot and humid conditions experienced in the Far East, would sometimes fail - with potential disastrous consequences?

Never mind all this tiresome gun violence stuff, a much more serious issue effecting the good old US of A has been brought to my attention. I read in the paper today - and I can hardly believe this - that in the United States they have never heard of that staple of civilised dining, the SAUSAGE ROLL. Can our resident N American correspondents please confirm whether this shocking revelation is indeed correct, and if so, how on Earth do you poor people survive without the God of Puff Pastries? I suppose prolonged sausage roll deprivation certainly would go a long way towards explaining why St George and Sarnia went so mad over there ...

Indeed - and wouldn't it be nice if clubs decided not to spunk most of it on player wages and transfer fees this time.

It's always fascinating to see just how far and fast the English language continues to evolve. For example, being interested in naval history, I well know that ''Angle on the Bow'' was originally a technical term (commonly employed by submarine crew) used to describe how far 'ahead' of moving target you must aim your torpedoes in order for them to hit successfully. I presume this new meaning attached to the term refers to those (prematurely) attacking Corbyn now so that they might hurt him before the next electron?

Like many other football clubs Juventus F.C. regularly record a loss. However, with a revenue of £254m last year (i.e. more than twice SFC's) I think it's safe to say that they could probably scrap a few Euro together if they really needed to.

You can I suppose easily understand their sense of frustration about having their travel plans disrupted. However, it did strike me that amid all the complaints and moaning some might have done well to pause for a moment and think about all their fellow holiday makers laying dead in the desert sand not so very far away. There but for the grace of God ...

Really? The number of fit & healthy young men in the world who are also remarkably adept at this football malarkey is substantial now and probably growing ever larger still as the game expands into far flung corners of the world. Few on here I suspect had heard of Pelle before he arrived, and when he goes (as he will one day) then he'll be probably be replaced by some other hotshot we don't yet know about. With the possible exception of truly exceptional talents, such as MLT for example, players are like buses in the final analysis - i.e. there'll be another one along in a minute. Having said that I must admit that - like others on here - this constant disruption of a (successful) squad our club seems doomed to undergo now every summer did concern me more than a little. However, I'm slowly coming round to the idea that what might call the 'SFC buy low/sell high' transfer policy makes a lot of sense for clubs in our situation - as long that is as our scouting network is still capable of unearthing the proverbial 'next big thing' reliably. This latter point is key to our clubs future prosperity.

This story is of little real significance - it is however quite funny Methinks we should dump the green and adopt a blue away strip next season - primarily just to annoy them further and see if will lead to calls for the Spinnaker to be repainted.

As criticisms go, I've never really understood why the so-called 'nanny state' concept is considered such a bad thing. You have to balance this objective against the need to maintain a competitive, low tax base, economy of course. But surely having the state provide some basic safeguard against the horrors of utter destitution is a rather good thing for the welfare of society overall. That is what most people in Europe seem to think anyway. As for those on here who choose to avoid entering into any real discussion of what 'freedom' really means in this day and age, while apparently determined to endlessly question the liberty of people posting on a .co.uk registered website to discus any international issue they see fit to ... well it seems that horrible old cliche about Americans not really understanding 'irony' may not be such a cliche afterall.

I must have seen 'The Godfather' ten or twenty times over the years, but I've only just noticed a glaring continuity error in what is perhaps one of the most famous scenes in cinema history. When young Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) so memorably assassinates that git Sollozzo and his sidekick Captain McCluskey in the Italian restaurant, Michael shoots McCluskey (Stirling Hayden) twice - first in the throat and then once in the forehead. However, watch the action closely and just before the final bullet is fired into McCluskey's head you can clearly see that the bleeding wound is already there - take a look for yourself: Francis Ford Coppola and his film editor must I guess have noticed this when they were cutting 'The Godfather' together in post-production, but I can only assume that the young director just didn't get all the shots he wanted when he was filming the scene and had to improvise. It's still a great movie of course, but it does go to show you that nothing made my the hand of man is ever perfect.

I saw again yesterday a 2001 movie that I much enjoy called 'Thirteen Days' - a dramatised account of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. As a child of the Cold War myself stories set in this tense and dangerously unstable world have long interested me. Films such as Stanley Kubric's 'Dr Strangelove' and the awesome 'Failsafe' I still count as being among the best that I have ever seen. But those films are works of fiction and much of the power of 'Thirteen Days' brings to the screen is that this film is based upon actual historical events - to a degree anyway. Seen from the perspective of a long term Kennedy family ally and aide called Kenneth O'Donnell (played by Kevin Costner) the film shows us JFK and his brother Robert attempting to cope with a escalating situation under enormous pressure, for if this crisis can't be 'defused' in time then the world would lay on the very brink of a nuclear disaster with appalling consequences for life on this planet. Much of the controversy surrounding this movie on its realise was related to the important role in the Missile Crisis the script attaches to O'Donnell. Some historians of the era arguing that he was in fact a relatively minor Whitehouse 'staffer' of little real significance. The film's director - Roger Donaldson - refuted this and maintained that the Kennedy's trusted O'Donnell implicitly and placed much faith in his advice. Whether O'Donnell did attend the critical 'Excomm' committee meetings at the height of the crisis is I understand a matter that is disputed. Be that as it may, I think that 'Thirteen Days', judged only as a entertainment, is a real success. Costner is actually very good here and the actors chosen to play the key JFK and Robert Kennedy roles not only resemble their characters physically, they seem to have captured something of their spirit too - although admittedly the film has no place at all for all the womanising and dodgy Mafia connections that also went on. Above all the script manages to impart some of the (very real) tension of the time to the viewer in way that a straightforward historical documentary might not accomplish. [video=youtube;-yfIoHXOO9E]

You seem to be struggling to comprehend the key difference here between me observing regular homophobic attitudes during my working lifetime - which I certainly have - and the scale of significant 'hate crime' incidents the LGBT population is subject to. It is unfair of you to imply that the homophobia experiences I relate were all something akin to violent assaults or other incidents significant enough to be reported to the police or CSEW. Homophobia is of course a more subtle phenomenon than that and most often expressed in relatively milder forms. The fact that - to my knowledge - a group of grown men still to this day mutter ''backs to the wall lads'' every time someone they suspect may be gay walks past them may never be recorded anywhere - except that is in the memory of those concerned. I guess here that you need psychologically to have the 'last word' on this subject and I'm happy to let you have it. Frankly Hypo, I really don't have much left new to say on the subject anyway truth be told. So that really is all - fill your boots!

I think that most reasonable people would conclude that 1 in 8 LGBT people annually experiencing a 'hate crime' incident that was significant enough for them to both remember and then report it to officialdom is of some significance. Were one British citizen in every eight to have their house broken into or their car stolen every single year then you can rest assured that a huge uproar would ensue. 1 in 8 is actually a worrying statistic rather than a cause for complacency.

But the 'sound evidence' is all pointing in the same direction is it not? That is the point here that you seem to have missed some how. I might also question your depiction of me being the only person on here suffering from a 'entrenched opinion' when that particular malady seems to have become endemic here.

Well there is much that you have contributed to this thread that I can't agree with. The above however I fully concur with. Indeed, I would hope no one on here would object to a single word of this.

I'm not sure where you want to go with this Hutch, but my answer to both questions would be 'not necessarily'.

I think that any Human Being experiencing a hate crime incident once in their life time is too often. Do you disagree? Again, the official statistics provided show that 1 in 8 members of the LGBT societal group - on average - expedience what is defined (by HMG) as a 'hate crime' incident every year. Therefore, young Matthew's experience of homophobia seems absolutely typical of young men in his situation today. As for the statistical evidence. You do understand I hope that the CSEW (Crime Survey for England & Wales) interview some 25,000 adults and 3,000 children about their individual experiences of criminality every year. This sample size is of course one far in excess of those typically undertaken by any of the well known national polling organisations - such as MORI for example. Furthermore, the interview methodology employed by the CSEW is (I understand) also far more rigorous and scientifically measured than some quasi-random 'if the General Election was held tomorrow' type exercise conducted over a telephone. I can't help but wonder if this sudden desire to question the evidence is motivated more by the fact that the evidence doesn't support your argument, rather than any real show of concern for the truth here. You, Hypo and the rest of this somewhat 'motley crew' on here who are so remarkably determined to deny the actual evidence that we have in favour of their own person (and therefore entirely subjective) perception of reality can flounder around from here to 'kingdom come' if you wish. But in the final analysis the facts are the facts.

It would be great if everyone was asked for their experiences of crime. That however may not be a practicable notion. I suspect that a statistician would tell you that The Crime Survey sample is quite large enough to be considered generally reliable - although I suppose there is always a 'margin of error' implicit in any exercise of this type.