Tag Archives: Nice

Burkini Ban

French authorities in Nice and nearby Cannes appear to have been unnecessarily heavy handed in imposing a ‘burkini ban‘  on their beaches in the wake of the Nice attack.

Images of four armed policeman standing over a lone woman while forcing her to remove her clothing do not make great PR for the Gendarmerie.

Why are only male officers attending the scene?

Why didn’t they just escort her from the beach rather than insist she strip?

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the burkini ban, more thought and sensitivity is required in its imposition.

Burkini Cartoon

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Solidarity Assured.

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I spend five months of the year in the French Alps indulging my passion for off-piste skiing. But it’s not just the mountains that I’ve fallen in love with.

Whenever time allows I like to ditch the satnav, stay away from the peage autoroute and turn the long drive to and from the UK into a voyage of discovery.  I’m never quite sure how the adventure will unfold but I’m never disappointed.

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On one trip with Harry and Alfie we followed a logging track for ten miles through the Epinal forest, played football with local kids in the village of Fonville (France 4 -3 England) and trialled roof box riding in Chalons-en-Champagne.

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Despite my woeful inability to speak the language with any degree of fluency, I feel at home in France and wherever I’ve travelled I’ve always been made to feel welcome.

So from Charlie Hebdo to Bastille Day it’s hard for me to understand where the hatred comes from.

I know that my French friends will be a little bit disappointed in me that Britain voted for BREXIT, but I hope they also know that my solidarity, in the face of these atrocities is assured.

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