24th November 2019

Don’t know much about comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, but something he said yesterday struck a chord.  In general, I’ve been very grateful for social media, giving me access to free marketing and literary connections. However, since Brexit raised its ugly head, dividing the nation like nothing before, social platforms have given voice to increasingly rancorous and upsetting comments, even from within families. FB and twitter are awash with the illiterati, spouting venom at those on the other side of the fence. But it was Cohen who suggested that FB would run paid political ads even if outright lies, though denied by FB. Cohen said that, if social media had existed in the ‘30s, Hitler could have published antisemitic FB ads, no doubt drawing global applause. My worry today is that all these platforms push ignorant, racist opinions to an audience of millions, giving voice to growing extremism from the right and the left. Never have I felt so fearful.

17th November 2019

On Friday, Sky News broadcast a special programme about Extinction Rebellion, a group strangely reminiscent of yesterday’s Green Peace warriors. Meanwhile, the UK and mainland Europe’s been awash with rising floodwaters, especially severe in Yorkshire, the Avon and Venice. Elsewhere, Australia’s suffered horrendous bushfires. The big question: can man do anything about it or is it, as many scientists believe, part of a natural, planetary realignment that man can do nothing about? Writing as Isabella Mancini, I’ve set out - as part of a hopefully-engaging novel - one old professor’s take on it all. In his hut, deep in the Arctic, he ponders an outrageous plan involving the whole world. Does he succeed? Although the novel’s full release date isn’t ‘til 5 January, the paperback is available right now. Just click on the cover image above. Hope you enjoy it. One way to avoid the vexatious political shenanigans all around us at the moment!

10th November 2019

Yesterday was 91119. Yesterday was also the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht, a seminal point in the persecution of one, innocent, group of people. What triggered it? In 1938, although there had been much discrimination in Germany against  the Jewish community, e.g. attacks on synagogues, the boycott of Jewish shops and the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, Kristallnacht is generally viewed as the start of the Holocaust. Fast forward to today. Attacks yet again on synagogues, media defamations, antisemitic graffiti etc.  So, what can we do to stop the path to yet another Kristallnacht? Study the backgrounds of all election candidates before they gain power. Have they befriended terrorists or human rights abusers in the past? Don’t give power to a budding Hitler, whether from the right or left wing. Look back at history. Don’t sleepwalk into yet another abuse against innocents.

3rd November 2019

A General Election. This one is different. One of the PM contenders poses a huge threat to one group of British citizens, innocent people who now fear for their future. Some facts. 2006 Corbyn (JC) campaigned to release 2 convicted terrorists who set off a bomb. 2009 JC warmly called Hezbollah, a terrorist group who bombed and killed 85, his “friends”; also hosted the group in parliament, who had published a cartoon of Anne Frank in bed with Hitler. JC at first denied knowing them until a photo later showed them together. JC campaigned in support of suicide bombers, suggesting the murders were “understandable”. 2010 JC hosted an event comparing Israel to Nazis - deemed antisemitic by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. 2011 JC wrote a gushing forward for an antisemitic book that claims capitalism is controlled by “men of a peculiar race who have many centuries of financial experience” and blames “the house of Rothschild” for European wars! JC uses Israel as today’s ‘more acceptable’ form of antisemitism. But make no mistake: JC is rabidly, subliminally antisemitic.
Whatever political wing you espouse in this democracy, never before has the UK allowed such a person to stand as a potential PM. The Labour party should be forced to choose another leader IMMEDIATELY.