9/11, Prayer rooms, Bible bad bits

Thanks for an excellent edition of 'Sunday', once more.  My comments:

• What were the reasons for the 19 hi-jackers doing what they did?  Our BBC International Editor, Jeremy Bowen does suggest their motives in his very helpful and illuminating book, 'The Making of the Modern Middle East.'  Could you invite Bowen to speculate, indeed tell us, what he has discovered?
• Has the Bible's bad bits, although a very small minority of the Bible, been an inducement for the three Abrahamic faiths featured in our Holy Book, to be the most violent and destructive in the history of humanity?
• The nations which have done the most killing over the last 3,000 plus years, in the Middle East, have all been the Judeo-Christian-Muslim nations, have they not?
• Is it really true that all the world religions' holy books have violence/slaughter in them as Giles Fraser said.  I don't think so from what I remember when reading the Quran years ago.  And surely not in the Bhagavad Gita which I haven't read?

Multi-faith prayer rooms dismissed as makeshift mosques or Islamic prayer rooms by Jonathan Sacerdoti, a Jewish campaigner against Islam who wants them relabelled

• I have used the beautiful, sacred, quiet room at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley in the Black Country.  I read the Quran there - no violence like 1 Samuel 15 v 3 in the Hebrew Scriptures/Christian Bible.  The Bible was also available.
• I thought Jonathan, a journalist and campaigner, "has spoken widely in defence of Israel and against antisemitism" (Wikipedia), is a devout practising Jew as he told us towards the end of your piece.  Therefore, it is not surprising that he sees them being Islamic prayer rooms, no evidence of Jewish religious practices and being, as he said, "drab, miserable places.  They are these plasterboard rooms, no windows, have almost no features and if there is any clue of what these places are for it is in the form of a prayer mat for Islamic prayer" and some even have a clue for the direction of Mecca, Jonathan told us.
• He called them, revealing his own bias, makeshift mosques or Islamic prayer rooms.
• Does Jonathan realise that in the UK, Muslims represent 6.5% of the population and his own faith of practising and non practising Jews is a tiny 0.4%, according to Wikipedia?
• In addition, Muslims are much better and have a much higher proportion of their adherents practising their religion, even every single day, plus Friday prayers, than Christians or Jews.
• Muslims are more disciplined/rigorous/keener in praying, even in public, than the other faiths. 
• Jonathan came across to me as being indignant and not exactly broad minded or friendly towards Muslims.
• He rose to the bait by the unfortunate statement from the Muslim Council of Britain of: "A wild distortion that they are undercover mosques.  That has all the hallmarks of intellectual rage baiting" which was like a red rag to a bull to dear Jonathan!
• Better, next time, to have a fair minded Muslim who has used a quiet/prayer room up against Jonathan, perhaps.

Mass Transit = massive spending for destruction when the money is needed for ...

... enticing motorists out of their cars onto a free and superior bus/train provision without anymore Light Rail/Very Light Rail trams, tram trains, train trams and high speed trains.

Compliment for Dudley's Avoidance in Engaging with me

I wish to compliment you over forty years of the most minimal contact and zero interest in any of my concerns, indeed scandals.

You have shown the most amazing determination not to understand or to take any interest in what I have been writing about over these years.  This takes considerable skill in ignoring matters that are wholly your responsibility in working with the WMCA and national government (HMG) over matters that they are also involved with.

E-mails are never or rarely answered.  In fact, I cannot recall any email from any officer but there must have been ONE.  So brilliant, dumb behaviour from your professional, fully trained officers.  In fact, your studious ignoring and total uninterest was ended with an eventual reply from Jayne Pilkington who, in July, broke the Council's skill in apathy and acquiesence and in blanking me out.  She does seem to be breaking your traditions and engaging with me.  If somewhat reluctantly.  Your halo of delightful decades of deffing me out may be slipping.  So this compliment of brave apathy and negligence is now a little less than 100%. 

to and from Cllr Jon Mucklow re HEL, Cycle-Walkway, railways converted to tramways

You have done brilliantly well, Jon in receiving this reply. Thanks so much for getting their attention. Something I have never achieved in 40 years of writing and campaigning! But they can't even get my name right, the hopeless people!!

They must not close the case in 10 days time, of course. THEY must work on the matters we have raised. THEY are responsible for pursuing the matters now that we have reminded them. THEY are the full time, fully trained professionals who are meant to be up to the job. They are supposed to be competent and efficient. 

Could you, perhaps, send ALL (or whatever) of this back to them above my name? For me to be responsible, of course, not you. Just say, "Tim has written this for you to read".

If we could meet, as arranged, on Thursday 10 September at En Cafe for a plan of action - and a good chinwag over a drink I'll pay for this time!

All the best and thanks again for doing so well.

Dear Councillor Jon Mucklow,

Your case Cllr-863251667 Tim Wheeler is waiting for you to approve its closure. Please see the below response from the service area. This may include any attachments such as images or documentation that may aid in your approval of closing this case.

Dear Cllr. Mucklow,

In relation to the points raised in Cllr-863251667.

1. Former Himley Environmental landfill site, Gornal.
The former landfill site is owned and managed by Himley Environmental Ltd, who have since ceased trading. Matters relating to landfill gas emissions, environmental permitting, and regulatory compliance are primarily the responsibility of the site operator and the Environment Agency as the relevant regulatory authority. Any concerns regarding landfill gas management and environmental controls should therefore be directed to the Environment Agency and Himley Environmental Ltd.

2. Completion of the Black Country Cycle-Walkway
The development of the Black Country Cycle-Walkway is being progressed through the Black Country Transport Smestow Working Group. The route has a working title of the ‘Black Country and South Staffordshire Leisure Route’. This is a partnership initiative involving the West Midlands Combined Authority, City of Wolverhampton Council, Dudley Council and South Staffordshire District Council. Work is ongoing to consider opportunities to improve and extend the route and to enhance accessibility and connectivity along the corridor. There will be opportunities for member and public consultation.

3. Use of existing railway lines for commuter and regional rail services
This matter relates to wider regional and national transport planning. The proposal referenced is understood to reflect the personal opinion of a transport activist. Decisions regarding the future use of rail infrastructure, including passenger rail services on existing or freight-only lines, are matters for the rail industry, transport authorities and Government rather than Dudley Council.

Regards
Mark Williams
Acting Countryside Manager

FoE never believed me. Now the Warehouse is down for demolition!

Dear Libby

Did I tell you that on a BBC Radio WM phone in, Mayor Andy Street, in his answer to my question over two mainline railways destroyed for trams, replied that the two railway chord schemes in Brum, one of which affects our Warehouse, would get round the problem of the railway​

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

​​having been used for Metro trams?

In other words, how very foolish for new railway schemes, one affecting ourselves at the Warehouse, must now be built to get round the little matter of the rebuilt tram network (the first destroyed in the 1950s) being put on disused, former mainline railways!

Over the forty years of my one man campaign, FoE never got behind me in opposing Metro trams rebuilt on railway lines.  If Brum FoE had helped me, perhaps, the Warehouse would not now be threatened for demolition to make way for a new platform or two!

All the best

Tim

Akrasia from Gerald

Thanks for this excellent piece that was so good to read. And informative. I've also read Porritt's 'Hope in Hell'.

In often chatting to car drivers sitting in their cosy cars beautifully air conditioned in summer or heated in winter, with their engine idling - sometimes for many minutes - none of them seem to have a clue that the petrol or diesel will one day be no more. It is inconceivable for them to understand that fossil fuels are finite! And that electric cars are also unsustainable and little better than combustion motors. Everyone is in denial that we are foolishly living infinitely on a finite planet and unnaturally on a natural planet. 

For these people, understanding of Climate science is zero. Some think it is up to governments to sort it, if they have heard of Climate concerns. It's nothing to do with them, they think.

I read on Wikipedia that some scientists fear that earth will turn into our sister or twin planet, venus. Venus is hotter than mercury although further from the sun than mercury, because of its runaway greenhouse effect. As we are doing to earth. 

Our thoughtless, care-less drivers live it up today and to hell with tomorrow are hastening the end for humanity. But I am guilty, too but, at least, I'm trying to minimise my impact in many ways while not living as a hermit. Perhaps I should be!

I love your akrasia and must give it some more reading from other erudite authors. I read a book by an XR man who calls our guilty pleasures but knowing they are damaging and totally unsustainable as "cognitive dissonance".

Keep up the brilliant work you are doing.

Please explain how multi-modal/Mixed-Use/Mixed-Up Railways ...

Dear all you transport experts - we all are!

... contributing to the rising £3 trillion UK deficit;

worsening the UK's 2019 declared Climate Emergency because £ spent = lb in weight of GHG emissions;

putting Metro trams on TWO Brum/Black Country mainline railways;

using trams to get trains - "Light rail investment provides the basis for restoring heavy rail services at the appropriate time."  Tom Magrath letter, Sept 2000 !!!

diverting the funds available for regional Fare-Free Public Transport for ALL, instead of (mainly) only OAPs like me;

starving funds from green hydrogen fuel cell electric buses and HGVs;

taking funds away from the 50 year old, pathetic 'effort' to electrify our railways when Switzerland did theirs in the 1920s and 30s; ...

... how multi-modal/Mixed-Use/Mixed-Up Railways is the Silver Bullet to solve all our problems.

Sustainable public transport

To fight for a more sustainable public transport provision which minimises our use of electricity to concentrate on a renaissance of green hydrogen fuel cell electric buses directly on roads, without the railway tracks and, regular trains returning to our remaining railway lines that have NOT yet been converted to roads, buildings and tramways.

to Satpal

If we could sit down on returning to KFC and over coffee, I have looked out official maps of proposed tramways and map, below of wasted, existing, available railway lines in the West Midlands,

 Railfuture's full map.pdf

which goes back to 2003, with nothing changed in 23 years, apart from an extra 3 Kms of new tramway, costing tens of millions in price and in weight of GHG emissions to worsen Climate horrors!  Another 6 Kms and six new tram stops open to Flood St, Dudley by Christmas, THIS year!  They've been working, on the ground, on the 6 Kms for the last seven years.  The Leader of the Council, Fred Hunt told me in the early/mid 90s that it would open in 2000, 26 years ago.  This on a former, principal mainline railway between Worcester and Derby or, between London and Edinburgh!  Much more sensible, easier and cheaper just to put the trains and stations back.  Instead, we build High Scam 2 with no stations, apart from the terminals and replace irreplaceable railways and bus routes with trams.  Tramways  were replaced by railways over 200 years ago!

Dud, Deadly, Dire Dudley - catalogue of disasters and destruction!

1. The major roundabout of tyres in 1976 was changed to tarmac but still no landscaping.  Still the ugliest in the UK, after 50 years. This is Grange roundabout on Halesowen bypass, A456/A459.

2. Reinstatement of landscaping on central reservation of Halesowen bypass (after "carriageway restructuring" 30 years ago) is STILL not completed.

3. Halesowen railway was used for homes and much else in the 60s and 70s. The trains will never be seen again.

4. Stourbridge railway was used for freight only from Port Talbot to the Waterfront, next to Merry Hill. Thus, a WASTED line, waiting for trains which will be delivered by highly expensive trams.  This is why billions are being spent for Metro trams!

5. Merry Hill was built but the nearby railway for shoppers was never linked to the centre's monorail which soon closed.

6. In the 1990s the Dudley Freightliner depot closed.  Metro was to take it over.

7. 1981: Metro trams started but it took 18 years to build Metro One on the first mainline railway - destroyed when it was meant to enable its reopening for trains! (Tom Magrath's infamous letter of September 2000, on behalf of the dozing councils)

8. This was the first tramway opened in 1999 from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton Low Level station - now a conference and events centre.

9. Two Dudley railways turned into a path in Kingswinford/Pensnett in the 70s or 80s but not touched since!  This is the Dudley Mudway, now worse than ever. Fit only for the ASB brigade of dirt\quad bikers and 4x4s!

10. It is part of the UK's Top and longest cycle-walkway from Stourbridge ring road to NW Wolverhampton and beyond.

11. Yet, it remains a disgrace for 5 Kms in Dudley, south of the border with S Staffordshire Council.

12. The 3 Kms Brierley Hill to Pensnett railway is still not turned into a cycle-walkway.

13. It took very many years to get the Stourbridge Shuttle on the world's shortest branch line. Eventual SUCCESS!!

14. A circular extension to get shoppers from the Stourbridge Transport Interchange and car parks to the shops was never wanted.

15. This week's announcement of the Dudley Dasher dashes all hopes of the railway getting its national, regional and commuter trains back on the UK's forgotten principal mainline railway between London and Edinburgh, when miserable Metro trams were supposed to do that!

How come the rest of Europe has gone for tramways? They must be right. Of course they are!

I love trams and always use them rather than buses.  The first idiocy by our politicians and transport experts was to destroy the lot of them, apart from Blackpool and up Snaefell hill in the Isle of Man.  They then replaced them with a cocktail of poisonous gases from diesel buses and started selling off railway lines for buildings and roads, instead of mothballing them for future railway use to reduce road and railway congestion.  How shortsighted.  How stupid was that?

Next, in the 80s in Manchester, trams replaced trains and buses at the most colossal expense, when that money could have been better spent.  More of the railway network was lost for multi-modal transport to make for more changes and delays in our public transport journey.  The money should be used for regional Fare-Free Public Transport for every single person from the cradle to the grave and, to entice car commuters out of their tin boxes!

Over one billion to destroy 10 Kms of the principal mainline railway.  This is scandalous expense for doing the wrong thing.  BUT the tram was sold to us as needing to be built to get the full 56 Kms between Stourbridge Jct and Burton on Trent reopened.  Trams to get trains.  How stupid is that?

Midlands Connect has always fully supported Metro trams and their expansion.  The £15 billion for 150 miles, 8 lines and 380 tram stops by 2040 has not been cancelled, David.  Or, what have you heard?  Am I wrong?

All the best and keep in touch.  Please try and get Railfuture to fight for trains on freight only or unused, still not built on railway lines.  I've been doing their work over the last 40 years in opposing Metro on mainline railways.

Strong meat about Climate from American Muslim

I have read much of the link below from author, sustainability campaigner and environmentalist, Jonathon Porritt, in response to something I wrote to him, which is below his email.  So I am now passing it on.  I will read every word.  Your own thoughts are welcome.

I think a little soul searching from each of us would not come amiss.  And a lot more action in tune with the challenging teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and throughout the Gospels.  His teaching was so unacceptable that that dissident rabbi was soon put to death.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Jonathon Porritt <j.porritt@greenfutures.org.uk>
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2026 at 10:53
Subject: Re: I do care what I write but I also have fun at the same time!
To: Tim Weller <timweller1@gmail.com>

Strong stuff - but on the money!

You might enjoy this confirmation:

https://medium.com/@imran_54027/the-reason-america-will-not-act-against-climate-change-1aa22930ebdb

Best wishes,

Jonathon.

Bus franchising is unnecessary, risky and exorbitantly expensive

Use the millions to extend FARE-FREE PUBLIC TRANSPORT for all in the W Midlands as the reward for leaving your car at home and jumping on a bus. But there must also be the stick of penalties for those who refuse to free up road space for essential vehicle users in the rush hours. Plus:

You are right, Ray. Let the private sector run the buses, with councils being allowed to become shareholders and the brilliant Enhanced Bus Partnership ensuring sensible working together. And NO more different rail modes to add to the expense and complication under the DfT's Mixed Use/Mixed Up Railways obsession. Do you agree Ray?

What do you think, my friend?

... if we do the right thing, no-one else in the world will, anyway. So why bother?

Dear friends - Patrick, Balvinder and Alex, our three prominent Civic Leaders in ​D​udley.

I had a long, ten to fifteen minute conversation with a man sitting in the driver's seat with his big 4x4, engine running, which is why I approached him​.  The whole time with engine ticking over​ and, possibly, long after I left.  We talked about his insistence that Climate problems are a fiction and finite fossil fuels are nothing to be concerned about with oil reserves remaining in abundance long into the future.  Poisoning the air for passers by was, certainly of no concern.

He in his big car was sitting on the grass dome next to the flag pole with the UK flag flying bravely.  He was waiting for a big enough space for free parking in the shopping centre cul de sac road called Great Cornbow.  It is literally round the corner from Alex Ballinger's constituency office in Peckingham Street.  The driver was doing this because if he switched his engine off, he would not be able to make a racing car start to escape an approaching traffic warden.  Rare though they be!

Earlier this year, I did speak to an officer with lower status, I think, than traffic warden who was more concerned about checking the cars in High Street, parked on double yellow lines which had exemptions.  Please clarify what the council policy now is.  Are there traffic wardens on duty in Halesowen?

Do you still accept Climate science?

How have things changed on the ground since you and your council declared the Climate Emergency - nationally in 2019 and in Dudley in 2020?

Do you believe that combustion engines idling wastefully are adding to the approaching Climate horrors?  Is it so symptomatic of our casual and careless view that there is nothing we need to do to change towards right behaviour because if we do the right thing, no-one else in the world will, anyway.  So why bother?

Please give me your view.  And answer my questions - this time and for a change!

THE UGLIEST ROUNDABOUT IN THE LAND suggestion

Dear Hilary and Patrick/Balvinder

I refer to landscaping relying on weeds for one, which are growing out of the 99% black tarmac, Grange roundabout on the A456/A459, by the Halesowen cricket ground.  You grandly arrive at it from Jct 3, M5 on the nearest and only Gateway to Dudley, "the historic capital of the Black Country" and the motorway gateway to heavenly Halesowen.

In 61 years with a full driving licence, I cannot ever recall driving around the UK, seeing such a major, 30 metre diameter roundabout with nothing on it but tarmac and struggling weeds!  Many visitors have noticed, too, over my 50 years living in Halesowen.  "How odd" is the common comment.

Why is Dudley ALWAYS so odd and eccentric?  From six destroyed railways to masterly negligence over the UK's major, 20 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway/Mudway and the Netherton Canal Tunnel towpath slum disgrace (half in Dudley, half in Sandwell).

 6 scandals on the 45th anniversary of the W Mids Metro!

On the other roundabout at the Asda car park entrance, over 50% of the area is loose white/grey stone, with the fine centerpiece being a peculiar, 45 degree angled conifer collapsing, plus a large branch clearly torn from the main trunk.  It looks terrible.  There was 100% nature on the previous roundabout that you good people clear felled/wrecked/destroyed for the present shameful mess.  What IS the matter with you all?

 50% white stone rndbt 2.jpg

This is how it should be done

 20260728_113919.jpg

Are the Britain in Bloom judges suffering from poor eyesight, Hilary?  You do a magnificent job with HIB and BID but not as regards the two roundabouts, my friend.  And you are the more powerful and influential councillor than poor old me who is a complete nobody!

PLEASE REPLY (sorry you did do, Hilary once, earlier this year - thank you), especially Leader Patrick and other Leader Balvinder who both owe me an apology for never, ever replying.  And Balvinder once told me, I thought in all seriousness, that she would give some of her time when we met at a WMCA Board meeting in Brum Council House, shortly after her appointment as Chief Exec.  Of course, it never happened.  At least, I was once granted 15 minutes with Leader Patrick.  And a previous Leader, Fred Hunt, told me in the early to mid 90s that the Dudley Tram would be up and running on Dudley's principal mainline railway

 "of national strategic significance".pdf

by the year 2000 CE, 26 years ago!!

None of this is nowhere near being good enough, my friends.

to Helen Board, Dudley Gp NHS Foundation Trust

Dear Helen

I would also like to know what my Trust is doing over this report from an email I was sent from Operation Noah in June.

"Parts of mainland Europe also suffered and still are suffering from a heatwave which may be responsible for hundreds of excess deaths according to the World Health Organization, with Germany experiencing its hottest day ever recorded."

How is the Trust adapting to and mitigating the coming Climate horrors?

Bad health consequences from failing to act ...

... over Gornal/Kingswinford landfill site, over failing to upgrade routes separated from traffic for cycling, walking and wheeling.

Assumption that the more we spend, the less we have of fatal, finite, fossil fuels - the fools' gold of extraordinary advantages but also the most fearful downsides we stubbornly bury for the sake of our mental health!

UK's Top Active Travel Route because:

Yesterday, Sunday 16 August, I cycled from home in Halesowen to Castlecroft on the S Staffs/Wolves border, before turning back.

Since discovering the route last decade, the Dudley section is the worst I have seen it but the S Staffs section, where it is tarmacked, is the best with the greatest number of users.

Apart from Chris Barnett with whom I have cycled his wonderful 'Chris Barnett Circular' a couple of times, there is STILL zero interest from a single officer or member of that council.  But last week I met Cllr Jon Mucklow - hope!

Dudley Council, from my experience, will not send out a single member of their staff to cut back vegetation on the Pensnett/Kingswinford Railway Walk.  I did a little some years ago but no longer!  It needs a wholesale restoration to keep the ASB brigade out who have wrecked the cycle-walkway, as here, with Dudley Council allowing them to do this destruction.

PROW = Public Right of Way. Means open to all to walk/ride over the adjacent landfill site with its cocktail of poisonous gases.  Dudley's fault - again!

In my opinion, the 25 Kms from Stourbridge ring road, via Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill to NW Wolverhamton (and even on into deepest Staffordshire) is easily the Top UK cycle-walkway because:

1. It is in the heart of England in the West Midlands with its population of 2.8 million.
2. Its urban-rural-urban nature means it is vital for commuter, business and leisure use.
3. Climate problems make it essential for us car users to leave them at home more and to use our flat feet, two wheels - and the Andy Burnham BUS!
4. Making the full 25 Kms length fit for purpose is one of many urgent ways to do something about the Climate no 1 Emergency.
5. Yet, still no NCR number.  Shocking!
6. The two railway lines which make it up are now ideal for active travel, ONLY.  No more trams - the bane of my life for these past 40 years with two mainline railways destroyed for trams, the most expensive transport mode to construct, per Km, after the ongoing HS2 tragedy.  Midland Metro trams have taken over from national, regional and commuter trains but, so far, we got only 23 Kms of tramway in 45 years of expensive endeavour!  

2 stations are Coffee Stops but 3 saved and another is a tram stop!

The Wombourne station is the coffee shop, called 'The Platform'.

The Tettenhall station on the Black Country Active Travel Route is another coffee shop, called Cupcake Lane, as here - https://cupcake-lane.com/.

The three new stations on the Camp Hill line were going to be tram stops under the West Midlands Metro tramway plan from 1981 to 2016.  Only in 2016, before Andy Street was elected, did they finally cancel the tram plan and decided on reinstating the commuter trains instead.  It took them ten years to achieve it!

I was writing from the 1990s opposing existing, three mainline railways being turned into tramways.  The first tramway on the first mainline opened in 1999.  The second on the London to Edinburgh, principal mainline railway through Dudley opens in time for Christmas - for the last two or three years - perhaps this year!

Please take a look at riversimple.com and tell me what you think.

Our side is STILL behaving like the Nazis of ...

... the 30s and 40s but, this time, towards Arabs/Muslims and Palestinians, in particular. 

With no effective condemnation of Israel in word, let alone the BDS we impose on Russian aggression, we are supporting the Jewish hate filled, anti Muslim feeling in thought and deed.  Therefore, we are STILL treating Gazans and Palestinians like we did the Amalekites in 1 Samuel 15 v 3 in our own Holy Book.

The Jewish-Zionist and Christian massacre and ill treatment of Muslims in Gaza, Judea and Samaria continues apace and we don't turn a hair. This is astonishing, despicable and hate-filled from beginning to end. Yet, we consider ourselves as the Righteous of the International Rules Based Order, upholding the cruel and callous behaviour of Trump and Netanyahu with their mainly American evangelical core base. But also some British evangelicals I know, love Bibi too.

His much loved reciprocation policy (I read and enjoyed his mighty 654 page memoir) means when the enemy Hamas/Gazans hit back, beloved Bibi hits back 70x7 in reciprocation. Mind you, don't call it revenge! 1 Samuel 15 v 3 always takes precedence for our side over the life and teaching of Jesus Christ of the more noble and honourable values which our Judeo-Christian world has never been able to attain for the last 1700 years of our control, domination and warfare around the world.

Our popular new Prime Minister voted for all our recent wars on the Arab Muslim world. Israel, like our side always has, acts with impunity and is immune to criticism, always calling it antisemitism. It is their get out of jail free card which never expires.

No wonder Putin calls us the new Nazis. I think we are the biggest, immoral, international law breaking hypocrites out.