Thursday, 17 September 2026
Make fun of the well meaning authorities mixed up Trump-like railway!
Email to Jayne Pilkington, Dudley Council
Good morning, Jayne and Vicky
- You would speak to colleagues to make progress on the multi-named but, what I call, the 25 Kms Black Country Cycle-Walkway from Stourbridge Ring Road to NW Wolverhampton. Particularly, in the very worst 3 Kms section from the border with S Staffs DC to Pensnett Nature Reserve/Fens Pool Avenue, Brierley Hill. In the folder below, is a photo of something I came across this year after it had decades of burial in undergrowth. Pensnett Railway Walk and Kingswinford Railway Walk were probably created in the 70s or 80s. Dudley Council soon lost interest - from the state of the walkways ever since. Now, a shameful, slum-like disgrace when the route is a delight in the other two council sections where it is well used.
- Should there be an NCN or NCR number for, at least, the better section north of our border with S Staffs up to NW Wolverhampton and the Staffordshire Canal?
- You would speak to colleagues about the urgent Climate Emergency measure of using open spaces on the Dudley section of the A 456, Manor Way/Halesowen Bypass, to reinstate long awaited landscaping on the wide central reservation, to extend the remnant of thick woodland opposite the Shell filling station. In addition, the other remnant needs extending eastwards where the cherry trees are from the Manor Way/Manor Lane junction to the eastern side of the Manor Way/Lapal Lane South junction.
- The dozen or so cherry trees were my reward for years of writing for 100% reinstatement, earlier this century. I achieved perhaps 25%! But I think, those cherry trees prove how right I was about the thick woodland cover, admittedly for only a short time, before carriageway resurfacing destroyed so much.
- My £1,000 will go directly to the Woodland Trust, to offset council costs, IF the following is done:
- Woodland Trust trees and shrubs are used for the reinstatement for these three vital areas:-
- Extending the two remnants of woodland cover, as indicated above. There is still plenty of space for suitable trees and shrubs, purchased from the Woodland Trust.
- Grange roundabout is finally landscaped, not with sculptures as once intended but by Nature. At least grass with an annual mowing to maintain visibility, of course.
- The area of land alongside Lapal Lane South, on its western side, is smartened up with additional suitable planting. Purchased from the Woodland Trust. Including the triangle area in front of the 5G mast and adjoining footpath.
- Future lawn mowing of grass alongside Manor Way on the carriageway edges only, instead of the whole central reservation width.
Are you able to view them?
We caused immigration and would do it ourselves under the same circumstances!
For centuries we've been all over the world to rule over other peoples, to claim them for ourselves, to make them work for us for nothing as enslaved then, indentured labour. Members of the British Empire, so Brits like us. They are here because we first went there. But there is no way we are going to take our fair share of migrants fleeing our Western wars and Western wealth bringing dangerously disturbed climates from fossil fuel burning changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
Wednesday, 16 September 2026
My response to Pastor Michael Youseff
Remember the Way of Jesus. Repent of the way of the world of control, domination, coercion, violence. Obey His teaching in the Sermon on the Mount - moral, lawful and always non violence without exception.
Tuesday, 15 September 2026
Israeli rights group B’Tselem
Israeli rights group B’Tselem says Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank form part of a broader project aimed at eliminating Palestinians as a distinct people.
Monday, 14 September 2026
Mash of FoE local action groups
Dear Masharof
Sunday, 13 September 2026
Moral depravity at the heart of ...
... the Judeo-Christian world for the last 1700 years and Islam for the last 1400.
Colin Armstrong on Israel/Palestine
Yesterday, I came across Colin Armstrong on Andrew Marr's Facebook page and liked what I heard and what I read, below. So here it is from my blog. CORRECTIONS, COMMENTS WELCOMED:Sunday, 13 September 2026
Colin Armstrong on Israel/Palestine
I came across this on journalist Andrew Marr's Facebook page, in a comment on what he said on LBC.
SELF:The Lord God/Yahweh gave Jacob/Israel's descendants the land 3,000 years ago - for all time. But was it for all time? I don't think the Bible says anything about God giving the tribes of Israel the Promised Land for an eternity. Only once after leaving slavery in Egypt and capturing/defeating mainly the Canaanites. Their aggression and victory was rewarded with them keeping the land. Just like 1948. Today, contrary to international law, of course.In 1948, God gave Israel the Promised Land for a third time. But that was after a gap of over 2,000 years when they did not have it. Therefore, the promise of ownership is more in the breaking of that promise than in its keeping. One third of the time, at the very most, God has kept His promise of ownership for Jews only. But for two thirds of the time, God has denied His People their supposed rightful ownership. And remember, the Hebrew Scriptures were written by Hebrews/Jews. Of course, fully inspired by the mighty Lord God Himself - who was always on their side, the lucky people!Therefore, it is very dodgy for Bibi and our fervent Christian/Messianic Jewish friends to be arguing that the Bible proves only Israel must have the Promised Land and all of it, from the River to the Sea - and, forever. Or, even for a third time. A third time by defeating the biggest empire the world had ever seen, when we brave Brits meekly surrendered and went slinking home in the face of the three Jewish terrorist gangs shooting at us. One of the gangs, Haganah, became the Israeli Defense Forces. Still terrorists in my book but, I must be wrong because they are "the most moral army in the world". And don't you forget it!In addition, two lots of descendants of Abraham always wanted and still want the same land and are unable to share. It came about like this.The Arabs came from Ishmael after Abraham had sex with Hagar, his slave woman/mistress - and, permitted by Yahweh/God, would you believe. So Ishmael was Abraham's first born son. Jacob/Israel was eventually born to Sara in her old age. There was a big row, Ishmael stormed off and Arabs and Jews have been unable to get on ever since. Are family rows always the worst kind?!TimColin supports a one state solution.COLIN ARMSTRONG:He (Andrew Marr) is right but the consequences for Israel will be terrible if they don't moderate their behaviour and accept that the Palestinians exist.Many of us came from the same position as Andrew Marr but since Oct 7th '23 and the disproportionate response of the Israelis our views regarding Israel have changed.We've looked at its history and we've realised that the European Jews who moved to Palestine in the 20th century didn't take over an empty land and make the desert bloom. They took over a land populated by an indigenous population who had lived there for thousands of years and from the beginning they systematically killed and ethnically cleansed that population in a ruthless, cruel, and illegal way and Gaza is just a continuation of that evil.There's no coming back for Israel. Its reputation has been destroyed by its own brutality and the only solution is a one state solution where everyone, living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank has equal rights and live in a secular democratic state with protected rights. They managed it in N Ireland; let's hope a similar solution is possible in Palestine/Israel.TO: Colin ArmstrongPalestinians were invented in 1964 by Arafat as a political ploy against Israel, under the British Mandate of Palestine the Arabs didn’t call themselves Palestinians because it was associated with Jews. Read your history. The Jews are the indigenous people of that land and they started turning it into something and then the Arabs started coming in droves way before 1948!TO: Phyllis Lane SciborowskiThere was a very small Jewish indigenous population in Palestine in the 19th century. The bulk of the population, also indigenous, was Arab and then the Austrian, Herzl invented zionism and the Palestinian Arabs miraculously disappeared according to the zionists and it was an " empty land", another lie.The Jewish population of Israel today is largely made up of European, Arab, and Russian Jews who colonised Palestine throughout the 20th century but the Arabs/ Palestinians were and are still there.The facts of history are that Zionism and current day Israel is a racist supremacist colonial manifestation of a form of race based politics that prioritises one group over another and that the process of clearing the land of Arabs who have lived there for millennia has been ongoing since the inception of that state in 1948.Your reasoning that the Jews are the indigenous population of that land is ludicrous. We might as well say that the Anglo Saxons and the Celts have the right to the land that they controlled a few thousand years ago. Maybe we could search out the descendents of Boudica and demand the right of return for her clan. That's how ridiculous the zionist justification for stealing the land from the people that owned it actually is.This current crisis and Israel's murderous behaviour has opened the eyes of millions who formerly supported it. There's no getting away from it and the myths of the "empty land" and "making the desert bloom" have been exposed for the lies they are. Israel was founded on theft, ethnic cleansing, and murder and that's the historical fact and it will be recorded as such in years to come.
Corbyn on 9/11
Today marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11.
Saturday, 12 September 2026
Did John Simpson get it right on 6 pm Radio 4 News this evening? How would you have put it?
How would you have put it if the BBC had asked your good self to prepare something?
Dear JeremyJohn went straight from 9/11 to Saddam Hussein and Iraq and missed out the war on Afghanistan which started two months after and was prompted by 9/11. " 13:38 ... The USA was the world's sole superpower. ... The undermining of this status began that day. ... It homed in on Iraq ... The US, with Britain's enthusiastic backing, tried to persuade the world that Saddam's supposed WMD posed a threat to the West. ... America came dangerously close to outright defeat in Iraq. The sole success after 9/11 seemed to be introducing democracy in Afghanistan." This is the first mention of Afghanistan at 14:30. John ended at 14:55.Perhaps I'm nit picking. You are all excellent and highly valued by me but you are the best.What is your judgement over the West's Judeo-Christian catastrophic war on Iraq? A win for the West but a collapse of civilisation, law and order and some way back to the stone age for the Iraqis - still to this day? And, our side perpetrated the lie of WMD in Iraq to help justify the attack. Unprofessional and dishonest governments - at the lowest level. Actually, far far worse of course.I would have preferred your assessment report and conclusions, Jeremy. Or, have you written something? Where do I find your daily writings?It is always a pleasure to hear your accurate, fair, humane and measured tones on Radio 4.Long live dear Jeremy B!
Wednesday, 9 September 2026
Treat cruel, callous, vicious Israel (our side, shockingly) like ...
... like apartheid South Africa, until Mandela was freed in 1990.
Sunday, 6 September 2026
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?
- 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.
Thursday, 3 September 2026
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.
Wednesday, 2 September 2026
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.
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
Sunday, 30 August 2026
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'.
Saturday, 29 August 2026
Please explain how multi-modal/Mixed-Use/Mixed-Up Railways ...
Dear all you transport experts - we all are!
Friday, 28 August 2026
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.
Thursday, 27 August 2026
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,
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!