Tuesday 21 April 2009

Weekend FO and a rant

And there, you thought I wasn't going to post one this week....


Pattern: Baby Poonam, free pattern from the Berrocco Design Team (and it is Poonam, as I thought, and not Poonan, as in the URL - though I will tag it wrong anyway, because I tagged it wrong last entry).
Needle: 3.5mm wooden Knitpicks, 4mm nickel ones (bought them for a change because the 4mm wooden tips are tied up in something mulching at the bottom of my knitting bag...I like them).
Yarn: Wendy Peter Pan, lemon yellow. Less than one ball, so it must have been a 100g ball to start with. Of course I lost the ball band.
Mods: I didn't make any. I made a couple of mistakes - well, one very noticable mistake anyway, with the knotted cable on the right side, and I made a shocking job of picking up the stitches for the collar, but other than that, the pattern was knitted as is. Except that, I wasn't quite getting gauge, so I knitted the smallest size widthways and the middle size lengthways. It measured up right at the end.

This didn't take too long to knit - less than a week for the front and sleeves - but it feels like a long project, because I cast on for the back in January. I think the finished sweater is cute but I wasn't very happy with it while I was going - I only finished it because it was for Jen. I don't think knitting in pastels agrees with me. This might be why I'm never going to finish that beige chicken viking hat I started a couple of weeks ago.

Found some cute buttons for the shoulder though - check it....
















It's the day for the Tuesday 10, I know, but I have been procrastinating all evening long and it's now 10.53, and I must plan my lessons for tomorrow, and get to bed. So you'll get some waffle, and you'll be happy with it.

I was VERY ANGRY tonight. I watched James Gray, MP for Nroth Wilts, on BBC Points West, trying to whip up some public fury against a community of Irish travellers who have purchased a piece of land in Hullavington and moved onto it without waiting for planning permission.

Honestly, I have never been more shocked by a piece of reporting. His comments were nothing short of racist. He called the Romany "Romanian gypsies" at one point (at that one point, the TV might have been smashed had I had something to hand for throwing). He also said that all "gypsies" (there really is no place for that word when talking about travellers, surely?) should live on the same site, even though the new ones from Ireland don't get on with the Romany - apparently he doesn't think that's a good enough reason for them to have their own site (which, let us not forget, they have LEGALLY PURCHASED).

Perhaps next he will go to Gaza and tell the Palestinians and Israelis they shall live next to each other and that's the end of it. Seriously, with insight and diplomatic skills like that, he could have the Arab-Israeli conflict wrapped up in seconds.

Why is it OK to persecute travellers? Even if one thinks they were wrong to break the law and move there without planning permission, surely it's not OK to talk about them like that on the news? What about if a group of Jewish people moved onto a piece of land and the locals leafletted "Get the Insertanti-semiticslurhere OUT!"
That wouldn't be acceptable. Why is it acceptable because they're travellers? The Romany are still a race.

Have just realised they have moved very close to where my head of department lives. I'll ask him what he thinks about it tomorrow. And I'll ask him what he thinks of the MP.

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