Peter Rhodes on hijabs, nuclear bombs and the relentless rise of cyberbumf
Peter Rhodes on hijabs, nuclear bombs and the relentless rise of cyberbumf
In Smethwick a huge new sculpture has been unveiled celebrating “the strength of the hijab,” as worn proudly by some Muslim women. In the same week in Iran the government announced crippling fines and prison sentences for any woman not wearing the hijab. It seems the hijab is empowering – but only if you can choose not to wear it.
Nearly 40 years ago I interviewed veterans of the UK nuclear-bomb tests. Some claimed that exposure to radiation had caused them a variety of diseases in the years that followed. I never imagined back then that their campaign for truth and compensation would still be rattling on in 2023. But it is and the vets are now fighting for medical records to be released.
Some nuclear veterans have long described themselves as guinea pigs. Years ago, it was a term that riled the Ministry of Defence. An MoD spokesman told me tartly: “We refute any suggestion that servicemen were used as guinea pigs.”
But how could anyone square that with a document produced in May 1953 by the Defence Research Policy Committee? Classified “Top Secret,” it was still under lock and key in Britain in the 1980s but was released to campaigners in the United States. Someone slipped me a copy. It states quite simply: “The Army must discover the detailed effects of various types of explosion on equipment, stores and men with and without various types of protection.” If that's not a perfect definition of “guinea pig,” what is?
A reader describes a journey from hell in his electric car. Thankfully, he found a working charger. Then the deluge began. He wonders whether it was a good idea to be sitting in a metal box in the pouring rain, connected to 350kW of electricity . . .
More than six per cent of the world's electricity is gobbled up by the internet. I'm not surprised. A builders' merchant has just sent me 22 emails over 48 hours, some within minutes of each other and exact copies of earlier emails, in order to confirm I have ordered five bags of asphalt which are on their way. If no-one has coined the word cyberbumf, it's time they did.
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