Innsbruck nights

A few short days in Innsbruck after skiing in Lech. The Tyrol capital as strange welcoming and superficially quiet as ever. Those mountains at the end of every street still take the breath away, like a backdrop to some 18th century opera. Found the town's one brew pub, the Theresienbraeu, great beer but too much of a smokey disco on a Saturday night. Austria could give a lesson to all those who say we are dictated to from Brussels! Haha! 

Went on to discover a great city centre local having a laid back jazz night, then a multi beer bar from the Krah Krah people I first came across in Vienna 20 years ago! Ate earlier at the Goldenes Dachl next to 16th century mini palace of Holy Roman Emperor Maximulian I. 

Nonsense reminiscent of 1914

Fearful hysteria being talked by the numpties in UK government swallowed whole by even Channel 4. Neither Britain's foreign or defence ministers, both monoglot party apparatchiks,!have any understanding of today's world. The 1988-99 peace dividend has been squandered. Ukraine has been dealt with by knee jerk rather than analysis. Armchair generals eager for their own grandisement spin threads they know nothing of. I fear for our future with idiots like this in charge! Thank God for Obama while we have him. 

The isolated island! Schengen NOW!

Arriving back in UK from European mainland as depressing as ever. Infrastructure appalling. Ridiculous petty border controls which make it harder for us Europeans to get into own country than it would be if we had flown from Iraq or Syria. There is. I sensible reason why the UK should not be party to the Schengen free movement agreement although it is not going to  happen any time in the current climate of xenophobia. Immigration is about settlement in a country, not punishing everybody who lands here or passes through. Fly between any other Europe countries - including Norway, Switzerland and Iceland (those darlings of the Europhobes) and there are no stony faced officials or electronic cameras, gathering pentabytes of unusable information. The UK has become a security state to rival anything the Stasi ever dreamt of. 

Heads not so much in the sand but up our own backsides. Literally!

Simply appalling to reaf and listen to the twaddle being spouted by political and and lapped up by newspapers over the so-called immigration crisis.

The barely speakable truth is that what is most discomfiting to the likes of ukip supporters and even members of the wider populace is what has caused demonstrations in Germany and other countries: the influx of Islamic migrants who not only refuse to assimilate but strive to become dominant in particular areas and force local inhabitants to assimilate to their rules. This is self-inflicted ghettoisation and must be widely resisted.

Farage and co play on this in cynical and perverse ways: lashing out at 'unlimited immigration from the eu' (he means from the rest of the eu, but Britain has written itself out already), when virtually none of the eu migrants are Muslim. 

Most Poles, Latvians etc, yes, including Romanians, are happy to integrate with their British fellow EU citizens, as people in London where they mostly live, will testify. This multi-faceted European society is happy in and with itself. The vast majority of those voting in fear of being 'overrun' live in areas with almost no immigrants.. They could do with a wider window on the world!

Nor are most immigrants here forever. Unlike the primordial British received opinion the UK is NOT the 'best country in the world' to live in. All those British expats in Spain, France, Portugal and even Germany are not there just for the weather. Health services are good, housing and living costs lower, the style and pace of life more pleasant. Don't say 'why don't you live there then?' I do, spending time in Spain, Germany and Austria every year. I also like Britain and the British but the country has become less and less friendly. It is now as intimidating to enter as arast Germany once was (I lived there too) and in the same way to its own citizens, except perversely when they enter. 

Our ridiculous expensive 'border controls ' are insulting and ineffective. Unless we leave the EU all our fellow Europeans can still enter freely. As forrvt 'war in terror', the only terrorist attacks on UK soil over the past 40 years have been carried out by native-born Britons (7/7 - see above in ghettoisation) and citizens of the Irish Republic, with which we have not only a totally open but unmarked border. While we waste millions at GB airports, anyone who wants to skip across fhe line need only fly into Dublin, he waved through, and catch the train to Belfast.