what on earth happened to the layout of my blog? Help!

Why do people post so many spam trackback? By the rate of this, I'll disable trackbacks. I don't really know what they are there for anyhow. Can anyone explain? And how do you actually do stuff with RSS feeds - I've read a lot about them, tried to understand and failed. I even tried to add an RSS feed to my blog, and it just won't work. A real simple guide would be could (must be getting old if computers start posing riddles to me...). Not to speak of my increasingly slow internet access in spite of Broadband, it's excruciating. Really. I love surfing but not like this.

Let's turn to the important issues of the day: Immigration minister Tony McNulty got sacked. Now that's interesting and I'm sure it's due to John Reid reading my last entry and realising how crap the asylum system is. He just needed to be told by Cartside. 

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post is that another major failure of the asylum process is to recognise human rights abuses committed against women - well, I hinted at it, but the truth is that many forms of persecution that women experience are not generally recognised as persecution in the light of evidence in support of an asylum claim. And the person removed yesterday was a woman, and had suffered gender based violence, so it strikes home even more. Here is an interesting link on this topic: Refugee Women. I found this through a very moving article by Natasha Walter and I'm glad to see that she is working on a campaign with regards to this issue.

After all that, I'd like to end on a positive note. Our Amnesty International Glasgow South Group Ceilidh, which is our main fundraiser in the year, raised a profit of over £640 750. I'd never have believed this success to be possible a week before the ceilidh, when we were still sitting on 100 onsold tickets. This is the best ever result, and above all, it was a great night, lots of fun, laughter and dancing. Another success to note is the publication of a letter to the editor which I sent to the List, a Glasgow/Edinburgh livestyle/entertainment/what's on magazine. It didn't just get published, but won letter of the fortnight, thus getting extra special publicity. Which means two bottles of some stuff for me, hehehe. Next I got confirmation that my successful motion at the AIUK AGM will be acted upon, but probably not before October. This means campaigning for a family amnesty for asylum seekers, failed or not, who have one child in education, and have lived here for three years or more, is now supported by AIUK's policy. I think that's what it means anyway until I'm told otherwise.

Now where is the booze???