LBC Radio, Clive Bull and Shlomo From Finchley

Mike From Stamford Hill

You know how you start looking for something on the Internet and get side tracked into looking for something else? Well, I was looking for some tourist guides to Central London on Youtube.com and came across an old 1980s documentary about the Londoners who phoned up Clive Bull's "Through the Night" show on LBC Talkback radio in the early hours of the Motzei Shabbos and Sunday morning.

Night Caller - Clive Bull Through the night. Part 1

The video featured an Orthodox Jewish Green grocer known as "Michael from Stamford Hill" who I remember used to send Clive a box of fruit every week, fresh from old Spitalfields Fruit market.

I used to listen to the Clive Bull show every Motzei Shabbos in the 1980s when driving to and from London with friends to see a film up the West End.

Back then, a good percentage of these callers were Jewish, many of them Frum Jews. Michael from Stamford Hill had an unmistakable Stamford Hill Jewish/Yiddish accent. He was clearly a religious Jew and proud of it. He would phone to chat with Clive about his Shabbos or his Jewish customers. Every Motzei Shabbos he'd send Clive some exotic fruit. This turned into a 3:00am quiz where Londoners would call in and try and guess the name of the fruit that Clive had in his hands.



Clive Bull Gets his box of fruit



So, there I was, watching this documentary about Clive Bull's 1980s LBC show on YouTube.com and reminiscing about the good ol bad ol days when I suddenly remembered one particular Clive Bull show from February 1988 that so angered and upset me, I occasionally think about it even today. My feelings of rage and betrayal came flooding back like a Tsunami in the mind. It was as if it had happened only yesterday.

I was remembering another one of Clive's regular callers. He was known as "Shlomo from Finchley". Like Michael from Stamford Hill, he also had this half English/Yiddish accent. (I wonder if there are still Jews in England who speak like this?)

He told us that he owned and ran a Jewish Deli in North London. He spoke about the Jewish customers that came into his deli in the small hours of the morning and of the food they prepared there. He never said exactly where his deli was so my friends and I used to listen carefully for clues so that we could find the place and try out what sounded like delicious Heimishe food.

Well that cold February night in 1988, Shlomo was going to tell Clive how to cook Schnitzel and Potato Latkes. Clive had transferred his show to the LBC kitchen and was broadcasting live while following Shlomo's instructions over the phone.

We all had a good laugh when Shlomo was explaining to Clive and the rest of London that he must use Elswood's Extra Strong Chrein, her Polish heimishe cucumbers and Rakusen's Matza Meal instead of flour for the Latkes!


Clive in the LBC kitchen examining the Matzo Meal

 Then, about 30 mins into the program as we were just driving through Stratford heading East, Shlomo gave Clive the next set of instructions which was to add some milk to the egg which was about to be used to dip the turkey schnitzel into.

I looked at my friend. He looked at me. This was Shlomo from Finchley? For years we had had this image of this middle aged pot bellied Jew in black trousers, tzittis, white shirt with food stains on it, big black kippa and beard. Here he was telling Clive to mix meat and milk! We thought it was a mistake but to our amazement and disgust he then said in his Yiddish accented English that "if you v-vonted to keep it kosher then leave out ze milk".

I was still thinking about this when I glanced at the side bar on the YouTube page and noticed a link to another video entitled "Cook With Clive - a Clive Bull Through the Night special". I clicked on the link and to my utter amazement, found it to be the entire three hour radio show from the 21st February 1988 where Shlomo from Finchley tells Clive and the rest of London, how to make treif schnitzel and latkes!

I recorded the audio and extracted the disreputable segment that was still so fresh in my mind.

By the technological ingenuity of the Internet, here it is in all its horror, Yiddish accent and all!




Listen to Shlomo From Finchley 4:00 mins

 

Press to Play



Clive Bull today, still going strong on LBC radio.

No one could ever accuse a London Underground tube train of being too silent.

Thought I'd post a great video of some London Tubes arriving and departing from various stations as I was comparing the silent JLR trains to London Underground in a resent post. No one could ever accuse Tubes of being too silent could they!


While we are on the subject of the London Underground. There are some  great sites dedicated to London underground Ghost Stations.

These are all those stations that for one reason or another, London Transport management decided to close down. Most of these stations still exist, their posters unchanged, the Underground Tube wall map frozen in time at the date they were abandoned, forever waiting in vain for a train to once again stop at its platform.

An old map at Holborn Station's old Platform 5, abandoned 1994.

I remember, more than 20 years ago, when I used the Central Line everyday to commute to and from work, the train would rush through a Ghost Station on its way to Tottenham (prounced "Tot-nem" for all you Americans reading) Court Road station. You could just make out through the merky darkness, the platform and its Station Name on the London Underground logo as "British Museum". I understand that today, the platform has been totally removed and only the wall tiles remain. It was all very mysterious and eerie! The station was closed in 1933, Its above ground entrance long since built over.

Some of the Ghost Stations that were abandoned before the Second World War were reopened for the duration of the Blitz to be used as Bomb shelters. Others were used as Secret War department offices.

Anyway, those interested in London Ghost Stations can visit the following sites:

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/

http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

Londoners bombarded by Islamic propaganda advertising campaign

In June, 2010, Londoners were bombarded by a propaganda advertising campaign in which very civilised looking Muslims were quoted as saying:

“I believe in social justice. So did Muhammad.”

“I believe in women’s rights. So did Muhammad.”

“I believe in protecting the environment. So did Muhammad.”

The ads were placed on the London Underground, London bus stops, plasted all over London Cabs (taxis) and published in various London magazines.

A spokesperson for the campaign, an organiser from the "Exploring Islam Foundation", made the following statement.

"The campaign aims to highlight the Prophet Mohamed’s teachings to Muslims on the importance of the environment, gender equality and social justice".

The lack of response from British media is truly breathtaking. Where was the outrage from British Feminist organisations?

Doing a Google of the MSM (Main Stream Media) I managed to find a single opinion piece in the Telegraph from June 8th 2010 by Douglas Murray entitled "Mohammed believed in women's rights, says poster campaign. Oh, really?"

In it he said

"The site is well worth a visit. Its “Who was Muhammad?” section is particularly delicious. There are sections on Mohammed “the orphan”, Mohammed “the shepherd” and Mohammed “the husband”. There are, sadly, no sections on Mohammed “the war criminal” or Mohammed “the close friend of a little girl”.

I also did a Google for "Mohammad campaign" and "British advertising standards authority" and found nothing! Not a sausage!

Let's just look at some of BASA's code standards. http://bcap.org.uk/

The Codes contain wide-ranging rules designed to ensure that advertising does not mislead, harm or offend.

Code 2.1 All marketing communications should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.

Code 6.1 Marketers should not exploit the credulity, lack of knowledge or inexperience of consumers.

Code 7.1 No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.

Code 7.2 Marketing communications must not omit, hide or provide in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner material information if that omission or presentation is likely to affect consumers’ decisions about whether and how to buy the advertised product, unless the information is obvious from the context. If the advertisement is limited by time or space, the ASA will take into account steps that the advertiser has taken to make that information available to consumers by other means.

The evidence that this ad campaign breaks every one of BASA's codes is overwhelming.

Islam condones:

• Child brides
• Wife beatings
• Stoning to death
• Honour killings (murder)
• and in some Islamic countries - female circumcision to remove the clitoris

Just a quick search brought this little lot up:

CNN – Woman sentenced to be stoned to death.

The woman confessed to adultery after beating of 99 lashes in front of son.

Wife Beating in Islam – Men have authority over women

Wife beating in Islam – Only a rod will help

Highlights from this enlightening Islamic "shiur":

We should not be ashamed before the nations of the world (who are still in their days of ignorance) to admit that these beatings are part of [Islamic] religious law.

We must remind the ignorant from among the Islamic nation who follow the West that those Westerners acknowledge the wondrous nature of this verse:

There are three types of women with whom life is impossible without beatings.

The Koran says "and beat them", This is a wondrous nature.

There are three types of women with whom a man cannot live unless he carries a rod on his shoulder.

The first type is a woman who was brought up this way. (Her Parents beat her). Her husband will only get along with her if he practices wife beatings.

The second type is a woman who is condescending towards her husband and ignores him. With her too, only a rod will help.

The third type is a twisted woman who will not obey her husband unless he oppresses her, beats her, uses force against her and overpowers her with his voice.

A Lebanese woman speaks out against wife beatings in Islam

Some highlights to this video:

"A western woman has her own personality and is aware of her basic rights…in our case, a neighbour cannot phone the police and the police cannot be involved.

I have a neighbour whose husband beat her during her third month of pregnancy. He beat her and locked her inside the house. She called her father, who came to open the door. Her father called the police, who came and prevented him from opening the door claiming it was against the law. The women began to throw her clothes, jewellery and belongings from the balcony. Pleading with her father while the police were standing below and would do nothing to help her. But in the West there are a million organisations that can support the women but in Arab societies there is no one…the woman is totally isolated. She has no other weapon except her shouting and crying."

Wife Beating in Islam – More rules

Highlights to this Isamic "shiur":

"Women in some cultures are not averse to wife beatings. They consider it an expression of masculinity and a kind of control which she herself desires.

We (Islam) must follow reason. I got a question from Canada. The man said "Here it is a crime to beat a wife, even with a toothbrush. Is this prohibition acceptable in Islam?" I say Yes! Islam accepts the beating of Canadian wives, in this culture and ambience...from childhood they are taught that beating women is a type of barbarism, savagery, and so on….but when Allah permitted wife-beating…considers it as one of the means to preserve the family and as one of the means to preserve stability."

Wife beatings are indispensable

Highlightes from this Islamic "shiur":

"With regards to beating [in Islamic law], The husband is not in a karate club or in a boxing club with his wife…the beatings must not cause broken bones, bleeding, or cuts and must not leave marks. It is light beating, which makes the wife feel the extent of the anger or sorrow of this man's heart.

Some say that this beating is uncivilised. I say to them that since it is written in the Koran, beware of defying what appears in the Koran. Beatings are indispensable."

A few weeks ago, Blogs began a Photoshop contest to show their abhorrence to this ad campaign by superimposing the ad's slogans onto photos showing Islamic abuse.


Example blog here:

I've reproduced some of the Photoshopped posters:

Now my attempt. Five minutes work in MsPaint...

People of Britain. Will you ever wake up?

"Doctor in the House" used as an historical source

Being in bed sick for the past week, I was listening to LBC (London Talkback) radio over the Internet one afternoon when they were talking about the choice between a woman giving birth at home or in the hospital. Unsurprisingly the presenter, Jeni Barnett was all in favour of home births. In fact at one stage she mentioned that she simply could not understand why the British National health Service began the policy whereby it insisted that births take place in the hospital.

Jeni, being born in 1949, might have been having (as my parent's like saying a lot), "a senior moment" and she obviously had forgotten what life was like in the East End of London in the 1940s and 1950s. I don't actually remember first hand but I've seen plenty of films from that time to give me a pretty good idea.

By coincidence, that very day, a book of comedy sketches from a pile of books my wife had recently sorted out over Pesach caught my eye. I remember reading this book some 25 years ago. Flicking through it, one chapter caught my eye.

It was an excerpt from the book "Doctor in the House" 1952 by Richard Gordon where he describes the events that took place when, as a junior doctor; he was on night call at St Swithin's NHS hospital. He was awoken at 4:00am and told to rush to a home to supervise the delivery of a baby.

It was a tall, dead-looking tenement forever saturated with the smells of brewing ad shunting. I banged on the knocker and waited.

A thin female child of about five opened the door.

'I'm the doctor,' I announced.

The arrival of the obstetrician in such a briskly multiplying area caused no more stir than the visit of the milkman.

'Upstairs, mate,' she said and scuttled away into the darkness like a rat.

The house breathed the sweet stench of bed-bugs; inside it was dark, wet and rotting. I fumbled my way to the stairs and creaked upwards. On the second floor a door opened a foot, a face peered through, and as the shaft of light caught me it was slammed shut. It was on the fifth and top floor that the accouchement seemed to be taking place, as there was noise and light coming from under one of the doors. I pushed it open and lumbered in.

'Don't worry!' I said. 'I have come.'

I took a look round the room. It wasn't small, but a lot was going on in it. In the centre, three or four children were fighting on the pockmarked linoleum for possession of their plaything, a piece of boxwood with a nail through it. A fat woman was unconcernedly making a cup of tea on a gas-ring in one corner, and in the other a girl of about seventeen with long yellow hair was reading last Sunday's News of the World. A cat, sympathetic to the excited atmosphere, leapt hysterically among the children. Behind the door was a bed beside which was grandma--who always appears on these occasions, irrespective of the social standing of the participants. Grandma was giving encouragement tempered with warning to the mother, a thin, pale, fragile woman on the bed, and it was obvious that the affair had advanced alarmingly. A tightly-packed fire roared in the grate and above the mantelpiece Field-Marshal Montgomery, of all people, looked at the scene quizzically.

'Her time is near, doctor,' said grandma with satisfaction.

'You have no need to worry any longer, missus,' I said brightly.

I dropped the kit on the floor and removed my duffle coat, which wept dirty streams on to the lino. The first step was to get elbow room and clear out the non-playing members of the team.

'Who are you?' I asked the woman making tea.

'From next door,' she replied. 'I thought she'd like a cup of tea, poor thing.'

'I want some hot water,' I said sternly. 'Lots of hot water. Fill basins with it. Or anything you like. Now you all go off and make me some hot water. Take the children as well. Isn't it past their bedtime?'

'They sleep in 'ere, doctor,' said grandma."

Despite being a comedy, I believe that the living conditions he describes in the book are pretty accurate. Reading his account it seems clear to me why the NHS pushed for hospital births only policy back in the early 1950s.

Lest you think that I am nostalgic for the NHS in Britain, I remember my uncle telling me, the last time I was in England that it took him 7 days to see his family doctor when he was suffering with the flu. This is despite the fact that he is in his 90s and ought to be given preferential treatment. I told him with some satisfaction that in Israel, you could receive an appointment for a family doctor on the same day you call some 90% of the time.

In another strange coincidence, when I phoned to make an appointment at my local "Kupat Cholim" I was given an appointment with a doctor who had only recently made aliyah from England. When I introduced myself as originally from Woodford Green, he preceded to inform me, with a large grin, that he had been a junior doctor at King George hospital only a few miles from where I grew up. He made me strip to the waist and commented on my large appendix scar.

I was happy to tell him that I had received this at none other than King Georges. I related how, at the age of 10, my parents rushed me into the emergency ward of King George one Sunday, having forgotten that they had closed their emergency ward down due to government cuts only the week before. (It must have been 1974). As an official was explaining that they would have to take me to Whipps Cross I very obligingly through up all over him. He considered this event sufficient to ask a doctor to examine me whereupon I was placed on a trolley and taken (as far as I can remember) straight into surgery.

I remember being woken up to the sickly smell of fried bacon and the terrible pain of fresh stitches in my groin.

If that wasn't bad enough, Tony Blackburn of Radio 1 was sticking a microphone in my face and asking me if I snored. (He was recording for a radio programme later that day).

The Kupat Cholim doctor assured me that the emergency ward was now open once again for business at King George. I seem to remember that the King George I was in, was on the main road to Romford, very near Newbury Park Tube Station and was a very old looking building. As far as I recall, it was demolished or sold off for flats sometime in the 1980s. He must be talking about a new King George in the same area? When I did a Google on the place it seems as if my assumption was correct. King George today is a modern looking red brick teaching hospital. I noticed that the Google results returned numerous entries on the subject of the campaign to save the hospital from closure. It seems that some things never change when it comes to the NHS.