Ah: gotcha, Jim. Wilfred Pickles was someone else, from my far-off youth; Northern comic & wartime newsreader, hosted that 'Have A Go' programme [dire schoolboy joke told me by my Cousin Martin at the time: 'Have you heard about Wilfred Pickles terrible accident? Fell out of bed having a go!' LoL]. Honestly hadn't been aware of what old Fatso MP has been saying about Islam. He is certainly not 'my man' in any sense; just a sizeable hole-in-the-air to me.

I don't deny that Farage comes across as somewhat xenophobic in his desire for UK Independence. Goes with the territory, pretty obviously. But not a million miles from the views of many, inc utap mine, in that I have been, not Eurosceptic [an evasive get-out of a term IMO!], but Europhobic right from the get-go. Farage a very different sort of organism from Griffin, surely?, & hardly to be bracketed with him.

But there is some force to the objection raised just above that this a a thread about the mid-East, & all this EU stuff may be a drift too far. Shall we leave this theme now, don't you think?

~M~