Radio 4 is becoming a bit of a tease!

BBC Radio 4's Today programme is becoming a bit of tease.

It carried the story of a soldier home on leave who was refused a room by a hotel when he showed his military ID card at reception. Corporal Thomas Stringer, from Gwynedd, was visiting a wounded colleague in Surrey when he was turned away from the Metro Hotel in Woking. Corporal Stringer's mother, Gaynor, says he was forced to sleep in his car as a result. During the report it came out that soldiers were worried about wearing their uniforms in some towns because there were an increasing number of incidents of servicemen being spat at!

Well John Humphrys said that he found it hard to believe that there was this sort of attitude towards our servicemen and that he was certain the listeners would be angered by the news. I wonder if John knows who is doing the spitting or was he as genuinely surprised and as much 'in the dark' as he made out.

I'm afraid I know exactly who is doing the spitting . . or is that just my inherent racism colouring my judgement just like yesterday?

The beleaguered non-Muslim folk of Pendle will be taking the British National Party a lot more seriously come the next round of elections after a mosque in Nelson was given the go-ahead for an extension despite opposition from local residents and Pendle’s planning officers.

The Mohammadi Mosque, on Netherfield Road applied to the borough council to build a first floor extension over the present premises and an existing car park, but council planning chiefs had opposed the venture, claiming there was a major increase in floorspace with only one extra car parking space provided. That was because the existing prayer room was being relocated within the car park extension.

All members of Pendle council’s Nelson committee voted to approved the mosque extension - with the exception of British National Party councillors Brian Parker and Adam Grant. Let's hope that this won't go unnoticed by those residents who have seen their objections to the mosque extension completely ignored.

I've reported on the Melton by-election on the main website. Wayne McDermott is quite bullish about our chances here so it could be worthwhile saying up till 11 o'clock to catch the result on the BNP website or failing that on Vote 2007 which can be found here.

Starting on the October issue of Freedom this afternoon. It's always a bit of a difficult time as you are staring at 16 blanks pages and the worries about getting it out on time start to gather in the back of your mind. As the month goes on, this anxiety increases and there will be numerous times when I think that it just won't be finished in time for the printer's deadline . . . but that is the very nature of the newspaper business.

Football on Saturday and I'm already looking forward to it. Reds are at home to Redditch which is a real needle game. After good away performances and a point each from visits to Alfreton and Droylsden last week, I'm quietly confident of picking up all three points.