Intermission

d1carter

Mel:
I hope you are taking a nice vacation this month. Enjoy!

Winnie McCrann

Have a nice rest Melanie. You deserve it.

stanley Jerusalem

Enjoy!

London Calling

Have a wonderful break Melanie, and everyone else, I shall be joining the deck chair parade also...:)

phil

have a great time

Diana Melleuish

It's not summer here (in Australia) - we are having a very cold winter and I am not loooking forward to August without your blogs. Spectator is my home page and I read your blogs first thing every morning. Hurry back.

Geoff M

I will take a leaf out of your book Melanie.

A month off to forget about the Islamic threat will do me the world of good as well, despite the fact that evil never sleeps.

Make sure you come back refreshed and ready for the fight.

Paul

Not sure how I am going to get through! Have a great rest, Melanie, and come back re-charged.

There is always that other great lady - Caroline Glick (www.carolineglick.com)- to help fill the void!

Roy

Well deserved too. Will look forward to your return ... refreshed, and ready for the fray.

Ben

Enjoy the rest, Melanie.

This is the only blog I check on a daily basis and the standards are as consistently insightful as ever.

Thank you.

Frank Pulley

Thanks Melanie for yet another year of intrepid journalism, logical discourse, withering wit, inspiration and constancy. You have earned you break many times over, but here's one who will be bereft until your return. Have a lovely holiday and I understand there's a job vacancy at your destination; please, eschew any inducements! Just get tuned up for your return which no doubt will be, as usual, usual all-guns-ablazing.

Btw, don't be stretching your break to 42 days, that would be overdoing it! :-)

Miranda Rose Smith

Did I remember to wish you a nice vacation, Melanie? I think I did.

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Ms. Melleuish: Do I have your permission to tell my friends who take global warming seriously that they're having a very cold winter in Australia? I understand the Antarctic ice shelf is just getting bigger and bigger. What nationality is Melleuish?

Gerald Whinfrey

I think we should spare a thought for Pete Hoskin. He has had a difficult job keeping order between the Melanites and the insurgency. For Pete's sake enjoy your therapy of choice. See you after the hols old boy.

Dr Ridley

Happy hols Mel!
You deserve it!

kitchener

Enjoy your vacation Melanie,it will be all over for Obamba by the time you return!!HE is decomposing before our very eyes...the Berlin speech and european victory tour was the "KISS OF DEATH" for the imposter Obama!!..he is finished,kaput,fini...done!!

john doe

Have a wonderful and relaxing holiday Melanie. In the meantime, I will miss your essential missives of truth and reason in this troubled world of ours.

BJ

I usually disagree with everything you say but it's always entertaining.
Regards

G Miller

Having read your last article about the Gaza "refugee" situation I think we all need to go for a nice lie down for a month to escape the insanity of this world!

Ian C

Too bad you are away for today's leader story on the front of The Times. My son, who is a soldier with friends in Iraq at the time, declared "Oh! that's finally come out".

Another one for you to add to Londonistan and the failings of the Intelligence Services, not to mention the final nail in Des Browne's political career.

Pickwick

Have a good break, dear Melanie ! I'm missing you already.

Bill M

I will miss the comments of Frank Pulley as much as Melanie's take on the world!

Miroslav

dear Mrs Philips, I have been passed on an article from your blog regarding the fighting between fatah and hamas in Gaza and wounded seeking refuge in Israel.
As a jewish Refugee from Arab Countries I am beginning to find it very offensive that people use the same jargon as the arab political propaganda has managed to infiltrate in our day to day language. Why not say, "displaced arabs kept indefinitely in Gaza by their arab brethren and UNRWA and EU subsidies", rather than "palestinians"
It is a fact that more Jews were displaced from arab countries (kicked out rather and, of course looted mercilessly before) than the other way round after the 1948 Partition of the British Mandatory PROVINCE of Palestine.

We, Jews From Arab Countries, exist. Much as it displeases the arab countries and consciences (?). What they did to us, in general, was nothing compared to what the Europeans did to Jews... However, not only they got away with it, they have instilled a guilt feature that THEY were the sole unjust crucified victims and you guys play their game by using their cheap jargon. "occupation", "refugee camp", ".palestinian"...
STOP.
There are no refugees left from the greatest Partition in History (the Indian Subcontinent) not even from the recent Balkan wars.
Why do they still go on and claim to be refugees? Who put them there? Who kept them there?

Occupation IS the issue. Keep subsidizing them for doing nothing and this is how they have become. If they were occupied, WORKING, for example, like most humans, putting tarmac on their (to all effects Gaza is totally independant territory) roads etc... But as long as they are subsidied, indefinitely, from grandfather to great grandfather, the more kids, the more subsidy and the more subsidy, the less work.
And by the way... their arab brethren hardly provide any of these subsidies either
Thank you
and good holiday wishes

Diana Melleuish

Miranda

I did post a reply to your question but it didn't make it on to this list.

I have no objection to you telling your friends that my city had the coldest day in 24 years last week.

My (husband's) surname is from the West Country of England I assume - his ancestors came from a little town in Cornwall called Ponsnynooth.

Hope this oomment gets posted.

HumeanBeing

Have a good break, Melanie. I've ordered a copy of the newly updated edition of Londonistan as my holiday reading, having recently finished Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept.

patricia

Go to Gaza!

According to you, its people are rich, the markets are full to the point of bursting, there is lots to do and nothing missing.

Where else can you be assured of some a warm welcome?

Mikey

Bloody hell woman. You have as much holiday as those pesky politicians!

Have a great break.

Phillip Reece

I do hope you are taking a Vacation and not that poor relation a Staycation, Whichever it is i wish you a truly wonderful time.

Brian Moshe

Melanie,

Hope you're enjoying a great and relaxing break - you've certainly earnt it!

Yet, very selfishly, I miss you giving me my almost daily 'fix' of your Diary entries and your articles: you are always so eloquent, cant-free, courageous, incisive, defiant and refreshing.
Viva!

Adam B.

Thanks for all your hard work - have a great holiday!

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Diana: Thanks. I wish anybody on this website who is fasting today an easy one.

Michael/Melbourne

Have a well earned rest Melanie, you earned it and come back fighting!

We need you!

Helen

For those of you missing Ms Phillips over the summer, don't miss her two articles 'Has Bush forgotten his own doctrine?' and 'The "Me" in media', as usual look to the right of this page for the hyperlink.

Readers of this blog may also enjoy two essays from Standpoint magazine:

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/betraying-the-state-of-Israel

http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/293

Good health to you, Melanie, enjoy your well-earned rest.

Matt

Have a fantastic holiday Melanie! You're such a brilliant journalist I will genuinely struggle to find something interesting to read while you're away! Thanks again for being without a doubt the very best thing on the web, almost single-handedly vindicating Tim Berners-Lee's brilliant invention with your utterly superb insights. Thanks again.

AndrewC

Dear Melanie

We urgently need your take on London's '8 minutes in Beijing'. I think you are the only essayist who can do it full justice.

YoYo

Andrew C, Richard Littlejohn had me on stitches on the tube this morning over that eight minutes:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1049150/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-London-2012-Get-set-Gary-Glitter.html

As appalling as the eight minutes was, I thought its whole multicultural incoherence actually did reflect perfectly our, well, our multicultural incoherence.

None of it fitted together, despite that being the aim, yet, still, whoever organised it all thought we wouldn't notice, just like the politicians think we can't see through their imposition of multicultural incoherence.

Also, good essay in the Mail today from Rod Liddle:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1049153/Paxmans-right-TV-biased-middle-class-white-men--people-like-blame-according-colleague.html

Tommo

Londonistan updated? What am I missing out on. Perhaps I should get my new copy from the local mosque.
What is your holiday reading Melanie?

Jane

Welcome back, Melanie.

No doubt Melanie is updating herself with events around the globe and I'll look forward to her return here anon, but for now regular readers may be interested to check out Stephen Pollard's post on this site, on the appalling behaviour of Tower Hamlets Council:

'Compulsory fasting for all (The Times)'