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‘I hope the entire tribunal becomes infested with lice’

Wednesday, 18th June 2008

Rod Liddle on the case of Bushra Noah, the headscarf-wearing Muslim who has just won £4,000 from the Wedge hair salon

I used to dye my hair — Midnight Auburn, from Clairol. Yes, because I’m worth it. I did it myself, once every three or four months or so, always ruining several perfectly good towels in the process. I don’t dye it any more because my girlfriend says that if I do, she’ll bin me. This is because a man dyeing his hair is both undignified and vain, she says: however, I think her opposition stems from the fact that if I got rid of all the grey, I would be irresistible to all women. She would suddenly have intense competition. She would come home from whatever it is she does during the day, all that onerous waxing, and find a panting queue at the front door, headed by Angelina Jolie and Caroline Flint. But either way, my hair is now a sort of greyish-white with strawberry blonde highlights — she can’t do anything about me putting the highlights in because they’re not the consequence of Clairol, they’re the consequence of nicotine. Truth be told, I’ve written my hair off. It’s hideous. As time goes by, more and more parts of the body are left to destruction by hostile forces; the hair, the gut, the skin, the liver.

So I will probably not be applying for a job at the Wedge hair salon in King’s Cross, London — despite the fact that there is a current vacancy, apparently, occasioned by the failure of one Bushra Noah to get a job there. The owner of the salon, Sarah Desrosiers, told an industrial tribunal that the people working in her business needed to project a ‘funky, urban image’ and that the salon should ‘showcase alternative hairstyles’. Well, I suppose my hairstyle could be called ‘alternative’, in much the same way as someone suffering alopecia and a bleeding scalp might call their hairstyle ‘alternative’. But I don’t suppose I would pass the funky urban test. Anyway, as a result of not being allowed to work in Ms Desrosiers’s salon because of my unfortunate hair, my feelings have been hurt and I intend to take her to an industrial tribunal. It is my human right to be allowed to work in a funky urban hair salon, even if I look like a sack of s***. It’s discrimination, that’s what it is.

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Fergus Pickering

June 19th, 2008 9:57am

Right on, Rod. And your hair style is ultimately funky.

ed hummer

June 19th, 2008 10:19am

"one or two hardline Muslims"

probably one or two hundred thousand.

The time for hard decisions is approaching.

David Short

June 19th, 2008 11:09am

The Spectator should set up a fund to pay this unfortunate hairdresser's 'fine'. Even a pound each from 4,000 readers would be enough.

Also, I read that this silly, pudding-faced woman couldn't get a job after 20 interviews.

If she is still unemployed and receiving benefit, I wonder if her sudden possession of £4,000 will mean she won't get her DSS money for about a year and a half.

Now if both these things happened, just really would be served.

In fact, there's a possible third benefit. She may have already rendered herself unemployable because now would interview her?

The same fate awaits the gobby, aggressve, drinking, smoking, single teenage mother, gangsta-boasting, converted 'Muslim' who was kicked off Big Bro this week.

Martin

June 19th, 2008 12:16pm

Spot on Rod...Help me out on one point..If she was not an actual employee how come she had access to a tribunal...Is this something new introduced by NuLab?

Steve Harper

June 19th, 2008 1:27pm

Isn't PBUH for Mohammed, rather than Allah?

Stephen Davis

June 19th, 2008 3:58pm

Still got crap furniture!

James

June 19th, 2008 4:35pm

You can still access a tribunal even if you were rejected even at CV stage, let alone interview.

Any public fund for Wedge, the hairdresser, should not go to paying £4,000 to Bushra Noah, but to buying the hairdresser the finest Silk and solicitor in the land and appealing this disgusting ruling as far up the ladder as they can go so that this revolting judgment cannot be slapped upon other hapless employers.

The hairdresser could not possibly afford such exorbitant legal fees and of course all the fashionable pro bono 'human rights' lawyers won't be interested in a case like this because they'd be opposite a Muslim plaintiff (give them a Muslim terrorist and they'll be there in a flash - sounds great at Islington dinner parties).

Geoff Cohen

June 19th, 2008 6:04pm

Can't some journalist find the names of the wretches who constitute these tribunals so that they can be published and publicly mocked?

Hysteria

June 19th, 2008 10:19pm

Rod - I think rather than

"itself counter to the wishes of Allah, PBUH"

You meant to say

"itself counter to the wishes of the prophet Mohammed, PBUH"

Goatta get it right otherwise we might offend someone!

rod liddle

June 20th, 2008 2:34am

Yes, apologies for the pbuh mishap. But I don't suppose Allah would mind, would he? And if Allah didn't mind then Mohammed surely couldn't mind either?

Kevyn Bodman

June 20th, 2008 10:21am

Rod is right again.

Those closing two sentences,spot on.

alan tye

June 20th, 2008 1:32pm

I couldnt agree more with Rod Liddle ! Britain has gone soft and bends over backwards in its effort to not offend muslims . To hell with it ! if they dont like the law of the land then let them go to a muslem country. Britain needs to get its backbone back and stop pandering to this kind of nonsence !

Bob Grant

June 20th, 2008 3:52pm

This didn't tell me anything I didn't know. I was far more interested in learning of the composition of this star chamber - who sits on it, how they get their job, how much they get paid and so on.

laurie macdonell-sanchez

June 20th, 2008 6:23pm

Gawd, Rod, I sure hope the nuts don't try to target you for using sacred names in vain--we NEED you! Here in the States when judges make especially egregious rulings that result in travesties of justice, they usually get their names & mugs plastered throughout the media, an updated version of pillorying. It OUGHT to be done too with the shrinks & parole board members who regularly release monsters to prey on society. So too with the moronic industrial tribunal panel who allowed that miserable loser to filch from the hard-working salon owner.

O. Ine-Aethelberht

June 20th, 2008 7:00pm

O Dear Mr. Liddle -
My hair is like yours.
And frizzed.
And yes, we have no rights.
And the Law of the Land is funky.
And I say it's 'cos the EUs
And the RCs believe in Caesar. And they want to boot Brits back 2000 years.
And the next generation'll probably get their right hands cut off if they resist.
--- Moslems understand, don't they?
Ave
And Vale King Alfred!

Andy

June 20th, 2008 8:28pm

Agree with everything said. But there is a deeper problem related to the spineless tribunals who don't apply the law so much as feel sorry for the applicant. Behind every spurious claim there is a lawyer, advice centre,CAB etc. Wheter it be employment tribunals, immigration tribunals, benefit appeals tribunals or indeed courts of law. 95% of the times these lawyers, advice agencies take a look at their clients case and think :-
"Look, a child of 5 would not believe the crap you have told me...but a tribunal just might. For that reason, and because it keeps me in a job I will take up your case even though it is nonsense. If you win, I get the publicity, I get the future work and I get a good payout....oh yeah and as a by-product you get vindicated. If you lose. don't worry, the vast amounts of money it costs to bring this rubbish to this stage will be picked up not by you, not by me but the tax payer so screw them, they are only there to keep me in a job.If it is a court of law I probably should tell you to plead guilty, saving all the tax payer expense, but that way you will lose your liberty now and I won't get paid for a longer trial. So in order that you can continue to go down the pub with your mates for a couple more weeks till they dinally put you away plead non-guilty and we shall stall them till the second before the case starts.Perhaps give you more time to lean on a few witnesses.
Please sign this undertaking that says, you realise I don't believe a word you say with relation to your case, but that since you are my cash cow you are prepared to have me represent you.If the case goes against you, you will never ever expect to see me ever again."

I doubt any advice workers are posting here but just in case, I should advise, I am both innocent and gulity of the above. As a trade union rep I am often called upon to represent people I would much rather throw to the dogs,(more often than not they can't keep their mouths shut and do the work for me) though there are also sometimes representation is a neccessary.

Neville Parker

June 20th, 2008 10:39pm

What is to stop this person making a career of moving from one hairdresser to another and then suing each in turn for their refusal to employ her?

Harry O

June 21st, 2008 1:04am

Personal beliefs,whether based on religion or not,are surely just that. They are separate from how we live on a daily basis and provide an opportunity for spiritual and not material gain.Time to clear the ridiculous and totally unnecessary religious discrimination legislation that chokes our democracy and let the light of common sense throw such vexatious litigation into the dustbin it belongs.

polly ester

June 21st, 2008 11:23am

I got terned down fer a job as an english teecher should I sew the scool an how much dooyer think a can get a grand maybee?

Roger Inkpen

June 22nd, 2008 8:47am

In my local paper job section:

Lap/pole dancers wanted! No experience necessary! Earn £££s a day!

Do you think Ms Noah should ask for a job there? No mention of looking ‘funky’ or even behaving immodestly. Presumably they can’t even discriminate on sex, so maybe Rod or I would have a chance there!

PeteS

June 22nd, 2008 6:07pm

The tribunal's decision must be challenged. I am sure it is wrong. The fact that the judge agreed that there was no direct religious discrimination. So it is illogical and bizarre when they then found here indirect discrimination on the same religious grounds. Crazy!

Robert

June 22nd, 2008 8:31pm

Muslims are always saying that whatever-happens is God's will... God willing... But when God's will doesn't go their way, they're off to court to take someone else's money (God willing).

An Answer For Robert

June 23rd, 2008 6:33am

Robert: God wanted her to have 4000 pounds, so He led her to apply at a beauty salon where He knew she would be turned down for the "wrong reasons."

I must say that here in the USA, just about anybody running a small business would have KNOWN not to let this woman come in for an interview in the first place. If the beauty salon owner had been polite on the phone, while saying that she had TONS of applicants, and that it would be a long time before she got around to interviewing all of the ones who had already contacted her, this incident would NOT have occurred.

Minorities have a lot of trouble getting hired by small businesses because they are seen as troublemakers, and this incident will cement that belief in the minds of many small business owners who will want to avoid the fate of the lady running the salon.

I must say, where is the Islamic woman's family? Why would any self-respecting Muslim family allow one of their females to work unchaperoned in a non-Muslim beauty parlor? Think of the gossip, the risque stories, etc. inherent in that environment. Of course, if the Muslim woman had been offered the job, and had been exposed to this sort of impurity, surely 4000 pounds wouldn't have been enough to cover that sort of outrage.

Hugh Wain

June 23rd, 2008 7:48am

Rod - I notice that the Americans are trying to poach you (laurie macdonell-sanchez's posting). They're taking over our football teams (poor Arsenal: team of my youthful dreams)and now they're trying to nick one of our few straight-shooting (God! [pbuh] You just can't get away from America[nisms]!) social commentators. Don't go! Don't buy the Yankee dollar!

Stephen Rothbart

June 23rd, 2008 11:30am

I am Jew. I am going to apply for a job in my local Mosque. As an Imam.

Can you tell me the names of the idiots - sorry people -on that tribunal.

Might be handy if I get turned down.

Yasmin Khan

June 24th, 2008 9:28am

Quite right! The Governemtn, the courts and the police have got it all wrong, they bend over backwards from fear of the political correctness towards Islam and against the religion of this country. We are losing ALL our hard earned freedoms because of this twisted logic. A frightening situation. What next?

kay

June 28th, 2008 6:16pm

Yet more ludicrous decisions from a lunatic judgement panel.Next they'll be banning wimple wearing nuns from working in beauty parlours or lapdancing establishments. They should sue!!

Tarek Arab

July 10th, 2008 4:20am

Assuming that we have all the facts, I am sorry to say that the so-called " Special Relationship " with the US has now extended to the UK aping everything that the US does out of a false sense of entitlement and hysteria. The tribunal should have have THROWN the case out as a waste of public time and resources.

And yes, I am a muslim.


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