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Like many people who visit the German capital, I love Berlin.

My reasons are perhaps different to the millions who now visit this teeming metropolis. The majority who go there, particularly the young do so because Berlin is, at the moment, one of the coolest urban places on the planet. The four star hotel/hostel  that I stayed at boasted a club night until 4am-thankfully when I wasn’t there- free yoga classes, indoor football, swimming pool, and a bar crawl through the streets of the old East Berlin.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/09/cia-torture-methods-waterboarding-sleep-deprivation

The asinine comment made by Nigel Farage, blaming immigrants for his delayed drive on the M4, has paradoxically made many people reflect on the role those from minority backgrounds have played and are playing in making this country such a fine place to live, though we more than most are aware of its injustices.

So Nigel Farage couldn't get himself to a meeting in South Wales…

It was a political meeting and he was the main speaker, so not to turn up is pretty poor. It's hardly likely to inspire much confidence for those looking for someone to take on the establishment.

Farage knew this, and got his excuse in early. "It's the fault of immigrants."

Yesterday, the prolific politician Gordon Brown announced that he is standing down after a 32 year career in the House of Commons. In those 32 years, Brown was the longest-serving modern Chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1997 to 2007, and then became Prime Minister from 2007 to 2010.

The BBC writes about Brown:

http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/ferguson-missouri-still-no-justice

http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/there-ferguson-near-you

With Diane Abbott MP officially throwing her hat into the ring to become London’s Mayor in 2016 the capital has potentially three outstanding BME candidates who could make history and lead our metropolis.

Abbott now joins David Lammy MP and potentially Sadiq Khan MP as one of three Labour candidates who are vying for the Labour nomination to become Mayor. There’s also talk about the Conservatives putting forward Shaun Bailey.

Professor Gus John brilliantly unpicks the furore over Emily Thornberry’s now infamous tweet. But in the rush to kick and condemn Thornberry, there was little or no commentary on what was, and perhaps was still is in places, the brutal reality about ‘White man van’ displaying St George Cross flags outside their homes.

Most boys around the ages of 5 and 12 have toy guns, including my own 9-year old son. Some of those guns are more real-looking than others but they are all toys, and children like them.

It has been fairly obvious since this summer that the predominate belief in Ferguson and St Louis was that Darren Wilson, the killer of Michael Brown, was not going to be indicted by his Missouri grand jury. In a rambling statement of the grand jury’s process and conclusion – which did little to inform, and lots to enrage – prosecutor Bob McCullough acted in the capacity of an attorney who abused the grand jury process as “a trial” without professional legal cross-examination.