Europe as a political and economic unit is here to stay and any change in structure is unlikely to be fundamental. That does not however mean that it was, is, or will be, a totally good thing for all its constituent members. He supports an academic boycott not because he wants to end the occupation in the territories occupied in 1967 but because he wants to eliminate the state of Israel. Unfortunately for him, the Israelis, who just celebrated their 57th independence day, have no intention of committing national suicide Academic freedom in Israel is alive and well. Not a single academician has been fired because of his ideas. The only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, side by side with Israel, with the border following more or less the pre-1967 line. He's made friends with a hairy narrowboatman, and together they set the traps out each evening, every one baited with chicken and cod liver oil.
Mmm! Then, at dawn, up come the crayfish, for a few, short hours' doze under their trapper's watchful eye. Then it's into the van and down to St John or The Admiralty, or any one of those eateries where you can gratify your need to preserve the environment and your tastebuds simultaneously. It definitely beats driving to the moon when it comes to reducing emissions More from Will Self. The only Middle East solution is for Israel and Palestine to coexist Sir: Oren Ben-Dor writes (Opinion, 30 May) that the "Israeli Zionist left" who were offended by the now abandoned academic boycott against Israel are themselves "sophisticated accomplices to the smothering of debate by limiting the issue to the 1967 occupation" Ben-Dor considers all of Israel occupied territory. Although the colleges no longer dispense alms, the psyches of water gypsies and new-agers alike are ingrained with ancient folkways. There's a peculiar feeling I always get, looking at the sterns of the vessels moored along the bank where the river crosses under the ring road, that Avaricious, Dandelion Clock, Sportive and Catalina are about to cast off and head for the Prescelly Mountains, to load up with bluestones in order to construct a Modernist henge.Needless to say, Jamie has fitted right in.
It was a leave-taking worthy of some latter-day Catherine Cookson heroine, and as God turned up the contrast knob, and the Alberta swung about, Jamie vowed to do his best. Gargled upriver and through the humungous, steely bracelet of the Thames Barrier, ingurgitated by the Pool of London, gulped up by Teddington Lock, the cockleshell at last arrived on the banks of Port Meadow outside Oxford, where, since time immemorial, dozy cattle have cropped the sward while gyrating ravers spit ecstatic cotton.Oxford has always been a magnet for travellers - whether by road or river. Here he was, a native Londoner, about to be washed into the heart of England. However, in their defence, they are right tasty - heavier, denser and gamier than langoustine, with a certain muddy piquancy.Jamie certainly thought so once he'd boiled a few alive and snaffled their tails. He went down river - way down river to the mudflats of South Benfleet, where he maxed out his plastic on a 25ft cruiser, the Alberta, and a little launch, Petulance.Anchored out in the middle of the estuary in stygian darkness, awaiting the dawn and the flood tide, while multi-storey tankers cut upstream towards Gravesend and Tilbury, Jamie had understandable misgivings.
