I very much hope that day will come when blended culture becomes the new mono-culture.

When last I was on your side, I well remember the blends of foods (though for my own reasons curries are not on my playlist!) and one cannot help but think the sharing of food is a huge first step in the right direction.

Back on point, we have some serious heavy lifting to do here, made all the more difficult by the anti-Muslim and anti-Hispanic rhetoric used by a political party (representing half the population, giving a sense of the magnitude) as it instigates social unrest and dis-satisfaction solely to advance its quest for power. The latest is a baseless claim made by these people to the effect Haitian immigrants in a town in Ohio are stealing family pets and eating them (shades of the old claim German soldiers were bayonetting Belgian babies during the Great War, propaganda to get the Americans in, for one). The town in question has protested this as outrageous slander but the leaders of the party in question are still repeating it to the roars for blood by their followers. We here are in great danger of moving backwards socially, recalling the racism of the pre-civil rights era, the Zootsuit Riots, the lynchings of black soldiers returning from WWII. We have to work through this "phase" before we can return to normal social progress.

BTW, I don't believe the mention of the current government's actions with respect to the winter heating benefits for pensioners constitutes "politics", if I'm honest, not in the context of a historical or social discussion. Stating the Labour government is curtailing these benefits is a statement of fact in evidence. If you were to tell me I should be outraged is perhaps crossing the line of "politics" and convincing me to support the Tories or the Lib/Dems or Farage's lot whatever their name is now because of this issue is well over the line. Stating the government did this or that or this politician said so and such I believe is still this side of the line of propriety, so no apology required.

Anyway, I believe we have a long way to go here and perhaps the people who would go backwards need to have their wobble before we can move forward again. Certainly this incendiary man needs to return to the depths (of reality television) from whence he came before we can hope to recommence the climb to those broad sunlit uplands (with apologies to Mr. Churchill).

Only then will the people here no longer feel the desperate need to arm themselves against their neighbours and perhaps one day the second amendment will be nothing more than a curious artefact of history.