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Simon Woolley, 10 Jun 2002 

It's some six months now since the Director of the String of Pearls, Dylan Hammond, came to OBV's offices to talk about his project for the Queen's Golden Jubilee. 'We opened up 50 British institutions to the public during the Millennium celebrations' he enthusiastically announced.

Simon Woolley, 01 Mar 2004 

'Immigrants are the source of all evil.' Discuss.

Of course the pseudo intellectual David Goodhart couched his thoughts in the essay with a little more subtlety. He argued, '...as Britain becomes more diverse that common culture is being eroded'. Goodhart harks back to an era that has never existed, in which he sees a predominantly white society, underpinned by a value system shared and understood by everyone. He further suggests that this moral edifice is crumbling because 'stranger citizens', his words not mine, bring with them a set of beliefs that are incompatible with the host society.

Simon Woolley, 19 Mar 2003 

Whoever gets the job as CRE Chair will have their work cut out. Unlike some, I'm not phased that they'll be paid a kings ransom of 110k a year. It's no more or less what other heads of large quangos receive. My only preoccupation, along with many Black and Asian people throughout UK, is that they deliver.

03 Jun 2002 

By any measurement it's been quite a week for Black Britain and Black pride. Where does one start?

Simon Woolley, 23 Feb 2004 

"You Black B...D we know where you live and we are coming to get you". For the past three months I have received a number of these calls, sometimes at home other times at work.

Simon Woolley, 12 Mar 2003

In my supreme naivety I thought for a fleeting second that this years Miss World contest would truly imbue a renaicainse spirit; namely that the beauty of women could be celebrated, without detracting from their independence, strength and their right to be respected.

 Simon Woolley, 13 May 2002

The BNP's Press Officer, Tony Lecomber stated on national radio just before the local elections, that' 'If the Arsenal full back Ashley Cole is English, then I'm a horse'. My response to the bigoted Lecomber is, 'go out and buy a saddle you ass!'

Simon Woolley, 19 Feb 2004 

"It is a good day when the Leader of the Conservative Party Michael Howard publicly declares that the politics of the British National Party have no place in a decent society.

Simon Woolley, 05 Mar 2003 

During October's Black history month I'd say to anyone who'd listen, 'that Black history month should be every month. Not only', I'd continue, 'should it be taught every month the same way that students learn about the industrial revolution or the two World Wars, but much of Black history should be mainstream British history too'. 

Simon Woolley, 06 May 2002 

A colleague of mine gave me the book, Black like me by John Howard Griffen,. Inside she wrote, 'Read it and weep'. The true story relates the investigation of a white journalist, who at the height America's 1960s race hate era, blackens his skin and sets off to Mississippi Alabama to see what it was like to live as a black man.