Christopher Hitchens has an excellent article about his visit back to London’s Finsbury Park area, where he grew up. He finds it has changed, and in ways not necessarily for the better. A consumate wordsmith, he makes you smile before you realise the full import of what he has just written. For example:
Until he was jailed last year on charges of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred, a man known to the police of several countries as Abu Hamza al-Masri was the imam of the Finsbury Park Mosque. He was a conspicuous figure because, having lost the use of an eye and both hands in an exchange of views in Afghanistan, he sported an opaque eye plus a hook to theatrical effect. Not as nice as he looked, Abu Hamza was nonetheless unfailingly generous with his hospitality. Overnight guests at his mosque’s sleeping quarters have included Richard Reid, the man in whose honor we now all have to take off our shoes at the airport, and Zacarias Moussaoui, the missing team member of September 11, 2001.
The "exchange of views" is very droll, and that "not as nice as he looked" phrase is a brilliant touch. Go and read the whole article. The Q&A session accompanying the article is worth reading too.
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