Travels With My Beard on BBC3 tonight

Remember when Asian men with beards got dodgy looks on the Tube?

In the immediate aftermath of the London bombings many people who "looked a bit foreign" felt that they were treated with suspicion by their fellow commuters.

At the weekend Rajesh Thind sent me an email to let me know that the documentary he made about his experiences with his beard last summer was finally being aired tonight. He said: "As you were the first to have picked up on my documentary, "Travels with My Beard" back in September when I went to see the maker of the Freedom Bags, Bob Fitzjohn (as per Rajesh's diary), I wanted to let you that it's on telly this Thursday, 2nd February at 10.30pm on BBC3 as part of a series called 'Mischief'. The chat with Bob hasn't made the final cut unfortunately, but the Freedom Bags have."

Should be a very interesting program and I'm actually glad his chat with see through rucksack maker - Mr Fitzjohn didn't make it through, as he was rather ..... er... strange, to say the least (see our experience with him here).

Here's a quote from Rajesh "It was a week after 7 July and I'd just got on an east London bus. I was on my way to buy razors as I hadn't shaved for days.

A couple of stops later a middle-aged Rasta guy got on, sat down next to me and asked: "So how's it feel brethren?" "Erm, how's what feel?" I replied. "How's it feel now it's your turn to be bottom of the pile?" he said.....

When I got to Liverpool Street and I went into the station to catch the Tube, I was stopped and searched under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act. It had never happened to me before and I had always felt perfectly at ease in the UK, my home.

So I decided to find out whether the Rasta was right; had the 7 July bombings - carried out by three British Muslims and a Jamaican-born UK resident who had converted to Islam - changed British society and put me 'bottom of the pile'?"

For more on Travels With My Beard, check out the BBC link that Ian also kindly sent me.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, February 02, 2006 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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