In 1998 I happened to read about one of the latest outrages against the Gypsies in eastern Europe — it may have been the time when a girl in a Czech high-school beauty contest got nationwide popularity for saying she wanted to become a prosecutor and "cleanse" her town of its "dark-skinned" residents. Or it may have been one of the incidents in which skinheads beat Gypsies to a pulp, or threw gasoline over them and set them on fire. Or it may have been when Britain made the Gypsy refugees from eastern Europe unwelcome by unreasonably shortening the time allowed to them for applying for asylum.

I found myself thinking that my only feeble means of contesting this sad drift in the wrong direction is offering words, in the hope of getting a few more people to see that those different from themselves are worth treasuring rather than hating.

[This website is in an early stage of construction.]

Guy Ottewell