saying that it wasn't just the threat of violence that made him treat Islam differently from Christianity, but also because Muslims in Britain are a vulnerable minority and discriminated against for other reasons, and, 'by the way, I, Mark Thompson as a practising Catholic understand how they feel because religious feelings are like this...' " Again I sense some loose ends. None of the storm that broke out around Mark Thompson's unsuspecting head seems to me to have adequately addressed his point that it is, "very different to talk about Christianity in the UK, which literally but also metaphorically is an established part of the political landscape, compared to religions which have a very close identity with ethnic minorities, so that it is not as if Islam is randomly spread across the UK population, but rather almost entirely practised by people who might already feel isolated in other ways, prejudiced against and where they may well regard an attack on their religion as 'racism by other means'." How much, I wonder, has been truly resolved in the issues that underpin the Islam debate?  For my host, Principle 7 is holding up well: in civilised countries one should be able to make jokes, even bad jokes, about all beliefs, as long as one respects the believer. In his view, were you to take an overview, the real challenge now is China: "China, which is after all not a small case, stands out as a fundamentally different approach, because you can see