The view from the fence.

As the recent public sector strikes help to turn private sector against public sector, thanks largely to the hideously biased media, I find myself in an odd position. After leaving college I worked in the retail industry for nine years, on and off, fitting a degree course in between. After the company I worked for went under, I found a job as a civil servant. Nothing particularly admirable or heroic – I’m no teacher, nurse or police officer, just a sit down job in an office.

Working in retail can be quite a bit more exhausting than it might appear. Presenting a helpful smiling face to your customers day in, day out, regardless of how you feel, or how much they make you wish you could simply spit in their eye and walk away. Christmas was ridiculous, and could involve working 80 hour weeks with no more than your regular 37.5 hours of salary to show for it. You had no real weekend, working almost every Saturday and many Sundays. Flexi-time? Don’t make me laugh. It was more difficult to be competent at that job than you think.

When I first started my public sector job, I could scarcely believe it. A canteen. A gym.  Childcare facilities.  (All subsidised, but none even close to free.)  Never being expected to work more than your contracted hours – such a thing is actively frowned upon. Every weekend off. Flexible working patterns. More holidays. Slightly higher pay. A pension.

With it still being quite new to me, I can with a certainty understand fully the frustration of people in the private sector, angry that us, who are so privileged in comparison, are protesting changes to our pensions. Asking someone who has worked a manual labour job for minimum wage their whole lives with no pension beyond the state one to feel sorry for a teacher on a decent salary annoyed at losing a part of a generous pension is a bit much.

But. And it is a big but. The argument that you should not fight to protect what rights you have simply because there are many people with fewer rights is not a sensible argument. It is an understandable frustration, but being angry at striking public sector workers for refusing to accept diminishing terms of employment, bringing them more in line with what you’ve lived with all your life is pointless. If a starving homeless man told the manual labour worker that he shouldn’t complain and should live hand to mouth on the streets like him, the argument would not make sense. A better option, surely, would be to improve the starving man’s standard of living.

Obviously, I make no claims of expertise, but surely it should not be impossible to improve working standards within the private sector. The relentless drive for profit above all is damaging. Instead of looking to prop up shareholders and CEOs, the money could be channelled into providing pensions, increasing low wages, easing long working patterns. Not that our current economic climate is geared to that sort of thing, obviously. Putting people before companies, profit and production is at the moment too fundamental a shift to really be feasible. But it could be done. It should be done. If a company cannot be profitable without providing decent working conditions it is not a sustainable business venture. So, while the anger toward the apparently privileged public sector is understandable, it is sorely misplaced and better directed at the small minority of very, very rich people getting richer off the back of others who are willing to put up with crappy working conditions for the security of a small regular wage.

Things annoy me.

Too often, people make their minds up about things before they know the truth. When a person’s worldview is informed by their ingrained ideology, they will already know what they think of everything. Everything has to be filtered through that ideology. They refuse to acknowledge objective truth if there’s a chance it conflicts with their own subjective viewpoint. Like wanting the death penalty brought back to the UK, even though there is not a shred of evidence anywhere that it is any more effective a deterrent. They just want to see people who they perceive as bad punished. Never mind the clear evidence that psychopathic behaviour is a form of mental disorder that could be treated – that’s just the lefties trying to give monsters human rights. Well, get over it. Humans have rights. Humans who have committed the most atrocious acts imaginable have rights. A right to liberty (which, in my own hair-splitting and admittedly rather sketchy opinion means to determine your own path through life, accepting that actions will have consequences – imprisonment is a deprivation of freedom, not liberty, and is a consequence of exercising one’s right to liberty in a way unacceptable to the majority). A right to not have the ability to pursue a route that may eventually lead to positive change crushed out of them. It won’t ever change. People are uninterested in a possible treatment which could one day prevent these awful things from happening, because that will deny them the chance to be outraged. People love being outraged.

People who fall for the garbage shat out by the press about all of our problems being caused by the reckless spending of a previous Government, and how they’re being compounded by greedy civil servants on pensions fit for royalty and the apparent armies of benefit cheats out there. People blinded to the fact that compared to tax avoidance, the current civil service pension scheme won’t be all that much of a drain on our economy in the coming decades, or by the fact that economies are more heavily influenced by stock markets and banks than they are by people walking a dog while on disability allowance. Or even the fact that if they could get Bono, George Osborne, Vodafone, Boots and Barclays to pay their taxes we wouldn’t have a problem at all.

Energy companies that inform you in all seriousness that unfortunately even though they haven’t raised their prices for ages, they now have no choice but to increase the cost of your gas and electric by 15%. We’re very sorry, they tell you, but the price at source just keeps rising, thanks to those civil wars those silly people keep fighting over our product. They don’t mention at the time that they make billions a year in pure profit. Billions. Do they really need to make quite so much? Do they really have to make more than the year before every year, lest they be considered some kind of failure? Would it not do simply to make millions? Or even hundreds of thousands? Then you could help prevent old people from dying in Winter due to being unable to afford to switch on their heating. Wouldn’t that be nice? You rancid bags of ball sweat.

I’m not blind to the clear evidence that I’m equally stymied by my own blinkered ideology, although I try to keep an open mind for as long as possible. While that may be true, I’ve long since come to terms with my own hypocrisy. Also, my ideology pretty much amounts to ‘don’t be a dick’. Granted, I don’t always succeed, but you’d be surprised by how many people, Governments and organisations resolutely fail at it repeatedly and purposefully. Then again, maybe you wouldn’t.

And it isn’t just left and right. There’s a positive and negative version. People who will try to convince you that everything’s just dandy while the sky falls down around their ears. People who try to tell you that running everything from the health service to schools and every Government agency in between like a private sector business where profit is all would be a great idea, and is just what this country needs. People who cut away at your support structure, removing piece by piece everything you need to make your life worth living, while telling you that we’re all in this together as though it is actually true.

On the opposite side to that are people who will see doom, gloom and treachery in all things. They are automatically on one side of the fence, so they must force everything through a filter until it reinforces their bizarrely paranoid way of thinking. And reinforces other people’s opinion of them as a bit of a dick, until you simply can’t go back and have to keep forging ahead because you can’t ever admit that you might not have been right about a few things. Until you end up saying things like there is a secret gay agenda in schools to ‘gayify’ kids, or that doctors want to perform as many abortions as possible and they will try to convince a scared pregnant woman to undergo one whether it is right for her or not (take a bow for those two pearls, Melanie Phillips).

What is so hard about taking each development as it comes and seeing it for what it actually is before viewing it through your ideological prism? About thinking things through and trying to minimise the damage your actions might cause others? About putting yourself in other people’s shoes, just for a minute? If I could have any superpower in the world, it would be the power to make people see what it is like to be someone else, just for a few minutes, just to give them a chance to make better decisions. Or at least to not be such dicks.

Cherryade and Chocolate Eclairs.

When someone you love, someone who’s been a fixture of your life for, well, your whole life, is gone suddenly, it is a strange feeling. For a while, I hadn’t even been seeing granddad with any great regularity, but occasionally we’d go and visit. He was in his late eighties and hasn’t exactly been well lately, but it is still an unpleasant experience. The three grandparents I grew up with have now gone, all in the last five years, and I find the things I retain of them are a collection of memories, triggered by tastes, smells and days of the week.

Any Sunday lunch I eat is judged according to how close it was to my nan’s, and the mingled smells of make-up and cigarette smoke remind me of her. Visits to National Parks would always remind me of the funny stuff my first granddad would sometimes come out with – while on holiday with family to Lanzarote, we went on an excursion to Timanfaya National Park, which is on the site of a dormant volcano. Upon arriving, granddad took one look around and said “There aren’t many people at the park today, are there?” which has always cracked me up. And my last granddad who went just recently? Late Sunday afternoon in Winter, before driving home through Christmas lights, snuggled down in the back seat in my duffel coat, we would go to granddad’s and he would have fizzy pop and sweets for us, my favourite being cherryade and chocolate eclairs.

It is sad that they’re gone, and I hope my parents cope OK with being the oldest generation in our family now, but I’m glad I have these warm comforting feelings to drawn upon and remember them by. After all, that’s what grandparents are for, isn’t it?

A declaration of undying love for the BBC.

I hate BBC’s Question Time. This is an odd way to begin a declaration of love for the BBC, but I do. I used to watch it and try to think of funny things to say regarding it to post on Twitter. This didn’t work for two reasons. Firstly, I can’t think of funny things to say about anything. Secondly, the programme would never fail to frustrate me and make me angry. It’s completely pointless and is a platform for bigots, politicians and ineffective lefties to spout their opinions, lies and misinformed bullshit masquerading as intelligent debate. So I stopped watching it. I watched one recently because someone I knew at college was in the audience. The show is as bad as it ever was, brought home particularly by Theresa May talking about how she thinks our economy works the same way as a credit card debt and the odious Peter Hitchens spouting the same kind of clueless hatred he fills his Daily Mail column with. In my incoherent rage I managed to make myself look like a dick on Twitter. I mean, more than usual. The lighter final question was about what people need to make them happier. Hitchens proclaimed loudly and proudly that faith in god was his particular remedy. Regular readers of this blog (and I have a few, believe it or not) will already know about my strong atheist opinions. I try my best to draw a line at insulting people who have faith – I try hard to only criticise religion itself. My tweet in response to Hitchens looked, frankly, like I thought he was an arsehole for the contentment he gets from his faith. I don’t, I think he’s an arsehole for his detestable and uninformed opinions on everything from immigrants, through those on benefits to scientists who found that second-hand smoke is harmful. That he clearly has so much contempt for those people he considers beneath him (like the poor or the foreign or, whisper it, the foreign poor) in one comment and then proudly declares his faith in god in the next. Now, is it me or is one of the few redeeming features of christianity the idea that everyone should be compassionate towards their fellow human and help those in need? That he failed to recognise the contradiction in what he was saying caused me to tweet without thinking. Hitchens went on to do what many like him love to do and give shit to the BBC. He criticised the corporation for not believing in god. First off, as Dimbledore rightly pointed out, the question related to a survey conducted by the Office of National Statistics and had nothing to do with the BBC. Also, being a corporation, and not a human, it has no beliefs of any kind. Thirdly, did Hitchens forget about Songs of Praise and Radio 4’s Thought for the Day? Of course he didn’t, he was just ignoring them to hammer home his nonsensical BBC-slagging point.

Frankly, Hitchens and those like him can go eat a shit sandwich, for the BBC is no less than the finest broadcaster in the world and is worth the licence fee a hundred times over. Want some examples as to why? Blackadder, Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, Not the Nine O’clock News, The Day Today, The Young Ones, Bottom, Alan Partridge, Alas Smith & Jones, Comic Strip Presents, The Office, Extras, Faulty Towers, Gavin & Stacey, Hancock’s Half Hour, Monty Python, Not Only...But Also, Steptoe and Son, The Thick of It, Have I Got News For You, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, QI ,Shooting Stars. That’s just some of the comedy.

BBC 3 recently had The Fades, an outstanding horror thriller in which the dead came back to take over the world and cannibalise the living – not a terribly original idea, but highly original in its execution (although I was slightly disappointed by the last episode it doesn’t change the fact that it was great). In Fry’s Planet Word national treasure Stephen Fry explored the history and possible future of language, and was wonderful, Fry’s obvious enthusiasm for his subject pleasantly engrossing. As a science-nut, Horizon is like catnip to me, as well as recent documentaries on the history of humankind’s discovery of the elements or the current series exploring our origins (I love the fact that the BBC has no problem with shows that present evolution as fact (because it is) and don’t have to compromise by acknowledging the nutty alternative theories of creationism and intelligent design (which are not fact)). Wonders of the Solar System and follow up Wonders of the Universe were each worth the licence fee by themselves, as was the little-seen three part series All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, which explored the idea that our economic, environmental and political systems are inspired by the way in which machines work and the disastrous results that have come from it. It illustrated quite neatly how Ayn Rand, that hero of misunderstanding leftists and Silicon Valley moguls everywhere and her flawed ideology (that she couldn’t even live by herself, so frick knows how she expected others to do so) contributed to the recent global economic collapse. It showed clearly how we completely misunderstood natural environmental systems for years but based much of our own social and political systems on our misunderstanding of them and then couldn’t understand how things went so badly wrong. It showed the horrifying human cost that is paid when people who don’t know anything act like they’re experts and meddle. It should be seen. And of course there is Planet Earth, The Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, Life in Cold Blood and all those other Attenborough documentaries that are perfect, wonderful, glorious television.

So, the hateful Question Time notwithstanding, I am proud to love the BBC, and will continue to do so, and will never understand why other people don’t.

Crime and Punishment: Sickness and Treatment.

People, generally, are highly reactionary. If someone commits a crime, we want to see them receive the appropriate comeuppance. We often disagree about what that should entail, for example I know someone who genuinely, without a hint of irony, believes wholeheartedly that people caught stealing should have their hand chopped off. I know people who think, more reasonably, there should be stiffer custodial sentences for offenders. It’s an attitude which is reinforced almost daily by the press – take the recent example of The Daily Express proclaiming a man a hero after shooting at some people attempting to steal his car. Stealing is a shitty thing to do and should not be without consequences, but this guy was not under attack, not in danger; he happened to notice two people hanging around his car, looking like they were attempting to steal it. He decided that a car, which is a thing, not sentient, not alive and almost certainly insured, was worth more than two lives. He then proceeded to attempt to end those two lives, instead of informing the authorities. Obviously, he’s going to be if not arrested, at the very least questioned. To call these actions heroic is bizarrely twisted, and yet, thanks to our reactionary attitude, most of us share this apparent hero's backwards notions of value. As such it turns out the police found a cannabis farm on his property. Maybe not so much defending his own home as the Express put it (although, at the most, he was defending his car), more defending his illegal drug dealing operation.

The press do it all the time. Upon the death of Gaddafi, the headlines were ones of taunting joy, happily repeating his final words, which were a plea for mercy. The Sun’s headline “That’s for Lockerbie” made it look as though the editor had killed him in person in revenge for the Lockerbie bombing, which no-one is even sure if Gaddafi is directly responsible for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sorry he's dead; like Saddam and Bin Laden he was a cunt of the highest order, but the vengeance-drunk press delighting in his bloody end seemed to forget they weren’t watching The Crow, which left a rather bitter taste in the mouth.

This attitude is extremely prevalent in our stories. In action films, the audience loves nothing more than to see the bad guys die in imaginative ways while the hero murders them with a wisecrack. Vigilantism and vengeance are two of our favourite subject matters in the stories we read and the films we watch. I don’t stand apart in this, before you take that as a criticism; Mad Max and Kill Bill are among my favourite movies. I prefer not to translate that into real life, however.

There seems to be a growing number of people beginning to think slightly less reactionary and slightly more reasonably. This number, it seems to me, is growing in tandem with the increasing number of people who reject religion. (This is merely a personal observation and not based on anything concrete, so I wouldn't be surprised to find this observation to be entirely wrong). Religions, mostly, are full of death and blood and righteous vengeance. Islam often preaches about delivering death to unbelievers, while the very concept of hell is the ultimate form of revenge – an eternity of pain and torment for anyone who doesn’t share in the delusion of the particular religion the believers belong to. As ever, this slow change in attitude (if it is happening at all) is being brought about as a result of patient, exhaustive scientific research. Studies show that in psychopaths the make-up of the brain is physically different to others. A part of it simply doesn’t work. These people may be bastards, but they are not evil, because, as I’ve said before, evil is a word to describe a concept that doesn’t actually exist outside of religion and fiction. These people are brain-damaged. The research also suggests that people with this unfortunate malfunction are not destined to become killers regardless, but those who benefited from a childhood in which they were loved securely and unconditionally tend not to go psycho. This kind of research is becoming increasingly important in criminal court cases, as it can be used to show some killers are damaged and don’t necessarily commit these acts out of malice, but because they are lacking the part of the brain that neutralises these kinds of impulses. This is highly unpopular with those who continue to cling to the familiar concepts of good, evil and righteous vengeance. The criticism usually levelled at left-leaning people by right wing thinkers is along the lines of, to put it very mildly ‘fuzzy soft liberals’. This, I think, is because they tend to be stuck in a mindset that is influenced by their bloodthirsty religions rather than logical and reason-based science.

This automatic negative reaction is also common when confronted with the idea that those who commit crimes and acts of abuse do so because they were themselves abused as children. Having experienced this very thing recently, when the mere suggestion was greeted by frustrated eye-rolling by people who would rather see a wrong-doer punished, preferably painfully, I don’t see why people can’t see the sense in this. Children don’t come into this world instinctively knowing how to be civil, how to act. They have to learn this, and they don’t learn by being told, they learn by being shown. They come to assume that the way to treat people is the way they themselves are treated. This has been brought home in a way I would never have imagined recently when Katie showed signs of inheriting my occasionally short temper. It’s not as simple as punishing the guilty, because in ways many people might not think, offenders aren’t necessarily guilty in the black and white way it appears.

I do concede that I couldn’t possibly say whether I would still have this attitude if any of my loved ones were to fall victim to any of these brain-damaged people who were abused as children. It’s entirely reasonable to expect me to crave bloody revenge against anyone who harmed my family. I only hope I never have to find out.

In defence of sexism, racism, patriarchy, homophobia or any discrimination of any person based on ignorance.

Nothing.

Nothing at all, so stop being such an asshole and treat other people with a bit more fucking respect.

The empty complaints of the taxpayer.

There are many headlines you see in newspapers about certain outrages of obscene Government spending that we, as the group known collectively as the ‘taxpayer’ are footing the bill for. Every time I see one of these headlines, I groan inwardly, because it seems to me that it’s a way to be righteously furious at whatever Government you want while not making a great deal of sense. Things like public toilets for Muslims (which is entirely made up, although I think one paper ran a similar made up story), or salaries for NHS doctors. Wind farms or penthouse suites full of wide-screen TVs, free bars, limitless hookers and a cocaine dispenser for all prisoners.

As a taxpayer, you are paying for these either grossly exaggerated or entirely made up spending sprees. And yet, when I look at my wage slip, I don’t see a tax for silly things the Daily Mail won’t like. I just see tax, national insurance and student loan. I don’t have to fork out extra money when the Government decides to commission a solid gold toilet for the Prime Minister to crap in. Most of us pay tax, and our elected officials decide what to spend it on. Some people don’t want their taxes spent on paying the wages of doctors or teachers. Others have a problem with tax money going to giving prisoners basic rights like food or something to occasionally occupy the mind, or programs that might one day lead to rehabilitation, instead wanting them to fester in a dark stinking hole as a kind of medieval punishment which will in no way inspire them to contribute positively when they are released. I personally didn’t like the thought of a portion of my taxes funding a war effort I vehemently opposed from the beginning. Well, you can’t pick and choose what your tax contribution goes on. If you don’t like what the Government does with the money, instead of getting pointlessly angry about some newspaper telling you that you’ve personally funded the building of a wind farm, try protesting with your vote.

You could always try writing a letter to the chancellor beginning ‘Dear sir, I demand you spend my tax contribution on only the following list of things...’ but I doubt it will work.

Not so grim up North.

We went to Blackpool the weekend just gone. Now, the last time I went to Blackpool I was ten. That’s 22 years ago. In all that time I’ve retained fairly strong memories of it. I remember adoring the Pleasure Beach, loving the Sandcastle, watching the dazzling Illuminations, being on the Piers, up the Tower. Hell, even enjoying a visit to Madame Tussaud’s (although I was too scared to go through the horror exhibit). Feasting on rock, sugar dummies, candyfloss – enough sugar to fell a horse. The donkey rides on the beach. All those things, and probably more that I’ve forgotten. The overwhelming memory is one of joy.

It seemed that as I got older, I became aware of a different type of reputation Blackpool has. An unpleasant place full of stag nights and hen parties, where drunken fools with condoms on their heads rule the streets, a scummy beach and a sea full of, literally, shit. While I accepted that this must be the case and that the Blackpool my ten-year-old self loved so much had gone, I never forgot what it was like to visit that place as a child.

It was, therefore, with some trepidation that we began to approach Blackpool that Saturday morning, invited by family. In my childhood memory I remember seeing the Tower, and feeling the excitement it generated, and a nostalgic echo of that resurfaced upon seeing it on the road this time. Before long, also from some distance out, the Big One came into view. The Big One is around a decade old now, but is still a hugely impressive sight. I remember reading about it when it premiered – the tallest and fastest roller coaster in the world. I adore Alton Towers and love roller coasters, but I could well imagine myself chickening out of going on this beast. It’s no longer the world’s tallest or fastest, but it still holds the record for tallest in Europe.

The views along the promenade are much as I remember them, the Tower and the Central Pier on one side, and the Pleasure Beach, Sandcastle and South Pier on the other. I don’t think I ever went to the North Pier, and it remains a mystery to me. Yes, it’s cheesy, yes it’s typically English, yes the beach really isn’t up to much, but the giddy rush of pleasure I got from revisiting one of my most treasured childhood memories was enough to get me excited all over again, 22 years on.

It was shocking just how much the Pleasure Beach had changed. The Pleasure Beach is the most visited theme park in the UK, surprisingly more popular than Drayton Manor Park, or Alton Towers. When I was last there, the Big Dipper dominated the park, and was by far the highest thing in sight. Standing below it was dizzying, riding it looking below even more so. Now, it is surrounded by more than one ride that makes it look a little fish in a big pond. It doesn’t reach as high as Infusion, and barely stretches a third of the height of the Big One. The Revolution, which once seemed so mighty, is dwarfed and seems rather paltry by comparison to its newer cousins.

The first stop was Nickelodeon Land, newly opened this year, as it was really for Katie we came. Katie’s current favourite TV show is Dora the Explorer, so it was to Dora’s World Voyage we headed first. Rach took Katie on while I stayed with Emily. I did feel quite bad for Emily who had no choice but to sit there and watch everybody else have fun. Katie had been buzzing with excitement for days, so finally getting to try a ride out made her grin from ear to ear. What I’ll remember mostly from this two-day trip is Katie’s blissed-out smile barely leaving her face. As we moved from Spongebob Squarepants-themed rides to a Rugrats-themed log flume, Katie looked like she couldn’t have conceived of a place where it was possible to have so much fun. Meeting Dora left her quite stunned, so we had a bit of a break there, lest we break her and spoil her for good. Also, it started to pelt down. As we walked off, it was quite funny watching a three-piece girl band come on after Dora and with no audience whatsoever due to the pouring rain, launch into Walking on Sunshine. There is almost nowhere in the Pleasure Beach to shelter from the rain, so we all got thoroughly drenched, including poor Emily who, thanks to her absent-minded parents, had no rain cover for her pram.

After drying off and waiting for the rain to ease, we ventured back out, where Katie tried the biggest ride so far, the Flying Machines. They work a bit like the Flying Dutchman, and, obviously, Katie loved them. We moved on to one of a few carousels, which moved rather fast, had horses that were bloody difficult to hold onto and made me very nervous trying to ensure nobody fell off. Katie was oblivious, totally fearless and loving every second, shouting “Giddy up Horsey!” and “This is the best ride ever!” as we flew round.

I had been staring at it all day, and I was eventually persuaded to go on the Big One. The thing about roller coasters is the build up. The nervous excitement as you get pulled up the ramp, and the way your stomach flips as you go over the crest just before plunging down the other side. The Oblivion at Alton Towers is particularly cruel, as it pauses for a moment right on the edge of its vertical drop, just to extend that terror. And then, you’re over and the adrenaline rush comes. It’s addictive. The Big One is so high that much of the joy of the anticipation dissolves, leaving you with a terrifying pit in the middle of your stomach. The climb is horrifying. It lasts forever. The signs don’t make it easier, helpfully informing you when you pass 100 feet, then 200 feet and you just keep climbing. The view is astonishingly spectacular, and is something you would usually only get from the window of a plane or a helicopter. Going over the crest is sickening. Mercifully, it doesn’t pause at all. Then comes the 205-foot plunge and it all makes sense. When the anticipation is that much worse, the adrenaline-fuelled pay-off is that much better. It is incredible. My body was buzzing so much from the release of chemicals that my legs had gone warm. After all of that fearful build up, your stomach doesn’t flip over as much as you expect – not even as much as it does on the Oblivion. The rest of the ride is also very good, including a second crest nowhere near as high as the first, but still higher than anything else in the park. It’s also much longer than I’m used to. The rides at Alton Towers are great, but they are over extremely quickly. The Big One gives you an extended ride after the initial drop.

After taking Katie on a few more rides, we headed back to our hotel. We walked back through the Illuminations, which Katie did enjoy, but as she was already an hour past her bed time she was a little too tired to really enthuse about them. Emily, on the other hand, after a cold and wet day suddenly came alive, and was utterly mesmerised by the sea of flashing colourful lights. The Tower looked particularly impressive.

The next day we took Katie to the Sandcastle, which is the largest indoor water park in the country and just over the road from the Pleasure Beach. Katie loves going to swimming pools and playing in the water, but this was the first time she had seen something like a water slide and that look of surpassing happiness became once again fixed on her face. There are few things that please a parent like that kind of face on your child. We started gently, with the smaller slides, and gradually got to the bigger stuff. Each time we went down a slide, she would jump up and down in excitement and shout “Again, again!” Even Emily could have some fun this time.

Afterwards, Katie was utterly knackered, and we made plans to set off, but not before experiencing some of the other side of Blackpool. We had lunch opposite the Central Pier in ‘family friendly’ pub Uncle Peter Websters, with shit-stained toilets and menu with almost nothing available, which didn’t appear very friendly to our family at all. We then had a quick trip onto the beach, as the weather had been sunny and warm all day, the polar opposite of yesterday’s downpour. Well. Maybe it’s because we were so close to the Central Pier, but the scummy brown foam coating the tidal pools and being washed up on the beach was certainly in line with the reputation Blackpool’s beach has got itself. I do wonder about parents just letting their kids play in the scum pools. I do not lie; there were kids playing in the scum pools.

On the whole, the weekend was as expensive as a week in a caravan park, and at times the Blackpool I hear people talk of in disgusted tones definitely made itself known. However, the memory that will mostly remain is again one of joy – some mine, most Katie’s. And I did come home with some rock and a sugar dummy.

Maybe we should go easy on Hollywood.

Hollywood has got a pretty poor reputation these days. Gone, the days of Monroe, Wayne & Heston, or Capra, Hitch & Wilder. What we get now is Tatum, Pattinson & Worthington, and Ratner, Harlin & *shudder* Bay. No more Some like it Hot, no more The Apartment, no more Vertigo or Casablanca. Now we get Transformers, American Pie: Band Camp and all manner of sequels, prequels, re-imaginings, adaptations, remakes, or films based on comics, fairground rides or toy lines.

All too rarely does an Inception, a Pulp Fiction, or a Wall*E come along. The truth of the matter is recently I would have agreed with that view, but recently a friend recommended a video to me. The video make me re-evaluate the Hollywood machine, and showed me that things are so twisted, so messed up over there, that it really is a miracle they make anything worth watching at all. Ever. It’s an anecdote told by Kevin Smith about the time he was asked by Warner Bros to write a script for a new Superman film and the things the producer made him include in it. Smith has a real talent for writing and speaking to audiences, and the 20 minute anecdote is truly great.

It’s incredible that with producers like that Hollywood ever manages to release anything of quality. So give Tinsel Town a break – any release that’s even half-way decent is a minor miracle.

Wading in to another pointless debate.

So, I overheard a conversation while out in the world. That conversation was regarding circumcision. A woman was talking about her little boy who she is taking to get circumcised for medical reasons – didn’t hear it all, plus I was trying to enjoy a cup of tea at the time, so I didn’t really want to hear the details – there are apparently problems with the foreskin being too tight and rubbing the little fella’s little fella painfully.

There were two or three other women around this table who then chimed in to the conversation. One of them declared that her husband’s looked so much better so she had her boys subjected to it. Another, whose husband was circumcised for religious reasons, admitted that it was better, and easier to clean (can he not clean his own?), although she couldn’t bring herself to do it to her son.

I sat there, drinking my tea, saying nothing. I was rather proud of my self-restraint. Wouldn’t want to make a scene. I did feel like asking the woman who thinks it looks better whether she was circumcised. Did she think lopping her clitoris off would result in a minor subjective cosmetic improvement? Or her daughter’s, were she to have any? No, that would be barbaric, wouldn’t it? Go ahead; mutilate your boys, no problem. I also felt like turning to the other woman and pointing out that my own uncircumcised knob is very easy to clean – it simply requires washing regularly, just like the cocks without hats. And that having it done for religious reasons is staggeringly bizarre, and further comfort for me in my wholly atheist standpoint. How is it possible that an omnipotent, supernatural creator of everything would give a gnat’s fart whether it’s creations went round with a bit of skin over their bellend or not? Why create it that way if it needed to be cut? If it was decided god didn’t like fingernails, would they have to go as well? If you thought people looked better with only four toes, would it be alright to snip the little one off without waiting for the child to be old enough to be able to make their own decision?

Of course not, so why is this OK? I don’t know, but it's none of my business, so I stayed quiet, finished my tea and decided to moan about it here while subjecting you to altogether too much information.

Dear Capitalism.

Thanks, but no thanks. No thanks to The Apprentice and Dragon's Den. No thanks to a never-ending parade of wannabe pricks using their bottomless supply of innovation in greed in an attempt to impress the 'Dragons' or Sir Alan 'Sir Alan' Sugartits, who having established their own uber-prickness and obscene greed, now seem to think they have the right to sit in judgement of others. (Amstrads: among the very worst computers ever made. Who are you to fire anyone?) Fuckers. No thanks to millionaire, tax-avoiding chancellors making unnecessarily harsh decisions to forward their own regressive ideology, regardless of what it does to millions of others born (through no fault of their own) into lives unimaginable to the chancellor and his privileged friends. No thanks to being forced into propping up an unsustainable global economic system to keep the richest richer at the expense of basic human rights for others - who seriously thinks that a system based on constant and unending growth is really supportable? Who seriously thinks that if Thatcher and Brown, or the bankers and the hedgies had made different decisions, the system would work perpetually? Dicks, that's who. No thanks, IMF. No thanks to forcing poor countries to open their markets to international corporations, the only possible outcome of which is to make Coke, Pepsi, Nestle, Wal-Mart and others more profit and leave the average person or local small scale trader even more destitute. No thanks to charging compound interest on Third World debts, making them pay back many times the amount that was originally borrowed. No thanks to near genocidal economic policies of debt repayment - Nicaragua spends a quarter of the amount it repays servicing debt on health. One in five children in Mali die before the age of five, and yet Mali spends more on debt repayment than it does on health. Zambia spends more repaying debt than it does on health and education combined. In April 2002 the IMF forced Malawi to sell 28,000 tons of maize to repay debts. Three months later three million people were facing starvation. No thanks to compound interest on Third World debt, which causes much unnecessary death and grief. No thanks to China's special brand of communist capitalism. No thanks to a horrifically corrupt nation exceeding the West in all kinds of markets, filling every space of their country with motorways, buildings, hotels and restaurants. No thanks to arms dealers propping up revolving African despots, bestowing cash loans and palatial homes on the new dictators. No thanks to the overproduction of products, flooding the world with tat and baby clothes, driving down the cost until nobody can afford to do anything but work. No thanks to a West which is, of course, morally outraged by the human rights atrocities carried out daily in factories, sweatshops and copper mines (but obviously not outraged quite enough to stop trading - they make so much stuff! Think of the money we could lose! What's basic human dignity and enough wages to prevent workers from starving compared to that? 'Cunt' is an insult that barely scratches the surface of just how cunty subscribers to the idea that this is the only rational way to behave are.) No thanks to the Chinese Communist Party - essentially a ruthless money-hungry elite bleeding its country and its people dry. No thanks to a communist state less socialist than Germany. No thanks to a communist Government spending less than half its GDP on its people, allowing 120 million migrants to work without welfare, actioning mass state redundancies, with a beating or a jail term for those who might consider striking. This is a demented communist state taking the global capitalist economic model and just running with it to ridiculous extremes, on the verge of eating the world. No thanks to hedge funds. I would rant about them for a bit but even after researching them I, much like the FSA, don't really know what they are, only that it's money for nothing like Knopfler could never have dreamed of and that when they go tits up, banks and countries the world over get fucked. So, in conclusion, dear capitalism, go fuck yourself hard in the eye. Love, Dave.

Sources:
The Little Earth Book (3rd Edition), James Bruges.
Is It Just Me or is Everything Shit? Vol. 2, Steve Lowe & Alan McArthur.

To 3-D or not to 3-D? Not to 3-D. Mostly.

So, new 3-D technology has revolutionised the cinema experience, granting us more immersive environments and more amazing effects. Only, it hasn't, and it doesn't matter how many times directors or studios try to tell us it has. Mostly, it's a gimmicky and pointless effect, and now that the novelty has worn off it's becoming annoying. First off, it's not true 3-D - you can't look behind you and see more of the film; you still see seats and people eating popcorn. It just fools your eyes by projecting additional images that, when viewed through the glasses, make it look as though some images are separate from and in front of the flat background.

The first film me and Rach watched in 3-D was Pixar's Up, and we were actually very impressed - rather than pointlessly throwing things out of the screen in an attempt to make you go 'oooh', it added a depth and clarity to the picture that made the film look gloriously and intricately layered. We have since bought Up on Blu-Ray and although the 3-D was impressive, the film loses nothing in 2-D.

Then came Avatar. There is no doubt where the rumoured $400+ million budget went - James Cameron's film simply has to be seen to be believed. Effects like nothing ever seen, Cameron intended on 3-D from the film's early inception. He conceived, designed, developed and built the technology used to make it. As such, Avatar is the pinnacle of modern 3-D technology, even (just) managing to cover the cracks in the undercooked and cliched plot, to the point where it would probably scrape a 9/10 if I was ever to review it. Striking, subtle, incredible; if you didn't see it at the cinema in 3-D, you'll probably never really understand. As with Up, while the initial impact will always remain, provided you managed to catch it on the big screen, very little is lost re-watching it in 2-D.

Smelling cash, studios have begun to embrace 3-D in earnest, to the point where they'll give 2-D films post-production botch-jobs to make them 3-D-ish and then market them as genuine 3-D - Clash of the Titans, hang your shitty fake 3-D head in shame. As we had been so impressed with the 3-D in Up, we caught Toy Story 3 in 3-D, and either the 3-D wasn't as good or the effect had simply lost the initial impact. It added nothing. Not a thing. Toy Story 3 is such a wonderful film anyway, however, the extra cash we forked out for the 3-D that we may as well have pissed away didn't really annoy us all that much.

Recently the final Harry Potter movie was released. Filmed using 3-D cameras, this was to be genuine 3-D, not shameless post-production fakery. Even so, we didn't really want to see it in 3-D. In the end we had to because the cinema times were against us and we only had a limited window of time during which we could lose the kids. Not only did it not add anything to the film, now that I've also seen it in 2-D, it's clear that it actually removes a fair bit of it. The 3-D works in as much as the characters are separated from the background, but as most of the film is set in fairly lightless places, the background detail is often lost, merging into an indistinct blurry mess, in front of which only the character is in focus. In 2-D, the image is clearer, the backgrounds are sharper, and the experience is more satisfying for it.

I hope the current fad fades away soon, to be honest. 3-D TV? Shut up. They sell it on the idea of watching your favourite football team or film in 3-D at home, but really, beyond that who wants to watch Have I Got News For You in 3-D? Or Question Time? 3-D gaming might have potential, but I think the novelty will soon wear off there as well. And I hate mobile phones at the best of times, so making them 3-D will certainly fail to endear them to me any further. 3-D has officially outstayed its welcome. Unless James Cameron's doing it.

The biggest and most successful rebranding trick the right ever pulled.

One of the most common criticisms directed at left-leaning folk like myself is the moniker 'bleeding-heart lefties', or the supposedly critical 'do-gooder' (as if it's somehow better to do bad). It's also often intimated that we are immature and under-developed in our worldview; our hope that all kinds of different people could learn to live as equals a childish dream that our right-thinking betters have long outgrown. What's interesting is that this is a nice trick to disguise the real differences between us.

The point of view that we should do what we can to assist those less fortunate than ourselves in an effort to live in a shared community where everyone is valued is immature and unrealistic they say, and we should get on with the more highly evolved business of amassing wealth at the expense of others. If they can't succeed as we have done, the mature thinkers insist, they deserve to be crushed beneath the giant boots of our capitalist steel. Look out for the ones that appear to be all for ending poverty but at the same time refuse to even pay their fair share of taxes (*cough* Bono *cough* cunt *cough*), because they're worse than the ones who don't give a toss openly. This apparent uncaring attitude of the right would seem to be a sham, and much of the policy of the right looks to stem from an inability to think and act rationally, to separate the world in which others live from their own emotional hang ups.

Take the attempt to reduce the legal abortion limit - led mostly from the right. It stems from a failure to differentiate a foetus from a baby. They think they are protecting the rights of innocent little babies from the monstrous and evil medical professionals. They refuse to distinguish fact from an immediate emotional response. It forms part of an attempt to hold on to the outdated doctrine of their religious texts, which leads to a general automatic knee-jerk rejection of science and progress, a refusal to teach evolution as an established scientific theory rather than an alternative to hardline religious creator myths, and to a baffling all out rejection of climate science (however this also comes from good old fashioned greed and the need to hold on to their fortunes - the idea that there is somehow more money in carbon reduction and clean energy technologies than in the continued use of fossil fuels is laughable (although, there is, admittedly, a lot of earning potential in some areas of green technology, just nowhere near as much as the established oil and coal)). These trends, stemming from an inability to change and progress are not just misinformed, but downright dangerous for us as a species.

The general instinct of the left to invest in, and be guided by scientific research, rather than being bleeding-heart wet-blanket immaturity as the right would see us painted, is instead based on reason and rationality, which you'll find is more mature than restricting women's rights because you think doctors are baby murderers, not less. Rather than choosing to assimilate new information and revise their notions of the way the Universe functions, they instead choose to cling to their quaint stories and parables written thousands of years ago (it should be pointed out that I'm not just referring to the bible here, as other religious texts are equally outdated and nonsensical in light of what we've learnt as a species since the time of their writing), like children refusing to relinquish a treasured picture book from babyhood even though they've long outgrown it.* That they have somehow taken that inability to think or reason without letting primal emotional instincts guide them, to let go of infantile ideas about the nature of the Universe, to concede the truth about their morally dubious economic practices, lest it reduce their grossly unfair share of wealth and made it stick to the left is possibly the greatest con the right has ever pulled off. Of course, this is core ideology I'm referring to here - I realise in practice Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, Democrat and Republican have little to distinguish them nowadays, but there are still different degrees of shiteness - a sliding scale of shiteness, if you will, with Labour & Democrat at the top and the Conservatives and Rebublicans at the bottom, and the Lib Dems positioning themselves wherever they think they'll get the most power.

*Obviously not everybody - I know both religious and right-leaning people, both friends and family who are brilliant in every way - it's aimed more at the Michele Bachmanns and Sarah Palins of this world, and there are many more of them than you'd believe; enough to be frightening.

The BBFC: Stuck up suits trying to restrict our freedom to watch what we want or taking a stand against the morally wrong?

The British Board of Film Classification made a bad name for itself back in the 80s. It banned a whole host of low budget graphic horror movies in its self-appointed role as protector of the vulnerable public. It took this role way too seriously and banned so many they ended up as a their own mini-genre - the 'video nasties'. Times changed, so did the BBFC and most of them are no longer banned.

Recently, the BBFC was accused of being up to its old tricks when it declined to give a rating to The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence. Even now, the BBFC do occasionally decline to rate films, but due to the notoriety of The Human Centipede: First Sequence this one is a little more high profile. A full statement has been issued by the BBFC setting out its reasons for the decision. If you're unfamiliar with Tom Six's movie, brace yourself.

The Human Centipede is a horror film in which a mad scientist kidnaps three people and surgically attaches them mouth-to-anus to see if they can survive as a single organism. Not having seen it, I can't really comment of the quality of the film-making, but there is allegedly a scene in which there is some shit-in-mouth action. It made it through the censors uncut with an 18 certificate because stupid, horrid and pointless as it sounds, it's harmless. It's clear the 'scientist' is batshit mental and as the bad guy, gets the appropriate bullet in the head by the time the film is over.

The Human Centipede II goes a little meta, in that there is a guy who gets sexually aroused by the first film and gets his jollies off by watching the 'money shot' repeatedly. The guy gets so obsessed with it that he goes as far as snatching innocent people off the street and building a 'centipede' of his very own. The BBFC statement refers specifically to a scene in which the guy rapes the girl at the tail end with barbed-wire wrapped around his little man. Obviously, this is not a film you'd want to see on a full stomach, but is it really necessary to not rate it? There have been other films comparable in extremity that the BBFC have given a rating to - A Serbian Film is full of incest, rape and murder, sometimes all at once, and includes scenes in which a man is killed by being raped in the head and the rape of a newborn baby.

So what's the difference? Why ban one and not the other? It would appear as though it's to do with the manner in which the material is presented. A Serbian Film, while containing truly horrific imagery presents events in a light that clearly shows that these things are not right and tries to make a point (which I fear was lost somewhat in the controversy surrounding it) about some of the most repulsive things hidden in the dark corners of the nature of humanity. For that reason, with a few minor cuts, the BBFC was able to pass it with an 18 certificate. The Human Centipede, as mentioned above, clearly shows that there is a very mad, very twisted person at the centre of it all who must be, and is, stopped. The Human Centipede II, so I understand it (and I may well be understanding it incorrectly, as I am going only on what the BBFC statement and a few pieces written on Empire online and similar places say), presents the dreadful events through the eyes of the perpetrator with a little more than a touch of sympathy. That is, to suggest that not only is it OK for him to be getting off on it, but that perhaps, if you want to, you can too. Basically, encouraging you to have a wank over the sight of a guy with a barbed-wire-wrapped dick raping a girl while she's being forced to eat someone else's shit. And, while I'm not sure it's exactly harmful as the BBFC infer, there is no doubt that it just ain't quite right.

I do agree that censorship is a very slippery slope indeed, but I don't think this issue is about censorship. I'm sure the BBFC realise it's no longer the 1980s and that declining to certify a film does not equate to a ban. Cinemas can still legally show films that have not been rated, and if someone really wants to see it, they could find a copy online without too much trouble. So instead of it being about censorship, I think the BBFC is coming from a moral standpoint. It's not the events that take place within the film, it's that those events are shown through a certain prism, and it's the prism that the BBFC has a problem with. It's not something that could be solved with a few strategic BBFC-recommended cuts, it's the theme of the film itself. When it comes down to it, the BBFC had little choice in the matter in the end. Films are rated using a finely-crafted predetermined set of guidelines, and the 'this gives us a hard-on, what about you' view the film takes to the events depicted meant it was never going to get by. Those guidelines are partly determined as a result of direct input from the general public - the same people critics accuse the BBFC of unfairly restricting the viewing rights of. Those preset guidelines can sometimes be responsible for some ratings that are not immediately clear - for example, why did American Beauty get an 18 rating? It's relatively mild - even the climactic death scene isn't particularly grisly. It turns out that it's because two characters manage to escape the drudgery of day to day life using the money one of them got from selling drugs, and the BBFC could not be seen to be condoning positive outcomes that result from illegal activity. It seems a little silly, however the BBFC have no choice but to abide by these predetermined guidelines.

In all honesty, you're never gonna get me to see either of The Human Centipede films or A Serbian Film, so issues of censorship and freedom to view aside, I couldn't really care less if they all got banned.

What is so hard about not being a dick? In which I stick my oar in where it’s probably not wanted. Again.

Gender equality has been a bit of a hot button topic of late. The abortion rights debate continues to rage across the US, and thanks to the certifiable Nadine Dorries and Melanie Phillips, it's also gathering pace here in the UK. Certain politicians on both sides of the ocean have been attempting to categorise different types of rape into levels of seriousness, suggesting if you weren't kicked in the head several times as well, it's not proper rape. I'm pretty sure nobody wants to hear my opinions on any of this, but, well, it's my blog, so fuck it.

I wonder if it's possible for those pushing to curtail or even end abortion rights to really hate women as much as they appear to, or whether instead they haven't read enough to understand about foetus development and have been taken in by what the religious right preach about it. Are those wanting to force women to explain their miscarriages in court really taking into account how the person who just lost their unborn child must be feeling? Do those attempting to protect the imagined rights of the unborn not understand the difference between a developing foetus and a developed baby? The famous empty-craniumed pop fuck Justin Bieber illustrated how the point is missed when he was asked his opinion on abortion during a TV interview. "Isn't it like killing babies?" he asked, vacantly. No Justin, it's not. It's stopping cells dividing. It's terminating an unthinking lump of carbon and water. Once it gets past a certain point, say, 24 weeks, then yes, it's very much like killing babies. But then, that's why it becomes illegal at that point. Stick to singing and looking ten Justin. It's what you do best.

The argument is of course, about the potential life being ended. So, OK, say we consider the rights of the potential human. How low do we go? Do any and all abortions become illegal? Should it be illegal to wank into a sock? After all, the sperm cells are all potential humans. Does it become illegal to have a period, to lose the potential life that was the egg? It doesn't really work setting out to protect the rights and possible future lives of potential humans in a reasonable manner because any limit you choose to impose discriminates against less developed potential humans. Set a limit of 12 weeks. Why do you hate the 10 week-old future humans so much, murderer? The 24 week limit is simply more sensible, because that is what scientific research and experience tells us is the most likely period of development where the foetus becomes viable - more than simply potential. Obviously, it's not always easy to be objective when talking about life and potential life, so the arguments for lowering the limit are understandable. But when it comes to a point where people are in favour of forcing you to carry a pregnancy to term in cases of rape and incest it becomes indefensible. Welcome to the world of the Republicans. Not just on the fringe of the tea party either - I'm talking McCain and Palin here, as well as others. What is wrong with these people? Oh right, I forgot. They've been indoctrinated into a religious cult which tells them they should give birth to their brother's or rapist's offspring on account of it being their god's will. Fuck sake.

Then there's rape. Rape, according to certain politicians with a right wing bent, isn't real rape unless there's a beating into the bargain. Violent rape is worse than non-violent rape, they say. Putting aside for a moment that I doubt there is such a thing as non-violent rape, then yes, it is. Duh. Obviously, being raped and beaten is worse than being raped. Just like being mugged and beaten is worse than being mugged. What is doesn't do, and what I think some people suggest it does do, is lessen the severity of rape that doesn't come with a bonus kicking. The example these mothercunters often use is being attacked and raped by a stranger must be worse than your lover not being able to control himself during sex when asked to stop. Fuck right off. Having been in that very situation of being asked to stop (due to a sudden and nasty cramp, if you must know), I can categorically confirm that there is no 'losing control'. Disregarding a request to stop is a fully conscience decision and is rape. Rape is rape is rape. There is no distinction. Don't ever fucking stand for it.

The same people try other things to justify rape. Dressed like that, she had it coming. She went into his house with him when she was drunk, what did she think was going to happen? They must know what they're letting themselves in for, acting like that. Not so. Before we were married, my wife (then girlfriend) was out and a guy within her circle of friends asked if he could go back to hers for a coffee. She agreed. She was still living with her parents at the time and made him coffee in their kitchen. Not expecting actual coffee, he left before he was half way through the cup. It's one of the reasons why I adore her so much. Someone dressing or acting a certain way is not the same as them giving you automatic permission to fuck them. Let me put it another way. I could walk down a street, naked, stiffy on display for all to see. At least, I could for a little while before getting battered, arrested, or both. You are still not allowed to assume I want you to have sex with me. If I stop next to you, put my hands on my hips and smile, but I say directly to you that I don't want to have sex, then you cannot have sex with me. No really does mean no, in all circumstances, behaviour and outfits notwithstanding.

There's the falsely accused thing as well. The miserable conviction rate causes many rapes to go unreported, or even for a victim to drop the charges. The unbalanced focus on the punishment for doing this is ridiculous. The damage to a life, to a reputation, is irreversible, they say. You get stigmatised for the rest of your days. Well yes, I imagine being accused of rape, falsely or otherwise, would suck a great deal. BUT NOT AS MUCH AS BEING RAPED AND NOT BEING ABLE TO DO A DAMN THING ABOUT IT DOES. Sheesh. Perspective, please?

Anyway, that's enough of me spouting off about stuff that I know very little about. I'll make sure the next post is about nice things. Rainbows, maybe.

The death of a gamer. Long live the gamer?

When I was young, I spent a lot of time playing video games. It started with the Atari 2600, and Frogger, Demon Attack, Combat, Space Invaders, Super Breakout, Defender, Centipede, No Escape, Air-Sea Battle, Pac-Man and, most excitingly for my young self, Pole Position. One of my best friends who lived next door also had one, and round his we would play Dig Dug and others. By today's standards it's laughably basic, but the games were endlessly addictive, although often frustrating. Another friend had a Commodore 64 (or possibly a ZX Spectrum, it was a long time ago and the memories are hazy), but we were unimpressed. That early rejection set a pattern for me - consoles over computers for games every time.

Whenever we went on holiday, I could usually be found playing the 2p coin-flip games or Outrun, and later Virtua Racing, Sega Rally and Daytona. As time moved on, my friend got an Amiga (I forget which type). My parents couldn't afford to buy me anything new, so I kind of forgot about playing computer games for a while.

Then something happened. During a visit to my cousins, we were shown the new console they had and the single game they had for it. The console was a Sega Mega Drive and the game was Sonic the Hedgehog. My 12 year old self was completely blown away. This was so far beyond my previous experience with the Atari 2600 it was difficult to comprehend. The way the little blue fella would get impatient and tap his foot if you made him wait too long. The gorgeous visuals. That insane rotating special stage. And the speed of it. The speed of it. I was smitten. I wanted one more than anything I had ever wanted before. Unfortunately my parents couldn't afford one, but I was nevertheless delighted with the Master System they got me. I played and played and played. Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex Kidd in Miracle World kept me in front of my TV in my bedroom for months on end.

Then, on one glorious Christmas morning, I was completely pole-axed by the Mega Drive I unwrapped. I reckon mom and dad must have got it second hand, but back then I was flabbergasted by it. A number of my school years were lost down a Mega Drive-shaped hole (I did enough to keep up, but I was often consumed by new games instead of homework). Countless hours simply disappeared, dedicated to cracking the games: Desert Strike, Flashback, Road Rash, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Ecco the Dolphin, Street Fighter II (for which I had somehow convinced my parents to fork out £100, including two new controllers) and many more. Weekends were lost in neighbourhood tournaments played on Mortal Kombat, Micro Machines and Virtua Racing (another extravagance on my parents' behalf, costing a whopping £70). I often won; there were few games I couldn't conquer relatively quickly. I was so proud of my copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the fact that I was the only kid in my circle of friends to get a copy on the day of release that I took it in to school and put it on the corner of my desk for all to see.

At some point, Nintendo released the SNES. Some of my friends got one and a friendly but intense rivalry was struck up. I was firmly in Sega's camp. We had a better mascot - a supercool, superfast, superblue hedgehog versus some fat retarded plumber and his mate? We had more games - as the advert went, you had over 100 reasons to buy something 'mega', but only six to buy something 'super'. Who needed a gazillion different shades of green or the migraine-inducing 'Mode 7' bollocks when you had the playability and the speed? Take Street Fighter II; the SNES version looked and sounded a little prettier, but the Mega Drive version could move more than twice as fast. This is largely what my early 90s consisted of.

Then it started to go wrong. The next generation of consoles were coming. The Amiga CD32, the Atari Jaguar and Panasonic's 3DO amongst others. Sega developed add-ons for the Mega Drive - the Mega CD and the 32X. I wanted them. I asked for a Mega CD. I begged for one. I pleaded for one. I did not get one. On reflection, it was probably a good thing, but at the time I was pretty damn distressed - how could I keep up? I started to notice that the reviews the Mega CD games were getting were not particularly charitable, so I came to terms with not having one. Then came the Sega Saturn. Again, I wanted. Again, I was disappointed. Again, it was probably for the best in the long run.

I watched from the sidelines as Sega took on Sony's first crack at the console market only to get soundly beaten by the PlayStation. Sony couldn't even bother to design games - they left that to the third party developers. The Saturn was notoriously difficult to program for, while the PlayStation was much easier. The number of new releases that included a Saturn version dwindled and Sega disappeared from the industry they once, with Nintendo, dominated. Nintendo eventually entered the fray with the N64, and held their own where their once biggest rivals stuttered and died.

Sega tried again by releasing the first of the next generation of consoles in the Dreamcast. By now I didn't have to rely on my parents and bought one for myself. It was marvellous. Sonic Adventure bought Sega's mascot into the 3-D market and perfect versions of Sega's best arcade releases Crazy Taxi, Sega Rally and Daytona were wonderful to play at home. Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive 2 were hugely intricate considering the simple aim of beating the crap out of your opponent. Capcom released an exclusive chapter of their infamous Resident Evil series in Code: Veronica which genuinely scared the absolute crap out of me. Metropolis Street Racer was utterly revolutionary in that it allowed you to race in accurate versions of London and other major international cities, and it has since survived on other platforms as Project Gotham Racing. Most impressive of all was Sega's own Shenmue which cost millions to develop and was as engrossing as it was possible for a game to be back then. Set in Japan in the 1980s, you literally lived someone else's life as they hunted for their father's killers. It was so intricate that the day to day weather in the game matched the actual day to day weather in the part of Japan in which it was set at the time that it was set. If it rains in the game on, say, April 16th 1984 at about 2 in the afternoon, that means it rained in the same area of Japan at 2pm on April 16th 1984. I was smitten all over again. Internet access and the potential for future online gaming caused a buzz as well. It was not to be.

Everyone kind of expected the Dreamcast to wither and die when Sony released the PlayStation 2. And that's exactly what happened. For the second time, this corporate giant was waltzing in with a new console and slowly choking the life out of my dear Sega. The first time, with the pointless Mega Drive add-ons and awkward to program for Saturn, they probably deserved it, but the Dreamcast easily held its own against the PS2, but thanks to previous form never stood a chance. Bloody Sony and its bloody PlayStation. Thanks to the lessening of support from both developers and consumers, the Dreamcast lost the fight even before Nintendo entered with the GameCube and Microsoft came on board for the first time with the Xbox. Even they struggled against the overwhelming dominance of the PS2. Thanks to the first two incarnations of the PlayStation effectively destroying Sega in the console market, I have an irrational hate of PlayStations of all kinds. After this, Sega announced that they were developing no more consoles and were concentrating on game development only, and I decided that my gaming days would also come to an end. Sony had ruined it all for me. Although, to be honest, Sega kind of ruined it for themselves by destroying their reputation with the successive failures of the Mega CD, 32X and Saturn.

Nowadays, with the PS3, Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, gaming is no longer the domain of children and teenagers. The games are vast, intricate and cinematic in scope. Even Charlie Brooker likes them, and he hates almost everything. Sega's release of Bayonetta has recently peaked my interest, as has news of the forthcoming Sonic Generations (if only to relive some of the happiest times of my young life). In addition, the idea of blasting the crap out of someone on the other side of the world through my TV has a certain appeal. Back in the days of the Mega Drive, I used to be almost unbeatable at most games I played. How would I do against your average Italian gamer?

I've bought an Xbox 360. I think it might prove to be a waste of time and money for a number of reasons, not the least of which are my commitments to family and work, meaning I'll not have a great deal of time to play. Still, there's nothing wrong with reliving the memories of a pleasantly simple childhood, is there?

What the hell happened to Aberystwyth?

So we went on holiday for a week to Penbryn, which is on the Welsh coast about 30 miles South of Aberystwyth. The holiday was marvellous and the place is lovely - quiet and relaxing with dramatic scenery and plenty of beaches. On the way there we stopped for a while in Aberystwyth. For a long time, Aberystwyth was a bit like a second home for us because Rach got her degree there and we'd spend most of our weekends there before I went back to my University in Stafford. There's an old assumption that the English aren't fond of the Welsh and that, well, just about everybody hates the English. Anyone with half an ounce of sense can see these for the bollocky generalisations they are and that while there are a few people who act that way, they are in a retarded minority. Which is why YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG POST SERIOUSLY.

Anyway, we came to love Aberystwyth, and while there was one local shop close to the University buildings where the shopkeepers would start talking loudly in Welsh every time you walked in the door, most people were lovely. We loved going out of an evening, we loved spending time on the beach, and generally being together there. I will spare you the mushy romantic bollocks, but it's safe to say that the time we spent there was very special to the both of us.

Cut back to our lunch stop en route to Penbryn. We attempt to park, but the only free space has some pleb standing in it like some kind of statue erected in honour of pricks. We stop and Rach opens the window and politely asks if he's saving the space for someone. I think his unfriendly grunt was supposed to be an affirmative response. Instead of pressing the matter, we just move on - there's no telling what the crunt might do to our car if we argue or force him to move.

We find another car park - the fee is a £3.00 flat rate whether you're staying for 10 minutes, 2 hours or all day. This is infuriating and as it turns out seems to be the same for every car park in Ceredigion. This is bloody ridiculous, but that's another subject, which I won't waste time writing about. We need cash for the car park, so me and Katie head off to find some while Rach and Emily stay with the car. The first place we come to is a Co-op where I buy some chocolate and get some cash back. No fucker in the vicinity smiles at me, Katie or anyone else. It's seems grim and unhappy compared to what I remember. When walking back to the car I see the first car park we tried - the crunt is still standing in the place. Maybe he's mental and not actually holding it for anyone.

While there, we also see a hen party in full flow along the sea front, with a group of girls staggering around and generally acting up. This is at lunch time. It will only take a few more of these to turn our beloved Aberystwyth into Blackpool.

I'm not an idiot. Not completely, anyway. I know that this doesn't mean my Aberystwyth has gone, but just that I got a bit annoyed at some dick standing in a parking space and let it colour the whole visit - after all, why should I have a problem with a group of women celebrating their friend's upcoming marriage? I don't and I got a bit annoyed at myself for getting annoyed at them. If you follow me. It's just that this visit has kind of tarnished the place for me a bit now. I'm going to go back one day I think, just so I can reacquaint myself with the Aberystwyth that my wife and I found and loved when we were teenagers.

Was it worth it? In which I stick my oar in where it’s probably not wanted.

So. The very bad man is dead. Super-Barack got the guy after a couple of years, while Bushtucker couldn't do it in eight. Apparently Bill Clinton got closer to killing him than Bush. Probably while getting his dick sucked. America celebrated loudly and proudly. "I'm pleased that the last thing Osama bin Laden saw was the power and might of the American military" tweeted Rose McGowan. Street parties materialised instantly, with smiling faces reminiscent of the jubilation some Middle Easterners exhibited one devastating September day.

To be fair, you can't really blame the US. The loss of the towers was one of the most shocking events to happen in my lifetime. I remember watching it with a feeling of spaced out detachment - seeing the buildings go was like seeing some impossible vision dreamt up for a new Roland Emmerich movie. Then you start to think about the number of people dying, about the panic and terror they must be feeling and the tears start to fall. Those of us not directly affected cannot even begin to imagine how it must have felt. I have read several accounts from people retelling their view of events that day, most recently this one which never fail to bring the tears back unbidden.

It's just, in the joy, some of the cost seems to have been forgotten. This isn't Kill Bill, after all. Rip-roaring rampages of revenge aren't really appropriate, and to me this certainly smacked of pointless vengeance for the sake of closure. On the whole I don't think we British go in quite so much for closure and therapy. Must be our stiff upper lips and habit of bottling everything up. It's not going to improve things in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's not going to stop Al-Qaeda being arseholes. It may even make things worse in the long run by provoking a further counter-attack in the way revenge for the sake of revenge tends to do.

I understand the lack of objectivity from America, I really do. What the country suffered was gut-wrenchingly awful. A body count in excess of 3000 innocent people. Who wouldn't feel even the smallest amount of satisfaction at the man responsible for it getting his unholy comeuppance? I'm certainly not sorry to see him go.

But there's still that nagging feeling that maybe it wasn't worth it. Are the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, Afghans and Pakistanis worth it? It's normal to place more importance on your own innocent countrymen than on innocent foreigners, especially in situations like this. But more than three times as many dead than September 11 as a direct result of America's hunt for one man? Is Rose McGowan happy that the last thing all those innocent people saw was the power and might of the American military? I doubt it. And you don't just get accidental civilian casualties. There are some, in all armies and in all wars, so in no way is this the province of the US alone, that see the nationality or the colour of the one they are trying to kill, and assign the 'enemy' tag to everyone of that nationality or colour. That's why you get a group of soldiers gang-raping a 14-year-old girl before murdering her, her six-year-old-sister and their parents. Assuming this is true (the place I read it didn't seem to quote sources), I would imagine Ms. McGowan would be rather ashamed of this small minority of the American military.

The September 11 atrocities, dreadful and indefensible as they were, were attacking a symbol of Western capitalist dominance over the rest of the world. It seems to me that the trail of dead left by the invading forces is every bit as inexcusable. Should we not weep equally as hard for the loss of life on the opposing side, which seems more personal and hate-fuelled? I think we should.

I guess the truth is I don't really know how to feel. I'm not sad he's dead, but I'm sorry so many others had to die on both sides of the conflict to achieve that end.

Not built for public speaking.

I am pretty useless at debating and arguing in person. I cannot think of appropriate responses to challenges and I can never find the right words to make my point. This is one of the reasons I like to write this blog - I think I write better than I speak, after I've had time to consider what it is I should say to best make my point. My biggest weakness is that I often use a hundred words when ten would do. I've learnt that for me it's often better just to shut my mouth and lose an argument because whatever I say on the spur of the moment will make me sound like an idiot. After a drink, I sometimes forget this and talk utter shite, and I also forget I have a volume control on my voice. I suspect, however, that I am not alone in that particular trait.

I got to thinking about this after a conversation I had with a friend in which I was asked to confirm whether or not I find Professor Brian Cox attractive. I wrote about science and what it means to me here and I have a huge amount of respect for the new poster boy of physics and cosmology. I refused to answer, because any yes or no answer I gave would not necessarily be what I meant. I think they occasionally read this thing, so I'm going to try to answer it here.

At the route of my refusal to answer is my hatred of being labelled, classified and grouped together with others who are similar. I hate it happening to me and I hate it happening to other people as well. I'm not gay and I'm not straight. I'm not bi either. I am physically attracted to the female sex, but there's a range of different types of attraction. I don't want to put myself inside him particularly, but hell yes, Brian Cox is attractive. I may not fancy his arse much, but I do fancy his mind and his enthusiasm for what he does. To instantly reply to my friend's question in the negative would be, I felt, to disassociate myself from gay people, to intentionally distance myself from any and all elements of homosexuality. I find myself extremely intolerant of any form of intolerance and any assumption that there should be any normal way to live, to be or to love. If you've read certain posts on here, you may think I'm fairly intolerant of religious people but that is not true. A religious person that does not attempt to bring me onside or to indoctrinate others in any way is fine. Public displays of religiony things, like praying, is just dandy. The religions themselves I have less time for, but that's another post. The 'I don't mind, just don't bring it near me' is prejudice masquerading as acceptance. It's like the Tories trying to appeal to environmentalists.

As soon as you take it upon yourself to educate yourself, all reasons and excuses for prejudice disappear. You learn that thinking of being gay as a 'lifestyle choice' is utter bullcrap as sexuality is one of the many things decided in the womb and completely outside a person's control. You learn that to deny the truth of evolution is one of the most absurd things a person could do - the biological, genetic and fossilised evidence of the unifying theory of biology (that's a scientific theory, not a regular one - read up on the difference before you embarrass yourself and declare it's 'only a theory') is so far beyond the ability to successfully debate against that the number of people who still genuinely try is bizarre and frightening. How do these people trust doctors and their diagnoses when the diagnoses are based on where the bacteria lie on the phylogenetic tree, which was developed by studying and building on evolution? You learn that Republicans denying the evidence of man made climate change are basically declaring to the world that they will compromise on anything and cross any boundary if it gains them votes, power and wealth.

All these things and more underlie my refusal to answer the question of Brian Cox's attractiveness. Cox's Wonders of the Solar System and follow up Wonders of the Universe speak so clearly to a way of thinking I feel passionately about, that he becomes a person I find extremely attractive in a number of ways, sexually being the least relevant. Anyway, he's not exactly hard on the eye is he?

An early sign of middle age.

"I used to be 'with it'. Then they changed what 'it' was. Now 'it' seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you too." - Abe Simpson.

I'm 32 next month. This feels old. I know to a 50 year old it's nothing - still a shining beacon of youth. I also know to a 20 year old it sounds like the best years of my life are behind me. Being or feeling young or old is relative - there is some truth to that 'only as old as you feel' spiel. Maybe 32 feels old to me because I can remember how it felt to be 17, when the thirties seemed another life away.

Attitudes to certain things change as age increases - I mentioned that already here, but I noticed something this week that is beginning to happen with increasing frequency and is an indication that I'm getting older: I am getting annoyed at the NME.

I've read the NME for years. Loved it for years. For years, it's told me where to find some of the best music on the planet. I always loved the writing; how the writers would describe the music. It's becoming increasingly undeniable to me that the writing is a little youth oriented, and is starting to sound stupid to me. I don't think it's anything to do with the magazine changing, I think it's me. I think I'm getting older, and 'it' is making less and less sense to me, just as Abe Simpson predicted. Take this week's issue. Here are three examples of what I think are supposed to be descriptions of music. "For a man who sings like a dismal hippo, he makes rather a lovely racket." How, pray, is a dismal hippo supposed to sound when he sings? "Like trying to beat out loneliness with a dustbin lid." Um, pardon? Is that anything like The Beatles? "Akin to someone dripping poison in your ear." This is actually supposed to be a recommendation. It is nonsense, and it annoys me because it doesn't tell me how those three songs are supposed to sound. Were I barely five years younger, I don't doubt I'd have loved reading such descriptions of music.

It's not the NME's fault. It just doesn't make sense to me anymore. Guess I'll have to start reading Mojo instead.

How do I know I’m not going to ruin my kid’s life?

As mentioned here, we decided on the Priorslee Primary School, recently upgraded to academy status, to be Katie's primary school, with a number of misgivings. When it came down to it, there was little difference between the two local schools we were considering, and the one we chose simply had a slightly better Ofsted rating. We weren't sure if we had made the right decision. Well. Katie got her first choice, and we're still not sure if it's the right one.

Of course, this doesn't mean all that much compared to Katie having to start only a couple of months after her fourth birthday. And yes, I know she doesn't 'have to' - we could keep her out until year 1, when she'll be five, or we can hold on until either January or April. The thing is, keeping her out for a full year means she'll miss her reception year and go straight into formal lessons, and as there is only one intake this year in September if we hold her back until a later term, the other kids would have already made friends and be used to the routine, meaning there is a risk of her being a friendless outsider.

It could be argued that it makes little difference in the end, the 'I didn't have a great childhood and I turned out alright' view. But there is someone close to me who went to the wrong school, was bullied by a teacher and developed a phobia of school, making a large chunk of their childhood unpleasant. Yes, eventually they turned out fine, and couldn't be lovelier, but I don't want Katie to go through that experience. I want her to love learning for the wonder it brings in its own right, not to feel pressure to perform tricks and jump through hoops for grades, which misses the whole point of education. Starting this early at the wrong school could deny her the positive experience she has a right to. Starting her at any school this early could be a mistake, but we feel we've been forced into putting her in too early to give her a chance to bond with other kids in the same situation. Does she really need to be put into this pattern of a five day week of work to prepare her for an adult life that turns her into a worker bee, a capitalist automaton who exists only to create wealth while she's still so young? It's a frightening thought that a decision such as this could easily wreck a large proportion of Katie's early life, and have repercussions throughout her adult life.

All we can do is make what we think is the best decision at the time and hope it was the right one. But we won't stop worrying it's the wrong one.

Idiot magnets: the downside of the Internet.

"Have your say." Possibly the three most depressing words of any Internet article, on the websites of The Daily Mail and The Guardian, and a great many others. It's even crossed over to TV, following BBC news broadcasts. They are depressing because most people are a) completely uninformed, b) have no intention of having a reasonable debate and simply want a platform to spout unintelligible bile, and c) they are FUCKING IDIOTS. On the Mail website, you tend to get a hate-filled free-for-all, raving at, well, pretty much anything. On the Guardian site they are a little dull, but there are often dissenters who are there to simply piss people off and not discuss the article (the technical term for this is 'trolling', or so I'm told). On the BBC people just tend to send in photos of snow. They are everywhere - on your average James Delingpole post there are countless pricks all congratulating each other on sharing the same illusion of being bamboozled by every scientific institution on the planet as well as Governments the world over and, of course, the 'loony left' (which is an hilariously ironic name because, well, have you heard the main thrust of their conspiracy theory? Who are they to call anyone loony?).

There are other sights out there that are so filled with unimaginable idiocy that I suspect sometimes the comments are made by people trying to be ironic by posting shite to take the piss out of other people who are deadly serious when they post shite. If you follow me. The Daily Star, Fox News, Rebecca Black on Youtube, The Telegraph, The Huffington Post, and a host of other websites; there are so many human-shaped shits voicing useless and pointless opinions it's enough to make you give up on humanity and prowl the streets with a sawn-off shotgun blowing the mind out of anyone who admits to posting on these sites. This relatively newly-embraced obsession with what the average turd on the street thinks about events he has zero expertise on has led to a disturbing turn of events on channels like Fox News in the U.S. and Sky News here in the U.K. where the opinions of the uninformed are given as much weight as those of experts, provided those opinions reinforce the political stance of the broadcaster (in the case of Fox News, this is because the expert opinion is usually contrary to that of the channel's owner). News no longer reports on the state of the nation; it now has an agenda to influence it.

Galvanised by the willingness of viewers to believe what skews most to their personal point of view regardless of the suitability of the person saying it and the credentials of the person speaking to the contrary, in America the Republicans have declared their refusal to accept the established scientific evidence of climate change and have set about reversing any and all legislation controlling carbon emissions and attempting to strip the EPA of any power to enforce controls. They, like those drawn to the comments sections like moronic moths to a flame, willingly choose ignorance because it's how they prefer things to be.

So if you think the comments on these websites are made by nobodies who could never possibly wield any true influence, remember willfully uninformed people just like them are helping to run Governments the world over. And that may be one of the most frightening thoughts of all.

Oh, and yes, I am aware that I am criticising people who rant about bugger all in a completely disconnected way by, um, ranting about it in a completely disconnected way. I never said I was irony-free. A blog called 'Yet another nobody screeching into the void' should have given you some clue, however...

My mind is like a car crash: there are bits flying everywhere.

Something very cool happened to me the other morning. I did a good deed, and shortly after, something good happened to me. How often does that actually happen? Almost never? I got up early and went to wait at the bus stop to get a ride into work. There was one other person waiting at the stop, who I've seen a few times previously. We politely acknowledge each other, but don't speak. When the bus turned up, the other person got on ahead of me, and showed the driver a travel pass. "No good" he said, a little arrogantly. "Different company, you see. West Midlands Travel, not Arriva. Can't do it." When I've caught the bus with this person previously, the pass has been accepted without a second glance, so no wonder this response comes as such a surprise. I'm standing behind, knowing full well I only have enough spare change for myself. They're getting worried, because they need to catch a train. "What can I do?" "You gotta pay." "But I have no money." "Then you gotta get off." The driver is already looking past them and asking me where I want to go. Apprehensive, they begin to walk off the bus.

Enter: me. Imagine me shirtless if it'll help. If you know me in reality, it won't.

I hand over my change, insisting that I'll be fine and can arrange a lift or get some more cash for the next bus. Gratefully, they use my money to pay and get on. I'm probably going to be late for work, but I actually feel pretty damn good. Like Bill Murray at the end of Scrooged preaches, doing selfless things, even a little thing like I did, feels great. I start walking, trying to figure out a way to get into work, when the bus pulls up and the driver lets me on without paying.

Now, I can't blame a driver for not letting someone on if they can't pay and their pass isn't valid - Arriva is in business to make money after all, and they can't give free rides to anyone who looks at them a bit sad, but I thought the driver could have shown a little more empathy. I don't know if I shamed him or inspired him, but the result was pretty cool nonetheless, and the driver deserves credit for swallowing his pride and overcoming his earlier uncaring attitude.

The whole incident has caused my thoughts to go off at seemingly random tangents (hence the post title, which, if it sounds familiar to you, is from the first Bottom Live tour). This is completely normal for me, and I suspect for a number of you too.

It got me thinking (again) about religion. There's a video on Youtube of a debate between famed atheist Christopher Hitchens and catholic apologist Dinesh D'Souza: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V85OykSDT8. Usually, someone like Hitchens is able to demolish any defence of faith with relative ease (known as being 'Hitch-slapped'), but here I was surprised at how well D'Souza held his own. It's long (about ten minutes shy of two hours), so I doubt you'll watch it, but the points D'Souza raises that Hitchens appeared to have difficutly resolving was firstly the explanation of the existence of an inherent moral code; an instinctive knowledge of right and wrong (such as giving up a seat on the bus, or even your bus fare altogether) that cannot be adequately explained by evolution alone. Second was the point that our Universe is perfectly 'tuned' to support the evolution of humans - a quicker expansion following the Big Bang, or a slower one, and it would be impossible for life to evolve as it has done. D'Souza reflected that such a Universe must have been designed this way purposefully. Finally was the inability of evolution to explain the complexity of the cell. Evolution starts with a cell, but doesn't explain how such a thing came to be.

For me, every argument D'Souza made served to strengthen my own atheist standpoint. I have an ingrained moral code. I know that I should help people if it is in my power to do so. I know that some things are right and that some things are wrong. It is right to donate to The Red Cross, the organisation organising relief efforts in Japan, Haiti and New Zealand. It is wrong to dismiss such disasters because they occurred in countries other than the one I was born in. I do not accept that my knowledge of the proper way to act is a gift from a supernatural creator. It comes from a simple ability to put myself in someone else's shoes; to imagine the world from their viewpoint. It's such an easy thing to do, and yet so many people, theist and atheist alike, have trouble with it. I could clearly see the person on the bus this morning was distressed at the thought of being stranded with no money and a train to catch. Imagining how it would feel to be in their position, I felt compelled to help. It's that simple. It's perfectly clear when someone is distressed or unhappy, and it is also perfectly obvious that one does not enjoy being distressed or unhappy, so it stands to reason that you would instinctively offer whatever help you could. No divine intervention required - just logic.

The second point, regarding our 'perfectly tuned' Universe highlights the astonishing arrogance behind faiths of all kinds. If the Universe is perfectly suited to us, rather than considering it proof that the entire thing (of which we inhabit only the tiniest, tiniest fraction) was simply pulled out of god's arse for our benefit, perhaps us evolving like this is the obvious consquence of a Universe 'tuned' this way. Evolution dictates that life will always evolve to fill a niche and adapt to its environment. If the Universe had been 'tuned' differently, a different type of life would probably have evolved. Is this obvious only to me? Am I a brain in a jar being given opinions that are not my own by scientists? Do people really think the entirity of the endlessly incredible cosmos was created entirely for their benefit?

And the cell. Hitchens made a point while addressing something else that seems to fit this rather nicely. D'Souza referred to the evolution of the eye to back up a point about (I think) intelligent design (which, as I understand it, basically gives god the credit for evolution without a single shred of evidence other than pointing out the things science doesn't yet know). Hitchens pointed out how not so long ago catholic debaters such as D'Souza argued against evolution by citing the seeming impossibility of the evolution of the eye (even though it is actually addressed in Darwin's original Origin of Species). Now when there is genuinely no credible arguement against all the proof of evolution written in the very fabric of our DNA debaters like D'Souza use it to strengthen the religious argument. The answer now is that evolution was the big man's plan all along, and the cell and science's inability to yet explain its development is cited as proof.

The most important and the most often used answer to a question asked in science is "I don't know". Taking this initial standpoint allows for the development of the scientific process of gathering evidence to support theories. So science can't yet explain the complexity of the cell. Don't tell me that because the answer is unknown the most obvious solution is an intelligent designer. Nothing in the natural world supports this. The more we learn, the more we realise there is still to learn and the more obvious it becomes that the answers can be found. Eventually. Maybe. Even if they never are, science allows for the possibility of failure. It doesn't make it any less compelling as an argument. It's like Bill O'Reilly telling us in his superior explaining-things-to-dense-children voice that no-one can explain the tides. Ahem. That would be the gravitational pull of the moon, Bill. "OK", he replies, as if he has an unbeatable rejoinder, "so how'd the moon get there?" We're not sure Bill. We weren't there at the time. We can extrapolate a theory from our knowledge of the laws of physics and observing other moons, but we can't say for sure. Not knowing, however, is in no way proof of the existence of god as you infer. It never will be. But you'll keep using it, because there will always be things we don't know.

OK, so now I seem to have clouded utterly my original train of thought. I don't think I ever had a point. But I do know that doing nice things to help people is awesome. Maybe that's all the point I need.