Déjà Vu

It's been a quiet month blog wise, I know you all want more but I've been in video game heaven and doing other stuff, and there's no point in blogging unless I have something worth saying really. So get a cup of tea, settle down and get ready for a humanistic rant. I'm actually in the process of setting up another blog based on my atheist/humanistic ideals but haven't got around to the finer details yet, so until then I have to use my trusty old hobbit blog to get things of my chest and rant with my usual vitriol against all things organised religion orientated.

It almost seemed like a Déjà vu instance as I perused my local paper the Newark Advertiser today. As usual I read the 'Credo' column to see what my religious local friends are up to and who should be featured but the person from my last rant, none other than Lesley Marshall from the church of promise (see the earlier 'You're In Control' blog).

So what proverbial and intellectual gems does Lesley have to offer this time around? Well she's been to the cinema to see Tin Tin and she mentions the senses being bombarded by technology on a daily basis, and at this point I am indeed nodding and concurring. Then we move on to meaningful silence and having studied psychotherapy in the past I am aware how much meaningful silence can be important in some circumstances and situations be it counselling or within a relationship.

Then like the last entry Lesley made we move swiftly into God territory with wildly delusional claims of 'God is the Lord of eternity. He is the creator of time. His timing is perfect and he is never late or rushed.' I lean into my cup of coffee and breathe in, the pungent aroma filling my nostrils and I ponder 'Will Lesley wake up and smell the coffee one day?'

These certainly are fantastical claims Lesley makes and I muse if the so called god of eternity is so pre-occupied with time as to look earthwards and see women being gang raped in the Congo, people being slain by a dictator in Syria or children foraging for scraps of food in the ghetto's of Buenos Aires?

Lesley then goes on to ironically mention how much attention god makes to the smallest details by saying 'It's not just the big crises that god wants to be involved in, but he is concerned with all the small details too.' Well evidently not Lesley because just take a casual look at the news on a daily basis, it's not good is it?

She goes on to add 'Already I can hear some of you hyperventilating in thinking how far behind you'd get in your day if you just sat down in silence and did nothing but chat with god.'

Well firstly I'd tell god what an awful mess things are down here and to come and live as a mortal for a day, feel pain and suffering, feel sadness and despair and get a dose of reality. Unfortunately I can't do this because the phone is swinging aimlessly off the hook because god isn't there, he doesn't exist.

I pity people like Lesley, in their comfy little alternate reality bubble, their twee little world of godly goodness, their world of 'it's gods will' when you point out the calamities of today.

She goes on to suggest that we should try and talk to god and see a quality of life beyond our wildest imagination. Grand and deluded claims indeed, you only have to read the bible to see what a celestial dictator/gangster character god really was. I have to hand it to Lesley she is the queen of wild boasts and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to making sweeping assumptions.

There's a great little book called 'Being Good' by Simon Blackburn which is basically about ethics and in it he quotes;

'All in all, then, the bible can be read as giving us carte blanche for harsh attitudes to children, the mentally handicapped, animals, the environment, the divorced, unbelievers, people with various sexual habits and elderly women. It encourages harsh attitudes to ourselves as fallen creatures endlessly polluted by sin, and hatred of ourselves inevitably brings hatred of others.'

That kind of puts it better than I could really and sums things up perfectly, I could add to the statement with passages from the bible but why bore you with that rubbish. As the philosopher Nietzsche puts it;

'Christianity is the hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage and intellectual libertinage'

These are tough times the world is in, we need level heads and pragmatism to see us through, not some flights of celestial fantasy from such as Lesley Marshall and other christians. The reality is we have to sort our own problems out using common sense and often personal courage and determination. Mankind needs to put faith in itself and not sit around pathetically thinking some higher conscience is running it all. We're the real architects of this planet, we built everything from bridges to hospitals of our own volition and because of our own needs and ultimately we are the architects of our own destiny be it good or bad. If we sat around praying for new hospitals or bridges would they appear?

Religion in my view is very much like a cigarette, if you've never had one then you don't need it. Should you try one and get past the uncertain coughing stage you become addicted, you come to rely on it at all costs and when problems surface you reach for the packet in order to cope just like christians reach for a god as their coping mechanism. Christianity to some is just like a drug, the opium of the masses as Marx once said, thankfully more people these days aren't as reliant on religion.

Personally if religion didn't exist or wasn't created and human kind had no knowledge of it then the world wouldn't need it. Just like if tobacco hadn't been found we wouldn't be smoking. I don't have religion but then I don't need it because I still have the capacity to love my fellow human beings, to smile, to extend my arms and hug someone and to marvel at how beautiful the world can be. I don't need the invisible and pointless crutches that is religion.

Hopefully in the upcoming weeks I'll be launching my humanist blog and hopefully I can use it as a common sense platform and maybe even start up a local humanist discussion group. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.

Skyrim

So 11.11.11 saw this little hobbit make a dash with reckless abandon to Nottingham this morning to buy the legendary new game from Bethesda that is Elder Scrolls - Skyrim. I've loved their past games starting with Daggerfall in the early 90s, then onto Morrowind, then prior to today's release I enjoyed Oblivion.

The reason I went to Nottingham to bag it was that my local Gamestation store couldn't confirm if they were stocking it on the Pc format. On a very crowded train I sped towards Nottingham early this morning, I pondered if there'd be release problems, as when I bought Oblivion on the Xbox 360 some years back there were some initial teething problems with it.

I was fortunate today, Game in Nottingham were open at 8:45am when I arrived there and after a swift purchase and some fending the assistants efforts off at trying to make me buy a strategy guide for it I headed home. He was persistent for sure, but I explained should I need help and advice there's the whole of the internet to look on for free, his retort was the guide 'looked good'.

Grabbing a quick coffee at the train station I was catching the train back earlier than expected with a smile but also fearing the game I've lusted after so long for would have some kind of problem.

It didn't. Loading took about 6 minutes under the 'Steam' platform and about a minute for a small update then after the program detected my settings and set them automatically to a favourable 'high' the game began and my jaw hit the deck.

For a short while I thought the intro sequence was just for show, characters sat trussed up on a cart, obviously criminals of some sort being led to an execution but then I moved the mouse pointer and realised I could look around, it wasn't an intro, I was actually part of it!

After a cracking opening and a character designing sequence I was on the run from a marauding dragon and escaping through dungeons before emerging onto a mountain path surrounded by trees, it looked so real I almost felt I could reach out and touch them. Within no time my character guided by the one she had escaped with was introduced to the first small town of Riverwood and then the adventures really begin.

All I can say is thank you Bethesda for delivering such an awesome game, I am genuinely lost for words how amazing it is and the fantastic attention to detail. In some ways Bethesda has kept neat little touches from past games yet vastly improved other areas and the graphics and gritty realism is to die for! On first impressions I am literally blown away and believe me, I've seen some games over the years.

Below is the first screen shot I took on escaping the first opening scenes and salvaging some equipment.

And here is the game trailer.

You're In Control

Most Fridays I pop into my local and grab a coffee, it's cheap, decent coffee and I either chat to another customer (most of us know each other) or read the local paper. My local paper the Newark Advertiser has more than its fair share of articles about faith, along the lines of 'new vicar installed at church' etc. Every week it has a regular small column called 'Credo' in which a local narrow minded vicar or pastor does their bit to promote the alleged big guy upstairs. The articles range different subjects, some are light on the religion aspect of things whilst others are plain stupid, the latest Credo being no exception. This weeks literary gem is called 'Let God be in control', yep it's scary just from the headline. The article writer this week, a very deluded Lesley Marshall opens with the subject of school holidays and wholesome family stuff, all good so far until we delve several paragraphs in and she hits us with the god smackdown. She writes (I assume the writer is female);

'We need to be ready for gods touch, wherever we are and whatever we are doing. God wants us to have good quality holiday times.' Hhhmm didn't god just want us to have the sabbath off and how does she specifically know the above fact, has he told her this?

She goes on to say 'He loves us to have relaxation and be unburdened. But he especially loves us to be in a relationship and communication with him everyday so that he can guide us and help us in our busy stressful lifestyles.' Now the article is leaning into an Orwellian slant, you can relax my loyal subjects but don't forget, I'm watching and judging and need constant worship and contact.

The article gets unnerving still, totally moving from the school holidays and family bit to saying 'What's the catch, you may be asking? You need to commit your life to god, talking to him in prayer and listening for his answers, reading his word, the bible, and accepting that god is in control and not you.' I beg to differ, last time I looked I wasn't attached to strings.

Now that's pretty deluded if you ask me, and grossly stupid, I myself am in control of my daily life, not any god, I make the decisions, I have my own moral code and ethics, I influence the days events by my actions and it is also influenced by those around me, god doesn't have a look in. I don't have to tell a god how good he is and I don't have to cower in praise and wish for a life after this in what would be if it existed a kind of celestial North Korea. Yep, to quote Christopher Hitchens here, imagine that every day of your life from the first day you were born until the day you die is scrutinised and judged by some omnipotent being above. Then when you die and if you've passed all the stupid tests he's set (forget being a fallible human!) and ascend to heaven you actually pass into a celestial dictatorship where the big brother scrutiny continues - would you really want that? I imagine if heaven existed it suspect it would be some kind of dour holiday camp with rows of identical wooden huts where you have to live with family, some of which you never liked in the first place for eternity and then daily like a sycophant turn up to a church to tell god how amazing he is, erm... no thanks.

It's really simple folks, you can be a perfectly decent human being without religion, being intelligent creatures we all know between right and wrong and yes we all make mistakes, it's called being human. Catholics of course use confession as a get out of hell free card but seemingly with the amount of child abuse constantly being revealed about the catholic church confession isn't really working very well from either side of the wooden partition.

So back to the 'let god be in control' bit, lets take Lesley's words as the possible truth for a second and ponder the fact that god is in actual total control? All I can say is if that is the case then what an awful mess he is making of it all. Starvation, disasters, cruelty, fear and a list of endless bad stuff, oh yes, as a religious person would respond 'it's gods will'. They'll always play that card over a rational sensible explanation as its a christian universal side step without thinking too much.

It's people like Lesley that actually make the world a blinkered place, the classic christian approach in which they believe praying is the be all and end all about everything, it's a laissez-faire look at life, in the fact I'm a christian, I pray therefore I don't have to worry, and if I slip up I just have to say sorry to some invisible deity and its all good again. All I have to do is subscribe to the bible, a book written and constantly edited by ignorant old men long ago that contains very little historical fact. A book written by individuals that sought control and thought the earth was in fact flat as they lived within their small sphere of influence on the earth.

If I told you that your partner was having an affair or that green paint made you invisible readers, then you'd want proof wouldn't you? Yet christians take the bible as proof without any tangible evidence because its far more easier to be ignorant, christian ignorance after all - is bliss.

Christianity today is a folly on a massive scale where people cling to relics and fables of the past and use it to control and deceive the weak minded or vulnerable, it's a comfort cushion in which we delude ourselves some heavenly big brother or uncle is looking out for us when in fact we are alone in a universe that doesn't give a damn what we do, it's not worried about us so why should we worry about it? As for death, well its simple in my mind, I can't change the fact I'm going to die, I have no control over it so why should I again worry about it? I imagine death to be like a hospital anaesthetic, a void, a blackness where you feel nothing and think nothing but are in no discomfort either. When I had my hip replacement and woke to reality and pain I wished I was back there to avoid the agony I was in so in that respect I didn't find it scary at all. When you talk to most old people these days many seem to crave that eternal not knowing and pain free bliss, they feel they've lived their life best they can and now its time for an eternal slumber of sorts. Yep it may be disconcerting to you reading this, that I think that's what happens but having the option of that or debasing myself in front of a god whose alleged book is filled with cruelty, war and hatred everyday then I know which option I'd prefer. (Yep the bad bits of the bible, of which there are countless many get excluded by christians, we just get the so called nice stuff)

So to close, you're in control of your own life and destiny, things may happen beyond your control to change that but the universe has been nothing if random throughout known time. So forget all the christian control stuff, be true to yourself and others, live life as you see fit, be good to one another and realise you don't need the fetters of religion to live a good, moral and decent life - you, not a god (or any of the over 10,000 listed gods) are in control so enjoy life !

'Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.' Anon.

Song Of The Month

Here's my song of the month, a very topical one at that. The song is 'Jesus was a zombie' by the amazing Zombie Girl !

Halloween Hobbit

It's only fair I should give you all a bit of a scare on Halloween !

Halloween Beers

Here are a selection of Halloween beers I've sampled over the weekend from the Wychwood brewery, I'd have to say Hobgoblin is my personal favourite though.

Jerry Sadowitz: A Tank Of Pirhana's !

On Friday I went to see comedian, magician and psychopath that is Jerry Sadowitz, I've seen him a few times so knew what to expect, it's fair to say I was looking forward to it immensely as I find the vitriolic Mr Sadowitz a bizarre form of catharsis. The venue was the Lincoln performing arts centre or the 'LPAC' as it's popularly known. So on arriving, my friends Luke, Ryan and myself were swiftly seated in the small venue and awaited the verbal onslaught of the very mad, bad and dangerous to know Sadowitz.

I'd say there were probably 50-60 or so people there, to be honest I was expecting more but then Lincoln is hardly a massive metropolis. Sadowitz soon entered the fray and was ranting at break neck speed, his rapacious way with words is quite staggering on the auditory senses. As he rapidly shifts through topics nothing is safe, he revels in disasters, he rants at other comedians in the spotlight, women, racism, Jews, paedophiles and immigrants are all fair game - and then he produces a fish tank full of piranha's! Not a real fish tank but as he points out fairly, how often do you see someone produce such a thing?

The audience apart from a few comedy aware stalwarts and my friends seem strangely muted, one couple ups and leaves 20 mins into the act, if they'd heard of him, done their homework or even read his tour poster then they should have been aware of the content that would be aggressively spat their way. Sadowitz is definitely for the broadminded, the very broadminded. He feeds on the fact he offends people, so anyone leaving is just adding to his fire of hatred burning within but as I've said in past blogs, people often miss some of his more clever observations.

There was some old material mixed with some new stuff, and the odd magic trick thrown in for good measure and when he can actually stop ranting. I did feel though that the venue wasn't suited to Jerry on the night, when I've seen him in Nottingham the atmosphere has been a lot better and now I've seen him several times I can see how audiences perhaps dictate things to some degree. I suspect a fair few didn't 'get' him in Lincoln and he picked up on it.

The first half closed and I could almost sense Sadowitz wanted to be somewhere else. We managed a swift beer before going back in for the second half. The latter stint contained more classic Sadowitz, we had some character stuff (which Luke liked as that's his thing), rants about the Chinese and a ten minute rant on tv and radio personality Jimmy Savile who bizarrely and more than a bit ironically died the next day! I wonder what Sadowitz thought to that and indeed what he said in his next show as Savile has long been a target of his hatred and jokes. Not long into the second act another couple left which we all thought was odd as by then they really should have known what was coming. Jerry ended the show fairly abruptly, I felt he'd hurried the second half somewhat as I've seen him much more relaxed at other venues in closing things. Quite amusingly on leaving I held the door open for a Chinese fella that had obviously sat through the anti Chinese rant and seemed unaffected by it.

We headed back into Lincoln for a beer and discussed what we'd witnessed, I'd certainly enjoyed Sadowitz as I always do, my friends made interesting observations on the performance as well. I certainly didn't think it was him at his best but he was by no means at his worst either but it wasn't vintage Sadowitz. He was probably more close to the bone and topical than I've ever actually seen him and this shows how observational he actually is and embraces current subjects albeit in his own twisted and evil way.

I'm tempted to go see him at Nottingham next month just to see what he says about Jimmy Savile but every time Jerry does come around I want to go and see him regardless as nobody makes me laugh like he does and I seriously think the man is a genius.

Beer & Me

From as far back as I can really remember, beer has always been a constant in my life, not the fact I've always drank it, just the fact it's always been in there in some form or another either in good ways or bad ways. My earliest memories are going down to the pub with my grandparents on my mothers side, they held forth in a pub down the road called the 'Brown Cow' in the town where I used to live. They used to babysit me at weekends so my parents could have some time on their own, my grandparents would take me along to the pub with them. It was never late night stuff and neither at that point in their lives did they consume large quantities of alcohol but they were hard working people that liked to socialise, smoke and have a beer. This would be back in the mid 1970s and I'd be about 7 years old for a rough guess.

It was at that tender age, sat in the passage way of the pub (as kids weren't allowed in the pub proper) that I caught my first glimpses of pub life and thus began unwittingly my education in the arts of being sociable and the myriad of skills that came with it. Peeking into the pub from the passageway I got to study adults imbibing beer and the resulting behaviour, I witnessed jest and heated debates, I soaked up many things. When the pub was quiet I was even let into the back room and had my own tiny glass that would have a drop of beer in it, I felt like an adult, and more importantly among the throng of people I felt accepted into group dynamics, that's what makes socialising an important thing I guess.

Years dropped off the calendar, my grandparents decamped to another nearby pub for some reason or another and of course they took me along. In summer my parents would take me to a pub called the Ravensdale and we'd sit outside as a family, usually with friends and I'd drink fizzy cola and eat too many packets of crisp than was probably wise. My parents never let me touch any beer really, that was mine and my grandparents little secret.

Early teenage years passed and I recall being indifferent about beer, there were more exciting things to do and it was the dawn of computers in the early 80s, this was the era I transcended into Geekdom! My dad did home brew from time to time and on occasion I'd be allowed a small glass and of course at weekends I'd be at my grandparents, though not as much and by this stage they often had a drink at home, of course I was in on the act.

Around this time I fell ill, I nearly lost my sight aged 12 and it was a very traumatic time for my parents. They were working class, dad worked shifts and my mum often travelled with me to hospitals whilst I had numerous operations to save my sight. I recall one time they were due to operate and needed her to sign forms but couldn't find her. A nurse told me she was in the hospital accommodation block, they could see her lay on the bed through the keyhole but even after hard knocking at the door couldn't rouse her. I had to sign the forms myself as I recall and then the operation took place, I had eye patches on and spent several days in darkness wondering if I'd be able to see the world again. Unbeknown to me, my mum had begun her descent into alcoholism and when the nurses had tried to wake her she'd actually been unconscious from drink, I never realised back then but I see it clearly now.

I recall going on weekend trips with my mum and gran and often my mum would remain in the hotel room in the evenings whilst me and gran would go and do something, again my mother would have passed out when we returned, usually to some strong bottle of spirits she had stashed away and consumed. At a young age I never really had any conception of being that drunk or what alcoholism was.

As the later teen years crept in and I left school, I'd try beer with friends, usually on parks or other secluded adult free places, I never really took to it, sure I felt a rebel doing it but I never drank that much that I got drunk, I just wasn't crazy about the taste, it was the same with cigarettes too. On reaching 17 I probably had the odd can of beer in the house with my dad, though he never drank much at all, mainly after work or at weekends, though on occasion he did make a very heady home brew that made you feel drunk after a pint, I remember the beer kit being called 'Blockbuster' and it was a totally leveller, a barley wine kind of beer but souped up, you knew you'd had it, and a headache would follow the next day. I still called in to see my grandparents at their local, I'd have the odd beer and we'd catch up on gossip, I loved to go and see them in the pub.

On reaching 18, my brother (not real brother but a boy my parents had informally adopted when I was 6 and he was 7) took me on my first night out on the town. He was a year older than me and I marvelled at his stories of night life and girls. I recall when we did weekends away with the charity my mother was involved with we'd share a room in the hotel with some older lads that would go out into places like Blackpool and return drunk wearing silly straw 'kiss me quick' hats singing songs by the Human League. On seeing what fun they had when we were say 15/16 we decided we'd have some of that when we reached 18. That time came and my brother took me out on my first night out. My first pint was 'Mansfield Mild' and was 68p, my brother deemed this was the safest introductory session beer for me to have. It didn't really matter, I got so drunk he carried me home and I was sick down his back, an old man gave us a handkerchief as I remember and my mother was fuming at him. I was beguiled by pretty girls, fashions, the music and the bright lights, it was infectious but the next day hangover ensured I didn't rush back to going out in a hurry. Of course I did go back out again and began to really enjoy it, I was a social creature after all. It was in these early years I learned the real art of socialising and of course chatting the opposite sex up with varying results ranging from disaster to the odd success. They were halcyon years filled with beer and laughter and lots of fun but also on occasion tinged with sadness as beer could make me emotional too, I was very naive then and still trying to come to terms with my place in the big wide world and work out who I really was or what I wanted. These were the 80s, the town where I lived seemed almost magical at weekends, they were good times indeed.

Holidays abroad came and went, so did girlfriends and many adventures were had. On the home front my mothers drinking had manifested itself more and my parents argued quite a lot, in some ways for them it was the beginning of the end as my mothers problem began to spiral out of control. It had a knock on effect and things could often be uncomfortable at home but come the weekend, and despite my brother and I being in fairly low paid jobs we'd escape to the bright lights in town every weekend to forget things I guess.

It was one cold rainy night, not long after splitting with a girlfriend that I returned once again to the Ravensdale pub as an adult this time, alone and feeling sad at my loss, I went to escape problems at home and drown my sorrows but the lesson is drinking never really solves anything. In a bizarre turn of events instead of sitting there staring into a pint and feeling bad I was welcome by the locals, in no time I was shooting pool with them and had made new friends, from that day on I became a regular there and so began the Ravensdale years. I went into town less and went to my new found local more (I still did town though). I made lots of new friends, some of them were legends and are no longer with us and some thankfully still are. I can't describe what an amazing social time it was, year filled with laughter, outings to other pubs with the pool team, after hours lock ins and general moments of pure unplanned hilarious chaos. When things became so bad at home I always had the Ravensdale pub and friends there as a retreat, and would often stay at friends houses after. I also worked at the towns brewery too, great working years and fond memories there but I was perhaps drinking more than was good for me, both at work, and out of it!

By this time my drinking was considerably more, I wouldn't say out of control by any means but I could certainly down a few pints. I was a character and never short of a joke or story but sometimes when things were bad at home beer and emotions weren't a good combination, there's times I deeply regret due to making silly mistakes through drinking beer. My parents divorced due to my mums alcoholism and both moved on with new partners, though my mums condition steadily got worse regardless. My brother and I moved out, I spent some time out of work which is just as well because if I'd had money then it would have been spent on beer. Eventually I went back to live with my mum after a really unhappy couple of years but by then she was really beyond help despite efforts to seek it.

The Ravensdale closed for a refurbishment on 13th May 2002, it was a sad day to an epic era and when it opened later that year it just didn't feel the same anymore and many of the locals moved on.

Years passed by, I had a stint in Hong Kong, holidays to Thailand etc and my eyes opened (perhaps too late) to a big wide world out there. I still loved socialising and often went out but I guess when my mother finally succumbed to her alcohol addiction and died it changed my perspective on alcohol somewhat and I think in some respects I passed my bell curve on drinking. My health began to fail dramatically at this time and moved to the town where I live now, underwent surgery and began to recover slowly.

Fate smiled upon me, at the top of the road I discovered a new local, the Fox & Crown and made a whole set of great new friends (that's not to say I forget the old friends and still miss them). So began a new love affair with the Fox & Crown, it's dangerously close to my place and many great nights have been had in there, as well as other locals nearby. I had my 40th birthday bash in the Fox & Crown and it was a memorable night with friends and family.

So, here we are in the present. To be honest though I still love to socialise though I'm pretty rubbish when it comes to drinking these days. I invariably suffer with hangovers the next day, and not good ones either, and the recovery time takes just too long. In my 20's I was never a great drinker, I probably peaked around 30 in the capacity I could take and then it all went downhill apart from odd nights thereafter. Last year on my friends stag night was one I recall drinking lots and handling it pretty well (though I was still very drunk!). Nowadays I drink less than I ever did and feel better for it. Beer is expensive now, it's not an easily social commodity it once was, pubs are dying a death as people buy copious amounts of beer from supermarkets very cheaply. The truth is, if takeaway beer was more expensive and beer in pubs was cheaper it would be regulated better, because people wouldn't drink silly amounts at home or on street corners. My own local seemingly has gone into decline of late, there seems less people in there than ever. I could say this is endemic of the town but some pubs seem to be flourishing whilst other fall by the wayside. I'm not sure what the problem is at my local, it feels tired in there of late, despite recent efforts there's certainly some apathy in there on the management part and I suspect the senior management are blissfully unaware that the pub as a whole needs changes in order to move forward.

I guess these days with what I do I see first hand the detrimental effects of what alcohol can do and it's not pretty, although that would never influence the fact I love to socialise it is a great leveller in many ways. I'm never going to stop socialising or enjoying a drink but these days apart from the odd blow out I'm guessing moderation is the way forward for me personally. The good old days of pubs may be passing by and the new era of pubs seem uncertain, many breweries have closed and the new super breweries have no character, it's all geared to evident profits now, perhaps it always was but never so apparently as it is nowadays.

I'll always be partial to a good beer but in the here and now it will never be a constant as it perhaps once was.

Scotland Alone?

Alex Salmond the first Scottish minister and leader of the SNP keeps banging on about Scottish independence in the news. Whilst I admire his patriotism I can also see his evident stupidity. Both our countries have been intertwined for hundreds of years now both culturally and financially and whilst I respect the Scot's for being a traditional folk, probably more so than us English my feeling is they'd have a hard time on their own. Mr Salmond bangs the patriotic drum about power being at Westminster but as we all know Scotland makes many decisions alone and has its own parliament. Whilst he points to the fact we are cutting Scottish spending and creaming north sea oil revenue he negates such facts as massive benefit and health subsidies for Scotland that they receive.

If Scotland went solo it'd soon feel the pinch, you don't have to be a wizard to do the maths, less people thus less tax and a whole myriad of other problems they'd come up against not being in a union. Personally I'm indifferent, if Scotland went it alone I'm sure the government would have less to worry about and more money to hand. Most people see Scotland as some picture postcard country with idyllic vistas and quaint villages, well let me tell you I've seen some parts of Glasgow that I'd never want to see again for health and personal safety reasons. On visiting my ex girlfriends village a few years back I'd not want to ever go there again, kids riding around on roofs of cars and rampant alcoholism, Scotland like anywhere else is not without it's own problems.

I like the Scots, in my experience they are warm genuine and very proud people but they are part of this island too and I genuinely think our futures lay together for obvious mutual benefit.

Africa

I seriously can't think of any reasons why I would want to visit the continent of Africa although at a push if I was in Spain I'd do a day trip to Morocco to say I'd been, that's it, and then at a push if at all.

Where do I start with this one? Well every time I look at the news it ain't good about Africa. Tourists kidnapped regularly, Somali pirates, bogus emails from alleged Nigerian businessmen, famine, civil war, mass rape, drought, lawless, disease, religion, gun crime and the list could go on. Whilst I have to acknowledge its the cradle of mankind's evolution and has some genuine wonders and places of amazing beauty it's really not on my to do list.

Books have been written describing Africa as a future Mad Max-esque wasteland and it seriously wouldn't surprise me if it becomes that in the not too distant future.

In some areas of Africa it seems like every second person is a christian pastor of some kind. They revel in old witch craft traditions combined with christianity and persecute gay people or non conformists - it almost sounds like England in the middle ages.

The recent Libya conflict is now resolved but will it all end quietly, I mean they can't even decide on how to bury Gaddafi's body, so how are they going to agree on running a new state? There's still unrest in Egypt and Algeria according to news reports. My guess is the west will of course try to set up lucrative oil contracts with Libya with generous payments for those that facilitate it. China is already colonizing large tracts of Africa for industrial exploitation. They may be building infrastructure but this is at small cost considering the current massive untapped resources and local cheap labour. What will happen when it all runs out I wonder?

I have a friend from South Africa, an elderly woman that does my clothes alterations on occasion, she moved from the country a few years ago citing the growing crime rate as being a major incentive.

You have all these countries within Africa that have received billions in aid during famine yet guess what? Yep it's still happening because all they do is sit around and procreate all day but then again the catholic church tells them not to use condoms in some countries. As the worlds population reaches a landmark 7 Billion Africans keep making babies despite being in poverty.

I could type on and on about Africa but I'm sure you get the message, some may find it distasteful, offensive and wrong but you cannot deny my very valid points. I'd like to be optimistic about the place but I can't.

The Cult Of Celebrity

Every time you switch your Tv on these days there is a reality show on, its nothing new, we seemed to have embraced reality programmes with a passion over the last decade or so. I can't deny that I've watched reality shows and enjoyed them in the past but these days I think they are cliché to the extreme. The current crop of shows gracing our screens at the moment has contorted the word 'celebrity', it has changed the meaning to 'someone that may have been on a programme once in the past'. Of course real stars avoid celebrity programmes like the plague, why tarnish a good career? It's the desperado's that we are left with, the ones that will do anything for exposure that could lead to other things or bring a few quid in. Then of course we have to address the fact they are clearly deluded and their overblown self belief is evident.

What I find amusing on celebrity programmes these days, such as celeb big brother or celeb coach trip et al is when the celebs first meet they regularly don't even know who the other is! The reason generally being for that is that they really aren't well known at all. There seems to be a collision on such programmes of celebs that have crashed and burned such as Michael Barrymore meeting celebs (I use the word loosely here) who have been on some minor cable channel decorating rooms or something.

It seems all you have to do these days is appear on a reality tv programme, albeit even once and you have transcended normal everyday life and are now a celebrity. An article that recently amused me was two X-Factor contestants called '2 Shoes' (yes from Essex, where else!) announced after being booted out of the show on the first week that they wanted to do their own chat show. Here lies the problem with the whole cult of celebrity these days, in the fact after minimum exposure people assume they've hit the big time and deserve something without any effort at all. The tragedy is that the world of minor celebrity is a cut-throat one, they have to hustle for such shows to pay their way, however demeaning they might be or you swiftly fall from grace and into debt, I quote Jade Goody for instance who died leaving sizeable debts and other celebs such as the loathsome Kerry Katona that has reported of being in considerable debt before.

What we seem to have these days is the regular circuit celebs, looking at the current crop of celeb programmes it seems to be the ones that have been on Big Brother in the past or as I stated above are fallen stars or minor channel wannabe's.

I guess in the past I used to enjoy such shows to a degree, I never took them seriously they were just something I watched whimsically. I guess the likes of Big Brother started out as something experimental and new but rapidly declined into the same old crap year in, year out. The by-product being people that probably enjoy a 5 mins of fame before lapsing into the unknown abyss and then being unable to come to terms with it.

The bad news is though the media will keep churning it out and of course there is a market for it on tv and the tabloids which is probably the reason I don't read such newspapers any more or watch that much television, unless I want to vent my spleen at such drivel for therapy.

Jobs

I'm not really an Apple person but nobody can deny the passing of Steve Jobs of Apple is a loss to the technology industry, particularly as he was one if its great pioneers. I first came into contact with an Apple computer on leaving school when I got to use an Apple Lisa computer where I once worked and it was ahead of its time. I also used to read the gaming/computer press back then and look in envy at some of the Apple games. I'm not really into the latest Apple stuff but I see how visionary some of it is and of course Steve Jobs is responsible for some of that.

This video clip of him talking about life and death is particularly inspirational.