Faithing the Facts

I know one should never, ever begin a post like this unless one has a sudden desire to be Richard Littlejohn but, is it just me? Has anyone else been disturbed by the fact that the papers and columnists screaming most loudly for the head of the ever-otherworldly Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams following his call for the recognition of Sharia law in the UK are the same ones who normally call for hanging, flogging and shooting for littering offences?

Lies, Damned Lies and Letters to the LRB

Until last week I had never written a letter to a publication of any kind. What made me break my duck was an article in the London Review of Books by Andrew O'Hagan entitled Living It, ostensibly reviewing Crossfire by Andy McNab and Strike Back by Chris Ryan. In fact, much of the "review" was taken up by a monumentally ill-informed and badly-researched assault on videogaming, of the kind you'd expect to see gracing The Daily Mail or being aired on Fox.






To give you a flavour, here are a couple of excerpts (LRB subscribers can find the full article here)

Five hundred million games of Halo 2 were played online, and $170 million worth of Halo 3 was sold in the first 24 hours after its release. The ‘Covenant’? The ‘Great Journey’? The ‘faithful’? The ‘Flood’? The ‘Prophets’? This sort of thing is de rigueur, adding an evangelical thrill to the marriage of technology and annihilation that the console generation loves.

and

Boys will be boys, and men will be boys too, but it’s arguable that both the skill and the ideology of the modern Western soldier have been, shall we say, sharpened by years of frenetic and dedicated service in the box bedroom. Halo is basically the story of a super-soldier who is fighting a theocratic nightmare called the Covenant, with the person at the video console, if he is skilful enough, framed as the ‘first person shooter’.

These quotes show a level of ignorance of the matter at hand normally only tolerated in the English judiciary. I was so annoyed by the whole "videogames train killers" tone of the piece, especially coming from an organ which has provided me with such genuine entertainment and stimulation over the years, that I was moved to write the following letter ...

It is perhaps appropriate that an article dealing with tales of warfare and violence should be directed against soft targets but Andrew O’Hagan’s decision to use his review of the latest books by Andy McNab and Chris Ryan to launch an assault on video games and those who play them was – like the most recent war – opportunistic and ill-informed.

Mr O’Hagan begins his attack with a series of skirmishes with what the article seems to suggest are some of the most popular video games of recent months: Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed and Eternal Forces. The first two titles will be instantly recognisable to almost anyone who plays video games. The last, summarised (I presume accurately) as “a game set in new York in which the Antichrist attempts to achieve world hegemony” will not. A brief trawl of the most popular gaming websites finds scarcely a mention of Eternal Forces. Those who do mention the game hardly do so with favour, as can be seen from the following extract from www.worthplaying.com,

“Avoid this title like the plague. Not only are you sparing yourself the discomfort of ham-fisted preaching and shoddy game mechanics, you’ll also be doing your part to ensure that this obscene mess of eschatological flotsam and apocryphal jetsam never sees a sequel”

Furthermore a check on www.metacritic.com, which aggregates review scores from across the best-known gaming magazines and websites, reveals that the game has received and average mark of 38 out of 100. This hardly bears out Mr O’Hagan’s claim that this is a game which, “has proved popular with a generation trained – one way or another – in the mental rigours of holy war”. As to Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed, it would be hard for a fair-minded critic to deny that both have at least some artistic merit: Assassin’s Creed in particular provides genuinely fascinating evocations/recreations of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus at the time of the Crusades and in its dealings with the questions of Knights Templar and hidden artefacts is at least superior to The Da Vinci Code (though this is, admittedly, not an especially proud boast).

Mr O’Hagan then goes on to cite research at the University of Missouri-Columbia which he suggests shows a clear link between videogaming and a tendency towards aggressive behaviour and a “lowered P300 response”, P300 being, “a way of measuring the emotional impact of what players see”. He does not mention the penultimate paragraph of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology article in which that research was published, which states,

“One important limitation of the current findings deserves mention. Although our hypotheses (and indeed, our findings) suggest a potential mediational role for P300 amplitude in the link between video game violence exposure and aggressive behavior, specific tests for mediation did not support this idea. Thus, although these three variables are clearly significantly associated, the brain response to violent images did not account for the effect of violence exposure on aggression in this study. It will be important in future research to identify potential mediators of this effect.”

Nor is Mr O’Hagan apparently aware of the paper by Christopher J Ferguson Evidence for Publication Bias in video-game violence effects literature: a meta-analytic review, whose analysis reveals that,

“... publication bias does exist for experimental studies of aggressive behavior, as well as for non-experimental studies of aggressive behavior and aggressive thoughts. Research in other areas, including prosocial behavior and experimental studies of aggressive thoughts were less susceptible to publication bias. Moderator effects results also suggested that studies employing less standardized and reliable measures of aggression tended to produce larger effect sizes..”

Nor does he cite any of the many pieces of research suggesting positive effects for videogame users in terms of education, hand-eye co-ordination and even (in this age of multiplayer gaming) socialisation.

Mr O’Hagan then goes on to cite the now notorious case of 14-year-old Leicester boy, Stefan Pakeerah, who was murdered by his 17-year-old friend Warren Leblanc. Stefan’s MP Keith Vaz, much more so than his parents, has loudly and repeatedly linked Stefan’s tragic death to the game Manhunt. This despite the fact that, as confirmed by the Leicestershire Constabulary, the (18 certificate) game was found in Stefan’s home, not that of his killer and that, in the words of the police’s spokesman “Leicestershire Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was robbery”.

Finally, Mr O’Hagan seems to suggest that it is videogaming that produces the kind of brutish and unthinking uniformed killing machines portrayed in books such as McNab’s and Ryan’s, archetypes whom Mr O’Hagan seems further to suggest we can readily find on the field of battle in Afghanistan and Iraq. I am unaware as to whether Mr O’Hagan has in fact spoken to many soldiers or been out to Iraq or Afghanistan to witness the fighting there. I have not done either and am thus not in a position to comment on this last point. In relation to the suggestion that it is videogaming which has led to the alleged desensitised attitudes of the modern British or American soldier (and dare I say that I suspect Mr O’Hagan would also like a suggestion of enormities such as Abu Ghraib and Fallujah to suffuse his readers’ thoughts?), I can say with some confidence that it seems to have very little support on close examination of the current evidence.

Though it may have served to spice up an article on two books, neither of which is of any particular merit, nor – I suspect – of any particular interest to readers of the LRB beyond the type exhibited by Georgian visitors to Bedlam, Mr O’Hagan’s assault on videogaming was, I regret to say, as tendentious and unreliable as the “dodgy dossier” that helped propel British troops (and McNab and Ryan’s heroes) towards Iraq.

Lastly, I should point out that I am not, nor have I ever been, a representative of the videogame industry. I am, however, a 38-year-old who has played videogames since the advent of Pong in the 1970s. Anecdotal though my evidence may be I am happy to say that I do not find that I am filled with violent urges after playing a game like Halo 3 or Assassin’s Creed, in fact such urges are far more likely to occur when the person in front of me in the concert hall chooses to unwrap their sweets in the middle of the Prokofiev.

This is what the LRB chose to publish

Andrew O’Hagan begins his attack on video games with a series of skirmishes with what he suggests are some of the most popular games of recent months: Halo 3, Assassin’s Creed and Eternal Forces (LRB, 24 January). The first two titles will be instantly recognisable to almost anyone who plays video games. The last, which he describes as ‘a game set in New York in which the Antichrist attempts to achieve world hegemony’, will not. A check on metacritic.com, which aggregates review scores from across the best-known gaming magazines and websites, reveals that Eternal Forces has received an average mark of 38 out of 100. This hardly bears out O’Hagan’s claim that the game ‘has proved popular with a generation trained – one way or another – in the mental rigours of holy war’. As for Halo 3 and Assassin’s Creed, it would be hard for a fair-minded critic to deny that both have at least some artistic merit: Assassin’s Creed in particular provides fascinating evocations of Jerusalem, Acre and Damascus at the time of the Crusades and its treatment of the Knights Templar and hidden artefacts is superior to The Da Vinci Code’s at least – though that might not be saying much.

Of course, I fully appreciate that the LRB would not be able to post my letter in full but to edit it in such a way as to ignore the main thrust of my argument (that this was an ill-researched, anti-gaming scare story) seems like a breach of trust between reader and magazine. This may be rather Pooterish of me but I hope you'll see why I'm sorely tempted to cancel my subscription.

Couldn't Resist This One

You Are: 20% Dog, 80% Cat

You are are almost exactly like a cat. You're intelligent, independent, and set on getting your way. And there's no way you're going to fetch a paper for anyone!

Are You More Cat or Dog?

Sarah Jane, Ratty and Mole

New Year's Day is usually a good time to contemplate the health of the televisual ecosystem, if only because the previous night's overindulgence can be pretty much guaranteed to leave one (a) uninclined to do anything more than slump in front of the telly and (b) in a more than usually critical mood.

This particular New Year's Day had several lowlights, beginning at midnight with the presence of Nick Knowles and Natasha Kaplinsky's makeup (whether there was an actual Natasha Kaplinsky behind all those layers of chemicals and fats was anyone's guess) and carrying on through a cycle of business-as-usual repeats including Bargain Hunt and Diagnosis Murder. Luckily for my over-toxined brain, however, there were two real treats amid all the dross.

When looking for green shoots in television land, one of the first and best places to look is children's TV. Children's TV in the UK spends most of its time being unloved and underfunded. When things are bad in telly land, children's TV is among the first things that suffers: the Beeb's kids' sitcoms become more and more overlit and heavily-laughter tracked, it's dramas get wobblier and wobblier sets. ITV confines itself to one really good show (My Parents Are Aliens) and a lot of cartoons and tries to persuade Ofcom to let it give up children's programming altogether. The best things on kids TV are put out on Channel 5 at some ungodly hour in the morning and turn out to have been made by Oliver Postgate in the 60s and 70s. This has been the picture for the last few years.

Yesterday, two signs of hope appeared. One was a magnificently produced (and largely foreign- funded) Wind in the Willows - a genuine family treat, beautifully cast (there can be no water-rattier Ratty than Mark Gatiss or more badgerly Badger than Bob Hoskins, not to mention a fine turn from Lee Ingleby as Mole and Matt Lucas having a whale of a time as Toad), fabulously directed (I suspect the art director had had a very good look at Arthur Rackham's fabulous illustrations for the book as well as the better known, but rather more twee, EH Sphepherd versions) and elegantly written. The writing deserves particular mention. In a world of dumbing down, this was clever stuff, fully acknowledging Kenneth Grahame's now (rightly) archaic class attitudes while at the same time still allowing us to judge Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad as characters rather than mere archetypes of certain locations in the Edwardian social order. Much of the dialogue was untouched and, apart from a dodgy "if you catch my drift", the altered/new dialogue fitted in fabulously. The whole thing was genuinely funny, excellently paced and looked fantastic. You can't ask for much more.

Despite there not being much more to ask for, the BBC somehow managed to deliver it in the form of "The Sarah Jane Adventures". Now, Sarah Jane Smith is the first Dr Who assistant I can properly remember and, as such, will always have a special place in my heart but what Russell T Davies has done with her is a minor work of genius. Sarah Jane is lonely, conscious of the years passing, conscious that her relationship with one (alien) man has at the same time filled her life with wonder and cut her adrift from simple, human love, friendship and fulfilment. It's an awfully long time since children's drama has seen such a sophisticated character at its centre. The child characters who surround her - one smart, one sassy, one innocent-but-at-the-same-time superhuman - are nicely chosen (although I do quibble a bit with the fact that the sassy child is black ... the sassy child always seems to be black in any modern kids' drama/comedy, just for reasons of variety rather than political correctness it would be great to make the smart kid black and the "yeah, whatever, shattap, in your face" one white) and the decision to use the feature episode to give youth advertising and junk food culture a good kicking is more than fine with me. Again the script fizzed with good lines and was excellently paced, with just the right mix of scares and jokes and the prospect of some intriguing relationships between the characters. I can give no higher praise than to say watching such a genuinely good programme reminded me why I gave up a good job to be a writer and, with any luck, gave me the perfect New Year reminder to start putting fingers to keyboard and words to screen.

James Bond Has Returned

Gosh, it's been a while hasn't it? So, what's moved me to take up my blogging keyboard? None other than Bond, James Bond, 007, Licenced to Kill. To be even more precise, everyone's favourite spy's return in Casino Royale.

Adopting slightly out-of-date jargon as is the fashion in film PR, Eon Productions announced some months ago that they saw Casino Royale - the first of Ian Fleming's Bond novels and the only one they had not filmed - as a chance to "reboot" the Bond franchise. Despite the untimeliness of the phraseology, the idea was a good one and the goal has been triumphantly achieved.

In Casino Royale, Bond has been dragged away from the gadget-drenched clothes-horse he always seems to resemble by the end of each Bond actor's lease on the part and taken back to the brutish - but undoubtedly magnetic - killer that Fleming originally created. Gone are the invisible Astons and remote-controlled BMWs, back is the silenced Walther PPK and the easy ruthlessness. As someone who abhors violence, I should - of course - object to this, but the secret of Bond has always been the way his veneer of sophistication, the bow tie and beluga, somehow grants one permission to enjoy the thuggery underneath.

The combination of toughness and suaveness that Bond defines and that defines Bond has, until now, only been truly epitomised by Sean Connery: Moore was too much dandy and too little deadly, Dalton saturnine enough but lacking in savoir-faire, Lazenby too Australian. Pierce Brosnan came extraordinarily close but his Bond was just that bit too ready with a quip and just that bit too slight of frame: a calculating killer-from-a-distance, rather than Fleming's "blunt instrument"; Brosnan's Bond was a Bond for the nineties - smooth and sleek. In Daniel Craig, however, Connery at last has a rival. For the first time in 30-odd years Bond is a government-appointed killer, a man who hits people hard and doesn't expect them to get up afterwards.

In this, the new Bond benefits from a better conversational style. Some critics have suggested an absence of humour but that simply shows how jaded modern critics have become. What there is is an absence of is bad puns (eg "I've always wanted Christmas in Turkey" to the ludicrously named Christmas Jones) and their replacement with some good ones (eg after losing badly to Vesper Lynd during a bout of verbal fencing, Vesper: "How was your lamb?", Bond (ruefully): "Skewered. It has my sympathies"). There is even a scene where Bond teases Vesper that she has been assigned the alias "Stephanie Broadchest" - a wonderful way to send up the Bond naming conventions, especially coming from the same writers who gave us "Xenia Onatop", who killed men by squeezing them between her thighs. There is a sense in which all those behind the new Bond are putting aside the most childish things in their toybox, rejecting teddy whilst still clinging on to Action Man.

If there is one thing that the new Bond for the noughties isn't, it is camp. He might, however, be gay. The Bond books have always had more than an element of repressed, public-school homoeroticism about them, and that certainly seems to have been in the minds of writers and director in the making of Casino Royale. For the first time since the instant before Ursula Andress emerged from the waters in Dr No, the body over which the camera lingers belongs to Bond rather than a female companion. And, it has to be said, it's a hell of a body. I'm sure I can't have been the only person in the cinema to turn round to see their partner's eyes widening as Craig emerges from the sea in his trunks and then vow that this time they really will do more exercise (though I'm not sure Ashtanga yoga will ever give me a bosom like the new model Bond's, to my regret and my other half's delight by far the largest on show in the whole movie). Throughout the movie, it is Bond's form that is fetishised - from the opening credits, as ludicrous as ever but shorn of their female silhouettes in favour of a stylised Bond, through to a naked Bond being strapped to a chair and beaten about the balls with a rope.

It is hugely to Daniel Craig's credit (and that of the writers) that he doesn't allow the musclebound looks to overshadow his character. It was with Brosnan's Bond (in particular in "The World Is Not Enough") that the writers first tried to give the character some depth, some room for doubt, here they go even further. Here there is an attempt, not overplayed, to give some explanation as to why Bond is such a bastard, as well as a hint at a better man underneath. The final minutes, in particular, do a far better job of showing a man capable of love and remorse being transformed into a heartless killer than the many, many, many hours of Star Wars I-III ever did for Darth Vader (perhaps because they were written by people who weren't stuck at an emotional age below 12).

From the chase scene after the credits, in which the man being chased demonstrates all the balletic skills of Le Parkour while Bond literally bulldozes through all in his path, Casino Royale knows exactly what it wants to do and does it. It's the best Bond in ages, better than Goldeneye, perhaps better than any Bond since Goldfinger. In fact, if David Arnold would learn to make proper use of the Dr No theme, I suspect it might well have been the best since "From Russia With Love". Go and see it.

A Wrong That Needs Righting

I've been having a rather cultural week: 2 trips to see concerts from the Steve Reich "Phases" season at the Barbican and, last night, a trip to the Institute of Education in Bedford Way to see Richard Dawkins and Lalla Ward reading from Professor Dawkins's book "The God Delusion". Given that this blog has largely consisted of rants, you will be unsurprised to learn that while the Steve Reich concerts floated me off to a place of near-hypnotised wonder, the reading left me spitting blood.

I should say that I agree with much, though by no means all, the good Professor says. This is hardly surprising given that his books The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype did as much as many of my teachers to get me through my Oxford entrance exams. I also enjoy the relatively-high-pitched, clear, precise-voiced way in which he says it. The years that have passed since a bright, young biologist popped up on TV in the late seventies have left him with the agreeably Professor Yaffle-ish air of a senior Oxford don.

What disturbed me - just as it did when I first read it for myself last week - was the passage of his reading on the teaching of creationism to children at Emanuel College, Gateshead - one of a chain of schools set up under the Government's morally corrupt(1) City Academy scheme - and the Government's reaction to it. Mr Blair sees the teaching of creationism as part of obtaining "as diverse a school system as we properly can" - though I don't see him backing the teaching of the Satanist, Scientological or Spaghetti Monstrist theory of creation, all of which have as sound a base as the Creationist version. The school's former head teacher, Nigel McQuoid believes "to think that we just evolved from a bang, that we used to be monkeys, that seems unbelievable" ... showing the kind of sophisticated comprehension of science that we can expect from a nation whose flagship scientific television programme, Horizon, this week features a minor TV personality talking to chimps(2). His Head of Science meanwhile, I repeat, his Head of Science, believes in the absolute authority of Biblical scripture over all the findings of Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Crick & Watson (and Rosalind Franklin), Galileo and every other scientist ever to have existed :

"... we reject the notion popularised ... by Francis Bacon ... that there are 'Two Books' (ie the Book of nature and the Scriptures) which may be mined independently for truth. Rather we stand firm upon the bare proposition that God has spoken authoritatively and inerrantly in the pages of holy Scripture ... we can be sure that it is as robust a foundation as possible to lay down and build upon"

For the third time, this is the Head of Science. One can only hope that he is so distracted by the business of ensuring that none of his clothing contains both wool and linen mixed(3), killing and offering up his daily bullock(4) and selling any daughters he may have into slavery(5) to teach his distorted version of science.

What concerns me is that Sir Peter Vardy, and others like him, now have a chain of schools across the country where they can churn out child after child, trained to pass exams but also trained not to question authority save where the views of authority conflict with a 2,000-and-more-year-old document whose veracity is on a par with The Lord of the Rings or a government intelligence dossier. In essence we, the taxpayers, are being forced by our government to pay people money to tell lies to children. It is a wrong on an extraordinary scale, as egregious as anything this government has ever done. It renders Mr Blair's claim to believe in "education, education, education" utterly hollow. What he believes in is passing exams, by whatever means necessary, and hang the rest.

Should you happen to be one of the one or two people who ever stumble across this blog, I urge you to do something about this. Write to MPs, write to schools, write to newspapers, make anyone you can aware of what is a true national scandal. If the Creationists and Intelligent Designers are right about their wedge theory - and I fear they are - the time to act is most definitely now.

(1) Rich men (I don't think any women have been involved so far) put up a couple of million pounds of their own money to start up a school at which point the Government pours in far, far greater sums to get the school built and keep it running. In return for their cash these plutocrats are given the power to oversee the appointment of staff members, the implementation of the curriculum and to influence the school's whole ethos. In addition, the fact that these schools are given more funds than their Local Education Authority rivals helps them suck away bright pupils from other local schools, with the concomitant deleterious effects.
(2) I have nothing against Danny Wallace - he's written some very entertaining books and is a bright and genuinely nice person - I just don't think he should be hosting what used to be a hard science programme.
(3) Deuteronomy 22.11
(4) Exodus 29.36
(5) Exodus 21.7-8

A Satire Site

Just thought I should pass this on. It covers "The obituaries you'd like to see" and, as co-author, I thoroughly approve of it ...

Their World Cup Runneth Over

With only such minor distractions as the death of yet more British soldiers in Afghanistan, more plans to lock up suspected terrorists for long periods without trial and the continuing tension between Israel and the Palestinians it is hardly surprising that the British news media should spend so much of their time analysing yet another relatively early exit from the Fifa Football World Cup by the England squad. Much of this analysis has come to the same conclusion that the BBC's quartet of pundits (Lineker, Hansen, Shearer and Wright) came to in the aftermath of the match, namely that England's woeful performances throughout the World Cup should be blamed on coach Sven Goran Eriksson, while the squad themselves should be hailed as heroes after their "Churchillian" performance(*) in defending against Portugal for over an hour after the dismissal of the ever calm and reserved Wayne Rooney.

In fact, a brief analysis of the last few weeks of punditry makes it plain that, far from failing in his duties, Eriksson has delivered to English fans exactly what they wanted. Reams of paper have been expended on the need for Eriksson's squad to show "pride", to show "heart", to show "passion", to show all of those things. in fact, that managers in the lower Coca Cola divisions exhort their teams to show just before being thrashed by Premiership opposition in the FA Cup. After years of this sort of coverage it seems the coach, being a reasonably bright man, worked out that what the English require from their footballers is not a bunch of virtuosi capable of mesmerising their opponents by their sheer mastery of the footballing arts, but rather a bunch of lads willing to run up and down the pitch until they fall to the ground exhausted. And in that he delivered absolutely perfectly.

(*) interesting choice of phrase that, especially given that the performances we remember Churchill for were given in the House of Commons, several hundred miles away from the actual field of conflict, and involved nothing more enrgetic than getting up off his arse and speaking for a bit.

25 Things Not To Do Before You're 37

Now, as the years begin to slip by there is at least one compensation: you do all sorts of incredibly stupid things which are magically transformed from "mistakes" into "experience" by the mere passage of time. Given that, here are 25 things that, in my experience, are to be avoided ...

1. Never ever swap from your usual party drink of beer to wine on the basis you'll "drink less that way and thus avoid getting embarrassingly drunk".
2. Never think you can hide from a Mormon - you may have turned the lights off and all be hiding among the old paint tins and broken bits of unrecognisable stuff in the cellar, but those guys are like the Terminator - they'll still find you. (In fact, send them tot he Tora Bora mountains and in no time Osama bin Laden will be (a) found and (b) be getting ready to move to Utah with his three new brides)
   
3. Never ever vote for a plausible guy with good teeth on the basis that however bad a PM he may turn out to be, at least he won't take the country to war at the first opportunity.
4. Never mistake a prospective partner's neuroses, insecurity and rampant attention-seeking for charm, wit or "being fun to be with".
5. Never think "these drugs [illegal or legal] aren't working ... I'll have some more and see if that works"
6. Never claim to be able to keep a secret - alcohol, lust, incompetence or the simple need to gossip will always win out in the end.
7. Never expect anyone else to be able to keep a secret - see (6) above.
8. Never leave the result of a tight election contest to a bunch of judges - especially ones chosen by former Presidents.
   
9. Never go for a very long walk in brand new shoes.
10. Ginger people must never hang their suntan-lotion-free arms out of a car window for the whole journey from Cairo to the Red Sea on the hottest day Egypt has seen in a decade.
11. Never go out with someone who won't tell their parents you're going out for more than, say, 18 months.
12. Never go on the fairground waltzer after more than 5 pints.
13. Never turn down the suggestion by three attractive female journalists you've just bumped into in the street that you accompany them to a nearby nightclub, especially when the alternative is realising what you've done halfway through that pint of water you're downing with a couple of Nurofen at home in front of Programmes For The Open University1.
14. Never underestimate the bloody-minded fury of an irate goose.
15. If you smoke, never have fewer than 10 cigarettes on you at any time; stuff pain, suffering, losing your job or - indeed - lung cancer, running out of cigarettes is the worst thing that can happen when you're a smoker.
16. Never become a smoker (see 15).
17. Never try to wedge the door of a tube train open with a bag containing a large selection of fireworks intended for a Bonfire Night party.
18. Never consider going out with somebody who mentions their church within 10 minutes of meeting you.
19. Never try the full ashtanga primary sequence while hungover.
20. Never lend someone a book unless (a) you don't plan to read it again or (b) you've got a spare copy.
21. Never place items which are both (a) fragile and (b) breakable in a precarious precision thinking, "I won't knock it over, I couldn't possibly be that clumsy".
22. Never give in to the overpowering desire for a late-night kebab with extra chilli-sauce if you are unprepared for the inevitable consequences next day.
23. Never shave before ensuring beyond all doubt that your partner hasn't borrowed it do her legs / underarms / oh-dear-lord-it-really-doesn't-bear-thinking-about.
24. Never go into a World Cup thinking, "Finally, this could really be Holland's year".
25. Never let the bastards get you down - unless they're much bigger bastards than you and they look like they might have violent tendencies, obviously.
    

1 Clearly this only applies in the pre-finding your life-partner phase of life.

Too Depressed To Commit Blogicide

Looking back I realise it's been a long time since I last blogged anything on here. As anyone who's read my previous entries will realise, most of my bloggage has been motivated by things that get me so annoyed I have to rant about them. Recently however, I realised that I'm no longer annoyed so much as deeply, deeply depressed by the assorted idiocies that seem to be crowding out the last remnants of "enlightenment" thought in the UK, if not across the globe. So here's a list of some of the items that have reduced me to this state:

1. John Reid's patronising media performances
2. Football fanaticism becoming mandatory for every adult and child in England
   
3. Newspapers that continue to link the MMR jab to autism despite a total lack of evidence and the return of measles, mumps et al to our schools
4. The spread of creationism
5. Melanie Phillips's unquestioning self-righteousness
   
6. Russell Brand
7. The dumbing-down of Horizon
8. Justin Lee Collins
9. Patricia Hewitt's patronising media performances
10. Home Secretaries lurching ever further to the right in their quest for the support of the Sun and Daily Mail
11. The spittle-flecked rantings of the Daily Mail
12. The faux cheeky-chappie rantings of The Sun
13. Piers Morgan's insufferable smugness
14. Ann Robinson's TV career
    
15. Bendy-buses
16. Ministers treating their ministries as their own personal fiefdoms and/or routes to greater power rather than offices of state deserving of respect
17. The British Prime Minister's friendship with Silvio Berlusconi
18. John Humphrys's happy ignorance of all matters scientific
19. The way the fetishisation of the car has transformed Anglo-Saxon society into a collective of solipsists
20. The promotion of faith schools
21. The lick-spittle reportage of the trite and/or idiotic blatherings of HRH The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles
22. Critics who claim "Footballer's Wives" is well-written drama
23. JK Rowling: Enid Blyton for the Noughties
24. Radio 4's "The Moral Maze"
25. Big Brother
26. Being unable to get more than 3 metres away from a Tesco store
27. CCTV on every street corner
28. The confusion between assertion and justification
29. Belief in homoeopathic medicine as anything more than psychotherapy+placebo
    
30. Smug, middle-class types lecturing "the lower orders" on makeover TV
    
31. Parents bringing toddlers to see certificate 12 films
32. The American tourist whose first words at Bayeux were a dismissive "Is this the WHOLE tapestry?"
33. The American tourist who, on a trip to the temple of Osiris at Abydos, asked "What dumb-assed pile of rocks are we gonna see today?"
34. Stephen Poliakoff's vapid televisual meditations
35. The government's failure to insist on the closure of Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray
    
36. The provisions of just about every Criminal Justice Act passed since 1990 you care to mention
37. Gordon Brown's pretence of socialism
38. The hegemony of the soap opera over modern cultural life
39. The "red" states of the USofA
40. Yorkshiremen - no, all that bluff "speak as I find" stuff isn't charming it's just rude. Also, if Yorkshire's so frickin' great, how come so many of you have moved to the South East?
    
41. Chuggers
    
42. Education as training to pass exams
43. Zoo, Nuts, Maxim et al being treated as anything other than soft porn
    
44. Archbishop Rowan Williams's general uselessness
    
45. Belief in the healing power of crystals
46. People who claim Jordan is clever
47. Tony Blair
48. Still not having a date for my Margaret Thatcher's dead party
49. People who think Deal or No Deal is anything other than a random numbers game
50. Spending half an hour blogging out a rant when I should be working