Straight From The Nicholarse

A psychic reading ...

2012-03-04T05:43:00.000Z

"Don't make any decisions before the 29th," intones the psychic man who is doing me a reading. He's read my palms and told me I'm going to live 'til the age of 90. He's told me I've been in three serious relationships. He's dished out all sorts of info and I'm totally into it!

For me this kind of thing exists in a world not unlike the one which art and literature comes from. It's not meant to be serious, like the world of science or religion. Debunking it is in my mind a bit like pointing out that a work of art 'is just' a load of paint on canvas. Attacking its reliability is like asking Van Gogh what his painting does that's useful.

The psychic holy man ends the reading by telling me to meditate more and trying to flog me a few CDs. I leave entranced. Ace.

NM

Being a ruddy bloke

2012-03-04T05:31:00.000Z

I've tried reading Loaded magazine. It's pretty poor. I'm just trying to lighten up a bit these days and be a bit less 'complex'. Loaded didn't really manage that for me though. As a result I've now tried with FHM but unfortunately I left it at the tube station. Bit annoying, it cost me the best part of a tenner. I just forgot about it. Reading it seemed like an effort.

I don't honestly think I've ever watched a full episode of The X Factor. It all seems like work to me. I was speaking to a mate of mine recently about this and his words were: "that's your job, you should know about it".

Meh - I dunno.

Like I said, I'm trying to be a bit less complex at the moment. Not sure FHM is quite the right route to take but I'll keep this blog updated on my progress.

I even tried to watch a bit of football recently. Didn't work out. It's a boring old game.

NM

It's chilly willy ...

2012-03-04T05:17:00.000Z

I'm trying to be more organised. Today I cooked chilli. It was quite good. I also sat and watched some of perhaps the most absurd reality TV show I've ever seen: "Make Bradford British". The idea is to take a load of different people from "multicultural" Bradford and pop them together, in a house, I think. A bit like Big Brother only with added Daily Mail. This is from memory so I may have the details a little shakey. I'd had a glass of wine or two with my chilli as well so ...

I think it's a shame that the show was so contrived in its format as the trailers made it look like a serious investigation into Bradford and the problems caused by a divided community. Instead it's got all the traits of being a "heartwarming" story of how people can live together if they just try hard enough or whatever.

This show comes on the heels of a documentary about the EDL and some Islamist bloke in Luton called "Pride and Prejudiced" which was broadcast, I think, earlier in the week. It's all a little tiresome.

I have a big issue with this word "multi-culturalism".

How do you define a nation?

The best answer to that question I've heard comes from a guy called Michael Savage, an American talkshow host banned from setting foot in this country because The New Labour Order didn't like his opinions...

Dr Savage defines a nation thus: Borders, Language, Culture.

That's as good an answer as you're likely to find. Now, muti-culturalism knocks out one of those pillars and means any country which preaches it chooses to define themselves by just language and borders alone. However, as you know, we live in a multi-language nation. So now our nation is defined only by its borders...

OK, so where's the problem with that?

Well, multi-culturalism in the above form has been tried before. It's the natural state of our planet. The borders of planet earth are defined by it's gravitational mass. It's multi-cultural and multi-lingual. It's history is characterised by warfare and oppression. Is that really what "multi-culturalists" want to have happen here in the UK?

A documentary that tackled that might be better than this Big Brother pap I had served to me along with my chilli I made.

Yeah, I made chilli.

I cooked.

NM

Chess and the game of life...

2012-03-03T16:12:00.000Z

There's an old saying that runs something like this: plan your life before someone else makes plans for you. I enjoy the fact that the game of chess illustrates this perfectly.

Me and a mate sat in a cafe today and played chess. We played three games over a few hours. It was awesome, or at least I enjoyed it. I think he was less keen as I kept beating him.

I don't have any tactics in the game particularly I just like to make sure my opponent gets drawn into my plan and is "forced" to move as I want them to. You do this by making obvious threats to important pieces and then anticipating what they will have to do to avoid the damage. And then having a plan as regards what they will be forced to do.

When I was in Amsterdam this same friend of mine claimed I play chess like I play the game of life. I wish I did. I've not quite got the rules of life sorted out yet, unlike those in chess which only took a few hours to learn.

NM

Can't beat a good haircut...

2012-03-03T06:07:00.000Z

I'm working on my small talk problem, with some success. I'm not sure if it counts if you're speaking to someone you're about to pay money to though. In this instance it was my hairdresser who I engaged in chatter with. He enjoyed travelling and seeing the world, particularly Australia. I engaged him in conversation for a while and felt happy that I'd done a good job.

The haircut though was a bit of a struggle. I'm not sure of myself when it comes to style and fashion choices. I was once laughed at by strangers because I was wearing a granny cardigan like it was a good idea. This is one of many times, including my brief and ill advised Goth period, when frankly I've proved I haven't got a clue about sartorial style. With this in mind it's always worrying to have a hairdresser say things like, "do you really want it this short?"

"Too bloody right I do mate, I was in here only a month ago and now I'm back again so soon?" went my internal monologue as I asked him more about the 'excitement' of his Australia trip.

People have since commented that I look like I've lost weight these days. I'd say that's a win for short hair.

NM

The Stewart Lee and liking stuff before it's popular

2012-02-29T11:01:00.000Z

I'm going to see Stewart Lee soon. It's always exciting to watch him live. I sort of feel like I watched him claw his way back up from the bottom. It's a bit annoying that his success is slightly killing the buzz. Now he's got his own BBC2 show it feels a bit like he's sold out or something.

It's like a band that you've been into for ages who suddenly make it big.

You sort of want to shout at people who like him:

"Doh, didn't you know about him already? I've known about him for years. In fact I invented him. That's how cool I am. Blo#dy hell mate. When I first saw him I fell off my dinosaur. Yeah! A dinosaur. That means I've known about him since at least the Triassic period. It also has huge implications for the theory of evolution because up until now it was thought dinosaurs and people didn't co-exist! Doesn't make sense does it? No. But I don't need it to 'coz I'm so painfully cool."

Then again, on the other hand, I hate it when people do that to me. It's annoying because the obvious question is: "well why didn't you show/tell me earlier?". A mate of mine once actually did do that by having a go at me because I'd not played any, Jimi Hendrix, to him after we'd lived together for years. I had to agree he was right to do so.

However, there is of course the possibility they DID play said music to you earlier and you didn't like it. In other words you're guilty of the crime of liking something because it's popular. I remember at university there was a lad who loved being into cool 'indie' music. Every now and then one of the bands he liked would go mainstream and he'd go through all these conflicting emotions. He challenged me about some band or other that had broken through and that I now liked which he'd apparently played to me years ago only to be told they were s#it.

I can't remember the band in question but they'd had years of artistic and critical success just now they'd become more commercial. In other words, they'd sold out.

Just to see what colour purple he'd go I replied with this:

"Well they were rubbish back then, but now they're really good - that's why they're on top of the pops these days - they've improved".

His head actually exploded with rage leaving only a bloody stump in its place.

NM

New Cult Of Nick podcast hits the internets

2012-02-26T23:36:00.001Z

I am not aware of this audio being available anywhere else on the net. It's quite early on and formed part of the show's Sony Award entry for the year 2007.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/685700-the-cult-of-nick-podcast-2012-week-9

There's a certain sense of satisfaction I'm getting from watching the number of downloads creep up, very gradually, each week for this podcast. There's quite a little archive slowly building up now.

Best case scenario we'll hit double figures by the end of the year...

In other news I've sent my usual Iain Dale blog entry over and hopefully it'll go down well. The "Defence Of The Daily Mail" article still continues to attract controversey weeks after I wrote it with a BBC producer/journalist arguing on his twitter:

Tim Johns ‏ @timoncheese

What do you think of this defence of the Daily Mail by @nickmargerrison? I think it's worse than the Mail itself. http://www.iaindale.com/posts/in-defence-of-the-daily-mail-and-steve-coogan

He may not have enjoyed my defence of the right wing newspaper but in the same spirit I enjoyed his incredibly right-on lampooning of 'The Sun on Sunday' and Rupert Murdoch's now struggling media empire, which you can see here: http://youtu.be/RzS6T9tF3bU

I think it's important to support free speech and media of all kinds. Newspapers, even if we don't agree with their points of view, are important. It's nice he added to the publicity surrounding The Sun On Sunday. I presume he is also a fan of free speech.

NM

Retelling The Tale Of Robin Hood...

2012-02-26T23:12:00.000Z

This is a cribbed article from the blog I do on The Iain Dale website which was originally published here.

I kind of feel it got ignored, perhaps because of the title I gave to the original piece which sort of implies it's all about football.

I suggest it's time to return to the story of Robin Hood but this time I suggest a more realistic portrayal of how he might’ve looked in his later years. In this new version our hero Robin could be an aging, fat, paranoid, control freak who rules over Sherwood with a rod of iron. Fabulously wealthy he lives off the money and power he initially stole from the rich. He is protected by the labour provided by aggressively suppressed local peasants, most of whom are required to view him as a kind of quasi-Godlike figure. The rich nobles who used to do business in and around Sherwood are long gone, as are all of the original “Merry Men”. Friar Tuck was killed during ‘the great purge’ when Robin ‘freed’ Sherwood of religion. A similar fate was meted out to, Little John, murdered for being an ‘enemy of the people’, and, of course there’s the infamous, Will Scarlet, exiled from the forest only to be found years later with an ice pick buried in his treacherous head. Drunk on power the bloated Robin is shown in the final episode dying in his bed after suffering a massive brain haemorrhage and lying unattended to for hours because his “Merry Men” were all too terrified to disturb him.

Perhaps we could include a scene where Robin Hood’s idealism is mugged by the reality of his own self interest. Having successfully robbed from the rich he could be seen arguing with one of his “Merry Men” about the next bit where they simply give away their ill gotten gains to the poor. It is after all always that bit which seems to cause the most problems in the real world to people who claim to be inspired by his example. Robin could become aggrieved with the process, “this isn’t fair,” he could complain, “we’ve earned this money by stealing it fair and square, why do these lazy peasants deserve it?”

The point would be that anyone who advocates such a strategy of direct intervention in society places an enormous amount of trust and power into the overly eager hands of the most untrustworthy characters around. Furthermore the politicians who are most keen to carry out this task of wealth redistribution are, like their hero Robin Hood, necessarily in favour of the crime of theft. That they are so keen to take from others what they have not earned themselves should make even a child suspicious of their motives. Elected by the ill informed and simplistic politics of envy it seems almost inevitable that their Governments always end in petty squabbles and financial failure. However, I place the blame for their success partly at the doorstep of the casual unthinking support given to myths such as Robin Hood, feared by the bad and loved by the left.

NM

What's wrong with global Government?

2012-02-24T00:30:00.000Z

"We are the 99%!" x3

I was excited by the #occupy movement at first. Then I actually listened to what they were saying and realised I didn't support them at all. They are calling for a "global" revolution. This would inevitably bring a "global" Government in its wake. There are a number of problems with this idea. Here they are in bullet form:

1, "Nation states are a firewall against tyranny" - Alex Jones on my old Kerrang Show. He's right of course, a dictator in Germany is a problem for Europe and it can be stopped by Britain and the USA. A dictator in Iran is a problem for the middle east but he can be restrained by other countries. A global government which elects a dictator cannot be stopped, ever.

2, If it were a democracy the MAJORITY of the world is not educated, deeply religious and used to a standard of living people in the UK can't really imagine because they're so poor.

3, The level of power gifted to those who ruled THE WORLD would be beyond anything ever entrusted to any person in the world. We know from our history that power corrupts, this brings us back to point one.

I've lost a number of followers with my opposition to the #occupy movement but it has struck me as suspicious that these characters pop up out of nowhere with their ready made ideas, slogans and agenda. It's all concerned with a "global" agenda and frankly I'm not keen. Not at all.

The individuals themselves I'm sure are lovely.

The ideas they carry I view with DEEP suspicion.

Here's a video someone sent me, related to this post, it's quite interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jhRwBzXgGM

NM

Right - so I've paid your six figure salary so you can lecture me?

2012-02-23T18:23:00.000Z

Ok ... it's rant time!

So, I go to the NHS dentists. The woman there is "obliged" to tell me to stop drinking and/or smoking because I might get cancer. For your information I hardly drink, maybe a few beers (literally two) a week at the most. One of the facts of life when you work weekends, no one to drink with. Also, I don't smoke. I used to.

However for some reason I have been told this information HAS TO BE submitted when you go to the dentists ... and they HAVE TO tell you to stop smoking/drinking "because of the cancer risk".

Well excuse me.

"How about this, you stop doing all the things in your life that you do wrong, yeah?"

"It's not my fault I've been told to tell -"

"Right, well pass that message back up the chain of command yeah? Sort your own sh#t out before you go telling me to stop doing what I, as an adult, choose to do!"

I wanted to say this, instead I went, "no, not going to do that" and smiled.

I know they've been told to pass on this advice. Doctors do the same on their six figure (paid for by the taxpayer, highest paid in the world) incomes. I know they don't really care if I stop smoking or drinking, that sort of makes it worse though doesn't it? It's judgemental advice ultimately coming from the brain fart of some dozy politician who thinks he or she is better than you at living your life.

NM

I just can't cope without my coffee

2012-02-22T16:06:00.000Z

Today I opted for a cup of tea. Cue me feeling exhausted for no good reason right at the start of the day. I've only just realised what the problem was as I popped into Costa Coffee and bagged myself a bucket full of the stuff. Whoosh! Suddenly I'm awake again.

I remember trying to come off caffine when doing the Atkins diet. It was impossible. I went all shaky and totally lost the plot. The only way through it would have been to sleep for days while the stuff drained from my body. Not entirely practical.

Addiction is a strange thing. My most intense experience with it was with cigarettes. That was a real tough habit to kick. I wouldn't dare have even one go on a fag nowadays.

How did I stop? www.allencarr.com

NM

An idea I've had floating about for some time...

2012-02-22T15:35:00.000Z

A good metaphor to describe the technology of mass communication is found in the following story.

Picture someone who has never seen their own face and knows very little about what they really look like. All they've got to go on is an imagination of themselves. They find a flat sheet of metal and decide to polish it until it becomes a mirror. Their early success in this slowly allows a gradually visible reflection to be revealed. The blurred picture, at first, can be imagined to be more favourable than the reality it depicts. The lacking detail is filled in by this person's already existing self image, in other words what should be as opposed to what is.

However, the longer and more scrupulously the metal is attended to, a more accurate picture becomes apparent over time. Eventually a reflection is seen which can be described as "warts and all". At this point the polisher might stop and look at this reflection with a certain amount of horror. Do they really want to see more or can they improve upon the reality of their own face instead, making the truth more as it should be? As they thought it was, back in the days of those blurred first images.

As a child there was always, for me, a disconnect between the world depicted in the media and that which I saw all around me. The TV and Radio were studiously politically correct and there was always a sense that crime never went unpunished. Most people spoke correctly and regional accents seemed like nothing more than a kind of novelty trick denoting someone who we could reliably describe as 'a bit of a character'.

I still remember the shock of hearing people on the radio who sounded authentic to me. It was during a phone in show* and I couldn't believe it at first. Initially I thought it was some sort of citizen band (or C.B.) radio channel that I'd picked up by accident on my AM receiver.

Nowadays it's less unusual for "real" people to be featured on both the television and radio. Reality TV and 'sensational' documentaries such as "Gypsie Wedding" make for good viewing figures in 2012. However it is still worth remembering the way in which all of this started. The confusion amongst the chattering classes as "nobodies" became stars. The "experiemental" nature of the original Big Brother TV show. All of this walks hand in hand with the internet which now is capable of making people famous without the sprinkle of stardust given by TV or Radio.

Every time I see a story in the papers about someone who is being shown on video acting in a manner which is contrary to how we think things should be I always think of my little metaphor. As camera phones become ubiquitous and the internet continues to grow I suspect our polishing of the mirror provided by modern technology has gotten to the stage where humanity is being revealed in it, "warts and all". I do hope the inevitable grooming process which follows is not too violent.

References: 'There's black people, then there's n*****s': Teenage girls forced to drop out of school after posting racist rant online

*Scottie McClue, Red Rose Radio. Legend.

New Cult Of Nick, New Iain Dale blog entry...

2012-02-21T09:38:00.000Z

The most recent "Cult Of Nick" podcast is here. It's a good entry point for anyone who is new to this. Basically I'm posting up old bits of audio from my archive, this episode features Uri Geller. In the back of my mind it's a kind of holding spot for possible future 'unique' content but for the moment it's mainly stuff from the Kerrang show.

There will be no LBC stuff there at any point. You can buy that from the LBC website for a small fee.

I've also finished another article for Iain Dale's blog. The last one I wrote, "In Defence Of The Daily Mail" quickly became the most discussed one on the site and also featured as one of the top rated entries for a while. The new one should appear soon and is, unlike the others, unique to the site. In other words, I've not re-written an entry from this blog. Link here: http://www.iaindale.com/contributors/nick-margerrison

Once bitten ... ah sod it, bite me again!

2012-02-21T09:20:00.000Z

There's a big advert for Star Wars Episode One in 3D just outside work. I view it with a mixture of sadness and dread. Firstly sadness because that first Star Wars film was so poo. Secondly, dread because I keep thinking I want to go and see it. Is Lucas using "The Force" to make me want to see it?

The same is true for the forthcoming Judge Dredd film. The last one sucked the teat of a poo monster. Now there's another one coming out, they reckon it'll be good and so I'm all geared up to see it. I'll get angry if it's rubbish. Properly upset. The last one still makes me twitch if I think about it too much.

Then of course there's the Hobbit film. Now, The Lord Of The Rings films, they were ace. That has been settled once and for all by a scientific investigation using computers*. I couldn't relax when I watched them first time round though because I kept expecting it to turn into a turd. Now there's this Hobbit film my old fears are back.

I think the best films are the ones that are ace without you expecting it.

Weirdly The Watchmen is turning into one of those films. I thought it'd be a pile of stink, I watched it thinking it probably was and then, over time, I realised it was good.

NM

*I lied about that.

A bad tempered bus driver? An irritating cyclist? Tell me it isn't so.

2012-02-21T09:10:00.000Z

If there's one thing I hate to see in my rear view mirror it's a cyclist. They terrify me. They all seem so angry. They're also so dangerous, what if they fell off? Doesn't bare thinking about.

I was in Camden this weekend with a mate wandering about looking at the shops they've got there. It really is my favourite place in London at the moment. It feels like a mini-Glastonbury or something.

While there we saw a furious cyclist shouting and screaming at a bus driver. He was right up against the window of his bus giving him some proper abuse. To make things worse this pushy push-biker was as a result blocking the path of another bus just behind which was trying to overtake. The cyclist knew no fear and continued to 'speak truth to power'.

It looked like it was going to kick off so me and my mate did the decent thing and ignored it, carried on walking, best not get involved... if there's one thing I also know it's the some bus drivers have terrible temper problems ...

So, it struck me as an interesting coincidence that when I got in to work I was greeted by this story: 'I'm not angry with him.. it was a moment of madness': Cyclist FORGIVES road rage bus driver who mowed him down

In short the chubby bus driver in question sobbed like a baby in court as he was convicted for dangerous driving and causing grievous bodily harm after slamming his bus into the cyclist and flinging him 10ft across the road. This after they'd had an argument at a roundabout further back. The whole incident was caught on CCTV, which you can watch on the linked to article. Without question the bus driver's temper got the better of him and he deserves the 17 months in jail which has been dished out to him.

However, the bit of the article that amused me was the quote from his wife, apparently unaware of how cyclists are percieved by most road users she is quoted as saying: 'I still cannot believe somebody could do something like this to a cyclist.' That and the fact that the cyclist's attempts to be reasonable do come over as a little smug. I'm sure it's unintentional, I'm probably just guilty of prejudice when I read:

‘It goes to show how one bit of rage can affect so many people’s lives. It has affected me and my family - but also now him and his family now he has gone to prison.

‘He was angry and he let the anger get the better of him. But I do not feel any anger towards him now - in fact I feel really sorry for his family.

‘But that couple of seconds where he lost it he has affected a lot of people for a long time.'

Weird little nostalgia trip ...

2012-02-19T06:02:00.000Z

Someone's uploaded the final ever live Kerrang Show onto YouTube. I sat and listened to it today as I was mucking about doing this and that. It was a strange experience. Obviously I cut my cloth to fit the station in question and there's a difference in style here but I thought I'd post a link for people who might be interested in what it was I got upto prior to my current incarnation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kmnRJaCE6A

The audio comes from the podcast which was really a show in itself. I always sort of prefered it, all the music was chopped and you got straight to the speech content.

NM

The unnatural world of the word unnatural

2012-02-18T06:58:00.000Z

I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.

- Bob Dylan

I remember reading in, New Scientist, a year or so ago that 'everytime you describe something as unnatural you are making a moral judgement'. It was a highlighted quote, I'm not sure of the precise wording, and it really struck me hard. I don't remember what the article in question was about but it will have related to some controversey in science like genetic engineering or cloning. There will have been a load of people moaning about it and saying it was "unnatural".

For somed time now I have suspected the word "unnatural" is in fact a meaningless term which is impossible to define:

The dictionary defines it like this:
un·nat·u·ral
Adjective:
Contrary to the ordinary course of nature; abnormal.
Not existing in nature; artificial.

The first definition isn't very useful. Who is to decide what is and is not "normal"? How do you come to such a subjective judgement? If you substitute "average" for "normal" you get into all sorts of difficulties. Firstly once you have a figure which is 'normal,' say it's related to height, that specification makes most of your sample group either more or less than "average". The end consequence of this is, as Robert Anton Wilson used to say, "the average is that which no person quite ever is". The most famous example being the fact an "average" family is usually described as having 2.4 children. I suspect a ".4 child," whatever that might entail, would seem to most people in some sense "abnormal" and, if they still use the word, "unnatural".

I think things are usually described as unnatural if humans, which are necessarily capable of moral judgements, are involved. For example, most people think of cities as being unnatural but few consider ant hills or wasps nests to be. Just as a dam built by people would be seen as an awful blight on the environment but if it was the work of beavers, no "eco warrior" would arrive to protest it.

The word natural is usually seen as being "good" which makes unnatural things seem "bad" by contrast. If something is made unnatural because it suffers from the 'blight' of human involvement this makes all human influence, and humans by extension, "bad". So, people who shout that something is unnatural are, in my opinion, the kind of person who will opine that people are naturally immoral.

Look to the second definition, "Not existing in nature; artificial". What does this mean? Where do the limits of "nature" end? Once you've answered that question you can look beyond those limits and you've got your "unnatural" world. Supposing we start on the moon. Is that an "unnatural" environment and by extension "artificial"? No. Where is this domain that lies outside "nature"? Nowhere on this planet is outside of "nature" is it? Nowhere in the universe is.

The only thing which can't exist in this universe and is therefore outside of nature would be an imaginary construct such as a square circle. I'd argue that is unnatural, because it cannot exist naturally in the known universe. It can only exist in the human imagination, which is where the word "unnatural" should remain.

NM

Much Ado About Nothing?

2012-02-18T05:34:00.000Z

I recently saw a poster for a small production of the Shakespeare play it called "Much Ado About Nothing?". The company had taken a controversial decision to add a question mark to the title of the play. It made The Great Bard seem as though he had that annoying vocal tick which some people have where their voice goes up at the end of each sentence like they’re asking a question. I had a couple of flatmates like that at university. It drove me round the bend, they were lovely people?

My brain couldn't help but dwell on this poster as I walked into town. It made me think of one of my favourite philosophers, Robert Anton Wilson, an advocate of the abolition of the word “is”. He believed writing and thinking should be done in what is called E-Prime, where “is” and other derivatives of the verb "to be" are erased from your vocabulary. The aim being to free people from dogmatic thinking and remind them that no one actually knows what the world “is” but only how it appears to be, to them. Most of Wilson's later work doesn't feature the word "is" at all and he occasionally claimed not to use it in speech either.

I’ve recently been thinking about this a lot and the Shakespeare poster got drawn into my internal monlogue. Although I accept the premise, that there is no use of the word “is” which isn’t suspect. Even the in that sentence the word is a bit dodgy so I’ll rephrase it: I accept his premise that, it appears to me the use of the word “is” feels suspect. It's a fact that we cannot ever say what “is”, we can only say what appears to be the case, to us.

However eradicating the word “is” I don’t think is the answer. It's too unwieldy and tricky to un-learn old habits like that. Furthermore it's not essentially the point. Instead, all sentences could be re-written with a “?” instead of a full stop? That way perhaps people will know we’re not sure but only expressing an opinion that we invite them to challenge?

I don’t think in the long run that this idea will work? Then again neither will everyone adopt e-prime will they? Although I also suspect I will not add question marks to the end of every sentence after writing this blog entry I think the point is made? You do not know how the world is? You only know how it appears to be, to you?

Nick Margerrison

Oh no! No mochas...

2012-02-16T12:12:00.000Z

I've cut out the mocha from my diet. A combination of hot chocolate and coffee, The Mocha, was elected 'King Of The Coffees' in the olden days and has retained its crown ever since. Unforunately I was having about a dozen or so of them each week. You know those massive ones you get in places like Costa? Not good if you are, like me, on a diet.

They'd started to lose their taste a little anyway. I think it's the way they make them in Costa. "Oh, you get better coffee there" people spout as if it's a fact. Really, it's better is it? So how come I prefer Starbucks? Answer me that, with your "oh, the coffee's not as good in Starbucks, go to Costa, it's better". I suspect Starbucks is a bit like McDonalds or the TV show Big Brother: a victim of its own success which people hate because they think they should.

The market leader is always hated and despised, for no clear reason. Apple managed to pull that one to its advantage for quite some time as people flocked to it largely because it was seen to be the plucky underdog. The truth of course is that it is a far bigger company that Microsoft. It's iPhone business ALONE was worth more than ALL of Microsoft in 2010. Ironically, now more people are aware of the size of Apple, and the fact it's a clear market leader, stories which are critical of the brand have started to appear.

I'm still drinking coffee though. Just not Mochas.

God needs you!

2012-02-15T15:29:00.000Z

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" Philip K Dick, 1978.

Although I am best described as an athiest that does not mean I don't think Gods exist at all. They are real in the minds of those who believe regardless of my own opinion on the matter. This means, Allah, Jesus, Yaweh, Satan and a whole cast of non-corporeal beings are still part of my reality in the same sense as other concepts such as communism or capitalism are. In other words Gods are ideas but unlike communism or capitalism they are ideas which claim to be conscious.

The Gods make various incredible claims a few examples of which include; the creation of the universe, the possesion of magick powers, the ability to grant wishes if you worship them and that they are the only God around. From my point of view all of these asserions sound like blatant lies, particularly when we look at both the lack of proof coupled with the huge ammount of evidence to the contrary. The world of physical science refutes the creation myths, magick powers and ability to grant wishes. The historical fact that Gods are not new and have existed in many forms throughout the ages refutes monothiesm.

However this declaration to be in some sense "alive" is fascinating and not so easy to reject. A life form which is full of lies is still a life form. Infact the ability to lie has always been seen as an indicator of a certain level of "consciousness" and it is for this reason that biologists continue to investigate it:

When in a tight spot, animals "lie" to their own kind to get what they want, a University of Rochester biologist has found. [...] within a single species, it is possible for some members to deceive others. [...]

By proving that the weaker are able to deceive the stronger to survive, [...]

Biologists have long recognized that deception is commonplace in communication between different species. But most believed bluffing among animals of a single species should be rare or impossible.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

Notice in this article that "deception is commonplace in communication between different species". Look back into the history of our interaction with Gods and it was always the case that people suspected they were being lied to by these non-human entities. Abraham arguing with God in The Bible is just one example of this ancient tradition. Indeed even the act of arguing is important because it reminds us the earliest humans recognised that, like any life form, a God can change its mind if you reason with it.

Before this article gets too esoteric it's worth pointing out that if Gods are 'alive' they only interact with my reality through the actions of their believers. The laws of physics might limit Gods in some ways but they do not prohibit those who take action in their name. In fact, that's the only physical evidence we have of the existence of these "life forms". Despite not having physical form, the Gods have actual power in the real world. They've, amongst other things, built churches, waged wars, elected monarchs, persecuted gays and set up charities.

There is a debate in society at the moment about whether or not religion is a public or private matter. Baroness Warsi, herself a believer, is warning that British society is under threat from what she calls the rising tide of “militant secularisation” reminiscent of “totalitarian regimes”. There's been the recent "controversey" over Bideford council's dropping of prayers from its formal agenda after a high court ruling and Richard Dawkins's MORI poll which reveals even UK Christians don't want religion to 'influence public life'.

Government is always better if it is "of the people, by the people". A God is not a person, even if it is "alive" in some sense. Personally speaking I think all our formal legal relationships with Gods, which grant them "real world" power, have to come to an end. Extracting ourselves from their control, in a legal sense, will take a while because the roots of it all go so deep. The tax breaks, prayers, public buildings and monarchs that we grant in their name are unlikely to vanish overnight. However once it's done the Gods will still exist, in some sense, and we will be closer to being a human democracy.

NM

My most popular blog entries of ALL TIME so far...

2012-02-14T14:56:00.000Z

By which I mean they've had the most readers.

#1 Lion-O is my hairspiration

Reason: I think because a political blog linked to my picture, at the bottom, of Alister Darling and a Muppet who he looks like. It means this one has a regular flow of people who look in on it.

#2 It was ever thus

Reason: Some sort of US lads mag linked to this a while ago, I think on twitter. Not a great entry really but it got a lot of readers, some of them were clearly coming to it on email so I'm guessing it got forwarded like that.

#3 Aleister Crowley and The Call of the Second Aethyr

Reason: A number of small occult blogs linked to this one. It's also around the time of The Kerrang Show and I think I mentioned it on air.

#4 Housekeeping Post

Bit of conflict never harms your hit rate. It's the closest to a proper blog fight that I've had on here I think. Listen to the intro to this page and you'll get the idea:

"I've had to remove the comments bit from the bottom of the front page. It all got a bit nasty there without me even noticing. I've upset"

#5 Been ill

Reason: Mystery to me. There are much better entries such as The Awakening that're far more interesting than me having "swine flu".

11th - Saturday night

2012-02-14T14:31:00.000Z

I do like Camden. I think of all the places in London that's my favourite. There's a nice vibe there, the people seem nice and the market is awesome. It sort of feels like a constant mini-festival.

As I was wandering round I couldn't get the thought of this Eurolottery winner out of my mind. Apparently he and his girlfriend (who have won £45 million) are being wished all the best by his 'estranged' mother. Imagine you had an 'estranged' mother and £45 million. I'm guessing that you'd be thinking, "ah, poor Mum, I guess now we're millionaires we should let bygones be bygones". What's interesting to me about that is it implies that rich people are by virtue of their wealth predisposed to be nicer...

It's an implicit assumption on my behalf that I'm not too happy with. It seems wrong because it's almost like saying that being richer makes you a better person and that conversely poverty makes you bad. That's not true, right?

Source: Daily Mail, EuroMillions: Estranged mother of £45m lottery winner.

Feb 10th ... I have a chapped nose

2012-02-14T14:18:00.000Z

My short break in Amsterdam left me with both chapped lips and a chapped nose. It was really cold out there and as me and my two mates walked back towards the train station on the last day I could feel my face going wrong under the piercing wind. It looked ok at first but now it's crumbled and I have dry skin peeling off my nose and lips. I've also got a cold. This means it looks like I haven't used a hanky properly.

The thing about a face problem like this is you forget about it and are then only occasionally reminded by people's reactions to you. There's been quite a few double takes.

I've still not gotten round to deleting Facebooks... better do it soon, just not had the time to do it properly yet.

NM

Alan Coogan makes fans cringe on Question Time...

2012-02-14T14:05:00.000Z

Self declared left wingers absolutely love censorship but practice it so religiously you'll rarely hear them admit this. However, they know there's something "bad" about censorship itself so the game becomes quite complex when they try to argue in favour of a controlled media. Particularly when they're on a format such as, Question Time, with a high profile celebrity who is on their side and it appears they have almost won the argument. It's at moments like that when they berrate and jeer a woman who has dared to express herself in a controversial newspaper such as, The Daily Mail, that you can see their devotion to the idea of a proper Ministry of Truth that would tell everyone what they can and can't say by full force of the law!

It's just a shame for me as a fan of, Steve Coogan, that in this instance he was one of the people full of rigteous and indignant fury as this woman, Ann Leslie, tried to justify having a different opinion to him and his mates. After all, he's a good looking film star who can make funny voices and pull amusing faces, she should have thought more about what he might think of the world when she dared to put her words on the page. It was in the jeering and booing that Mr Coogan and his lefty sympathizers, both on the panel and in the audience, made their censorial urges most apparent.

It’s a strange fact that you can guarantee the audience of Question Time will shout and jeer at the mere mention of The Daily Mail. They clapped furiously after Steve Coogan, in his attempts to defend Islamist Abu Qatada from deportation suggested “it may be that this man is just full of vitriol and hate filled views, in which case he could just go and write for, the Daily Mail”. Alister Campbell’s heckling of her opinion that he’d damaged the country received seven seconds of enthusiastic applause from the audience: “for God’s sake, 40 years on The Daily Mail and you talk about damage to the country?”. All this is unusual because we know that Question Time audiences are strictly cleansed and vetted demographically by the BBC beforehand in the name of “impartiality”.

Sometimes, as with Tony Ferrino, Coogan's solo material is so bad you just have to pretend it didn't happen at all. Thursday's question time will have to be one of those occasions for me. No funny lines, no laughs just a dour looking Mr Coogan who seemed totally out of place and out of sorts.

As usual he was calling for more controls on the press, almost oblivious to the fact that no one wants or needs such a thing. Listen, you and your mate Alister Campbell must surely know hacking a phone's voicemail is currently illegal. What do you want to do, make it a hate crime as well?

Stupid people.

Coogan's skill is making funny voices and pulling amusing faces. Ironically that is the only line I can think of to defend him with. He was, as he appeared to be, a harmless bloke who was out of his depth. The same cannot be said for Al (millions dead in Iraq) Campbell.

NM

Why don't aeroplanes flap their wings?

2012-02-10T20:07:00.000Z

That aeroplanes do not flap their wings always upsets me. I'd just feel safer if they did, it might make the experience seem less reliant upon magick. As if to add to the weirdness of the experience, a flight from Amsterdam to London Gatwick is precisely the right length of time needed to walk up and down the plane with a drinks and food trolley. It's almost as if they have added a little extra to the journey just to give them enough time to try and flog you things. They sold, amongst other things, perfume and toys. What sort of toy or perfume would make an appropriate mid-air gift?

What about a bottle of Hijack? That'd be fun to order. You could shout it really loud when you asked for it. You know, to sort of show them or something. It'd really teach everyone a lesson about commercialism and stuff.

"Eh, here's one for you then, ho ho, you'll like this, ah... what's that one called with the angels where they're all falling out of the sky from a great height. Do you know the one. It's called like, we're all going to die because people aren't meant to fly or something. Even the angels get hurt when they fly or something..."

Then as you try and describe the advert you can enjoy the excitement your display is adding to everyone else's journey. Time for a change of tack, these people aren't getting the brilliance of your comedy. "Lets bring out the big guns," it's time to shout "... ha, ha, toy ones of course!".

This is sure to make everyone really react to you. In the ensuing chaos I think it's time to make some demands. Firstly blame everyone else for what's happened. Secondly demand they all apologise. Thirdly, be ruthless when the film rights emerge to this. No agents fees are worth getting ---ked in the long run when it comes to your legacy! Tell them that straight from yer ol' pal Nick Margerrison... also er, -

Meh, my mind is waffling ten to the dozen. The plane lands and no one has bought a toy, or perfume. Just a couple of lads have hot cheese toasties that they've realised they may as well eat once they get off the plane.

NM

7th Of Feb The Cult Of Nick Podcast double feature!

2012-02-10T13:38:00.000Z

These entries are currently being published behind time but there should now be a double bill for listeners of The Cult Of Nick podcast. You now have access to a complete interview with one of the world's most exciting living occultists Peter J Carroll for you there. Good eh? It's all about sigils and stuff.

The complete list of them is here: http://audioboo.fm/NickMargerrison

Amsterdam is cold. Amsterdam's ice is slippery. Amsterdam is fun, as usual.

NM

Words become thoughts become deeds...

2012-02-10T13:24:00.000Z

In an earlier entry I tried to put forward an old (but still unsourced) quote:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

It's a nice harmless little philosophy, right? Just a wee helping hand for everybody. You'll keep on the right track and do the right thing if you don't think too much about the wrong track or imagine the wrong thing. All ideas need a starting point and ultimately for all of them that's always going to be inside someone's mind.

Visualise success and it will follow in your wake. It's a constant mantra from these self help gurus I spend too much time on. So, before a meeting, if you can create and imagine a positive outcome beforehand you'll adopt the personna of someone they want to do business with, or whatever. I'm dismissive in tone but this stuff sort of works.

The unfortunate flip side of this logic is that it provides a pretty seductive argument in favour of censorship! If words and thoughts can naturally become deeds surely it would be better if we tended to those as a preventitative form of crime management? Our police service is already taught, almost as a point of dogma, that prevention is better than anything else when it comes to crime.

If we could censor violence from Television and Cinema screens, for example, surely we'd cut it down in real life as well? People mimick films all the time. They serve as advertisements for a lifestyle of violence. All it takes is one or two percent of their audience to copy their fictional examples and we've got a big problem on our hands.

"Yeah, but, not everybody who watches violent films is violent, I've watched loads and I'm ok". Sorry buddy, your argument is the wrong way round, who was it you thought we were trying to protect here? Those who watch the films or those who are attacked as a consequence? Those who get caught up in a bad situation because they like violence, in films, or those who are merely in the wrong place at the wrong time are two distinct people. The former was always on the "wrong" path where the latter is "innocent".

Imagine a film that portrayed one race of people (Jews, Blacks, Whites, any will do) as fit for nothing other than out and out destruction. All it did was show you how ugly and wrong that race of people were. Everytime one of them was killed a big cheer went out from the crowd. Would you be ok with that playing on cinemas all around the UK every night, to packed out crowds?

What, you'd use censorship in that instance but not when it was something you liked, such as a horror film? Oh dear...

The argument for censorship is very persuasive.

That this is the case is a symptom of all the rot our nation faces when it comes to the boneless zombies who flap about debating such issues. Here's the reality of the situation. Censorship is not something someone else can fairly determine for me, as an adult. What one may find shocking another might dismiss as a picture of a harmless spider. We don't know what sets other people off because everyone is different. That's why what you choose to watch or not watch is your personal responsibility.

This is MORE true of anything I choose to do to someone else. If I think it's time to attack someone physically I must take responsibility for that. It's not their responsibility, or someone else's, it's mine. I hit them.

The need people have to drop their own sense of responsibility is awe inspiring to me. They'd much rather have someone else take the blame, or even sometimes the credit, if they can remain anonymous and inconsequential. These timid fools who advocate censorship do so because they would like their tastes and habits to be someone else's responsibility. Nothing more.

Interesting how an idea can lead to different places, re-read the other entry and you'll see what I mean.

NM

The fifth of Feb ...

2012-02-10T12:34:00.000Z

The plane takes off about an hour late but there's little disruption to our flight out to Amsterdam from London Gatwick. Ironic that I've spent the last few hours taking calls from people who have had their night ruined by the "travel chaos" of the night before. Mostly though, as became clear to our listeners, the main problem was a couple of lorries that'd come adrift over a few major roads.

Once I arrive I am whisked away to one of the areas infamous coffee shops where I meet my friends. I still can't quite comprehend how the Telegraph's opinion writer, Michael Deacon, believes there is a comparison to be made between smoking cannabis and murder. It astonishes me as I watch the people around rolling it up and smoking it.

The holiday time though was something I really needed. It was nice to take a few days out with friends. I'm also still the best of the lot at Chess. Much chirping about how 'it's a game of champions where only the supreme intellect can survive' made that extra fun.

NM

I've started contributing to Iain Dale's website...

2012-02-04T20:31:00.000Z

Iain Dale's a nice bloke, I've started contributing to his website here: http://www.iaindale.com/contributors/nick-margerrison

What I like about him is the fact he's variously described as a "conservative blogger" and "right wing" but absolutely fails to conform to the stereotype those labels demand. Softly spoken and always polite his show is a great listen. It also frequently makes front page news in the national papers.

I'm planning to write an entry for him once a week, it'll be sort of cribbed from here as with the current article.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, I fly out to Amsterdam to meet some friends and stay in a flat for a few days. This fun little break from the real world will mean fans of The Cult Of Nick podcast will have to wait until Wednesday for the next upload. In the meantime the others are all there waiting for you to download if you should choose: www.audioboo.com/nickmargerrison

The Leveson Enquiry

2012-02-04T18:46:00.000Z

The modern media as it exists today is a fusion of two polar opposites. Like the twin snakes of the DNA double helix they dance as an uneasy coupling waiting to divide at some point in the future. One half was born ahead of the other. We call it propaganda but it's more accurately heard as the sound of a victor crowing over the defeated. The triumphant holler of a cave man that has beaten the tribe’s alpha male in empty handed, physical combat. The shouting of a knight on horseback who has decapitated a local elder and told terrified peasants he's collecting something called “taxes” from now on. What is his message if not propaganda? The army to which that hypothetical knight belonged may visit that town again in the future to one day to hang an advertisement on the local village hall: “wanted, fine men to defend the honour of King and country”. What is this, if not the media propaganda of yore?

However, to think of the media we have today only in such terms is to sell the rainbow short of its colour. The truth is, there exists a second contrary streak to this double headed beast. The second strand is the bitter supressed snarl of the fallen. It’s sound the snake in the grass which hisses as it leaves the garden whispering thoughts of revenge. It’s the rumble of dissent, ever present when the biggest caveman on the block isn’t there. The questioning voice of the shaman figure who debates a King’s entitlement to “taxes”. The sound of a mother who begs her son not to join the army and be killed in foreign lands. It’s a sound more popular than anyone can ever dare admit.

Our modern Western media is a fusion of both these forms of expression but it doesn’t like to admit it. The panacea of Government patronage guarantees a place at the head of the table but a veneer of consent is demanded in return. The closer to the top of the table you get the more you must hold your tongue to keep your place. However, it serves everyone well to remember that side which is born from the darkness.

The most obvious expression of this comes with “the pamphleteers”. They were a collection of 18th Century rascals, demagogues and religious hotheads who used a new invention called “the printing press” to write some of the most offensive and scandalous pages ever composed by the literate. These characters are frequently seen as creating the right environment for revolution! They didn’t do that by worrying if someone was offended or if their Government grant might be cut next year. The most famous of them was called Jean-Paul Marat. He at one point, almost symbolically, lived in the sewers, so hated was he by the people he attacked in his pamphlet editorials. For good reason, he would frequently publish lists of people who he thought should be put to death.

The legacy of these people comes to us through the ages via their offspring the tabloid newspapers or ‘the gutter press,’ as it is commonly known. "Outrageous" headlines and open political bias are just some of the trappings this heritage leaves.

I personally believe that the comparison between the printing press and the internet is incredibly worthwhile. “What gunpowder did for war, the printing press did for the mind” I would update to “what the bomber plane did for warfare, the internet will do to your mind”. The point is that the intellectual period which is described by the first quote, The Enlightenment, was relevant to a small group of persuasive intellectuals who mostly lived in Europe. This time round it’s an alteration of consciousness that will, in theory, touch most of the minds on the planet.

For better or for worse we’re about to see the kind of change that Europe saw in the wake of the enlightenment and without question the neo-pamphleteers are here. They write blogs, do online radio shows, youtube, tweet, facebook and wordpress. There are thousands of them and collectively they have a huge global audience. If the so called mainstream media is to compete it needs to embrace the less “respectable” side of its heritage. I suggest it claims the legacy of the pamphleteers, the gutter press and the sound of articulate dissent.

It's for this reason that I'm still watching The Leveson Inquiry with interest. It's a real boring media story but it's vitally important because there's a constant subtext to it: that the media by law should have a code of ethics that is written out and agreed upon by politicians. No matter what, this should be resisted at all costs by both those who work in the media as it would ultimately leave our profession barren and irellevant in comparison with the internet where the sharp tongued underbelly of the pamphleteers is more than welcome.

My attempts at small talk "fall at the first hurdle"

2012-02-03T14:36:00.001Z

I'm in a pub discussing music with strangers. We've hit familliar territory as we discuss our love of the rock and roll produced in the late 50's and then throughout the 60's. "It's a great era for music, like this tune now, you could re-record this for the likes of, Lady Gaga, and it'd still chart and be seen as a classic," I hear myself saying in reference to 'C'mon everybody' by Eddie Cochran playing in the background on the jukebox.

"Yeah, you're right, I love all this stuff, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, they're good aren't they?" says the alpha male of this little tribe in an anonymous pub, located in the back of beyond.

"Yeah, they're alright. Overall it's a great period for music with the level of creativity," I reply a little unsure. The conversation has only just got going and I'm prepared to let a fish or two escape the nets of my trawler. "And it continues today, with the likes of The Travelling Wilburys," he says. This time though, as I try to agree with him, I can hear the crack of hell attempting to freeze over.

"Nah, man, they're rubbish. Awful music."

I couldn't do it. No one who likes music seriously believes that, The Travelling Wilburys, belong anywhere other than on the infamous TV clipshow "When good times go bad...". What is this guy? A moron? I can't agree, even out of politeness, to such a stupid opinion.

A so-called "Super Group" the travelling Wilburys comprised of 60's rock 'legends' such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynn. They are liked by idiots who think that artistic endeavor can be created mathematically. All those people did good music once, the argument goes, maybe if we stick them in a room together it'll be like all their abilities to the power of four! This argument is revealed as being moronic in the extreme when you're confronted by the audio evidence to the contrary, which they consistently produced. They became like a nation that makes weapons to be used against itself, each song they performed provided only ammo for their critics and empty hollow enjoyment for their 'fans'.

No one thinks, The Travelling Wilsburys, did good music, they only pretend to like them because they owe a debt to the performers. You bought a copy of their albums in tribute to past glories, nothing more. That's not to say that on their own these artists were incapable of good work it's just that with a collective effort like that musicians hold back the better ideas for use on future solo records. What you end up with is all the ego and non of the talent. "Supergroups" are for people who see their musicians as "superheroes" and everyone knows that the day the gimmick of two superheroes joining forces is pulled often follows a dissapointing 'real world' drop in the respective characters' individual sales and appeal. In other words, it always happens when they and the work they're doing is not what it once was.

This rant mostly played out in my head but even so I've failed.

I've killed the conversation.

The pub goes silent. Me and my companion leave as I'm told in the car that I still have a lot to learn as regards "small talk".

"You should have just said, 'oh, The Travelling Wilburys, that's interesting,' and left it at that," comes the advice.

NM

The start of a new month...

2012-02-02T10:32:00.000Z

I had one of those weird dreams this morning where you wake up and feel like the film of your life has moved on to part two or whatever. Actually that's a bad analogy. More like it's a soap opera and they've cut to another scene. You know like in Neighbours when they show a bit of footage of Ramsey Street to indicate a new day? That.

The film analogy probably only sprang to mind because most people do that at some point or other, imagine they're in a film. Yes you do, don't deny it*. You've even put together highlights for a trailer. I know I used to, I remember once when I was off round a mate of mine's house and it was his birthday. He was a good friend of mine but his parents were committed Christians. The trailer for that weekend ran something like this ... CUE DEEP AMERICAN VOICEOVER: "He was a nice well behaved Christian, he liked to have fun, but only in small doses ... now it's time for him to meet: Nicky! And learn ... how to party!" At this point there was footage of me and him running and shouting for no apparent reason.

I can remember imagining this so well. At no point did I realise how cheesy I was being in my little mind. It was only years later as I sort through my leftover memories that this one looks so odd.

I have no idea if his birthday party did, in the end, involve me and him running and shouting.

NM

*Ok, maybe you don't. If you don't you'll not be the sort of person that adds their own sound effects when driving either. I pity you.

God rid us of The Queen...

2012-02-01T09:24:00.001Z

This controversey over "Sir" Fred Goodwin is tiresome. At least he did something to earn his airs and graces. He has not got this title because he was the first born child of the 'right' parents, or because some people think 'God' chose him, or even because he has chosen to stick to the 'correct' religion. He has got it because he's slithered and shredded his way to the top. In other words, he actually did something. He was, in a manner of speaking, elected and not genetically selected. Unlike the woman who gave it to him, The Queen.

Firstly, there is no one who thinks the monarchy is fair. Those who oppose it make this a central plank of their argument. The irony comes when people who are in favour of it try to use this fact as a conduit for royal sympathy. It's a duty not asked for, we must marvel that they accept it. I've taken many callers in favour of keeping this unfair system of Government who will without irnoy ask for sympathy towards The Queen who never asked for this 'heavy burden'. Absolute nonsense. The whole thing is a doddle, you are entitled to a lifestyle no one reading this blog can even begin to imagine and everywhere you turn there are people who flatter you with praise in the hope they'll one day get a Knighthood. One of the world's biggest armies swears to protect you. And you become literally above the law.

"Oh, well, what would you prefer, Tony B-Liar and his kind?"

Yes, at least you can vote the likes of him out.

"Oh, well, err, it's just symbolic anyway."

Symbolic of what? I'll tell you, it's a depressing symbol of how deeply wedded this country is to privilage, pomp, nepotism, the cult of the celebrity, reverence for genetics and the slavish worship of power for its own sake. We marvel at the lack of ambition shown by Englishmen by comparison to the Americans. Compare and contrast our national myths! Theirs is that you can be whoever you want to be, President even, if you just work and try hard enough. It's even written into their constitution that "all men are created equal". What do we tell our children with our monarchy? ---- you if you're not from the right womb.

Ugh.

God rid us of the Queen.

NM

The Discordian Cult Of Nick Part 2 of The Peter J Carroll interview...

2012-01-30T15:50:00.001Z

I've uploaded part two of the interview with Peter J Carroll; podcast #5.

My plans to delete my facebook page will come into effect tomorrow...

Just one in ten Facebook users supports 'timeline' feature

Fewer than one in 10 Facebook users support its plans to make its biographical “timeline” feature compulsory.
The majority of Facebook users do not want to use the timeline feature which is set to become compulsory

As part of a major overhaul of the site, all publicly viewable messages, comments and photographs will be grouped together by date.

The idea is to create an online scrap book telling the user’s virtual “life story” – at least back to 2004 when the site was founded.

It means that, unless they are deleted, any long forgotten musings, embarrassing photographs or even messages of affection for a past lover will be easily accessible.

At present other users can only find material from several years ago by trawling through past pages.

Critics claim that the change could erode users' privacy but Facebook insists that it will not make anything publicly available which is not already viewable.

A survey of 4,000 Facebook users by the security form Sophos found that only eight per cent of those polled said that they liked the change.

By contrast 51 per cent of those who took part said that they were “worried” by the new format while another eight per cent said that they would “get used to it”.

Users are to be notified in the next few weeks and then will be given seven days to go through their profiles deleting anything they do not want to be visible on their timeline.

Read more, Telegraph article.

I'm going to follow the advice given in this youtube video:

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-commit-facebook-suicide?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=OutbrainTrial

NM

Tinker tailor soldier snooze

2012-01-30T15:20:00.000Z

I knew I'd made a mistake at what felt like twenty minutes in and the credits were still running as atmospheric music lumbered about in the background. They may as well have put a few captions up saying:

"THIS IS A SERIOUS AND PROPER FILM".

Nowadays I have to have a reason to watch a film. Today's was that I had spare time on my hands before work. I'm under the impression this film was about spies. It's really about pretentious bores wandering about with 'serious' written on their face. The cast list says it all, you've got lots of old men who everyone has been told to like because they're such 'brilliant serious actiors': John Hurt, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth etc.

I really tried to enjoy it... then fell asleep after eating my popcorn.

NM

How to stop the rot (riots)

2012-01-28T23:02:00.000Z

I wonder if, David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, has been listening to your old pal Nick Margerrison on LBC 97.3. The front page of The Daily Mail seems to suggest he has come round to the fact that corporal punishment was a central cause of the problem:

Labour MP: Smacking ban led to riots

Quote from the article:
"‘Many of my constituents came up to me after the riots and blamed the Labour Government, saying, “You guys stopped us being able to smack our children.”
‘When this was first raised with me I was pretty disparaging. But I started to listen."

That's right, you were "pretty disparaging" because you're an MP and that's what you lot are like but I'm impressed that you finally started to listen. Good boy! You should listen more, I'm on every Saturday and Sunday morning at 1am.

Here's an article I wrote in the wake of the 2011 riots, published at the time on the LBC website, it's a reflection of my broadcasts in that period...

Bring back capital punishment? Get hundreds of police out on the street? Bring in zero tolerance? Sod it, lets get the army out on the streets! Give 'em guns and do some good old fashioned "peace keeping" Iraq style!!

No. Get a time machine, go back to 1987, and stop them from banning corporal punishment.

I do not classify myself as right wing or left wing. The intent of this blog entry is to convince you that corporal punishment in schools was a good idea. It might sound like one which belongs in the history books alongside other forgotten 'loony fringe' ideas but the generation of kids who are rioting are the first one we’ve had who were denied it. That's a fact but perhaps "kids" is the wrong word here as I'm using it to denote anyone under the age of about 35 who walks with the swagger of a child.

Charlie Brooker (lefty columnist in The Guardian): "Every looter was effectively a child chanting: "Give me my toys, I want more toys. Look at the p---- captured on video mugging the injured Malaysian student. Watch his unearned swagger as he walks away; the size of a man, yet he overdoes that swagger like a performing toddler. That's an idiot who never grew up."

Couldn't agree more, shame Charlie can't work out why that's the case. Anyone who saw these characters who smashed up our cities could not escape the child like nature of these people. The only commonality I could spot was they all looked under 35 and they were all out of control. It's important to remind Londoners, this happened all over the UK. Whatever the problem is that has caused it must therefore be something which effects people on a nationwide level and is specific to people of a certain age. Now, only an idiot would think there's a single cause but equally you'd have to be a fool not to think some causes are more significant than others.

Firstly, a word about control. There are two methods of it in our society, punishment and reward or to coin a phrase, the carrot and the stick. From 1987 onwards I watched, from the perspective of a child, the consequences of the stick being put to one side as corporal punishment was outlawed in this country. My primary school life was drawing to a close back then and I was preparing to go to the local comprehensive which was located in quite a rough working class area. However, there was something of a minor controversy before I left.

The Primary School I was at was run by a lovely woman who at the time I feared and respected. She was quite old fashioned and also overtly religious. Her attitude was that discipline in school was incredibly important. We knew that if we behaved badly we would be punished. We also knew that if we behaved very badly that punishment might be the dreaded ruler on the back of our hand. It was there as a threat, not to be used unless really required. In my time there I only ever remember it being used once. Lots of well meaning hippy type parents were outraged by this. I remember overhearing conversations between them talking about how this barbaric practice was going to be banned soon and that this crazy old woman shouldn’t be allowed to use force like that because it teaches kids to use violence to solve problems.

The “victims” of this violence were kids who had been naughty and ignored the teachers by playing in a dangerously flooded and clearly sealed off adventure playground. I watched my fellow classmates being punished through a window in horror, that year a law was passed which outlawed the practice. Soon after the teacher in question retired, laying footprints which I suspect many like her followed. Leaving us, in the end, with a new generation of teachers, some of whom cannot even remember how corporal punishment works let alone being in favour of it.

The next year I started at Secondary School. It was a very working class comprehensive school in the North of England. In my time there I noticed a gradual change in the attitude of my peers and those children coming up behind us. They started back chatting in a way I'd not previously heard before. "You can't touch me sir, I'll report you for assault" one of them shouted in a teacher's face. How cool it looked to the other kids as this towering six foot yob humiliated the poor man who was quite obviously frightened of him. I was incredibly impressed; because I was fourteen.

There and then I learned that teachers were not to be feared and respected by everyone. In fact this clever lad who’d challenged one had done so using something called ‘the law’ which gave him certain ‘rights’ to tell a poor old art teacher to f- off. To my fourteen year old mind this was incredible. As an adult I see it as profoundly depressing yet unfortunately relevant to the events of this month.

Back to the carrot and stick analogy. The kid in question fell foul of the law in later life. He did community service and last time I spoke to him he was on sickness benefit. He missed out on the rise of The New Labour Order at school and as a result he has only been given carrots in his adult life. His children though, he has four, are about to enter a school system where carrots are on the menu to entice some kids to just turn up.

At the risk of riding this metaphor into the gutter, we’ve run out of carrots these days and now there’s a generation of looters who appear to have decided to simply take 3D TV shaped ones from the shops of hardworking local businesses. Is it so hard to believe that this loot has been taken by people who do not understand the concept of punishment and believe they are always entitled to be rewarded?

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE TRAPPED INSIDE A NEED TO DEFINE THEMSELVES AS "LEFTIES" AND THEREFORE REQUIRE A LITTLE HELP AGREEING WITH A "RIGHT WING" IDEA:

Hello lefty! Listen, I know the above all seems really mean. It's never going to impress the fit hippy chick you're trying to make hay with or the well meaning guy with the beany hat who works in that new age shop you've been going to, so I think it's fair to add a little extra section here for you. Hope you don't mind. People who are comfortable going left or right as the situation requires can skip this...

Firstly, I know we were told that if they got rid of corporal punishment we'd have a less violent society. I know you still think that's true despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. However, there's a great book called Freakonomics which most of the chattering middle classes like you have read. In it the argument is made that that New York's crime problem was not solved by "zero tolerance," as people often suggest, but instead is down to the abortion and family planning policies which were implemented around 20 years earlier. The argument is that the generation of criminals who would have been getting into the peak of their 'careers' simply didn't exist to carry the baton on from the previous lot. Their would be parents had quite literally wished they'd never been born; a wish that those policies had granted. The root of this argument is that such policies take a while to show their impact upon society, that's all I'm saying about corporal punishment in schools.

The rioters two principle commonalities are youth and social class. I'll agree with you on the one hand, social decay and urban alienation are part of the problem. How about you accept that maybe the people who think that corporal punishment is part of it are right as well, then we can all get along?

But what about drugs?

Yep. We have a lot of common ground here. Legalise all recreational drugs. Pull the rug out from underneath criminal gangs by making the £8bn illegal drugs trade significantly less profitable by placing it in the hands of legitimate and therefore taxed businesses. However, the first step is restoring discipline in schools.

Hope that helps...

NM

The roots of "conspiracy theory" are deeply embedded in religious thinking

2012-01-28T15:46:00.029Z

There's a lot in the conspiracy theory subculture which is incredibly worthwhile but there are some core principles and assumptions behind it that have always irritated me. Firstly there is the ever present spectre of anti-semitism and secondly is the often repeated mantra of "we're all doomed, can nothing can save us?".

The anti-semitism goes right back into the early history of the genre:

The oldest conspiracy of them all was that The Devil had the King's ear and he was pushing him to do evil. This figure of The Devil is then, over the years, replaced by Jews, communists, Catholics, Freemasons, the list stretches on to include extra terrestrials and ultimately Icke's shapeshifters.

Quote from previous entry on this topic

It always raises its ugly head whenever you start to seriously delve into the topic and like a drop of poison in a cup it rightly puts a lot of people, including me, off. Adolf Hitler used conspiracy theories to gain power. His like today would fit the subculture like a hand to a glove. It's for this reason, partly, that ideas such as holocaust denial are tolerated in conspiracy theory circles. Holocaust denial or, "the hollowhoax", as it is known, is nothing more than an attempt to revise the legacy of the Nazis by people on the far right. It's put forward by people who are ultimately sympathetic to the Hitlerian cause. It's also frankly rather silly and, as a symptom of the nasty anti-semitism that refuses to leave the scene, doesn't have mainstream appeal.

This in my opinion partly accounts for the fact that, David Icke, and Texas talkshow host, Alex Jones, are easily the most popular conspiracy theorists around. They both wholly reject the anti-semitic aspects of the genre and so are more digestable by reasonable people. However they do still carry this second "we're all doomed, can nothing can save us" bit. It is in my opinion equally tiresome but less obviously absurd. Furthermore it is absent from their personal worldviews but apparent in their words to those who are, for want of a better word, "uninitiated".

I've slipped into this pit myself, probably most people reading this have*. A profound pessimism that 'the world is run by poweful people and they've got the game sewn up in their favour' speaks to most of us at some point or other. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to feel it of course and I think that's why the genre has such appeal. It confirms this intuition that you will never win the game of life.

The reason this feeling of helplessness is so integral to conspiracy theory is because of the fact that its roots are sunk so deeply into a bedrock of religious thinking. This is not so apparent when you give the likes of Icke and Jones a cursory glance but both of them are inspired by deep spiritual beliefs. Icke, although a little bashful on the topic these days, believes he is guided by a voice or 'spirit entity' and Jones is a committed Chrisitan. This aspect of their character is crucial to their worldview and it's the missing piece of the puzzle for a lot of their superficial 'fans'.

The cry of "we're all doomed; can nothing save us now?" has an answer in God. It speaks to the fact that this subculture is often used as a recruiting tool for cults (Jim Jones was a keen conspiracy theorist) and other religious faiths. It's the pretext to that old refrain "let us prey" but it deliberately leaves the Godless feeling helpless.

However, it's worth looking at the intuition behind the thought. This feeling that 'you cannot win the game of life'. Without wanting to push my own 'spiritual beliefs' I refer to the ideas of a Discordian High Priest and Zen Buddhist, Alan Watts. He spoke of the fact that this truth is more about emphasis than anything else. Yes, you will never "win" the game of life. You can express this as a sigh if you like, "oh, I can't win". Or you can express this as in excitement as if realising a revelation "ah, I can't win!". As in, "I can't lose!". There's no such thing as a winner or a loser. The universe and life do not judge you. The game of life is fun because you can't win. No one can. Those at the top of the pyramid are no better placed to win than you. The point of the game is to have fun and enjoy it, not to win and lose. You play the game of life in the same way you might dance from one end of a room to another. A dance is not about getting from A to B, it's about enjoying the motion, movement and music.

Further Alan Watts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29atSZKbmS4

NM

Going to delete my facebook page ... again ... in a week.

2012-01-26T12:54:00.002Z

I've blogged about facebook before. It's not a website I've ever had a lot of love for. Time for me to knock it on the head again methinks:

DAILY MAIL ARTICLE

Facebook's Timeline - a new look for people's Profile pages which exposes their entire history on the site - will become mandatory for all users.

The 'new look' has been voluntary up until now.

From now, users will simply be notified that they are being 'updated' via an announcement at the top of their home page, which users click on to activate Timeline.

As with voluntary switches to Timeline, those who are 'updated' will have just seven days to select which photos, posts and life events they want to advertise to the world.

Daily Mail's full article here.

The first time I deleted my account, two years ago, I felt a huge sense of relief:

OLD BLOG ENTRY:

I finally deleted my account. I just don't get it. Being a member of Facebook was like being at a party. I felt I should be having fun but was constantly confused by the fact I wasn't. The end result was, I started to wonder if there was just something wrong with me. Everyone else seemed to be having a great time, why was I the exception?

What's so great about looking at pictures of people? I find pictures of people depressing. They either don't look as good as you remember them or like more of a poser than you thought they were. The occasional picture looks good but so what? Furthermore why do I want to be 'poked'? More importantly why do I want to add to a giant database of information that gathers together all of my associates names, their thoughts, my thoughts, tittle tattle etc? Orwell would be spinning in his grave.

I'm also pretty sure I managed to offend or upset a few people by not accepting their friend requests or replying to their 'pokes'.

[...]

Ultimately I left the party pleased I was no longer part of it. You never regret going home early. If people want to contact me they can use twitter. It's much less hassle. No pictures, no odd bits to the site where you're not sure how private they are. Just a much better site. Although I hear they're adding those sort of apps as we speak...

Original post here.

Then, like an idiot I wandered back in half way through last year:

ANOTHER OLD BLOG ENTRY

I've been drawn into its sticky web. I have two accounts, one for people I know in real life and another for my radio show stuff. There's a very blurred line that sepearates the two. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep either of them going. I don't think it's a website that's good for me.

My life's pretty medicore in terms of socialising and travel. In fact I do very little that could be described as 'cool'. I watch daytime telly, play on my 'puter, read a lot of books and every Thursday I go to a pub quiz. That's it. All my life I've had a weird nagging suspicion that I wasn't normal in this respect and that everyone else is having an amazing time, all the time. Facebook seems to give me photographic proof that this suspicion is not just typical insecure paranoia but is in fact true. Judging by a flick through Facebook it seems most of the people I know spend all their time at parties or on holiday doing amazing things.

I'm not much of a pictures person. Amature photographs generally depress me. They make the world look so ordinary. Furthermore I'm of the opinion that you can't go right with a picture of yourself. It's either going to look good and therefore depress you with the passage of time or it'll look bad and depress you in the here and now. Despite this I got drawn into looking at people's pictures this morning. I had a bit of time to kill in the office. I had no idea what an overall downer the experience would be.

It left me feeling boring, ordinary and nosy. Is that the sort of thing other people feel when they log onto Facebook? Am I doing something wrong? I'm puzzled by the appeal of it. Someone once told me it was "all about the pictures". Maybe that's why I'm just not really "getting it".

I've tried commenting on things as well. I like that a bit more but the site seems to lack the depth of twitter. Most of it seems to be incredibly inconsequential and inane. Pages and pages of "polite chatter". The sort of conversations I loathe in real life.

I must be doing something wrong.

Why do people like that website?

I've reposted these thoughts just to make the oncoming deletion of my account more final.

I don't like the website. I'm pulling out Thursday next week.

NM

Bad analogy - way beneath the Telegraph

2012-01-25T21:17:00.000Z

In my opinion smoking a spliff and murdering someone cannot be sensibly compared. They just don't really seem to be on the same scale. I'm amazed that Telegraph journalist Michael Deacon disagrees:

Mike - The Telegraph's culture critic

Today’s leaders must find the courage to speak out. The current approach does not work. Since time immemorial, human beings have murdered each other. Trillions have been spent by governments to prevent people committing murder, and to imprison those who do, but to no avail. All we have to show for it is overflowing jails, tax-payers’ money wasted, and thriving criminal gangs.

We need to face facts: there will always be people attracted to killing. The threat of arrest and punishment has had no significant deterrent effect. Prohibition is no good. We must seriously consider decriminalisation, and start treating murder not as a criminal issue, but as a health issue.

It’s time to end the failed “War on Murder”.

Granted the poor lad is only trying to earn a coin and he's trying to do it with humour. However, this casual disregard for logic when applied to the debate on drug prohibition has frequently tragic consequences. For example, the UK cannabis market was estimated to be worth around £5 billion, per year, in 2002. (Source BBC) This figure will have risen in the past decade of course, given inflation and the increase in users. The lion's share of that money is currently being pumped directly into organised crime! Think of that next time you read about some moron with a gun, where'd he get the money to buy that? He works in an industry with a minimum budget of £5 billion a year.

Even sticking to the confines of this journalist's argument, taking the idea that murder and smoking a spill are similar can reveal a level of callous indifference that I suspect was unintended. I doubt there is anyone in the UK who wouldn't rather that the Moors' murderers hadn't decided to stay in and smoke a spliff instead of killing children. Or the killer of Martin Luther King. Or the man who shot John Lennon. Or any other example that pops into mind...

I spoke to a woman whose child was murdered once, it was one of the most intense experiences of my life. I'd never have had the gall to compare the actions of the evil thugs who did that to some student smoking a bong.

He continues and for, I presume legal reasons, tries to clarify:

The above is not, as far as I know, Sir Richard Branson’s position on killing. But it is more or less identical to his position on illegal drug use. Sir Richard’s logic is that, because governments have failed to prevent people committing a particular crime, it should no longer be classified as a crime at all.

I didn't watch Richard Branson's testimony. I know the arguments for the decriminalisation of cannabis inside out. If indeed that was his central logic, "because governments have failed to prevent people committing a particular crime, it should no longer be classified as a crime at all," then it's a perfectly defensible position.

The law should be practical and enforcable. If not it is dragged into the realm of impracticate and unenforcable. Why an opinion writer for the Telegraph would want the law to become impractical and unenforcable I do not know. I suspect it's because he hasn't thought it through. He is after all mainly used by The Telegraph as a culture critic.

Why politicians persist in this folly is quite another matter. If I were a journalist I'd be asking the following questions:

Why allow cannabis to fund organised crime to the tune of £5 billion?

Who in the UK benefits from well funded organised crime?

Why is the debate on cannabis always trivialised?

If you read the full article, you will notice our hero, Michael Deacon, even slags off Branson for daring to be "serious" about the issue:

"Sketch: Sir Richard Branson's war on drug laws
Michael Deacon watches Virgin entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson tell MPs why drug users should not be jailed."

Jeremy Kyle and the fact some things aren't funny even if they seem it

2012-01-24T17:07:00.002Z

The following article from the national newspapers is not funny:

"Adventurer who wanted to live like Bear Grylls in Scottish wilderness for a year found dead in less than a month"

A man found dead in a remote mountain hut was an adventurer who had planned a year-long Bear Grylls-style survival challenge in the Scottish wilderness.

[He], was found dead in a 'bothy' by a track worker near Corrour, a remote railway station in Highland Perthshire, on December 31 at 9.50am.

His body is believed to have been lying there for several weeks when it was discovered.

A post-mortem found there were no suspicious circumstances behind his death, which is understood to have been as a result of hypothermia.

Daily Mail - read full story here.

The above news story is without doubt not funny. It's tragic that this dashing young alpha male met with such an unforseeable demise. Without doubt he deserves our sympathy, how could anyone have possibly expected it would end this way?


Mr Erwin - who could have predicted his fate?

He's like, Steve Erwin, another unfortunate victim of lady luck. Who would have thought that the "crocodile hunter" famous for his cavalier attitude to dangerous animals would ever have ended up being killed by one? Even now it seems unthinkable, right?

Or, the subject of the film "Grizzly Man", Timothy Treadwell, who knew in his heart of hearts that man eating grizzly bears were in fact just misunderstood. He was an animal rights activist who decided to live among the grizzly bears, as one of them, in Alaska. Amazingly, and by another weird quirk of fate, they ate him and his girlfriend alive!

None of these situations are funny.

My brain just, you know, in its unguarded moments, forgets that fact and lets out a little laugh.

I mentioned this to a producer at work and she looked right into my eyes and said "that's not nice". I tried to explain that I knew it wasn't funny. I just sort of have a brain that won't listen to the facts when it comes to laughing at things. The more annoyed she became the more confused my brain became about what is and is not funny. This set up a sort of negative feedback loop where she got angrier and angrier and I felt like a kid in a classroom who has been told to stop laughing.

Today I surprised a number of my twitter followers by tweeting along with the TV show Jeremy Kyle. It's a masterpiece of not funny incidents. One of which today featured two men who had been having a gay relationship with each other after meeting on the internets. They'd realised they might actually be related and so had a DNA test to find out that, yes in fact they were! Once their story was finished (with the show title 'Am I having sex with my brother?' and the answer now being a firm 'yes') Kyle, with a straight face, actually turned to his audience and said: "give them a round of applause guys".

Again, I know that's not funny. My brain really thought it was but I've explained to it now...

... it still seems to think these things are funny but over time it will learn.

NM

QUICK NOTE//

Robert Anton Wilson did not invent my religion, Discordianism, that was the job of others, but he did more to promote it than anyone else. I've not read everything he's ever written but I've certainly ploughed through more than is healthy.

There are a number of key ideas of his that I frequently apply.

Boing Boing did a special week on him, the link is here: RAW WEEK - BOING BOING

New Cult Of Nick podcast is up...

2012-01-23T12:39:00.001Z

The link is here, you can subscribe to it on iTunes: http://audioboo.fm/boos/635127-the-cult-of-nick-podcast-2012-week-4

The download figues for this thing are tiny, we're talking under 100 people at the moment but I'm really enjoying sifting through my back catalogue. This week's pod is the first in a three part interview with occultist Peter J Carroll. Originally I was a bit embarrassed by this interview as I got more into his work after I spoke to him. There's a lot of things I'd ask him now which go unmentioned here. However with the benefit of hindsight it is what it says it is, an introduction to modern occultism, not an advanced (and therefore less accessable) discussion about the subject.

Occultism is a subject which gets some people very riled up. The reason I give it the time of day is thanks to the work of Alan Moore. My thoughts on it are pretty concisely laid out here: Blame Alan Moore.

And then there's this entry which consistently comes up in my hit counter as one of the most popular entries on this blog: Aleister Crowley & The Call Of The Second Aethyr.

Please just sell the sausage

2012-01-22T22:43:00.001Z

Family time: reduced to a marketing gimmick

There's an old saying in marketing which goes: "sell the sizzle, not the sausage". In other words focus upon the additional subjective aspects the product offers you. They used to tell us it in pop music radio. For example, the big prize you're offering is to meet Westlife. When you sell it to the audience on air, focus on telling the story of what it might be like to ACTUALLY MEET Westlife! What they might be wearing, what you might say to them, how you'll get there in a limo etc. What will your friends think when you tell them you're off to meet the fab five? And so on, you know, flesh out the experience with subjective detail.

Presumably this is the thinking behind this apparently innocuous poster, which has kind of wound me up. Rather than selling the fact they're knocking a little bit of money off advance tickets, or whatever, they say they're 'reducing the price of hugs'. It's exactly the same sort of nonsense as the "Yummy" biscuits label which M&S used to have. However, in this instance there's a sort of sinister edge. The notion, that this company can reduce the price of hugs, does in fact suggest they have comodified and are selling affectionate gestures. You know, like a whore does.

A lot of people think moments like the one being faked by this poster are priceless. The people who made this poster clearly do not, or at least have been paid to say as such.

I think I'd rather live in a world where we sold the sausages a bit more. This superficial sales technique does more harm than good. For example, when selling the Westlife meet, I didn't actually know the detail. Would they really get to talk to them or would they just have a quick ten second handshake, or what? The "sizzle" therefore needed to be as subjective as possible.

More importantly, this principle of stretching out what you know into the more subjective areas of experience has had terrible consequences in the "real world" of politics. Blair's "faith" in MI6 intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction are the most obvious example but his heirs Cameron and Milliband, as they debate 'turbo' capitalism vs 'popular' or 'responsible' capitalism show equally dangerous levels of idiocy. The subjective "sizzle" of the 45 minute claim turned out to be exactly that and nothing more.

It's style over substance and it hasn't left us in 2012.

NM

Garfunkles in Leicester Square: what was I thinking?

2012-01-21T18:35:00.000Z

The truth of the matter is that I wasn't thinking. I was wandering about in a bit of a daze. I'd just bought a copy of the brilliant occultist Peter J Carroll's latest tome, I'd decided I wanted to have a protein day and I thought, "ooo, I can get a nice 'Big Breakfast' at this place just outside work".

Menu: written by lawyers.

It's menus like this one which work well on the semi-conscious mind state I describe. Notice it says that you get "two rashers of bacon, two juicy pork and leek sausages, two hash browns, a large flat mushroom, fried egg, half a grilled tomato and a generous helping of baked beans".

Object next to the bacon is a rock hard sausage

Now notice that there is in fact only one rasher of bacon and a gnarly old sausage. No hash brown and a table spoon splat of baked beans. You will of course have noticed that there's a little footnote on the menu which explains that this option is only available before 11.30am.

The "other" menu

What I had in fact ordered is described slightly more accurately above on a second menu, aside from the Orwellian title given to it: The "Great Big" British Breakfast.

It'd be fairer to describe it thus:

A plate of chips with an egg and a rock hard sausage, bit of bacon, tomato, and a shitty mushroom that seems to be composed mostly of cooking oil and dreams. Also comes with bread.

What's annoying about this whole sorry affair is I blame myself for it entirely. Places like this have always been tourist traps. Furthermore, the last time I went in there I sat for half an hour or so without service only to give up and leave for work. This was a few months ago and I remember thinking then;"well, what did you expect?".

I blame this book "The Octavo"

I was genuinely not thinking. I'd just been in Watkins on Cecil Court and had made an exciting purchase, I sat down to read it and only glanced at the menu. Peter J Caroll is by far my favourite living occult author. I'm thinking of uploading part one of an interview I did with him next week for the podcast associated with this blog. His stuff's always good. This is his latest work, published last year. What an idiot I was to think I'd get anything worth eating in "Garfunkles". Meh- how annoying.

Left all the carbs ... two thirds of the meal

With only myself to blame I stumbled out of the tourist trap, like a punter snared by a clip joint, and on to work... a little early today. Things to do. Lets hope it's a good show, I'm in a bad mood.

NM

Why is it "good" to get young people involved in politics?

2012-01-21T13:22:00.002Z

There are some ideas which are allowed to float about in people's mind unchallenged and backed only by unquestioning lip service. This is one of them. It's implicit in this article on the BBC's website:

The Occupy protest movement is turning its attentions to schools through a new educational outreach programme.

The idea developed after members of the St Paul's camp were invited into a number of schools and universities.

The camp's "Tent City University" has won support from numerous high-profile speakers and academics.

Former citizenship teacher Jamie Kelsey Fry says that with protesters due to be evicted within weeks, an outreach programme is the natural next step.

Protesters from the Occupy movement - which campaigns against inequality, social injustice and corporate greed - have been camped outside St Paul's Cathedral next to the London Stock Exchange since 15 October.

But they are expected to be removed on 27 January, after the City of London won a High Court case over their eviction.

Before I quote the rest of the article it's worth remembering that many people believe the human mind doesn't really process negative thoughts.

Mr Kelsey Fry, who has been at the camp every day since it started, said it had become a focal point for young people interested in political activism, with teenagers travelling from all over the country to visit.

Many had joined in its people's assemblies, where issues are discussed openly and everybody taking part is given an equal voice.

He said: "So many of the camps, not just at St Paul's but around the country, will be cleared away in the next few weeks so outreach is a really good way to move things on.

"Young people are a very large part of society and they are voiceless. They will be the people who inherit a troubled future."

He added: "We are not trying to indoctrinate them or recruit them, we are trying to use the citizenship curriculum to give young people the tools to take up the issues that are important to them."

I think this final point here (obviously I'm not quoting the full article) is the reason some people think there's a need for 'young people' to be involved in politics. If you saw me outside your house and asked me what I was doing and I replied that I was not about to steal your car what would you think? If you caught me outside a school with a load of leaflets and I told you I was not trying to indoctrinate the children...

Look to the arguments people put forward if you push them on this subject:

"Ah, well, old people are more set in their ways". Translation: "Old people have their own opinions and won't be pushed around as much".

"Err, no, I mean, young people are more optimistic". Translation: "Young people are more gullible and easily led by hare brained schemes".

"No, it's not like that, they're just more err, caring and compassionate and likely to be left wing and ... oh". Translation: "Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains". They're left wing reqruits waiting to be indoctrinated by seductive ideas that ultimately lead to communist dictatorships. That's the truth of the matter isn't it? Use the comments section to argue the contrary...

Rise of the planet of the apes

2012-01-20T10:32:00.001Z

The idea that animals are incapable of cruelty annoys me. It's ill informed, coming as it does from some mad Disney influenced world view which adults really should know better than to take seriously.

I recently watched that film, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. It was quite good overall but it had this logic in there at points. The apes, who in this film live in our time and are just developing consciousness, seemed to be in possesion of an innate sense of morality. They were 'good' in comparison to a number of the deeply unsympathetic human characters.

I guess the reason this annoys me is because I believe we ARE animals. There are no traits found within us that are unique to humans.

This is grit in the shoe of those who would like to worship the perfect world of mother nature where everything has been poisoned by people. Despite what the extreme animal rights activists might think their worldview requires people to be special. Especially cruel, bad, wicked and evil.

I don't think they are.

Previous entry is similar vein.

Don't sleep on it.

2012-01-18T09:34:00.000Z

If you experience a horrific or upsetting event and then decide to "sleep on it," you're making a bad situation worse, according to a new study from The University of Massachusetts.

They've discovered:

"a person's emotional response after witnessing an unsettling picture or traumatic event is greatly reduced if the person stays awake afterward, and that sleep strongly "protects" the negative emotional response. Further, if the unsettling picture is viewed again or a flashback memory occurs, it will be just as upsetting as the first time for those who have slept after viewing compared to those who have not."

Kind of explains the old question, 'how do you sleep at night'? The body doesn't want to let you go to sleep if you've witnessed things that you knew were wrong:

"It's interesting to note that it is common to be sleep-deprived after witnessing a traumatic scene, almost as if your brain doesn't want to sleep on it."

My brain is terrible for this, if I've got a worry stuck in my head I can't sleep on it. I'll be up all night trying to fathom an answer. I remember my first ever experience of this like it was yesterday. I'd lost my little Boba Fett toy and was frankly traumatised. It'd been misplaced at school and my 8 year old brain was devastated. I was awake until four in the morning worrying about it. I remember the sun coming up and thinking bad things would happen now I'd not got to sleep.

Also, maybe that's why a lot of my generation remember quite rubbish Dr Who monsters as being scarier than they actually are. It was on just before bedtime, it'd be the last thing you watched before your young brain went to sleep. Meh, I'm just thinking out loud but, you know some of that stuff was very silly.

On a not entirely unrelated topic, I wonder how this memory study relates to the weird phenomena of banging your head on a pillow once for every hour of sleep you want to have just before you drift off? That does sort of seem to work, not as accurate as an alarm clock I'll grant you but in need of scientific investigation at some point.

NM

FURTHER READING

Quotes taken from FULL ARTICLE HERE.

Boba Fett's Wookieepedia entry is HERE.

FURTHER VIEWING:

JOHN LENNON - How do you sleep at night?
An unpleasant song from his Imagine album directed at Paul McCartney. Those two got nice and nasty with each other in public during the 70's.

MATT BAKER ASKS DAVID CAMERON - How do you sleep at night?
An odd moment in daytime television. I'm sure, Baker, enjoyed a lot of backslapping behind the scenes for this one as he bought a round of drinks with his licence fee funded pay cheque.

Nescafe Mocha...

2012-01-17T09:23:00.001Z

I've bought some new Mocha sachets. Unfortunately they're not as nice as the significantly cheaper ones I've been having from Aldi. These new ones are a bit flat, maybe they need more Coffee or something in them.

I've tried to hide my dissapointment from myself twice and failed both times. Now I've decided to blog about it to the hundred or so people that read this corner of the internets. And of course Nescafe PR department who will inevitably at some point read this little ramble.

Actually, if you do work in Nescafe PR why are they called Mochas? Why not call them Chofee? That'd make more sense wouldn't it? A Mocha combines the best of both hot chocolate and coffee right? A good one is a bit like the Rose of hot drinks (which should itself be called Whed wine). What does Mocha mean? I'll tell you, it means you're making a mochary of the whole naming process. Yeah, that's what it means.

Of course fact fans will know that it's this process which was used to invent Toffee. A mad scientist back in the 20's wondered what would happen when you combined Tea and Coffee and, as everyone knows, it produces a most disgusting drink. No matter how many spoons of sugar he put in there it still tasted of putrid brown stink. He did of course famously leave that sugar filled drink out overnight and when it cooled an solidified - hey presto, a new form of sweetie! The rest, as they say is history.

And to think, all the other scientists in those days thought he was nothing more than a useless little twunt.

NM

The Discordian Cult Of Nick enters its third week...

2012-01-16T12:20:00.000Z

I've put a new five minute podcast up. It's quite fun to listen back to some of the lighter stuff in my back catalogue. This time it's just me and my mate Alex Baker larking about on air. The phone call is something we used to start the shows with, often recording them as an afterthought. The main bit of the audio is Baker's "dog in a suitcase story" which he firmly maintains is true. I suspect it's an urban legend and when I retold it on LBC a few listeners claimed to have heard it before. The annoying thing about that is there's always the slight chance they'd heard it before because we'd already broadcast it on a national radio show a few years back. These things spread.

People seem to be liking the podcast so thanks to everyone who has re-tweeted it etc.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/625652-the-cult-of-nick-podcast-2012-week-3

Philosophical mumblings..,

2012-01-16T12:11:00.001Z

I love this quote but I'm having difficulty sourcing it:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

It's pretty in line with occult thinking or "magick". The idea is that there's a constant friction between two different world views. One is the materialistic world view where your mind is a by product of your physical existence. The other is the idealistic world where everything is running in accordance with some sort of plan. The latter idea is often used by occultists/religious believers/new age hippies, etc. The most famous example of it in action is in The Bible:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The point is that before anything could start you needed "the word" or, more accurately, the concept. This is pretty logical on a practical level. Want to do something in life; get yourself a plan of action. It's also interesting that it places "God" in the same area that words and ideas live. He's a construct of the mind.

As I said, there's the opposing materialistic point of view nowadays and it's more widely accepted. You know, that words came from us, physical beings generate thoughts and not the other way round. I think that's the view I side with more often than not. Words and ideas often come afterwards. I existed physically before I started thinking. I suspect that's true of humanity in general if you trace us back far enough. I'm just wary of certainty around concepts like this and suspect the truth is a combination of the two, if that's possible.

It's just a blog entry

2012-01-16T11:40:00.000Z

I hate the phrase "it's just". It annoys me because usually it is not "just..." anything at all. Most words are simplifications of whatever it is they are attemptingto describe. This means whatever you're talking about is unlikely to be reasonably limited to being a case of "it's just...". The same reasoning leads me to be annoyed whenever anyone points out "ah, but it's more complicated than that". Such an observation usually goes without saying.

Specifically I think if you reduce an experience to a case of "ah, it's just" it's usually you that loses out.

Love - "ah, it's just chemicals in your brain".

God - "ah, it's just another mode of control".

Art - "ah, it's just pretty pictures".

Everything, every second, every moment, every word is unique. Nothing is ever "just" anything at all.

With this thought in mind I've decided to use today's blog post to link to this website which sells garbage from the streets of New York at a premium price, gift wrapped: http://nycgarbage.com/

The Ironing Lady

2012-01-14T22:32:00.001Z

I went to see The Iron Lady at the cinema. It was mildly annoying. This is quite good going for a film with such an overtly political subject, given that I couldn't enjoy Avatar or the last Batman film because of their irritating ideological content. Fortunately though this was not a lefty wet dream of Thatcher, crying into her hands full of regret at how evil she was but nor was it some deluded triumphant right wing fantasy.

There was a scene right at the start that annoyed me when she had no milk - I felt the director leaning out of the screen saying "aah, she was a milk snatcher you know"*. There was a weird bit where she ranted about the EU. I think they were trying to show what an uncompromising monster she'd become. I actually wanted to cheer and shout "here, here". I didn't though as I wouldn't have wanted to interrupt everyone's conversations.

What's with that? Oooh - lets go to the cinema and have a nice chat. Best part of £20 and you get idiots who don't comprehend that I'm not at the cinema to hear some halfwit gibbering away or even answering a call after letting their ringtone burble away for a few minutes.

The Cult of Nick is doing well. Actual people have downloded it. For the moment it's just old Kerrang clips and will remain so for the forseeable. The link is here: http://audioboo.fm/NickMargerrison

NM

*"Thatcher Thatcher the milk snatcher" - Education secretary who took away free milk: WIKI.

The Discordian Cult Of Nick lauches amid little to no ceremony ... join us!

2012-01-12T14:20:00.001Z

I've always quite fancied being the leader of a cult. Unfortunately for me I lack the appropriate level of charisma, determination and moral bankruptcy required for such an undertaking. Instead I'm going to start doing a podcast again and call it "The Cult Of Nick". Without question this will one day be an incredibly successful enterprise but like all such high jinx it needs a small beginning. This is it.

Despite my clear belief in this enterprise I am not intending to part with any actual money* to invest in this future world class product nor do I have the time to muck about looking for a way to host this podcast properly so I've gone with a nice free "Audioboo" account for the moment.

Listening to this audio instantly makes you a member of The Discordian Cult of Nick. Once 'in' there is no escape. Unfortunately for me there are no obligations required of members. In fact the only obligation required of anyone following this inauspicious blog entry is that I post one five minute bit of audio from my back catalogue every week for the rest of 2012, at the end of which the world will have course ended. Or, I'll have moved away from posting old stuff from the past and start doing new stuff unique to the podcast. One of the two.

I'm under the impression you can subscribe to this thing on iTunes, here's the link:

http://audioboo.fm/NickMargerrison

We're in week two of 2012 so I'm going to post up two bits to get the ball rolling, from then on it's one five minute bit a week. If you're like me that means they'll build up in your iTunes and you'll listen to four or five every now and then when you can't find anything better.

Kicking off with an interview I did on Kerrang Radio with comedian, Mark Thomas, who I saw doing his live show recently. Brilliant! Go and see him if he comes up your area, so to speak.

NM

*I'm confused as to why it seems to cost money to do a podcast but is free to upload video to YouTube? Can anyone explain that to me?

Does David Cameron really play Angry Birds?

2012-01-11T09:53:00.000Z

This weekend just gone the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, gave an interview to The Telegraph. It was one of the more interesting interviews I've read from him in terms of the EU, Scottish independence, and the deficit, because it really seemed to get into some of the nitty gritty. However it is littered with trivial detail:

"but Mr Cameron also still finds time to relax, watching television and listening to music. To the envy of many, the iPad addict has also, he reveals, completed Angry Birds, the massive-selling “app” in which players catapult animated birds at pigs."

At first I liked this little insight. "Oh, he plays Angry Birds like me, that's nice," went my initial uncynical response.

Ironically the interview was overshadowed in terms of reaction by a trivial comment he made comparing, Ed Balls, to someone with tourettes. Furious moralisers queued up to decry the apparent slip of the tongue and it swiftly became the main issue as Cameron apologised for "any offence caused". In the real world the phone lines of my radio show were not rammed with people angry about it, most defended him along the lines I did. It's a turn of phrase, not unlike saying "are you deaf/blind/dyslexic?" to someone in the event of them not hearing/seeing/spelling something. I'm dyslexic, I don't find that offensive, furthermore we had callers who were blind who agreed. Like I said, it's trivia.

Now the interview has been largely forgotten about, except for by me, as I sit playing Angry Birds and wonder about Cameron doing the same. I've started to doubt he does. It strikes me as just the sort of thing an advisor might have told him to say in order to humanise him a bit more. Firstly, he's got form, his "cast iron guarantee" of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty was a much more important claim and it turned out to be a lie. Secondly, and unfortunately for him this will always be the kiss of death, he looks a bit like Tony Blair.

However, that I'm cynical about his harmless claim speaks to the fact that I can't bring myself to trust any of these politicians about anything at all ever. I don't think I'm alone in this lack of trust. My generation has had no reason to ever trust these people and it's certainly not something which they've ever earned from us.

If it was a lie then the aim was to associate David Cameron with something "normal" people like. Blair did it with music by meeting Noel Gallagher. The idea is that the association makes you think of Cameron when you think of something you like. It hasn't worked with me, instead it's made me think of the fact I do not trust politicians every time I play Angry Birds, which is quite often, would you believe?

Twitter feed improves dramatically

2012-01-10T20:51:00.001Z

I've locked my twitter feed. This has enhanced twitter enormously. It means that I get less annoying tweets from people who are wound up because I didn't happen to share their opinion on something.

At work I see taking personal abuse as being all part of the job. Twitter though is for my own amusement. I often read it at home or on my mobile phone. Having my tweets locked means only people who have chosen to "Follow" me can see what I've written and so consequently only they can reply. It gives the thing a feeling of being a little exclusive club of just under 2,000 people, theoretically all on a similar wavelength.

My colleague Duncan Barkes was the first to do it and to be honest I've only really copied him.

If you'd like to follow me my twitter feed is @NickMargerrison. So far I haven't refused anyone, apart from some woman who wanted to me to go and look at her webcam.

NM

I've hit my target weight JAN 9th 2012

2012-01-10T08:46:00.002Z

I'm now exactly 14 and a half stone. However, due to some sort of clerical error this does not in fact make me "normal" according to the BMI index. I spent all of last year thinking it would, only to check the facts while bragging about my apparently "normal" weight to my Mum on the phone. At just over 6 foot in height it leaves me still in the category "overweight" as opposed to "obese". Turns out I need to lose another stone.

Oddly that's sort of a relief because my physique still sports a Little Plum style belly. To put this in perspective, previously I looked more like his Dad:

My analysis of this BMI index chart thingy today shows me that I will still be allowed to continue dieting in an attempt to kill that little belly off without worrying that I've turned into some sort of metrosexual anorexic. That's where this kind of thing can all lead. I mean, for Christmas I got some perfume! And I was pleased about it! It's called "Joop". I think people prefer to call it aftershave but everyone knows it's perfume right?

NM

FURTHER READING:

Little Plum off of The Beano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Plum

As close to a political philosophy as you'll get from me ...

2012-01-09T10:22:00.000Z

I ain't left-wing, I ain't right wing.
I got two wings baby
An' I can fly outta any box
You lot try and put me in.

If I were to try to label my political philosophy the closest set of ideas I can find that appeal would be described as "Libertarianism". There's a reason you've not heard that word too much when it comes to mainstream debate in this country. It's a philosophy which involves the politicians of this country saying things like: "We need less power, less of your taxes and frankly we're going to let you make more of your own decsisions". The career politicians of today are as likely to subscribe to that as turkeys would vote for Christmas.

I'm not a fully paid up card carrying libertarian, I just think there's a lot to be said for the idea that Governments need less, as opposed to more, power and money. As a result of this sympathy for these ideas I occasionally attract callers who ARE deeply into it. They don't hesitate to drop names such as, Ayn Rand, into conversation and I've even had one caller explain "The Nolan Chart" once.

This means I get fantastic emails like the one printed below that I feel deserve a wider audience:

--

Joan of Potters Bar

Good evening Nick. I can't phone because I have a very bad cold but I want to say that we had a 'libertarian' government in this country when Charles Dickens was alive and it was the result of that system of economics, then known as laissez faire ('let it be'), which brought about the horrific conditions which he describes in his novels and which we frequently see enacted upon our screens.

It was these conditions, arising from the successful Victorian economy, which caused reformers like him to campaign for more fairness towards the poor and disadvantaged by a more equitable redistribution of our national wealth through taxation and other government means. Personal charity abounded during the Victorian era, business people were extremely philanthropic but that did not prevent libertarian economics creating extreme poverty amongst the many for the benefit of the few. It was this situation which made reformers call for government intervention and regulation.

We have only to look to countries like India to see what life can still be like for the many in a largely unregulated society. People like yourself and your 23 year old caller, are ignoring the past and are in danger of propelling the people of our country into a neo-Victorian era with no protection for the poor and weak. We cannot look after every old and sick person ourselves, we cannot all be self-employed entrepeneurs, we need government help to stop the extreme exploitation which has previously happened without it. That is not 'socialism', it is a cry for the 'liberte, egalite, fraternite' of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment which curbed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution and brought us the freer, more equal (fairer), more caring society of today.

When preaching neo-libertarianism, as you so frequently do, beware of throwing these babies out with your bathwater!

--

I don't usually reply to emails as we get too many but this one was so good here is my response:

Hi Joan,

I'm undecided about Libertarianism (laissez faire Government) and think perhaps its appeal for me stems from the fact I've grown up in an era when state power has frequently appeared to be out of the control of normal people such as you and I.

The war against Iraq was a real catalyst for some huge shifts in my opinions. It became apparent to me back then that no matter how many people opposed the Government, if the issue was part of their agenda, there was nothing you could do about it. Since then a number of things appear to be unchangeable when it comes to the world of politics. The EU is a good example. No matter who you turn to in the world of serious politics there appears to be no one who opposes it. Another is the distressing rise of the authoritarian "big brother" state during New Labour. None of that power over people will ever be given back.

The appeal of Libertarianism is it seems to be a political philosophy which argues that politicians should have less power instead of more. It puts focus upon these people who say they rule us and asks them to justify each power they claim over us.

FURTHER READING:

The Nolan Chart
Libertarianism
Ayn Rand

THIS ARTICLE ALSO APPEARS ON THE LBC WEBSITE UNDER THE HEADING NEO LIBERTARIANISM.

Diane Abbott and her anti-racism problem

2012-01-09T10:09:00.001Z

The human mind has great difficulty processing a negative thought. For example, try to NOT think of the last thing you ate. I need you to try NOT to remember what it was, your last bit of food. Once you've managed NOT to remember it I want you to keep it out of your mind and keep NOT thinking about it. If you're a normal human being you'll be thinking of it now despite trying not to ... mmm, chicken!

Many people believe that this is where those who campaign against something go wrong. Do you remember the "anti-war" marches of the previous decade? They didn't seem to do so well. Perhaps part of that was a branding issue. Keep telling everyone you're against something and in the end you start to become associated with it.

This partly ties into another idea which is neatly summed up in the following quotation:

"Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one."
Friedrich Nietzsche
German philosopher (1844 - 1900)

There's a sketch I saw on, I think, a DVD extra of Little Britain. It was brilliant but as far as I can work out never broadcast. In it you had a load of people all working for a Cancer Charity. They were busy organising various activities, TV interviews and fun-runs. In the midst of it all one of them took a call. His words suggested good news but his face said otherwise:

"Oh, really? All forms of it? And it works in every instance? Oh, err, great, that's great news. I'll tell everyone."

He finished his conversation and relayed to everyone there the "great news" that cancer had been cured. In the sketch everyone then realises that their jobs are now no longer necessary. The fun run is cancelled and plans are made to wind everything down. Then, just as the news is setting in for everyone that they have nothing to do, the phone rings. It was all a mistake. The cure doesn't work. They can't help but look happy.

You can see why it was never broadcast but it makes an interesting point. People like Diane Abbott require racism to still exist. It's part of their identity, power base and, for want of a better word, their act. Her tweets about "white people" who she thinks "love to divide and rule" along with these other comments about her being "dubious of black people" who don't claim to experience racism make perfect sense in this context. I feel sorry for her because she will have to make some major changes to her world view if such mistakes are not to happen again, and again, and again.

FURTHER READING: Diane Abbott will not face police action over 'racist' tweet. - Ironic that it was her Government that made such an absurd idea as 'prosecution for an opinion' possible eh?

Suffering a massive case of CBA re: my new phone.

2012-01-07T05:32:00.000Z

I'm suffering a massive case of CBA in regards to my new phone. I feel a bit like I've had my arm twisted up my back by the phone company (Orange) who didn't seem to offer massively favourable rates for someone like me who didn't want to upgrade. I also felt a lot of personal pressure from friends and family who couldn't understand why I stuck so doggedly to my "old" (only got it a few years ago) phone. In the end I accepted that not upgrading my phone was silly. So, I requested my upgrade and signed on for a 1 1/2 year contract with my new touch screen phone.

It arrived in the post.

I've got my new payment plan in place. They've sent me a new phone, I just CBA* to actually use it for anything other than a game of "Angry Birds" now and then. My "old" phone is still the one I'm using to make and take calls. The new one is currently just a glorified modern version of my old Gameboy handset I had in the 90's.

Firstly, I just can't quite get behind touch screen. It's too clumsy. I liked having a keyboard.

Secondly, all these stories about these new phones having viruses are upsetting. My phone is more private than my computer. I SERIOUSLY CBA with viruses on it.

Finally in the event of getting it stolen I'd like to know that the theif in question would be dissapointed with an "old" piece of technology.

Time will tell how long I hold out on this one...

*CBA - Can't be arsed. I don't know why this acronymn appeals to me so much. It's forum speak really isn't it? Meh, I'm blogging every day at the moment, might as well indulge.

Atkins (ish)

2012-01-05T10:40:00.000Z

Over the last year I have lost a total of about 3 stone in excess blubber. It's a bit of an understatement to say I'm pleased about this.

Being overweight is awful. I found I'd kid myself that I was alright with it or pretend that it was worth it because you can eat food and drink beer whenever you fancy but the truth is that if you could press a magick button to rid yourself of it you would. EVERYONE who is overweight would press that button I think.

I started dieting around this time of year and carried it through all 2011. The weight loss was gradual and not done in the usual dramatic fashion I've managed in the past with the atkins diet. Instead of that I went (on the advice of my mate from Kerrang, Kate Lawler,) to 'Slimming World'.

When I first went to Slimming World I was expecting something like it's more famous rival Weight Watchers. Instead I felt like I'd stumbled into some sort of cult. They had their own, almost impenetrable, language with terms like "Red Days" and "Green Days" and "Extra Easy" and "Syns" and so forth. I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing so I asked one of the other people, she gave me my diet template:

HAVE CARB DAYS where you eat only cabohydrates and a little (if any) protien.

HAVE PROTEIN DAYS where you eat only protein and a little (if any) carbohydrate.

NO BREAD, ever.

I thought perhaps she was being a bit overzealous with the bread rule. However a series of weird coincidences made me think twice. Firstly I was listening to The Collings and Herrin podcast a while back and they were talking about how eating bread during the Ed Festival had piled the pounds on them a bit. Then secondly I went to see Toby Hadoke performing in Manchester. He did a little routine he was working on about bread, the slut of all foods, because "it goes with anything". He was trying to cut it out also. That was enough for me, I didn't need to be told more than three times.

What all of the above has led to is a sort of compromise version of the atkins diet where I'm giving myself occasional days off where I'm allowed pasta and vegetables. Over the last 12 months I've had only a couple of slices of bread, usually in error.

However, as any dieter knows, half of the battle is psychological and it's here that the "Slimming World" group came into its own. It's a bit like I suspect alcoholics anonymous meetings are in that you sit round with a load of people who are determined to stop being who they've become. You sit there and really consider the fact that you must stay the course and lose weight. This comes after you've been ceremonially weighed. Most people don't hang around after being weighed for the meeting but I find it the most useful part of the process.

The leader of the group I went to was likeable but she had a picture that helped me enormously during 2011. It was of a bunch of 7 flowers. One of them was damaged, she would always make the point that if you had a vase with 7 flowers and one was damaged would you throw them all away? Nope, you'd just forget about the one that was wrong and keep the other 6. These flowers were like the days of the week. Failing on one day to keep to your diet did not mean you had to throw away the whole week. For some reason that really made sense to me and helped when I dropped the ball here and there.

Good luck if you're starting on a diet right now. Hope the above entry is of use.

NM

PICTURE: My protein breakfast today inspired this entry. It's a sharing platter from Asda! Cool eh? Olives, meat and dried tomatoes.

The fur trade and international terrorism

2012-01-05T08:54:00.000Z

The argument against the fur trade runs like this ... "I hate people who wear fur because they are paying money into an industry that is cruel to animals".

The argument in favour of international terrorism runs like this ... "I hate people who are British because they are paying money into a nation that is cruel to people".

In essence the argument stated as series of propositions is:

1/ I hate X

2 / BECAUSE they pay money into Y

3/ AND Y is cruel to animals/people.

It is this argument that allows animal rights activists to chuck paint over people who wear fur. It's the same one a terrorist uses when justifying attacks upon civilians.

From my point of view it might be better to cut out X from the equation. If you are inclined to hate I'd direct such inclinations at Y, that way you're hating someone who is actually doing something cruel.

This point of view is not popular because society has deliberately overstated the power of market forces. People have been led to believe that their money has an almost supernatural power to persuade someone to action. Faith in its value makes it possible to easily order huge numbers of citizens. It also gives them a convinient excuse for compromising their own morality: "I was just doing my job".

If your job involves torturing animals for their fur or murdering people perhaps those coins aren't worth it and it's time for you to wake up.

NM

REFERENCES:

Now PETA slam under-siege Kim Kardashian with billboard condemning her for wearing fur (and her sister Khloe agrees too).

In a trivial pursuit of Trivial Pursuit

2012-01-04T21:12:00.000Z

Arrgh!

So, why is it the case that Trivial Pursuit is nowhere to be found? There's only some rubbish version where you bet on people knowing or not knowing the answers to a question. I started off by going to the toyshop in London called Hamleys. The shop assistant rolled her eyes and said "ooh, everyone has been asking for that this month" as she pointed me in the direction of the crap orange box with the new version in. I asked her if she had the original. They didn't. As I walked out some dozy 'fun loving' sales assistant chucked a plastic boomerang around and missed the back of my head by an inch or so.

I wandered off to John Lewis. Nope.

Tesco. Nope.

Argos. Nope.

Harrods. Nope.

WHSmith. Nope.

I even bumped into a young couple who were also searching for it. They wanted it for a dinner party (I was shopping for a Xmas present) on New Year's Eve. We compared notes and both marvelled at the following weird response we'd had in a number of shops ... "why don't you get it on the internet".

They wonder why the high street is doomed!

Still not found it.

NM

Previous entry regarding "ooh, why don't you get it on the internet.

EMAIL TO THE UNIVERSE

2012-01-02T06:46:00.000Z

I've decided I should get better at "small talk". Over the Xmas period I've been amazed at how much people can manage without apparently getting bored. For me it's a real chore. I kind of dry up and want to say things like:

"So ... what do you think about The EU then eh?"

or

"Hmm ... anyway, Iran is looking quite likely to go nuclear soon isn't it?"

Those kinds of things though generally tend to kill off the vibe a bit at social occasions. See I've noticed that "small talk" seems to involve not actually saying much at all, if it's done well. In terms of conversation I'm a bit "bull in a china shop" sometimes. Need to master talking about less 'weighty' issues I think. I'll record my progress here in future entries.

For Xmas I got Robert Anton Wilson's "Email To The Universe" and have been giving it a good thumbing on the tube on my way to work. If you have never read any of his stuff I can't recommend it enough. I suggest you start with "Prometheus Rising", then move on from there. He's a philosopher of supreme clarity. Useless in relation to my mission regarding "small talk" skills though...

New Year's Resolutions

2012-01-01T18:52:00.001Z

Mine are simple:

1, Be more organised.

2, Use my time more wisely.

3, Lose the last 7lbs I need to shift before I hit my target weight of 14 1/2 stone.

4, Blog - once a day, every day, for all of 2012.

Discordians don't join groups

2011-10-21T02:49:00.000+01:00

I attended the protests at St Paul's last weekend, after blogging about the meeting held to organise it the week before.

As I've said previously, I have a lot of sympathy with rage directed towards the financial system. I think probably most people do. Here's an earlier entry which touches on my personal views regarding lending money with interest. However, I'm unsure I like the tone of a lot of the protesters. They seem naive and more than a little half witted. Perhaps this is just down to the nature of big groups of people. There's not much you can do if someone sticks up a sign telling everyone what you, as a member of the crowd, advocate.

I wandered about talking to people for quite some time on Sunday night having already done a radio show where I think it probably came across that I had no sympathy whatsoever for them. The truth of the matter is slightly more complex. I am both supporting and criticising them.

I disagree that "Capitalism IS Crisis" or that "The People Are Too Big To Fail" or even that they are "The 99%". However, I agree that it's beyond mad that we bailed out the banks with our own money so they could then refuse to lend us it back. That's clearly insane. Furthermore I agree that politicians need to take more responsibility for such decisions. It's no good just looking at us forlornly and acting as if there was no alternative course of action.

Finally, and without reservation, it's good to see people doing something which expresses the entirely fair anger most people feel about the situation. Banks have one job: look after our money. That's it. They failed. Not us.

Occupy the London stock exchange

2011-10-11T19:34:00.001+01:00

The #ows (occupy wall street) meme has arrived in London. I know this because yesterday I was part of an "amorphous horizontal non-hierarchical collective" having a "mutually beneficial shared discourse" about how we can really "sort those f*ckers out". It was a bit of fun.

The 'occupy the London stock exchange general meeting' was on Westminster bridge during the "block the bridge" protest designed to highlight a Government bill which critics say is aimed at selling off parts of the NHS. As a result there were about 800 or so mostly NHS employees all stood on Westminster Bridge chanting earnestly "Whose NHS? Our NHS". On either side of them were rows of police with nightsticks looking ready for a bit of hippy bashing if necessary...

I'd read on twitter that there was to be a meeting there, to organise the occupation which will take place on Saturday the 15th of October, Paternoster Square London. At first the people involved were a bit tricky to locate amongst this big crowd of leftys, despite someone handing out leaflets advertising the occupation itself. I took a leaflet off someone wearing an anonymous mask and got the impression he didn't realise there was a meeting about it going on there at all. He was too busy telling me "we are all anonymous, everyone here". Frankly, people like that get right up my nose. You're wearing a mask, get over yourself, I don't want to join your silly cult*.

We eventually located them by their chant: "We are the 99%, we are the 99%!". At core this is the idea which lies behind both the 'occupy wall street' campaign and now the forthcoming situation in London. It's not clear if this has always been the case but as the movement gathers pace it has slowly found a voice. The history of the wall street occuptation is more a story of inarticulate rage directed at the financial system. The protest there was organised by an advert in a leftwing magazine. The people who posted that advert are influenced by the French situationists in that their aim was only really to give people a "situation" which would act as a lightning rod for those who want "change". What that "change" is comes once the metaphorical snowball has begun rolling.

By the time we arrived where this meeting was, within the crowd, they'd divided up into groups. The intent was to talk about "society and how we should move forward," explained a nice middle class bloke who was very friendly and keen to help us fit in. There were three sets of hand signals the groups were using: "jazz hands, limp wrists and crossed arms". The first meant you agreed with the speaker and the other two seemed to mean you didn't or were not sure.

We sat down under a banner (you tube clip above) and listened to lots of student types talking mostly utter b*ll*cks.

Once that was over people fed their thoughts back to the main group using a megaphone and the "human mic" technique where the crowd repeats the sentences uttered by the speaker. This provided a reference to the original protests where the human mic technique was used out of necessity because the wall street protestors were not allowed megaphones or amplification devices**.

I can't pretend I'm not excited about the forthcoming occupation. I'm not saying I support it but I am very sympathetic to inarticulate rage directed at the financial system. I am reminded of the famous chinese curse which runs "may you live in interesting times".

NM

Previous blog entries which might be interesting and relate to this:

Rule by Terror revolution in France and the human rights act.

The Awakening.

*Years ago I used to post on the forum 4chan. Anonymous, the idea, formed there. It's very influenced by, Discordianism, but I doubt the self rightious moralist who was wearing a mask and trying to impress me with his imagined mystique knows that.

**Human mic technique in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8Q73yjRVhE

Beware the poiticians and their celebrity friends who want you to "blame the media".

2011-10-05T08:47:00.000+01:00

According to some people "the media" has either caused or magnified every problem in this country. I've heard it blamed for the obesity epidemic, the rise in anoerexia, the war in Iraq, the strong anti war sentiment in the UK, the rise of political correctness, the fact people rubbish political correctness, etc, etc, etc. In fact I honestly can't think of a problem our nation faces which hasn't at some point or other had some chuff bumble on about how they "blame the media".

This culture of blame is damaging to those who indulge in it and feeds the power of the people who it is intended to attack. Think of the final scene in, The Wizard Of Oz. "The media" is, at its worst, the machine which distracts Dorothy and her friends. When used by the likes of politicians or big business it allows them, the real villains, to hide behind a curtain of confusion. Furthermore once your focus is upon that machine, there's an all powerful version of these characters being projected at you which will frighten anyone but Toto the dog. Thus the media is here, at worst, a distraction made more powerful by your attention. However, that is not the full picture and those who think it is have merely been successfully distracted. If you remember the story, the dog pulls aside the magician's curtain to reveal the truth. What is Toto the dog here, if not a fearless newshound who sniffs out the truth?

This is the inherent problem with blaming "the media" as a collective. It conflates a massive group of people who do not have the same agenda or act as one on any issue. It ignores the benefits of a free press, which without question we have in this country. It pretends that those who speak about the expenses scandal, the WMD scandal and even the phone hacking scandal found out about such things by virtue of their own ingenuity. They didn't, they heard about it through "the media".

However, and here's the bit many people do not seem to understand, although Toto the dog and the Wizard of Oz's media machine are not the same thing you cannot have one without the other. Why? Because no one wants to watch Toto the dog being worthy all the time. He's boring. That big machine over there in the corner of the room is proper cool man, look at it! There's smoke coming off it and stuff, it's ace. The fact it gets an audience means it can make money and it also means when Toto runs over to it, they're looking in the right direction and give a toss about his "scoop".

This brings me to the "phone hacking scandal" which has, without question, not gone away. There's an article about it in this morning's Telegraph. It's being pushed by incredibly powerful people who are frankly sick of Toto the dog. They're trying to make you think they're attacking The Wizard's all powerful celebrity machine but only an idiot (or a celebrity) would buy that. In fact that machine is so big and profitable you can easily slice a few bits off it and throw them to the baying crowd without much worry.

In this vein they brought you the head of, The News Of The World, to help frame the debate in their favour. The crowd cheered this spectacle in much the same way as they might have first greeted the guillotine during the French revolution. Like those crowds, who got a thrill watching the "great and the good" of France meet a grizly end, those who parrot the mantra of "I blame the media" are also driven on by jealousy, I suspect. Celebrity culture and jealousy walk hand in hand. The lungs of those who "blame the media" usually belong to bitter and disgruntled media studies students, unfamous wannabies and tarnished celebrities. Those of them with the sense to realise what has happened will find their cheers ring hollow later on, I think, when Toto gets a taste and the inevitable consequence of "blaming the media" asserts itself.

How about this mantra, it's one that is far more fruitful but weirdly less fashionable: I blame the politicians?

Make no mistake, the real criminals in all of this are WITHOUT QUESTION the politicians who right now are rolling out their guillotines. They want to licence journalists. This is a dreadful idea. We are told it is designed to make journalists more 'trustworthy'. Ask yourself this, from whose perspective? Trustworthy from the perspective of those behind the curtain, the poiticians. I say you should NEVER trust a politician. Allowing them to choose who you can trust is equally absurd. The public already licence their journalists, thank you very much. We CHOOSE to pay attention to them or not. Our attention gives them a licence to communicate with us. If they lose it their licence is revoked.

Some politicians do not understand this because they think people are so stupid that they're actually controlled by the media. The media machine pays lip service to this idea because it gives them access to real power. Power which is granted to them by people who are at core incredibly vain and arrogant. Politics has been described as 'showbusiness for ugly people' and the truth is that a flattering media profile or two can make them appear from a distance to be less repulsive than they actually are.

I'll leave the final word to, John Kampfner, the Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, as reported by "the media":

“If we look over the past decade – from Iraq, to the behaviour of bankers - journalists have found out too little about those with power because of our restrictive libel and privacy laws. Journalism is too weak, not too strong.”

Quote from The Telegraph article linked to.

"Life is but a dream"

2011-09-29T03:37:00.001+01:00

"As sunlight obscures the stars by day so does wakefullness blind us to the fact that we are still dreaming."

- Liber Kaos, Peter J Carroll.

Everything you have ever experienced had to pass from the outside world to your internal one. The body acts as an instrument through which reality must pass if it is to become part of someone's life experience. The brain is the final part of the filtration process and more than anything else it ignores information sent to it. Right now, in order to focus, you will be excluding more than you are taking in and if this blog entry has your full attention it will necessarily be at the expense of other things. Just as you hear someone speaking in a pub by ignoring background noise, reality can only be ordered from the chaos of the universe if your mind can negate what it believes is irrelevant.

Dreams are just a combination of your memory and imagination. While sleeping your brain has a chance to invent fantastic narratives by ignoring almost all sense data and letting both memory and imagination run wild. However, while awake, you still need both facilities to decode the world around you. On the one hand your comprehension of these words is built upon the memory of their previous meanings. On the other, that which is either lost by my poor communication skills or your lack of understanding or attention will be necessarily explained by an imagination. The combination of both factors allows these words to fit into and become part of a personal mythology which only you can really control.

This blog entry now rests inside your mind where everything you've ever known has been, part of a waking dream in a mind which is not my own.

Personally speaking I find it useful to sometimes consider that I do not in fact "know" anything at all. I simply dream.

PREVIOUS ENTRY ABOUT PETER J CARROLL
THE ABOVE IS VERY INFLUENCED BY BOTH HIM AND ANOTHER WRITER CALLED ROBERT ANTON WILSON.

Rule by terror, revolution in France and the human rights act.

2011-09-22T10:59:00.001+01:00

My fascination with The French Revolution began a few months ago. It's evident in this blog entry here. It's a period of history I know about only thanks to the internet, wikipedia and YouTube. I strongly suggest you look into it.

I'm still digesting the details but it's amazing to me how much of the world we currently live in is unlocked by only a surface knowledge of this historical period. It helps to explain conspiracy theorists and their views about occultism a bit. It reveals what is really going on with this debate between us and Europe regarding the "yuman rights act," which was clearly, in my opinion now, a declaration of revolutionary intent. It helps explain why the media is always at its best when it attacks authority without mercy. It shows you where the internet might lead us, as I wrote about in the linked to blog entry. In fact, there's very little it doesn't throw new light upon. The detail regarding it was mostly new to me but each piece of it set off a new thought process in my mind.

Firstly, here's an excellent introduction, breathlessly told by an exciting sound track and an enthusiastic American voice over:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EvakM9Waus

Secondly, a slightly more analytical walk through made by the BBC. Although that sounds like this is the therefore better of the two I suggest you go with the above first if you're like me and knew nothing about this era of history.

http://youtu.be/9Ef_43oW7Qg

What's wrong with Global Warming?

2011-09-20T12:26:00.000+01:00

Although it might sound otherwise I don't disbelieve in man made global warming. However, I don't believe in it either. On this one I'm prepared to admit my ignorance. One thing which does make me a little inclined to think that the case for it might be flawed is the fact that the noxious stench of politicians has become inextricably woven into the mix. Their odd solution to the problem seems to be something of an empty meal, with "more taxes" and crappy lightbulbs being top of the menu. Another thing which makes me doubt the scientific consensus is the fact it's a menu that seems to chiefly consist of porkie pies. The latest is detailed in The Guardian here.

The outline of the story is approximately this, The Times Atlas recently launched in a blaze of publicity claiming to show proof of the evil influence of humans on Greenland. 15% of the ice cover has been destroyed since 1999! How terrifying. Better get those carbon taxes sorted before the next election. Then, oops a daisy, pesky facts go and trip the bandwagon up a bit. Turns out glaciologists say that although the ice cover is melting it's nowhere near the 'misleading' 15% rate represented by the Times Atlas cartographers. And so there we are, yet another bandwagon thunders off course with EVEN the Guardian being forced to cover the embarrasing story.

Science is supposed to be about facts. This thing surely either is or is not happening. Not so. Welcome the the world of "post normal science". There is a branch of science where it is argued that scientists can and should go where the data does not. From wikipedia:

Detractors of post-normal science, conversely, see it as a method of trying to argue for a given set of actions despite a lack of evidence for them, and as a method of trying to stifle opposing voices calling for caution by accusing them of hidden biases. Many consider post-normal science an attempt to ignore proper scientific methods in an attempt to substitute inferior methodology in service of political goals.

An article for The Telegraph about it is here.

Makes you wonder eh?

Earlier article on Global War and Global Warming

Occultism/Discordianism

2011-09-19T18:35:00.000+01:00

One of the consequences of going on Facebook quite a lot at the moment is that listeners have been asking me questions. The most common one is about my "religion" Discordianism. I'm a bit confused by this as previously (despite often mentioning it) people didn't seem to be that interested in what is sort of a joke religion. I mention it less on LBC 97.3 but get asked about it more ... there's something about human psychology in that I think.

Anyway, it's a big topic and not all of it makes much sense. This blog entry is for those who are interested. If you post a comment/question at the bottom I'll try and answer it.

--

Occultism literally means, hidden from view. Ocular, meaning roughly your eyes, as in "binoculars". This means occultism is in fact the study of things which are not currently understood. Conspiracy theorists often think it means the study of things which have been deliberately covered up, I'd argue that was profoundly wrong these days. That's only really a description which applies to occultism as it was during the time when not being a Christian seriously harmed your life prospects. Around the 60's-70's the need for secrecy largely vanished and is, in my opinion, only maintained by some who get a kick out of 'understanding' things that others haven't really thought about. There's also a certain allure to pretending you know a secret which I think some self styled occult gurus clearly indulge in. The truth is this, good occultists don't claim to "know" anything. They're guessing. Furthermore a good Discordian doesn't claim to "believe".

I have written about it numerous times in this blog, here are my more popular articles on the subject:

Aleister Crowley - This article is the biggie. It gets all the readers and is now linked to by various other people.

Blame Alan Moore - This is the better article I think, it gets less attention these days.

My Polytheism Defence - This is an example of how occultism applies to my day to day life with surprising consequences.

Then this entry provides you with a short conclusion.

Hope that helps.

NM

Staring blankly at my own Facebook

2011-09-11T17:39:00.000+01:00

I've done pretty well in resisting Facebook. It's only recently that I've been drawn into its sticky web. I have two accounts, one for people I know in real life and another for my radio show stuff. There's a very blurred line that sepearates the two. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep either of them going. I don't think it's a website that's good for me.

My life's pretty medicore in terms of socialising and travel. In fact I do very little that could be described as 'cool'. I watch daytime telly, play on my 'puter, read a lot of books and every Thursday I go to a pub quiz. That's it. All my life I've had a weird nagging suspicion that I wasn't normal in this respect and that everyone else is having an amazing time, all the time. Facebook seems to give me photographic proof that this suspicion is not just typical insecure paranoia but is in fact true. Judging by a flick through Facebook it seems most of the people I know spend all their time at parties or on holiday doing amazing things.

I'm not much of a pictures person. Amature photographs generally depress me. They make the world look so ordinary. Furthermore I'm of the opinion that you can't go right with a picture of yourself. It's either going to look good and therefore depress you with the passage of time or it'll look bad and depress you in the here and now. Despite this I got drawn into looking at people's pictures this morning. I had a bit of time to kill in the office. I had no idea what an overall downer the experience would be.

It left me feeling boring, ordinary and nosy. Is that the sort of thing other people feel when they log onto Facebook? Am I doing something wrong? I'm puzzled by the appeal of it. Someone once told me it was "all about the pictures". Maybe that's why I'm just not really "getting it".

I've tried commenting on things as well. I like that a bit more but the site seems to lack the depth of twitter. Most of it seems to be incredibly inconsequential and inane. Pages and pages of "polite chatter". The sort of conversations I loathe in real life.

I must be doing something wrong.

Why do people like that website?

Taxi drivers are ace...

2011-09-08T16:59:00.000+01:00

Recently I was sat in a taxi and as usual I got drawn into a conversation. This particular driver had a very strong Indian accent. He was sort of rambling away to himself about the immorality of the city. It was hard to make out what he said but there was one part which I either misheard or was perhaps one of the most poetic turns of phrase I've heard in a while:

"Some of these women, they are there, with their drugs. They speak like no one would ever be speaking to you. Oh! It is awful. They have a debasement of language. They soil the English language. They make it so as after you have heard them you want that no more you will have a conversation again. With anyone. That is how bad they are."

I think he was talking about prostitutes. It was hard to be sure if he meant prostitutes or just some of the tourists you get from abroad in the back of his cab. What struck me was the idea that in his mind it was possible to have a conversation that was so bad it would put you off ever speaking to anyone, ever again! What a fantastic insult!

I've said it before, I'll say it again, no matter where you are in the UK, taxi drivers are ace!

PREVIOUS POST ABOUT TAXI DRIVERS.

Ask me anything about sharks and Nazis.

2011-09-07T21:53:00.001+01:00

I love watching documentaries. Ricky Gervais in his awesome first stand up set practically outlined the life many blokes in the digital TV age have ended up living. Flicking between the different documentary channels:

Ask me anything about sharks and Nazis. Not as bad as a lot of people make out, actually. Sharks I mean, not Nazis. Sharks, brilliant. Nazis, rubbish.

My two favourite series at the moment are "How The Universe Works" and "Elegance and Decadence". Both go well with the sound system pumped up in the background. The former features massive planets colliding with each other alongside an epic sound ambient soundtrack. The latter has a pretty groovy rock soundscape to it.

Anyway, during my time in documentary world I've noticed certain cliches popping up from time to time. Here's some of the ones I've noticed alongside others suggested by the Margerrison twitterarti ...

HISTORY DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #1

"They were very much the, ah, Posh and Becks, of the period," person saying it pulls face a bit or rolls their eyes...

HISTORY DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #2

"Back then they didn't have 'email' or 'blackberrys'," said with a bit of a sneer.

NATURE DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #1

"And that's right, these lovely creatures are all going to die, because of you and your greed".

HISTORY DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #3

"This period was one of dramatic change, it was a little like the 60's, sort of," cue rock music montage.

POP MUSIC DOCUMENTARY ABOUT A DEAD ROCKSTAR CLICHE #1

"In many ways they looked to be on the verge of an artistic comeback".

SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #1

"Weighs as much as whales" By @MargoJMilne

SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #2

"...is as tall as of double decker buses". @KeithTrue

NATURE DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #2

"An area size of Wales deforrested every X weeks." @odaviesnh

SCIENCE DOCUMENTARY CLICHE #3

"Until one man in [insert place] had an idea" @simmoski

"Who's upset you this time Alan?"

2011-09-07T00:22:00.001+01:00

"I don't fink enuff people realise how clever Einstein's ideas are actually, really. I mean it's just so amazing how good his mind was. Like E=MC2 that just changed everything right, see," says the bloke opposite me to a woman who has just been talking about Shakespeare to him. She explained to him that she likes Shakespeare because she's an actress and as part of her job she researches the era in which he lived whenever she does one of his plays. Apparently, much to my irritation, she incorrectly thought he lived in Victorian times. I think they were sort of chatting each other up but her love of Shakespeare has really put his nose out of joint so now he's explaining why he likes Einstien and why that's better than "all that art farty stuff right?".

"The thing is right, it's like, what it means is, it's like, if you were to smoke loads of cigarettes right ...?"

He's revealing to her and everyone else on the train that he knows nothing about Einstein's famous equation. I don't either but I'm confident I know more than him. I'm also one hundred percent sure that it didn't involve an experiement where an aeroplane went at "exactly the speed of light and when the people got off right, they were all older because of that, so it's like time travel is possible but only slightly."

I don't know why his ignorance is annoying me so much. I'm fighting the urge to say "it's got something to do with energy being equal to light and motion, that's what it's about you idiot, it's not a fair comparison with Shakespeare because you've misunderstood the word 'genius'".

"The thing is though, he doesn't really get as much credit for his ideas," he says and she finishes off his sentence with "well, Shakespeare's more relatable I guess".

"And, about time travel, Shakespeare predicted that in one of his plays," she announces. "It's like this quote about how time changes but stays the same".

Fortunately the woman's stop has arrived and she's off.

How old do you imagine these two were?

I'd say they looked like they were touching 40 at least!

NM

Coffee and daytime TV

2011-09-01T09:48:00.001+01:00

And mutton chop sideboards!

The Awakening

2011-08-31T13:48:00.001+01:00

I'm sure you've heard the comparison made between the internet and the printing press. It's one which sticks because it's so damn accurate. So, with that in mind, if the past provides an approximate roadmap of the future you can be in no doubt that we're about to be in for a very interesting ride.

"What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind."
- Wendell Phillips, abolitionist and orator, 1811AD-1884AD

The Enlightenment (18th Century, sometimes called "The Age of Reason")is looked back upon as an age of almost unbridled intellectual development and progress. It is largely seen to have been powered by the existence of the printing press which allowed mass communication on a scale previously impossible to imagine. It also made the free flow of information and accurate exchange of scientific discoveries possible like never before. Sound familliar?

This ability to spread and build upon useful information helped to cause the exagerration of something known in esoteric circles as, The Jumping Jesus Phenomenon:

"Our psychic universe is expanding even more rapidly than the physical universe. Let us define the measurement of known scientific facts in the year 1 A.D. as "one jesus," using the name of the celebrated philosopher born that year.

Before going any further, let us ask how long it took to arrive at one jesus. One way of estimating is to take the estimated age of homo sapiens, in which case it took 40,000 to 100,000 years.

How long did it take to double this accumulation of knowledge, to achieve two jesuses? It required 1500 years - until 1500 A.D. How long did it take to double again and obtain four jesuses? It required 250 years, and we had four jesuses in our larder by 1750.

The next doubling took 150 years, and by 1900 A.D. humanity had eight jesuses in our information account. The next doubling took 50 years, and by 1950 we had 16 jesuses. The next, ten years, and by 1960 we had 32 jesuses. The next doubling took seven years, and by 1967 we had 64 jesuses. And the next doubling took 6 years; by 1973 we have 128 jesuses.

There is no reason to imagine that the acceleration has stopped. Thus, we almost certainly reached 256 j around 1978-79 and 512 j in 1982.

In short, we are living in a mental transformation space; that is, an omnidimensional halo expanding toward infinity in all directions. And the electronic center of this halo of mentation is possibly everywhere. It is all available to you right where you are sitting now. Just plug in a terminal. The machine doesn't care who or what you are."

-Robert Anton Wilson

The point is this; our technology is advancing now at speeds we can't measure effectively anymore. These massive upsurges in the technology of communication usually mean our intellectual abilities should be about due another massive boost. However, the New Age of Enlightenment will be different from the first in that last time what happened was essentially an elite cultural movement in the minds of a small group of European intellectuals. This time round, the modern mental equivalent of what happened to them in the 18th century, may well be about to take place in the consciousness of a worldwide audience.

To put this into context, at the start of Louis XV's reign it was thought that The King's touch could cure diseases such as scrofula. This was because The King of France was put there by God in accordance with The Divine Right Of Kings. By the end of, The Enlightenment, his son was being put to death as a common criminal. That's quite a dramatic turnaround and frankly a huge change in how people saw the world.

Imagine something like that happening to you in your lifetime. A core belief, which is so obvious to you it's taken for granted, being totally reversed and turned upon its head. It's almost impossible to think what ideas it might be without feeling a little silly but if you've agreed with this article so far that's what it looks like we're collectively heading for.

"Do we presently live in an enlightened age?" the answer is, "No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment."

-Immanuel Kant ("What Is Enlightenment?" 1784)

The thing about living in the wake of The Enlightenment, particularly if you happened to be French, is that it was pretty bloody and violent. I suspect that many of the changes on the way will seem awful at the time. My recent experiences in the riots were pretty scary, both reporting on and getting caught up in them. They were an event which seemed to almost take the internet and mass communication for granted. I personally believe that the way people reacted to them are an early expression of the double edged power that technology has given us. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not under the impression that they were caused by the net, just of the opinion that it acted like a magnifying glass on the already hot rays of a summer sun.

This medium acts as a non-specific amplifier able to squeeze every last drop of psychic energy out of even the most inconsequential of moments. A panda sneezing, a boy getting his finger bitten, a mad comedian being all racist. It's no surprise that grievences both legitimate and otherwise can find an audience online and bubble over into acts of violence. It's also no surprise that hysteria moves through it like an electric current as people brag about the free stuff they got the previous night.

During the time of the French revolution there was a character called, Jean-Paul Marat, who used the new media opportunities provided by the printing press to stir up revolutionaries and attack people in power. Nowadays characters like him probably spit their bile into blogs and YouTube videos and are, as we speak, busy plotting world domination.

There's something quite exciting about all this. I think it's the smell of inevitable change.

There's something Great about America...

2011-06-10T19:08:00.003+01:00

I've had a big head change as regards America. It's very strange but I felt it again in my thinking today regarding this absurd battle between the Archbishop Of Canterbury and our PM. I'd always thought that there was a clear 'seperation between church and state' in this country but of course that turn of phrase is not ours. It comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson back in 1802:

"..I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State".

Compare that to the UK where we still have unelected Bishops sitting in the House Of Lords! The so called, Lords Spiritual and you'll see which nation Nick The Atheist agrees with. The idea of splitting the Church away from The Government may have its roots in England but, as with most of the things I admire about the culture I've emerged from, it has only ever really been done properly in America.

The penny really dropped during two big recent events: the Royal Wedding and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. The latter which filled me with a sense of almost unreserved admiration for a great nation and the former only provided a deep sense of detachment from a people who appeared to be mindless zombies driven by raw unquestioning patriotism celebrating something which did not benefit them at all.

My views are becoming unfashionable and I am in this respect out of step with the broad consensus of my nation. Here it is the norm to hate the "stupid" Yanks. It has been for a long time and is almost a form of dogma. There's even a presumption among Royalists that American fascination with the Royal Wedding was proof our system is better! I suspect they watched it in the same way we might watch a documentary about the quaint customs of a tribe in the Amazonian jungle who have drifted culturally in a 'different direction' and still worship fire.

This blog post is my attempt to push you, a fellow Brit, into the realms of unpopular thought. Beware, these opinions will confuse those around you.

Firstly it's important to clarify that, like many of their citizens, I'm not blind to the often damaging effects of the realities of American foreign policy. Self awareness is key to my argument and it's one of the reasons I admire that nation. The term "military industrial complex" was coined as a prescient warning by one of their own, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his "farewell address". You'll often hear critics of the nation use it, apparently unaware of this. Anti-war sentiment played a huge part in the electoral success of President Obama. To think Americans love war as much as the big companies who sometimes pull its Government's strings is absurd. Mechanised mass murder isn't popular anywhere in the world. Just as the war in Iraq wasn't here.

To me though it's the ideas which America represents which are more important than the reality. The death of Osama Bin Laden represented the death of an evil man. He qualified as such not because of the identity given to him at birth but instead the one which he earned for himself in life. His actions and deeds defined him in the minds of Americans. On the other hand their birthplace defined them in his twisted brain. He hated them because they were born in America, that was more than enough for him. It didn't matter what they did with their lives, they would always be defined by their birthright. So we have two contrasting mindsets which, in my opinion, the Royal Family's state sponsored knees up falls down clearly onto the wrong side of.

"All men are created equal," Thomas Jefferson's still radical phrase from the Declaration of Independence is a direct attack on this idea of defining someone by birthright. A refusal to accept the so called "Divine Right of Kings". It is clearly not believed, understood or accepted in my country. Some seem to make the mistake of thinking that this idea is the same as the significantly less nuanced feeling that 'everybody is equal'. On the surface this seems just as good, if not better. However, give it a moment's thought: should people all be treated equally when their behaviour marks them out for a unique response? Should, for example, child murderer, Ian Huntley, be treated by society as you would a scientist who discovers a cure for cancer? Of course not. Should the workshy and hardworking members of society be paid in equal measure? Some think so, I do not*.

The Americans in Times Square were celebrating the death of a man who opposed their idea that "all men are created equal". The English in London (and around the UK) were, whether they knew it or not, celebrating the exact opposite of that. Furthermore, the Americans looked across the pond at us and did so with respect for our quaint traditions and way of life. Many of us looked at them while holding our noses with contempt at their "stupidity" and gullibility.

Perhaps this is partly down to the recent rise of conspiracy theory in the UK. Conspiracy theorists like to think they look behind the veil of what is going on in the world by not believing the "official story". It's a very American idea. It has been allowed to incubate over there so much because of their commitment to the notion of "freedom of speech". Again, something which we started here but do not have any firm commitment to. Certainly it's not enshrined in our law. I'm not saying I'd want to burn a Koran but if I did want to express myself like that I'd have to go over to the US to do so, otherwise I might face prosecution. In the US their commitment to "freedom of speech" is like ours to the Queen, quasi religious.

Yeah, but what about slavery? They had all that bad racism in the US, the UK wins there right?

Well, I'm not so sure. As I said before what I love about the US is their self awareness, their ability to change direction and correct things when they feel they've done wrong. They did abolish slavery and their policies of racial segregation when they realised the error of their ways and now, like him or not, a black man is their President. Not likely to happen in the UK any time soon.

In truth, our mindset would have plodded on with segregation I think. Just as we have with the Royal Family. There's no intent to change here in the UK, we've become stagnant. Clinging to past glories. "Ooh, lets put the Great back into Great Britain," people parrot to each other as my mind shouts back: "OH JUST F--- OFF!".

Yeah but what about their policy on gun control? Michael Moore made that film and it proves what idiots they all are, with their guns.

I used to think their gun policy was absurd. Then someone from America explained it to me thus:

having a gun is a sign that the Government trusts the people to behave as citizens rather than slaves. A nobleman carried a sword. A peasant was not allowed one. The peasants might revolt, a nobleman will only do so if his cause is just. In short, an armed populace provides a final defence against tyranny.

I remember 2001, it proved to me that America is not superman and can be wounded. Things change - America might not always be a world power. That won't concern the Royals. They can do business with China just as easily as they can the Americans. Perhaps their Kingdom will be more adapted to fit that style of Government, when the economic tide turns. It concerns me that if that happens those who come after us will stuggle to find anyone of any note who thinks they were created equal. It also worries me that no one will be allowed to to voice that concern and their last defence against tyranny will have gone.

NM

--

*Meh, actually that's a tricker question than I make out in this blog entry. I used to think people should all be paid the same for the work they do. However these days I'm swayed by an economist friend of mine who pointed out that incentives to not work and penalties for those who do generate the remarkably predictable consequence of putting people off working altogether. That said, the huge distance financially between the rich and poor in the UK is absurd. I'm still at heart a bit of a lefty and I can't swallow the full pill of rampant capitalism. Meh, maybe reform of the banking system is where it's at?

I'd forgotten how good Oasis were

2011-04-14T19:45:00.000+01:00

I'm currently wedged deep into a massive Oasis period. I had my podcasts blazin' away on iTunes as I was conquering the world on Civ4. Next thing I know on comes some random tune I'd not heard in ages. I was using the iTunes DJ thingy which, when you run out of preselected audio, picks something at random from your library. I didn't know what it was at first but I instantly thought it was good.

Then Liam started singing the opening words "How many special people change..." and I recognised it as Champagne Supernova. What a crackin' tune!

That was about a month ago and I am now considering getting some form of psychological help.

I've consumed loads of YouTube videos, listened to the first two albums back to back and have even tried to listen to their newer stuff. Some of it's actually alright. Even the infamously bad album Be Here Now is partly alright. It's just badly produced. Listen to the acoustic version of its opening track on YouTube and you'll know what I mean.

Oasis were not my generation's Beatles. If you were determined to put that crown on someone it'd have to be Blur, they were far more musically creative. Oasis are my generation's Rolling Stones. Just as The Stones took old blues riffs and re-worked them Oasis plundered old glam rock tunes and Coca Cola adverts. However, in step with the intellectual "post-modern" culture of the 90's they went further in admitting their influences. The most amusing instance being the piano opener on "Don't Look Back in Anger". There's no need for it, it's clearly exactly the same as John Lennon's Imagine and it's obviously been stuck on as a little afterthought. A sort of in-joke, a musical wink. Like I said, they're quintiessentially postmodern.

See what I mean? I need help! I'm loving Oasis music without any sign of an end in sight.

Link to the acoustic version of D'You Know What I Mean

Definition of postmoderism for any readers who didn't waste three years mucking about at University doing English and European Literature.

The Royal Wedding vs Celebrity Culture

2011-04-05T03:22:00.001+01:00

Years ago my ancestors will have been confronted with the following drama. As they picked turnips and slop up from the fields of the North of England, or wherever it was they lived, some bloke from The London will have rode up on horseback and demanded money in tribute to his mighty mate. The penalty for not meeting his demands will have been death on the end of this psycopath's sword. "He's already killed Dave," one of the villagers will have warned breathlessly, "he reckons we've got to give him tribute or some guy called King will burn the village down".

Terrified villagers will have in the main relented and those that didn't would have gained a fascinating insight into pain.

Over time this arrangement will has turned into "taxes" instead of tribute and the concept of "some guy called King" will have evolved into a Royal family. The world in which we live has many events like this propping it up.

You, unless you are bloodline royalty, will have ancestors with similar experiences. Doesn't matter where they were from in the UK that's what, approximately, will have happened. Some people have ignored this obvious fact regarding the institution of Monarchy and over time come to love their servitude. These people are called Royalists.

From what I can work out there are two kinds of thinking Royalist. One lot who believe it's a conduit for nationalism and another lot who think they might get something in return at some point.

Firstly, as regards nationalism, if a monarch is intrinsic to our national character then no one ever informed me. Ever. I grew up in this country. I've hardly ever left it. If we didn't have a Queen I reckon we'd still be living in England.

Secondly, with regard to attempting to curry favour, I often wonder if people with access to the media have an OBE in the back of their mind when they support the monarch.

Let me make myself clear: without reservation the oncoming spectre of a royal wedding does nothing other than turn my stomach.

I'm therefore heartened to read a story in The Daily Mail which reacts with a level of horror at the news "We’d rather watch X Factor! Schoolchildren are more excited by reality TV than the Royal Wedding".

"The Royal Wedding may be just six weeks away - but most British schoolchildren would prefer to watch the X Factor, according to [...] Chris Rojek, Professor of Sociology at Brunel University [...]

Professor Rojek says that school-age children do not view the Royals as exciting as their chart-topping favourite acts, as he told the Daily Mail: ‘Getting to be famous by being born into the right bed, like Prince William, is now seen as somewhat dubious, in a way that it wasn’t at the time of Princess Diana and Charles’ wedding."

The tone of the article is (possibly intentionally) amusing but speaks to something I've always argued in the past: reality TV "stars" are actually more worthy of respect than the Royal Family.

Unlike The Royals they've had to make an effort for their fame. Unlike The Royals they are there because they're liked. Unlike the Royals if you ignore them they will go away. And finally, most importantly, unlike the Royals they do not demand tribute from you every month.

Here are a few of the counter arguments to my stance which I've come across:

They're good for tourism and earn more money than we pay in.

RESPONSE: Great, lets stop funding them and allow the institution to become self sufficient.

Who would you replace them with, the likes of Tony Blair?

RESPONSE: Yes, because at least he got voted out. Years from now as 'king Charles takes to the throne Blair will be an unpleasant memory. However, 'king Charles will never get voted out. He'll die in that job regardless of how well or badly he performs.

It's tradition.

RESPONSE So was burning Catholics, denying women the vote, serfdom, jokes about the Irish, etc etc etc.

In the unlikely event that you are a monarchist I'd be interested to hear any other arguments in their favour. Pop them in the comments section. Post anonymously if you like.

Further reading:

Royal wedding could be damp squib for tourism, says official

Visit Britain research chief warns that evidence from previous events points to visitors steering clear of UK around 29 April

Realism

2010-09-28T15:28:00.001+01:00

Aug 12th

Original link found on the excellent Dangerous minds blog here.

The above YouTube video is a trailer for a Hulk film made by the Bangladeshi film industry. It looks awesome, in a sincerely camp fashion. Oddly it reminded me a bit of the old Troma films, Toxic Avenger and so on. Ah, happy days!

One of the first things to jump out at me is the effects. The CGI looks old fashioned. I've been recently grabbed* by the idea that most artwork loses its impact over time. The Mona Lisa does not look as jawdropping to someone who views it in the 21st century because we're used to realistic pictures in this day and age. Just as a moving image has less impact on us compared to the first people who saw cinema in the 1800's.

And ... just as Jurassic Park looks a bit rubbish nowadays so too will Avatar in 20 years hence.

This of course presumes a continued advancement in special effects. Perhaps we'll instead look back in 2030 and long for a return to pre-apocalypse big budget entertainment. By then maybe the Bangledeshi film industry will have overtaken Hollywood and they will look with a wry smile at one of our latest big hits.

NM

*I'm not quite sure if I heard someone talking about this on the radio or watched it on the telly. I'm consuming so muchy of both at the moment it's all turning into a vast soup of ideas in my headbox.

Wacky hair and popstars

2010-09-09T20:22:00.000+01:00

I'm not really aware of pop music these days. In my travels around the internets* I stumbled over this page which suggests that popstar Mark Salling has a song that sounds like one of Robbie Williams's.

It wasn't really that which annoyed me. It was the picture of him, with his haircut. That annoyed me. On a kind of deep level there's something wrong with someone having that haircut and yet being so cleanly polished. It should be a haircut that inspires fear. It's a punk haircut. I don't like punk but I've at least got a sense of respect for it.

Listen, I'm old now. I'm 33, I should be getting a sense of outrage when I look at popstars. I should be rolling my eyes or ringing my hands and wondering where the moral fibre of the nation's youth is going. Instead I'm confronted with a picture of a bloke who looks like a male model in every respect apart from his hair which looks like a marketing decision. "Lets give him a punk haircut, they're quite trendy at the moment," I imagine the meeting went.

There's no sense that the establishment need be scared of anything in that picture. In fact it's a sign that the machine has won.

My point is, that my dislike of Mark Salling's hair is not of the sort that style should evoke. It's the same dislike I had for Avril Lavigne's anarchy t-shirt and almost everything "P!nk" has ever looked at. Fake packaged rebellion with a pricetag stuck on it and a BEST BEFORE date stamped on its bottom.

I'm afraid to admit that the picture put me in a bad mood for most of the day.

NM

*People don't seem to "surf" the internet anymore do they? I wonder why that term sank beneath the waves of popular usage?

Telly them to hurry up!

2010-09-07T17:14:00.001+01:00

10th Aug

The fix it man has come and taken away my telly. It's been quite a carry on getting to this stage in the fix it process so I'm quite pleased we're making progress. My girlfriend however is livid that her Big Brother viewing is to be so ruined.

For me it's just going to mean more time on YouTube and iplayer. I've not really been enjoying this current series of Big Brother. It's been unusually dull. I don't mean that in a "huh I'm so principled and clever I don't watch it" way. I just mean it's not up to its usual excellent standard.

There's a part of me that likes the idea of not having a telly. There's also part of me that would hate to turn into one of those people who always brags about not having one. Fortunately there's no chance of us giving it up any time soon. Particularly given that I spent £500 on the thing. Typical that it breaks. Harumph!

NM

Influences on my mind - Christopher Hitchens

2010-09-07T16:45:00.001+01:00

9 August

The awful news that Christopher Hitchens has cancer is still a shock to me. I've not really come to terms with it. All I can do is write a little blog post pointing out how important his influence has been on me.

If you've never heard of him go on YouTube and consume hours of his stuff, it'll change you. Listening to his defence of the war in Iraq changed me. I still do not support the UK's role in it but I do understand the issues more than I used to. It's an abrasive experience hearing someone who is clearly intelligent, articulate and an out and out atheist arguing a point with which you disagree. It first happened to me when I stumbled upon Hitchens debating with George Galloway and, at the time, I think I was more inclined to agree with Galloway. The problem though is that it became clear during the debate that Hitchens was relying upon facts and presenting clear reasons for why he thought what he thought. Galloway on the other hand was relying on cliches, ones which I'd started to become tired of. Calling Bush a terrorist and a war criminal and then blaming America for the 9/11 attacks starts to wither in the light of a logical appraisal of why you've arrived at those conclusions and where those thoughts lead you.

At the time I was using some of the above cliches in my day to day life. However that debate between those two, which you can find on youtube, started to make me question how true they were. Did they stand up to close analysis and if not, why use them so frequently? What does it say about your own mind if, without any real knowledge of international law, you announce on a regular basis that Bush is a war criminal? Or, without any proof, declare that Blair lied about weapons of mass destruction? These are assertions you can only come to if you rely upon the reasoning of another. It's a sign you might be having your strings pulled for you.

For instance, how would your position change were the UN to rule on the matter and declare once and for all Bush was not a war criminal, would that mean you suddenly agreed with the war? Is global government the one you look towards for a sense of moral authority? What about if it became clear to you that Blair had in fact been misled with dodgy intelligence and therefore not lied about WMD's, does that mean it's all ok?

I realised that if I was to remain of the opinion that the war in Iraq was a bad idea I'd better understand why I thought that and stick to those principles rather than get dragged along in the mire of group think and petty sloganeering represented by Galloway and his like.

This led me to watch more videos of Christoper Hitchens. His frank and occasionally rude style makes for amusing viewing but above anything else he's made me think.

NM

The cover up is ending?

2010-09-01T10:03:00.001+01:00

"This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic among the general population and destroy one's belief in the Church"

According to The Telegraph and various other papers Winston Churchill's involvement in the "UFO cover up" might have amounted to more than just keeping us calm and getting us to carry on. This story, revealed in the official UFO archives, has been a part of 'Ufology' folklore for quite some time but it's nice to see it being so widely disseminated.

The short version runs like this: RAF pilot encounters UFO while flying a bomber plane. As you'd expect, UFO outmaneuvers our earth technology and reports of encounter become a national security issue. FULL ARTICLE IN TELEGRAPH HERE.

What interests me about this story is firstly the idea of mass panic. That makes sense in war time and post war Britain. Even during the Cold War I can imagine it might freak people a bit. Nowadays though, I'm not sure that's what we'd get in the event of full ET disclosure. Unless the story is "they exist and they're on their way to kick butt right now, in fact they arrive in 7 light years time, run for the hills!".

If, as most of the intelligent commentators on this matter suspect, the announcement is more along the lines of: "they exist and we don't know much about them if we're honest," then maybe we've got an outcome which is slightly harder to predict. I believe the response would be closer to mass amazement than panic.

The only area of life where there might be panic is in the religious world, the second area of this story which fascinates me. The religions of the world rely upon certainty. They know what's going on and why, it's written in their magic book. An announcement along the lines of: "they're real, who knows what they want or are" is totally unacceptable to them. This hits right at the core of a central misunderstanding as regards the distinction between Western science and religion. The former thrives on not knowing where the latter needs to have certainty. Despite the occasionally authoritarian guise of people like Dawkins (and before that Sagan) when they preach the gospel of common sense and the rules of evidence the reality is that if God were proved tomorrow the scientific community would be the ones who'd worked out his phone number. Only the Pope (and 'insert religious figureheads here') would want them not to ring him: "Err, let me talk to God first, I'll talk to him for you, this is going to be a very complex conversation for a mere moral. Oh no, don't ask him about the children, let me explain his words, oh no! Etc."

So just picture that, for a minute, the pandora's box of ET disclosure is opened. How would you react to that news? Probably like I did* with a "wow" and not much more. That is of course if it is, as I believe it is, something which represents the powers that be admitting there's something going on here which they do not understand. If collectively we all simply went "wow" there'd be no mass panic. Disclosure would simply become another 24 hour news event.

So, if there is a cover up going on, who'd be pushing hardest for it to continue if not the religious communities? The Catholic church's announcement that belief in ET's doesn't compromise your Catholicism a few years ago still makes me wonder if 'the truth' is on the way soon.

They stop revealing these MOD documents in a couple of years here in the UK. We'll have access to all the evidence just before the end of 2012. The clock is ticking. I wonder if any of the other religions will start paving the way for ET and his mates?

NM

*When talking to Edgar Mitchell. Millions have now heard that interview and a good 10% were enraged by my response. I stick by it though. Aliens are real? Wow.

A dog had laid an egg on a park bench?

2010-08-31T15:12:00.001+01:00

Aug 7

This picture, which I first saw here, reminded me of the time I went on holiday with a mate to the seaside resort of Filey, North Yorkshire. We were teenagers and as a result one of our jolly wheeze's was to craft replica dog turds from nearby patches of clay we discovered just off from the beach. We then rolled these replica dog turds in sand, for "extra authenticity" and once they looked as realistic as possible we then placed them in prime locations around the resort. You know, like on a park bench or underneath a no dogs allowed sign.

It still amuses me that we had serious conversations about if the dog turds looked too big, too small or were of the correct consistency in terms of texture and colour. He's an artist nowadays, I wonder if those early works would fetch a high price next to his more acclaimed pieces?

Ah - happy days!

NM

Lee and Herring was never as good as Stewart Lee and Richard Herring.

2010-08-28T09:24:00.000+01:00

Aug 6

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Some people my age labour under the impression that the comedy double act Lee and Herring were really good and it's a shame they split up. They weren't and it isn't. Lee and Herring were responsible for some good bits of comedy but when they split up and went their seperate ways (while remaining friends in real life) it was easily the best thing to happen to both their creative talents. Without question both have excelled in their solo careers and far surpassed anything they ever did together.

How would Stewart Lee's bile filled and angry masterclass in stand up, "90's comedian," ever have happened if he'd had the jocular Herring character bouncing around next to him? Where would the excellent blog Warming Up have emerged from if Richard Herring was busy trying to accomodate Lee's direction in his work? Let alone the podcasts Herring has done with Andrew "Collings" and with the ensemble cast of "As it occurs to me".

As a pair they were hit and miss. Alone they're two of the best comedians of our generation.

Here's Herring's review of Lee's book which I finished today.

NM

PS - While we're on the subject of good podcasts Howard Hughes's Unexplained show is worth a listen if you were a fan of my old Kerrang show The Night Before.

David Cameron's out of control, stop this man!

2010-08-28T09:05:00.000+01:00

5th Aug

David Cameron is either an evil genius when it comes to foreign policy or a Mr Bean style character who blunders his way through things, hoping for the best. My cynicism regarding politicians makes me inclined towards the latter description. Firstly his description of the UK as the US's junior partner during the war in 1940 was wrong on so many levels it's not easy to work out where to begin. Perhaps we start with the date, 1940 was the year when we stood alone against the almost card board cut out figure of evil that is Adolf Hitler. The US didn't come in until the next year.

Secondly, it's of no use to us for our leader to publicly acknowledge the truth of our relationship with the US. Not so far as I can see. If there's a time and place for unquestioning national pride and flag waving surely it's on the world stage? Sure, behind closed doors it's worth enduring a cold sweat or two as you absorb the sober truths while trying to work out what to do about it but I'd rather be represented in the theatre of US diplomatic relations by someone who bangs the drum a bit. I was always led to believe that these things were largely about pomp and circumstance.

Like I said, perhaps he's an evil genius with a plan I can't fathom. I doubt it though given the next ball he dropped in Pakistan. Sat, as he was, in India, the country who has waged war against them and is considered to be a mortal enemy, he spouts off about them exporting terror! Way to go Cameron. This after he praises their enemy India as some sort of a new superpower.

Pakistan is an ally of this country. We have deep links with it. Telling them they're exporting terror, again regardless of the veracity of the claim, seems hamfisted to me. Perhaps I'll be proved wrong but I doubt it.

My advice to him, because now I'm friends with political blogger Iain Dale I'm sure he reads this site*, is to calm it all down a bit. All people I've spoken to with family from Pakistan were upset by the terrorism comment and all the pensioners I've spoken to think the war one was a bad move as well.

Rant over, back to the real world. I've almost finished the Stewart Lee book. 3/4 of the way through and only had it in my posession for a few days!

NM

*I am of course joking for anyone who has had an irony bypass operation recently.

Further reading...

Cameron apologises for foreign policy gaffe.
Excellent article in The Guardian about "Cameron's smarm offensive".

What a depressing incident, thank God for Stewart Lee.

2010-08-27T08:31:00.000+01:00

I was sat on the tube opposite a rather well dressed dandy. Next to me were a young black couple who looked quite trendy themselves. The lad had a hat on and sports gear, the girl had her hair straightened and curled ever so slightly. The man got up and pushed his way through the people towards the door. The girl remarked to her boyfriend; "he's gay".

The lad sounded almost as shocked as I was. "How do you know that?" he asked her.

"You can just tell by the way he's dressed and acts".

"Well, what does it matter?" he asked.

"Dirty," she said.

He sort of sighed and then, the bloke they were talking about returned to his seat. I don't know if he heard them. I presume he'd got up at he wrong stop. I was so depressed by this incident I still haven't fully assimilated it into my mind. The girl didn't look phased but the lad looked a little embarrased. My stop came up and I got off.

I think the reason I was so surprised is that I'd always thought that homophobia was entirely motivated by the insecure feelings of men who are worried about their own sexuality. In fact, this is almost without exception the case. A man who stays up thinking about gay people clearly has issues.

I can only think this woman was motivated by religion. Beyond that her nasty outburst is incomprehensible.

Very odd.

The rest of the day was spent reading Stewart Lee's brilliant book. He's a comedian who has a fantastic routine about political correctness, which he thinks has not 'gone mad' and is in fact a good thing. I'm inclined to agree with him. It hadn't gone mad enough on that tube for my liking anyway.

NM

The Eh Team?*

2010-08-27T08:16:00.000+01:00

Aug 3rd

I'm very glad that me and my lady watched a few episodes of the TV series upon which the A-Team film was based. In my imagination the series was a work of genius, turns out that in reality it's irritating and dull.

I used to be a proud member of the A-Team fan club. It had little badges and stickers and a baffling set of pictures of not only the cast but also the crew who made the show. Baffling because, as a kid, you don't care what the chief grip looks like. Or indeed the head of props and continuity.

The film version we've just watched was boring. Not much more or less than that. Couple of nice action sequences but nothing special.

I think the only innovation in the film was that this time round the A-Team were ex-Gulf war as opposed to ex-Vietnam. That annoyed me. There's a tendancy for lazy comparisons like that to confuse the moral ambiguity which surrounds the two conflicts which we, along with America, got stuck into in the last decade. Vietman had no justification whatsoever. To believe that about these two wars is to simplify anti-war dissent to the point where you end up waving flags like those numb nutted: "We are all Hezbollah now" ones you see.

Still, you're reading the blog of a man who let ideological concerns get in the way of his enjoyment of the last Batman film so take it all with a pinch.

NM

*Stolen from Viz comic. Still a great read.

Katie pays the Price

2010-08-25T11:52:00.000+01:00

Urrgh. Does irony even exist in the mind of someone like Katie Price? I used to think that people like her knew what they did was nonsense. I grew up with the belief that were you to meet a famous person in real life they would let you in on the fact that everyone knew it was all a pose. The open secret would be revealed to you.

As I've got older, working on the fringes of celebrity, I've realised this is not in fact always the case. People like Katie Price do sometimes actually believe sincerely in what most of us would presume was an act.

In fact she was initially a prime candidate for having a bit of perspective given that she has 'an alter ego' in her stage name "Jordan". When I first heard this it gave me hope. "Excellent," I thought, "an attractive woman with a good grasp of the distinction between a persona and personality". Turns out this is more of a fake name in the sense that most strippers are not called 'Bunny' or 'Kitten'. In fact "Jordan" seems to be a character in the same sense that some people who have been subjected to extreme childhood trauma have split personalities to help them cope.

I can't claim to know much regarding this woman I'm writing about but I have watched various interviews and TV shows she's in*. Tonight I was watching her moaning to the documentary crew that were following her about that she wanted more privacy.

I granted her wish and changed channels.

NM

*I'd actually lay claim to being the only person left in the UK who genuinely still finds her attractive. I feel like this entitles me to some sort of medal.

Time shoots by.

2010-08-25T11:29:00.000+01:00

Aug 1st

It's such a droll observation but it holds true, time is going by at an ever increasing speed. If you agree with this assertion be prepared for it to continue to accelerate. In the world of New Age / Conspiracy theory there are some people who think this tendency, which everyone seems to have noticed, is proof that the Universe is itself thundering towards some sort of conclusion which will arrive in 2012.

The truth of the matter is of course slightly more mundane. It's down to perspective. At the age of 5 your understanding of the passage of a year is that it will take almost one fifth of your life. At the age of 10 it's only one tenth, and if you're 20 it's only a twentieth and so on. This means that the passage of time will always increase, even allowing for the alternations demanded by a poor memory.

At the age of twelve your experience of a year is alike to your experience of one month when you were a one year old baby.

This stuff tallys up with my experience of being a kid and thinking an hour was ages.

What's more it doesn't involve a mass consciousness awakening on the 21st Dec 2012. Or anything spooky at all. It just explains why people all think there's some sort of significant thing on the way. It's a trick of the human perspective. The people who wrote the Bible and ranted about end times felt it. Terrence McKenna felt it. You've felt it. So have I. And it will get more pronounced the older you are.

I think that's why old people seem so befuddled by the world. It's moving so fast relative to them.

NM

Having children does seem rubbish

2010-08-25T11:06:00.001+01:00

Sunday The 31st of July

I enjoyed listening to Cristo's show on LBC today. He was on top form. I couldn't agree more with his rant about the sitcom "Outnumbered" which features one half of the unfunny double act Punt and Dennis*. Me and my girlfriend excitedly switched it on when friends of ours (all of whom have kids) sold it to us as being one of the funniest TV shows they'd ever seen. If you've not seen it here's broadly what happens: adults are hassled by annoying kids as they get ready for school.

From the perspective of me, a man who doesn't have children at the moment, it was just annoying. Not charming or funny. Just really annoying. Me and my girlfriend realised as we were watching it that everyone who'd told us how great it was had kids themselves.

I remember a stand up comedian, can't remember which one, once ranting that kids are the sort of thing people want to inflict on other people once they've had them. They see all their non-child bearing friends and have a desire to drag them into the children clubby hook or by crook. "Oh, you two should have kids, it's great, no social life and lots of worry and stress," goes the mantra according to this comedian, whose name escapes me.

I think "Outnumbered" is a manifestation of that equation on a mass scale.

Cristo's rant was along similar lines. Us men without children are on to this devious plan! I bet there's no one without children who enjoys that sitcom.

NM

*The unfunny half of The Mary Whitehouse Experience. An, in retrospect, not that great TV show.

Some of life's little ironies

2010-08-24T17:45:00.000+01:00

I was reading some article or other recently with someone who had survived what sounded like a horrific car crash. Seriously injured, the man had only narrowly escaped full decapitation. He featured under the headline "The Luckiest Man In The World".

You rarely hear the expression "it's a funny old world" when out at a comedy night but I've heard it used twice at a funeral.

Nobody 'turned round and said' anything to me ever. That seems odd given (and I think this is a northern thing) the frequent use of the expression "he/she turned round and said".

There's something very funny about watching a stand up comedian who is not funny.

I frequently withdraw from civilisation because of a game called Civilisation.

Big Brother's final series limps along

2010-08-24T16:59:00.001+01:00

29th July

Me an' the lady settled down to watch Big Brother 11 on our still broken telly. The little line which flickers at the top didn't detract hugely from this rather poor final series of the infamous reality TV show.

I'm finding it hard to pick a favourite housemate. Last time round I liked quite a few of them and enjoyed the series. This time it's trickier to enjoy so I'm turning into the annoying stereotype boyfriend who sits and snipes on the sidelines.

Just before I continue to write this entry, it's not cool to dislike Big Brother the TV show. Almost everyone hates it these days. You are in the majority if you hate it. I always feel like I've done something wrong if I have a majority viewpoint so I'm really trying to like this series. It's not working though.

I think my favourite housemate is the big breasted mancunian lesbian Corin. She seems nice. She doesn't get much screen time though. Annoying.

Here's a good youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbaQqZt5QQg

NM

The Adverntures of Asterisk

2010-08-23T09:49:00.001+01:00

28th July

I'm very excited about the imminent arrival of a book by Stewart Lee. There are extracts appearing on the excellent comedy website Chortle. It appears that Mr Lee is a fan of the much ignored but incredibly useful tool we know as the asterisk or "*".

I've always enjoyed liberal use of asterisks on this blog. I think it's because I was reading Rik Mayall's autobiography at the time I started writing it. He uses the technique to excess* as well.

In fact I believe that it's symptomatic of the creative mind. Diversions are the very nature of creativity. Divergent thinking is the main tool you use when you make something new. This stands in opposition to "convergent thinking". The latter is when you are aiming to focus on one answer or point as opposed to many different solutions.

One way of testing your intelligence in terms of "divergent thinking" is to take the following short test:

Think of as many uses as you can for a brick in two minutes.

The more ideas you had the better you are at it.

I know all of this because I read it in the book I'm currently reading and hope to finish before Stewart Lee's comes out, Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. It's about exceptional people. Recommending it to you now.

NM

*I don't believe excess is always a bad thing. It annoys me that people presume the negative connotations of the word. Excess of a good thing is good sometimes. Don't believe all this, "everything in moderation" BS. It really is just that. BS**.

**BS stands for "belief system***".

*** Pope Bob elaborates effectively with this quote:

"The world is controlled by belief systems - BS. Don't believe totally in anybody's BS. The second commandment is like unto the first: don't believe totally in your own BS. That's my message to the youth of the world."

I love Pope Bob. Read the full interview here. Hail Eris!

High as a kite off a single cup of coffee!

2010-08-23T09:21:00.001+01:00

27th July

My caffine experiment has had to end. I was freaking out!

Who needs drugs when you can muck about with caffine highs? I reckon most people are more addicted to the substance than they think. Try cutting it out for a week, see how you do. If you can't manage it you'll still enjoy your first cup back.

A mate of mine has managed to quit altogether. He's also gone vegetarian. And has succeeded in turning into a smug c--t.

Joking of course*.

He'll give up his telly next.

Have you ever noticed that people who haven't got a telly always manage to tell you. They can't help but squeeze it into conversation. My "chav sized" telly was partly purchased with them in mind.

NM

*He's a good mate and he occasionally reads this blog. He's also a bit of a sensitive soul so I have to make it clear I'm joking. Wonder if he'll correctly self identify after reading this post? I'll mention him by name if he does.

Music I enjoy #4

2010-08-23T09:04:00.001+01:00

Hawkwind

It's tricky to know how to sell a band like Hawkwind to someone. Their music is
so varied that most people just give up trying to find an entry point. It is worth getting into them though, my suggestion is you start with their first album then go from that to their fourth "Space Ritual Alive in Liverpool and London". This gives you an idea of what to expect. A bit.

Part of the beauty of Hawkwind is their inconsistency. Some of the stuff they've put out is of questionable quality. I do not yet own all of their albums, just most of them. This means if I ever fancy a bit of an odd new musical experience I can cop one of their CDs and see what happens.

I've also met and interviewed their lead singer Dave Brock. Back when I was a student radio presenter we went and interviewed him in his caravan. He was on tour with the band. I remember walking in through the door via a thick milky white cloud of marijuana smoke. There was a bong on the go but Mr Brock didn't look high. We had a really interesting and amusing chat.

In fact one of my questions was about how people listening might go about getting into Hawkwind. His reply sums the interview up rather well: "Mmm, good question. It's safe to say that most people would have to do an audition. Usually, unless they're already known to us. Most people have to audition."

I was so excited to be talking to him, and a little confused by the heady atmosphere, that I didn't notice we were talking at such cross purposes until I got the tape home and listened back to it.

I must have that interview somewhere on tape. If I find it, I'll podcast it if it's not too embarrasing.

NM

I'm a bit like Renton off of that film

2010-08-23T08:25:00.002+01:00

25th July

I'm day two into my attempt to go for a week without caffeine. I went a whole day yesterday without it and then today I've just managed to keep not drinking anything with it in. I obviously suffer badly from an addiction to the drug as the last time I tried to come off it I had serious problems. I went very wibbly!

I was around the time I first tried the Atkins diet. A listener suggested it* to me, it was long before it became fashionable. I read the book from cover to cover and was amazed. It is a diet that works but most people don't read the original book and so think all it involves is eating protein and nothing else. That's only part of it. It also tells you to quit caffeine.

No problem I thought...

Without exaggeration I almost collapsed during a dizzy spell brought on by lack of a cuppa! The high I got when I drank a coffee after a long spell without was unbelievable.

However, I currently feel fine. I think it's going to be interesting seeing how long I can manage.

NM

*I listen too much to my listeners. I always have done. I think one of the reasons I went so deep into conspiracy theory / UFOs is because you can't present a late night radio show without those ideas being put to you on a frequent basis.

I also blame a listener for my Tony Robbins addiction. Someone sent me one of his talks in the post, I never got round to thanking them actually. Maybe they read this blog? If so, hello and thanks.

And my managing to quit smoking. Allen Carr was first suggested to me by a listener. It's a book, you read it and you quit. Mad. Don't know how it worked but it did.

It was a very rare incident

2010-08-20T06:40:00.001+01:00

There's a lot about news reporting and media in general which is deeply absurd. The idea that you can get an account of something which has no bias is blatantly idiotic. Everything has a perspective to it. Photographs are defined just as much by what they are not as by what they are. The same is true of writing, film etc. However, when the already strange world of a newspaper piece collides with an actually absurd news story the consequences are poetic. Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the weirdest story I've yet read in a British newspaper:

'Transvestite had sex with a dog at English Heritage castle'

Now, before I get into the meat and veg of this one, so to speak, I want to just skip to the end of the article and point out the "spokesman for English Heritage [who] said: 'This was a very rare incident'". It's almost the punchline to the piece. After the harrowing story of a confused cross dresser who sexually attacked someone's pet dog you're reminded, in case there was any doubt, that this is unusual behaviour for people at English Heritage locations.

This puts the spokesman, who is not named, into the role of either someone who is a bit simple so states the obvious or as one who enjoys using this device, of stating the obvious, for comic effect. Almost like politicians who wait for their big moment to get a prepared joke into the conversation. "My cast iron guarantee has rusted, make sure you print that I said that, it's cast iron and it has rusted!".

Was the spokesman for English heritage really keen to point that out? Did he even exist? I'm getting more and more skeptical of these "spokesmen" who pop up, like 'bystanders' in tabloid newspapers, and say things a journalist might want them to.

Anyway the potted version of the story linked to runs like this:

A cross dressing man was wandering around the dry moat at Pendennis Castle in Cornwall at around a quarter to twelve on a Saturday. A couple of women were out walking their dogs. One of them chased the bloke and when the women had caught up with them they found him having sex with it. Castle staff restrained him and the police were called.

So there we are.

It was a very rare incident, apparently.

Irony and sarcasm: Lee Nelson's Well Good Show

2010-08-20T06:10:00.001+01:00


Lee Nelson in action

23rd July

Today I sat and watched "Lee Nelson's Well Good Show". It was a 'best bits' clip show. Good lord what absolute toss! Firstly, lets be clear here, it's a show about a "chav" called Lee Nelson. He is supposed to be a bit thick. There is therefore a level of irony to most of the things he says. A duality of meaning which the writers of this show didn't seem to consider when naming the show with the voice of their eponymous star. By putting the title into the language of the "chav" character they're mocking it doesn't seem to occur to them that this places the viewer in an odd conundrum. Do they presume this really is a "well good show" or do they take that description with the level of sarcasm which is implied?

If it's really the sort of show a stereotypical "chav" would like in what sense does that mean the general viewer should watch it? Who, precisely, is this show aimed at? Did the problems inherent in the title cause the people who made it to become a little jaded during the process? It's a BBC show, which part of the public is it a service to? Given that they are public service broadcasters you'd think they'd have some sort of answer to that one. I wonder what it is?

The reason that all these questions floated through my head is because whoever put together the "best bits" forgot to include any jokes or funny bits.

One of my twitter correspondents suggested to me that it's a character lift from those old Devvo sketches. I'm not sure how far I go along with that but there's certainly a similarity. Here's old blog entries about Devvo, who oddly enough, Kate Lawler, was a fan of: HERE, HERE and HERE.