e by gum boots!

I came across this picture today, it apparently shows two customers of the Kirkstall Bridge Inn near Leeds who decided that not even a flooding river was going to separate a Yorkshireman from his pint!

Credit for the photo goes to @LeedsBeerMaz, kudos to Steve Holt and John Kelly for reminding everyone what true dedication looks like, we're not worthy!  (clearly not lager drinkers :)

Pro-Christian BBC?

Iain Lee the comic, TV and radio broadcaster has been fired from his job on BBC three counties radio over comments made during a robust debate with Christian Lawyer Libby Powell. The topic of the debate was the recent case of a Christian prison gardener (Barry Trayhorn) who decided to "remind" prisoners about the injunctions and judgements that his particular deity is claimed to have made regarding homosexuality, sin and general wrong doing. Apparently some prisoners complained and the prison authorities gave Trayhorn a warning which he claims led to him leaving the service and then the lawyers got involved and he's now suing the Home Office for constructive dismissal.

During the interview Lee made the comment that the prohibitions against homosexuality in the Bible were bigoted, and by association Powell was also bigoted for restating them as "true" and preaching this to others. Powell did the usual Christian thing of sidestepping responsibility for this bigotry, i.e. when Lee asked her to confirm what the passages said and meant she replied "these aren't my words, they're God's" - to which Lee quite reasonably pointed out that the Bible was not "God's words" but in fact authored by Humans (lots of different ones over hundreds of years and in many languages).

You can hear the interview here. In my opinion it's a reasonable interview, I have no objection to interviewers giving Christians a hard time for things like this, just as they do with politicians and football managers. No one at any point said that Powell couldn't or shouldn't hold these views, clearly it's everyone's right to be a bigot if they so desire, they just have to keep them out of publicly funded government and educational establishments where there exists a plurality of views and religions. Claiming that "my God said so" is simply not a legal (or rational) defense! (you'd have thought a lawyer would have understood that point?)

I'd love to hear the BBC's side of this, I wonder exactly what grounds are they dismissing Lee on? I can only imagine what would have happened if Powell had expressed equally judgmental opinions on Islam for example (as discussed on the Christian Concern WEB site), no doubt Lee would now be a hero rather than a villain. It seems that our state broadcaster supports bigotry so long as it's sugarcoated in the right religion.

In other news John Kettley has been been fired for offending viewers by describing water falling from the sky as rain.

We're getting there... maybe

An amusing Facebook post I came across today; goes rather neatly with my previous post about our feckless Home Secretary. I must say that I was more encouraged by David Cameron's speech to the Mansion House earlier tonight which you can see here. Sounds like the message might finally be getting through.

Secretarial sophistry

If I were a politician who wanted to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that I was utterly and completely out of touch with reality and popular opinion then, at this exact moment in time, I would probably make a statement like... "The Paris attacks have nothing to do with Islam"...

Oh, hold on, it looks like our Home Secretary (no less) has beaten me to it.. Theresa May, sounding like someone who hasn't received the current version of the script. It sounds as stupid as claiming that the inquisition had nothing to do with Catholicism. Of course these attacks have something to do with Islam, granted not the flavour of Islam practiced by most Muslims, but the "Islamic state" is an exclusively Islamic, Islamist organisation, never mind that they incessantly tell us exactly what they use to justify their barbarity (the Islamic holy texts!) but the frigging clue is right there in the name!

Normally this kind of asinine sophistry could be ignored or simply mocked mercilessly but the critical issue with it at this point in history is that coming from an authority figure, it completely dis-empowers the fragile embers of truly reformist Muslim voices out there, voices that so desperately need amplification.

Re-boot required

The Islamist atrocities in Paris this weekend leave me feeling a mixture of things, disgust, sadness, anger, outrage, helplessness and, lets not forget that most Islamic of emotions, offence. It seems likely that now that ISIS is beginning to lose ground in Syria and Iraq they are turning their attention to softer targets, i.e. us Europeans.

Let's face it, this kind of response is hardly surprising, the west is pounding ISIS fighters from the air and the hapless "troops" themselves containing large numbers of disaffected loosers and nut-jobs that are either too stupid or too gullible to make a good life for themselves as European Muslims and/or escape the clutches of religious radicals peddling the most ridiculous, medieval and asinine theology. It stands to reason that these European rejects will now turn and bite the hand that once fed them. They can't beat the Peshmerga, they've shagged their way through most of the 12 year olds in Northern Iraq and have decapitated almost all the unarmed and helpless aid workers in the region. With the ideas running out faster than the money and a backward religious ideology that constrains them to a boring and sterile existence devoid of culture and art, what else can they do to make themselves feel like real men?

I can't help feeling that the key question is not if ISIS is destroyed but when, and the critical point for Europeans is that the quicker this happens then probably fewer of our kids are going to get gunned down on European streets by pubescent religious retards. We have to face reality IMO, we're not going to defeat an idea (i.e. Islamism) with bombs alone; we have to make more of an effort to expose the ideology for what it is, i.e. corrupt, manipulative and misguided. For me this means moderate Muslims must spend less time being offended at cartoons and more time being offended at their fellow Muslims being eviscerated and enslaved by ISIS, particularly the rich Muslims in the gulf states who are conspicuous by their silence. Liberals the world over should lose the chips on their shoulders about faux racism and stand up for liberal values like freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We all need to realise that hating ideas and hating people are not the same thing, and we need to better support Muslims who risk everything by speaking out against the extremism within their own traditions and communities. On the thorny issue of whether this is a majority or a few bad apples we need to engage with the facts and stop burying our head in the sand, for example, after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in January a poll of Muslims in the UK showed that over a quarter had sympathies with the assassins, this is a huge problem for the cohesiveness of our society, it will be impossible to sustain dissonance like this. The left need to understand that these barbaric acts do indeed have everything to do with Islam, but obviously not everything to do with every Muslim, our politicians and media should spend as much time condemning, criticizing and mocking the ideas, texts and myths that are used to justify violence as the violence itself.

As I write this and whilst the choir still sings hymns at Notre Dame, the Twitter stream is alight with rumors that Raqqa (Syria) is being heavily bombarded by French fighter jets, this is surely a messed up world, I can only hope that we can find some way to reboot and rid ourselves of these death cults and mind viruses.

Respect

As per the recent Starbucks cup fiasco, here we have the classic dichotomy between what is said and what is done, the airbrushing of which is a skill perfected over many millennia by people of all faiths.

A "truth" captured incredibly efficiently by Jesus and Mo as always.

Storm in a coffee cup

Maybe Starbucks should provide a set of crayons with every cup so that certain people can colour them in however they'd like... like the tiny children they so clearly act and think like.

The party line..

Love this little cartoon created to showcase a well known Christopher Hitchens speech about dying. I always think about this when people bang on about eternity and the desirability of a life after death, of course we have no evidence to suggest that any of that is true but I wonder how many people have really thought about what it would mean if it were; eternity is a very long time.

Slip sliding away..

I've posted on the subject of Bangladesh several times in the past, it would seem that the religious loons in that country not only have a predilection for murdering secularists but now I read that for the first time state officials have been attacked by assassins claiming to be part of ISIS. It's hard to tell if these claims are true or not but if they are then this represents a nasty kind of proliferation that could see this kind of terror attack cropping up in all kinds of places on the Indian subcontinent, it seems difficult to see how this will end without huge (unnecessary) bloodshed, chalk another few thousand ruined lives up to the invisible friend brigade.

Watching me, watching you

My thoughts about the recent changes to internet snooping laws in the UK are summed up nicely in this photo. Unfortunately, Humans being Humans, something as useful as an instant Global communications network could never be immune from being used for unethical and evil purposes. Where the criminals go the authorities have to follow, a law of physics I suppose. What surprises me more is how easy (and cheap) it is to hide behind traffic tunneling protocols and encryption in ways that effectively makes internet activity more or less invisible if you so desire.

Another inevitable side effect of being a "global" platform is that it's easy to selectively chop up and route traffic through countries that don't exactly have a sophisticated criminal justice systems or cooperative legal channels. Surely the well funded, determined terrorist or criminal will have worked this out by now and Governments will know they know this; which does beg an obvious question, who do they hope to catch by snooping on ISP records?

All (super) Natural

Following from my post about US Presidential candidate Ben Carson yesterday here's a little something I spotted on the wire today. A thoroughly splendid effort, and exactly how religious know-alls who wear their faith on their sleeves and attempt to use it to acquire political power, like Carson does, should be ridiculed.

Looking for equality

I've been reading about an interesting test case today. The case is being brought by a group of parents against the UK Government and specifically about the decision to exclude non-religious world views such as Humanism from the new GCSE religious education syllabus. Under new rules (which I generally approve of) students are required to study two world views in depth (for example Hinduism and Christianity) but there are no non-religious world-views on the list. I can see both sides of this, i.e. being pedantic Atheism, Humanism, Deism etc. are not religions, they are mostly, simply the lack of one, therefore you could argue don't belong in a religious education lesson.

But, then again, there is a rich, intellectual history of struggle among past atheists, deists, religious moderates and humanists against the often oppressive and authoritarian religious regimes of the past; studying religion without opposition or non-religion seems to me like studying the old masters without impressionism, Einstein without Newton, Jekyll without Hyde. From Epicurus to Spinoza, Hume, Paine, Jefferson and Shelly through Nietzsche, Marx, Russell and even Dawkins every age has had a world-view sitting in opposition to the popular religious systems of the time. Any balanced study of human history and development illuminates a deep tradition of intellectual rigour and equality campaigning, opposition which is embodied in world-views like Humanism. They are IMO certainly as rich and interesting as any dusty old myths about elephant men, giant man-eating fish or flying horses.

It's Christmas, buy, buy, buy...

Christmas wouldn't be the same without a good parody...

Attention span

As this excellent XKCD cartoon illustrates, it's funny how human beings love to see things through rose tinted spectacles.

Many people constantly bang on about how bad things are today compared to the past, many have an attitude that the older something is the more likely it is to be true or worthy. It's a perspective that's heavily influenced by personal circumstances (we can all think of people who are having a bad time) but when we look at the big picture, i.e. the average, then now is probably the best time there has ever been to be a human constituent on planet Earth.

• Violence is lower (per head of population) than it's ever been
• Crime is lower
• Prosperity and quality of life is high
• Average lifespan is higher than ever 
• Standards of health and disease prevention are also at record levels. 

There's a lot to be happy about and yet many people still prefer to believe that the past was better. Many political manifestos are even built on this concept and for most faith based organisations and systems this idea seems foundational. Of course we must remember that golden geese aren't immortal, the value of our stock can go down as well as up so learning from the mistakes of the past is essential to our future success. Investment is key IMO, as every successful business person knows to survive in the long term you need to invest in the down market and save in an up market. This is why I believe that the current debate on science funding is critical, we need to make sure that the current climate of austerity doesn't constrain investment unnecessarily, we won't succeed in the future if we continually gaze in the rear view mirror.

Presidential properties?

US Presidential candidate Ben Carson has been getting into more trouble with the media lately; in a recent WSJ article he is exposed in an autobiography lying about his time as a student at Yale University. In the book he claims that a psychology professor there had awarded him $10 for being the "the most honest student in the class" and put his photograph in the college newspaper. The problem for Carson is that there was no such photo in that paper and no such psychology class at Yale during any of his years there, the irony here is exquisitely acute.

Carson is becoming well known around the world for his delusional opinions about reality; recently he was recorded giving a lecture in which he states that Charles Darwin was influenced by the Devil whilst formulating the theory of Evolution and that all of the quaint Bible myths of Noah and the garden of Eden are literally true and that the Earth was created in 6 actual days. In a revelation that hit the wires last week he is on record as stating that the Egyptian pyramids weren't in fact tombs for Pharaohs but grain stores built by the Bible character Joseph of old testament (Genesis) fame. Egyptian archaeologists were quick to point out that this question was in fact settled by the ancient Egyptians themselves who actually wrote down what the pyramids were for at the time.

For those of us who aren't fundamentalist Christians or indeed even religious, Carson represents the more frightening end of the political spectrum in the USA, the fact that he is one of the leading GOP nomination contenders scares the living bejeezus out of even the most rational of atheists and agnostics. The ego of this man seems to know no bounds, with God on his side he clearly feels qualified to make up his own versions of reality, versions that simply confirm his personal superstitious and literalistic narratives, independent of actual evidence. The fact that he is also highly intelligent makes things worse, it means he's amply equipped and funded to convince the many millions of voters in the USA who also prefer their reality distorted and parochially self-serving that he's a realistic candidate. In a recent photo-shoot at his house in Maryland the photographer diligently snapped the many rooms laden with certificates, awards, medals and clippings glorifying himself, and also a rather spooky portrait of Carson alongside Jesus? It's clear to many what this man thinks he is, and in an ironic Pharaohic twist he seems to have already built himself a mausoleum.

Thames Toffee

Continuing on a craft brew theme I also decided today to have a go at brewing a traditional English "bitter" beer. The template for my first attempt is a local Henley brew called Breakspear which has been made in Henley on Thames since the 1700's although it recently (2002) moved it's brewery further up into Oxfordshire to Wychwood. It's always been one of my favourites, the "ordinary" as it's known around these parts is a tasty session beer that you can always rely on and is fruitful and malty but only around 3.5% ABV.

The ingredients were a little different from the Chinook IPA described in my previous post; much less grain (therefore less sugar and less alcohol) but also darker (more roasted) grains including some "black malt" which smells just like chocolate! The hops were different too, English varieties like Challenger and East Kent Goldings rather than more exotic American varieties. For this batch I also used a special Thames Valley yeast strain which smelled glorious (nothing like the Thames at low tide!) The brew came out quite dark (as you can see in the photo) and quite flat, nowhere near as lively as previous brews, hopefully the ferment will kick in soon and I'll see some yeast/carbon dioxide bubble action! I decided to call this one "Thames Toffee" since that's exactly what it smelt like as it was boiling, hopefully it will be a tad less sweet than real toffee when it's finished, I'll let you know in a few weeks!

Chinook taste test

I brewed a beer back in October using a hop I'd never heard of before called "Chinook"; it comes from the USA and imparts spicy warm flavours of pine and fruit into the beer. I made an IPA out of a mixture of pilsner malt, biscuit malt and aromatic malt to which I added quite a large amount of the hops spread over several drops into the boil pot; I thought I'd be brave and give it a try today.

The beer came out quite dark (as you can see) and not particularly carbonated (a very light fizz) the aromas are great, hoppy and fruity then the taste hits you like a wave of pine forest on a hot sunny day, really good, I'm amazed you can make a beer so good with just basic pots and pans. I need to do this one again but I think I'm going to prime the bottles a little better so that I get a stronger carbonation, other than that it's sliding down great. I didn't measure the specific gravity of this one but it tastes like about 6-7%, enough to warm anyone's cockles on a on a rainy Saturday evening in Berkshire!

Geek Jokes

I came across a list of Science jokes; some of them might even make the "stock image" nerd in this picture smile, here are a few examples..

1.  Funny how theories on inertia don't seem to gain momentum..
2.  Why can't atheists solve exponential equations? Because they don't believe in higher powers..
3.  Pavlov? Name rings a bell..
4.  Neutron asks, how much for a beer? Barman says, for you, no charge..
5.  Optimist = Half full; Pessimist = half empty; Engineer = twice as large as it needs to be.
6.  Books on anti-gravitons are always hard to put down..
7.  Never trust atoms, they make up everything..
8.  What's the difference between a miner and a chemist, the way they pronounce "unionised"..
9.  Tried a chemistry joke the other day.. no reaction.
10.Two chemists walk into a bar, one asks for H2O, the other for H2O too, the 2nd dies.

TFI Friday!

Offended?

Jesus and Mo dealing with the rather childish reaction that most religious people exhibit when their treasured faith (of whatever stripe) is criticised or mocked. It's ironic that as a social species our addiction to being part of an in-group is simultaneously one of our most successful and also our most destructive traits, hopefully, over time, we can use the daddy of all Human traits, i.e. reason to wriggle our way out of this emotional straight-jacket.

Ultimate freedom

Leonardo da Vinci would be proud of this Swiss foot-launched glider; the only other way to get airborne as easily is via a para-glider or para-motor also both foot launched but more open to the elements and also probably slightly more difficult to fly. Back in 1997 (pre-kids!) I did a para-motor course in the French Alps (Tallard) and it was fantastic other than the fact that the engine that was strapped to your back weighed in at around 25 kg and you had to run to take off whilst balancing an inflated canopy above your head and revving the engine at the same time. It was extremely tiring and a bit like trying to rub your stomach and pat your head at the same time. This glider on the other hand looks much easier, and although it weighs around 50kg you don't seem to have to run more than a couple of steps before you're airborne.

Landing seems to be straightforward too, either on grass or tarmac and I see that there's an electric version with a propeller as well; what will they think of next?

Deep time

Time is a funny old thing, most of us can't cope with more than a couple of generations with respect to truly grasping it. But in terms of the history of the Earth, a few Human generations is nothing. As this little analogy illustrates, in terms of our planet we're just a scintilla of conciousness, the scum on the surface of the lake, and in terms of the whole Universe we're an infinitesimal speck. I wonder if it takes 4 billion years for complex conciousness to evolve or whether it has evolved many times in the life of the Universe and then destroyed itself (probably arguing about whose invisible friend is true). Let's hope it's the former, the latter is just too depressing to contemplate.

Keeping schtum

Research commissioned by the Church of England suggests that four in ten British adults don't think that Jesus was a "real person" who actually lived and nearly a third didn't know anyone who was a practising Christian. Findings like this seem expected these days and although I always take surveys like this with a slight pinch of salt, the general trend would seem to suggest that gradually our society is becoming less (hardcore) religious as time goes on. I think this is good news for all of us; a less religiously biased population is much more inclined to support a proper secular constitution, i.e. a level playing field for everyone without political and financial privilege for members of one particular supernatural belief system. Having spend a fair amount of time over the years talking and debating with religious people and examining their claims I feel there is a fundamental attitudinal shift going on (albeit at a glacial pace), one of the softening of traditional dogmas. Particularly in developed countries there's a general move toward more tolerance on the part of religious constituents, particularly of things like LGBT rights, Women's rights, political arrangements and also education of all stripes, sexual, philosophical, moral, cultural etc. All things that I believe are hard to argue against.

The other interesting finding was that when Christians actually talk about their belief to their friends and colleagues it's more than three times as likely to put them off as to attract them. This is totally unsurprising to me, in my experience English people particularly, abhor talking about religion and politics, perhaps because generally we are all terrified of causing "offence"? There definitely remains a taboo around this subject in polite society, it's invariably an awkward, guarded conversation. This is a shame because in my view there's nothing better for making sceptics and atheists (who would otherwise sit on the fence) than actually talking about religion and trying to rationalise it's truth claims or critically examine it's logical and philosophical/moral incoherences.

If truth be told, most people these days are still indoctrinated into one particular religion (as I was) at home and/or at school (albeit in softer ways than in the past) and most Atheists I know have reached that conclusion through gaining more (balanced) knowledge about religion and philosophy rather than less. Perhaps the CofE needs to accept this fact if they want to remain relevant in modern Britain and to evolve with it, i.e. keep schtum about the more obviously mythological aspects of their tradition! As many people in history have said, the quickest way to becoming an atheist is to actually read the Bible.

Lucky brew day

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday brewing up some of my favourite beer. The recipe I concocted is a knock off of a beer by a producer in Scotland called "Brew Dog" and it aims to reproduce their original (famous) "Punk IPA" which probably did more for craft brewing in the UK in the last few years than any other single brew. The beer is quite light (the commercial version is even lighter than mine) almost lager colour and is full of exotic, tropical, spicy American and New Zealand hops*, so many in fact that I'm only just getting rid of the smell in the kitchen (although TBH I've had worse smells in my kitchen!)

The picture shows my primary fermenter after a day and a bit; the English ale yeast is working it's magic and there's a constant stream of carbon dioxide bubbles emerging from the air lock at the top of the vessel. You can see the yeast settling out at the bottom and also a bit floating at the top; after 4-5 days the top gunk should sink down to the bottom allowing me to siphon out the clear beer into a secondary fermenter ready for bottling. Hopefully I got my quantities a bit more accurate this time and I'll end up with more or less a gallon of beer (8 pints) which I will bottle in a couple of weeks time (unless I cock something up!)

The next challenge is to come up with a name and a label for the beer; being a die hard Clint Eastwood fan (films before "The Gauntlet") I'm thinking I'll go with an outline of a Magnum .44 and the name "Do I feel lucky"; a pub quiz on a bottle!

*Columbus, Ahtanum, Chinook, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin

What if you're wrong?

DarkMatter debunking the popularity fallacy; a lot of people have a real problem understanding this one, but you can't argue with the numbers, i.e.

• If Christianity is right then 5,000,000,000 people are wrong
• If Islam is right then 5,500,000,000 people are wrong
• If Hinduism is right then 6,000,000,000 people are wrong
• If there is no god then 6,000,000,000 people are wrong

etc...

So much for Pascal's wager..

The nature of speculation

Many people are speculating about what caused the crash of a Russian passenger jet in the Sinai over the weekend. Clearly there needs to be some kind of scientific investigation into the incident before any concrete conclusions can be reached, but if people are going to speculate about anything then an apparently random and terrible loss of life on this scale is almost certainly the kind of thing they're going to speculate about.

Much like the downing of the Malaysian airlines flight over the Ukraine before it, this event has raised the ever present spectre of war and terrorism. It has to be asked what's more likely? A modern jet liner with an experienced crew disintegrating in mid-air for no apparent reason or a bomb / missile causing catastrophic disintegration. For no other reason than statistics and socio-political geography, my money is on the latter at the moment; we shall see.

Halloween visitor

Just when we thought we were safe from Armageddon predictions we learn that a huge asteroid affectionately named "spooky" (because it's closest to slamming into Earth today) is passing by the Earth at an astounding 78,000 miles per hour. The space rock is about 300-600 meters across and would make a big dent if it collided with us; fortunately it's passing by at a range of 300,000 miles (further away than the Moon) and so we should be OK... for now.

Racking

I spent a half hour or so racking and dry-hopping my Citra brew this morning, even had the back door open as it's such a lovely sunny day here today. The process involved siphoning the liquid out of my primary fermenter into a fresh empty one and adding a muslin bag containing a sanitized marble (for weight) and some fresh Citra hops. Hopefully the flavour from the hops will be infused into the beer prior to bottling and the overall effect will enhance the impact that I'm looking for (which is a citrus/grapefruit hit on the nose and palate). The bag will sit in this demijohn for about a week now and then I'll transfer it to bottles for the final stage; I did think to myself as I finally stuffed the hops in; how the heck am I going to get them out again? I guess I'll have to engineer some kind of hooking device on a wire.

As can be seen in the photograph, the beer is quite clear now and smelling gorgeous already, but as you can see from the level I'm not quite hitting the right quantities somewhere along the line, next time I think I need to use a bit more water at the start, about 30% more judging from the empty space!

Wrestling with suspended belief..

I took my son and one of his friends to a local wrestling match the other day; I think they were hoping for a WWE experience like on the TV but, although it wasn't bad (quite fun actually), it was a little more Aldershot on a drizzly Thursday evening than Vegas, if you know what I mean. Still, the kids enjoyed themselves, much shouting, cheering and stamping going on although I must admit I did feel like there was a whole sub-culture going on there that I was completely oblivious to. I also confess that for most of the 2 hours I felt like turning to the people sitting next to me and reminding them that it wasn't real. I guess that's the skeptic in me, although I suspect most people didn't really care that it's all scripted and fake, they go for the atmosphere and good luck to them, at least wrestling fans don't insist that we have un-elected wrestlers in the House of Lords; although I would bet good money that a few of the Lords have tried on the gear..

Live exorcism (yawn)

I noticed this little story on the wire today Apparently a US (where-else) TV station is going to air a "live" exorcism in the St. Louis house that spawned the original inspiration for the move "The Exorcist" (as we all know the best bit of that movie was the music)

I can safely predict that this programme will be a feast of atmospheric images, music and sudden clanging sound effects with perhaps some cutaway shots of some idiot twitching whilst having "magic" water sprinkled on him. Seriously, are there (intelligent) people still around today who think this stuff is real?

Doing well

I was wandering around Waitrose the other day and happened to see some beer from local (Finchampstead) producer Siren Craftbrew. I've visited their brewery a couple of times now and enjoy most of their beers (here is a write up of my last trip) I particularly admire their experimental philosophy and am delighted to see them achieving a measure of the "big time", i.e. being stocked by a major supermarket chain. Hopefully many more people will get to try their core range and be inspired to take a look at some of their other seasonal and collaborative brews. Of the Waitrose selection I would strongly recommend "Soundwave" (which has the purple label in the photo) it's an American style IPA full of citrus and resinous hop flavours a great place to start the journey and very drinkable; if you see it, grab a bottle to try!

Burden of proof

Don't you think it's funny how flimsy, half-baked assumptions about the nature of the universe become so entrenched through childhood indoctrination and tradition that the burden of proof somehow switches from the people proposing the idea to those simply asking for some plain evidence that it's true? In the mean time the most effective way of making this point seems to be through humour and ridicule; being able to laugh at authority is (as always) one of the first steps to human emancipation.

Inspired

Jesus and Mo bang on the money as usual; many religious people I've spoken to over the years seem unable to see the difference between truth and popularity, not to mention the difference between indoctrination and education.

Amstel Autumn

Amsterdam looking splendid in her autumn colours, just spent a glorious weekend visiting this lovely old city.

I hadn't been there for quite a few years and had forgotten what a wonderfully chilled out place it was. The weather over the last couple of days has been fantastic, blue skies and positively warm/dry for the time of year. We were celebrating the very "special" birthday of someone in the family and decided to pop over for a long weekend and reacquaint ourselves with the sights, food, culture and vibe of the place, I'm pleased to say all were present and correct; arriving back to a rainy Gatwick this afternoon I'm beginning to regret not having booked a whole week.

Radical thinking..

There are quite a few things that our stone-age human brains crave, things that were beneficial to humans living in a hunter-gatherer setting but that we now know are harmful and unnecessary. Modern, enlightened office-based humans now know for example that sugary and fatty foods do unwanted things to our circulatory systems and that clubbing a member of a neighbouring tribe over the head in order to steal her hoisin duck wrap doesn't contribute to social cohesion. I would put believing in angels, gods and evil spirits and that they have a "special" plan for us into that same bucket, i.e. things that we need to educate ourselves away from.

The new J&M cartoon economically illustrates this idea.

Best laid plans

I was reminded today about the law of physics that says your kids don't have anything like the same idea about what constitutes fun as you do.

I took half-a-day off work to spend the morning with my daughter (half-term) and having planned what I thought was a fun packed few hours we sat down together to review the itinerary, each line item was greeted by the comment "why would I want to do that"... I felt deflated for a moment but then I thought, sod it, if you can't beat them, join them. We ended up spending the morning doing exactly what she wanted to do, which turned out to be delicately putting (what seemed like thousands) of small, coloured plastic cylinders* onto a preformed plastic pegboard in the shape of a rabbit. Then we ironed the beads so that they melted slightly fusing together and adopting the rabbit shape permanently, it was strangely therapeutic albeit slightly one dimensional; must be a girl thing?

*I am reliably informed that these are known as Hama Beads

Maths matters

I was helping my son with his maths homework last night, it was dredging up all kinds of memories from my own days of struggling with algebra; some of it even came in useful later in life.

Extremists

Contents may also damage your health..

Citra brew day

I decided to have a brew day on Saturday and try out one of my own recipes. The beer I chose to make is loosely based on a beer I enjoy from Oakham Ales called "Citra IPA" and is my "interpretation" of it rather than a strict copy (from taste rather than a list of precise ingredients). I used mostly Maris Otter Malt as a base and added a little Aromatic Malt to spice it up a bit. Then for the hops I went for Columbus to bitter with and a raft of Citra added over the course of the boil. In about a weeks time I'll also add some more; in a process called "dry hopping" The idea behind dry hopping is that because the beer is cold none of the essential oils in the hops evaporate, meaning that more of the aroma and character of these oils will be retained in the final brew.

As the name suggests Citra is a hop that imparts various citrus flavours to the beer, particularly grapefruit; in fact our house now stinks of it as I dumped the spent hops in the kitchen bin at the end of the day (I probably should have put them on the compost heap!) Interestingly my wife and son hated the smell but my daughter and I love it and think they're a bit odd, I guess that suggests who got the lions share of whose olfactory genes?

Tasting notes to follow (in about 4-5 weeks time!)

Some things never change

I went up to London yesterday for a business meeting and snapped Reading station looking more like a shiny airport terminal than a grubby regional rail hub. I must say the recent development and modernisation at the site has made things much easier and smoother for passengers; a real boost to the town providing much needed infrastructure for when cross-rail arrives in 2019. I shouldn't have been fooled by all this modernity though, on the way home my train broke down and was an hour late getting me back to Reading and then my connecting train had a door fault which held me up another 30 minutes, oh well, I guess some things never change..

Seems legit

Beer today gone tomorrow..

Here's an example of great lateral thinking and entrepreneurial flare! An out of work designer from British Colombia in Canada combined his two great passions, design and brewing beer into one and put his CV on the labels of beer that he'd made and send a 4-pack to prospective employers. Genius! For those who have to suffer the painful interactions with "recruitment consultants" every day (which I do) something like this would immediately push a candidate to the top of the heap! If the beer was any good then it would be a slam dunk!

True story

In his inimitable style J&M points out the obvious flaw in all faith based systems, i.e. how can you ever know it's true or even reach a consensus? Clearly most people of faith don't really care much about truth in a scientific/evidential sense; most seem to believe in things for other reasons (like tradition, conformity or comfort etc.). However, getting them to admit they don't really "know" it's true in any meaningful way is a whole other kettle of fish.

Dirt to man

Looks like someone at Google was paying attention in school Biology lessons...

A night on the lash?

When pensioner Karl Andree fancied a night out on the lash he probably wasn't envisaging what he ended up getting. Andree made the fatal mistake of living in Saudi where making a bit of home brew to chug with your mates is a corporal offence; he got caught with some wine in his car and has spent more than a year in prison as a result. Of course being Saudi, a prison sentence is not enough to appease their petty minded cultism, the sentence passed now calls for 360 lashes in addition to custody; the relatives of this unfortunate bloke are concerned that he won't survive it.

Part of me thinks this guy is daft for a) living in a place with such stupid laws and b) getting caught, however it's easy to be glib about other people's circumstances. I have many friends who spent time in Saudi working for various oil companies in the 80s and 90s and they say that making home brew for social occasions is a universal tradition among ex-pats there; why can't Muslims just respect our culture and our traditions I hear you ask..

Time for a change..

Look closely and you can see evolution happening before your eyes!

It just is..

Jesus and Mo highlighting the huge logical fallacy at the centre of theism; it's a shame that some, otherwise smart people feel they need to make things up (or peddle past generation's made up stuff) rather than admit they simply don't know.

Americans

I came across this lovely little viral piece today; it's the musings of an elderly American visitor to the UK  (Scott Waters from Florida) who captured his experiences of Cornwall on Facebook in a simple bullet point list. It's very amusing, I particularly liked the repetition of "there's no guns" and "football is religion and religion is sport", here is the full list.

* Almost everyone is very polite
* The food is generally outstanding
* There are no guns
* There are too many narrow stairs
* Everything is just a little bit different
* The pubs close too early
* The reason they drive on the left is because all their cars are built backwards
* Pubs are not bars, they are community living rooms.
* You'd better like peas, potatoes and sausage
* Refrigerators and washing machines are very small.
* Everything is generally older, smaller and shorter
* People don't seem to be afraid of their neighbours or the government.
* Their paper money makes sense, the coins don't.
* Everyone has a washing machine but driers are rare
* Hot and cold water faucets. Remember them?
* Pants are called "trousers", underwear is "pants" and sweaters are "jumpers".
* The bathroom light is a string hanging from the ceiling
* "Fanny" is a naughty word, as is "shag"
* All the signs are well designed with beautiful typography and written in full sentences with proper grammar.
* There's no dress code
* Doors close by themselves, but they don't always open
* They eat with their forks upside down
* The English are as crazy about their gardens as Americans are about cars
* They don't seem to use facecloths or napkins or maybe they’re just less messy than we are
* The wall outlets all have switches, some don't do anything
* There are hardly any cops or police cars
* 5,000 year ago, someone arranged a lot of rocks all over, but no one is sure why
* When you do see police they seem to be in male & female pairs and often smiling
* Black people are just people: they didn't quite do slavery here
* Everything comes with chips, which are French Fries. You put vinegar on them
* Cookies are "biscuits" and potato chips are "crisps"
* HP sauce is better than catsup
* Obama is considered a hero, Bush is considered an idiot.
* After fish and chips, curry is the most popular food
* The water controls in showers need detailed instructions
* They will boil anything
* Folks don't always lock their bikes
* It's not unusual to see people dressed different and speaking different languages
* Your electronic devices will work fine with just a plug adapter
* Nearly everyone is better educated then we are
* If someone buys you a drink you must do the same
* There are no guns
* Look right, walk left. Again; look right, walk left. You're welcome.
* Avoid British wine and French beer
* It's not that hard to eat with the fork in your left hand with a little practice. If you don't, everyone knows you're an American
* Many of the roads are the size of our sidewalks
* There's no AC
* Instead of turning the heat up, you put on a jumper
* Gas is "petrol", it costs about $6 a gallon and is sold by the litre
* If you speed on a motorway, you get a ticket, period, always.
* You don't have to tip, really!
* Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall really are different countries
* Only 14% of Americans have a passport, almost everyone in the UK does
* You pay the price marked on products because the taxes (VAT) are built in
* Walking is the national pastime
* Their TV looks and sounds much better than ours
* They took the street signs down during WWII, but haven't put them all back up yet
* Everyone enjoys a good joke
* There are no guns
* Dogs are very well behaved and welcome everywhere
* There are no window screens
* You can get on a bus and end up in Paris
* Everyone knows more about our history then we do
* Radio is still a big deal. The BBC is quite good
* The newspapers can be awful
* Everything costs the same but our money is worth less so you have to add 50% to the price to figure what you're paying
* Beer comes in large, completely filled, actual pint glasses and the closer the brewery the better the beer
* Butter and eggs aren't refrigerated
* The beer isn't warm, each style is served at the proper temperature
* Cider (alcoholic) is quite good.
* Excess cider consumption can be very painful.
* The universal greeting is "Cheers" (pronounced "cheeahz" unless you are from Cornwall, in which case it's "chairz").
* The money is easy to understand: 1-2-5-10-20-50 pence, £1-£2 coins and £5-£10, etc. bills. There are no quarters.
* Their cash makes ours look like Monopoly money
* Cars don't have bumper stickers
* Many doorknobs, buildings and tools are older than America
* By law, there are no crappy, old cars
* When the sign says something was built in 456, they didn't lose the "1"
* Cake is pudding, ice cream is pudding, anything served for desert is pudding, even pudding
* BBC 4 is NPR
* Everything closes by 1800 (6pm)
* Very few people smoke, those who do often roll their own
* You're defined by your accent
* No one in Cornwall knows what the hell a Cornish Game Hen is
* Football is a religion, religion is a sport
* Europeans dress better than the British, we dress worse
* The trains work: a three minute delay is regrettable
* Drinks don't come with ice
* There are far fewer fat English people
* There's a lot of healthy old folks around participating in life instead of hiding at home watching TV
* If you're over 60, you get free TV and bus and rail passes.
* They don't use Bose anything anywhere
* Displaying your political or religious affiliation is considered very bad taste.
* Every pub seems to have a pet drunk.
* Their healthcare works, but they still bitch about it
* Cake is one of the major food groups.
* Their coffee is mediocre but the tea is wonderful
* There are still no guns
* Towel warmers!
* Cheers

Duck and cover

I must have missed the "all_world" email (probably went to my junk mail folder which would have been appropriate), but according to a Christian group in the USA the world is ending today. Chris McCann of the eBible fellowship claims that our little planet is going to be obliterated by fire and extinguished for ever and all this before EastEnders.

I wonder how he rationalises the fact that in some parts of the world it's tomorrow already? Oh yes, I almost forgot, Armageddon predictions are always faith based initiatives...

Update: still here..

Tyrants overthrown... nil

Love this cartoon, so obvious to some, so threatening to others.

Home brew - official tasting

Back at the end of August I did some experimentation with an "all grain" brewing kit and made some of my own beer. Ever since then my brew has been conditioning in bottles in a nice cool dark place and this weekend (since it was my birthday!) I thought I'd be brave and risk cracking one open. As you can see in the picture above, it certainly looked the part! A nice foamy head, good carbonation and perfect colour for the kind of beer that it was, i.e. American style IPA (India Pale Ale). I was expecting a cloudy beer but it turned out reasonably clear with very little bottle sediment although it was very lively, i.e. once opened the beer did it's best to exit the bottle!

The key question of course was how did it taste? I'm happy to report that it tasted great (verified by 3 impartial judges) the aroma was authentic, and the taste malty, rich and full of hops which gave it a nice citrus and (subtle) mango character, it also held it's 5% alcohol well too. If I had any criticism at all it would be that there was a tiny bit too much yeast flavour appearing on the finish and perhaps it could have been a little sweeter but no one else noticed. I think next time I'll allow it to ferment a little longer (it was possibly a little too cold where I stored it during that stage) and I also need to improve the way I do the sparging step (which is where the mashed grains are washed) as I didn't have a suitably large strainer, this was perhaps to blame for a slight reduction in sugars ending up in the wort and available for the yeast to work their magic on.

Overall I'm really pleased (and surprised!) with how this turned out; the only downside is that my kit is a small one (1 US Gallon ~ 6 UK pints) and so between a couple of friends a batch gets consumed pretty quickly! Since doing this initial experiment I've done 2 more brews, another IPA (with different hops) and a Summer wheat beer based on Kent Goldings hops, both need a few more weeks of maturation before they're ready but now I can't wait to try them!

If you're interested in the hops for this recipe then they comprised a fiendish mix of Ahtanum, Chinook, Simcoe and Nelson Sauvin.

Birthday treat

I celebrated my birthday this weekend with a superb bottle of St. Estephe (Bordeaux) by Lafon-Rochet, from the great 2000 vintage. With the kids safely tucked up in bed we shared it with a simple spread of French bread and cheese whilst curled up on the sofa watching a scary movie (Nightcrawler), pretty hard to beat.

The wine was a showing really well and still has plenty of time left; powerful, earthy and dense, oak infused blackberries with a lovely crème de cassis dimension to it; a fine Northern Medoc; I've got two more bottle left and I think I'll hang onto them for a while.

When is an atheist not an atheist?

It's starting to look like the shooter in yesterdays campus massacre in the USA was deliberately targeting Christians. This obscene revelation has started some people off speculating that the lunatic who perpetrated this criminal act was some kind of atheist railing against religion; a truly "militant atheist" if you will.

For those that care to dig a little deeper into the story will discover that Chris Harper Mercer (the gunman) was in fact into all kinds of crazy stuff, he was pro-Nazi, pro-IRA and also a pagan with interests in the occult, astrology and spiritualism. For Christians who perhaps don't know what atheism actually means or don't know any atheists, the fact that he was into paganism and the occult means that he most definitely wasn't one!

In any case, I think we can all agree that whatever his personal beliefs on anything (religion, politics, nationalism, sports teams, Marmite etc.), US society has a serious problem with mentally unstable people being able to easily get hold of lethal weapons. The statistics are alarming, more people have died from gun related crime in the US in the last 9 months than have died from terrorism in over 40 years!

Sam Harris expresses the issue very well in the following piece,

"No rational atheist (or “New Atheist”) holds religion accountable for every idiotic or unethical thing religious people do. We blame a religion only for what its adherents do as a direct result of its doctrines, such as opposing gay marriage or killing apostates.

Atheism has no doctrines. It does not demand that a person do anything, or refrain from doing anything, on the basis of his unbelief. Consequently, to know that someone is an atheist is to know almost nothing about him—apart from the fact that he does not accept the unwarranted claims of any religion.

Atheism is simply the condition of not believing in Poseidon, Thor, or any of the thousands of dead gods that lie in the graveyard we call mythology. To that extent, everyone knows exactly what it is to be an atheist—he has simply added the god of Abraham to the list of the dead.

If a belief in astrology were causing people to go berserk—to deny medical care to their children or to murder unbelievers—many of us would speak and write about the dangerous stupidity of astrology. This would not be bigotry or intolerance on our part. It would be a plea for basic human sanity. And that is all that an atheist’s criticism of religious tribalism and superstition ever is.

If you understand this, you will recognize any attempt to blame atheism for specific crimes, great or small, for what it is: A fresh act of religious demagoguery."
—Sam Harris

Weird doesn't cover it..

Here's the weirdest thing you're going  to see today; a prayer meeting with Donald Trump assisted by a bunch of Christian shaman casting magic spells on him and getting all "spiritual" on his ass.

Really? And this is a Presidential candidate in the most powerful nation in the world in the 21st century - what a ridiculous and embarrassing spectacle.

Font of humour

A little typeface humour for a Thursday evening whilst I'm banished to my study for fear of causing embarrassment; you see my wife is hosting her book-club meeting at ours this week. Although, from here it sounds more like a wine, gossip and giggling evening..

School shoot-out

Looks like there has been another mass campus shooting in America; this time it's up in the North West of the country and from initial sources on the news wire just now between 7-10 people are dead with more wounded.

Of course the majority of American people will now spring into action, mobilize their vast financial and material resources, focus their almost unlimited cumulative political, intellectual and cultural energies and ... pray.. (i.e. do nothing at all but make themselves feel like they are)

Piercings

An old joke, reworked for modern (hipster) times.