Only in America

In a routine traffic stop in Florida of a stolen SUV an Oklahoma couple revealed that they were in possession of the following items,

- A rattlesnake
- Radioactive Uranium
- Hand guns
- An open bottle of Kentucky Whiskey

Either they were trying to manufacture some kind of new Marvel character or it was going to be one hell of a party !

Friday Smirk

Classic state religion, what's mine is mine but the rest of you buggers have to pay for it anyway because, er.. we used to be popular and powerful and charity and stuff...

Minority rule

The latest British Social Attitudes Survey showing some interesting results. Religious people in this country are now a minority and in particular the state-religion (Anglicanism) can only muster 12% of the population as followers, this is particularly true of the 18-24 age group where only 1% are church-going. Whilst these statistics could be viewed by many as fairly innocuous, those of us in favor of a properly secular constitution in the UK (i.e. where religion and state are separate and no particular religion or none is given special privileges) see it as further grist to the mill that change in this area is well overdue.

A quick wine..

Tried a new wine (for me) last Friday evening, we decided to crack open this little beauty from South Africa. Called "Anwilka" (2012 vintage). Anwilka started life as a collaboration between famous Bordeaux producers Bruno Prats and Hubert de Bouard and local boy Lowell Jooste, but has since been merged with a larger SA producer (Klein Constantia). It's from the Stellenbosch area (near Cape Town) and is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Merlot and it's delicious, you can really taste the French influence on this, a classy drop, deep, layered, rich dark fruits displaying great balance. Quite pricey compared to supermarket plonk but dirt cheap compared to even a low-end classed growth from Bordeaux, normally around £25 for a bottle but I picked this one up in the BBR (Berry Bros & Rudd) bin-end sale for less than £20, one to look out for.

Mid-Week Mirth

At least Thanos had a coherent reason for killing everyone, i.e. over-population. Yahweh on the other hand seemed to do it just because he was pissed off that people didn't suck up to him with sufficient goat sacrifices... 

Vive la difference!

Years ago traditional (large) brewers created a couple of recipes and spent their entire time and energy attempting to replicate those beers over and over and over again, seldom selling or making anything different, this was seen as a positive thing. The argument was consistency and building a following for your particular beer, but as with many other things (such as religions, politics or food) the "spooky" thing was that people's "preference" was simply the beer that was available to them in their local pub, they seldom ventured far from home, i.e. not really an informed "preference" at all.

These days things have changed, many people have a preference for variety over consistency, and exhibit a low tolerance for the same old beer week in and week out. My local craft brewer (Siren) for example has been producing a series of beers over the last couple of years called their "suspended in" series (see picture above). The idea was to showcase different hops and ingredients on top of the same base beer and "suspended in X" was born, where X is different varieties of hops and other adjuncts (yeasts/ingredients), pretty much a new one every month. A wonderful idea and a huge success, this kind of initiative is illustrative of the revolution that's happened in brewing over the last 10 years, for those of us interested in understanding and experiencing different flavours and tastes, vive la difference!

1980's

Yay - religion soaked Northern Ireland about to enter the 1980's ...

Marketing

Our local brewery (Siren) were showcasing the new artwork for the upcoming release of their beer in cans. Here are four examples on show at the brewery bar, very impressive they look too. I guess these days with so many craft beers turning up on supermarket shelves etc. that you need to ensure that your stuff stands out for those people not necessarily familiar with the name/product/brand etc. Wine labels have been going this way for years, most non-wine-geeks I know buy most of their wine based on the label rather than the wine/producer per se, it makes sense that beer tracks the same way.

Friday Smirk II

Ha ha! - looks like bath-time round our house when the kids were toddlers :)

News roundup

What if a Government official speaking from the inner circle of the Prime Minister called for "Muslims to be hunted down", do you think there might be some kind of public reaction? Of course there would, and rightly so, it would represent the worst kind of authoritarian intolerance imaginable, but.. In Malaysia a government official (Shahidan Kassim) seem quite happy saying the exact same thing about Atheists, this is what happens when evolved primates become delusional enough to believe that they have their "god" on their side. Sadly another country on a downward fundamentalist/populist trajectory and struck off my to-visit list until the people there wake up to reality (not that politicians in the UK are much better on the topic of "hunting").

In more enlightened news, how about a machine that plays perfect 10 pin bowling, impossible you say? How about this... wow!

Then to cap off a perfect week we have the hair-piece in chief making a complete balls-up of an independence day speech, apparently the continental army took control of the airports during the war of independence in 1775... Looks like Hollywood will be quick to celebrate this momentous historical discovery...

Such displays of political, historical and intellectual failure isn't restricted to our trans-Atlantic cousins, like our Women's football team on the pitch, here in the UK we have very credible competition for our American friends in the ignorance league! Witness Ann Widdecombe in this incredible display of ahistorical shite and a complete lack of self-awareness, she claims that membership of the EU is like "slavery". I didn't realise the slaves of the triangular trade could vote, had freedom of speech and movement or standardized industrial safety legislation - this changes everything! (she is an embarrassment to the entire nation!)

Suitably depressed now? Don't be, just smile, this is the stuff Fridays are made for, just need a beer now!

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out is his inimitable way that pots shouldn't call kettles black, or is that racist now?

Travelling man

It's amazing what the internet and tracking technology can achieve these days, above is a (free) live track of a plane flying from London to the USA, the aircraft contains my Son who is visiting an old school friend who now lives there. Of course I'm interested in the progress of this particular flight but there are so many planes in the air at once that you have to use a setting in on this web-site to render them invisible otherwise you can't see the wood for the trees! The track is very accurate too, we were able to predict the exact moment the plane flew over our house (which is near to one of the Heathrow flight paths) and I snapped a picture for posterity (see below)

It's also impossible to point a camera into the sky in the South East of England these days and not snap at least one aircraft passing over somewhere..

Mid-Week Mirth

Did I mention that it was hot in London this weekend :)

One for the road?

In a move reminiscent of the worst kind of environmental terrorism or in other words a blatant disregard for the natural environment (essentially "giving the finger" to the international community) Japan has restarted whaling after 30 years, this is against all scientific and ethical consensus elsewhere on this (shared) planet. According to commentators in the know this is a populist move made by a weak politician looking to buy votes from the ignorant and ill-informed among their population; so I guess you could argue that Japan is simply catching up with the rest of us over here in the UK (Brexit), USA (Trump), Russian (Putin) and so on, the political class milking the ignorant seems to be de-rigeur these days. Watching populist politicians is a sport like watching very drunk people at the bar arguing with a hesitant barman that they should be able free to drink more alcohol. We annihilated whale populations to the brink of extinction and we continue to destroy their environment and kill them indirectly with plastic pollution and global warming, now Japan is arguing that they should still be free to kill "one or two for the road".. 

Japan is not the only country claiming that killing whales is "part of their culture", Norway and Iceland have similar "fuck-you" attitudes to whaling, my view is that if your culture insists that you should be free to kill other sentient beings (when there are plenty of alternative sources of protein) to the point of extinction then, I'm sorry, but your culture sucks!

Proving the negative

I relate to this cartoon, it's a large feature of the kinds of questions I get asked all the time and have to answer with more or less degrees of success. Technology (particularly software) is a bit like "magic" to most people, you can't see it, feel it, smell it etc. and yet it controls so much of what we do these days. Consequently many are often unable to place an idea within the bounds of reality, they struggle to put it into any of the usual boxes that decision makers need to put things in, for example, is an idea, impossible, possible but hard or perhaps even easy? 

Sometimes things are easy to say but impossible to do, for example "predict the lottery numbers". However, some people I've met actually think this is something that might be "possible but hard" using technologies like "artificial intelligence". Of course such a view betrays a lack of understanding of both the problem space (i.e. probability) but also of what something like AI in it's current forms can and can't actually do. Quite often when someone's bubble is burst by an expert the response is "yeah but you can't prove it isn't", and the answer to that is simply that as a collective our species has invested time and energy in understanding both problem spaces and the possible solution spaces and in this case, they simply don't overlap. Of course, we can never really "know" anything with perfect certainty but we can know things to such a degree of certainty that for practical purposes we may as well deem them as "known", death and taxes for example.

The challenge of the "expert" is particularly acute when the detractor is someone who is charismatic, particularly ignorant, has financial backing and political connections, think, Brexit, Climate-change denial, Anti-vaxxers, creationists et al, sometimes people prefer to judge you based on your accent and haircut rather than investing precious energy in understanding what you're saying, charlatans thrive in such environments. 

Virtually London

In London this weekend looking around UCL with my Son, interesting place. Afterwards I treated him to a little fun and we went down to Omescape in Aldgate to play a virtual reality game together. The game was brilliant, utterly immersive and almost glitch-free, which is unusual for a completely free-movement VR game in my experience, you usually get a couple of minor signal interruptions (that break the spell) in a hour's worth of gaming. We played as a team trying to solve problems and navigate a virtual universe against the clock, with a couple of little hints from the game supervisor we were successful and did pretty well for a couple of rookies. This kind of technology is getting better and better as time goes on, I think this one was the best I've seen so far, really cool thing to do on a really hot Summer afternoon!

Friday Smirk

Why is it that so many Islamic apologists revert to excusing the most immoral preachment's in the Koran (we all know which ones we're talking about since they're pretty much the same ones in the Bible) by claiming that you can't properly understand the "context" unless you read and speak Arabic fluently. This, of course, is a blatant attempt to distract (i.e. quick, look, a flying horse!) the real problem is the ambiguity of the content and the myriad layers of interpretation and alteration that have been imposed upon it over the millennia; it's like a cake recipe that's been re-written by so many different chefs that it's now a complete "dog's breakfast" (I wonder what the Arabic translation of that phrase is :). Most of these related texts ancient and not so ancient have been translated into many languages including English by scholars who read and speak Arabic (particularly ancient Arabic) better than the vast majority of Arabs can. Whenever you hear this excuse, simply apply the same logic to something the speaker would reject, i.e. ask them if it's true that you can't criticise the Bible unless you read and speak an archaic version of Hebrew or you can't reject Phlogiston theory unless you speak fluent German?

Phew what a scorcher!

Live temperature in France today! ..And yet there are still people out there who believe this isn't a man-made trend because they refuse to accept the science and to make matters worse, won't actually look at it... some of them even run countries..

Prophets

Amazing how some people seem to pinpoint problems long before they become endemic..

ASDA (or, do as I say not as I do...)

As usual, J&M wrapping a serious subject in satire to get a message across. ASDA have a lot to answer for in this case, not only are they hypocritical, it appears that they've decided to give preferential treatment to the opinions of a group of religious employees over one who is not, this is discrimination if ever I heard it and should be enough for any aspiring lawyer to make a name (and a few quid) for themselves with, sounds like a £100k out-of-court settlement to me?

For those that don't know the details the supermarket fired someone because they shared a video clip of a Billy Connolly sketch about religion (on their personal Facebook page) and some co-workers complained that they were "offended". It would appear that the complainants were Muslims, many of whom just love to play the "offended" card and throw their toys out of the pram whenever their religion is even mildly criticized. Clearly these people need to grow up and realise that their opinions on theology mean absolutely nothing sacred to the vast majority of people here, but even if they were offended, so what? In an ironic twist to the story the very same video of Connolly ranting about religion can actually be purchased in ASDA stores! 

Connolly was perfectly at liberty to say what he said (never a truer word etc..) and this 54 year old disabled check-out assistant was perfectly within his rights to post a clip of it on his own PRIVATE Facebook page. We have freedom of speech and expression in this country (supposedly) and I'm sure the vast majority of people here would agree with this chap's right to express himself however he sees fit, within our laws. Those same people now need to stand up to ASDA on this issue and call out this blatant hypocrisy, religious discrimination and abuse of authority.

Sour ginger beer

Attended an investor party at our local craft brewery Siren yesterday. It was a nice little gathering, lot's of interesting beer to try of course but also a quick tour around their new canning line and a financial update from the CEO. One of the beers I tried for the first time was the one in the picture, it's called "stand in line" and was made in collaboration with Huddersfield based Magic Rock brewing. The beer is a Berliner Weiss flavoured with ginger and lime, being a sour beer style it takes a few sips to acclimatize to, but once you're up and running the effect is interesting, like a citrus infused ginger beer, refreshing and ideal on a warm muggy day.

Happy Summer Solstice

It was the longest day in the UK yesterday, unfortunately I didn't have a Sarsen stone handy to hug so I had to make do with a pint of ale and a packet of peanuts, still, Sun's out..

Conspiracies everywhere..

Isn't it amazing how many people seem to see conspiracy theories everywhere they look - here's a great example of the kind of mocking response they deserve..

Friday Smirk

J&M highlighting one of the many contradictions in our lives, especially within the ranks of our religious brothers and sisters. It's the contradiction between what we say and what we do, this seems particularly prevalent within majority Islamic communities who often claim to be "moderate" and yet support ideas like discrimination against Women or killing of homosexuals and apostates, all things which should be an anathema to truly moderate, inclusive and modern societies. It's even more baffling why Western left leaning types seem not to be able to comprehend this either, many preferring to turn a blind eye to real injustice rather than risk appearing racist (priorities gone haywire?)

Wednesday Wisdom (the day after)

I always find it amusing that many people these days expect everything in the world to be easily accessible to them otherwise there must be some kind of "fault". The number of times I've heard the fallacy "it must be intuitive to use" (meaning I have to completely understand it instantly on first glance) in relation to software. Something could be intuitive but it must be.. why? Is plumbing or car mechanics "intuitive"? (No of course not, complex things require investment in learning before they become "intuitive")

Tuesday Titter

This little cartoon reminded me of some of my meetings today... :)

Vibrant

Went for a walk at lunchtime today, grey day, grey sky and Monday morning blues but noticed these piercing points of scarlet and black by the side of the road, wonderful colours, so vibrant, cheered me up..

Friday Smirk (late!)

ha ha... dunno about bears, possibly sharks with all the crappy rain we're having..

Rainy Bristol

My Son and I went to Bristol on Friday to attend the University open day there, Bristol is one of the institutions he's looking at as a possible place to do a degree course next year. I haven't been there in many years and it's changed quite a bit, lot's of little developments around the place and a distinct "Shoreditch" feel (graffiti and shipping containers) to the area around the bottom of the city-centre dock area. We stopped in the Wild Beer Company tap room at Wapping Wharf and had a beer and some late lunch, both very good, unfortunately the weather was abysmal, it rained non-stop all day. Not the best advertisement for the city but bugger all we could do about it other than transport a big golf umbrella around everywhere, anyway we were determined to make the most of the day and had a good old mooch around. We even attended some "sample" lectures, which were great fun and took me back! Ah those days, everything ahead of you, anything possible, non-stop intellectual stimulation, blatant substance abuse and no responsibilities to speak of, now that's living..

Mid-Week Mirth

Atheist pig on the money as usual...

Equal among beliefs

Jesus and Mo. on target once again, sometimes people prefer to believe any old rubbish rather than admit that we don't know something, or simply that they can't be bothered to expend the effort to properly investigate a subject using the best tools available (i.e. Science). It's difficult to reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into!

Important education

Chart showing the rise in homophobic hate crimes in London over the last few years (source Met Police) As the recent attack on two women taking a night bus in Camden (London) shows, these attacks are often perpetrated by young people; in their case the two women were assaulted and left covered in blood by a group of boys aged between 15 and 18. Unfortunately religious people (Islamic) in various places around the country remain insistent that their children should not receive education on LGBT+ relationships (i.e. simply that they exist). The rest of us live in hope that these mis-guided and short-sighted people can perhaps now see why this kind of education is important. Just as teaching our children that there are many religions in the world and that other people's weird and wonderful supernatural delusions should be at least tolerated, we should also have the open-mindedness to do the same for other important minorities like LGBT+ people.

Wild Weather

Quick half of "Easy Livin" by Wild Weather (based in Silchester nr. Reading) in the Fox & Hounds whilst waiting for my daughter to finish school yesterday, nice beer, very peachy tasting and an appropriately named brewery for the blustery conditions this weekend..

Friday Smirk

Noticed this on the inter-webs, it's the menu from the recent dinner event hosted by the Queen for the rug-meister in chief and his cronies, what I love about it is the way in which font and vocabulary have been used to disguise the fact that what they had for dinner was steak (without the chips), veg and ice-cream, along with a crappy American sponsored wine that no one has ever heard of. Glad to see they didn't raid the palace cellars for that clown, Trump is allegedly teetotal anyway, so anything decent would have been totally wasted on him. 

Mid Week Mirth

Nice little J&M for a sunny Thursday lunch-time. Theology, the subject that's most like one night stand sex, i.e. 10% friction, 90% imagination. Or, as a good friend of mine used to say (he did a theology degree at Kings) "Theology, or as we used to call it, the study of the unknowable".. 

Equality among racists

I see that anti-Trump protesters are out in force this week to mark the visit of the hairpiece in chief to our fair shores. One aspect of the coverage did stand out for me and that was the choice of placard that many of the demonstrators had made, looking at the coverage it seemed as though many of the (left-leaning) people had gone for "No to racism, No to Trump", it's probably a fair point but is it really the strongest criticism that you could level at this president? 

I perhaps would have gone for the anti-global warming conspiracy theories issue (since it affects the entire population of the planet) or perhaps the war mongering with other nuclear powers (since that also affects the entire population of the planet) or even perhaps the accusations of sexual assault, but racism? I do wonder if the term "racism" is becoming a superficial catch-all, used primarily by left-wing types (although more and more by right wing types also) for simply anyone that disagrees with them. I do hope I'm wrong about this, the biggest risk in my view is that a trivialization of this term will inevitably lead to REAL racists being able to hide behind an accusation which has lost all of it's teeth, and can be safely ignored by everyone, or maybe we've reached that point already?

American Evangelists

American evangelicals are odd creatures. In Kentucky there's a skillful huckster committed creationist called Ken Ham, he's made a name for himself spreading the mythology of the Biblical creation story in Genesis as fact and science, or as the rest of us call it, lying to children via their gullible parents. By all accounts he's trousered a fair bit of wonga doing this over the years and has added a new attraction to his ever growing "Biblical theme-park" empire. This time he's built a "replica" of Noah's ark!

Of course Ham, being a Biblical literalist, asserts (without any actual evidence whatsoever) that the story of Noah and the flood really happened, exactly the way it says in the King James Bible, and to prove it he claims he's built an ark in Kentucky just like the one Noah did around 2 thousand years before the Roman Empire (who never managed to build a boat anywhere near this big). There are a "couple" of issues with this claim of course, the kinds of issues that people like Ham prefer to gloss over, small things like where did Noah get the lifting gear to hoist the preformed laminated composites and steel braces into place that give such a large structure enough strength not to collapse under it's own weight? Issues like, how did a wooden structure this large not flex and twist in water, like wood does, without leaking or even breaking? Dinosaurs? Where did all the water come from? How did Noah feed 400,000 separate species of beetles? Kangaroos? How the heck did Noah find the time to visit every Pacific island and populate it with so many unique species of flora and fauna after the flood? Anyway, questions, questions, one thing is certain among the evangelical crowd, you don't need to ask questions when you have faith and gullibility... oh and don't bother turning up unless you have a pocket full of cash to spend, apparently Jesus loves you and forgives you but is hopeless with money.

Flopping into the UK

I see that the hair-piece in chief has landed, or should I say flopped onto British soil today; I can't say that I'll be taking any interest whatsoever in his visit, hopefully missing every incoherent uttering that he coughs up as he shuffles his way around the high and mighty of our land pressing his copious flesh with theirs. I did hear something amusing on the topic this morning though, apparently in Windsor, the Queen sent Prince Philip out in the range-rover to pick Trump and his wife up from the airport, Lizzy hasn't heard anything since, must be traffic on the M25?

Thought for the day

Here's a thought, what if we started talking to Muslims, Christians and Jews in the same tone as they speak to LGBT+ people... something like this perhaps..

- It's not you I hate, just your way of life..

- Your behaviors and beliefs are just a "phase" you'll grow out of it.

- Your religion is "just a choice", why don't you just stop following it..

- You shouldn't be allowed to marry the person you love

- I don't want my children exposed to any information about you, particularly the fact that you exist

- Love the religious person, hate the religion.

The webs we weave

In today's hyper-sensitive, politically correct, identity-driven landscape we're told that we mustn't insult, ridicule or discriminate against people that aren't like us. Superficially this sounds perfectly reasonable but the problem comes (as it invariably does) when we attempt to define these terms and agree on our definitions. For example what constitutes the word "people" in that sentence? Does it just mean individuals that we interact with or does it mean a community of people, like "transsexual's" or could it mean a diverse group of people that happen to (broadly) subscribe to some or all of a religious or political ideology like "Muslims" or "EDL members" for example? We could also debate what it means to "insult", does this mean falsely accuse of bad or immoral behaviour or could it also mean simply pointing out an unwelcome fact, like, someone is bald or a simple biological reality like someone has black skin. The only thing we can safely conclude from even this brief analysis is that words (i.e. the things we use to express ideas and thoughts) are far too imprecise to convey everything that is required to properly disambiguate meaning, other things, like context, intent and world-view are also required, and even then, these additional elements have the same ambiguity issues.

Anyone who has read a complex legal document will realise that a) they are usually very long and b) use language that is totally alien to everyday discourse. This is because those kinds of documents attempt to disambiguate meaning much more rigorously than everyday language, unfortunately you have to be particularly skilled to understand them and even then, they often fail to cover all eventualities. I experience this gap quite a lot in my job, often people ask me to create software under the illusion that they have expressed their requirement perfectly and completely and this alone should mean that my job is simple. This is NEVER the case. Anyone who understands why we can build software that locates a person on a map anywhere on the surface of the earth in about 10 minutes flat (using their phone and Google maps) but require a team of graduates, supercomputer and 10 years of research funding to identify that a particular photograph contains a bird, will appreciate why, just because something is easy to say, it doesn't mean that it's easy to do. Identity politics is like this, simple slogans alone are insufficient to define and delimit the thorny subject of free-speech and legitimate persecution.

Having said this though I believe there are some relatively clear foundational premises upon which we can all (potentially) agree, these are.

- People can be slandered/insulted/offended, ideas cannot

- Religions, politics, hobbies, supporting particular netball teams are all ideas.

- If something is observable, measurable and verifiable then it's a fact

- If something is subjective, unfalsifiable or simply an opinion then it is an idea or belief

- People should be able to hold whatever beliefs they wish, but only act within the law

- The law is a guidepost for minimally acceptable behaviour in society.

- The law should address how we behave and not what we believe

- We should not deny access to facts or beliefs

- Everyone, including children, should understand the difference between facts and beliefs

Unfortunately, as we've seen recently around controversies such as the attempt by Islamic apologists to introduce a "definition" of "Islamophobia" and also in cases like the protests outside of primary schools over the teaching of facts about Human sexuality and many other examples and it's unfortunate that many of our politicians seem utterly oblivious to the dangers in allowing such definitions to be driven by those who have vested interests contingent upon the restriction of criticism against them, and those who fear transparency. There will always be special interest groups attempting (often by bullying and threatening) to impose their favored definitions on the rest of us. In my view this is something that cannot be tolerated and must be resisted and fought at all costs, even when the particular limitation seems innocuous enough in itself. The slippery slope that hides behind this desire for "special treatment" leads straight to hell, for everyone.

Friday Smirk

J&M pointing out in a strictly non-Islamophobic way that many of the stories underpinning the various Abrahamic religions popular these days are somewhat dubious when it comes to expressions of sexuality in the Human species. As the late great Hitch used to say, "people are entitled to their own beliefs and views, but not their own facts"..

Sympathetic secularists

Here's an interesting scientific paper. It's a study done by the University of Chicago on 1,170 children between the ages of 5 and 12 from six different countries. It contradicts popular assumptions regarding altruism and kindness shown by children brought up in either a religious environment or a secular one. Religious apologists of all stripes often claim that religion is needed for "moral development", suggesting that secular or atheistic people lack the scaffolding to impart moral and ethical teachings onto their children.

This study shows this idea to be fallacious, not only were the secular children kinder but they also had less punitive attitudes toward interpersonal offenses and were more likely to share. Religion on the other hand would appear to negatively correlate with these desirable characteristics, the children from religious families being less sensitive and significantly less likely to share. As most atheists and humanists already know, religion is totally unnecessary in order to live a moral life, and perhaps hinders moral development rather than helping it?

Places I never went...

Wandering through Covent Garden yesterday and I noticed this little blue sign. It's on Neal street and is where the Roxy Club used to be. The Roxy is known for being the birth-place (or at least early crucible) of punk rock and I remember lusting to go there back in the day but being told by my parents that I was too young (15) to be going to places like that. It didn't last long as a venue, only a couple of years but the legacy of those three chords with "attitude" i.e. the movement started there, can still be heard in some modern bands today. Below is an album cover picture from it's heyday..

#UDUMASS

Probably the most important video you'll watch today ... lol

Campbell is outski..

I see that Alistair Campbell, the renowned spin-doctor of Tony Blair, UK Prime-Minister from 1997- 2007 has been expelled from the Labour Party for voting Lib-Dem in the European elections. Even in my most generous moods I don't much care for most current Labour politicians but that's not to say I don't think there have been many good ones in the past, and some decent policies over the years too. This current crew just smack too much of left-wing identity politics, reminiscent of the Soviets to me. They seem to be too keen to silence opposition rather than promote their ideas, and too quick to jump to actions like this. But, they only act quickly when it suits them, when people hold them accountable, like the ongoing (3 year old) antisemitism row, their velocity of action seems to take a nose dive. 

I met Campbell a couple of years ago and found him surprisingly straight-talking and reasonable (for someone in that position) it strikes me that many people have been quick to tar him with one particular brush, i.e. as liar in chief over the Iraq war (dodgy dossier etc.) and therefore refuse to listen to anything he says on any topic. It's understandable, but an error in my view, he holds many reasonable centrist views on many things that this country could do with right now, certainly more palatable than the kipper brigade.

Dangly bits

Christian evangelical huckster lobbyist, Tony Perkins, who once claimed that his "God" sends natural disasters in order to punish acts of homosexuality has been somewhat "hoisted by his own petard" recently. The Louisiana home of this frequently "gay bashing" blowhard was destroyed in, guess what, a natural disaster when a flood overwhelmed his compound and he had to evacuate in a canoe! I have no idea what Mr Perkins sexuality really is, nor do I care, but I would give one small piece of advice to him and his kind. He may, as many do, believe that some supernatural being pulls all of our cosmic levers and commands floods, earthquakes and hurricanes according to some bizarre and hidden agenda (usually anger about what we do with our dangly bits) but repeated experience and careful observation of nature aka. science had this sorted out centuries ago, just don't build your shit on the flood plain, the clue is in the name dummy!

Sensibilities

Ah, religious sensibilities, bless...

New whites

Tried a new wine yesterday evening from a producer down in the Languedoc region of France called "Gassac". Now, I love this producer and have had many examples of their reds over the years and pretty much enjoyed every one but until now I'd never had any of their whites. I was mooching around in a wine shop near Guildford the other week and I spotted the bottle pictured above recognizing the name I bought it and yesterday had some family round for a BBQ and decided to give it a run around the block. It was delicious, good body, delicate aromas of white fruits, straw and apricots with a strong fruity finish. The wine is made from a blend of Voignier, Petit Manseng, Chardonnay and Chenin plus a few more obscure varieties and at only £8 for a bottle this is an absolute steal, knocks the socks off of your cheap new-world supermarket sauvignon blanc's and chardonnays, if you see it buy some.