skep

I like that a lot.

peek-a-boo

Tune.

Luckily I've never been on the weekend. Dare say it's a f*cking scary place to work! How's the career change going?

oioi hows it going stranger?x

I saw Idlewild a few years back, supporting REM. But if you want to see another side to Roddy Woomble, you should check out a lot of the work he's been doing on the folk circuit, including the brilliant project, Under One Sky, as well as his own solo stuff. I'll give these a good listen later.

All the best!

I'vealways managed to miss the Godiva festival...Was it as big as last year? there were people from all over the midlands turning up last year...My mate went and I asked who was headlingin but he didnt know...so I dont think he'll ever make a music correspondant!

Hope you've been finding some 'me' time, and been able to relax a little.

Chin up, and lots of other useless British encouragements!

All the best.

L

how are you! x

I think Clarkson's words were "As a TV moment, it's right up there with Neil Armstrong walking on... the corpse of JR Ewing!"
I don't believe he's really the Stig, he'd be waaaaay too expensive for the BBC But what a great TV moment!

I am fully aware that I have no business caring or even being aware of this mammoth mystery, but I believe that:

The Stig is really Ben Collins. There's no way that the tabloid known for its Page Three Girls could possibly be wrong

Thanks for the add mate
Great blog post by the way, i've just been reading Ben Goldacre's 'Bad Science' book & the chapter on homeopathy got me all riled up again. It's criminal it really is & the NHS should know better. While i'm proud to say i work for the NHS when they do this sort of thing it's just embarassing.

Humm, you've been quiet for ages... you aren't living on your wits to bring down alternative medicines are you? x

I'll admit that I'm at a bit of a low ebb in terms of my political activism. I participated in so many marches and demonstrations and joined in so many important causes starting back in the late 60's. I guess that I really can't whine about how apathetic everyone has become nowadays when I am actually doing so little myself.

It's about that I got my act together again.

Great song and vid. Music matters. That was one of the things we had going for us back in my salad days. The music of the time - rousing us, inspiring us and driving us onward...

Humm... surely acupuncture has a sort of placebo effect, tricking the body into finding its own psychological cure naturally, and therefore (as annoying as it is to admit) does actually have some use to the NHS? Kinda like doctors giving placebo pills to people who have mild temporary depression, and finding that the mind is tricking itself into being better?

It is SCARY because they look, speak and sound human.... OK now I am being just as bad! There is something just not quite right about their website, then I spotted it, EVERYONE is white in the group photographs, you can just feel the underlying racism and it's CREEPY!

I do not know how to combat this, in that the kind of people who are gonna vote for BNP surely are inherently unreasonable people, I do not know how to argue with someone who is a racist! As finlay said, it seems localised and I hope this is the case, but you have inspired me to go trawl the internet for some data.

Hope the gig went well

We have so much of the same over here. Racists, bigots, scum and criminals are rising to power in local and national elections. American voters are mainly apathetic - our voter turn-out percentages are disgraceful. Many of those who do vote just don't take the time to properly and fully examine their choices - they are sucked in by soundbites and slogans.

I hope that this terrifying trend can be reversed - on both sides of the pond.

I sincerely hope that the citizens of the UK have not elected any canidates of the BNP. Times like these, filled with fear, economic uncertainty and political scandal are the perfect setting for frightful, disgusted or disenfranchised voters to make unfortunate and unwise choices.

I hope that forces of facism don't gain a toehold in your government due to voter ignorance or apathy.

I think we're all anxious. I wish I'd got my head together and started circulating anti-BNP material a lot earlier. But, as you say, the votes are cast. I got an email about 5pm from Hope not Hate saying the BNP had got a lot of people out. That may have been just a ruse to get us doing some last minute lobbying, but I think we should fear the worst.
The bright side is, if they do get a seat, I think it will make their policies a lot more visible, there will be a lot more press focus on them, and they won't be able to hide behind their bland statements so easily. I've emailed my local Hope not Hate group and asked to get involved. I want as many people as possible to know what these bastards are actually about.
That candidate who suggested that the Jews exaggerated the number of Holocaust dead for compensation? It just beggars belief. I feel ill just thinking about it.
I don't accept the mitigation of people protesting with their vote, or not knowing enough about the BNP. If I started saying "Ah, well, they don't know any better", I'm just being patronising and middle-class. People KNOW. If you vote for them you are a racist. There is a point at which you stop equivocating, or indulging in semantics.

Great. I'm having an epic appetite for chocolate, it's an outrageous rainstorm outside and all the nearer shops are closed, and then I stumble across a blog with pictures of chocolate... fuck. The last picture is killing me.

Oh my god, that last picture is so frikkin HOT! I'm in the same boat - I've given up Diet Coke. Day three, and I'm getting the shakes a little... which can't be normal?!? xxx

But, then again there is a small probability I could be wrong

I started this about two weeks ago and your latest blog reminded me I hadnt posted it so Ive tried to finish it and remember what I was actually trying to say! I hope it makes some semblance of sense with respect to your epic post...I've not got time right now t o reread your thread and see if it does! lol



Well that was worth waiting for!

Turns out Im just like you.

Scarily so.

I spent years with the stone cold belief that if you cant prove something how can you believe in it? (See: any major religion of the world, that Coventry city will one day regain premiership status) Blind faith in anything just doesnt wash with me.

Im a research scientist/engineer so everything I do in every hour on the job is, and must be, logically thought out and undertaken so that I can prove that X happened because wed changed Y and kept Z constant yadda yadda yaddaand not that X happened becauseermwell, it did, so magic must be responsible.

But Ive never wanted to offend people with my belief that their beliefs/ideas are all crap. I couldnt see the point of making someone unhappy by crushing their beliefs (whether it be something major like a great man in the sky created everything or something trivial like You need to suck the ice cubes in a gin and tonic as the ice cubes absorb the alcohol)

Then, and Im not sure if this comes with age, I grew tired of submitting to silence regarding everyone elses opinions and beliefs and an epiphany occurred.

Nowadays I really dont think people should be left to blindly believe what they want without at least considering what other explanations there are. (Blind faith just doesnt seem right to me)

When we have discussions now, I now explain what I believe and why (via proof), ask them to explain why they believe and what their proof is, examine what they believe what they believe rationally and logically and examine and explain why theyre wrong!

To quote Brian clough We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right

I know that makes me sound like some ego driven know-it-all but honestly, Im not.

What I do know and care about, I know inside out and will defend my thoughts with logical reasoning and argument and wont back down.

But I also know a little about a lot of things (though as Alexander Pope said A little learning is a dangerous thing) so lots of my thoughts and beliefs arent grounded in fact but, dare I say it, what Ive assumed or what my parents instilled into me; so this leaves me open to continued learning so there are very few things where my beliefs cannot be swayed with cold hard logical facts.

Ive become a lot more outspoken in me old age but have also becom a lot more open minded about a lot of things