New Year’s Peeve

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I hope you’ve all managed to make a suitable recovery from the, no doubt, riotous fun you’ve been having over the past week? So, did you all enjoy your last christmas ever? I trust that you had a wonderful, gut-busting lunch or two, a stack of great presents, a few hefty drinks, and … what? Yes, I did say it was your “last christmas ever”, why? Didn’t you know? According to a Mayan prophecy, and a worryingly large number of panicky, gullible idiots who foolishly believe in prophecies (despite their persistent failure over the millennia to actually come true), the world is going to end on December 21st 2012. They don’t say how, just that it’s “going to end” – a tad vague for something so important, don’t you think? But, anyway, yeah, that was it, your last christmas, your last full year, and this will be your last New Year’s Eve ever, so it might be worth making it one for whatever history books will remain after next year. Or, you know, you could just enjoy yourself knowing that it’s all bollocks. …

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Rant-a Claus

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It would be very easy for me to talk this week about the death of Christopher Hitchens, and for that reason I’m not going to; everyone else will have said it far better than I and, besides, I’m sure he would have interjected at some point to ask for both an end to the fawning tributes, and as to whether someone could furnish him with directions to the bar. I could talk about how the morning after Hitchen’s passing would also have been the 50th birthday of the late Mr. Bill Hicks, in whose honour this site is named, and how he, like Hitchens, has had a profound influence both on the way I see the world, and how I choose to write about it. But again, many others will have beaten me to the punch, and I don’t like being repetitive (or repetitive). Therefore, rather than spending 3,000 words getting all sombre over the two fine names from my heroes list who sadly don’t get to survive this season, I shall instead attempt to give you a more positive and upbeat christmas post that will hopefully provide some useful advice on how you yourselves can survive this traditionally stressful and treacherous holiday. …

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Bring it

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So, as I was saying last week before I became hopelessly sidetracked into ranting about Jeremy Clarkson (it’s easily done, I know, what with him being in possession of a face that would look infinitely better if a fist was ploughing through it faster than a Bugatti Veyron with a rocket up its arse), I have recently been involved in a Twitter-based scientific argument with a user by the name of @Adam4004. His name, which consists of a reference to both the bible’s first man and the year (BCE) literalists claim is when the earth was created, was my first clue to his being a young earth creationist (or “moron” for short). The second was that he offered not a single scrap of evidence for any of his frequently asinine claims, choosing instead simply to assert the truth of his statements whilst ignoring all requests to provide references and citations for the many studies and peer-reviewed papers that undoubtedly support them. The reason we had to go through such a frustrating dance is that evidence to a theist is like a backbone to Nick Clegg; they can’t show any, because they ain’t got any. …

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Sittin’ on offence

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Over the last day or so I’ve been engaged in a scientific argument (of sorts) on Twitter with a user by the name of @Adam4004. While I would love to make the infuriating futility of the false equivocations, straw-man arguments, and dishonest logic of his claims the basis of this week’s post, it will have to wait for another time. As is so often the case there will always be certain other events occurring in the world that prompt those of us with a predilection for passionate ranting to jettison our current plans and instead focus on the hot potato that has suddenly landed in our laps. This week, that potato is the idea of offence; I don’t mean the wooden thing that separates your garden from next door, that’s a fence – I mean the idea of causing offence, or of being offended, and what prompted me to talk about it this week was the fact that, yet again, Jeremy Clarkson has said something amazingly fucking stupid. …

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The Fairy Fella’s Master-Stroke

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This week, on a couple of occasions, I found myself locked in a bathroom, crying like a girl who had just seen her favourite dolly viciously decapitated by the razor-sharp jaws of the family dog. I make no apologies for that, just as I make none for the fact that I shall again be talking a little about myself in this post (it is after all, the subject I know best). What prompted these highly-emotional sabbaticals to the nearest toilet was the fact that, on Thursday, it had been twenty years since Freddie Mercury, one of my all-time heroes, had been lost to AIDS. So, in honour of this anniversary, and its patron, this week’s post will have a bit of everything; some ranting, some religion, a little bit of love and joy, obviously some music, drama, and celebration of life, and perhaps a tiny hint of self-analysis. Oh, and I’m afraid to say there’ll be a bit of Ben Elton as well … sorry. …

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