Chavtastic Hotel Holidays

Seems Channel 4 is looking for a terminally ill person to donate their body for the ultimate reality show which will follow the mummification process.

Hay and I want to buy a faded Victorian hotel in some seaside resort and set up our own holiday business. We want to call it Chavtastic Hotel Holidays. Guests will benefit from the following:

• Take away of your choice in your room on arrival,
• Four-poster pine bed with plastic accident protection cover,
• Complimentary copy of Heat Magazine in your room,
• Complimentary fake tan,
• Safety deposit box for your bling,
• One free sessions at the in-house tanning parlour and nail bar,
• Stiletto spike repair service,
• Karaoke in the bar,
• 5-4-1 Barcardi Breezer offer,
• All-you-can-eat hang-over breakfast buffet,
• Sunglasses rental for morning-after,

For those of a musical bent, I recently ran across Chill Radio on the satellite TV system. Give it a whirl – there’s an interweb player at the website.

Catholic Science

I was researching Reiki yesterday.

In March 2009, the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a decree halting the practice of Reiki by Catholics, including Reiki therapies used in some Catholic retreat centres and hospitals. The conclusion of the decree stated that; "Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centres, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

I was under the impression that the whole of Catholicism was contrary to scientific evidence; after all, they investigate reported miracles with all the rigour of astrologers or alchemists. Should Catholics therefore stop practising?

Education

I love this quote by the novelist Anatole France; "Nine tenths of education is encouragement."

I thank both my teachers at school and my parents for having encouraged me to start the quest for knowledge. I learned infinitely more after leaving school than when attending, as the aforementioned people had sown the necessary seeds. Thanks to them I shall never complete my education.

Yesterday I learned that, counter-intuitively, water at 100 degrees centigrade can freeze faster than water at 35 degrees. It's called the Mpemba Effect.

The Chairman's Sunday Sermon

Yesterday’s post got me considering creationism and how it flies in the face of indisputable fact while wearing the beatific smile of holy certainty based on fallacy and self-delusion.

It’s a fact that one’s religion is primarily determined not by critical analysis of all available religions, but by the dominant religion within one’s geographic location and, most importantly, by the religion of one’s parents. If you’re unlucky enough to be born in a Muslim country then you are guaranteed to grow up a theocratic fascist believing in all manner of contradictory and irrational superstitions; creationists and believers in Intelligent Design live mostly in the more conservative southern states of the USA; Buddhists thrive in Thailand; Jews in Israel and Jewish families the world over, Russian Orthodox congregations flourish in Russia and Russian émigré communities; if you were born in Italy then you’d be guilty of being a miserable sinner steeped in Catholicism, etc.

Religion therefore has nothing to do with genuine enquiry concerning the ultimate truth of reality but everything to do with establishing one’s cultural and familial identity. Evolution (ironically being the very thing creationists deny) has predisposed us to value acceptance by and membership of the group above everything else – in more barbaric times this was a matter of pure survival; if you didn’t belong to a group you would probably die.

It therefore follows that adhering to the cultural religious groupthink, no matter how high-minded or utterly bizarre, has an evolutionary benefit that is greater than using rational faculties and accepting observed facts that could negate the veracity of the groupthink and risk putting oneself outside of the protection of the group or clan. It may mean the difference between life and death – quite literally when it comes to some of the more barbaric religions where apostasy could mean a death sentence. In the less barbaric religions it can at the very least mean family ostracism and having to fend for oneself, which to the less socially robust is anathema.

Religion is not alone in being an area where humans show a predilection to self-deception and irrational behaviour – you can find myriad examples in politics, economics, sociology, education, etc. The irrational groupthink of one’s milieu reigns supreme if you are intellectually lazy, crave the approval of the clan and fear ostracism.

Sumerians Look On In Confusion As God Creates World

I love this spoof news report from The Onion, a website I occasionally turn to for a good laugh.

QUOTE:

Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

"I do not understand," reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. "A booming voice is saying, 'Let there be light,' but there is already light. It is saying, 'Let the earth bring forth grass,' but I am already standing on grass."

"Everything is here already," the pictograph continues. "We do not need more stars."

Historians believe that, immediately following the biblical event, Sumerian witnesses returned to the city of Eridu, a bustling metropolis built 1,500 years before God called for the appearance of dry land, to discuss the new development. According to records, Sumerian farmers, priests, and civic administrators were not only befuddled, but also took issue with the face of God moving across the water, saying that He scared away those who were traveling to Mesopotamia to participate in their vast and intricate trade system.

Moreover, the Sumerians were taken aback by the creation of the same animals and herb-yielding seeds that they had been domesticating and cultivating for hundreds of generations.

"The Sumerian people must have found God's making of heaven and earth in the middle of their well-established society to be more of an annoyance than anything else," said Paul Helund, ancient history professor at Cornell University. "If what the pictographs indicate are true, His loud voice interrupted their ancient prayer rituals for an entire week."

According to the cuneiform tablets, Sumerians found God's most puzzling act to be the creation from dust of the first two human beings.

"These two people made in his image do not know how to communicate, lack skills in both mathematics and farming, and have the intellectual capacity of an infant," one Sumerian philosopher wrote. "They must be the creation of a complete idiot."

A Right Balls Up

Ed Balls, the UK’s Children’s Secretary (and why do I smile whenever I hear his name?), wants secondary school pupils to learn Mandarin. He points to the economic benefits of having a grasp of Mandarin when doing business with China.

While I agree that Mandarin is used a lot in China and for some inexplicable reason appears to be quite popular there, most Chinese (and people of all other nationalities) seem to learn English in order to engage in international business.

In the 60s I learned Latin, French and Spanish, with a smattering of Japanese from a Japanese girlfriend in later life. Despite an early career at sea and a subsequent career in international sales (including the far east), I have never once used any of these languages in anger as everyone I have ever dealt with was keen, if not desperate, to demonstrate their knowledge of English. What I can say is that a basic knowledge of Latin (I never progressed beyond the basics) made it easier to learn French and Spanish and to understand more about the origins of many English words. Dutch, having been my first language, enabled me to understand the basics of most northern European languages – however, I never had occasion to use that knowledge either.

How about schools teaching our pupils how to spell and write in English, as well as teaching them basic arithmetic? Now there’s an aspiration to aim for – one which seems to have eluded a lot of schools, despite them churning out pupils with ten or more A* grades, yet lacking the ability to write a decent job application letter or play a game of darts without a calculator.

Last night Hay and I were coming up with the old names for new disorders:

• Bi-polar Disorder = Madness
• ADHD = Naughty Kid
• Post-Natal Depression = Baby Blues
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder = Shell Shock
• Morbid Obesity = Lack of Self Control
• Clinical Depression = Melancholy
• Dyslexia = Lazy
• Learning Difficulties = Slow
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease = Smoker’s Cough
• Lactose Intolerance = Fussy Eater
• Vegetarian = ??? (there weren’t any)
• Vegan = Non Human Alien
• Swine / Bird / Asian Flu = A Seasonal Cold
• Total Allergy Syndrome = Neurotic
• Aspberger’s Syndrome & Tourette’s = Rudeness
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome = Not Enough Sleep
• Benzodiazepine Dependence = Drug Addiction
• Münchausen Syndrome = Hypocondria
• Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy = Child Cruelty

Did you know there’s something called Foreign Accent Syndrome? I think my younger daughter has it; since moving here from Southport via Reading she’s started speaking with an awful Yate accent. I suppose it’s all to do with a need to assimilate and be accepted. I’ve embarrassed her countless times about it, but my jibes fall on deaf ears.

The Chairman's Election Manifesto

1. Votes only for those having attained a minimum educational level. People who vote on important issues concerning the public finances without understanding the basics of mathematics are using their vote fraudulently.
2. MPs who fail to deliver on political manifesto promises to be barred from standing for public office for a period of 10 years.
3. A minimum age limit of 40 on all people who wish to stand for parliament.
4. Outlaw strikes. If you don’t like the conditions of employment, find another job. Unions were useful when people were not as mobile as they now are; today unions are an anachronism.
5. State pension only for those earning below £15,000 p.a. All others to fund their own pensions.
6. All drugs to be legalised. Our existing drugs policy causes most of the drug problems and crime we have today.
7. Outlaw competition between schools – all schools in the state sector should be of the same quality. If a school is not up to scratch, sack the failing teachers. Working for the state should not be a guarantee of a job for life.
8. Take all public schools (UK nomenclature) into the state sector.
9. If you have a complaint against the NHS, there must be a mandatory cooling-off period of 6 months.
10. At the age of 18 all people to be given a choice between private and NHS treatment. No change is allowed thereafter.
11. Child benefit to be means tested and payable only to those who are on minimum wage or unemployed.
12. All religions to be subject to truth-in-advertising laws.
13. All call-centres outside our national boundaries to be outlawed. Also all call-centres not responding within 2 minutes to be heavily fined.
14. No divorces will be granted without prior mediation.
15. All legal services involving the courts (especially those involving family courts) to be free at the point of delivery.
16. If you go in a home for the elderly your offspring are liable for all fees. If they are unwilling to pay, then all your assets are liquidated and your kids get nothing.
17. All employed people to take out compulsory personal liability insurance.
18. All reality TV programmes to be banned.
    

The Grim Reaper

Apparently we’re to get an additional Bank Holiday in June 2012 to celebrate Mrs Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. It strikes me that it might be a bit presumptuous to be making plans two years ahead for a woman who is 83.

Going Soft

We’ve gone all decadent and soft. Hay’s sister bought us an electric blanket for Christmas and we actually used it – heavenly.

Spotted this sign outside a chapel in St Ives while we were on holiday. Thought it rather funny.

The various political parties in the UK are starting to make their pie-in-the-sky promises in preparation for the election. The latest bribes for votes ploy by the Boy Cameroon is to give women the option to have their babies at home. This bit of political lunacy is supposed to be in the interest of offering women choice; in my opinion it’s between offering the choice of increasing the risk of death while denuding the NHS of much needed resources, or having your baby in an environment where every conceivable assistance is at hand and resources can be applied across many more mothers simultaneously. Of course the taxpayer is going to have to fund this while simultaneously funding the existing and massive budget deficit; however the hoi polloi are generally too stupid to realise this.

My vote would go to the party that committed to cutting public spending by not giving massive hand-outs to the middle classes who don’t need them anyway and focusing public money instead on where it’s really needed. The ill, the homeless and the poor, however, don’t generally sway the vote.

Water Saving Devices

Ever wondered where your drinking water comes from? This was spotted in a motorway service station gents' loo urinal.