atheism matters

Forty-four percent of the American population is convinced that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead sometime in the next fifty years.The fact that nearly half of the American population apparently believes this, purely on the basis of religious dogma, should be considered a moral and intellectual emergency

– Sam Harris

Mr Harris actually disagrees that we should call ourselves atheists. We don’t, for example, have a word for someone who rejects astrology, an idea as equally ridiculous as god. He is also worried that a label such as “atheist” can be seen as standing for a fixed, all encompassing philosophy or representative of “a cranky subculture that meets in hotel ballrooms”. Harris also says that non-theists shouldn’t be embarrassed about embracing meditation or even living in a cave for ten years living off the moss and icicles like some bloody Buddhist.

Crouch End Clock Tower: Xmas 2006

I’ve been looking through some photos I took with my old phone camera. Quite like this one cos I’m a sentimental fool. Classic times. Crazy days. I’ve just noticed that there’s a little door at the bottom. Who knows what secrets it contains? My guess is the person who has the key and everybody who’s been through the door. It’s obvious really.

Crouch End

Crouch End sits in a valley at the bottom Highgate and Muswell Hill. This bowled landscape means that if it ever rained for 40 days and nights, the inhabitants would become God’s human cornflakes pretty quickly. But despite the potential dangers of biblical mass murder, this quiet north London town remains the place to live for numerous British TV actors and rock stars. Look! It’s David Tennant queuing up with some Lemsip in Boots! Gasp! Is that Simon Pegg checking out the éclairs in Dunn’s the bakers? Swoon! It’s Minty “From” Eastenders, sinking a pint at The Kings Head. Fuck! Maureen Lipmann!

Just a croissants throw away from the tracksuit wearing hordes and shopping mall hell of Wood Green, Crouch End joins a middle class tri-force with neighboring Muswell Hill and Highgate Village. Unlike it’s taller brothers, the End is unable to keep the hip-hop fans and fish finger munchers of poorer areas at bay with a system of hills and ridges. Instead it has to rely on a high street consisting mainly of wine bars, coffee chains, health food outlets, and novelty trinket shops. However, Wood Greeners do sometimes sneak through to assist Crouch End’s struggling kebab industry.

In an island of proletaria by the KFC, the End often displays hilarious signs of affluent radicalism. “Resist Imperialism! Fight Capitalism! Shout posters from the Socialist Workers Party. Although, I’m not quite sure how middle aged academic dinosaurs can be classed as “workers”, but never mind. And how exactly do they expect people in Crouch End to “fight capitalism”? Buy less olives? Be extra rude to the cashiers in Budgens?

Films and television programmes that have featured Crouch End include Shawn of the Dead, Vera Drake, Enduring Love and Peep Show. There is also a Stephen King short story set in a town called Crouch End which is built on a parallel universe that leaks evil. That might explain the number of pushchairs blocking your path on Saturday mornings.

What’s in (rainbows) the box?

Drug free world?

Such is the ubiquity of advertising that one barely notices the amount of space dedicated to selling us consumables any more. Which is probably the reason why I was so struck by a poster outside UCLH on Monday morning, an advert that was selling me an idea, not a product, and from a organization that I had never heard of; the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. My first thoughts were “religious group” and a brief glance at their website confirms that Scientologists are heavily involved, although, the jury is still out on whether they do actually qualify as a religion. It’s either that or the most elaborate pyramid scam in history. What makes FDFW different from most “just say no” moralizers is that it’s not only recreational drugs that they want to get rid of. Oh no. These are Scientologists remember, and they’re against prescription drugs too. The website itself is actually quite banal, and assumes that readers will be put off from trying MDMA once they discover that one of the side effects is “confusion”. There is much worry about young people ruining their lives not handing in their homework on time, and an emphasis on “saving lives” – won’t somebody please think of the children! Does drug use kill more young people than car/traffic accidents? More than land mines? Let’s have some perspective, please.

Abstinence equals purity equals goodness. This is the message. Let’s all be nice and clean and free of sin. Let’s never ever get cancer or suffer from paranoia or depression or bronchitis because we, the organized abstainers, the authority on lifestyle choice, have said no to drugs. We have chosen the correct way to live and therefore will deserve never to be ill. Are any of us actually allowed to make a choice without being consulted by giant posters on our way to work?

The FDFW offer us no solid alternatives to drugs use (not even Jebus, but probably Tom Cruise) and it is simply assumed that drugs will vanish as soon as we all learn of their side-effects. The Truth! The Facts!

We’re all very savvy of the side-effects of booze and fags, but I’m pretty sure that they still exist.

It’s certainly a melon scratcher

We’re not scaremongering this is really happening

History Of Oil

Poor old misunderstood Robert Newman. Will he ever cast off the stigma of appearing in a super successful (now horribly dated) early 90’s comedy troupe? The contemporary comics he most resembles are probably Mark Thomas and Mark Steel, but Newman is far more insightful and original.

Necessary viewing, see below.