For those who are interested, the archive of my old webpage is now at

http://www.rilstone-beta.talktalk.net/Archive/

Should anyone want to link to the particular articles, I would sooner they linked to the relevant part of :

http://www.rilstone-beta.talktalk.net/writing.html

(if you need to know where / whether an article is on the portfolio site, just drop me an e-mail.)

Supplied "as is". I am not responsible for the opinions I may have held during the last millennium.

In the grand canyon at sundown...

So, is it strictly necessary for me to emigrate before I can apply to become an American?

Oh dear.

New edition of Church of England communion rite to read: "Christ has probably died! Christ is probably risen! Christ will probably come again!"

Now relax and enjoy your life.

Unless what you enjoy is fairy tales, Harry Potter, or the X-Files, which may make your head explode or lead to dancing.

The argument about god goes round and round
Round and round
Round and round
The argument about god goes round and round
All
Day
Long

The bishop on the bus goes waffle, waffle, waffle
Waffle, waffle, waffle
Waffle, waffle, waffle
The bishop on the bus goes waffle, waffle, waffle
All
Day
Long

The biologist on the bus goes rant, rant, rant
Rant, rant, rant
Rant, rant, rant
The biologist on the bus goes rant, rant, rant
All
Day
Long

The argument about god goes round and round
Round and round
Round and round
The argument about god goes round and round
All
Day
Long

Labeling buses as "atheist" is even worse than bus-abuse.

The idea of a triple decker bus needs to be demytholgized.

Typical, you wait ages for a deity and then three-in-one come at once.

There's probably no God. But there's definitely no bus.

And when they bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears,
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears.
And when they labour to impress, I will not doubt nor scoff;
Since I myself have done no less and sometimes pulled it off.

Kipling

...and when Bagpuss goes to sleep...

RIP Oliver Postgate

Important, but brief, note, regarding Barack Obama, Paterson Joseph, and Benjamin Zephaniah

Typical. You wait 450 years for a black man to be appointed to an important position, and then three come along all at once.

Another Important Note For Everyone

I was walking home the other day, and a total stranger came up to me and asked if I ever had a the kind of day which just makes me what to go up to someone and hug them. I hadn't, but she had, and so she did.

I then went into a corner shop to purchase a loaf of bread and some semi-skimmed milk, and the man behind the counter, who I had precisely once before, greeted me like a long-lost friend, asked if I had had a nice day at work, and turning to the elderly gentleman who was counting out some loose change rather slowly, added "You take your time, Pops."

I am as pleased as anyone that George W Bush is going to stop being President of Americaland, but the sooner everyone gets back to being miserable and cynical, the better I shall like it.

Important Note For Everyone

A man dropping out of a talent show is not sensational.

Important Note About Busses

I've been in London. The Tube is festooned with ten foot high photographs of 200 year old stuffed mocking birds, with some reasonably closely worded text pointing out that their tail feathers are slightly different, and that this is what set Mr. Darwin thinking about the idea of Natural Selection. Kings College London had a display of famous alumni outside their premises. Charles Lyell's claim to fame is, apparently, that he proved conclusively that the world is millions of years old.

I don't think that the Evil Christian Hegemony can have been trying very hard this week.

The Boston Tea Party has a very small supply of that special coffee that's harvested from cat-poo; its suppliers sold it to them at cost price and they are passing it on to their customers, so while it would normally cost a hundred million billion pounds a cup, they have made it available for £2.

It tastes, as the great Dave Sim once remarked, very much like a cup of coffee.

45 Years Later

"It is emphasized that the "ship" may transport the four characters backwards or forwards, sideways into lesser or greater dimensions or into non-gravitational existence or invisibility etc, but once arrived into the different place and time the four characters have only their intelligence and ingenuity upon which to rely. They cannot produce a "ray gun" to reduce a horde of Picts and Scots, nor can they rely upon specialized drugs to cure a Greek philosopher.

'It is also emphasised that the four characters cannot make history. Advise must not be proffered to Nelson on his battle tactics while approaching the Nile, nor must bon mots be put into the mouth of Oscar Wilde. They are four people plunged into alien surroundings, armed with only their courage and cleverness. "

David Whitaker's guildelines for Doctor Who writers - 16 May 1963

It would also be interesting to teach more than one theory of creation. The dominant one in this culture happens to be the Jewish creation myth, which is taken over from the Babylonian creation myth. There are, of course, lots and lots of others, and perhaps they should all be given equal time (except that wouldn't leave much time for studying anything else). I understand that there are Hindus who believe that the world was created in a cosmic butter churn and Nigerian peoples who believe that the world was created by God from the excrement of ants. Surely these stories have as much right to equal time as the Judeo-Christian myth of Adam and Eve.

Richard Dawkins "Is Science a Religion", 1997

I replied that, horribly as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing up the child Catholic in the first place.

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p 317

It is evil to describe a child as a Muslim child or a Christian child. I think labelling children is child abuse and I think there is a very heavy issue, for example, about teaching about hell and torturing their minds with hell. It's a form of child abuse, even worse than physical child abuse.

Richard Dawkins, quoted in the Daily Telegraph, Oct 23rd.

Prof Dawkins said he wanted to look at the effects of "bringing children up to believe in spells and wizards". "I think it is anti-scientific – whether that has a pernicious effect, I don't know," he told More4 News. "I think looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I'm not sure. Perhaps it's something for research."

Ibid.

When the pistols were ready, Blackbeard blew out the candle and crossing his hands discharged them at his company: Hands, the master, was shot through the knew and lamed for life, the other pistol did no execution. Being asked for the meaning of this, he only answered, by damning them:

"If I did not now and then kill one of you, you would forget who I was!"


Being one day at sea, and a little flushed with drink

"Come" he says "Let us make a Hell of our own and try how long we can bare it"

Accordingly he, with two or three others, went down into the hold, and closing up all the hatches, filled several pots full of brimstone, and other combustible matter, and set it on fire, and so continued till they were almost suffocated, when some of the men cried out for air, at length he opened the hatches, not a little pleased that he held out the longest.

The night before he was killed...one of Blackbeard's men asked whether his wife knew where he had buried his money. He answered:

"Nobody but myself and the devil knows where it is, and the longest liver shall take all!"



happy September 19th