Nick's Blog
Imagine There's No Bloggers
29/6/2009 @ 11:27
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the news over the weekend I heard about the new Athesit Camps for kids sponsored by Richard Dawkins. They function much like those Christian Youth camps and the Scouts except that the kids are encouraged to embrace atheism and have discussions around a campfire about rational sceptisism. Sounds like real fun.
However, there's something else the kids will be doing around the campfire...no, you mucky minded sickos, not that....in fact, they'll be singing John Lennon's "Imagine", which brings me to my occasional series where I rant about certain cultural sacred cows.
SACRED COWS. IMAGINE by JOHN LENNON.
So they want the kids to sing this nihilistic dirge as a kind of new anthem, do they? If I was on that camp I'd jump into the nearest river and hope to get mangled on the rapids rather than sing that.
I have two big problems about this puffed up piece of pop trash. The first is that, despite its reputation as a positive feel-good song, it's intensely negative. Lennon spends more time painting a world which doesn't have certain things in it rather than giving us a world that does have things in it. "Imagine there's no..." "No this..." "no that..." He sites countries, religion and possessions as the sole causes of human misery whilst convieniently forgetting that perhaps its human nature and not artificial constructs that's holding back the efforts for world peace. It's like all those government efforts to prevent crime and accidents by banning the item and not the root societal causes that led people to misuse the item in the first place. Kids are getting violent, then ban the video game and ignore why the kid would want to be violent in the first place! People are getting hurt on those little motorcycles then ban the little motorcycles instead of warning people that they could get injured on one of them!
The worst line is "nothing to live or die for". OK, not having to die for something is fine by me but not having anything to live for? How negative is that? It's sucking the joy out of everything. In the world of the song, there's no down so, natch, there can be no up. The wonders of the world can mean nothing so it's advocating flatlining. Great.
The lyrics are so trite and simplistic to the point of idiocy. As if one world government, an elimination of all belief systems and living in a global commune is going to solve the human condition. I'm a selfish product hoarder and Lennon, Dawkins and any other passionate believer in the lyrics of "Imagine" will have to pry my cold dead hands off my model Porsche 917 and collection of Action Men. Ha, how's that for peace and understanding!
My second problem with the song is that it is soooooooooo dull and plodding. Just a series of block chords on the piano that sound like they were composed when Lennon was bored one day and it was raining outside. I don't think I've ever gotten to the end of the song; my attention has wandered every time. In this regard, the song is the musical equivalent of The Krypton Factor. You may as well pop some prozac and go shambling around an empty shopping centre car park mumbling "imagine there's no countries....."
I'm sure the song was chosen by the Camp organisers for the line "imagine there's no religion" but did they really want to endorse the vapidness of the rest of the song. And as Dawkins has told of our evolutionary and biological need to be possessive creatures, how does he square the "no possessions" line with his own philosophy? Nothing to live or die for? That hardly sounds evolutionary.
So yes, go off and have fun kids. Prove there is no God and win yourselves £10 just cry off sick with a fake tummy bug when it comes around to the sing-a-long.
The H Blog
22/6/2009 @ 22:01
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm someone who has the knack of stumbling apon some cultural, hobby or historical item and then immersing myself in it. For example, there was that time I found a book on Action Man and within a few weeks I had 5 of the little plastic bastards and knew all about what uniforms and kit you could get and when they first came out and how to spot the difference between an original and a late era model.
A cursory look into old TV shows led me to James Burke's Connections and now I've got the entire series on order and can bore people to death about how the discovery of gold in the Turkish state of Lydia led to the development of the atomic bomb and that I've also committed to memory every NASA space mission crew from 1961 to 1983. Just name me a mission and I'll tell you the crew instantly. Gemini 8: Neil Armstrong & David Scott. I can also name every actor who has played either a Bond villain or a Bond girl. Thunderball: Alopho Celli as Emilio Largo. You Only Live Twice: Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki.
Which is why I should be kept well away from any interesting stories or hobbies. You only have to introduce me to something the rest of the world has forgotten about or isn't yet aware of and within a week I'll become an expert. And this week, boys and girls, I've maxed out on the history of atomic bomb testing.
I knew I shouldn't have taken the time to watch a movie about atomic bomb testing called Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie. After 2 hours the movie only whetted my appetite for more information. I now know that the only firing of the atomic cannon in Operation Upshot-Knothole-Grable in 1953 provided a blast more powerful than an air dropped atom bomb. That the most powerful bomb ever exploded in history is the Russian Tsar Bomba, coming in at 57 Megatons although it was designed to have a force of 100 Megatons. I've watched tons of clips of Operation Plumbob in 1957 where US troops hid in trenches only 3 miles away from an atomic blast and were ordered to march towards the mushroom cloud until achieving a distance of 900 yards. And of those soldiers, the rate of leukemia went from the 4% national average to 10%.
On the one hand, you may say that I don't need to know this stuff and you're right. Knowing that the United States conducted 336 atmospheric atomic bomb tests between 1945 and 1963 won't pay bills or help me navigate my way through daily life. On the other hand, knowing that the Bikini Atoll tests in 1946 were so powerful that they managed to catapult the USS Arkansas into the air and have it land upside down and that the second bomb exploded led to most of our knowledge of how radioactive contamination works gives me a perspective on a strange time in history and makes me more informed about the terrors of nuclear weapons and why North Korea and Iran really shouldn't get them. Yes, we all know they're devastating and terrifying but until you've done your research, you just don't know how...and also you get to understand that being only a few miles away from a blast need not be lethal to you. I've never been a beliver that ignorance is bliss...and even obscure knowledge has its place. Although I'm stumped to find a practical reason for knowing the names of the pilot and bombardier of the 3rd Atomic bomb drop in history.*
I genuinely find knowledge of all obscure things interesting. I love the footnotes of history, the bits people gloss over or discard as irrelevant. I love how seemingly random events fit together into the story of the world. And I love how people can become fascinated with the small, fun things in life. It's considered sad to have a hobby, by people who think going to bars and getting drunk is the only acceptable social activity. So let's raise a glass to obscure knowledge and hobbies.
Apollo 16: John Young, Charles Duke, Ken Mattingly.
Moonraker: Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax.
Goldeneye: Isabella Scorupco as Natalya Simovana.
*Dave's Dream was piloted by Major Woodrow P. Swancutt and the bombardier was Major Harold H. Wood.
Election Blog Special
08/6/2009 @ 18:35
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, the European and local government elections have been and gone and the talk today is of the worrying development of the British National Party winning 2 seats in the European Parliament.
Of course, their policies are abhorrent when you get down to it and for all the attempts at re-branding and trying to convince voters in deprived areas that they're not really racist or really fascists, you only have to remember that hidden camera footage of Nick Griffin advocating violence towards minorities to let you realise that they are nasty pieces of work.
But there's one policy they have that I can't help have a sneaking likeness for: An assault rifle in every home.
It works on the Swiss principle of a citizen army, trained to use rifles and defend themselves and after basic training the Swiss are allowed to keep the guns just in case anything untoward should happen to Switzerland.
Now I can think of plenty of practical, everyday uses for an assault rifle in the home:
We need to cull the Grey Squirrel and you can start in your own back garden.
Same goes for pigeons.
It would make short work of breaking up unwanted furniture.
It could make an attractive fireplace ornament or room talking point.
You know how those Islamic militias celebrate by firing their assault rifles in the air? Well, no more limp party poppers at New Years!
An end to road rage: Would you wind down your window, lean out and yell "TOSSPOT!" whilst cutting in front of someone if you knew they had an assault rifle in reach?
It would liven up "Cash In The Attic".
At last, you and your mates can head off to the local woods for a really realistic game of "war".
The possibilities are endless. So listen up Cameron, Brown and Cleggy....head off the BNP and introduce assault rifles as standard!
Broaden Your Blog
03/6/2009 @ 22:17
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I find YouTube to be like an abusive girlfriend. On the one hand, she promises such delicious tidbits of clips from movies and TV and music videos I've been searching for for years only to yank them cruelly from me because of the Performing Rights Association or Viacom, and then there's all the abuse you get from morons on the comments sections but just as I think I'll jack it all in with her and flee her evil presence, she goes and does something fantastic.
Recently, a few wonderful people uploaded my three favourite documentaries of all time: Connections, Cosmos and Civilisation...the 3 Cs. All complete, all free to watch. I guess the copyright lawyers haven't moved in yet because these shows are knowledge presented at its best and deserve to be seen by as wide an audience as possible.
But for the uninitiated, here's my summary of the shows.
Civilisation is the oldest of these three shows, being first screened in 1969, and it was the BBC's landmark first major colour TV programme; and it shows. It looks rich in colour and lush to view, every beautiful building, painting, sculpture and landscapre rendered in tones that real life finds hard to emulate. It was presented by Kenneth Clark, the numero uno art historian of his, or anyone elses' day, and his patrician tones and rich language invite the viewer to some kind of exclusive dinner party where he is the immaculately mannered host. It is one of those shows that makes you feel better about yourself because you've watched it, you've sampled high western civilisation and can now bore for Britain or wherever you're from.
Cosmos was an Anglo-American show presented by the late great US space scientist, Carl Sagan. And just as Civilisation used early colour TV to sell itself, so Cosmos used early computer graphics as a USP. Sagan, with his warm toothy smile and suspect comb over hair, would charm the audience in a way that made space science seem all too accesible to the layman; this was the 'Brief History of Time' of its day. Sagan was also the first person I ever learned to imitate. Blogs aren't really the best way of doing impressions but here goes..."we yumans stand of the threshold of space and.....if we do not destroy ourselves...I beeeeeelive we will journey to the starrrrrrrrrs".
Civilisation may be the jewel in the crown of TV documentaries, but Connections is my personal favourite. Presented by James Burke, BBC's resident science historian for over 20 years, he would take the viewer on a manic tour of the history of invention, his point being that no device ever created was invented in isolation and that you can take any modern day invention and trace its history and development back hundreds and thousands of years. So the invention of the chimney leads to the invention of supersonic aircraft. Trust me, it all makes perfect sense if you watch it. And what makes the show special, what marks it out, is Burke himself; the coolest history teacher you ever had with his square horn rimmed glasses that take up his whole face and cream leisure suit. An episode of Connections is faster paced than an episode of 24, and with more twists and turns in it as well.
After a series of marathon viewing sessions totally 30 hours in all, I come away feeling like a superior being...able to wax lyrical about dwarf stars, the flying buttresses of Notre Dame and how silk looms and supercomputers aren't all that different. If you get any free time, just go to YouTube this week and start watching any of these shows. I promise you, your IQ will shoot up 10 points by the end.
