Cult Fiction: Detox the Paradox

It was as if i had had a eureka! moment, but then realised my arms, legs and head had fallen off. There was illumination, but no celebration, instead it was a rather more solemn train of thought, a feeling of intellectual injustice was left festering inside of me. I studied at a school that is well regarded academically, and that will destroy anything that threatens the attainment of high grades from its disciples. It is an educational machine. People go in, they're formed into high achieving, well balanced people or they and their renegade nature are bundled out of the fast moving van and left to decay in the gutter, hog tied and beaten black. As such, it's most valued subjects are the sciences and mathematics. The curriculum reflects the age of reason, where science is the discipline that, broadly speaking, can identify what is true and false, with the use of evidence. The scientific method, whereby claims are made, researched, tested and then either accepted or rejected, is the modern way to think, the educated way to think, the only way to think if one seeks proofs, and of course, mathematics serves to bind all of this. To me then, the school is clearly stressing the importance of science, the aim being to keep up with the only real way in which we speak and know more about reality.

Running parallel with this programme of science, however, is the traditionalist side of things. The school was founded as a christian school, and it still tries to maintain this title. It persists to hold services in the cathedral where hymns are sung about Gods grace and prayers are read about giving thanks to God for all that he has provided, everything is bound by religious belief. At the recent Harvest festival celebration we were not taught to thank the farmers, to thank our agricultural scientists for advancing technology, but to thank God for providing crops and our intelligence.

For a school that encourages inquisition, not enough of its students are asking questions about this absurd paradox. On the one hand; science, reason, logic and truth. On the other, ancient, un-supported, wild and false claims. For me, there seems to be an overt intellectual conflict, for you cannot accept one side and also accept the other. It really is remarkable. I have never seen such reckless disregard for truths well-being. Suppose you learn about how evolution has occurred, how it has evidence chambers over-flowing with support, and how it has shaped nature and biodiversity. After this lesson, you have to attend the cathedral service that is full to the brim of stories of how God has given us life on this earth, and at the time he did, it was as it is now, and this was perfect. Though clearly inferior to Darwin's life works, it should not even be humoured anymore, no longer should we have to listen to such erroneous notions, for they embarrass my intellect.

What's really disgusting, is that children are subjected to this. They believe what they are told, because they're taught to learn from authority. To make these children decide who to believe, the teacher or the man in the cathedral, and to present it to them as if it is a choice between two credible paths of perceiving reality is professionally derelict of all teaching staff.

I don't know how the teachers and older, more thoroughly educated pupils accept such a contradiction, i suppose they just ignore it, think it's just tradition. But the true problem is the planting of out-dated, inaccurate claims in children's minds. It is simply not efficient and is entirely counter productive. It is exactly similar to teaching a child that 8 divided by 2 equals 4 but at the same time 8 divided by 2 equals 3.

Mainstream education should be kept completely separate from religious teaching, since their messages can not co-exist peacefully. Understanding religious belief, from a historical, demographic point of view, should be considered helpful, but grasping this, and managing to isolate its teachings from reality, along with grasping science is a process that only a fully matured brain can cope with.

It is time to plunge the sword deep into this paradox, it is time to make the inevitable and unavoidable move forward and to stop clinging desperately to tradition, tradition that actually adds nothing to furthering children's education. It is time to allow schools to fulfill their purpose.

Fubar Lunch

I now work, as part of a gap year, at the school that i have attended for around a decade of my life. Along this conduit of education, laden with hard work and out-dated traditions, there has been some decisions made by the governing body of the school that have created a confection of well spoken unrest. At GCSE, they introduced an ISA, a practical element to the sciences exams. At A-level, they made it the rule of thumb to do 4 A-levels and to move back the date of AS examinations to January of the second year of sixth form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both these changes happened to our year as the experiment; we were the Guinea pig year. None of these announcements, however, conjured as much bemusement and misfiring of my senses as the latest debacle.

The school announced that for one day both staff and pupils alike, will have a limited lunch, a rationed meal, a bread roll and a cup of soup. For this, we are expected to crumble to our knees and not protest when we are stung to the tune of £3 for the remarkably underwhelming experience. Behind the lunacy, there is a cause, it is essentially a fund raiser for Pakistan. This is not the problem; i am not a miserly misogynist. The problem is that we can raise the same amount of money in a fashion that is not going to cause suffering, be it minor. Mufti days, wear a hat days, eat a normal lunch but just wear something slightly different days..

The reasoning behind it is that this 'frugal lunch' day, will allow us blessed, fortunate and privileged, to partially experience one of the major problems in Pakistan in order to gain greater insight into what they are going through and provoke enhanced empathy towards them. Perhaps if this scheme was adopted for a week, this might work. A day, however, will simply create protests, unrest, complaints and under-nourishment. When people are safe in the knowledge that the norm is being reinstated the next day, it is an excuse for a pessimistic outlook, unity in misery. The reason the week long rationing wouldn't ever be considered, is that the governing body realise what a truly ridiculous notion this is.

From a utilitarian perspective, the population of Pakistan is suffering already, let's not make more people suffer, even for a day. One might suggest that it could create more empathy and in turn result in higher levels of 'good'. It will not, for in 24 hours after the meagre offerings, the children will once more play with their frubes, dance amongst their crisps and skip fancifully amidst their confectionery of varying assortment.

If i were to raise money for Help the Heros, for the brave men who fought for their country and have been maimed in return, i would run a race, climb a mast, wear home clothes. What i wouldn't do, is blow my legs off so as to place my self in their position. If i were raising money for the poor individuals that live amongst an African shanty town, in squalor and poverty, i would host a sponsored rugby match, i would do a sponsored silence, i would provide a cake sale service. What i wouldn't do, is shit in my drinking water and inject cholera directly into my bowels. This idea of putting yourself in their boots doesn't work, it is just an excuse for not just failing to avoid wholly avoidable plight, but manifesting it in the first place.

The idea will prove itself to be a massively unsuccessful campaign and if the school has any sense left unabandoned, future charity ideas at the school will come under KGB-esque scrutiny, so as to not entertain a repeat of this mammoth disaster.

Poetic Justice

Where speaking in tongues and child gibberish fall short, poetry does an inspired job of making it certain that no sense is made, that the plot is entirely lost. It doesn't make sense when you read it, and it doesn't make sense that it is a continuing phenomena, once again, i am left confounded. Of course, with English GCSE still ringing in my ears, it is only right to say that many poems do make sense, and posses a tangible story or meaning; one that you don't have to dig until your fingernails are torn away for.

However, it occurs to me that much of what some poetry tries to say, convey or elude to could be said in a far shorter time and in a much less complicated and coded way. Its indirect illumination of topics is a middle man too far. Its closest comparison is giving me braille to read. Why make the message so confusing? I don't need the supplementary experience that arises from working out the meaning of the poem; predominantly rage.

I don't believe anyone actually finds their thoughts about the world floating around habitually in the whimsy of poetic surrealism; such detachment from reality would cause the body to irreversibly shut down. Bizarre, absurd surrealist poetry with incorrect grammar and spelling, and a disorderly structure can only be a form of salvation from writers' block; it can't be judged since it's logical errors are all intentional, the writer has written something, and that something is a fortress of defense against criticism.

It occurred to me that if a poem talks about nature, perhaps its beauty, then you are far better off wandering into the depths of a wood, and appreciating nature for yourself. Why appreciate a beautiful poem when you can appreciate the subject that the poem itself finds beautiful. Any beauty permeating through the poem can never be as beautiful as the thing it describes, it can only ever be superficial in this respect. A poem is a review of the subject matter or concept, an opinion or description of it...why not jump past all these things and just appeal to the subject matter or conceptual idea itself, for it is there that you will get the true 'message' that the poem is trying to deliver, one that is made of your cognitive thoughts that are stimulated by the concept rather than someone elses. If you prefer the poems illustrations of conceptual information, you should also wander into the depths of a wood, and end it all.

In conclusion, i see no real need for it. It has no place in the universe. To say it is an unnecessary evil is perhaps an unfair appraisal of this radical poetry, to say it is unnecessary however, is nothing but fair. It has no bearing on reality, and is inadequate when reviewed in the shadow cast over it by television, music or films.

Such poetic lunacy can be aligned with modern art in terms of its value to society; fuck all. Modern art is clearly a step made by those less able at painting, at sculpture, those that can't do. Instead they've tailored their very own style; interpretive art, art that expresses 'emotions', political discourse, world problems, etc. etc.

I recently visited the Sistine Chapel, just another one of those priceless artifacts that the Vatican hoards greedily. Anyway, it was astonishing, the level of artwork, commitment and genius required to turn this huge blank canvas into an apotheosis of design is enough to make me question my own existence through feelings of inadequacy. Micheal Angelo puts both modern art and poetry to shame. Through the chapel, he tells a poetic fable through the use of faultless art. Simultaneously he makes the modern art community and radical poetry communities look very small and worthless. He probably had great expectations for the evolution of design and writing. In most respects, these expectations should consider themselves fulfilled. However, if he bared witness to the unforgivable regression into modern art, i think he would have never have become an artist, rather, a campaigner to nip this shitstorm in the bud and deem all art as satanist work.

I will stress here at the close, that i find many poems appealing, and also moving, most particularly those written about warfare and loss. This post targets the newer, alternative style of writing, ones that perhaps i will find moving, but have yet to unravel and comprehend.

Cult Fiction: Religious Liberalism

For me, a religious liberal is someone who identifies themselves as a 'Christian', but does not necessarily subscribe to all of the religious dogma, especially some of the hard line beliefs. For the liberal, religion is not about literal interpretation of such scriptures as the Bible, but instead, about personal interpretation, about love, community and finding individual meaning from the words. Faith, for the moderate, is there for strength, to ensure a morally good life is being lead, and to comfort the 'believer'. I have encountered many who will call themselves 'Christians', but have not read the first paragraph of the Bible. Many that call themselves 'believers' but have not stepped foot in a church on a Sunday, instead, they gorge on their un-holy portions of roast. And they will say; "what is the problem? I like to think something is out there and that i can go somewhere when i snuff it. We are all free to think what we think, you can't tell me what to believe!"

Correct, i cannot bestow upon you what i think you should think, after all i am not a fascist, but what i will do is illuminate what you believe, and from the darkness drag up the problems i see with it.

The problem is that the liberal is cherry-picking from a fully documented religion. He chooses what he wants to believe from it, most likely the earliest taught and the easiest concepts to comprehend; Heaven, Hell and the ten commandments. He will also, however, disregard the religious claims that are harder to justify to the modern intelect; that God created the universe in 7 days but 6,000 years ago and put every living organism on the earth as we see it today.

This, much to the disappointment of many millions of liberals, can't be done due to both logical issues and the terms and conditions of subscribing to a religion. It is not logically consistent to accept distant and widely accepted parts of Christianity but reject the rest of the claims that are intrinsically linked to it. The Bible is either the word of God and thus infallible, or it is nothing; meaningless, a marvel comic. If one genuinely believes some part of Christian dogma is true but does not agree with it in its entirety, then they are not Christian, they are in fact, as atheistic and as blasphemous is i am.

Do not take my word for it of course, turn to Christianity itself. If you do not take Genesis seriously, you are not a Christian, and you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not believe that Jesus was resurrected and that he will be resurrected once more, you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not pray and if you do not go to church, you will suffer the torments of Hell. If you do not accept the every word of the Bible to be true, then you are not a Christian, you have adapted the original dogma for your own ends, and thus, if it is the ultimate reality, you will burn. If you thought my atheistic stance was blunt, now you know how the true Christian thinks of the liberal; that they are nothing but an example of false belief going through life making a mockery of true faith.

Any 'religious' man who stands before you and says this is incorrect, that the Bible is there for interpretation and to act as a guide to perfect morality is, in fact, wrong since this claim is entirely groundless, from whence has he made this conclusion? The Bible claims to be Gods word, to suggest that it is anything other than this is unfounded, he has simply made it up so as to; One, Justify his stance of not obeying the Bibles out of date and, frankly, ridiculous word, and two, to ensure the maintenance of his 'Faith' and his stairway to heaven.

We used to be more reliant on faith, the further you go back in time, the more reliant we were. It was the gap filler, the explanation for the unknown (of which we have an inherent fear of), and as time has progressed, as has our knowledge of the universe. This has meant at each generation, since the enlightenment, religion, as a whole, has been diminishing. Yes, the number of believers, but more importantly, the number of people who can legitimately be labelled, actually Christian, and who actually read the Bible and cling hopelessly to its every word. Instead, given the advancements in technology and knowledge, there has been an emergence of religious liberalism that is growing exponentially.

As belief becomes less devout in families, as a result of science's unforgiving assault upon religious claims, the true teachings of that religion find themselves un-taught. Each generation bases their faith on what they are told about their faith, not what they have read about it. Unless complete purist indoctrination occurs, based on the traditional scriptures, the only result for the modern religious community is Hell (if Christianity be true of course). If they believe because their family does, and they have not read the Bible for themselves, they will be thrown upon a firey stalagmite just like i will because they will not be carrying out the necessary actions, the actions that the Bible order, that God orders. Actual belief does not permeate through inheritance, through hymns or weekly murmurs of the lords prayer, but instead through reasoning, autonomic choice and the true understanding of what the dogma is proclaiming.

These people are religiously uneducated, they do not know what it means to be a Christian and thus live their lives under a false banner. If they actually took time to read the Bibles dangerous, ancient and absurd claims, they would spontaneously combust into an atheist, of that, i have no doubt.

The Meaning Of Life.

In its most basic form, life does not have the scope to fully satisfy the modern human. None of us would be happy to roam around with our spears and loin cloths, hunting down our Big Mac, yet we could survive; we did survive. At each advance in technological resources, we have gone through a conduit of novelty, acclimatization and dependence. This cycle meant every push, over the trench of modernisation, that would play a major role in the life of mankind, would be another irreversible notch forwards, a notch that we would soon be reliant upon. Though i am not eluding that we physically could not survive if plunged back into the dark ages, i am suggesting that none of us, that have experienced the obscenely hedonistic life of post-millennium, could be happy, not until we re-adjusted, and i could not see many of us, if any, making this transmogrification. I recently suffered the unimaginable plight of a power cut. Firstly, in this day and age, i shouldn't have to go through the ordeal, but apparently us country dwellers don't deserve the commodity of an efficient electricity rescue service.

The point is, that i nearly died that day, everything that my life relied upon was taken, just like that, light, tv, Internet, my phone went down and i couldn't charge it, i couldn't cook a meal, i couldn't even have a warm shower. My life had careened into the floor and it was then that i realised how much i rely on these commodities. I could go on about how pathetic it is that we rely on such appliances, and how we should submit to nature, but i won't, because frankly it's too late and it's our natural progression; the evolution of technology. I clench my jaw through existence as it is, let alone when stripped bare.

Life, according to my latest theory, is very simplistic; the ability to live on this diverse planet. What you see is what you get, it's a ronseal job. And as I've already said, we are not happy with this, the human mind requires stimulation to levels above that of any other life form. We need distractions to prevent us spiralling into hellish cognitive thoughts, i like to refer to them as 'rose tints'. Everything is a rose tint. Everything you buy, everything you desire, anything more complex than water, rudimentary food, and oxygen is a rose tint. Even flavoured water...it's there to make life happier, it serves the purpose of releasing us from the reality of how mundane life is, of making sure we are not ragged, loathsome and defeated animals by the time we are twelve. Life, for all of us, is shit. The depressed are the enlightened and the religious the insane. The media spoon to us fairy tales of other peoples lives, injected full of hyperboley, to show us how unbearable their lives are, thereby distracting us from our own life sentence. It further holds us in a cycle of fear and consumption; 'buy our cologne or women will hate you, you smelly, overweight fuck!', 'buy this car...that is unless you personally want to take down the environment...you want to murder more penguins do you? DO YOU?'. We buy rose tints because it keeps us distracted and because the media says we should.

Rose tints also materialise themselves as pass times, clearly pass times occupy the mind much more than just buying things as it normally involves buying things but also using them, often regularly. The more time that can be spent not thinking about your worthlessness in comparison to the the sheer complexity of the universe, that your existence is meaningless to the laws of nature and that life is actually one dimensional, the better off you are, so pass times prove themselves to be very popular. Humans have always turned to pass times, because we have always had the capacity to get bored, it's part of the factor that separates us from other animals, and being bored leads quickly to the realisation of how laboriously dull life is when considered without the glitter and packaging we coerce upon it. As part of our visceral disposition to grow tired of things, we grow desensitised to even our most favourite things, any one man will often have several pass times to juggle in order to weaken our boredom receptors.

What leaves me sat, cross-legged with utter bewilderment showering down upon me, is those pass times, so called 'rose tints', that couldn't possibly have the ability to free our lives from the shackles of Life because they are so insipid, irksome and platitudinous, they surely stop time dead and break the fabric of creation itself. One example of such a pass time presents itself to me above all the others. Vegetable shows...Showing vegetables...Putting vegetables in a show...a show, that is comprised mainly of vegetables...how despicable.

See the fatal error that has been made here, is that vegetable Fayres mix what is often a constituent of pass times; competition, with a basic element of life, the lowest form of nutrition, the earliest cultivated produce; vegetables. The word vegetable is as plain as they taste. I have scrutinized from the tip of the root to the top of the legume, and there is nothing to get excited about, we eat vegetables not because their taste is so irresistible, but because they are good for us, they are a necessary evil. The fayre revolves around being pedantic to the extent that it would make it onto the autistic spectrum, measuring size, straightness, regularity, presentation, weight, roundness, colour and texture of plant growths. Examining waves of the same looking vegetables in such fashions cannot be beneficial to the maintenance of a healthy and sane mind. Nor can the actual growing process, it happens over such a long time that even if the result was the highest reward and the planting stirred up days of excitement, it leaves months unaccounted for. This activity is one of an elite few, that are more dreadful than life itself.

The people who identify with this 'pass time' must, MUST do something else with themselves other than having an affair with their legumes. They could not survive on this alone since it would leave a vacuum in their heads, desolate and self-sustaining. My only salvation in this issue is to assume that whilst they are not planting, picking or showing their vegetables, they are sky-diving, bungee jumping and injecting adrenaline straight into their eyeballs. In fact, i quite fancy this prospect.

Cult Fiction: Spoilt For Choice

In the face of an overwhelming, ever growing religious audience, i thought I'd stop beating my head into the desk, take my fist out of my mouth and some time off the constant unhappiness i seem to feel towards some things, and offer a series of logical and rational arguments, each week, to deconstruct some of the more ill conceived theological arguments and claims. The main focus is on Christianity, it's scriptures and subscribers. Look out for the posts titled 'Cult fiction...'

These are not areas for debate or discussion, since ultimately, the evidence to discredit the Bible and the God of classical theism is copious, hard hitting and potentially devastating. After considering it, using reason as it should be used, there is no coherent argument left to assert that the Christian God is a reality.

Pascal was misinformed. He asserted that you are better off to gamble on the reality of Christianity and the existence of God ringing true than not gamble at all, for if it payed off, you are rewarded with eternal life and if not, you lived a morally sound life. He was wrong, for actually, you may find your self ball deep in an Islamic world of shiite, and eternal suffering for worshipping a false God. You may find the gamble has led into another ten thousand years of birth, death and rebirth through the wasting of a sacred life in the human form.

What is staggering is the Christian (and religious) ignorance towards probability. That actually, there is nothing distinct between their beliefs and the beliefs of others; they all share ill-supported, soft 'evidence' through prayer and miracle, and an astonishingly vacuous bank of real, empirical evidence. How they can say 'Christianity is the one true and infallible religion' and criticise others is beyond me. On what grounds can they elude to this? 'My beliefs are true but yours aren't because i believe them and that's all the counts lah lah lah'. Playground reasoning has never stood highly in my books...

I think what is worse is the similarity between Islam and Christianity. It makes them almost inseparable. Both are (or should be) irrational, unjustifiable and highly dangerous to the eyes of a scientist, but to each other, i don't know how they stand, how they could disagree with the exactly similar claims of the other religion without disagreeing with the claims of their own? After all, the differences in some places is as elementary as a changed name or place. With so many religions, promising eternal life and having a novel written by their God, we're almost spoilt for choice.

There is nothing to say the Gods of old; the Norse Deitys or the Roman divine are any less conceivable or any less a reality than any other God. Just as humankind made the advance from Paganism to the world religions as we know them, i am suggesting that we make the next advance, from the age of the world religions into the age of reason.

Every devout believer holds the same reasons for being a believer, no matter their faith. Yet a Christian will not see a Hindus or a Muslims reasons as legitimate. Despite the copious scripture and extensive writings that illuminate every last detail of their faith and God, their scripture is not infallible whilst the Christians is. Of course every religion's devout followers are guilty of this obscenity, but as i said, the most expansive religion in the world will serve as my rather fitting example.

In the same way the Christian will denounce other faiths beliefs as preposterous and find salvation in their teachings, i do the same with Christianity itself. Every religious believer knows the intense feeling of being an atheist, a non believer, with respect to the other all other religions, They must also, therefore, know well the feeling of frustration and how plainly obvious it is that what they believe is false.

As ever, if you care to show me the differences between the validity of Christian claims and the claims of Islam, the differences that show that one is the word of God whilst the other is the word of uneducated man, i will listen, intently.

Cameras, Maps and Backpacks

There is nothing I like about tourism. For all its benefits; the boosts on the cultural learning curve and the deeper understanding of other ways of life, it still cannot be justified to me as a worthy pastime. These 'benefits' are clearly just for the individual, so they can say "yes, I've been there, I've experienced it, me, ME!", and subsequently talk wine fuelled bollocks at a dinner party for the next quarter of an hour. In their own tiny, shoulder chipped minds they are suddenly authorities to speak about the places they've been, and it does not seem to occur to them that actually they are just like the millions of other people that visit tourist sites each year. More worthy is to travel deep into the bowels of somewhere like Borneo or African nations, places the common pleb do not know about or are uninterested about venturing into. I see two benefits; One, the 'tourist' has experienced something that few others have, the audience might actually care for the first 5 minutes of the dinner party monologue. And two; the risk of not returning is increased vastly.

It seems to me, after a visit to Rome, to its Colosseum and its Vatican, that these places and places like them are just breeding sites for ill mannered robots that feed off the principle of survival of the fittest. There is an element of dog eat dogness about tourism; you must be the first, the quickest, you must be the one to befriend the tour guide, to ask him questions and nod obsessively to make sure he knows that you understand and appreciate every single word and noise that spills from his lips and that you, his disciple for the day, have submitted entirely to him. If you plan to embark on a holiday to get away from it all, go somewhere with little to no cultural history.

I can't deny that i find the hottest tourist spots interesting and that i feel compelled to visit them before i dropkick the bucket; it's within us all that we desire fulfillment in out short lives, and touring the worlds' best shows is sure to deliver this on some level. But perhaps this level is a superficial one. One must ask whether I'm going to fulfill myself, or whether I'm going because everyone else does, to fit in, to say i "have." Perhaps there's an element of 'Wouldn't i look a dick if i came to Rome but didn't do the Colosseum.' or in other words; 'i might not come back.' That's almost the worst thing about this, the becoming of what you most hate about holidays, being uncontrollably caught up in the whirlpool of cameras, maps and backpacks.

The reason i ask the question of fulfillment is because i feared for my cultural side, whilst in Pisa, it was as if it had had a stroke. There it was, the leaning tower of Pisa, keeping it's promises of exhibiting both leaning and tower-like qualities, yet i felt unmoved, dare i say it, unimpressed. The cheek! Not only is it a tower that leans, but it was completed in the 1300's. The fact that it has lasted or that it was even designed and built then, should have done something for the stimulation of my awe senses.

There are two options then. One, the tourist has ruined it for me; the paintings, models, articles, comedy pictures, songs, on-site salesmen that they are responsible for fuelling and that have been shoved into my life from a small infant have successfully desensitised my awe receptors, and made these magnificent and triumphant feats of engineering and design a trivial matter. Or two, i am actually a carrot.

No human, no one with the power of reason, the crucial difference between humankind and the rest of the animal kingdom, could be left un-astonished when faced with sites of such historical, technological and engineering importance.

Perhaps it was the heaving masses, eating their lunches on the towers grass, perhaps it was the people trying to sell me tower shaped goods; key rings, magnets, models, perhaps it was the sheer amount of people taking the same comedy photograph that wasn't ever funny in the history of time, or perhaps i was just bored of hearing and knowing about it...perhaps, reader, i had false expectations built by the industry that surrounds and leeches off such a marvel. I am fairly sure when i say it is the tourist, me included, who has ruined such sites of human excellence - that's the worst thing about this.

The God, The Bad, And The Ugly

Every 4 years the world goes insane for just over a month. Temporarily, every country is gripped by football as a new world cup dawns. Countries that we didn't even know had teams begin pumping money into their futile campaigns and when they are inevitably knocked out they wonder why. Their eyes are blinded by the world cup fever, blinded to the reality that their country is cack and that the history of the world cup is the only rule that is important, the law that states that a list of around 7 countries have the capacity to win, always have, always will, and that all others will not become 'giant killers' or 'the dark horse surprise' but insignificant states once more.

Unlike previous blogs this isn't going to focus on the obvious issues raised by the madness of the world cup spirit and effects on the nation. The fake pride and patriotism that sweeps the cuntry like the plague but ends up evolving into bitterness, blame and incitement of national hatred. Patriotism was shown at Rorke's Drift by 139 who stood (successfully) in the face of 4000, not down the road in soccer city or Durban's stadiums. Nor will it focus on the exploiting of the world cup by the unstoppable and ruthless machine of advertising, the attachment of all non-football related products to the 'beautiful game'.

It occurred soon into my 4th world cup that the start, the group stages, were going to be wholly uninspiring. The tactic of defense took over like the plague and after every game, one was left numbed by the previous 90 minutes of mediocrity. So if the scorelines weren't going to impress me i had to look for something that did, for something that would keep me supporting a team other than their blissful skill. I didn't have to look far.

What caught my eye amongst a field of inadequacy was not so much the on field action, but instead, the off field happenings. Maradona, for the uninitiated, is best associated with (in order of appearance) footballing supremacy, cheating, drinking, rehab, drug abuse, rehab, obesity, I'd imagine some sort of rehab, political insensitivity and boldness, social insensitivity and firearm abuse. Maradona has all the qualifications of a bastard, of a once great sporting figure but now of someone worthless. It looked like the end for Diego, Maradona wouldn't ever Scrabble his way out of this hole....

Whats truly amazing is that not only did he, but has done so with unprecedented success. Maradona has fostered a personality cult similar only to the rise of Stalin whereby he is both untouchable and unrivaled. His status within the context of Argentina has reached absurd heights. All around the stadiums i looked for the faces of the players, of Messi, the worlds number one, but all i could see was the face of a legendary looking Maradona, he was being worshipped like a God. This bought me and my support and since I have an irrational hatred for all Argentinians; through natural selection its been bred into the British genotype since the Falklands, this was quite something.

Who'd have thought how accurate the phrase 'Hand of God' would play to be. Perhaps it was, through a eureka moment Maradona realised that he could nurture this phrase and from it become a national hero; it must have dawned on him that chasing the 'radical political activist' image would serve only to bump him up in some peoples estimations but isolate him in others, whereas if he led his county in a different sense, through what he used to be great at and was typically remembered for, he could sway the opinion of the whole nation.

Everything about him oozed superiority, his image, if devised by himself, is as cunning as it is lavish. His suit, his grey beard of wisdom, his black beard (every insane leader has some form of dodgey facial hair), his jewelry that pointed to the Persian king Xerxes, his surface camaraderie, his aggressive body language, his excessive public acts of religious belief; everything depicts a leader of the people. And they love him...the players hug him respect him, the crowds cheer for him, Maradona, through his very own guile, has managed to pull back from the brink of uselessness and has cultured a life of ultimate greatness, has cultured a life that is exactly similar to the great repressive leader Stalin, but in a modern and acceptable manner, he's fulfilled this image through football, he is as close as one could get to becoming a dictator with out becoming a dictator...after all everyone outside Argentina hates the man.

I fully respect the focus of Diego Armando Maradona, to achieve his ultimate potential before he inevitably becomes stardust and remembered for being a fat turd. I wont subscribe to his cult of personality, i wont regard him as my leader, but i respect what he has done for every man desires that same thing on some level, and i will thusly support Argentina in the 2010 world cup, if they win, who knows what bizarre heights Maradona will reach, my mouth salivates at the prospect.

It would be unfair to suggest Argentina weren't also a great footballing team, it was as much a joy to watch them as it was Maradona....that is until the quarter final stage where they were smashed into the ground by the Reich.

Allowing criminals to do-good.

Just below accidentally eating my own head in 'things i don't ever want to have to deal with in my short and futile existence'; is do-gooders. Well aren't they just a cunch of bunts. For people who strive for making life happier, better and more equal for others, they do a spectacular job at making me woefully unhappy. There are two types of do-gooder.

The first seem to be fairly easy to categorise, but more importantly spot; on clocking group of them heading in your direction, you'll almost certainly wish to hurl your self into the nearest shrubbery. The common 'category one' do-gooder is very much similar to the common church-goer. The boredom just oozes out of every aspect of their life. Their grey clothing, their lego-man like hair cuts, 'would you like tea or coffee?', 'just water thanks'. I gnaw violently on my fist at the thought of the conversation at the dinner table, or in the car, what do they talk about! Category one is a dangerous category in that a normal person, dropped into this life of cardboard-eating greyness, runs the risk of biting their own legs off in desperation. These are the kind responsible for the constant murdering, raping and general debauchery we see in society. Not them personally obviously, they couldn't wipe their own arses with out being offended, but their constant christian line of thinking; 'treat others as you would like to be treated'.

This has resulted in a state that once hung-drew and quartered people being watered down, to almost homeopathic levels, and that now gives an 8 year sentence for a fatal, 37 wound stabbing. Oh you bastards. Why are these psychopaths, that are clearly no good for society and are beyond mental rehabilitation not being either indefinitely locked away or alternatively given the death sentence. 'Well they are still a person', No! the minute the other persons life was taken in cold blood, he stopped being a rational minded person. Also it is a fallacy that we instantly become 'their level' if we killed them in the name of justice. It is not to be compared. It is not as if i am suggesting we hang innocent people for looking at us funny, only then would it be comparable.

I'm sure it is all well and good for a do-gooder to stand there and spout flowery bollocks about how we all do wrong and how we should forgive, up until the point where it is their husband being mutilated and spread up the walls, or his wife being brutally raped with a foot up her arse. We shouldn't lock him away for ever and the death penalty is completely out of the question? Ok, this repeat offending, hammer wielding nutcase will be living with you from now on.... i wouldn't look him in the eyes mind, that's when he starts trying to eat people...

It is only fair that those who don't want to see a return of the death penalty fund for the institutions in which we can safely install these no-good loonies, and stop just expecting the prison system to replicate like bacteria and for institutions just to fabricate out of nothingness.

Category two are the younger, Che Guevara-esque arsemonkeys that 'fight for rights' in a manner that is so hypocritical, every time it is exhibited, it gives me the knee-jerk reaction of very almost blowing my arsehole out in an unstoppable wave of fecal artillery. These are the ones responsible of campaigning against the making of armaments, on the grounds they cause harm, by violently attacking precautionary police. These are the band of wank-each-other-off brothers that campaign against animal cruelty by vandalising a persons house and using arson. As you can see in both cases, these unhinged, revolutionary minded psychopaths display irrational hypocrisy to get their all important 'message' out there. Do they have a message? Or are they just looking for a fight... It seems to me that these younger do-gooders are not do-gooders at all; they are hate-inciting, shoulder-chipped maniacs, looking for an excuse to be violent but not brought down.

When the British empire (the finest and most expansive seen by the world) was at it's peak, the policy was to send criminals abroad, even for thieving...to the front line. Well it is clear then what we should be doing! Stop qualifying teenagers as professional arseholes with ASBOs and ship them out to the front line. I suppose there is a problem in arming these already unstable, misbehaving youths with guns. Then we arm them with an assortment of rudimentary weaponry; swords, spears we can create a table-reversed Rawks Drift. Fuck it, you category two do-gooders can go with them as you're always looking for a fight! In fact anyone caught displaying testosterone filled violence in Britain can be shipped eastward to fight the front line war and show how hard they really are.... I'll sit here and watch your balls shrink and you plead for a weapon more substantial than a cocktail stick...or a ticket home. The Jeremy Kyle show can convert effortlessly into a recruiting service and no longer will our forces be suffering the drought. Crime rates would plummet because offenders are being shipped out to the east and potential offenders would begin to reconsider their actions, whilst all the while our gains in the middle east would be more fruitful than ever.

So we won't return to the death penalty, and our prison system is clogging like Johnny Vegas' arteries? Fine. The elite unit for special operations in the middle east can be made up of our finest, most insane repeat offending psychos. Apart from getting them out of our country and leaving us all the safer for it, i see two benefits. One, we are allowing them to reach their pinnacle, to fulfill their life's purpose for we are allowing them to do what they do best; murdering. And two, imagine the fear that would be installed into the enemy when they see the corpses of their comrades being eaten and their entrails thrown about by ' Psycho squadron'.... we'd be left with no opposition come Christmas 2010.

It's All About The Game

Shamefully, i am a self confessed gamer. And to add a twist to the knife of douchebagery, I'm a PC gamer; the worst kind . There is something so desperately infectious about the fastest growing section of the media. Gaming, in essence, provides you with the opportunity to fulfill childhood thoughts that have had the benefit of having a script, a storyline and sensory enhancement all injected into it so as to not strain your already vegetable like brain. I have always played games, since the days of the legendary Nintendo '64, through the distinct averageness of the the ps1, into reign of the triumphant ps2 and out the other side into the equally impressive years of the xbox 360.

Now and again a game comes along that shakes the four-eyed, virgin world; the Grand Theft Auto series, the Halo series, and most recently the Call Of Duty series. Although it's been going since 2003, its popularity has soared since it's modern edition to the series in 2007. Unlike most games, 'COD' is one of the few that one can get obsessive over playing because of its near faultless online facility. COD is essentially a war game, with scope stretching from WW2 to fictional (perhaps foreseeable) modern warfare. In caveman terms, you go around with guns, shooting other people.

For the un-initiated, online gaming is where you can play the game with people all over the world, provided they have internet, and the game of course. Who ever said gamers didn't have friends! They don't. This online gaming is one way to incite hatred, over nothing. Never in all my life have i heard so many hypothetical things going in to and violating someone else's mum whilst their dad embarks on equally distressing acts. I've seen death threats and racial abuse.

The gaming community is impressive in size. They have their own language, personas and hierarchy; Starting, as everyone must, at the 'Noob' who can only dream of being part of a 'Clan'. Again, for those who may not be familiar with gaming terminology, this will seem like I'm speaking in Hebrew. A 'Noob' is someone who displays incomprehensible ineptitude, one that jeopardizes victory or just deserves highlighting and segregating. It's the lowest of the low. A 'Clan' is a collection of players who have earned respect enough to enter an official team, of course, Clans vary in both size and skill, they all, however, are gimps.

I have spent around a fortnight of my life on the COD series alone, counting only online play . A fortnight doing the same mind-numbing thing over and over. Even if you're playing like you're using your feet, you find your self dying over and over like some poorly funded, modern take on the Somme, you persist, for hours, but you find yourself slowly winding up with rage until you want to just hammer your testicles to the desk out of frustration. (I don't even want to begin thinking about how long, in total, i have spent playing games or why i have done so, I'd just cry, a lot.)

Despite having the ability to foster such rage, create hatred towards someone you have never met and will never meet and to ruin a persons social standing if widely known about, i genuinely believe gaming has worth. It allows the venting of taboo feelings, feelings of violence. A lot of reports and studies show violent games leading to the expression of violent behaviour, especially amongst children, i think it's the opposite. Whilst perhaps not healthy for the pacifist within children, if an adult can exhibit a behaviour that's not socially acceptable in actual life, even if it's within the gaming realm, it allows relief of this desire, it allows the feeling to be played out. After all, games are certainly moving towards the teaching of morals, violence is not being glamorised but instead discouraged.

Gaming is something to be ashamed about, there is no question. The way to get around this is to keep your gaming presence completely separate from your social life. Keep it hidden from people that might judge you but never forget it. Others will play, they just need to be discovered, you just need to locate and overturn their rock. It's a complex game of knowing your target audience, of sussing people out. Once initiated, a gaming chat will last, covering the days of the N64 up to the most recent of games and you will discover something about every game on the way. If you value peoples perceptions of you, the trick is to be discreet... why not write a blog on it?

I'm a celebrity get me...a trampoline.

50 years ago the most valued people in society were an individuals family and the Queen. Now, however, our culture seems to have bumped the value of so called 'celebrity personalities' to staggeringly unaffordable heights. They get praised and followed like demi-Gods and their followers, these vultures of all things famous continue like the undead snuffing out fresh brain. To couple nicely with this hierarchy of madness, what constitutes a 'celebrity' has also wandered from it's traditional definition of someone who has talent, talent enough to be payed for. It wasn't so long ago that i found myself watching a Kerry Katona Iceland advert and realised the pointlessness of it all. What does she even do? Apparently she used to be a singer...perhaps 'used to be' gives insight to the quality of said 'singing'. Yet since her musical career has ground to a halt, she still clings on desperately to the highly sought after 'celeb' status, unbelievably. On my list of 'top 100 good for nothing people who need to be attacked with a wrench' she rates fairly highly, just below Vanessa Feltz (she's is marginally worse for she genuinely believes she has worth to society, she couldn't have less), and just above that free-loading, band-wagoning rip-off merchant Timberland (does he write anything of his own or just force is fat fingers into everyone else's pies?). Not only can Kerry not sing, she is the first women in the history of television to be out-acted by 12 sausage rolls.

Liam Gallagher: now there's a twat. He really is a bastard among men. Usually, when i talk of celebrities, of how i have a burning desire to lash at them without constraint, i am referring to their persona, their tv presence; if i bumped into one in the street, the speed at which I'd become a jelly-legged, star-struck hypocrite would be breath-taking . Gallagher, on the other hand, i genuinely hate. I do hope i never have to bump into his sunken, gormless face topped with his medieval stable boy hair-cut on the street, for my actions would surely see several fixed life sentences.

Is my hate that irrational? No. He really is a fucking idiot of inconceivable proportions. An installment of Would i lie to you? Opened my eyes further to his complete worthlessness. He once asked at the front desk of, presumably a five star hotel, if he could, through room service, order a trampoline to his room. Now if i were that clerk, i would feel compelled to visit Gallaghers room, and set fire to his face, and probably his brother, whilst shouting 'of course you may not have a trampoline, of course you may not!' . The soul crushing truth is likely to be that the hotel actually tried to locate and deliver a trampoline to his room. I shudder at the thought of it.

So what is he famous for? Oasis of course. Their legacy is undeniably far reaching and in the last two decades, their success unrivalled . But why? I don't want to know the reasons for the creation of the universe, nor the answer to the riddle of the space-time continuum. Instead why everyone bows downs and worships Oasis like deities. Gallaghers monotonous, droning voice serves only to spiral me into both depression and anger whilst the unrelenting chord progressions grind on my conscience as if i had murdered a small child. The worst of their crimes is not this however, instead it is the constant desire of Gallaghers to become the modern Beatles. I doubt he even likes the beatles! Judging by his music he certainly doesn't. Maybe Gallagher bears more intelligence that I'm allowing credit for, perhaps Oasis is a satire, a parody, homage to the Beatles through Oasis' juxtaposed, 'how not to be' music. I think not. Instead i reckon Gallagher wants to be like the Beatles in the sense of their domination of the music world, in the sense of being an unstoppable force rather than being musically adept. This comparison was inevitable also, the critics has no choice. When Gallagher opted to dress like he was from the era of the flower-children, where else were they to head? Perhaps it is just not for me, there is clearly something 'right' about the 'Oasis' enterprise for their fan base is unscaleably sized. Oh well, just another one of my frustrations left bleeding in the gutter.

This said, Oasis had to hire ex- SAS, lions of men to act as bodyguards after repeated attacks and threats to members of the band. Maybe that clerk didn't take to kindly to the trampoline request after all.

Maybe then, it is the mimicking of celebrity's bastard like behaviour that is the cause of the 'younger' generation's decline in manners and increase in foul-mouthed, alcohol induced actions. Maybe i gave 'the Boohbahs' a overestimated role in this. I certainly believe that celebrities play a much larger role than they did in influencing teenagers, everyday they are rammed down our throats from every angle, but this is not a profound view. It's not so much that their temperament has altered, Elvis was a party hard, nympho just as Marilyn Monroe was, and Zeppelin were doing more drugs than that gonk Pete Doherty could possibly dream of doing. It's just that they get more coverage, in radio, tv, papers, and because they live the life they want to, soaked in money and martini, it is only natural that they become role models for the young and dreaming.

...Man i hate Liam Gallagher...

Mr DJ won't you turn the music on....

Music has to be one of life's higher pleasures. If, with the benefit of knowing what music provides for us, it was suddenly taken away, prised from our hands, i really would be struggling to get through the endless wave of hours that are thrown at me without eating my foot. I like a lot of music, and I'm not just one of those people who says that, who claims to 'be into everything' but actually couldn't even spell the word music, let alone maintain a conversation about it. I really do, Folk, Metal, Rock, Blues, Bluegrass, Motown (when Boyz II Men exploit it) and even classical. If it has a catchy melody, i will listen to it. If it has strange timing, i will listen to it. However in recent years, there has been a hasty decline in not just 'good' music, but music in general. It is not that 'music' is not being produced, in fact the amount of 'music' that is churned out each month has reached new heights, it is that this 'music' is not music at all.

There is, i feel, a distinction to be made. It is instilled in human nature that much of our focus is on sex. It is an evolutionary drive, passed down from generation to generation to help us sustain and increase our numbers where we can. But, it is not always alright to express this drive; you may like the look of the girl you keep gawking at, but the minute you unzip your trousers, start licking your lips and begin trying to lick her 'lips', you're getting locked up. As such, we have strived for ways of having sex without having sex. Our solution? Dance. (Perhaps it should be said now that dance is also instilled in us to an extent, acting as mating rituals and so on).

So throughout time, we have had the urge to dance, to move rhythmically and provocatively or indeed eloquently, but with a member of the opposite sex all the same. And of course, this rhythmically based movement is aided by the addition of music, of a set rhythm. With this basis, of music and dance being entwined throughout history, the two have become near inseparable, so closely linked, we can effortlessly blunder back and forth, between the two, without even realising it.

And this what i think has happened. With our culture as centred around sex and as comfortable with the concept of sex as it is, and with our culture as technologically advanced as it is, it was only a matter of time before we made the unrecoverable step into face-punchingly bad, digital dry-sex noise.

I could begin stamping my foot to the first track off a dance album, and not stop until the end of the album. It's relentless in its invasion of the ears, and as mundane and monotonous as eating dry oats, listening to Morse code spell out 'Tinie Tempah wouldn't know decent music if it came up on shit on his head'.

On that note, i would like to use 'Tinie Tempah' as evidence that music has taken a great turn for the worse. No matter how much i would like to blame the man however, this simply isn't feasible since his songs are written by machines. He did write his lyrics though, and brought us such classic lines as; "I live a very very very wild lifestyle" and "I've got so many clothes i keep some in my aunt's house". There is such insight from Tinie there, such profound words, unrivaled even by Eric Clapton's lyrics mourning the death of his infant son, or Led Zeppelin's existential lyrics in 'stairway to Heaven'. Having listened to Tinie's 'Pass out', i felt compelled to seek out something that would raise my cerebral activity somewhat, such as picking my ball sack.

Tinie is not the only guilty one in today's 'music' industry that uses machines with which he constructs his work however . Almost every song on recent radio features a voice auto tuner, the gadget that gave Kanye the ability to sing (i think it speaks volumes that his live performances of his 'singing' album have gone down like a well lit orphanage). Even Fergie, a person who can sing un-assisted, who has a good voice, has resorted to this new-era bastard machine. When the singing is done by a machine, and the background bass and melody is also produced by a machine, there is nothing left for a human to do... the only reason Rihanna still gets paid for 'her' songs, is that she provides the legs, tits and arse of the record and video. This synthy, digital mess is not 'music' in the same way playing FIFA '10 is not football.

Perhaps it is just a phase. Perhaps there is still light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. Even in these dark times there are glimmers of hope; personally i think Professor Green's "i need you tonight" is an absolute triumph within the 'popular music' genre. His masterstroke is that he has used an old, classic track with melody and groove for his backing, and in the midst of the piles of ball-aching, machine music, it sounds both different and catchy because of it. Yes he hasn't written it still, but i would much prefer to hear an old musical track with a new spin, than a brand new track that just blends in with all the other disgraceful bollocks that has come out recently.

I would also like to quickly confront peoples objection to my traditionalist view that on the grounds that their taste is opinion, their stance is unquestionable. Incorrect. Yes, i cannot change your opinion of what you like, but with something like music, the more educated you are in the topic, the more your opinion stands for. If a dedicated football analyst tells me something opinionated about the premiere league, and then a uneducated, farming dweeb tells me something also opinionated about the premiere league, i will value the football analyst's opinion far more. The same applies here, I am not a music genius by any stretch of the imagination, i play several instruments to an average to good standard, but as such that makes me more qualified to talk about music than someone who cannot meet the same status. In the same way, the opinion of someone more qualified than me, with a greater understanding will count for far more.... Let's see who they would agree with here.

Please sir...I don't even want anymore...

Food is an integral part of our short and pitiful existence. We rely on it as fuel but we have also come to enjoy it, to relish it one might say... In fact, with the exception of sex, it has become probably the most wealthily documented and talked about subjects. There is a tremendous amount of reference to food in all walks of life, but perhaps most of all, is on our tv screens, and not just in adverts.

The diversity of cookery programmes is somewhat overwhelming. For the laid back approach one can enjoy Jamie Oliver, if you like a sense of competition with your food, go with Masterchef, if you like soft pornography served with your chips, i recommend Nigella Lawson and if you like Top Gear, you're bound to like Gordon Ramsey (And Nigella).

My particular favorite, not listed above, is when food is mashed mercilessly into science until they vaguely see eye to eye. The culmination of such a process is Heston Blumenthal and his take on food. His approach to food is one that can only be described as obscene, it is as if willy wonka (wasn't clinically insane) and had been unleashed on to the entire culinary world. His last and current series' have focused laying down a different themed feast (first the ages of history and now fairy tales), each week, to a handful of low A to high B list celebrities with invariable success. He has explored from flying pies to savory testicle sweets, from recreating Alice in wonderland's multi flavoured concoction, to jelly with dildos in - Nigellas next step i feel. His work is simply awe-inspiring and the programme gripping, if you don't like food, marvelling at his command on science should suffice.

It was during the last installment, however, when the sheer scale of our excess hit me. I wasn't shocked, but i had never confronted the thought directly. It was when Heston went about constructing a house out of confectionery and cake, a house so substantial that its walls needed structural reinforcement bars (in this case pieces of rock) and welding to build, that i realised that perhaps, in the name of entertainment, this might not be the 'right' thing to be doing. Just imagine if the programme, at this point, was played on a projector to an African village. The people wouldn't understand for they cannot make houses and nor can they find food. Here Heston combines both in the name of excess, but with no intention to live in it or have it wholly consumed. The African people's disbelief might just be enough to make them completely malfunction; to make their bowels just release their contents, their stomachs tighten and vomit, and their eyes be blown from off their faces.

The point is that the western world, through no fault of our own (in fact because of our intuition, intelligence and a hospitable climate), have so much food that we can afford to take the piss. We can afford to build houses with our food, to cook a michlan style course everyday as 'practises' in preparation for Fridays all-in-one final, to form competitions in which the prize is not to consume your lavish creation, but a sum of money with which to splash about on more food cooked by someone else, because we have the resources and we have the viewing demand that implicitly implies to us that 'this must be right'... if it wasn't, we would all stop watching it, wouldn't we?

This is not to say i don't like these programmes, or having had this moral enlightenment, i want them to change.... i don't, I'm as selfish as the next man. It is, however, startling to think of the extent to which our culture conditions our appetites, in all senses.

Boohbah black sheep have you any...

I have never been an avid fan of the television, it seems to me you have always had to dig endlessly through the piles of nonsense in order to entertain yourself for a short burst, only to be left with a feeling of injustice, wondering what i might have achieved in that last hour of my life had i not been so concerned with other peoples.
That said, occasionally a programme will be unveiled that genuinely keeps me entertained, but more importantly wanting more. The BBC's "The Apprentice" for example is a masterstroke. There is something so warming, so fulfilling about watching the most driven, emotionally cold and self centred people that the BBC could filter out and herd together, fail and subsequently have their egos shattered by a man who they know is not as qualified nor as well spoken as them, but is worth more than all their and their families insignificant lives collectively. As if this were not enough, these robotic, clone like egos, that are all fighting for the same thing, are smashed together under the same roof for 14 weeks. It's engaging in the same way as a bull fight is, noone is there to see the fighter's success, but rather the expression on his face and the shitting of his pants as he realises the imminence of his finality. However for all its fruits, the tv also provides some of the worst, shit-grippingly bad 'entertainment' that I've have ever been so unfortunate enough to bear witness to. In Particular is one show, a children's programme that made me nauseous whilst also providing me with a sense of such overwhelming anger.

I am of course referring to ITVs "Boohbah", a series that ran from 2003-2005. It is near impossible to provide you with a clear outline of the plot or conceptual idea behind this insanity, given the choice of the two, I'd sooner attempt to write out the Magna Carta with my head than embark on unravelling the reason for the Boohbahs existence. I will however clench my jaw and describe it to you. It consists of five furry, bright-coloured, gumdrop shaped bastards, with hairless eggheads and wide eyes, prancing about a blank environment. Their frustratingly symmetrical heads have the ability to retract into their weeble like bodies, in a way that can only be compared to the tip of a penis being covered by its foreskin. The Boohbahs do not speak also. Instead, they make noises; squeaks and squeals. When they are not dancing about aimlessly, they tend to involve themselves in what can only be described as cult like behaviour; linking of hands in a circle and chanting with their unbearable, dissonant shrieks.

Watching the show, as i did, for the full twenty five minutes, provided me with an experience that i imagine is exactly similar to taking LSD or some other heavy, hallucinogenic drug. Without actually altering chemical workings in my body, it had the effect of destroying my emotional balance, of tearing apart my mental and cognitive processing to the point where i wanted to urinate up my walls, and left me questioning my existence and the existence of all around me.

Perhaps then i shouldn't have watched it. Indeed, it is not aimed at teenagers. But on reflection, this was the most shocking part of the 'Boohbah phenomenon'. It is aimed at children! The most impressionable and innocent among us, and this is what tv is saying is reality to them. It is little wonder that at each generation, the youngest band gets blamed for all of society's shortcomings; there is a clear and direct correlation between this apparent 'steep decline in good and respectable behaviour' and the quality of children's shows. I remember when "Captain Scarlet" used to fight off the peddlers of arseholery and when "Thomas The Tank Engine" used to sort out the moral and practical issues between his locomotive friends. They provided such examples, they laid down what was right and wrong, good and bad, from the very start of a persons life. Instead, now children are left with a collection of mute entities, that look like they are out of a sex store, that stimulate their visual receptors with jazzy colours, but do little else. All they have to build their sense of morality on is colours and noises. If you showed Knife crime offenders an episode of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", they would realise which side they were on, and soon change their ways.

I find my self weighing up what would be better for my (hypothetical) child's needs and moral building. I think i would rather allow my three year old to experiment on any of the Grand theft Auto series. Perhaps i could show them how to violently kick the already bullet wounded remains of a prostitute, in order to reclaim the money we have just spent on receiving some ambiguous sexual action in a freshly stolen vehicle; in order to learn the value of money of course. Is this lesson

It is a shame that the Boohbah's reign has come to an end however. Yes it is. It seems somewhat of an injustice that they were never hideously beaten on screen, tied up and burnt for all to see. There is something gratifying about the thought of the Boobahs being gunned down on the streets on London. Perhaps it is the irony, for it is they who i am (temporarily) blaming for recent increases such crime.

If this has not convinced you, you think the Boohbahs are innocent, fun and of benefit to children, please allow a little time to visit their website and experience, first hand, the madness that they provoke. However, let this be a warning to you, it is not a friendly environment, the dissonant, high pitched noises drill deep in to your ears and the hallucinogenic colours into your retinas. I would not recommend more than three minutes.

http://www.boohbah.com/zone.html