My dad has been a busy fellow. He dug a sizable section out of my parents' garden, and put a bloody great paddling pool for grown-ups in the space!







I'm going to be spending a LOT of time at their house this summer.

Care to join me?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-SL-1210MK5EB-1210MK5EB-Turntable-Black/dp/B00009RIOE/

Skip down the page to the second of the two reviews, and you'll find this little gem. Needless to say, I am sold.

"This is an absolutley pukka ting ya no. The decks are the most jamming things avaliable on the market today. I got a pair i boiught off me aunty maud 4 years ago and da is still going booooom ting bredrean. Trust me on this one if you want live decks and big up respects buy this decks, you hear me all. Pitch control respect, torque respect, looks respect, needles respect, direct respect. Big up all massive"

There's so much to love about this review, but more than anything - he bought a part of decks off his aunty Maud? Amazing. LITERALLY amazing.

There aren't enough aunties who are also Jamaican dub DJs.

About half a year ago, I joined the Green Party. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't been at all active, for reasons far too dull to document here, but I've tried to keep abreast of the important developments, and I swing a tenner their way each month. In a few months time, when my life will be far more tranquil, I had planned to get much more involved, to go to meetings, take to the streets, help get the message out, and really get my hands dirty.

Actually, the dirty hands bit is just because I've seen a nice bit of clay in someone's back garden, and I'm going to nick it. It's got nothing to do with politics. But forget about that, it's of no consequence to anything.

A lot of things attracted me to the Greens. For a start, their leader, Caroline Lucas, is a remarkable, passionate and convincing woman, a genuine inspiration who refuses to weaken her ideals for populist gain - and nowadays, how many politicians can you truly say that about? Any party leader who actively recommends non-violent demonstrations and peaceful law-breaking gets a thumbs up from me.

And the core policies of the party, while sometimes overly optimistic, still align themselves very much with mine. The idea of kick-starting the economy by employing people to install free insulation in houses, and investing massively in green energy, while breaking up big banks, increasing the minimum wage, and most importantly of all to me, having economic policies which favour people and the planet over the free market - all of these things excite me. On top of that, they genuinely want to close off tax havens and tax loopholes, they'll look after public transport and take care of the elderly, they want to reverse the privatisation of the NHS, give free dental healthcare, and they're firmly against tuition fees and City Academies and Trust Schools. All in all, I've found a hell of a lot to like about the Greens.

But in recent days I've been feeling rather queasy, as some of my favourite science blogs have dug deep into the Green manifesto and uncovered all sorts of things which would make any pro-science liberal despair. As far as I'm aware, the recent round of blogging was inspired by a study done between the people behind The Lay Scientist and Science Punk, who sent all the parties ten questions on various matters of scientific importance - and the responses from the Greens were generally quite concerning. Take the astonishing limitations on research on embryonic stem cells ("We would work for an immediate international ban on all cloning and genetic manipulation of embryos, whether for research, therapeutic or reproductive purposes"), or the insistence that alternative and complimentary medicine (including homeopathy) should be free on the NHS, or the fact that they would ban any genetically engineered organism from entering the UK, which as Gimpy mentions could have very dire consequences for scientific research. There's plenty more besides which will definitely surprise you.

This has really troubled me. I agree with them on so many issues, I think their heart is absolutely in the right place, and I think they are one of the few - perhaps the only - party which can honestly say that it puts the idea of people before profit at its heart. They match my point of view precisely on so many issues. And yet on something so utterly fundamental to my beliefs, such as evidence-based medicine, they fail completely and utterly. My distress over this was so acute that I was genuinely considering cancelling my membership, and not voting Green at the election.

So imagine how heartened I felt today while reading Twitter. Ben Goldacre made a post saying "It's such a huge shame that the Greens have to be morons about science: sigh http://rly.cc/BjJ1r". He then followed up with "to be clear, even tho green party are infantile on quackery, embryo research, animal expts, etc they might still be worth a punt." Sian Berry, the Green candidate for London Mayor, tweeted him back saying "we're against embryo research? When did that happen? Bad science audit of GP policy well overdue I'm afraid but will be done", to which Ben replied "sadly true http://tr.im/ngsz happy to help with bad science audit of green sci policy, ps i actually love you." Which I think is very sweet, though maybe my positive bias for the people involved gives me rose tinted glasses which can't quite focus on the cheesiness of that last line!

Anyway, to my delight, Sian replied to Ben saying "excellent! (re bad science audit) will duly pester for help..." - and then she replied to a tweet I sent her where I expressed how happy this made me, where she said "I've been thinking about it for ages, being a bit of a scientist and that, but always too busy. Not after Friday tho..."

As it stands at the moment, the Green's scientific policies range from progressive and solid to ill considered to actively damaging. For a party that is trying to gain power, this is definitely something which should cause grave concern. The Greens are no longer on the far fringes, and at this stage of the game their policies should have at least been given the once-over by a few scientists of note.

But at the same time, I've got to hand it to them... when their policies are criticised, they put their hands up and say "fair enough". This is amazing, and quite unprecedented in 21st century politics. Sian Berry is a very important member of the party, and if she can turn around and say "that's a fair comment, we need an audit of our policy", then that already makes her, and the party, far more reasonable than any of the other parties currently standing. Can you imagine Jacqui Smith, when she was at the Home Office, ever saying to people who criticised Labour's policy on 42 days detention "Well, you might have a point about all this civil liberties business. Could you pop in next week for a chat about it?" It's so unrealistic that the idea of Jacqui Smith doing such a thing almost makes you want to laugh.

I agree with an awful lot of what the Greens say. At present, I also think that the Greens have a fair number of problems with their manifesto. But just as Ben Goldacre says, I think they might still be worth a punt. I could cancel my membership and have a bit of a strop about how there's no-one that represents precisely what I believe in - as us lot on the left are often so tempted to do. But instead, I'm going to vote Green tomorrow, and I'm going to stay in the party. I'm going to go along to the next big conference, and I'm going to try to do what I can to change things for the better. I'll get involved in debates, and try to get my voice across - in a small party, I think this will be something that is at leat vaguely possible. If it doesn't do any good, I can re-assess all of this at the time. But for now, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

And if Sian really does take Ben up on that offer, then I think that the Greens will not only be better for it, but will gain a great deal of credibility for being thoughtful, transparent, honest and decent. And Christ knows how desperately we need a political party like that.

I will never forget the time that I laughed the hardest, ever in my life. I laughed so hard that I genuinely thought I might die, because I couldn't breathe in. I was only about 12, and I don't think I'll ever laugh quite so hard again.

It was at a single joke in an episode of Sooty and Co. Matthew, Sooty and the gang decide that not enough people are coming to their shop, so Matthew asks everyone to make a different type of advert. Soo records a radio spot, Sooty and Scampi produce a TV ad, and Sweep is charged with the job of making a banner, saying "Come to Sooty's Shop". Arguably the easiest job of all. He's cut out all the letters - now all he needs to do is put them in the right order. But he can't even do that.

Sweep has three attempts. The first two are quite amusing; the third was so brilliant that it was almost responsible for a tragically young death. The video is below; skip to 4.10, and watch to the end.



"Cos tooty poo smesh" became a running catchphrase in my family from that day, and even now, more than ten years on, it is still perfectly acceptable to say "cos tooty poo smesh" instead of "hello" as you walk through the door. I hope that you will also adopt this phrase into your lexicon with as much ease as we did, all those years ago.

The second part of the episode is here. I love the fact that they don't bother changing the banner, but instead they take it on tour with them around town. And I'm glad that this is on YouTube, so now a new generation of youngsters can have an equal chance of laughing so hard that they almost expire.

I've been on Twitter for about a month now.

At first I couldn't see what the fuss was about, but after a bit of tinkering I decided that the best way to use it was to be selective about who I followed, and to make sure that I was only updating it with the type of things which I would want to read (interesting links, news etc). Entering into a conversation with someone about shower gel was quite an eye-opener for how dull my posts can be unless I actively try to fight it!

Now that I'm using Twitter in a way that I find useful, I really like it. But I definitely think there's room for improvement. I've made a list of things that I'd change if I could, and I'd be really interested to hear what you think. Please tell me if you can think of any others, and please also feel free to tell me why you disagree with any/all of my points.


1) Change the character limit from 140 to 200. This is probably the one that people will disagree with the most, especially people who have been using it for longer than I have. I'm fed up with having to rewrite Tweets into txt spk, just so they fit into the space. How was the 140 character limit decided upon anyway? Did they work out the average character length of a sentence, or was 140 just chosen arbitrary? Why not 130? Why not 150?

1.5) People often comment on the fact that Twitter doesn't actually seem to make any money, on account of the lack of advertising etc. Why not allow people to post 200 character posts if they pay, for example, £10 a year? I'd happily pay for Twitter if the price was reasonable and it guaranteed an advert-free service. I'm sure other people would too. If ever Twitter looks at the bank balance and sees "$30 million out, $0 in", maybe this would be a good idea.

2) "@(username)," "RT:" and the first hashtag in a tweet shouldn't be part of the character limit. Especially because it means that all good/important tweets actually have to be less than 140 letters long, to accommodate for the fact that people who want to RT your tweets have to insert that extra text.

3) Twitter should detect hashtags and link to the search.twitter.com results. It seems silly that if I want to see who else is using a tag, I have to go to search.twitter.com and type the tag in, instead of just clicking on it.

4) There should be a button to report spam Twitter accounts! Why should I have to follow a spam bot (@spam) and direct message it with a spammer's username? Seems a trifle long-winded.

5) It would be interesting if Twitter could analyse the text in your Tweet before posting, and suggest hashtags based on popular searches/tags of the moment.

6) Haven't thought the logistics of this one through properly yet, but it would be awesome if tweets (esp. from phones) could include location info, so you can see on a map where people are tweeting from/who is tweeting near you. Could work with geotag info from phones, or based roughly on IP location from computers (though that wouldn't be terribly accurate). Would be brill for finding people twittering from protests etc, so people could immediately see everyone who is tweeting from a certain place. Naturally this wouldn't be part of the text of a tweet, just something that is stored behind the scenes. If that screws up the existing architecture too much, perhaps the location info could be sent by the phone/web client as a second tweet immediately after the first one, but with a rarely used ASCII character at the start to tell Twitter to use it for location info rather than as part of a normal Twitter feed.


So, am I right? Am I wrong? Am I handsome and wonderful? Feel free to let me know all of your opinions. ALL OF THEM.

I've told Twitter, I've told Facebook, and now I shall tell you: yesterday I had laser eye surgery, and it was a complete success!

The results are absolutely outstanding. It's unreal to think that I had the operation just 26 hours ago, and yet already I have 20/20 vision when using both eyes. Over the next few months, my vision should become even sharper. I'm overwhelmed with joy, I've barely stopped smiling since I came out of the surgery room!

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I had Intralase LASIK with Wavefront, which to slightly over-simplify means that the operation was totally blade free, and that the operation takes into account the actual shape of my eye, as opposed to what they describe as a "one size fits all" approach. As far as I'm aware, it's the very best treatment that you can currently get - and I got it half price!

The actual operation was fine, but it almost didn't happen. I had my consultation on Tuesday with Optimax in Reading. When they analysed my results, they said that my cornea was ever-so-slightly too thin. It has to be 500 microns thick to make the right cut, and mine were 490 on one reading, and 510 on another! The consultant showed me an alternative treatment, with an animation which looked like someone taking an old man's shaving blade to the surface of my eye. She said that the operation, which is apparently called Epi-LASEK, takes a lot longer to heal, and can hurt more, and then to encourage me further she quoted me a price which was a thousand pounds more than the treatment I wanted. I told her that I wasn't interested. It was either the treatment I was booked for, or nothing. She tried to convince me, but I stayed firm. And after a bit of chat, she said that there was a possibility that the surgeon might perform the operation, but we wouldn't know until the day.

So I go in the next day for the operation. The surgeon takes one look at my notes and says "yes, this will be absolutely fine", in a tone that suggests that in his mind there was never any doubt that it couldn't be performed. Lol!

My surgeon was so awesome. His name is Dr. Ayoubi, he looks like this, and I cannot recommend him enough. He was kind, patient, and did an absolutely expert job. As I sat down for the operation, he said to me "Don't worry, I've done this ten thousand and one hundred times." Which as reassurances go, has to be among the best. Actually, they gave me a leaflet with a bit about his history, and it's awe-inspiring. He's been performing the operation for as long as it has existed, he's had research papers published, and he's travelled the world to do his work. It was an honour to meet him - I simply cannot believe my luck that I had such a great man working on my eyes. It was a privilege.

To my amazement, I genuinely wasn't nervous until the moment the nurse told me that it was my turn. As she led me into the theatre, I suddenly thought to myself "Oh Christ, what have I agreed to?!" - but I need not have worried. I genuinely felt nothing at all on my eyes from the surgery. Not a single thing. Having said that, they put clamps over my eye to hold them open, and they hurt like a bastard! Not on the eye, but they really dug into the bone just underneath my eyebrows. And that was really uncomfortable, BUT it's only for about 3 minutes in each eye, so who cares. So, what actually happens? Well, after the clamps go on, the machines power up. They're loud, they sound as if they're about to pump out a laser which could destroy Tokyo, and they smell dreadful. I'm going to assume (and hope) that the smell is from the laser itself, rather than the smell of my burning corneas. But there is ridiculously little to say about the operation itself. They shine one red light into each eye in turn, then there's a pause, then they shine a different red light into each eye, and it's all done! In and out in five minutes, ten minutes max. There's no bandages over the eyes or any of that, you just pop on some shades, keep your eyes moist with eye-drops, and then you're on your way home!

I was able to see quite clearly as soon as I left the building, and I was fine until I got into my Mum's car, when I found my eyes suddenly becoming much more sensitive to light, so I put my coat over my head for the journey home, and then sat in the dark for a few hours. I'd planned ahead and set up a playlist of old Chris Morris Radio 1 shows, which was a wise move. Even while I was recovering, my eyes didn't "hurt" at any point. For the first 4 hours I found it hard to open my eyes for the eye drops, but by nightfall I was walking around the house with my shades on and my eyes open, with only the very slightest feeling of discomfort. I went back today to have my eyes checked, and they've confirmed that the whole operation was absolutely textbook. I can see perfectly, I don't even need my shades around the house (though I'm wearing them anyway just to be safe), and already my vision is 20/20.

This is going to be life-changing. Now, when I look up, I can see even the faintest wisp in the clouds. When I look down, I can see the cracks in the pavement. When I look at trees in the distance, I can see individual leaves fluttering in the wind. I can see birds gliding through the sky with a remarkable clarity. I can see words with ease, I can see measurements with an acute precision - and to think that over time my vision is going to get clearer still! The feeling of confidence and satisfaction in actually being able to see is extraordinary.

If you're thinking of having it done yourself, I simply cannot encourage you enough. I would definitely recommend Optimax, (I think you get £500 off if you say I did) and I would especially recommend Dr. Ayoubi. I sincerely believe that all the money in the world could not buy you a better and more understanding doctor. He is peerless, among the very best. I don't know if it's possible to request particular doctors, but if you can have Dr Ayoubi, you will be in the presence of greatness, and you will not need to worry about a single thing. If he has a fan-club, I will be its most devoted member; if he has a newsletter, I would read it twice.. Do every single thing that you possibly can to have the operation performed by Dr Ayoubi, a most extraordinary surgeon. I will be eternally grateful to him for the work he has performed on me, and for the gift of sight that he has given me.

Optimax themselves were a good company to work with, but the confusion about whether I'd be suitable for the operation cannot pass without mention. I understand completely that the consultants are not surgeons themselves, and although they're highly knowledgeable it's ultimately up to the person doing the operation but when the consultant saw my results, she was initially quite insistent that I wouldn't be able to have the operation I wanted. She spoke in terms of "not possible" instead of "maybe possible". It was only when I told her that I wasn't interested in Epi-LASEK that she said "there's a borderline chance that the surgeon might do it". If she'd said at the start "I don't think you'll be able to have it done, but let's see what the surgeon says", then I wouldn't have had a problem.

I must stress that I genuinely do understand how and why such a thing can happen. The consultant has my safety in mind, and you can imagine the trouble that would be caused if she had recommended me for a surgery which wasn't safe. So I am glad that she was cautious, and I'm grateful that she was thinking of the health of my eyes instead of just giving me what I wanted. But considering how confident the surgeon was the following day that I could have it done, I think it's quite a notable mistake, especially as I could have ended up paying a thousand pounds more for increased soreness and a longer recovery time.

So I honestly would recommend Optimax, but I would also say that if they say it's not possible, wait to hear those words from the surgeon. If you're considering having it done, and you've any questions, then please feel free to ask me, I'll be happy to tell you more about my experience.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some things to look at!

Image of laser eye surgery taken from Stephen Baack's Flickr.

http://londonist.com/2009/03/opinionist_god_hates_fags_-_coming.php

I made a few Twitter posts recently about my anger at the Westboro Baptist Church, and their plans to protest outside a primary school in London. To my delight, Matt from Londonist asked me to write up an opinion piece. I jumped at the chance, and have included a little bit about Stephen Green for good measure. The link is above, hope you enjoy it!

(Though I'm not too sure what my opinions are on the way that our blogging software has chosen to name the URL. "God Hates Fags Coming" isn't exactly what I would have chosen...)

PS Comments always make me happy, but if you do comment, I'd be most grateful if you did it on the Londonist post. :)

In case you didn't know, a whistle-blower has revealed that Barclays have been avoiding a metric fuck-ton of tax by moving $16.25bn through a series of highly convoluted, though entirely legal, tax havens. Says The Guardian: "Tax benefits were to be generated by an elaborate circuit of Cayman islands companies, US partnerships and Luxembourg subsidiaries."

They also reported that 'The chancellor, Alastair Darling, told parliament: "I have asked HM Revenue & Customs to publish... a draft code of practice on taxation for the banking sector – so that banks will comply not just with the letter but the spirit of the law."'

Which on the surface of it, sounds quite reasonable. Following the spirit of the law is a fine aim. But there is a problem with the chancellor's comments which he perhaps doesn't understand.

This requires clarification. The general opinion of most right-minded people is that legal tax avoidance on this scale (let's not allow them to win the war of language -- the phrase "tax efficiency" is far too forgiving) is abhorrent, especially when some of those very same companies, like RBS, turn to the tax payer for a bailout. The idea that the poor pay full tax while the super-rich can avoid paying millions of pounds is, in the minds of many, unacceptable. The spirit of the people of Britain is anti-tax havens, that much is clear.

But as much as we'd like to think that the "spirit of the law" says that using tax havens is wrong, what the spirit of the law actually seems to say is this: "Dear boy, if you can find a way around all that ghastly tax business, then by all means, be my guest!"

The briefest glance at the financial industry proves that this is the case. For Christ's sake, there are financial advisers and organisations in this country whose sole purpose is to advise companies how best to legally avoid paying tax! If such avoidance of tax were truly going against the spirit of the law, something would be done about their existence.

Because you just can't imagine such organisations being allowed to help people break any other law. For example, can you imagine hearing about someone whose job it is to advise a company about legal ways of refusing to employ women, and calling it "gender efficiency"? Or can you fathom of a legal firm whose job is to advise potential murderers on the wisest way to legally commit their crime, labelling such a practice "life expectancy efficiency"? Or can you, in the darkest parts of your mind, conceive of an organisation being allowed to specialise in advice to companies on legal loopholes which might allow someone to hold another human being as a slave, under the title of "human rights efficiency"? After all, in all these cases, the discrimination, the murder and the slavery would be entirely legal. That's the whole point. They wouldn't be following the spirit of the law, but the letter of the law would be fully abided by. Yet you can't for a second imagine that such people would remain in employment for very long.

The only way financial advisers can be allowed to specialise in helping companies, non-doms and assorted billionaires from avoiding tax is if the "spirit of the law" not only knows about their work, but gives them its tacit blessing, with a nod and a wink and a smug, sly smile, and trebles all round for the old boys in the members' bar.

If Alistair Darling -- who, in case he's forgotten, is the fucking chancellor -- wants businesses to stop using tax havens, then I expect there's a quite considerable amount that he could actually do about it. Instead of vague moral arguments about respecting the spirit of the law, he could work on making the letter of the law impossible to misinterpret. Close off the loopholes. Make it absolutely clear that if you live in this country or do business in this country, then you pay tax in this country. If it truly becomes illegal to avoid paying tax, then also make it a crime to advise companies on ways of avoiding tax; let's call them co-conspirators to the crime. And if any companies or businessmen threaten to leave the country if we don't bend over backwards to let them be more "tax efficient", if they threaten to take their products and their experience and their expertise elsewhere, then I will gladly pay for their taxi to the airport. I'm sure we'll get by without them.

Barclays branch photo taken from Ambrosiana Pictures' Flickr stream.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/mar/06/mandelson-green-slime-protest

"Lord Mandelson was hit in the face with a cup of green slime by an anti-airport protester as he arrived to attend a low-carbon energy summit in central London this morning... Mandelson described the incident as an "adolescent protest".

That's unfortunate, because I would describe the incident as "bloody hilarious", and I'd describe the girl, who is named as Leila Deen, as a "genius".

Oh, and I'd also describe Lord Mandelson as a "dickhead". But then I always was quite naturally poetic.

On the 10th Feb, my friend Sian took me to see Shun-kin at the Barbican. She described it simply as "Japanese puppetry", and I was sold instantly. I didn't know what to expect, but whatever it was going to be, I knew it would be brilliant.

It was a play about a gifted young girl called Shun-kin, whose sister was so jealous of her natural talent for music that she forced a poisoned rag over her eyes, and blinded her. Despite that horrific experience, Shun-kin's talent for music grew stronger and stronger, but as she grew older she became extremely spoilt due to the number of people willing to attend to her every need. She soon decides that she wants only one servant, Sasuke, to do absolutely everything for her. He complies, and as her demands grow increasingly more unreasonable Sasuke becomes more and more compliant, until their relationship turns sadomasochistic, as Sasuke endures intense phsyical and mental pain at the hand of his master.

As you can see, I'm quite dreadful at explaining plots. Sian wrote about it so much more eloquently than I ever could, so I hope she won't mind me "borrowing" parts of her own blog post on it:

"The titular character, Shun-Kin, was a blind noblewoman, and had to be guided through every part of her day by a devoted servant. She began her young life as a puppet, entirely manipulated by bunraku puppeteers. As she hits womanhood, she becomes a real actress with a mask, so her face is the same as the puppet's, and the puppeteers continue to manipulate her. When she grows more mature, she is portrayed by an actress in the normal way -- the actress who up until now had been puppeteering and providing the voice."

Sections of the play were narrated as the actors moved in silence. "The conceit was that an actress was recording the narration for a radio play, and halfway through, they took a break and she said, 'Oh, I was just getting into that,' and she rang up her boyfriend and asked him relationship questions that the story had planted in her mind. This was funny and made for a nice change in mood, a light-hearted break from the spooky moodiness of the main story".

It was like nothing I'd seen before. The play was entirely in Japanese, with English subtitles at either side of the stage, which in itself was a concept that blew my mind. The props were very minimalist, with extraordinary manipulation by the members of the company who moved bits of paper to represent birds flying. "Someone holds a bamboo cane, another pushes it across with a 'shhh' sound effect to simulate paper doors. And an elegant use of projections -- eg. when a woman's portrait in a book is being described, the company held up sheets of paper in a gently shifting cluster and her face was projected onto it, in a pale, fragmented way, with the sound effect of fluttering wings."

"But I hadn't realised the entire dialogue would be in Japanese -- so to follow the story, you had to listen to the narrating actress -- ie. to read. The subtitles were on a digital display either side of the stage, and we were sitting so close to the front that we had to crane our necks to try and see them -- so one really had to make a decision as to whether to follow the plot, or ignore the subtitles and concentrate on the beautiful action on-stage, or work incredibly hard to read the subtitles and steal glimpses of the action, as in some frantic tennis match. The very best seats in the house must be the front row of the first circle, for this production, to give you the visual range to see everything at once. "

The problem for me was that I would frequently watch the play, utterly enraptured, and then remember that I hadn't read any of the subtitles for about two minutes! As a devoted anime dweeb in my youth I would frequently watch things in Japanese with no subtitles even though I had no idea what was going on, and sometimes that habit continues now when I watch anything in Japanese with subtitles. So it was quite easy for me to forget to keep up with what was going on.

I really didn't know what to expect from Shun-kin, but it really touched me. Absolutely outstanding performances, and such a creative and intelligent use of the stage, of light and music techniques, of physical theatre, with such depth and soul. It would be a crime for me to say what happens near the end, but I was so emotionally immersed in the show, it moved me deeply. As I always do when I go to the theatre, I wonder why something that is so enjoyable, enriching, moving, isn't something that I do every week. And as always, I'll probably wonder precisely the same thing when I next go to the theatre in the year 2010.

There is a trend, with politicians and people in power, to not have any qualms about doing something objectionable, as long as they're not breaking the law. So we hear about British companies who avoid millions and millions of pounds in tax by operating through offshore tax havens - perfectly legal, but morally unconscionable. Or we read stories about politicians - particularly cabinet ministers and civil servants on high salaries - putting in claims to have the tax payer fund all sorts of extravagance, from £200 a head dinners to trips round the world. When accused of behaving scandalously, they always plead innocence - not because their actions were morally acceptable, but simply because they haven't broken the rules. As long as they're technically allowed to do it, that is the only thing that matters. Moral considerations don't even enter into it.

Jacqui Smith - who I believe as a cabinet minister earns £141,866 a year - is the most recent politician to employ this tactic. She has claimed £116,000 in second-home allowances on a spacious home in her constituency of Redditch, Worcestershire, because - and I warn you, you should prepare yourself for a redefinition of genius - when she works in London, she stays in her sister's spare room.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, probably correctly, that her house in Redditch is in fact her primary home, and that she's on the make at the public's expense. Seriously, this girl must have balls like melons to even think of pulling a stunt like this. I'd feel guilty if I so much as ate a biscuit which had been bought at the tax payer's expense.

As far as I understand it, Jacqui Smith is legally allowed to do this. According to the rule books, it's all perfectly above board. Jacqui says "I sought advice about the arrangements that I make for living in two places, like lots of MPs have to. I followed the advice that I was given and I followed the rules". And technically, this is true.

But just because someone is allowed to do something, doesn't mean that they have to do it. And surely this holds true to politicians more than anyone else, as they are charged with managing our money. Does it not even cross her mind that, in a time when tens of thousands of families live in fear of losing their homes from this horrendous economic downturn, and in a time when we are told that the total government debt after the bank bailouts will reach £1.5 trillion, that claiming such large amounts of public money on your home is somewhat vulgar?

A couple of weeks ago, you might have read some rather hateful articles about the dude who allegedly said that taking ecstasy was no more dangerous than horse riding. The Telegraph say that campaigners are calling for the man, Professor David Nutt, to resign.

Would it surprise you to learn that The Telegraph's headline is being less than honest about what the professor actually said? No, I didn't think it would.

David Nutt is a psychiatrist who was recently appointed Chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). If you've got a spare five minutes, I'd highly recommend spending it on the short and highly readable article that he wrote which caused such controversy, Equasy – An overlooked addiction with implications for the current debate on drug harms. It's really difficult to see why all those old fogies were so enraged about this article. It's just about the least offensive thing you could read.

The first four chapters give a succinct refresher on the current legal status of various substances, and how drug classification is decided. He reminds us of this study which aimed to show that the current legality of a drug does not necessarily reflect its potential for harm, and that rational debate over the issue can be quite hard to come by.

Prof. Nutt goes on to say that "the drug debate takes place without reference to other causes of harm in society, which tends to give drugs a different, more worrying, status." To show this, with a slight nod to the Dawkins article on Gerin Oil, Prof. Nutt describes a powerful drug called equasy. Highly addictive yet potentially lethal, ten people die a year from equasy, and many scores more "suffer permanent neurological damage". "It has been estimated that there is one serious adverse event following every 350 exposures", and that "these are unpredictable, though more likely in experienced users who take more risks with equasy."

What is the viscous, ruthless drug, and why do we still allow it? Equasy, or Equine Addiction Syndrome, is of course horse riding, and considering all those risks, it would be very likely to receive a Class A classification by the ACMD.

Even if we found that you were statistically more likely to injure yourself or die from riding a horse than you were from doing E, the idea of making horse riding illegal would still seem ludicrous. This article asks why that is, and what effect does it have not only on policy and law making, but on people's attitude towards those laws - Nutt mentions that irrational governance makes people, especially young people, feel disillusioned with the political process, which I think is absolutely spot on.

And with an almost eerie ability to foretell his own fate, Nutt mentions that the media are simply dreadful at reporting all of this in a fair way. "A telling review of 10-year media reporting of drug deaths in Scotland illustrates the distorted media perspective very well... the likelihood of a newspaper reporting a death from paracetamol was in per 250 deaths, for diazepam it was 1 in 50, whereas for amphetamine it was 1 in 3 and for ecstasy every associated death was reported." (my emphasis)

His main argument is essentially that as a society we're not very good at comparing the relative risk of two different activities, and that our laws and regulations can only be effective if we enter into an intelligent and considered debate about the issues. To me, that sounds perfectly reasonable. But I fear that "reasonable", "considered" and "intelligent" are not concepts which trouble the writers at The Telegraph.

These concepts also don't seem to trouble our venomous home secretary, Jacqui Smith, who according to the BBC said that Prof. Nutt "trivialises the dangers of drugs, shows insensitivity to the families of victims of ecstasy and sends the wrong message to young people about the dangers of drugs." On the contrary, it sends out precisely the correct message: use your brain, do some research, and think rationally and intelligently about risk.

It saddens me that he had to apologise for what is, in my opinion, a voice of reason in a generally hyserical debate. Prof. Nutt isn't claiming that we should start selling pills in Sainsbury's next to the asprin, or that we should stop buying ten year old girls ponys and instead start giving them glow-sticks and whistles and Tidy Trax mix CDs. He's not saying that we should tell kids to stop playing the violin and start playing the drum 'n' bass, or that we should teach kids the advantages of wearing shades and not gurning during the 4am walk home. He's just saying that if two very different activities have a significant number of deaths and casualties, and are statistically comparatively dangerous, then it isn't unreasonable to ask why we actively encourage people to get involved with one, but sentence people to seven years in prison for the other. How this shows insensitivity to the families of those who have died from ecstasy, I simply do not know.

(More insightful information and opinion on this story can be found on the very marvellous Neuroskeptic blog. Pic is from Boodoo's Flickr stream, using Creative Commons license.)

https://twitter.com/chris_coltrane

I'm still not entirely convinced at the benefit of Twitter, but there's no point in judging before using it. So let's do that internet thing, you and I!

Few little things:

- Tim Minchin was interviewed on one of the most recent episode of the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, episode 184 to be precise. Turns out he's been a long-time listener! This makes me feel very warm inside. Click here for their website, and to subscribe to their two podcasts.

- My webspace will soon be home to Stewart Lee's website! His TV show starts in March, but luckily the lunatics at Dreamhost are giving me 8TB of bandwidth a month. A month!! So it should be fine :) Incidentally, if you want a slice of my astronomically large webspace and bandwidth, drop me a line.

- Earlier last year I read Obama's autobiography, the very touching Dreams from my Father. He also did the reading for the audiobook version himself. It had never occurred to me that this means we would get the chance to hear him quoting his teenage friends saying things like "You ain't my bitch, nigga. Buy yo' own damn fries!". If you click here, you'll get to hear some of the best. If I could have this as a ringtone without fear of social alienation, I would do it in a heartbeat.

- https://www.roh.org.uk/myroyaloperahouse/register.aspx - Go to the Royal Opera House's mailing list sign-up page, and look at the EPIC list of "titles" that you can choose from. Mr, Mrs, Dr, King, Rt Hon, Group Captain, President, Rt Hon Viscount... and to be quite honest, I'm not entirely sure what a Dowager Marchioness is! My friend Sian and I have both signed up using the best titles we could find. I'm now on their mailing list as Lord Justice Chris Coltrane, and have asked to receive only mail through the post. I'm positive that you can imagine how excited I am at this prospect.

-----

Also, something I forgot to mention: I think that over the past month, I've been studying so much that it was starting to turn me slightly insane. To understand what I'm about to say, you need to know two technical things which I will mention only in the briefest possible way, at the slight expense of accuracy so as not to be dull: firstly, you need to know that Frame Relay is a way of setting up an internet connection on a router, and secondly, that DHCP is the thing that happens when you plug your computer into a router, or connect wirelessly, and your computer automatically finds its way onto the internet.

Now, about a fortnight ago I was staying overnight at the flat of my friends Lily and Dave, when I suddenly woke up with the most acute pain in my leg. In retrospect, I think I'd just stretched it in a peculiar way and given it a bit of grief. But the pain was so bad that I woke up immediately, and in that half-awake, half-dreaming state that I desperately want to know the technical term for, I honestly, genuinely thought that the pain was being caused by the fact that I'd accidentally configured my leg to use Frame Relay.

The following week, the snow was so bad that I couldn't get home from work, so my employer put me up in a hotel overnight. At 2am I woke up suddenly feeling very sick indeed. I ran to the bathroom, and all was fine, but as I ran there, and I once again balanced along that fine line between the dream world and reality, I was absolutely convinced, without a single shred of doubt in my mind, that my state of illness was caused by my DHCP lease running out.

It might be fair to say that I am mentally ill. :)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/hazel-blears-george-monbiot

I do hope that my blog won't just become a series of entries linking to things that George Monbiot has written, but his most recent post at The Guardian is EXACTLY what I needed to wake me up today. George writes an open letter to that ghastly MP Hazel Blears, telling her exactly why she represents everything that is bad about New Labour, and how people like her are the root cause of the electorate drifting away from politics. I challenge you not to feel inspired after reading this angry, eloquent and passionate tirade.

And just in case you need a reminder of why she is so worthy of your contempt, the link below will give you a succinct reminder:

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/hazel_blears/salford

With the exception of her stance on gay rights, her voting record is the very definition of fail.

Hazel Blears? More like Fecal Smears! HAHA! Brilliant.

Picture "borrowed" from BBC News.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/03/george-monbiot-on-tax

A really inspiring George Monbiot article, about political disillusionment, dreadful politicians, and how you and I can both work together to change it. Just the sort of stirring read that you need to warm your spirit on a cold day like today.

Poll #1327972 An Intelligent Backup Plan
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

If worst comes to worst, and LiveJournal ever goes under, synthclarion should grab the source code and set up LJ on a different server.

(Edit: In case you didn't know, there's all sorts of rumours of LJ going under at the moment, after rumours started that LJ laid off OVER 9000 staff. Which turned out to be hyberbole. More info here.)

I started writing this as a letter to my friend Sian, but the more I typed, the more I wanted to share this with everyone:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/15/kingsnorth-climate-change-environment-police

HAHAHA!! This is absolutely amazing!! Last summer the police spent almost £6million policing a week-long climate protest which turned out to be 100% peaceful on the part of the demonstrators. However, the police got quite aggro at the protesters, and there were a lot of claims of police aggression etc, especially in regards to the seemingly arbitrary confiscation of possessions. But the cost and the police attitude was all justified by the fact that 70 officers had been injured during the course of the protest.

Someone put in a freedom of information request to find out what the reasons were for the injuries. Before you read the text below, please prepare yourself for a new definition of brilliance:

"Only four of the 12 reportable injuries involved any contact with protesters at all and all were at the lowest level of seriousness with no further action taken.

The other injuries reported included "stung on finger by possible wasp"; "officer injured sitting in car"; and "officer succumbed to sun and heat". One officer cut his arm on a fence when climbing over it, another cut his finger while mending a car, and one "used leg to open door and next day had pain in lower back".

A separate breakdown of the 33 patients treated by the police tactical medicine unit at the climate camp shows that three officers had succumbed to heat exhaustion, three had toothache, six were bitten by insects, and others had diarrhoea, had cut their finger or had headaches."

Stung by a POSSIBLE wasp!! Toothache! And one fella getting hurt because he opened a door with his leg!! That is bloody genius. I bet those coppers have all got some serious scars to show off from their battles.

What a bunch of cry babies! We should stop waiting around for the revolution - with a bunch of numpties like that policing the land, we could overthrow the state tomorrow if we fancied it, we'll just have to blow on the police to knock them over. "Sorry boss, can't defend the government today, I've got a paper cut. And my eye itches a bit."

Six million quid of our money well spent, I'm sure you'll agree.

(Found via the Jack of Kent blog).

I have no idea how this story managed to escape me, I must have my head deep in the sand - Simon Singh, the eminent scientist, is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.

The case is over a single paragraph in an article that Singh wrote for the Guardian (now removed from the Guardian site, but on-line here). Singh mentions in the third paragraph that the British Chiropractic Association claims its members can "help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying", even though there is, says Simon, a lack of scienfic evidence. The libel claim argues that the wording Simon used implies that there is no evidence in existence. Singh's defence claims that what they are actually saying is that the BCA:

"is reckless and irresponsible in promoting chiropractic as a treatment for infants and young children with colic or sleeping and feeding problems or frequent ear infections or asthma or prolonged crying because... (a) there is reliable scientific evidence that this would be ineffective in respect of children with asthma, and/or (b) there is no/no reliable scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of such treatment for each of those conditions/symptoms, and/or... [t]he Claimant promotes such treatments despite knowing that the state of the reliable scientific evidence is as set out at (a) above and that such treatments are to that extent bogus."

Which is absolutely brilliant. Please, PLEASE let me get called up for jury duty! A much more thorougher, and betterer, summary of both sides of the case has been put online by the fantastic Jack of Kent blog, which can be found here for the BCA and here for Simon Singh. I would strongly encourage you to read it, especially in case I've made a mistake!

There's a Facebook group to keep up to date with all the developments, and I urge you to join, or at least to take a look because there's plenty more reading material there. As it says on the front page, "an informed and responsible science writer should be able to write about genuine concerns on an important public health issue (the correct treatment for children) without the threat and expense of High Court libel claims. Even if he was wrong, it would surely be enough for the BCA to simply show their supporting evidence. But they are suing him instead." That's not how science should work, mum. And I should know - I read it on the internet!

As dreadful as this must be for the defence, it is quite thrilling to think about the possibility of the evidence regarding chiropractic being explained and analysed in court. Not that it's a substitute for actual scientific investigation, but anything that makes a practitioner of alternative or complimentary medicine analyse their practice in public and open up their profession to scrutiny is a positive thing indeed.

Last week my friend Sian and I went to Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless people, a Christmas celebration for people who aren't religious, held at the Bloomsbury Theatre, It was a blindingly good night of comedy featuring approximately TEN THOUSAND comedians, curated by Robin Ince. He said he was inspired to do so after appearing on a TV show which he thought was going to be a serious debate, but which turned out to be the sort of show that asks "Why are they taking the Christ out of Christmas?". Robin had to waste his time explaining to the likes of Vanessa Feltz that the Winterval scandal was primarily a fiction created by the tabloids, while the hate-filled Stephen Green accused Robin of hating Christmas, despite repeated pleas for Stephen to understand that this wasn't the case. Robin mentioned that he was quite disappointed that this live show didn't attract any Christian Voice protesters!

Although religion was certainly mentioned, and criticised, the gig wasn't created to give people a chance to have a go at religious people. Instead, the gig was billed as a celebration of rationality, of science, of ideas and experiments and knowledge and understanding, a night for us to all listen to recordings of Carl Sagan and come together to appreciate just how beautiful and wonderful the world is, and to think about just how much more beautiful the world is made when we understand it. So Robin talked at length about evolution while Chris Addison did a seven minute bit of stand-up on the history of language. Richard Dawkins read his classic article on the dangers of becoming addicted to Gerin Oil while Simon Singh did a hilarious Powerpoint presentation regarding the Big Bang.

Gavin Osborn sung wonderful songs, Ben Goldacre gave everyone pause for thought with his talk about those in South Africa that are telling AIDS victims to take vitamin C instead of their antiretrovirals, and Josie Long told a brilliant joke about some 18th Century philosophers... and I'm sure there were many more performers but listing any more will probably get quite dreary. Suffice it to say that I left the venue mentally energised, which since I've been working such extraordinary hours is a feeling that I haven't had in quite some time. I now look at the many dozens of unread books on my shelf with a real hunger for more knowledge, while cursing myself for being such a painfully slow reader.

The highlight for me was Tim Minchin, who performed his nine minute long beat poem about the dinner party where he met a hippy girl that believes in karma, spiritualism and homeopathy, which is so utterly on the ball, passionate and inspiring that when I first saw it in Edinburgh, he got a spontaneous standing ovation that lasted about three minutes - quite an achievement considering that he was only halfway through his show. Sadly it's not on YouTube, but it's about him trying to bite his tongue while she spouts a load of vacuous nonsense, until he can hold back no longer. He launches into a tirade about how her entire belief system is based on a hatred of science and ideas, riddled with contradictions and bad logic and dangerous thinking, as he hits the table demanding proof for her wild claims. I wish I could quote it, but there's a perfect bit where he says something along the lines of "If you can prove to me that homeopathic remedies work better than a placebo under controlled conditions, then I will immediately change my entire belief system. I'll be flabbergasted, but if you can prove it, I will change my mind." Imagine, that, but with rhymes.

[EDIT, 30th Dec: Someone uploaded this glorious poem to YouTube, and I edited this entry linking to it, but just two days after it was uploaded, it was removed! Terrible shame.]

It's such a key idea that people on the other side of the argument often don't quite grasp. If you have an idea or belief that goes against what science believes, then the onus is on you to prove it, not on science to disprove it. But if you can prove to us that God exists, that water has a memory, that Chi energy is really there, that you can find water underground with a stick or read minds or talk to the dead or move things with just your mind - if you can prove any of these things beyond any reasonable doubt, then the scientific world will not only accept that what you're saying is true, but they'll fund all sorts of detailed research to find out why it's true. You'll be hailed as a genius by the entire planet. And remember, if you can prove any of these things beyond reasonable doubt, that means that you will essentially null-and-void great swathes of existing scientific knowledge - in other words, YOU will be a pioneer! As Richard Dawkins says himself, "If you are in possession of this revolutionary secret of science, why not prove it and be hailed as the new Newton? Of course, we know the answer. You can't do it. You are a fake."

In summary, it was an absolutely joyous evening. I left the venue mentally exhausted, but it felt good. At the start of the night when I met Sian I felt almost embarrassed that my week had been so dull, that my brain had been so inactive, and that my conversation was monosyllabic at best. Who would ever think that two hours of comedy could kick-start one's brain? It was a glorious night, and if it happens again next year, you can guarantee that I'll be there.