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IN THE NAME OF THE GUN

As I sit here, my sister and one of her infinitely stupid friends (and I mean it to the fullest degree, as in, just now used the phrase “it’s funny ’cause it’s true!” in earnest) have stopped watching a Lee Evans stand-up routine on TV, only to swap it for a Lee Evans stand-up routine on DVD.

But I guess making a whole post about how I find Lee Evans annoying isn’t going to appeal to those of you who disagree, so I’ll move on to the actual point of the post, which hopefully you can agree would be a fun idea in theory, even if you don’t like who I’m going to do it to.

One day, when I have a stupid amount of money to burn, I will find a performer who I dislike. There will undoubtedly be some gatherings, if the performer is sufficiently well-known, of people who also dislike him. An “I bet I can find a million people who hate Lee Evans” Facebook group (with only three hundred members) or similar. Then I will buy a bucketload of tickets to his performance; not enough to sell out, but enough to make up a significant proportion of the audience. Then I will make people who hate him come. When only a third of the audience laughs at the first few cracks, they’ll feel embarassed that they’re in the minority, and laughs will die down to nothing (manipulating crowd mentality, which is a big flaw in human behaviour). Then my two-thirds will boo on command, and we’ll shame the performer from the stage. Good work.

In an ideal situation, we’d do it on consecutive days of a tour. Just to remind irritating pricks like Lee Evans that not everybody thinks that dicking about on stage like a seven-year-old is good entertainment.

Edinburgh

This is a wonderful historic city. The buildings are such wonders to look at; the floor is bumpy and the walls are worn and aging. But what’s even better than that is the amazing Scottish pride that they have everywhere.

The Scottish stereotypes aren’t clichéd at all, really. People stroll down the streets in kilts and tartan, there were bagpipes playing and there was plenty of ginger. Not to mention the charm of the Edinburgh drunks once the sun went down.

My goodness, it was steep! I’ve been to Exeter, the steepest place in England, but even that doesn’t compare. The hill upon which Edinburgh Castle sits was a brilliant climb in the warm afternoon sun when we disembarked from the train at Waverley.

The castle itself was remarkably intimidating, from the sheer face, to the cannons, right down to the admission price! So, we didn’t go inside. But I heard from a source of unstable reliability that it’s filled with glorifying lies about the Scots anyway.

Secular Students

The Edinburgh group who hosted the conference are Humanists. I didn’t go to this conference knowing a great deal about this worldview, so I was happy to be taught about it. It turns out that their individual viewpoints didn’t really differ that much from the views of our society (branded ‘Atheists’), but the avenue of Humanism offered more options.

Humanism

As described in the inside cover of Humanitie, the Humanist Society of Scotland’s publication, Humanism is:

[...] a diverse movement with ancient roots that reflects the views of millions of people around the world. Stated simply, Humanists believe that we can lead good and worthwhile lives guided by reason and compassion rather than religion or superstition, and that there are more things that unite humanity than divide it.

Paraphrased, they’re atheists plus. The ‘plus’ bit is what allows them to instate things like Humanist chaplains (and equivalent), one of whom we met and were spoken to by. It affords the University of Edinburgh Humanist Society a place inside their university’s chaplaincy and lets them position a godless representative inside for a faithless alternative for pastorial care.

Whether you think this is a good or bad thing is irrelevant, since if there is a demand for a Humanist chaplain (or equivalent), then one should be provided. At present, though, this is primarily a Scottish position. None of the English societies (whether proclaimed ‘atheist’ or ‘Humanist’) had much (if anything) to do with their chaplaincies, which is an important point to make.

I personally don’t believe there’s any call for Humanism amongst the people in our university. But if there is, they’re very welcome to come and see Warwick Atheists.

Secular Conference

This was the meat of the visit. Six different student societies were represented:

• University of Edinburgh Humanist Society (our hosts)
• Warwick Atheists
• Leeds Atheist Society
• Oxford Secular Society
• Keele Humanist Group
• Durham University Humanists

We heard introductory presentations from all of these groups, and it was brilliant to see the work of other groups as well as present the stuff that we had done.

We then got on to unifying ourselves. We decided on some short term goals and charged the very gracious Leeds members with drafting a constitution, which would be read over by a lawyer provided by the British Humanist Association.

And we finally decided on a name! We’re (presently) going to call ourselves AHS informally, the full title being a bit of a struggle: The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies.

Sorry it’s so small, there’s no easily (within one Google Images search) accessible high-res picture of the National Secular Society’s logo to steal.

There’s more to come as this develops.

Ghosts

The really big stuff happened last night - we went on an Edinburgh ghost tour. It was called the Terror Tour, and took us into a haunted vault after talks on witchcraft and torture.

On the second level, we were told the story of Wiccan spellcasters who accidentally opened the doors wide to the demon realm. To help out the situation, they trapped the demons inside the pentagram on the floor and fucking legged it. The circle that marked the outer layer of protection was left marked by a ring of stones, and inside these stones is contained a pillar of “negative energy” from the demons. People have been jerked into the circle, we were told. Jerked and scratched. And of course, when we were offered the chance to enter the circle, we did, with legendary Scottish Humanist Stuart Ritchie yelling “Atheist, Humanist and Secular students of the UK, unite!”

Still no signs of demon fights yet, but I will keep you posted.

Warwick Atheists

I am confident in saying that I am the most involved member of the society. This is justified by the amount of and variation of the source of my collection of NSS badges.

Recruiting members

Charity stall

Exec member

AHS Conference

I can’t place exactly why this idea is so novel. It’s bordering on the beyond-awesome level. Maybe a familiar concept that appeals to our intellectual desires being mixed with a familiar concept that appeals to our deeper, less dignified desires, creates some magical new experience. Or maybe it just sounds so cool?

AtheistPorn.com is what I’m talking about here. It’s one of the latest items to hit the list of links at the side of this page. All that’s there at the moment is a front page image and a vague promise of content to come “soon-ish”. That, and a link to RichardDawkins.net.

It is a really cool concept. Even the girls thought so at the last meeting of the Warwick Atheists. So here’s what you do: check this site every single day. Refresh five or ten times if you feel like it. Suck up their bandwidth, make the hosts know that someone’s taking an interest. If the hosts are paying enough attention, they might just see incoming links from here. If we’re lucky enough, someone will follow the trail and land here, and then they can see what I (at least) think of it.

To the hosts of AtheistPorn.com: you can pave the way for a new form of art. Now’s the time to strike! I can offer my best webmastering abilities if they’re needed. Let’s get this started!

Important point to note: if there is a direct way to contact the people who set this site up that I haven’t found through my WHOIS queries and common e-mail address account name trials, let me know, so I can e-mail them directly.

Oh god, that was a seriously awful pun. I’m really sorry, guys, but I’m in a state of suspended thought due to the hilarity of what I’m about to tell you.

I was listening to an internet radio broadcast (Robot Radio, can’t guarantee if it’ll be broadcasting or not) that talked of horny grandpa Hugh Heffner making a certain telephone call, and the idea amused me so much, I thought I’d share it with you guys.

This MSN video is a clip from an Australian news show that clearly states that Heffner called child actress Emma Watson’s (Hermione in the Harry Potter films, if you don’t know) agent up and requested (or offered… I don’t know how these things work) a nude photo shoot. This was simultaneously shocking and floor-roll (you know, rolling, laughing… that whole thing) worthy, and aside from the typical internet forum life, I’ve not heard anyone else’s opinion on it. What the fuck, she’s barely eighteen… Seriously, when are people going to learn? But, that’s not to say she doesn’t deserve the unwholesome attention of Mr. Heffner… it’s what happens when you draw too much attention to yourself. Remember that.

Lately I’ve been having some unusually violent dreams. Last week, I was in someone’s upper-storey bedroom when Costas Mandylor pulled a water-pistol on me (I thought it was a real gun at the time), so I threw him through a window, went to my wardrobe to get a rifle, went outside to where he was propped up against the wall, covered in broken glass and blood but somehow still alive after the drop and I put a bullet between his eyes.

Last night, I was armed with a big knife, but someone I was with (unnamed for now) pulled a massive long kitchen knife on me. Fortunately I moved towards him to take him by surprise, grabbed his wrist and put the knife into his throat. That was a nice, satisfying piece of fantasy, as I’d quite like to do that in real life.

I don’t know what caused them, but I’m sure there must be some good reason… perhaps it’s to do with what I eat…

Electric City

Last night was Electric City night… “dance-able indie” music, they tag it as. Well, that’s fine, I went with friends and I’m happy to know when to call it a night when the dancing begins. I had a good time there.

It occurs to me that nothing triggers the creation of these pretty green entries better than loud, mediocre music, slightly drunk, dancing kids surrounding me on all sides and ample opportunity to look around and watch and judge people. This time, I was looking for couples. I definitely spotted a pair who were already a couple, and I compared their actions to those of the kids who were clinging to each other with a tenacity that was bordering on furious, so very frightened that they would lose each other in the transient swirl of moving bodies that they were wrapped up in. Why were they clinging on so very tightly? Had they just found each other, or were they just pissed? Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether they come as pairs or whether they hook up when they get there. The sheer volume of pairings would suggest that they must arrive together (since surely not that many people are going to find random people to tongue-wrestle with), but the distinct body language of “I’ve just found you, I’m pretty hammered, this is so thrilling” tells the opposite story.

Oh well, whatever their reasons, everyone was having a good time, so best just to leave them to it.

Some things are really infuriating, but to rant about them has become a little bit of a cliché. So liking them is becoming less and less of an acceptable viewpoint, and that’s when the Chronicler has to take a step back and re-evaluate his position. For example, it is his belief that the population, as a single unit, is becoming less intelligent with time. So, when your average moron starts saying things like “Valentine’s Day is too commercialised,” it’s time to re-think how an opinion on this well-marketed day might get noticed.

It’s not often seen cast in a positive light by people who aren’t moonstruck teenagers with their hearts fluttering with the adrenaline of a first crush. What it needs is a few good arguments in its favour to bring it back into its position of honour among the hearts and minds of the common, and then next year we can give it a good slating.

St. Valentine’s Day

A misinterpretation of a named date mentioned in a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, February the 14th was suddenly no longer the middle of the month of fertility, it was a beacon of romance, illuminating a dreary world with its love-filled radiance. It was a chance for the courting men of the world to bestow upon their ladies of choice special affections and attention. In modern times, handwritten “valentines” were given to lucky young ladies and young men from lovers or potential partners.

These days, such a practice has become routine. Certain (non-elected) representatives show the day as dutiful and demanding for couples as they are forced to declare and publicise their love. The greeting card industry has never seen better times.

But why, I ask you, should such acts and perspectives represent every couple? Can any non-complete sample truly represent the whole of a population? The answer to this is an unmistakeable ‘no,’ since it is the choice of the couple in question whether or not the celebration is practised. Why would you not choose to show your affection on the day that has been accepted as the right time to do so? I hate to point out the obvious, but the question and answer exchange of, “So, what did you and your partner do this Valentine’s Day?” “Oh, we don’t do Valentine’s Day,” is hardly a great conversation for either party.

What gets me riled the most, though, is when people choose to do things the week after, or the week before. Fair enough if you have unavoidable arrangements on the 14th itself and are just doing the best you can on another, close, day, but V-Day deniers will have their “own” special occasion on, for example, the 21st or the 7th. What’s the point in having a day set aside if you’re just going to hold your own? That’s like saying “I’m not doing presents for Christmas this year, it’s become too commercialised,” and then going out a week later and buying everyone you know a gift for no reason. The only cause of it is sheer pretention. People want to be different, and to most of their peers, they appear it. But they’re covering up their intentions with lies, and observers with acute perceptions can easily spot this.

Sure, couples should express their love every day, and if it’s a good couple, the participants will. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing if either or both want to splash out a little or do something different on one day of the year. It’s a while until the Easter break comes and it’s been a long time since Christmas; people need an excuse to take time off and enjoy themselves, and what better way to spend that free time than with a loved one?

To sum it all up, sure there are people who ruin the idea of the day for us. They buy petrol station bouquets of half-dead Chrysanthemums on their way home from work and quickly scribble in a Clinton’s card. There are those who will do a lovely romantic gesture and have it frowned upon, just because it happened on Valentine’s Day (because clearly any activity on the 14th “feeds the card and chocolate companies,” regardless of whether greeting cards or chocolates have been bought). It would be nice if people were left to do things their way without the worry of conforming or judgement being passed, because I’m pretty sure that without all this negative attention wasted on it, the natural inclination would be to celebrate Singles Awareness Day with one’s partner, purely as it’s a nice way to spend a day, and it shows you care.

It seems to the Chronicler that these days, it’s difficult for people to get anything right at all. Especially when it comes to how people have invented, developed and otherwise handled “casual” relationships.

Nowadays, it’s ‘cooler’ to be casually involved with a member of the opposing gender than it is to be in a real, meaningful, loving relationship. And the recent increase in the popularity of the term and concept of a “fuck-buddy” doesn’t help matters.

I place the blame at the door of feminism. Women have been pushing for equality for years and years and socially they have a pretty much equal standing. They integrate into groups of mixed-gender friends and this encourages the detrimental casual attitude towards men. Suddenly, the modern woman has male friends who have no interest in romantic intimacy. And she has no interest in that either. Add a few decades and we’re watching the world sink deeper and deeper into desensitivity and immorality as our sexual inhibitions as a culture begin to fade. We look to the institutionalised religions here to lead the way back from the brink of depravity, but they’re so wrapped up in depraved acts of their own that they don’t care - no amount of hypocrisy is going to destroy the foothold they’ve gained in the world.

So we have a country with a more liberal and open approach to sex - this has to be a good thing, right? Talking about things will surely lead to spreading knowledge and experience that will make people wiser, right? And that, in turn, will reduce things like sexually transmitted infections or illegitimate (including underage) pregnancies, right?

Such would have been the dream-like reality that only a perfect world could endow. The opposite happened; people decided that if it’s ok to discuss these things, it’s ok to do them too.

So, these independent women of the world started getting ideas that if they could have a casual friendship with a man, they could have a casual relationship too. Which, of course, leads inevitably to casual sex, precisely the reverse of what was meant to occur.

We who take relationships seriously are a dying breed. One day, we’ll be outcast, outdated; we’ll be labelled as old-fashioned or worse: wrong.

Then, of course, it’s “better luck with the next social revolution, old man.”

As promised, dotben.

As a general rule, I don’t stand by the effectiveness of a democratic system where everybody, no matter how uneducated or corrupt, gets an equal voice in a system. But then there are the days when it pays off, and I realise that things aren’t so bad after all.

For example, I was present during our Students’ Union’s Annual General Meeting. Some liberal hippie fool wanted to open up the Union’s doors and arms to members of our beloved British Nationalist Party and actively invite those racist pigs into our university to let them address the students, the entire body of which is sourced by about 120 countries, 116 of which are not part of Britain. The indicative vote taken at the time showed a slim majority tending towards keeping blacklisted speakers from being invited and endorsed by the Union.

I am not against free speech. I heavily endorse an individual or group’s right to express whatever they want - otherwise there would be people outspeaking against this very website. But the defence I use whenever people voice their misgivings about the unsavoury nature of this site is: if it bothers you, don’t read it. I believe that such a policy is best for everyone, because it provides each person with a choice.

Were the Union to invite speakers from the BNP on to campus, it would lend them both credibility and support. It says to them “it’s ok to publicly broadcast these views,” which will undoubtedly be interpreted by some as “it’s ok to have these views,” and the message on this part couldn’t be further from the truth. Judging someone because of their race is almost universally agreed as unacceptable, and it doesn’t have any real arguments in its favour.

I don’t think that, as a university that is striving to become one of the top internationally accredited academic institutions worldwide, I feel that inviting the British Nationalists on to campus to our Union, a place that’s supposed to provide a good service and fair treatment for all students, we’d be denying that policy.

And to all of you weed-smoking, jobless, transient, liberal, bleeding-heart hippie scum who think that by barring them from campus we are somehow restricting “free speech,” to start with I will say a giant FUCK YOU, followed by a more coherent and logical argument.

The BNP have more than enough freedom. They can canvas people in the streets, they can go to people’s houses and talk racism at them for hours if the people are interested. But if they aren’t, why should their representatives in the Union permit and invite the BNP onto campus?

Furthermore, any of you who say that it would be a great opportunity to shout them down is heavily ignorant. Students generally aren’t motivated enough to get up and shout them down, and the few that might be will not want to, simply because it means they’d have to show up to the speech and put another tally on the total. If people were passionate enough to want to ask difficult questions and really put the speaker on the spot, they’d actively seek out the speakers they wish to protest against and do their whining there. The same goes for those people who actually want to hear what said speakers have to say. They are not needed here and they are not wanted here, and our students should not have to suffer being insulted.

I know someone who is a big fan of the more popular Marvel Comics characters that have made their way into cinemas just recently. Daredevil, X-Men, Spiderman - they’re all great characters in their own, sub-standard way. But if you’re going to go for a comic book to movie port, at least stick with what we know to be high quality: DC Comics.

Stan Lee is a pompous prick, along with others like George Lucas. That’s why he cameos in Marvel films.

Anyway, I was busy watching the horror-bore I am Legend (thanks, Will Smith, for making even a film where night-stalking vampire zombies outnumber people at least five to one be chock full of boring, silent sequences and Emma Thompson cast as the accidentally evil destroyer of mankind), when my eyes strayed across one of the posters so casually thrown over the side of a huge New York building.

The film is set in 2012, I think, three years after the zombie epidemic broke out. So, what attracted my eye to this poster? Firstly, it was a sneaky prediction. And I’m always interested in seeing whether such things hold true or not. It had a date upon it, one that was unmistakeably “05 - 05 - 10″ - meaning 2010, presumably. But it also had an image on it. A combination of that distinctive S and terror-inspiring bat that denote DC’s more popular comic book characters, Superman and Batman.

So in those brief seconds, my mind was set racing. We have three recently made DC films: Batman Begins, the Dark Knight and Superman Returns. The first and last of these were fantastic pieces of work, and the Dark Knight will be one of the top films of 2008. So I thought that there might be the possibility of a Justice League film starring Christian Bale alongside Brandon Routh, with other superbly cast actors for Wonder Woman, the Green Lantern, the Flash and the remaining roles.

Unfortunately, I think I might be set for disappointment, seeing as a quick inspection of the IMDb yields only one suitably dated answer to my query, and it’s another animation featuring neither Christian Bale nor Brandon Routh.

Alas, this is probably safe, since such a film would undoubtedly be too much awesome for 90% of you all to swallow, and we’ll probably get arithmetic overflow errors that’ll push the opinion back round to negative numbers, and nobody will think to check the overflow flag, because they’re bad debuggers of life.