Everybody’s Changing

The Tory theme tune, Everybody’s Changing, by faux-Indie pop group Keane, is a bit of a weird one… here are the lyrics:

You say you wander your own land
But when I think about it
I don’t see how you can

You’re aching, you’re breaking
And I can see the pain in your eyes
Since everybody’s changing
And I don’t know why.

So little time
Try to understand that I’m
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel the same.

You’re gone from here
Soon you will disappear
Fading into beautiful light
’cause everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel right.

So little time
Try to understand that I’m
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel the same.

So little time
Try to understand that I’m
Trying to make a move just to stay in the game
I try to stay awake and remember my name
But everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel the same.

Ooo…
Everybody’s changing
And I don’t feel the same.

I like to imagine David Cameron singing this on bended knee to Gordon Brown.

A guy I used to date played football with one of the members of Keane at an Opus Dei youth club on a regular basis. True story.

Also, one of the people I watched the mass debate with last night works in fashion and spent about 10 minutes pointing out the tell-tale signs on Cameron’s face that he’s had “work done”. I know I’ve been doing a bit of Cameron-bashing as of late, it’s just that he’s such a painfully easy target. I’ll probably continue doing so for a bit. Maybe until this whole election mess is over.

NOT BCA V SIMON SINGH – PRESS STATEMENT – 15TH APRIL 2010

Having carefully considered its position in the light of the totally bogus judgment of the Court of Appeal (1^st April 2010), which was blatantly an April fools joke, it’s not even funny, the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has decided to wimp out of its libel action against Simon Singh.

 As previously made clear, the BCA brought the claim because it considered that Simon Singh tried to call us up on the fact we have no proof to back up our reputation, which most people were blissfully unaware of until we picked a fight with the wrong nerd. The Honourable Mr Justice Eady, the UK’s defamation judge with the coolest name (that is his actual name, right?), agreed with the BCA’s interpretation of the article and ruled that it made a serious factual allegation of dishonesty, because he, like most of the general public up until we got involved didn’t know any better.

 The Court of Appeal, in its recent judgment, has taken a very weird “rational” view of the article. On its interpretation, which was totally FUBAR, the article did not make any factual allegation against the BCA at all; it was no more than some kind of expression of “honest opinion” (LOL) by Simon Singh. While it still considers that the article was well out of order to us, the decision provides Dr Singh with a defence that we can’t really afford to win, and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that one out of every four of us are now being investigated for allegations of fraud.

 As those who have followed the publicity surrounding this case will know, Simon Singh has said publicly that he had never intended to suggest that the BCA had been dishonest. The BCA accepts this statement, so in our minds we win, just not financially or in the minds of anyone else. Which is indicative of the fact that science and rationality cannot explain everything.

 The BCA takes seriously its duty and responsibilities to members and to chiropractic patients, but still don’t really think it’s worth putting some of our much suffering profits into researching efficacy because that could ruin everything even more. The BCA has considered seeking leave to take this matter to the Supreme Court and has been advised we should totally just, like, do it. However, with a touch of hindsight, the BCA now feels that we probably couldn’t afford it.

Ends

Now sign this: http://www.libelreform.org/sign

WTF Conservative Party?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/02/ask_the_audience_who_was_flank.html

I went to the pub yesterday with some new friends to chat about femism, science, skepticism, and general bollocks as one generally does in a pub. There was this awesome woman there who works at the University of East London (UEL) who was telling me all about how David Cameron came to visit her uni. DC arrived and then made the quirky decision to bus some people in to sit with the students of UEL, who had taken time out of their education to attend his speech.

A few years back when I finished my BTEC in fine art (LOL), I applied to a few universities in London – Kingston,Westminster and UEL – to study illustration. Back then I had dreams of being a children’s book illustrator. I was on my way to stardom before someone copied all my ideas and then I was hit by a car (the cheating scumbag wasn’t driving it, before you ask). Anyway, I likedKingston because it was nearby,Westminster because it was nearer to my dad’s side of the family (the arts campus was in Harrow), and UEL because it had a lot of similarities to the college I went to, which I absolutely loved. It also just so happens that UEL has a high number of black and Asian students attending. This could be down to its location, its extra curricular student groups, I’m not really sure to be honest, but it’s interesting that DC decided that he didn’t want his photo taken with a representative range of UEL students, as my friend suggested (well, she more than suggested it. Expletives were thrown).

If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll spot a swarthy, rather hirsute, but otherwise good looking man in the back row. He’s probably definitely ethnic, but like good ethnic. Even though he’s wearing a hoodie, his posture’s not bad so he must be alright. Now zoom your face out.

Woah! Amazing! It’s almost as if the people pictured doesn’t accurately represent the student body! Oh no, wait, no. That’s exactly what it is.

And I’m also told that when the Student Union President Joseph Bitrus was asked on LBC radio today why the student audience looked so bored with the speech, Mr Bitrus too expressed puzzlement, and said that they weren’t his students.

I’m not sure which is more of a story, the fact that they appear to be his token white people and not students of UEL, or that all his alleged token white people look really bored. Check out the blonde lady in the front row (lady or Lady?) she looks like she just found out that this is it.

In one of the comments, Leithin writes:

At 11:26pm on 10 Feb 2010, leithin wrote:

The young blonde lady and the young man with glasses in the front row either side of DC look awfully similar to those just to his left here-http://www.conservativefuture.com/2010/01/08/david-cameron-invites-cf-change-happen/

Hmmm… I clicked that link, but curiously, the photo is just of DC and some other bloke. Maybe I’m going mad, but it’s not hard to imagine the Conservative Future blogger swapping a photo indicating that Cameron takes a group of attractive supporters with him from time to time to stand behind him looking vaguely bored and then when someone calls him up on it, he could just remove the evidence. Far be it from me to imply that this is exactly what he’s done. But it sort of looks like this is exactly what he’s done.

Bleaurgh. I’m not going to pretend that I was ever a fan of Cameron, or that I don’t shudder every time I see a picture of his shiny face, but PR-spin-racism? I would never have expected that. When I think of potential things DC might want to be kept hidden, I imagine he’s into nitrous oxide-fuelled orgies or that he wears Samantha’s frilly French knickers underneath that sharp suit of his or maybe that he’s really into Twilight, not just the films but totally the books as well. Having said that, us ethnically-challenged darkies only make up 7.9% of the population, so maybe he’s just not that bothered about winning our votes.

Shame on you Conservatives for pulling a stunt like this, and shame on us if we vote them in.

Big badaboom.

La Maladie Anglaise?

Terror! I am terror-fied! As a Londoner, I frequently hear post-ironic twenty-somethings making glib terrorism jokes on our fabulous public transport system we have down here. We’ve been all been hearing the odd “anti-terror” platitudes on Sky News. It’s a terror-fying time to be alive. I’m not a fan of terror. I loved Terminator 2 and I’m going to see Andy Nyman’s Ghost Stories on Friday night (no spoilers please!) but I don’t like actual terror, where I literally, not just figuratively, fear for my life. That hasn’t actually happened since the 7/7 bombings, one of which took place about 10 minutes from my office.

Funny then, that when I think of the word “terror” I, as a consumer of the information handed to me through the papers, automatically think of Muslims, and not Catholics or white supremacists or clowns*.
So when this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8609000.stm
was brought to my attention by Upon Nothing’s excellent blog: http://angrymob.uponnothing.co.uk/home/70-newspaper-lies/1080-nhs-picking-on-poor-white-christia ns I was flabbergasted. Twenty fully grown men using the medium of terror by attacking a couple on a train for the threat of terrorism is a pretty pisspoor reaction to the lies, lies, and fucking lies espoused by our pisspoor excuse for a printed news service. In case any of you are rubbish at maths, they were outnumbered 10-1. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the couple in question weren’t Jet** and Chun Li (how fucking awesome would that be if they were though. And if Chun Li existed) so it’s not even a fair fight. Why was this not front page news a la “PROOF OF BROKEN BRITAIN: Gang of TWENTY FERALS attack couple on train”?

Being in my early 20’s, I don’t really remember the threat of the IRA in London, but I certainly can’t find any news stories of people attacking Catholics over the threat of terrorism back then (aside from Northern Ireland and the RoI, where I’ve been, and where certain individuals wear their racism with pride, nobody likes them). How are Muslims different from Catholics? Oh yeah, most Catholics are white. Forgive me for laying into the point, but I’m fucking sick of fucking racism and how we hear all the fucking time about how the indigenous population is losing out time and time again to immigrants and second generation immigrants and indigenous non-whites. You know what? We make up less than 10% of the population. If I were to believe everything in the papers, I’d be rather happy with how things are working out. We’re not even trying and yet we allegedly fare better than the rest of the people in the UK.

Or does Britain get a bit of a kick out of being scared? Kind of like “La Maladie Anglaise” but on a grand scale?

*Why are clowns always white?

**When I was about 18, I worked in a dodgy nightclub in Croydon. There was a legend going round that a few months previously (it’s always a few months previously, and the staff turnover rate was that high that nobody bothered to check the facts!), two of the burly bouncers on the door had refused entry to a small Asian man. When the man protested, as his girlfriend was already inside the club, the bouncers escorted him to a nearby alleyway with the intention of teaching him a lesson for his impudence. Unbeknownst to them, the small man happened to be ex-Chinese military and put them both in hospital! Apparently it was awesome.

I’d like to quickly point out that my intention is not to say that all white indigenous people are racist. Some of my best friends are white. And I happen to be pretty indigenous. I just threw an outdoor cheese and crackers housewarming party ffs. And by “crackers” I mean actual crackers that you traditionally put cheese on. Naysayers.

I’m also not condoning violence perpetrated by Asians against white people. The reason I found the above anecdote amusing was because it was about two big guys picking on one little guy only to get beaten up by him. Perhaps it takes the fun out of an anecdote when you explain your motivation but I’d just like to make that clear.

Peace out!

Big badaboom.

Easy Carrot Cake

Clearing through my inbox, look what I found! It’s a carrot cake recipe I invented for a school project

Am gonna bake some of these as muffins tonight for the wunderkind. Any leftovers will be brought to Westminster Skeptics on Monday!

Bon apetite!

Ingredients:

« 250g self-raising flour

« half a tsp bicarbonate of soda*

« 1 tsp baking powder*

« >1 tsp ground cinnamon**

« pinch of salt or 3/4ish of a teaspoon

« 200ml sunflower oil

« 250g brown sugar (you can use white but it comes out very sweet)

« 3 medium-large eggs

« 150g grated carrots

« juice of half a lemon

« 150g chopped walnuts

*I forgot to buy baking powder once, and found that using 1 tsp of bicarb soda (total) instead was just fine.

**Sometimes I like to put half a teaspoon of powdered nutmeg in as well. It takes away a little bit of the sweetness if you prefer a more cinnamon-ie cake, as I find I am sweet enough as it is!!

You will also need:

« 2 bowls – 1 for mixing, 1 for odd jobs

« Greaseproof paper or cupcake papers

« Enough oil/butter to grease tins

« 2 shallow 22cm baking tins, or 1 deep one, or something larger if unsure, or several to make a few different sized cakes or enough muffin/Yorkshire pud trays to make 20 muffins

« A sieve, not a colander

« A wooden spoon and a teaspoon

« A knife or cake tester pin

« An oven to cook it all in

« Someone to lick the bowl and spoon!

Method:

« Set the oven to 180C or gas mark 4, grease and line your cake tins

« Sift the flour, bicarb soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt (and nutmeg if required) into the large mixing bowl

« In the smaller odd job bowl, mix the oil and sugar well, and then add the eggs until thoroughly mixed together (no clear bits of egg or oil)

« Pour the oil/sugar/egg mix into the large bowl and chuck in the rest of the ingredients. Mix well, making sure any pockets of flour are dispersed

« Once all is done, pour the mixture into the lined tin/cupcake papers and place on the middle shelf of the oven for 40-45 mins (large cake) or 20-25 mins (cupcakes) – this is where the teaspoon comes in handy, as the cake batter is rather sticky

« To test if it’s cooked through, stick a knife or cake tester into the middle of the cake. If it’s clean it’s done. If some of the cake batter comes out with the knife, keep checking it every 5-10 mins until done

« Have a helpful assistant to lick the bowl and spoons!

This cake is so good it doesn’t need icing; however it is very good with whipped, double or ice cream.

Serves one greedy pig, or 6 less greedy pigs, or twenty weight conscious pigs.

Can I be in charge?

The more I read the papers, follow the election guff on telly, and read various blogs breaking down the party proposals (the few that actually seem to exist), the more miserable it’s making me. I have a much better solution: Put me in charge. Why? Because I’m great.

For a start, running a popular skeptical meet-up means that I get to meet some of the cleverest people in London – lawyers, accountants, marketing managers, social workers, human rights campaigners, doctors, engineers, cab drivers, the lot. Between us, we’ve got the skills to run this place. We’ll put EVIDENCE BASED POLICY (I honestly cannot say that enough) up front and centre and treat our citizens as adults, not criminals (Digital Economy Bill WTF?)

I’ll obviously need to consult my team to decree what should be done about the debt, the immigration, the lack of affordable housing etc. I’d be lying if I said I was gonna singlehandedly save the UK. If you look at my CV (which I can email to you if you like, it’s really very good, I’ve got all my GCSE’s grades A*-C) I’ve about as much experience running the country as most of the people queuing up to do the job, with the exception of Mr Brown, who has been doing it for a little while now, which has caused some arguments.

In addition to the fact that I’m just as qualified as the rest of the potential PMs, I can walk to Westminster from my new flat so I won’t need a second house or a car, I get on with pretty much everyone I’ve ever met so I’d be great as an ambassador, and I’m Anglo-Indian, so I don’t need to wear fake tan. Plus I’m really organised and self motivated and I don’t need my boyfriend to tell you all how great I am in national newspapers. He tells me on a regular basis as it is, and that flatters my humongous ego quite enough.

Also, sometimes, I mispronounce “election” as “erection” and it’s really funny, so you’d not only have someone running the country that was pretty good, but you’d also get someone with a sense of humour. When was the last time you heard David Cameron tell a dirty joke, eh?

Blogging. Argh.

Blogging. Argh.

Hello, I’ve been really crap at blogging recently, I’m sorry!

I just moved house (again). Yes, six months was all I lasted in the previous abode. Thankfully, I’m now within walking distance to my office, and have a gorgeous view from my new bedroom window of Parliament and the London Eye, it really is stunning. And horrendously expensive. So I’ll be drinking less from now on (unless you’re buying!).

The small amount of blogging I have managed to do has been sitting at my desk, emailing from my work account to my personal email account on my iPhone to forward onto WordPress once I’ve taken out the exemption clauses from the email. Then I have to log into the WordPress App and adjust any broken links. I do all this while I’m sitting at work, and as much as I love my iPhone, this is taking it out of me! Blogging was much easier and quicker before my genius IT department banned internet access. The fools. They don’t realise that levels of productivity are not going to increase simply by cutting us off from the information highway. If they really wanted to boost productivity, they could:

a) Pay us our inflationary payrises so we at least feel that we’re valued. The extra £30 a month would mean a lot. It’s been two years. Stop being meagre.

b) Re-introduce Casual Fridays. Yeah, whatever, it was great. I miss dressing down once a week so much, that I don’t iron my clothes any more.

c) Ban stationery. All of it. Because nothing is better for procrastination than the challenge to design an awesome logo, which I did last Thursday.

Also, apologies need to go out to the commenters who have corrected me recently. I will reply properly but just quickly:

a) Yes, you’re absolutely right. I haven’t got the means to research a quick blog post properly. Thank you for commenting.

b) Oh my gosh, that was extremely insensitive of me. Thank you for putting me straight!

So aaaarrrrghhhhh. I want to blog more, really, I do. And I want to be able to read the papers and comment accordingly. And I want to record a podcast for The Pod Delusion, which I’ve been planning on doing since James O’Malley first told me about his idea (yes, I was in the pub with him at the time) sometime last year.

If you’re around next Monday 12th April, please do come to Westminster Skeptics. Simon Singh will be there, celebrating the libel stuff. And you are more than welcome to wag your pointed fingers at me for being so piss-poor!

And lastly, sadly, events conspired against Sid of London Skeptics infamy that he was unable to put together a meetup for March, which is a shame, as that would have marked one year of me being a skeptic! So I will be celebrating this at Westminster Skeptics on Monday, feel free to buy me a drink, or give me a pat on the back, or provide constructive feedback and conjecture on where I can take this blog now that I am a fully fledged skeptic!

Much love peoples

Cx

Big badaboom.