You Don't Hear That Every Day

On Bank Holiday Monday we went to check out the new hangings at Tate Modern. I love that place. Whenever we go it is filled with families and children. There isn't the rush and intensity of the pay as you go art galleries and the frightful snobs are well outnumbered by tourists, students and the aforementioned families.

You can't really be pompous going into the Turbine Hall, it just gets lost in the immensity.

The other thing about it being free is that there is no pressure to see everything in one go. We did a floor at our own pace, planning to go back in a week or so and do another. Almost everyone else (apart from the tourists, I suppose) have the same attitude, making it a relaxed and fun experience.

And, unbelievably, a meeting place. The wonderful technology of mobile phones means that the old type of 'meet you outside the main entrance' can be replaced by far more detailed instructions. I heard the following half of a conversation.

"Yes, where are you?
"I'm inside.
"No, er... second floor I think.
"No, I'm standing in Surrealism.
"Surrealism. I'm by Narcissus.
"OK. See you in a minute. By Narcissus."

Snap of the phone closing, then back to intense communion with art.

Truly Surreal.

Penny For Your Thoughts

On my way to work I usually stop at an Esso garage to pick up a paper. It has recently been refurbished as a latte-and-pastry stopover before the motorway begins, which would never be found dead calling itself a 'garridge', as we used to say.

The decor and the staff have changed, but one thing it has carried over from its previous incarnation, as a rather tatty garridge smelling of oil and petrol, is a strange and rather subtly offensive feature on the payment counter.

This consists of a small, shallow square tray with a few pennies in it, and a sign that says "Don't bother about the odd penny - please help yourself".

What?

Now I can understand charity boxes and the like positioned on a counter to lure your small change, fair enough. But the 'please help yourself' suggests that either you are the kind of cheap, greedy individual who will take free money even if it is only a few pence, and the garridge is humiliating you by confronting you with temptation to inflame your greed, or it is soliciting your involvement by encouraging you to deposit your spare pennies there to show that you don't need them either but want a part of the fun of taunting those who will take them.

What is going on here? What marketing mastermind launched this baby on a gullible management? I am trying to picture the accompanying Powerpoint Presentation...

Maybe one of the internal security cameras is trained on it, and there is much hilarity among the staff at weekly showings of the footage of the occasional customer who glances furtively round, unable to believe their luck, and swiftlly scoops seven or eight pence out of the tray and into a deep inner pocket.

It seems so utterly without any redeeming features that I keep thinking I must have imagined it until it announces itself the following morning with a clammy, dirty shock.

Blasphemy Is Good For You

This is getting ridiculous.

Christian groups around the world want the the film of The Da Vinci Code preceded by an announcement that the film is fiction; those that don't want it banned completely because it is blasphemous. What is going on? Christianity is a myth, based on imaginary events and a preposterous, prehistoric view of the universe. Do I insist that every copy of the Bible be preceded by a note that it is bollocks and an insult to the intelligence?

If a religion isn't robust enough to teach its followers to deal with contrary points of view it is worth nothing. Any belief system that is reliant on protection from fiction, let alone rigorous intellectual criticism, is bankrupt.

But we knew this already. Religion is a form of mental illness. In its mild form it results in nothing more than a slight disconnection from reality, and the social company of other sufferers brings a feeling of belonging and purpose. In extreme form the symptoms are denial, delusion and paranoia, allowing the patient to commit acts of extreme violence in the name of imaginary beings. Following the instructions of internal voices is considered normal, and an unhealthy preoccupation with death and suffering is not uncommon.

It is important to stand up to this nonsense whether it is the teaching of creationism and ID as if they were respectable scientific theories, or the acceptance of limitations to artistic or other freedoms in order to protect religious sensitivies.

All that is required for religion and superstition to triumph is that good people do nothing.

Would you like ice with that?

An area of the Arctic larger than the UK failed to freeze last winter. It could all be gone by 2030.

Just how much actually needs to change before the corporations decide to do something? Because whatever governments are doing isn't working so far. The carbon trading scheme looks like it is on the way to becoming another futures market for the wankers in the city to make lots of money out of. The US is actually increasing it drilling for oil in ... um... the Arctic, and China is planning to build 48 new airports over the next 5 years.

I suppose the smart money will be going into desalination and coastal defence technologies. Wish I had some.

At the species level I suppose I am still an optimist. The technology will follow the money and maybe we are heading for a technological singularity where all our existing science disappears over the event horizon. So long as the money chooses that rather than the quicker profits afforded by arming states to fight each other for what's left. Ouch. I wish I hadn't thought that.

Whatever happens a lot of people will die and many more will suffer. The rich will be alright (that's us) and some will bury their heads in the sand (that's the US)