Major Tom! Move to Mars!

I don't often get New Scientist any more, although when I was a student I was pretty fond of it. I don't know exactly what put me off it, I do enjoy hearing about current discoveries and theories and despite the occasional derision of snobby educated friends of mine (it's too "pop" science, as if writing something people can understand is somehow a crime) I find it to be well written and informative.
Yesterday I though I'd forgo the usual depressing paper (does nothing good *ever* happen anymore?) and get a New Scientist instead.

First page editorial was gloomy predictions about social collapse. Next page, first boxout - "Will the Tsunami hit?" with a picture of Hong kong. Across the page, endangered species are all gonna die (picture of colombus monkey looking decidedly edgy) and another box out "Sentence of DEATH" about people who have been in prison dying early (no shit Sherlock). Turn the page again and the next thing is a four page article about noise pollution and how they suspect it makes you ill and is killing people.

I was halfway through the articles section of the damn magazine before I found anything that wasn't a portent of doom. I had to go outside just to check that the sun was still shining and the sky was still blue, and there were no Tsunami or Asteroids or Giant Mutant Beavers (GMBs) poised to destroy life as we know it. I though science periodicals were supposed to show me what hope we have for the future, the exciting and cutting edge of human development, not confirm that I should be looking to move to Mars. It seems to me that everything is doom and gloom. Everywhere you look, turn on a TV, open a paper, search on the Internet, we are alternately being told the world is ending! Evil is near! Followed by Buy! Buy! Buy! Only a limited time!

I think we can take it as read that the world will one day end. I think we can take it as proven that the world is warming and we need to do something, that people are dying of poverty and we need to act. Why can't we be given hope instead of fear? Get those Limey Fruit Market Worshipping Capitalist Pig-Dogs (LFMWCPDs)on the case- instead of selling us Laptops and MP3 players and cruises to Egypt get them to sell us carbon neutral cars and fucking sailing boats and bicycling holidays in Wales. Get the fuckers that made Crazy Frog on the case - if they can make that such a success then making Green and Fair-trade stuff should be falling off a log!

Then afterwards we can set the GMBs on the LFMWCPDs and sell tickets!

Assholes!

Don't look down.

Due to the nature of the universe there will be no strike today. There will be no more clemency for your foibles. Tomorrow will be something to regret, not to look forward to and a promise will remain just that: promise without realisation. You have passed reason. Unseen forces rule your life and if you have problems accepting *that* then my current suggestion is look to the law. The law of coincidences. It will exist if you believe in it enough. There is hope, hope in patience and patience through time. So I hope you have the time, because it is coming. Not just cataclysmically, not intruding on your meal at six with carbombs and crashes and mudslides and the death of children. No, not yet. It comes creeping in as fast as it dares, chipping away at your complacency and leaving you with a gnawing hint of dread, with disease in the farms and epidemics round the corner. With changes in the weather, with flood and wind and rain. But don't worry. Don't worry at all. You have the means to wash it all from your mind, the drug is in your hand, in the shops, in your breakfast cereal, on the couch with Anne and Nick, in banner adds and for sale at Amazon. It walks you to the shops and blazes from the sides of buses, takes you on holidays to Greece and opens Tapas bars for you to take loved ones too, so you can forget together. If it won't go, if you're getting sleepless and careworn, if you stop subscribing, well that's ok too. Because it's covered. We don't want you to do anything! Just come to our rock concert, watch on TV, drop a few coins in the tin, get a badge, get a bracelet, buy the t-shirt, buy the life. Recycle that life and turn the TV off standby, but keep the holiday and the car because hey, being free is important. Get high but don't look down guys, don't let anyone *bring* you down guys, those fuckers will kill you. Change the world? Sure you can! Support me and I'll change it *for you*! Keep living that life, keep consuming. You're a shark, you're a killer. If you stop moving, you're dead. It might look like I'm sneering at you, that's just a cold. I have it all worked out. Trust me. No, don't ask why. You won't like the answer.

Autumn comes with such surprising speed.

I love days like this.

I went down to the beach in town today and the whole bay was a seething mass of chaos and white foam. Massive waves driven in off the Pentland firth by a strong south easterly were just smashing into the shore with such force I could feel the rumble coming up through the bones in my legs.

The wind was thick with salt spray and disgruntled gulls who, having been ousted from their favourite spot on the wave-line had nothing better to do that mill around above the sea-wall like bored teenagers, squawking, squabbling and occasionally swooping down to pick at rubbish.

Some hardy people were being blown up and down the shore, but most sensible people stayed camped out in their cars. Summer tends to breed a kind of complacency in people about the weather and the forces of nature that Autumn comes to smash away, so a brisk wind and drop of a few degrees is christened "wild" weather by a couple of people in the bank. In just a few short weeks, as the world turns and the days darken, a day like this will be "warm and windy" and by April will be a sign that Summer is back on the way.

It's the wildness in the sky and sea that I love so much, the free power of it all as the world tumbles around itself. It is a time of change, a turbulent passage from one season to the next where everything is shuffled ready for the next hand, there is a charged excitement just in one short walk that reminds you how good it is to be alive, how beautiful every breath you take, every wind-blown leaf in the sky can be.

The air is sweet and fresh and clear, and full of thousands, no, millions of different noises, from high pitched rushing through trees to the gut-deep thrum as it forces itself past buildings, the clang and chime of the rigging on boast tapping against masts or the creak from the frames of old houses. the clank of a gate carelessly left ajar or the fading in and out of everyday noises as they are blown around in the storm.

The world is in chaos, every wave utterly different as it foams and crumbles up the shore but part of a larger pattern of advancing lines that are speeding towards the land. Leaves and rubbish are sucked in to spinning dances performed illicitly in the lees of walls, dragging any small debris in to the madly whirling tune while tress become shivering, rocking giants, moshing to their own exclusive beat, all slightly out of time with each other.

There is so much detail we miss just because we don't listen, or look.

So if it's windy and wild where you are now, I really recommend you wrap up warm and go for a walk.

If you're like me, you wont regret it.

Don't call me Scarface....

I’m an anarchist. A proto-socialist feminist pro-libertarian animal lover with leanings towards the anti-establishment and anarchical sympathies.

Or so I would have you believe. I could also say I was a Marxist neo-neo-socialist revolutionary fluffmonkey with massive identity problems. Or I could just say I was…..me.

I have a problem with these kind of labels. A huge problem.

I’m still of an age that I can remember my adolescence quite vividly, and at that age boxes and categories were a comfort. I was trying to make sense of the world and of all the confusing, conflicting information and people I was meeting. (how can people be pro-abortion but anti-death sentence? How can people say they hate inequality yet support a free market society that creates that very thing? How can you like football and rugby?) On the threshold between the simplicity of childhood and the utter chaos of adulthood meant that having some handle on all these conflicting concepts is irresistible - feminist, socialist, racist, communist, Libertarian, radical, punk, gay, all these wonderful tribal labels to stick on people so I didn’t have to think too much. Now I’m reaching a place in my life where I now want to take everything back out of the box into which it was carelessly shoved more than a decade ago and really understand it. I can now handle contradictions and I understand now that what people say, and what they really believe are often two very different things.

Now there are some things you just are. The accident of my birth made me Scottish, other people are Jewish, others Royal. These are not so much labels as descriptions, cultural or racial features that you cannot really choose to be, any more than I can decide to be a member of the royal family (god forbid). But describing myself as a Socialist is just an expression of opinion, a considered viewpoint that differs in many different ways from other "Socialists" and there is the rub.

You see when you take something you feel, for example "women are equal to men and should be treated as such" and slap a name on it, in this case feminism, you create a monster. It is immediately defined from one position so that some people are Feminists, while others are not, even if they had the same thought in the first place.

It works both ways too. You can masquerade under the banner of feminism, pay lip service to it's tenets, ponce about making dodgy statements, or in extreme cases porn, to "liberate" women. By exploiting them. Those that question just "don't get it".

Porn is a good example of what I'm talking about: as it becomes more mainstream we hear more and more people describe it as "empowering" for the women. They are the object of desire and this gives them this power, apparently. Erm, HELLO? They are the object of desire. Object.

You want to tell me that is good for women? Then I'll tell you what. Go make it regulated, only employ people who are screened to be psychologically capable of handling (even enjoying) having sex for public titilation, put no pressure on the performers to do anything they aren't into, there are strong storylines and the performers are not treated like exhibits of meat even when they are not working and above all else you make it equal, then I'll agree with you.

No more faceless men with Exocet missiles between their legs and ridiculous howling and yelping from moistened fuckpuppets. No more "gangbangz in da hood" and "Candy slut bangs the Detroit Dixies". Give them names, faces, motivations, emotion. Make them people. I digress.

It is a sad feature of our nature, regardless of society or standing, that we look at the differences first and to a certain extent define ourselves by them. The crazy thing is we are driven to conform too, peer pressure is the one largest influence on your whole life. You want to be cool and out there but also accepted and looked upon favourably. You want to be a player in the gang. Deep down you want to be "us" not "them", and where there isn't a "them" eventually you'll make one. Feminism might bring like-mided people together, but they will eventually divide up like bacteria into ever multiplying factions.

Philosopy sits inside belief inside Philosophy, like Russian dolls. You aren't just a feminist, you can be a traditional one or a neo-feminist one! Bra-burner! Ladette! My side! Your side! It isn't long before we have divided up a concept and totally lost sight of the original feeling under all the infighting and squabbling over the definition. Who has walked the true path? Who has "sold out"?

Who is coming up with all of this? Good lord! Since the beginning of society our species have been locked in this idiocy. I can just see stone age people gathered round the giant boulder they have all just dragged tens of kilometres, one set shouting "Shrine to the gods!" and the others shouting "Tomb for our ancestors!" and brandishing weapons. And of course when the shrine guys win, we all know they will just start arguing amongst themselves about which god the shrine is for, while in the confusion a smaller group of them quietly drag it further away and describe to the village this great idea they have had for a calendar.

True story.

Sunday walks and quiet talks

I don’t think I realised just how much I’ve taken the great things in my life for granted until now. Having a small person about just learning the ropes and getting excited about pine cones and beetles really swings you right back into focus. It’s like walking in gently rolling hills - you can only see the hill right in front of you so you give it your full attention, and see things you would miss otherwise.

An example of this is going for a Sunday walk. Back in the day we’d have jumped in the car, zipped to the forest, ambled round arguing about something and then back to the car, job done. If people asked what we had done that day it would be “Oh well, we took a walk out at Dunnet,” and that would be it. Unless we found a crashed space-ship or the Green Man smoking weed and getting down with his Dryads of course, which are not as common occurrences as they really should be.

Now the poor unfortunate soul who was foolish enough to ask that question would get far more. I’ll illustrate using this Sunday's walk.

Getting to the car. Not as simple as you might imagine, because The Boy wants to bring the peg basket with him. Also he wants to jump off the picnic table in the front garden a set number of times, a number defined only by caprice and the limited patience of his parents. We get to the car (with the peg basket but no pegs, I’ll worry about their current location later) and he’s not for sitting in his seat. No reason given, just “I not do it! Waaaaa!”

Ten deep breaths and several (forced) calm questions later we have established that he really does want to go to the forest, and he gets in the seat with the peg basket on his head, as he initially wanted.

We drive to the forest car park with the following questions cycling round and round:

“Rogue leader, this is Rogue 2. Rogue 2. Do you copy?”

“Yes I copy, Rogue 2, this is Rogue Leader.”

“Do you copy? This is Rogue 2.”

“It’s Echo Base.”

“You shoosh, Daddy! This is Rogue 2. Do you copy?”

“Yes I copy, Rogue 2.”

"Echo Base.”

“You not say that!! Rogue 2! Copy?”

And so on.

Getting out of the car is no problem, it’s what he wants to take with him. We get the peg basket back (Rogue 2 doesn’t wear his helmet on walks) but it is substituted for a 1m extendable lightsaber, in green, and he will not take his coat, even if it is re-labelled as a “Jedi cloak”. In the interests of actually going for a walk this century we capitulate on the lightsaber and carry the coat. All is peaceful and calm for about 2 minutes, Jedi Boy races off into the trees and we amble along, arm in arm like the old days (well, without the argument: there is no energy left for debating). The bird sing in the trees, we admire the lovely way the sunlight slants in golden rays through the trees and dapples the moss. We hear the soft rushing of the stream as we cross the small bridge and turn the corner to -

“FREEZE SUCKA!”

- be accosted by a wild-haired yob wielding his toy like a gun. He then belts off into the trees again, leaving two stunned parents to discuss how our son has become possessed by the spirit (and more importantly, vocabulary) of BA Baracus. The mystery is deeper given that we don’t have Sky or even a TV. Either it is catching in some way, like some crazed meme or psychological retrovirus, or he is copying older children who have seen the A-team. It is pointed out to me it could be genetic, and the raised eyebrows make the insinuation clear.

Anyway we get halfway round the forest in the same time it would take an octogenarian with a Zimmer frame as we have to stop wherever there is a seat, wait till he gets bored and then carry on. It becomes evident that there are either forces at work or people can hear us coming as the forest is pretty small, there were lots of cars in the car park and we’ve only seen people hurrying in the opposite direction.

When we finally do meet a small family with 16 trillion collie dogs the woman is very friendly and nice, explaining which of the multitude of dogs like children and so forth. Jedi Boy looks up and with feeling says “I’ll cut your arm off…” and brandishes his fully extended lightsaber. She leaves hurriedly while he looks up at us, grins wildly and says insistently “You run now! Go! Go!”

So we run. All the way back to the car. And he chases. Occasionally the shouts of “I cut your arm off sucka!” and “Run! Run! I get you!” punctuate the serene sounds of the forest.

And that is why you should never ask the parent of a toddler what they did at the weekend.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.

The player of games

Games are great.

Seriously, games can be fantastically good fun, intelligent, clever, witty and educational.

Stop looking at me like that. I'm on the level. I know that there is this misconception among a certain sub-section of society that games are for children or geeks and that there is something wrong with a man in his thirties still playing about with "toys".

Nothing could be further from the truth, and in fact this kind of thinking just highlights an inbuilt prejudice and lack of an open mind. More seriously there are those that lay evils of the modern world squarely at the feet of "video" games, the latest in a long line of hand-washing, responsibility-avoiding, blame-throwing nonsense that has always been with us.
The same mindset that hated rock and roll in the fifties, freedom of expression in the sixties, heavy metal in the seventies and Video "nasties" in the eighties is slow to react, but diligent in its total disregard for the truth.
So we see the same old lack of personal responsibility, again and again: Little Jimmy wasn't out joy-riding because some evil game designer put the idea in his head, life just isn't as simple as that. Anyone who takes their cues from an exaggerated and fictional game has deeper problems than being susceptible to suggestion. If you can't blame Jimmy himself then I suggest that the parents, or even the messed up society you live in may be a more realistic next step than a group of software engineers that designed an entertainment product that Jimmy happened to like.

Who would we blame if he got the idea from say, a book? Would we lambaste Thomas Harris as "evil" and "a danger to society" if some deranged psycho decided to act out scenes from his books? Of course not. Our marvellous red-top tabloids would label him (or her) a MONSTER or a TWISTED BEAST, because we recognise fiction as harmless escapism and there would obviously have to be something wrong with you to copy it....?

Hold on here just a second. If Jimmy plays a game, for example the ever demonised Grand Theft Auto series, he has to *choose* to make his character to commit these acts. There are some rewards for stealing cars or running people over but it is *possible* to play the game quite happily without ever committing a crime. Also there are consequences to be weighed up that balance the rewards and make it more of a puzzle, a game, that the pointless kill crazy rampage we are told to expect.
However if I read a Stephen King book or watch the movie SAW the whole experience is on rails- if I want to progress the story then I am forced to witness decapitations, violent rapes and explicit murders and I have no choice in the matter whatsoever.
However I can show mercy in my game or even play the hero and it is all a matter of my choice.
All those Daily Mail readers crawling all over Rockstar and going on about "EVIL GAMING DISGRACE" need to wake up and look at the shit they've been shovelling. The danger would be that they would just try to ban everything else as well, we're not dealing with rational souls here.

Games hold an ESRB rating similar to films these days and I cannot stress this enough: games are NOT all for children. Games are a perfectly valid form of entertainment for all ages. They can tackle adult issues, and not just violent ones: they tell stories, some overblown and silly, some touching and powerful, some open ended and unfinished. They have a far wider canvas that the more linear media, they allow free will, or at least the illusion of free will and, maybe most importantly, they encourage people to think in different ways and to explore the worlds they create. How cool is that? They don't replace books and flims, they do something different again, and the market is changing to reflect this.

Since the Nintendo Wii came out I have spoken to many friends and acquaintances that have bought one "for the kids" or after trying one out, people who avoided Playstations like the plague. The Wii seems to have cracked the prevailing attitude in a way that the other formats are still struggling with. Maybe it is because it is typically Nintendo- functional and fun, with an emphasis on the gameplay being instantly accessible and the rewards thrilling and visceral. Maybe it is the interface itself- you feel like you are actually doing the do, a strike in bowling is skill, a rally in tennis feels like an achievement. Whatever it is, you are looking at the future. People are picking games up as a serious alternative, a valid entertainment medium for everyone. There is nothing you can do about it.

"Hardcore" gamers like myself play for a couple hours a night, on average. Before you comment on that I'd like you to know I don't watch TV at all, while most of you will think nothing of beating your brains out with Big Brother or the Mockneys of Albert square for at least as long. "Casual" gamers maybe hit it an hour a night, give or take. Most people my age now fall at least into the casual bracket, we grew up with games and games grew up with us. We've come a long way from Frogger and the Galaxians of our childhood.

Yes games have changed, we still get the sports games, the shooters, the adventures but the bias towards the "geeky" themes of Science Fiction and Fantasy is slowly balancing out with more games plumbing more traditional themes. There are still oddball things, but do you know what the all time best selling game of all time is? The SIMS. A game where you design and live out the mundane little lives of mundane little people, a bit like electro-enders or Cyberneighbours. It has sold hundreds of millions of copies with never ending expansions and a sequel. Not a ray gun or Orc in sight.

Of course the second best selling (PC) game is the opposite - World of Warcraft. A multi player online role playing game, a game type commonly abbreviated to MMORPG, with a current player base of over 8 million players worldwide. Let me put that number in perspective for you- 3 million more people than live in Scotland and approximately the same number as live in Switzerland. No shit. And that is just the number that are subscribed RIGHT NOW. I've played it for over a year now and I love it. I have learned teamwork skills that I have then applied in real life, I've got the crack with people from all over Europe - from Israel to Sweden, I've performed acts of utter selfless altruism for complete strangers and duelled good friends in a variety of pirate gear. Most of all it is a place, with identity, flavour and mood, and the love of its creators is evident in every polygon. It's a wide and endless experience, but it isn't for everyone and is best taken in moderation: it can eat your life if you let it. But then so can going to the pub every night, for far less gain and much more money.

So yeah, games are great. But don't believe me, go try it out for yourself.

Mey I feed the animals?

Recently my son and I went on one of these family days out to somewhere exciting, and we decided to go to the (late) Queen mums old "house" which just happens to be down the road from us in Mey. I've lived in the North for over 8 years now and I've never felt the urge while the old coot was alive (I'm no royalist). So now she was safely under 6 feet of sod, and the pre-requisite time has past to ensure she hasn't come back as a vampire or zombie or such, I'd though I'd risk it with the boy.

Hey there were animals to be seen! As it turns out, very similar animals to those in the fields not 100m from my front door, but as I said before, exciting day out. Stay with me here.

So anyway we check out the shop first and sure enough it has the expected overpriced tat, I am mildly shocked to see what seem to be vials of the old dear's pee on a shelf but confirm that this is actually just vials of special whisky. But I visibly have my doubts so am herded by boy and relations to the door and told to go forth and see animals with my son.

So we amble down and are confronted with the mother of all "don't feed the animals" signs, and I'm on the floor laughing. I can see the MIL (Mother In Law) and the FIL (go on, guess) are less than impressed until they clock it too.

I wonder what was going through the mind of the person who wrote this- I mean as far as they were concerned this sign was perfectly fit for purpose. The first thing they though anyone would be driven to do to the collection of mangy sheep and odd looking goats that were uncomfortably milling about in the middle of what could generously be described as a paddock is kiss them. It doesn't specify the status of tongues but I have a working theory on that. Skip down a couple more and the though has penetrated that if people want to kiss the animals, and cant (they are not allowed over the fence after all) , maybe their pent up frustration will lead to teasing and chasing them! Gadzooks!

I'm not sure why, if you can't get near them, that you should refrain from touching your face. Maybe they have a morbid fear of face touching or something so I poke at my nose and rub my chin but the gently ruminating beasts don't seem to be much more perturbed than when I arrived. Indeed they seem to be more worried about my son who is shouting "bacon!" at the pigs after being led astray by.....well, me.

There does seem to be a theme here, and I begin to wonder if maybe this sort of thing is common in Mey or whether maybe the old bat herself (God love her) wrote the sign. Someone who has lived for over ninety years with her lifestyle is going to have some seriously skewed ideas about what us mere commoners regard as a good time.

"I wonder" she may indeed have wondered "how we can stop all the riff-raff climbing the fences and shagging the goats. Hmmm. Hamish! Bring my easel!"

It's as likely as anything else.

As I stood there pondering all of this I realise I have broken the last instruction and my darling child is commanding “Silly” ducks into their pond at stick length.

What the hell, I think, climb the fence and proceed to get stuck into Debs the Cheviot sheep. In for a penny, in for a pound.