Christmas Is Over

What I hate most about Christmas is the parties.

I have no complaints about attending any parties (after all, I'm getting free food and it's a break from the usual monotony of life), however over the past few years they have lost their excitement and appeal. I think it's the knowlege that my family must host an equal number of parties to the number we attend. This raises the question, is it worth it? Do I seriously enjoy them?

The type of parties I go to are actually more parents social gatherings; my family go to the houses of friends families and we basically do a round-robin system of partying so everyone (in the group of friends) eventually hosts a party.

This may be the reason why it has become so tedious; the parties of parents are usually never too interesting for their offspring. I'm good friends with the kids of the other parents so boredom never used to be an issue in years past. However, I've become more mature now and the things that interested me in the past no longer interest me now; I've got Uni and A-levels on my mind while they're still into arcade games and the like.

It's a shame my friends don't organise anything on a grand scale (e.g. parties). I wish it was like America where people throw alcohol fuelled house parties on a whim...

But I digress. The worst thing about these gatherings is the gossiping. All the parents ever do is boast about the achievements to date of their children and their chances of Oxbridge (mine at the moment are very slim but it's early days).

I'm so glad it's all over for another year. Will keep this brief since there's still the New Year's Eve party to go before it's completely over, then the academic year begins.

Not Another Harry Potter Book...

OMFG!

I've just found out the new Harry Potter book is called "Harry Potter and the Dealthly Hallows"!

This revelation makes me want to inundate the fan forums with lively discussion about the philosophical undercurrent of Harry's world, discuss and map out the entire plot of the 7th book with fellow fans and have heated arguments with 14 year old girls about Harry's sexuality. Perhaps I should stalk JK Rowling until she gives me another titbit of plot.

And to wile away the dull days until the book is published, I'll draw some portraits of what I think the characters should look like and post them on Mugglenet or write a series of homo-erotic fan-fiction featuring the boy wizard.

As you no doubt gather, I'm not a big fan of JK Rowling or her books.

But my relationship with Harry Potter wasn't always like this; I used to be a massive fan. Don't laugh, but when I was around ten (and with a lot of time on my hands) I set up a relatively popular Hogwarts Role-Playing website (I cringe writing this, I'm so ashamed) on Expage.com.

Whilst writing this post, I tried revisiting Expage. It's been six years since I last visited it and it hasn't changed at all since then. Funnily enough, I was introduced to it by a paedophile (I assume it was a paedophile... it seemed a bit unlikely that I should happen to play online chess with someone similar in age who wanted to be my "friend" and send emails to eachother).

But anyway, this isn't about me... This is about Harry Potter.

As I got older, I realised that Harry Potter books were stupid and had no literary value. Not only that but what irritated me the most was how JK Rowling would reveal tiny bits of info about the plot and that would attract world wide coverage... What other author has that kind of publicity?

And she's shamelessly sold out: The crap merchandise, the rubbish games, the films... Don't get me started on the films...

It makes me sick when people say Harry Potter inspires children to read other literature. It's true that people who haven't touched a book in their life will queue up in the early hours of the morning for the books, I have nothing against that. But will reading Harry Potter lead on to classics? Or boring chic books written by Jaqueline Wilson (don't get me started on her...)? You decide.

The worst thing about Harry Potter is the legions of obsessed fan-girls it has spawned. Seriously, don't they have anything better to do than discuss the books and defend their beloved Rowling?


Pottermania doesn't just warp your mind, it makes you short-sighted as well.
I refer you to this article.

I remember visiting Potter forums at the time and despite how wrong her comments were, the fans were slagging off Terry Pratchett, saying how he was a bitter old fart who was just jealous of Rowling's success.

It makes me sick it really does. Painful memories were brought by the latest Potter news and I had to get this rant out of my system. It's really spoiled my Christmas.

Christmas Assembly

The weather may be showing no signs of snow and the neighbouring houses may be dark and depressing; however, an indication that Christmas has begun for me is when the school finally breaks up for half-term (a week-long holiday).

The school always try to end the term on a high-note, especially so near Christmas which is why it is compulsory for all of us (the student body) to attend the dreaded "Christmas Assemby". An hour of Christmassy entertainment and jovial music that the teachers have cooked up in the spirit of the season.

Take assemblies. Normally taking place in the morning, when most students aren't yet functioning correctly due to lack of sleep. The teachers begin by giving long and pointless anecdotes and speeches about the topic of the week (forgiveness, love thy neighbour, exams are important. The usual motivating crap) which no one pays attention to. Occasionally, we are even forced to sing Christian hymns. On rare occasions a charity speaker comes and gives us a talk, which compounds the boredom and we all give polite applause at the end.

Fifteen minutes it usually takes and these precious fifteen minutes of my life are wasted every day with this mind-numbing routine.

So imagine the horror of it all when you take all this and add Christmas to it. Imagine a stunted Christmas tree with tacky decorations on stage; imagine amateur musicians playing tunes out of key; imagine one thousand two hundred students cramped in a confined space, all bored out of their minds.

Pretty bad huh? Well it gets worse.

What happens when one thousand two hundred teenagers are bored? Do they sit there with blank expressions on their faces? Hell no. Do they sit there and make a valiant attempt to enjoy themselves? Kind of. Do they create alternative entertainment? Oh yes.

What sort of "alternative" entertainment was this? People sang songs deliberately out of tune for a laugh (the crazy stuff we do...), others tried to inflict pain to the people surrounding them. I had my schoolbag passed around several rows in some kind of warped pass-the-parcel game my peers had concocted. A friend of mine was wrapped in cellotape (how that was managed in an assemby is anybody's guess) and another was hoisted by many of us and locked in a cupboard (done after the assembly with the boredom of it all still lingering).

So there I was, sitting in hot and cramped conditions sans schoolbag, listening to the teachers singing "Winter Wonder", trying to dodge the various items hurled around around the hall (whilst keeping an eye out that it wasn't my bag being hurled around).

After the assembly, I was reunited with my bag. I found it hidden behind some doors.

This post may be portraying me as some kind of bully victim, but this kind of behaviour is commonplace amongst friends and enemies alike (Many get it far worse than this). Oh well, that's the educational system for ya, don't think of me any differently because of it.

I'm so glad school is over. To sum up the academic term:

I'm cautiously optimistic about my GCSEs (end of year exams. Important stuff). Not looking forward to next term (but who does?). Need to start thinking about work experience (for future career in medicine) and what As Levels (even more important exams) to take next year.

I may write a post about my uneventful/unorthodox Christmas later on. Although frankly, I can't see why anyone would care.

The CSI Effect

Whilst I was reading my copy of The Times, This headline grabbed me:

'CSI effect' is teaching criminals to cover tracks

This was referring to the recent 'Jack the Ripper' style prostitute killings in Suffolk and how TV series such as CSI were teaching the public all about murder investigations and the ways forensics solves them (The headline was self-explanatory really).

Forensic science professionals, police departments and criminal prosecution lawyers are now complaining that these shows have educated criminals about the best way to cover their tracks.

Now I'm not a big fan of CSI but I have seen a few episodes with Horacio, the red haired git (so is that CSI New York? Miami or what?) and I can't say I agree with what the article is saying. It suggests that CSI has taught many would-be murderers what clues are left behind and how to avoid them.




Horacio and his team have already convinced people that Forensic Sciences are actually exciting. Now he is also responsible for most (if not all) crime in the UK. Is there anything this man isn't capable of?

If the law think that CSI is contributing to the education of criminals in the art of law-dodging then they are sadly mistaken. Have any of them ever watched CSI? Why would any law-breaker wish to induce such torture as to watch through hours of this awful detective series, just to gain some tricks of the trade? It's not even clever like Sherlock Holmes or Poirot style. All they do is collect evidence and grill the suspects until forensics comes back with the answers to everything.

And CSI doesn't teach us anything we don't already know. If I wished to break the law watching CSI wouldn't teach me anything new; Don't leave evidence, have a good alibi, try not to get caught. That's just about everything CSI has to offer and what decent criminal does not know this? The law must badly underestimate criminals if CSI is being blamed.

What I think everyone should be worried about is a show on BBC 3 called "The Real Hustle". It shows viewers the various different tricks hustlers use to con people out of their precious hard-earned money. Not only do people fall for the cons but it shows them as highly lucrative and extremely successful.

The BBC pays these hustlers to con people and film it. Is it me, or does that guy on the left look American?

The show is basically a training program for the more criminally-inclined individuals to learn a few new tricks. I have to admit, even I was tempted to try out some of the cons.

So in conclusion: "CSI" poor, "the Real Hustle" very good.

Religious Hostile Takeover

I know I've been writing a fair few posts about my school (and more importantly, the people in it) but this shocking piece of news came totally out of the blue and the first time I've ever heard of such an example occuring.

I got a letter yesterday that my school is to be converted to Church of England, against the will of all the school governers, and the government is powerless to stop them. All because of a loophole in a 17th century text.

The church claims that the purpose for which the school was established (1708) incorporated the following statement:

Religious instruction shall be given in the school in accordance with the doctrines of the Church of England

Basically, when the school was formed every educational body in the country had to be CoE, but over the years the school turned grammar and no longer followed the religion of the state, instead choosing to select students on academical ability rather than belief.

The funny thing is, they "assume" that line was written, there is no proof anywhere that such a line exists. Unfortunately, the government requires proof that the line wasn't written in order to overrule the CoE takeover. Bearing in mind that the document had to have been drawn up in the 17th century, the school had no idea where the document is.

And once again, the government has failed us by doing nothing. The school will of couse put up a fight but unless they find the precious document the governers will be powerless to prevent a CoE takeover. You hear the government waffling on about the falling standards but they refuse to halt the dissolution of the only school in Liverpool that allows entrance through academic excellence (others ask for massive yearly fees).

You may be wondering why this is such a big deal; the takeover won't affect me. It won't affect anyone in the school for the time being. But will affect the city.

Entrance into the school will greatly change. Everyone part of the CoE will have preference over the academically gifted. So a stupid CoE Christian would be chosen ahead of a intelligent muslim. Since my school is the only Grammar school in the whole of Liverpool (it is the only school that has an entrance exam and no fees) only the academically gifted are allowed through. The CoE's intention is to revamp the entrance system (to benefit the church) or possibly even remove it. Then where would the academically gifted go? There would be nowhere to provide them with a competitive atmospere and grades will suffer because of it.

Plus Religious Studies would be compulsory. Morally I have nothing against this; it just that it's an incredibly boring subject and most people despise it. (I don't really mind it since it's an easy GCSE)

Who knew the Church was capable of such acts of such cunning? Clearly I will need to rethink my views that the church is nothing more than an outdated system; this takeover was well-thought out and meticulously planned. Makes you wonder what really goes on at CoE HQ.


Harmless old monk or ruthless religious businessman?

England Lacks Skills...

It was in the news recently that the UK workforce was lacking in skills, and skill levels need to be raised to compete with rapidly developing countries such as China or India.

This does not surprise me remotely. Even in my school, arguably the best in Liverpool, there is a degenerate culture which prevents people from learning anything of any kind. People prefer to laze around, do nothing and pressurise others to do the same rather than taking full advantage of the abundant opportunities that surround them.

This doesn't just apply to lessons and homework, it applies to anything vaguely intellectual.

Torquer, a contributor to this blog (you won't have seen him around, he rarely posts) is a bit of a whizz with computers. He seems to nack for getting computers to work when others have failed. In fact, he's developed quite a reputation for it.

But people don't see it as a talent, people see it as an unfortunate affliction. They use it against him as if it's something to be ashamed of.

And I like to read. Except whenever I mention it people say things like: "Why read? It's so boring. Only gimps read." This kind of negative atmosphere would make anyone uncomfortable to discuss anything of intellect. Peer pressure alone is contributing to the lack of skills England is suffering of late.

Also, the naive share the belief that they can achieve massive success through minimum effort. Prince Charles made the point some time ago when he said children were being brought up with expectations that were far too high. Despite the backlash of the comment, I totally agree.

For example, I know someone who is convinced they will win a Nobel Prize for Physics. Another is determined she will become an astronaut. I would take them more seriously if they actually weren't stupid and work towards their goals. They expect it all to be handed to them on a platter.

Simply setting up more vocational courses and more opportunities just won't work. Although it'd be a lot more work changing the mentalities of the students. Trust Labour to take the easy route for Education.

Intelligent Design: Should It Be Taught?

Note: I am so pissed off right now, not because of Intelligent design but because of Blogger. I wrote one of the longest posts I have ever written (with thorough research and everything) and what does Blogger do? It completely fucks up the whole post and deletes half of it. All that time... lost. Now I have to write this post again... What motivation do I have now? How could I possibly match the quality of the deleted post? Shitty Blogger...

But anyway, to the post:

Despite being a man of science, I am very tolerant of religion. I respect what religion can do to peoples' lives and the purpose it brings. However, there are many aspects of religion too far-fetched to ignore and one of these is Intelligent Design.

There is a teacher in my school who is one of those crazy religious nutcases. Except he is armed with science and has been brainwashing all the students with tripe about Intelligent Design with scientific justifications for years.

It began with Christian Union, he would preach every week to an average audience of three about religion and science and how they are linked. He once declared that anyone was allowed to argue against his beliefs on Intelligent Design. My and my friends decided one day to ask him "How can you believe in Intelligent Design with the evidence around you?"

We were bored at the time and he had practically invited us to have an argument with him (when would we get another opportunity to do that with a teacher?). Before we knew it we were stuck in Christian Union listening to an hour lecture on how religion explains science or some other shit along those lines.

At first I was enticed by the idea of intelligent design, even though I still believed in evolution no matter what it all seemed to make sense. But later, when some thought was applied, it was a load of bullshit.

An example of such bullshit was: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

Apparently this refers to the Big Bang theory. It seems to make sense, after all, the Big Bang theory explains that the Universe was created and that time, space, everything was created in that one moment and began existing. Is that not what the first line of Genesis says? That God created everything (the Heavens and the Earth) at once?

Of course anything can interpreted as anything. The Bible was created by the Vatican (who picked and chose Gospels which benefited the them) and the Big Bang theory is just a theory and subject to change. If the Big Bang theory was disproved what then? New interpretations would be found no doubt.

But anyway that was just one example. Most of you are no doubt thinking, you stick to your beliefs I stick to mine. This post wasn't written to criticise Religious people (most of whom accept Evolution). It was the fact that my teacher went to the BBC and lobbying for Intelligent Design that sparked this post.

Now to the point of this post, should Intelligent Design be taught in schools? Is there any educational value?

The answer is no.

Firstly, Intelligent design is all based on faith while Evolution is based on something more substantial (e.g. DNA, Natural selection etc.). Most people (even the religious) accept Evolution and there is overwhelming evidence for it.

As The Now Show put it, any students fortunate enough to get Intelligent Design for A-level would get remarkable results:

Q. What happened during the Big Bang?
A. Something we do not understand caused by a thing we don't know.

Q. How did organic molecules develop the ability to self-replicate?
A. By some unknown force doing a thing we cannot understand.

Q. Explain the mechanisms by which species develop through random
mutation?
A. By the interference by some intelligent thing that is more complex than anything we know and yet, can never know.

As you see, if Intelligent design were put in place we wouldn't learn anything. Teaching Intelligent Design is such a waste of time and would just contribute to science in this country going backwards.

Secondly, there are a lot of clever, but impressionable, young people in my school. The influence my chemistry teacher has over them is massive. He has converted a fair few to Intelligent Design and they are not even religious. How can you believe in it if you don't believe in a creator? Most people don't understand and those that "teach" it are highly persuasive.

So to conclude, Intelligent design contributes nothing to education and it doesn't even count as a science, it's not in the curriculum for a reason. If we bow down to these evangelical lobbyists we'd become more and more like America. Does anyone want that?

Into the Bowells of the NHS... Part 2

Before reading the second instalment of my near death experience, I suggest you read part 1.

So there I was, stuck in a hospital bed against my will with nothing to keep me company expect the throbbing pain in my chest and the disease-ridden patients that surrounded me. I slept fitfully that night, plagued by bad dreams and the persistent coughing of the critically ill.

In the morning I was filled with a renewed vigour. The chest pain had subsided and if I were to be discharged early I might just make it for the Citizenship test (I later discovered the test to be incredibly easy. Even if I wrote with my eyes closed and took a nap midway I would still have aced it). This feeling of hope carried me through the morning, at least until around 9 am when I realised no doctor was coming anytime soon.

When a doctor did come, he explained to me I had suffered from a "spontaneous neumothorax".

"What that means is," the doctor explained helpfully, "air has gotten between your rib cage and your lungs. So this air pushed against your lungs which is why it hurt. Do you understand or should I repeat to you again?"

The doctor maintained his patronising tone for the duration of my stay.

"We call it spontaneous because it just happened. We don't know the cause."

Oh thanks Doc. Tell me something I don't know.

He then checked my breathing and started muttering "that's odd...". It must have slipped his mind to explain to me because he quickly hastened out the door, leaving me thoroughly bewildered and worried. He came back with a troupe of doctors to examine me.

"Listen to what's odd with his chest," the main doctor proclaimed. It was at that point I realised that my doctor was a consultant (a post I aspire to obtain one day) and the other doctors were his registrars (the trainee consultants). So basically the case was so fascinating/disturbing that the consultant dragged three other doctors from their precious life-saving work just to take a look at me. This did not bode well for my health and I was beginning to feel like a circus freak.

After much frantic discussion and standing around in my hospital nightgown, feeling like a fool, they decided it was best I stay for a CT scan.

The news was a real sucker punch and I was becoming frantic. What if I were to stay another day? Then another? Who knew how long I would need to wait for this CT scan. And what about my missed exams? Would I need to frantically revise to fit them into the remaining days of my exam timetable or not do them at all and not get the confidence boost I badly needed?

The place was resembling a prison more and more everyday; The food was barely edible, the people were miserable, there was no freedom or entertainment... In fact, it was worse then prison. At least there you'd be able to exercise and have a shower every now and then. I was confined to my bed and hadn't washed in days. Of my stay in hospital not one person brushed their teeth or washed in any way whatsoever.

As I waited for my CT scan that day, the long hours of boredom were really getting to me. If it weren't for The Religion (the book not the belief), a copy of The Times and the senile fellow who kept engaging me in incoherent conversation I would have gone insane. I spent many hours playing Snake II on my mobile, trying to beat the high score my friend set five years ago (that's what boredom reduced me to).

When the doctors finally came back to check up on me, after an eight hour wait, it was decided that I wasn't to have the CT scan. Instead I was to be "under surveillance" for another night.

When I heard the news I almost burst into tears.

Not Funny

Instead of writing part 2 of my adventures through our country's national health service (what happened after I was hospitalised? Ooh the suspense!), I thought I'd tell you all about how I became a contributor for Canadian humour site, notfunny.ca.

Canadians? Humour? An oxymoron surely? (I'm sure I've used that joke somewhere. Oh right, here) The site wasn't bad and I was flattered when they didn't snub me in my attempts to leech traffic and offered me the position of contributor.

The site itself is... decent. There's some funny stuff and not-so-funny stuff (which might be because I'm contributing to it).

Some articles seemed to have been taken from Uncyclopedia's waste bin, contrived by teenagers who think stringing nonsense together is funny. It might work for the Americans (who, in my opinion, have the worst comedy ever) but not for us British, we want more from our humour.

Having said that, there is some great stuff on there so I insist you check it out. If the thought of Canadians writing humour freaks you out then keep away ( I could never understand Canadian stereotypes. So are Canadians meant to be polite and boring or something?).

On the subject of comedy, I seem to find little funny. There is hardly anything that will get me laughing out loud (only Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and this dude). Maybe that's why I'm so critical. It's not like I'm incredibly funny so I shouldn't be complaining really.

I was going to announce my new position earlier, but more interesting topics pushed it aside and I just don't have the time to write that much. So anyway, I now contribute some of my material from the blog to their site in exchange for some traffic and gratitude.