The Euston Manifesto has its ‘real-world’ launch this evening. I’m not on the official list of supporting blogs - I don’t think they need the latest Superman news appearing on their ‘recent posts’ list - but am a signatory, and proud of it. I’ve been following the debate since its launch, and have heard nothing that makes me doubt my original thoughts. It fits in very well with the skeptical, humanist values I try to live my life by, and I encourage you to give it a look.

I don’t watch Big Brother. I don’t have any problem with the show, it’s just not to my taste. I hear, though, that there’s something of a fuss over supposed exploitation of a contestant with Tourette’s Syndrome. I don’t really know what ‘exploitation’ means, any more, but I think the whole issue is moot. If the guy volunteered, what’s the problem? It’s not like he’s mentally incapable of making decisions. As long as he knew what he was getting himself into - and who doesn’t, by now - then I think it’s fine. The only part I object to is:

a spokeswoman for Channel 4 said: “Pete was chosen solely on the basis of his personality. We feel he will be a great housemate.”

Get real. We’re not that stupid. I don’t think C4 are doing themselves any favours by making this claim.

Not that it means anything, but just reading the BBC article taught me a fair bit about Tourette’s. Just saying.

Originally spotted at Rullsenberg Rules, this should have been quick and easy. Hours, it took. Nobody tagged me, so I guess you could call it masturbatory memeing:

I am wondering why anybody would drink cider from a lemon

I want to attend a friend’s wedding. Nobody’s even engaged as yet, so it could be a long wait.

I wish ironing wasn’t so bloody dull

I hate cynicism

I love the happiness of the first few repititions of a really great song

I miss having somebody there

I fear getting depressed

I hear Embrace’s ‘Ashes’, right now. Is cool.

I wonder why people hate Heather Mills McCartney so much

I regret not doing a better job on my secondary school yearbook, which I edited

I am not very good at face-to-face debate

I dance the first foxtrot weave without a problem, then fail spectacularly at the second, which involves the exact same steps with a different intro

I sing when washing up, then remember I’m standing in front of a window

I cry at the briefest moment of selfless heroism. Really. Don’t come see United 93 with me.

I make really bad mashed potato.

I write because, as somebody I’ve forgotten said, it’s the only time I don’t feel like I should be doing something else

I confuse bonobos, chimps, gibbons, etc. The names, you understand. I don’t just go around confusing gibbons. Well, sometimes.

I need to keep my flat tidy, or I get all stressed about it

I should join some local social group

I start many computer games

I finish few computer games

I tag Lil, Jo, Skuds and Paul

Could somebody do me a favour? Could you possibly check the aerial cable that goes from the wall socket to the television, and tell me whether the ends are male/female/both? I bought an double-shielded male->female aerial cable to try to fix some signal interruptions I’ve been getting with the new Freeview box, but I apparently need a male connector at both ends. The only adapter I have converts male -> female, so is no use at all. I don’t know whether the problem is that I bought a weird cable by mistake, the wall socket here is of the wrong gender, or something else, but I’m terribly confused…

Update: I’m told that normal cables are male->male, so it looks like it was just me buying the wrong type. Bit mean of it to say ‘aerial cable’ on the packet, mind.

I’ve been happy to see the Superman shield appearing everywhere as the film gets closer to release. Amazon are selling astonishingly expensive action figures, as well as a Fight N Fly Cape that offers “amazing motion-activated sound effects that track kids’ movements”. I’m assuming it’s the sound of, um, flowing wind. I still think there’s a market for a decent quality cape. Big kid that I am, I’d probably buy one…even if it never got worn (let’s face it, opportunities would be few and far between) it’d look great hanging in the cupboard Amazon also have Punch N Crush gloves, which are a bit weird.

This week’s Wired has a great Superman article, co-written by Neil Gaiman:

Singer’s movie hasn’t yet screened in its entirety, so no one knows what he’s going to add to the myth. The few minutes of the film that outsiders have seen (watched with a chaperone, on a DVD that gets shredded after viewing) look good, a spiritual successor to the Richard Donner films from a quarter-century ago. The special effects will be flawless. But Singer’s Superman is bound to be less interesting than his Clark Kent. Of all the relationships at the heart of the myth – Superman and Lois Lane, Superman and Jimmy Olsen, Superman and his adoptive parents – the most important is the one with his alter ego.

Although not related to the film, I recently came across scans from Action Comics #1. It’s the world’s most valuable comic, and I’ve never seen the inside pages before. It’s bizarre:

Supes can’t fly and seems to enjoy wrecking stuff for no real reason. The grammar’s somewhat dodgy, and the costume art is rather different. Lois Lane is at least a proper reporter, unlike the comics of the 50s in which she morphed into an annoying whiny bug on Clark’s shoulder, continually pestering him to reveal his secret identity and marry her (these comics are very, very bad). Fascinating, though.

This afternoon I finally listened to the Stephen Fry / Christopher Hitchens debate on blasphemy and religious tolerance. It’s 1hr 20mins, but I’d say it’s definitely worth the time. It’s not so much of a debate as the participants only really differ on the extent to which they would fight back, but the points they make are, as you’d expect, intelligent and well articulated. The sheer level of knowledge between the pair of them is something to behold.

An MP3 of the full recording can be found here, but hopefully nobody will mind if I split the last few minutes into a separate file. The audience were allowed to ask questions at the end, and somebody raised the old argument that without religion there is only an ‘atomistic reductivist society’. There is no virtue in the claim, no matter how eleganty phrased, that without religion there is no beauty or wonder. It has been dismantled by greats such as Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman, but Stephen Fry’s response is quite something. The 2.8mb 6-minute MP3 is here.

The Guardian has the direct quotes I referred to this morning:

Dr Peter Fisher, clinical director of the Royal Homeopathic Hospital, told the programme: “I think what this suggestion amounts to is a form of medical apartheid: any therapy which can’t trace its origins to what is called the biochemical model should be excluded from the NHS.”

Then there’s this enlightened chap:

Terry Cullen, chairman of the British Complementary Medicine Association, said Prof Baum’s letter was “frustrating”.

He said: “It’s very frustrating that senior responsible people dismiss complementary medicine for the sole reason that it doesn’t have the definitive scientific proof that other drugs have. There is so much anecdotal evidence that thousands of people gain benefit from using complementary medicines. We shouldn’t dismiss that.”

Yes we bloody well should. The anecdotal evidence was looked at, and experiments were performed to see whether it has any basis in reality. It doesn’t. That’s all there is too it. Now we move on.

Incidentally, I know of a local homeopath who charges £90 per hour-long session, which ‘includes all remedies’. The remedy being, you know, water. I can only assume that the NHS is paying a similar amount.

Unfortunately, this kind of crap isn’t something that can be laughed off. Whether the espousal of complementary medicine is based in genuine belief or simply greed, it’s always insidious and it actively adds to the world’s suffering. No matter how eloquent the words of royalty, the voice of reason must speak louder.

A group of UK doctors has heavily criticised the NHS for investing in alternative medicines. I just heard the head of some UK homeopathic society describe this as ‘medical apartheid’. He trotted out the usual claim that homeopathy has plenty of evidence to support it, and that adherents to the ‘biomedical model’ will always ignore other treatments. As far as I can tell, the ‘biomedical model’ is one of those phrases only used by practitioners of alternative medicine, much like ‘Darwinism’ is only used by creationists. This claim about the evidence behind homeopathy is demonstrably false. It’s like Ben Goldacre says:

I’m talking about huge meta-analyses, summing together vast numbers of little trials, adding all the numbers up, and finding that overall, homeopathy is no better than placebo. That’s not absence of evidence that it works. That’s positive evidence that homeopathy does not work better than placebo.

Before we go any further, I have two special messages for the alternative therapists reading this: firstly, please, if you’re going to write in to the letters page, alluding triumphantly to some single obscure positive homeopathy study, can you at least explain why this string of huge meta-analyses are not valid? It’s getting a bit embarrassing the way you all just pretend they don’t exist. The British Homeopathic Association doesn’t even list them - the biggest, most definitive studies on homeopathy - in its list of research on homeopathy at Trusthomeopathy.org .

And secondly, please, a plea on behalf of the state: it was very expensive to do all these trials, and if you make us do that for every little notion you concoct from your imagination, you will bring the country to its knees. If that was the plan all along then I salute you.

See here, too. The Department of Health isn’t terribly helpful:

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health (DoH) said it was up to clinicians and trusts to decide on the best treatment for a patient.

“We know it is important that as more people turn to these therapies a solid evidence base is developed,” she said.

“Patients rightly expect to have clear information about the range of treatments that are available to them, including complementary therapies.”

No, people have a right to clear information about what’s going to make them better. If I decide that monkey brains are the great cure for all illness, and set up my own British Monkey Brain Association, under the above criteria I could demand that the NHS suggest this as a complementary therapy. You have to go with what works, not whatever’s available.

Nobody’s ignoring evidence. There’s no medical apartheid. It’s just trying to make people better, using anything that works.

Ultimate-guitar’s most requested songs of the past 24 hours:

If you’d said a week ago that thousands of people would be clamouring to emulate the winners of Eurovision…This one’s pretty good, although the chords are tough for a novice like me.

A friend just emailed me to point out that the Fernlea Hotel, which was the location for a dancing weekend last October, has some familiar photos on their website’s dancing page. I’m happy they think the shots are good enough to promote their hotel, but it would have been nice to have been asked. The creative commons license doesn’t allow for commercial use without my permission, which I would have happily given. I’m sure it was through not thinking rather than anything malicious, and I’ve sent them an email asking for the photos to be linked to their respective Flickr pages. If they’re not willing to do that then I think it’s fair to request some kind of recompense.

Update: The hotel got back to me, apologised and said that they’ll upgrade me to a deluxe room when our dance group next visits them in October! Swish! I don’t know how this matches up to paying a proper photographer, but as it seems to be an oversight on their part I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

What did you think of Eurovision? I was amused. The ESCDMTCAJGM didn’t perform so well this year, with Finland taking second place to Denmark, who barely featured in the final results. Nevertheless we had a fun evening, with copious amounts of cake and pringles.

I was very surprised to discover that pretty much nobody I know likes Green Wing. It wasn’t even indifference, it was actually ‘I don’t like it’. The general consensus was that it’s ‘too weird’. I didn’t see the first series at all, but my uncle suggested it and within three minutes of watching the new series I was completely hooked. I bought the DVD box set the next day, and every episode had me laughing out loud every few minutes. I’d say it’s one of the best ‘new’ comedies for years, and it’s bizarre that I’m so out-of-sync with people on this one.

Finally came out of a day-long slump this morning. I assume that at some point it’ll stop hurting when my ex doesn’t bother getting in touch at christmas / my birthday, but apparently not yet. It didn’t actually bother me on Friday, but for some reason started bouncing around my brain yesterday afternoon and wouldn’t go away. I think I’ve said before that this kind of thinking just spirals into all sorts of questions about whether she ever really liked me etc. - it’s not lingering breakup upset. Is this something you should be over before you see anybody else, or is it just one of those things?

We had the TV on in the background when the sadly-not-defunct Fathers 4 Justice invaded the National Lottery stage. Normally I’m in favour of anything that gets Eamonn Holmes off screen, but it was all a bit pathetic. It’s a shame that the BBC themselves reported which group was involved, as I don’t think it was obvious from the people running around on stage.

Just off to find a USB cable so I can link the PVR up to my computer. Apparently it’ll then be possible to record shows directly from Digiguide, which if it works will be great!

1. Ireland’s entrant is really Brian Kennedy?!
2. Lorraine Kelly has been usurped by whippersnapper Fearne Cotton. I wonder if she’ll be standing in the middle of some empty street.
3. According to the website - “In the final, the points will be given in a drawn order. The points 1 to 7 will appear on the score board all at once, while the 8, 10 and 12 points will be given by the spokespersons.” - I think this means that the voting procedure will now take less than an hour.

I know you’ve all been waiting for it, and for the third consecutive year, here it is. The Eurovision Song Contest Decision Making Tally Counting Act Judging Generator Machine - 2006.

This stunning spreadsheet will¹ allow consistent rating of Eurovision acts, and correct prediction of a final winner. Using categories carefully selected from psychology and a stunningly innovative High/Low rating system, this astonishing document is presented to you, the public, completely free of charge. The sheet includes all 24 entrants, in the correct order (information which, every year, seems to be some kind of state secret), denoted by remarkably arbitrary initials. Its track record is impeccable. The categories are:

• Originality
• Amusingnessness
• Dance routine - energy
• Dance routine - innuendo
• Overall campage
• Catchiness
• Level of irritation
• Size of chesticles / package
• Visibility of chesticles / package
• General exposed flesh
• General clothing style
• Croonage
• Cheesy smiles
• Lyrics
• Cringeworthiness
• Singing ability

I’ll pause while you catch your breath.

Excel version.
Openoffice.Org version.

1. in the hands of a suitably skilled operative [↩]

This is Rowdy, the iDog my sister bought me for my birthday. He is cool. He dances along to music, and gets lonely if nothing’s playing. He needs five minutes every hour to keep happy, and also appreciates you tapping his nose or waving a hand over his head. The flashing lights all have different meanings, and the type of music you play will affect his personality. You can plug your MP3 player directly into him - there’s a speaker so you can hear it too, plus he comes with a headphone splitter cable - or he’ll listen to (fairly loud) ambient music.

Here he is bopping along to Muse, then getting stroppy after it has stopped:

iDog Bops on Vimeo

Rowdy’s only disadvantage is that he’s reliant upon batteries. A power-cable would have been a nice addition. I like him, though. Thanks, Jane!

Yesterday was fun. It was slightly weird waking up and being on my own, but I got over that when two parcels were delivered
I spent a fair bit of time deciding what to do in the evening. Last year there was a handy circus in town, but nothing obvious suggested itself this time. Eventually I spotted the local newspaper’s front-page article, which detailed how the local civic hall had taken down a Hilter-d poster for an ‘Allo ‘Allo adaptation:

the civic hall removed the posters to protect a local group with such a good reputation until we’d spoken to them.

No more details were forthcoming - must be the local Nazi Youth. Whatever, the play was being shown that evening. Great! I was in Solihull at the time, so phoned to book tickets and got a message saying “leave your details and we’ll phone you back, or book online”. No option to wait, unfortunately. The online system wasn’t automatic - it just sent an email to the box office - but at least it would get my request into the queue. I got in 45mins before the time deadline, but didn’t hear anything back. When we arrived at the hall that evening they had no record of my reservation, and were full. So that was annoying. The Da Vinci Code was similarly fully booked, so we went to Pizza Hut instead
Edit - I do the civic hall a disservice. I just found a voicemail on my home phone saying there were no tickets left. I don’t know how they got that number as I only gave them my mobile, but at least they did try to contact me.

I was then amazed to find that pretty much everybody there had pooled with my parents to get me a Topfield 5800 PVR! It has two freeview tuners and a hard drive so I can catch Lost while recording CSI:Miami, for example. It’s all set up now and is great indeed. Many thanks to everybody for that - I’m sure I’ll get huge amounts of use from it.

Today is all about Eurovision, and I’m going to a party this evening. Mum and Dad say that twenty years ago nobody would have considered admitting they watched Eurovision, but now it’s a big thing. Admittedly, I’ve had a couple of people look at me with barely veiled contempt over the last week, but other than that there seems to be a spirit of fun about the whole thing. Which is cool, because it is fun It’d be a great show to live-blog, but I’ll probably be expected to, you know, socialise or something. Come back later today for the twice-triumphant Eurovision Song Content Decision Making Tally Counting Act Judging Generator Machine, which I’ll first tweak using the latest statistical techniques and psychological writings.