I’m an atheist but I love Christmas

I have just finished writing my letter to Santa. I write one every year. For anyone thinking of doing the same, please note he appears to have moved according to Royal Mail. He can no longer be reached in Lapland, but in at Santa’s Grotto, Reindeerland, SAN TA1.

Now, I am well aware that Santa doesn’t exist (I hope there aren’t any kids reading this) but there is something cathartic and beneficial in trying to explain why you have been good enough over the past year to justify getting what you want from Christmas.

One year I got a response with some stickers. I am a bit worried that they’ll think I’m five. Or special. Or both. It’s totally worth sending the letter though.

I probably won’t get what I want anyway. I don’t like telling people what I want usually. I’d much rather they got me something that they think I’d like but probably wouldn’t have thought of buying. Although this year, I know I’ve got what I want as I have bought it for myself.

As mentioned in the title, I am a devout atheist – perhaps more on that another time – and I have no sentiment for the fact that some dude called Jesus was allegedly born a couple of thousand years ago. He never invites me to his birthday parties anyway.

What I love about Christmas is I guess what is often referred to as Christmas spirit. I love the way that everyone seems to be a little bit happier. I first noticed this when I was working in a newsagents and on Christmas Day everyone was a bit chirpier and nicer. Customers who wouldn’t really speak to you would wish you a merry Christmas or ask you your plans or smile when they wouldn’t usually.

The fact that for a short time each year, everyone is a bit more considerate of each other and buys presents for the important people in their lives is just fantastic. I wish that people bought each other presents more often and didn’t have to be told to do so but in the absence of that, Christmas fills the hole nicely. It doesn’t matter whether the presents are good or bad, either. It matters that people are doing something nice for others.

I love everything that comes along with Christmas as well. I love the pretty lights and decorations (and Folkestone has some really lovely lights this year). I love Christmas films. Muppet’s Christmas Carol is my second favourite film of all time and when watching other versions I get confused that there is only one Marley.  I love Christmas songs. I know they’re just like normal songs, but just a bit happier.

The thing is though, I like happiness. I love people, I love the world, I love life and when I’m down then I get down about being down. Christmas is full of happiness and cheer and it’s the most wonderful time of year. 

Why I am vegetarian

I was thinking about writing this yesterday lunchtime as I munched on my sandwiches in the canteen as it’s a question I get asked on average probably every other month. Low and behold, one of my colleagues asked me that very afternoon. It was almost as if it was a sign.

Let’s begin at the beginning. When I was growing up, I wasn’t particulary keen on many meats. There would be some that I’d like, some I’d like occassionally and some I just couldn’t stand (primarily chicken and turkey).

I went to university and studied philosophy. I hated doing exams because I wasn’t very good at them, so I opted to take two dissertations in my final year. Perhaps not what everyone would do but trust me, I was really bad at exams.

One of the dissertations I wrote on the ethics of killing in a variety of settings – war, euthanasia, self-defence and also for food. The conclusion that I came to was that if I could survive without having to force another living creature to die in order for me to do so, then this was an ethically preferable stand point.

It took me a while to become a vegetarian. A couple of months after uni finished, I made myself a lentil shepherd’s pie. It turned out that I’m not really keen on lentils and basically eating a plateful of them put me off going veggie. My housemate got a free meal out of it though.

A while later, I started going out with a vegetarian and this made the transition quite a natural process. I gave up foods one by one, starting with fish and finishing with pepperoni which if anyone still asks, is the thing I miss the most. Although as I’ve been veggie for around 8 years, I can’t say I’ve actually missed it in a long time.

One thing I think about as possibly the most important thing is where I personally draw the line. Some cheese, beers and sweets are not vegetarian because of the way they are produced.

I tend not to be overly fussy about checking which are and are not. The reason for this is that I am fairly sure that the animals weren’t killed for the specific purpose of creating these products. They almost certainly died for other reasons and these products are the offshoot of the fact that a dead animal is available to create them with.

The way I see it, everyone has a point beyond which  they won’t eat animals or animal products. There are people like Freddie Starr who are willing to put absolutely anything in their mouths. Others set the line at not eating animals which are pets (e.g. cats and dogs) or perceived as horrid (e.g. snakes, tarantulas) which in other cultures would not be an issue.

I see an individuals stance animal product eating as being somewhere on the line between vegan and Freddie Starr, although admittedly it’s not exactly a straight line. I know exactly where my limits are and I am comfortable with them.

Some answers to freequently asked questions:

Q: Do you eat fish?
A: No.  Fish are animals. People who eat fish but no other meat are called pescatarians. Or, as I prefer to call them, cheats.

Q: Do you eat meat substitutes?
A: Yes, but it took me a while to get into quorn chicken pieces because the reason I didn’t like white meats was due to their texture. I tend to only eat meat substitutes when they really form an essential part of the dish, for example mince in spaghetti bologonese  or chicken pieces in fajitas.

My Top Five All Time Most Favourite Computer Games Ever

1 Arkham City. Playstation 3.

So this list in my favourite games, but I think this would probably top a list of the games that I think are the best games. You can be Batman. And it feels like you are Batman. The game is so superbly designed.

I finished the game last night (except for the Riddler’s Revenge challenges which to be frank, I’m a bit pants at) and I can say it’s the best designed game I’ve played. As in Arkham Asylum, there were a few of the Riddler Trophies that I couldn’t work out and had to Google but this is partly due to my stupidity and partly due to being a boy and not reading the instructions on some of the gadgets I was given.

Also, I have an inexplicable crush on Harley Quinn.

2.Micromaniacs. Playstation.

My second favourite game would have been Arkham Asylum if I didn’t think it’d have been a more boring list. So instead, it is Micromaniacs on the old school Playstation.

For those of you that didn’t play it, it’s basically the Micromachines game that was on the Megadrive but instead of micromachines, you control little characters who run around the track and all have special powers. My favourite was Maw Maw whose special powers were farting in his opponents faces and extending his tongue (he was some sort of mutant creature) and biting off other player’s heads so that their controls got reversed until their head grew back. Genius.


Probably my all time favourite gaming experience is when there were 8 of us playing this on the Playstation in teams of 4 and my team was so awesome at the game that we won the race before we got to the first corner.
I discovered a while ago that you can play original playstation games on the PS3 and I’m looking forward to giving this a proper run out sometime soon.

3. Goldeneye. N64.

This is the game that prompted me to buy my first console of my own. There probably isn’t anyone of my generation who doesn’t look back on this game fondly. It was the first first-person shooter game that finished. Come to think of something, that probably also makes it 50% of all the first-person shooter games I have finished.

The single player had great replay value by encouraging you to complete levels on certain difficulty settings in a certain time in order to get amusing or fun cheats for the multiplayer game which – frankly – was what the game was all about.

Getting 3 mates around to run around one of the brilliantly designed levels shooting at each other was brilliant fun at the time – as long as no-one cheated and went for Odd Job – and is one of the reasons why I don’t want to taint the memory by setting up my old N64 and seeing how much it has ages or playing one of the undoubtedly unfaithful remakes that have come out on recent consoles.

4. Freddy Hardest. Amstrad CPC 464.

This gets in the list as both the first computer game my family ever owned and the first computer game I ever finished. I don’t expect many of you will be familiar with it. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. From what I recall, it’s a 2 level platform game which involves running along and smashing up aliens.

Freddy had an amazing blonde quiff and a giant chin and to be honest, I think I probably thought I was going to grow up to be him. The game was in two parts and when you finished the first one you got a code so that you could put in the tape to load up the second game which usually took around 5 minutes and then you could type in the code and complete the game.

This reminds me of a quaint time when I wasn’t entirely sure if the game was going to load or not. If the tape had a bit of fluff on it, or had got twisted or fallen some similar fate, then you could be waiting around only to find that you weren’t going to be able to play the game after all. This is the reason I never finished Taipan. Kids these days don’t know how hard they’ve got it when they have to spend 20 seconds cleaning a bit of dirt off a CD.

5. Dead Rising. Xbox 360.

I love smashing up zombies. I love smashing up zombies with a chainsaw or a sword or a sickle. But I also love putting toy heads on them or throwing teddie bears at them. This game is possibly the most fun way I’ve killed zombies or indeed human beings or aliens or anything else.

This game gets the nod over the second game as I think it was more novel at the time and perhaps even a little more fun, especially as the second game didn’t really expand the concept as much as perhaps I would have liked.

One of the novel things about this game is that you had to attempt to take pictures of zombies which would score points based on the content of photos being gruesome or amusing. The fact that there was an on screen zombie kill count is great motivation to keep playing and smashing.

Why I didn't like Dead Island

I have just finished playing Dead Island. I would not recommend it and I am going to tell you why.

The main reason for doing this is because the game got almost universally positive reviews with the notable exception of Edge who I will now be using exclusively for game reviews.

I felt like I should pre-warn anyone who is thinking of buying the game so they can make an informed decision, especially as the game looked so promising in the trailer which is a beautiful piece of cinematography but which bares minimal relation to the game itself.

Me and Dead Island didn’t get off to a good start. This is mainly due to a bug (now fixed) in the PS3 version which meant that checkpoints didn’t always save. I ended up playing the first 8% of the game three times in total.

There is no real in-game tutorial and so if you want to know what the controls are then you would need to read the manual. Who does that in this day and age? I was three quarters of the way through the game before I accidentally learnt that my character was actually able to run. Compared to Assassin’s Creed which I started playing this evening and which seems to be explicitly forcing me to learn every single control, Dead Island seems poor.

I can’t help comparing it to other games either, and almost every time it comes up short. Want a more fun zombie-smash-em-up? Play Dead Rising. Want a better RPG? Play Oblivion. Want a better shooter? Play just about any other game with guns.

The guns... ah the guns. Guns in Dead Island are basically rubbish. I wanted to shoot shotgun bullets through zombies and see giant holes in their bodies. I never got to even hold the shotgun because by the time I got there, I hadn’t levelled up enough. I hadn’t levelled up enough because I got bored and started racing through the game as fast as I could hoping to get my stinking mitts on a shotgun. Lesson learnt.

The weapons expert however, very rarely got to play with any. I guess  probably just as much as any of the other characters although I can’t stomach playing through the game again to find out. Guns only came into play when you encountered human enemies who had them. You then had to kill them, take their ammo or guns in order to use them against the other human enemies. If you were lucky you might have a few bullets left over afterwards to shoot a zombie or two.

There was a Fury system whereby if you got angry enough – I’d be pretty angry that there were zombies there anyway – then you could activate your special power which in my case (I don’t know if it’s different for other characters) was a gun that was automatically aim and enemies and do substantial damage. So if you could save it up for a bit bad guy, you could get past him without any real challenge. I never did figure out why the fury meter didn’t seem to be in any way related to when you could actually use the power.

The melee system initially seems well thought out. After a few attacks with a weapon, you will have to take a breather to regain your stamina. That’s pretty logical. However, your other attack is to kick zombies. When you run out of stamina and zombies are continuing to attack you, you will end up kicking them to death because for some reason, kicking doesn’t use any stamina. I’m not sure the games designers have played football but I can tell you for a fact, kicking can be a little bit tiring. When you’ve got an array of exciting weapons in the game, the fact that you spend half your time booting a zombie in the face is a bit frustrating.

The aiming system is also lacking. It’s very difficult to select which part of a zombie to attack, even when you have a them on the floor. So your amazing machete that you’ve just picked up will end up hacking away at a zombie’s arm rather than attempting to slice clean through their neck as any sensible zombie hunter would attempt to do.

It was also very annoying that you could create awesome weapons like turning a machete into a shock machete, manage to shock a zombie (which happened randomly and I never fathomed why) and watch them have a fit for about 10 seconds only for them to come back at you. If you have a weapon that awesome, the zombies should die. I don’t care if they’ve still got health left. You’ve done something fucking cool and they should be gone. End of.

The map itself is just too big. You keep going back and forth on yourself. They have a fast travel and vehicle system which wouldn’t have been needed if they didn’t put everything so far away in the first place. Eventually, I ended up just running past zombies to get to where I was going rather than fighting them which should be the most enjoyable part of the game but provided me with a minimal amount of fun.

The fact that you could by and large run past enemies, coupled with the poor health system which would not penalise you for dying but instead spawn you extremely nearby with full health meant that you could essentially charge through the game without having to take part in any fights.

As you would respawn with no consequences when dying, there was very little need to have energy drinks and food around to replenish your health or medical kits to take with you. I think I ended up using med kits three times, and one of those was by accident.

You may ask why I finished the game when I didn’t really enjoy it? There’s a few reasons. It did actually look awesome, especially on the occasions when you managed to slice a zombie’s head clean off. As previously mentioned, I was hoping to eventually come across a shotgun, and finally, I’ve developed slight OCD about video games and from now on will probably have to complete every one that I play.

It may well be that this is the type of game I am not built for and that thousands of others are genuniely loving the game, in which case I am pleased for them. However, I for one will not be playing it again and shall be trading it in or selling it at the ealiest possible opportunity.

Why politics mustn't die out

There was an article on the BBC website yesterday which stated that more people are members of the caravan club than of all the political organisations in the country. This is a shame. Partly because I find caravans really dull and partly because I believe that politics and all the social issues surrounding it is one of the most important elements of our society.

However, I'm aware that my views and those of the people I associate with are very different to large parts of society. In the AV referendum earlier this year, I think 98% of the people I know voted in favour of change while the actual percentage was closer to one third of the population. So I can only assume that I don’t have my finger on “the pulse” and that the large majority of people don’t share the view that politics is important.

To be honest, I did had absolutely no interest in politics until I was at university and did a module in social philosophy, so I can completely understand that others would have no interest as well. This is a shame and I think should be addressed by making politics compulsory at GCSE level to prepare you people for voting as the current citizenship syllabus obviously isn’t working enough.

Although it has picked up recently, voter turnout has been substantially lower since Labour took power in 1997. Lack of preparation of young voters is probably one cause of this.

More prominent though must be the disillusionment and distrust of the government.

“No matter who you vote for the government always wins.” – The King Blues

When politicians tell you one thing and then do another, it’s no surprise that the public at large becomes disillusioned with them and feels like their vote is irrelevant.Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats forming a coalition with the Conservatives may turn out to be the death of their party. After making promises on issues such as student fees and then backing down to get their share of the power, voter confidence in the party dropped and they will struggle to regain it.

If you feel like you are going to vote for someone who will then change their policies, what would incentive you to vote at all? The fact that voters see little change from voting and often between the political parties is what gives them this view.

There’s a great South Park episode about voting (people who know me well will know that I reference pretty much every debate to a South Park episode) where Stan is being asked to vote to choose a new school mascot. His choice is between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. The conclusion – or at least my interpretation of it - is that every election is a choice between a douche and a turd but you have to go for the one which is least dumb.

There is also distrust at the way the government acts. The expenses scandal and the way they have treated the banks have meant that the public views them predominantly as selfish and self-serving.

The government is obviously interested in keeping democracy in place. What other reason can there be for giving 40% longer sentences than if they had committed their crimes at another time. The government seems to be scared that rioters will become political activists and attempt to overthrow the democratic system. I think this is an overreaction as revolutions need a leader and a poliical focus – something that the riots seemed to lack.

Britons also feel their voices aren’t heard. When a million people march against a war but have no effect, they will feel that their protests are in vain. When Climate Camp is heavily policed despite the fact it is basically just a bunch of hippies sitting in a field, they will start to feel that the police have a Big Brother presence and that they will soon be forced to believe that 2+2=5.

When there are harsh sentences for the discontented who riot but the bankers who plunge the country into crisis, the media who hack telephones and the politicians who illegally claim on expenses generally just receive a slap on the wrist, it is hard not to feel that the political structure is geared to looking after certain sections of society.

We need politicians, even when we take all of the above into account because they are intended to be there to take a considered view of all the arguments (even if they don’t always). If we didn’t have politicians in place but instead resorted to mob rule than anyone who is accused of crimes deemed most horrid in society, e.g. peadophilia, would get lynched regardless of whether or not they were guilty.

Without a ruling body, we would be forced to go with popular opinion which is often reactionary. We would have removed benefits from anyone who rioted recently, which in effect would incentivise them to riot further. We would have Jeremey Clarkson as Prime Minister and be killing off the planet quicker than we already are and several other such ridiculous things that the public have created e-petitions for.

We need our democracy and therefore politicians because there is no genuinely viable alternative. I know several advocates of anarchism but I feel that we are not ready to move into this sort of state with the way that our society currently thinks. Our society would need to be much more liberal and tolerant of others for anarchism to stand a chance of not descending into a chaotic dystopia.

Having said that, the governement does have too much power over us, and doesn’t speak for all us. Something needs to change, although I am not sure what.

The difference between reasons and excuses

When I was at school, one of my best teachers once told me: “There’s no such thing as a good excuse, only a good reason.” Or words to that effect. I wasn't really paying attention.

I was struck by the words again when reading several of the reactionary comments that people have beening posting on Facebook over the 4 days since the riot in Tottenham kicked off what basically appears to be the end of civilisation as we know it. Or so some people would have you believe.

In my opinion and, I’m sure, the opinion of over 99% of the country, is that there is no excuse for what has been happening. Theft, arson, destruction, mugging and murder. These have been directed at members of the public and not at the target that would be most obvious if the motivation for all of this was political, if it was a protest at the death of Mark Duggan.

There is no excuse for these acts.

The explanations that have been given by rioters when they have been approached by the press have ranged from completely illogical (“getting our taxes back”) to honest (“because we can”).

Sure, some of these people are just nicking trainers and TVs because they are able to and they think they’ll get away with it. However, at the heart of this, there has to be some general underlying discontent which first caused these people to act in this way, even if they don’t know themselves what it is. This is what we need to uncover and fix.

 Obviously, the first priority is to prevent further riots and make the streets safe for everybody. Beyond this, we need to address the sociological issues which have caused the discontent. This will not be an easy task, as there is likely to be a myriad of complex reasons why everything erupted and indeed, the reason why one individual rioted may be completely different to the person standing next to them as they steal iPhones from Currys.

There has been a lot of reactionist calls to arms, which is the wrong approach. Several suggestions put forward will actually inflame the situation and potentially cause more and even worse riots. The petition to remove the benefits of any convicted rioters (The petition to remove the benefits of any convicted rioters) is one such example.

There are a number of flaws with these suggestions, aside from that fact that our prison system is founded on reform and not punishment  (which is also one reason why we don’t have the death penalty.)

The possibility of catching all of any one rioter is so small as to be almost laughable. The sheer numbers involved in the riots, the fact that most of them are hiding their faces and also the amount of work involved in identifying them render it practically impossible.

This proposed solution will actually make any individual who is caught even more impoverished and is therefore likely to make them even more likely to riot in the future.

Many suggested solutions, including this one, as to what the government should do are based solely on punishing those involved, rather than reforming these people and tackling the underlying causes in order to prevent any future riots.

Any reaction to these riots needs to be a fully thought out and reasoned solution and not based on the emotions that we have all been feeling as we have been watching our country burn to the ground.

Why Ryan Dunn's death is sad but not tragic.

Jackass Star Ryan Dunn died on Monday by driving his Porsche 911 at 130mph (almost three times the limit) into a tree whilst seemingly drunk.

After countless years of anti-drink driving and anti-speeding campaigning, there is no excuse for any adult human being to think that there is no risk involved to themselves and others and as such, to attempt to call this tragic - when it is frankly just idiotic - is in my mind unacceptable.

I am not attempting to claim that his death is sad in the way that the death of every human being is sad - the repercussions on their friends, family and dependants - because the death of any person is sad in these respects.

Dunn's death instead is sad in the way that we as a society have encouraged him to behave in this manner. This is a man whose employment was through putting toy cars up his anus, from jumping off balconies or onto moving cars.

We (and I include myself in this) have been paying this man - and handsomely so, I would imagine - to take risks with his health and his life, and so it is only natural that he along with the rest of the Jackass team live their lives on the edge.

Whilst the act that killed Dunn and his companion was an idiotic one, some of the blame must lie with the culture that pays people to act in this way.