Anything, Anywhere But Under Sufferance

Top Stories As a child, I was intrigued by ‘the mysterious’ and that curiosity has never left me. I have tonnes of books right here next to me now on all kinds of mysterious topics. Ghosts, UFO’s, Monsters etc. What started this interest was a story my mum told me about our old house, which she said was haunted. She says one night, she went to bed and my dad was working nights. She was fast asleep when the alarm clock went off at some stupid hour o’clock. This was odd as it was always set to 5am for my dad to get up for work and it had also been set to the radio, rather than the beeper. Thinking nothing of it, she clicked it off and went back to sleep. Reset the alarm the next morning and had a moan at my dad for messing it up. He said he hadn’t touched it and as usual, me or my brother got the blame. A week or so later, my mum was downstairs in the early hours making herself a drink as she could not sleep. Oddly enough it was about the same time as the alarm had woken her a few ...

I rather like this image, it is a visual description of just one portion of the internet. I think it's rather beautiful and almost ethereal. Strange really when you consider that the vast number of people on this are using the internet to tweet that they've just taken a dump or are watching cats fall comically into swimming pools. Today, we tackle the internet. It probably wasn't in the minds of the scholars at Stanford University first began to develop the groundwork for what would become the Internet, that their creation would not only be arguably the most important in modern society, but that for many the epitome of it would be to spend the day watching hedgehogs learn to ride a bicycle. A lot of debate on the internet is on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. This is rather a facile and pointless argument. It is like arguing whether humankind is a good or bad thing, or religion is a good or bad thing. There are plus and minuses to every facet of human life. On pl...

It's been a few years since I spent most of my day watching my children grow from young babies into toddlers and taking the first tentative steps into school. During that period, although I still worked, for a large part of the day I was a house-husband and spent a lot of my time trying to understand what children today see in the television programmes that educational psychologists have decided are best for them. Take Tellytubbies. Four a-sexual, monitor-bellied conduits of video, who live together in a big house with a rampant vacuum cleaner and who's daily diet consists either of tubby toast (which is fine) or tubby-tustard (which has since become a euphemism for various bodily outpourings, enough to make Ben Dover blush). Now if that didn't emotionally scar your children, then todays offerings most certainly will. Have you seen "In the Night Garden?" Honestly, Lewis Carroll, even in his most doped up days, would have looked at this and gone "Sorry man, I ...

Frankie Boyle's comments have sparked some debate this week. If you don't know the story, then the ginger haired lovechild of a Proclaimer and Rasputin, who nose seems to extort an inordinate gravitational pull on his features, decided that Katie Price's disabled child Harvey was a good topic for a joke or two on his Tramadol Nights TV show. So, its come to this has it? Accusing disabled children of attempting to rape their mother, to get a laugh? This is no "Pro Katie & Peter" rant, believe me, that sycophantic, silicone induced tart gets a lot of what she deserves, but I don't think any parent, regardless of who they are should be forced to listen to someone doing that, for entertainment purposes only. Boyle however won't care. His argument will be, if it is funny it is funny. Tough. Don't listen if you don't want to. Its hard to argue against that. Censorship in comedy doesn't work. The best comedy is edgy, funny and hard hitting. Howeve...

Whisper it quietly, but Atheism is so last year. You can barely pick up a Sunday supplement these days without the book review section containing some polemic against religion. Dawkins, Hitchens and co's swelling ranks of non-believers have found a voice and an audience but, by God (or not), they just won't shut up will they? Every review of anything literary that analyses the question of religion or belief always ends up with some cautionary tale of the dangers of aggressive atheism. These deranged psychopaths with their out-of-the-box non-beliefs, stating their points of view in a VERY agitated manner! Well, that is not just the done thing is it! Let's stick a Fatwah on their heads. Indeed reading these reviews makes enjoyable reading for the utter banality of it all. Rather than take issue with the points raised, the issue now seems to be to take issue with how the point is raised. Yeah, we know you think God doesn't exist, but do you have to be so rude about it...

I don't profess to have any great ear for music. My attempts to bang a tune out of a piano range from mildly-ineffective to outrageously offensive. Despite that, I know what I like and my tastes have a wide range. So here are 25 of my favourite songs that may not be top of your hit parade, but which should be. Chiefly because, all of them are brilliant for one reason or another. 1. Words - The Doves - My sister got me into this album a while back and while the other songs didn't catch my ear, this one did. It has also been used as the music on Match of the Day I think a few years back. A superb song, great melody and simple tune that is catchy from the moment you hear it. Think Coldplay's 'Clocks', only better. 2. Life in a Northern Town - Dream Academy - A truly haunting and lyrical song which is stunningly evocative for a variety of reasons. It may hanker to a bygone era, with the gentle bassoon giving it a kind of "Emmerdale Farm" when Annie Sugden was ...

In a blog post a while back, I moaned on about a visit from some misguided Jehovah's Witnesses (I feel confident in making that assertion now after speaking to my friend, who assured me they were not weird enough to be Mormons). However, in terms of toasting on God's eternal bottom-spike of damnation, they are safe, because way before them in the queue will be cold-calling energy company salesmen, the like of whom have passed my way in recent times. Now, I do not wish to tar everyone who does this with the same brush. I have had a lot of callers, haven't we all? But not all of them have been like the people I will go on to describe. Others are happy to accept what I say and leave with a smile. It is not they that this tirade is against. Christ knows, it is a thankless job. But cretins like I met today, make it that way. It started with, as usual, a ring on the doorbell. Awaiting several postal deliveries for Christmas presents, I didn't take a peek out of the window bef...