Archive for December, 2011

I thought I would write to share what I consider to be quite a positive experience I have recently had with the Advertising Standards Authority. Last month, I complained to them about an advert by Boots which I consider sexist.

It’s updated to their YouTube channel with the caption “the girls can’t let the onset of man-flu slow them down.”

Just three days after I had made the complaint, they posted out a letter to me! While it said they wouldn’t be taking any further action, they did take the time to explain to me why they wouldn’t – in this case because they did not feel the advert caused sufficiently widespread offence for them to take action. However, given complaints so often disappear off and are never heard of again, I think the ASA deserve praise for their speedy and in depth response.

Earlier this month, George celebrated another anniversary of his birth.

We did so in style, by heading down to Stick or Twist for Curry Club to grab some dinner before everyone else arrived. Unfortunately, their freezers had broken down so we had a very limited selection of curries to choose from as they were actually having to cook things from fresh.

George received an excellent turn out with us constantly having to expand on more and more tables as people turned up. Unfortunately, some of George’s friends are from Leeds Met so our constant jokes about prime numbers were lost on them. One of them had only just turned 18 which made us all feel old though George explained that he hangs out with them because they are easy to mould at that age. We use the term mould because the term groom has become a political no-no.

I also managed to scare the bar staff. I ordered a dessert and they explained it was cheaper if I ordered it with a hot drink. So I said OK and asked if I could have a hot chocolate, but they explained it had to be tea or coffee and suggested a coffee with two shots in because it was quite chocolatey.

I agreed because it was a money saver and I could just give the coffee to someone else. After I got back, Norm and Phil headed to the bar and were joking about the fact I couldn’t have caffeine. Apparently, this panicked the barmaid who was quite concerned that I might not have realised just how much caffeine there was in the drink she served me :D.

For the last talk of 2011, the Atheist Society had shameless plundered my Leeds Skeptics speaker (who I had plundered from Bradford Atheists) to present his talk “Neuroscience for the Soul” which he presented at Skeptics last month.

Rebecca, being very well to do, had recently mentioned that she had been invited to the launch part of Rib Shakk, a new restaurant slash takeaway which was opening up in the basement of the Corn Exchange, alongside Piazza by Anthony.

So, when hungry one Sunday night, and being inspired by seeing Norm watching Man v Food, I decided to head down there to try out some of their ribs.

When I arrived there was only one group in the restaurant and with nobody else in sight they seemed to have more staff than customers. It’s no surprise really. There is no mention of the place on the Corn Exchange, nor any on the website for Anthony’s Restaurant (I’m not entirely sure if they are linked or not). Their website simply says “under construction” and there is no signage outside. I would have gone before, to be honest, but I didn’t believe it was really there.

Not to mention that googling their name doesn’t help because you put “rib shack” into a search engine and they are nowhere to be seen due to their unconventional choice of spelling. However, I eventually managed to stumble over their Facebook and Twitter pages.

I opted for their meatier rips with a classic BBQ sauce. They were excellent, they are some of the meatiest ribs I have ever had, though I was a little disappointed by the BBQ sauce which wasn’t quite as special as I was hoping for.

Overall, I would probably go back, as the price is comparable to Nando’s – around £10 for a half rack and two sides. That said though, for another £5 I could pick up a full rack from Cattle Grid next door, and their baby back rips really are amazing.

Recently, I headed down to Leeds Salon for their debate on “The Big Society: A Clean-up for the Charity Sector?” The event was well attended and had a diverse range of people there. Though as the event was part of Leeds Summat, I’m not sure whether that was partly responsible.

The speeches were good, though as someone who only dips in and out of politics a lot of the time, some of the content went over my head. The discussions afterward were very interesting as well. I’m looking forward to attending their next event.

RIP Christopher. Your mastery of the English language was truly an inspiration to me.

No, this isn’t another ridiculous situation at Sainsbury’s, I’m talking about the “please confirm you are ana adult” boxes that are constantly popping up on my iPhone, 4OD and BBC iPlayer.

I understand that such apps probably need to confirm that I am over 18 for legal reasons. The problem is that they ask me every time. I’m sure that my date of birth is somewhere in my profile, and even if it wasn’t, the app could prompt me to enter it once and then have done with it.

But it doesn’t, my 4OD app continues to prompt me to confirm I am old enough every time I open it.

Now, even if you accept the idea that a child could steal my iPad and decide the first thing they want to do is watch some video that isn’t appropriate for them on 4OD and hence they need to confirm it every single time, why can they broadcast such shows on TV without requiring such a mechanism.

The answer is the Watershed. After 9pm at night you can broadcast much more filth on TV. But if you’re going to argue down that line, given my device knows what time it is, why can the app not stop prompting me between 9pm and 5:30am?

Most of us reading this will live in 2011, in the Western World. We’re used to living in a civilised society, summer riots aside. But thanks to globalisation, we’re increasingly finding a clash of cultures on many issues.

A good example of this is the World Cup hosting duties being awarded to Qatar.

The problem with this is that being an Islamic nation, homosexuality (well, homosexual acts, but it amounts to the same thing) is actually illegal there. These are enforced, including against people just on holiday there^[1].

Yet, in 2022, thousands of footballers, and several hundred thousand fans will travel to the country. And many of them will be gay. Even if you take a conservative estimate that 1% of people are gay, that puts at least 1,000 gay people in a country where just being themselves – is illegal.

That’s mental. I really don’t think we should be OK with this situation.

Luckily, everyone’s favourite football character Sepp Blatter stepped in to offer some advice. He explained “I’d say they [gay fans] should refrain from any sexual activities.”^[2]. Problem solved, I guess. Of course, this is from the same man who doesn’t seem to have a problem with racism^[3] and is constantly dogged by allegations of corruption^[4].

So what do we do about it? Well, we could get all the major countries to boycott it. Or at least Western countries, who knows how much control His Holiness commands over South America’s attitudes, and the answer is probably quite a lot. We could certainly give it a try though, and it would be a worthy cause. As Bryan Goldberg points out, Qatar also has a terrible human rights record, and that’s just the start of it.

Of course, we probably won’t do that, not because missing the World Cup would be mega rubbish (which it would be, that would be the biggest drawback of not taking part), but because it would be politically insensitive for us to call a nation out on the fact that their state religion is the most intolerant faiths currently practiced in the modern world (then again, maybe I’m just being over critical – it’s easy to take 534 verses out of context⁵).

Instead, our fearless leader David Cameron hopes that bringing the World Cup to Qatar will show them that homosexuality is actually fine^[6]. Apparently, “football can be a great engine for social change and a change of attitudes” and, when it comes down to it, at least there is such a thing as an Islamic soup kitchen.

So, eleven years from now, in an attempt to change social attitudes, we will send hundreds of our citizens into a country where making love to their spouse is a crime punishable by execution. Wonderful.

[6]: http://www.insideworldfootball.biz/worldcup/bids/qatar/8894-cameron-believes-qatar-world-cup-can-change-attitudes-towards-homosexuality – this resource is no longer available

Dan Bye, council member of the National Security Society who has previously spoken at my Skeptics in the Pub group, presented a talk to the Atheist Society on faith schools and why they are such a ridiculously bad idea.

Unfortunately such talks often end up preaching to the converted – the people who turned up were the people who already know faith schools are a scar on our education system whereas those who aren’t all that aware didn’t manage to make it down.

One point of debate I found though was whether you were morally responsible if you lied to get your child into a faith school (pretending to be religious) because it was the best school in the area. Ultimately, the answer is, yes, you are a bad person. But much like Mr Cameron, I can probably see why parents do it.

My parallel was that with some recent health issues, I am now cashing in on my private BUPA cover. Yet, I’m not really sure if I agree with the idea of private healthcare. Surely the ideal in our society should be that everyone has access to healthcare and you shouldn’t be able to buy a longer life?

It’s a bit of a hypothetical argument because of course you can – those who come from a more well off, well-educated background tend to have a healthier lifestyle, make more educated life choices and avoid manual labour and as a result, end up living longer. But ignoring the pragmatic truth, what would we want as an ideal for our society? Probably one in which your health was not compromised by the amount of money you have.

Ultimately we decided that it wasn’t the same thing – while I have BUPA cover, I also continue to make my contribution to taxes and therefore the NHS, and by using my BUPA cover to go private, I am actually freeing up more time for NHS staff to treat others.

But I didn’t have to rationalise myself into that position before I decided to use my BUPA cover. I just did it, because my health is more important to me, to the point where even if I decided I did morally disagree with it, I would have been happy to compromise my principles because when you’re having a medical crisis, it’s very hard to think about anything else other than getting better.

Similarly though, if I had a child, I suspect that my emotional drive which has allowed evolved life to flourish so well would quickly turn the override switch to make sure that I put the future of my own child ahead of any sense of moral duty.

So yes, lying to get your child into a faith school does make you a bad person. But I think I can understand why people do it.

P.S. Just so we’re clear, there is no evidence that faith schools do produce better results. This is only applicable if your local faith school happens to produce better results, which could be down to a number of factors, but faith almost certainly isn’t one of them.

Thought Bubble isn’t a comic convention. It’s a sequential art convention :D. I didn’t go or anything, but Si did, and afterwards, we went to Pizza Express. I keep ending up there, despite the fact I dislike pizza.