Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

On Thursday evening I headed round to Rich’s along with George and Jonni for a Question Time pizza party. Between us we got through about five pizzas, as well as several bottles of win and half of Rich’s carton 😀 . This was of course to watch British National Party leader Nick Griffin appear on the programme.

It was at least an entertaining show if nothing else though was mostly just BNP bashing. Not that we should have expected any less of course but I’m not sure it was the most productive thing to do. As Bill points out, it was half way though the show before someone managed to fit an intelligent comment in – that perhaps the failure of the major parties had led to a rise in BNP support.

In the end though it was essentially a witch hunt which didn’t produce the desired result. If a better course of action as Rich pointed out would have been to ask the panel what their policies on health, education and the economy were so they could be compared side by side.

This would have likely done far more damage than the constant barrage of insults that were thrown at Nick and his party which no doubt made us Guardian readers feel good but actually won him a lot of sympathy and support in other social groups. Will the appearance be a good or bad thing for the BNP? I guess we’ll find out soon.

On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daryl informing me he had accidentally booked Atheist Bus Campaign creator Ariane Sherine to speak at the next Skeptics in the Pub meeting.

So on Monday I headed over to Batley (where Daryl resides into what is essentially a small castle) to discuss ideas of how we could re-launch the group with more exciting speakers and a better format. We began hunting for venues and next thing we knew we were driving back to Leeds to check out The Living Room on Greek Street.

By the end of the evening we had a new venue lined up, a new format in development and a plan to make Leeds Skeptics bigger and better than ever. Win.

I also have to say that Daryl has a very impressive collection of comics. I can’t say I know that much about them but he has box after box of them and all of them looking fancy and collectable. Top marks to anyone who has a replica Lightsaber in their lounge too.

Sunday afternoon we headed down to Shaky Jakes in Headingley for some sundaes to celebrate Viv’s birthday. They literally have every chocolate bar you can think of available to make into a milkshake or sundae and if there is something they don’t have you can even take your own chocolate down and have them use that!

Despite feeling rough on Sunday I endeavoured to make it down to Cuthbert Brodrick for the usual Sunday lunch. This week saw Kate extend her usual diet of chocolate cake to include a bowl of chips too – to which ended up being combined into some radical new version of the chocolate chip.

Friday saw us kick things off with One Life, this week’s session being about ethics. As John was running late I started the session as chair for the first half an hour or so raising a few topic discussions before the real content matter was entered when John arrived. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough plates and cutlery for the committee ended up eating out of a cup with a spoon!

Afterwards we headed up to City Church on Headingley road who were running re:fresh, a free BBQ and hot drinks session to catch drunk people Otley running it. We would have had a few drinks in the old bar first but as they were Christians they had to go to bed at 11 so we had to go there first 😀 .

Having come direct from One Life we were of course in our Atheist Society hoodies which made for a fun time – of course they were very welcoming though the hoodies did get described as inappropriate by a girl on a fancy dress Otley run dressas as a Roman which we didn’t find at all ironic. After all, what have the Romans ever done to Christians? 😉

As Paul in our office had a rather big birthday coming up (I won’t mention which one), we decided to head over to the pub on Thursday for a bit of lunch and a drink to celebrate. As such I really couldn’t say no so took a day off from cutting back on my spending.

In the end though Rob put the company card behind the bar so it didn’t actually cost me anything – therefore when it came to Friday and everyone was still up for the usual Friday lunch at the pub, I had effectively saved a pub lunch’s worth of money so technically I wasn’t spending any more than I would have 😀 . Good times.

As usual we headed down to Cuthbert Brodrick on Sunday for lunch. It saw a much overdue return of Sarann and Moz and a lengthly session of gossiping about a number of individuals. It also somewhat disturbed myself and George that we only left the pub a meer 36 hours before returning – does anyone know what the frequency of visiting a Wetherspoon’s is before you’re officially an alcoholic? Not that I was even drinking today but I’m not sure that cancels it out.

As I found out while recently clearing out my old bedroom I wrote quite a bit back in the day.

Some of my writings included outlines for loads of different TV shows. What I found interesting though is how many of them have manifested themselves as actual TV shows in the ten years since I wrote them. For example Just One Way was an outline which followed the fast-paced action of one man’s life over a 24 hour period, a plot similar to what we would now recognise as 24.

Other shows included The President’s Office which has striking similarities to The West Wing and 100 Deeds Before I Die which could easily be compared to My Name is Earl.

What this shows us it that the makers of today’s television programs have the same imagination, ideas and thought processes as a child. Where this is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave up to you.

On Thursday, The Gijs delivered his talk “Intelligence and Scepticism” to the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire.

The thrust of the talk was that there was an inherent contradiction in Humanism and a rational approach to life because Humanism is something that is very positive and the world on the whole isn’t positive with all the crime, senseless violence, falling out with the people you care about, etc. Although admittedly a lot of this revolves around the Humanist manifesto.

It was never the less a very interesting talk and even though it turned into a bit of a socialist preaching ground at the end (from the audience, not The Gijs) it was a good evening. We finished off at The Well, the rebranded Joseph’s Well which had actually locked their doors because nobody was in there until we came hanging on the door.

Went over to my parents for dinner on Monday and somehow got ambushed into sorting through a lot of my old stuff.

So, so many trees worth of paper thrown away. Including my prize collection of empty refill pads which I built up over the years. Not to mention and endless series of course notes from a-levels, books, magazines, comics and a whole heap of other junk.

I also found a few of my early writings including the self explanatorily titled A Stern Letter from Richard Nixon. I vaguely remember writing it though I didn’t dare read it – doing so could only reduce the treasured place such a work has in history.