Goodbye Great Britain

I will be flying to the US on Tuesday morning to start a "new" life in New York City (via New Hampshire for Christmas). It has been a long process to get to this stage, my initial visa application was sent this time last year and I don't think there has been a single day since that someone hasn't asked me "when are you going?", my self deprecating side wonders if they are eager to get rid of me! Of course, though there is frustration at having to answer the same question many times a day (no fault of the questioner), it is also humbling and heart-warming that many have an interest.

Getting a (spousal) visa for the US is a long and boring process, but thorough, I've had medicals, police reports, interviews and just made a copy of our full application which ended up being a whopping 55-pages (probably more, but I only copied what I thought I really needed to). I've had to fill in tax forms for my wife covering the last six years, and the previous year we bought a house (which we're now renting). We've also got my wife British citizenship so I have filled in enough paperwork in the last two years to last a lifetime! Yet there are more forms to come when I enter the country...

I've never been to New York so to dive straight in to a permanent residency is perhaps a bit risky, but I'd be a fool to not take on the promotion and chance to live in a place like NYC, if it doesn't work out I can at least say I tried, and I'd only be spending the rest of my life wondering "what if..." otherwise. I've been relatively calm about all this for the last year but when my flights were booked last Monday and it suddenly became "real" there seemed to be a heavy weight dumped onto my shoulders. It wasn't until last week I even had sorted out a place to live in the city!

Still, I'd like to look back before I move forwards, when faced with such a move it's made me think about my identity, who I am as a person. I've been very fortunate that I just so happened to be born not just in England  (which must rank as one of the most desirable countries to live), but the beautiful city of Oxford. Such serendipity could lead one to become guilty of solipsism.

I often think of myself as first and foremost, someone from Oxford, then from England (then British), though I'm not overtly patriotic in any case. Oxford has felt a huge part of my life, I just love being in it, taking a stroll around Radcliffe Square (pictured) and many of the other wonderful main streets and narrow alleyways. Getting a sense of the achievements of many great scientists, authors and assorted intellectuals that have passed through the history of the area cannot help but give one a sense of wonder, and the architecture is exquisite beyond words and is truly moving. I love nothing more than talking a stroll around Christ Church meadow, spending a lunchtime in the Museum of Natural History or my personal favourite, The Museum of the History of Science, and of course one cannot overlook the main museum of the city, the Ashmolean, and there are many other museums worth a visit. So it is not without great consideration that I would move away from home, somewhere that feels like it's coded into my DNA itself. On Saturday I also managed to catch a final game at my beloved Oxford United, we beat Northampton 2-0 so it was nice to end on a victory. I'll have to worry about how best to catch up with the football when I'm out there.

Oxford is not without its flaws, of course, which include a lack of amenities in general and a dearth of independant shops (the recession seems to have been particularly cruel here) particularly for music. Sometimes the students can be a bit of a pain in the arse (many are perfectly pleasant, in my experience, I should say...), there is nothing more frustrating for this local boy than to overhear a conversation in the pub of people pretending to appear self-indulgently intellectual. This can reliably be experienced in the otherwise delightful Eagle and Child pub, no doubt the reason for misguided conversations of the wannabe intellegientsia is due to the venue being the pub of choice for The Inklings.

I will of course, greatly miss friends and family most of all, but efforts will always be made by and to those that matter the most, I would wish not to dwell on such thoughts for now as it is alien territory, but the fact is I don't get to socialise with many people as much as I'd like to anyway so all that is required is some careful planning. Unfortunately, christmas has been a bit of a bust this year and I haven't written any cards or bought and presents, which I feel bad about, but at least I have a good excuse I think! I sit here writing this, with time ticking by, trying to cram in a few of my favourite things while I still can. First and foremost I have David Attenborough's latest series, Frozen Planet, recorded and am trying to complete it before heading off, managed to squeeze in four episodes on Saturday morning and I have about 1 to finish! Attenborough is a personal hero and I can leave the country with the satisfaction of having met him briefly at a book signing a couple of years ago.

With bags yet to be packed and many last-minute arrangements to fulfil, I long for a moment at some point in the future (hopefully not-so-distant future...) where I am relaxed (preferably with a satisfying beverage), letting out a big sigh of relief that everything worked out just fine. With so much going on it has been hard not to drown in an ocean of stress and there will no doubt be difficult moments as I try to adjust, but there is much to look forward to and I am looking forward to living a new chapter in my life. As much as I love where I am from, this has made me realise a desire to experience something different. I will be back at least once a year so whilst there are many things and people I feel as though I didn't quite get time for, there will hopefully be other opportunities. My goodbyes have unfortunately been as inadequate as this blog, but the arrow of time only goes forward, and it is time to look that way...

First image in this post is by the amazing Terry Border

Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011

I woke up this morning to the terrible, but not unexpected news, that Christopher Hitchens had passed away.

Hitch (always Christopher, never Chris) was a man of outstanding intellect and his mastery of the English language was, in my experience, unsurpassed by anyone. Reading his words and hearing his voice was like having a intravenous drip of knowledge delivered straight to your very core. Hitch's greatest weapon, for me, was his ability to make you think about a subject, even if you vehemently disagreed with his stance on something you had to admire his ability to make a compelling argument on just about anything.

Christopher was diagnosed with stage 4 oesophageal cancer in June 2010 ("there is no stage 5", he remarked), who knows if it was a result of his lifestyle, it was rare up to that point to see a picture of the man without a cigarette or a drink, but his father also died of the same disease so perhaps his genes are to blame.

His tour-de-force, in my opinion, was 2007's God Is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything. But his attacks on people like Mother Theresa should also not be forgotten and showed just how much damage she did as opposed to good.

Many people are wary of Hitch's political yo-yo performance over the years, but the left-right sides of politics should be much more blurred than what they are and he showed this over the years, I think. It seems almost ridiculous that you can often take a subject and predict someone's political leanings based on their answer (abortion, education, etc, etc) but each subject should be tackled on its own merits and people tend to stick to political ideologies through stubbornness.

One of the four horsemen of New Atheism (self-proclaimed by Hitch as he knew they would only be given a name by someone else at some stage) along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Dan Dennett, Hitch's performance in religious debates leaves a trail of defeated opponents that would make even a vengeful deity proud.

So often were his opponents left realing after a verbal knockout, the term Hitchslap was born.

This particular performance is a snippet from a debate he had alongside Stephen Fry, against Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop Onaiyekan (you can find the whole debate on youtube, search for Christopher Hitchens Stephen Fry Intelligence Squared or something similar).

While his support of the Iraq war surprised some and lost him some friends and allies, it is easy to understand why he supported it. Throughout his life the one thing you can say he was absolutely consistent with regards to a subject was his disgust of anything totalitarian in nature. This was his biggest gripe towards religion, the unjustified worship, the need to be subservient to a dictator that was not elected, he compared heaven to a celestial North Korea.


The world has lost a great intellectual and possibly our most devastatingly intellectually honest writer. He passed away with an unrivaled dignity. He never wavered during his illness, honest until the end. His last article on Vanity Fair titled Trial of the Will in particular is a brutal exercise in realising one's own mortality. But while some argue there are no atheists in foxholes, Christopher continued to prove many people wrong about such notions.

It is our office christmas party tonight, and I shall be having a contemplative toast in his honour, and if the bar has any Johnnie Walker Black Label then all the better. Christopher, thank you.

The Better Angels of Our Nature

We are constantly bombarded from all directions with news stories and images of various atrocities throughout the world, so it's no surprise that when someone claims that we're actually living in the most peaceful time in human history, a few heads are turned. This is the claim that cognitive scientist, Steven Pinker, has made in his latest book, The Better Angels of Our Nature.

I haven't read the book yet and am looking forward to doing so (it is a whopping 800-or-so pages, but such a subject is deserving of a full analysis). I did, however, have the pleasure of seeing him do a lecture about his new book at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford on the 3rd of November. Unfortunately it wasn't possible for Steven to use a screen to emphasise some of his points with various charts and images, but it just made for more emphasis on what he actually had to say. While violence has not decreased to 0 and there are no guarantees that violence will not increase again in the future, there are reasons to be cheerful.

It seems Pinker has the empirical evidence to back up his claims (the list of source data is hefty), even the catastrophic wars and regimes of the 20th century are part of this decline in violence, it almost seems natural to think that it was the most violent time in human history, but as a % of the world population, World War II barely scrapes into the top ten of the most horrible events of all time. People never seem to cite pre-20th century atrocities in the first place (the Triple Alliance War is thought to have decimated 60% of the population of Paraguay, for example). To justify his claims, Pinker has to account for violent deaths as a % of the world population which may seem a copout for some who could say that a rise in the absolute number of violent deaths would be cause for concern (WWII is the deadliest in terms of absolute numbers), but it's the only fair way to gauge violence over the ages. If you consider that % of world population is not a fair measurement you run into some problems (both morally and rationally). Here is a passage of the book that goes a little way to explaining why a violent deaths as a % of world population is the best way to measure violence over history:

As I note in the book,  “Part of the bargain of being alive is that one takes a chance at dying a premature or painful death, be it from violence, accident, or disease. So the number of people in a given time and place who enjoy full lives has to be counted as a moral good, against which we calibrate the moral bad of the number who are victims of violence. Another way of expressing this frame of mind is to ask, `If I were one of the people who were alive in a particular era, what would be the chances that I would be a victim of violence?’ [Either way, we are led to] the conclusion that in comparing the harmfulness of violence across societies, we should focus on the rate, rather than the number, of violent acts.”

There are many reasons speculated for the decline of violence, abolition of slavery (as of 1980 slavery is now illegal everywhere on the planet) and witchunts, humanitarian and equal rights movements, etc. Printing and literacy get high praise and other enlightenment values, when knowledge and reason have surpassed superstition and ignorance then there is no reason to be violent towards certain groups. Also the increase of literacy can increase the amount of empathy in the world, imagining what it is like to be someone else, is cited as a potential reason. Pinker shows that human nature is complex and while we still have inclinations to be violent, we also have historical circumstances that favour peaceful intentions.

This is not the lecture I witnessed but it is the lecture with which he is currently touring:

I got my books signed afterward (I also have a copy of Words and Rules) and he was kind enough to pose for a photo. It's also interesting to know that Pinker carries a gene that causes baldness in 80% in carriers, clearly he is in the 20%!

So, if Pinker is right (and I think he is), we should be optimistic and even more grateful for enlightenment principles than perhaps we take for granted, but it's important to remember that there is no guarantee that violence will continue to decrease and it would seem foolish to ever speculate it would become 0 (a point he stresses himself). It seems while we need to concentrate on what we as a species has done "right" over history to drive violence down, we shouldn't get complacent. It strikes me that while idiotic ideologies are still rife in the world, coupled with an increase in technology, it may become possible for fewer people to inflict more destruction on more people with less effort. While we still have irrational superstition in the world, and people who are willing to kill in the name of iron age mythology, we have reason to be wary. It seems obvious that reason and rationality will be the driving force towards a more peaceful future if we are to reach one on a much larger global scale.

Since this post, I have read the book, my review is here.

My favourite video games

I found an article from a couple of years ago that I wrote about my favourite video games, and while I'm in the process of writing a few new articles for this blog (and I'd love to hear any suggestions about other subjects that might be interesting), I thought this would be a handy stop-gap.

When compiling this list, I found myself being drawn into nostalgia, perhaps because I have many more childhood memories with games than I did with other things, anyway, nostalgia or not I have picked games that I have enjoyed immensely since my earliest memories. My main criteria was “how much time did I / do I spend playing this game?” and while the order is fairly loose, I think it’s accurate.

Sensible World of Soccer (PC): This had to be number one, the first Sensible Soccer game was also brilliant, but Sensible World of Soccer added a new element, with tweaked gameplay but the best thing was you could select a team to manage, you could get promoted / relegated, make transfers, it had all the cups, etc. It was just brilliant, a strikeforce of Bebeto and surprise package Gordon Watson (anyone remember him?) who cost a bargain £325k... I was so into this game that I documented my entire 20-season (that's how long it would let you go in one game) history, including all player appearances and goals, transfers in and out, etc, etc. I had 2 A4 binders of the stuff, I think they're still in the attic. I doubt I have racked up more hours on any other game, and I would have thrashed the pants off anybody, I should have entered tournaments.

Counter Strike (PC): Of course, this had to be in here, given that I'm in a clan that is(was) dedicated to the game. I started playing in 1999, I think, when it was CS version 1.3. Many updates have since come and gone but the popularity of the game is still staggering. An online first-person shoot 'em 'up, simple goodies (Counter-Terrorists) versus Baddies (Terrorists), in a variety of maps, simply fantastic times although the family-community that is VMK possibly puts this game higher than it would if it were strictly on a gameplaying basis alone.

Football Manager / Championship Manager (PC): Any longterm fans of this series will know about the split between Football Manager and Championship manager (Football Manager is now very much the title to chose from) but they used to be one and the same. And I couldn't pick between an individual release so it's the whole lot I'm talking about here. I would lose days playing these games, always attempting to drag Oxford (much like in Sensible World of Soccer come to think of it) from the depths of the football league to domestic and European glory. Many people simply don't understand the idea of playing games like these where you don't really "play" the games themselves, but those of us with he bug know what it's about. In one game I even edited myself into the team as a youngster, although I made myself so good that I refused to sign a new contract and buggered off to a bigger club. Lesson learned. It was probably Championship Manager 3 that I have spent most my time on.

Pro Evolution Soccer (PS1 to present day, PS3): When this series started, it began as International Superstar Soccer but in more recent years morphed into Pro Evolution Soccer. The series as a whole has largely been excellent and continues to be lapped up in large numbers with each release. Although recent years has seen Fifa become arguably a better game in the last couple of years, I'm hopeful that Pro Evo can claw back the title of best football game. Playing this against friends had led to many laughs, and many insults!

Mechwarrior 2 (PC): What could be more fun than rumbling around in a giant robot blowing things up? Not many things. Mechwarrior 2 brought with it a sense of graphical awe at the time and this was a very skilful game to play with so many ways you could twist and turn your Mech, the thought of being able to move in one direction but swivel your body in another was great fun. My Dad and I and would play this together usually, I would be in control of the movement while he was the weapons man, and we still joke about him using an AC-20 like it was a machine gun, fun times.

Savage Empire (PC – 386 processor days): Savage Empire was a huge and complex RPG (especially for the time), set in an unknown Jungle land filled with dinosaurs and various tribes, the ultimate goal of the game is to get all the tribes to unite and destroy some kind of evil race. Of course each tribe has its own tasks you have to fulfil before they will join in with your unity, ranging from finding stuff, to killing a T-rex, etc, this game was huge, and fun, and very difficult. You had to communicate with computer characters by typing stuff in, which was also fun but made things difficult if you couldn’t find the right words to say to get more information (imagine how long it took before you even thought of typing the word “unite” for any reason!).

UFO - Enemy Unknown (PC – 486 processor?): This game was immense! Basically you had to save earth from alien invasions, the crux of the game was a turn-based strategy game while in contact with the enemy, but you also had to build up a base, research technology, keep various countries happy (you had a budget each month, the more you kept a country happy the more money they gave you) and just about handle everything you could imagine that would be thrown at you. I’m not sure another game has created such suspense as this.

Quake 2 (PC): Another FPS game but Quake II successfully attempted to bridge a gap between FPS shooters and task-based RPG games while also kicking things up a gear with impressive graphics.

Streetfighter 2: Championship Edition (Mega drive): The best fighting game, who hasn’t heard of Street Fighter? Anyway, this version in particular was the one that caught my fancy. Funnily enough I bought my younger brother one of those things that are essentially a control-pad that you stick into the TV and it has a game on it (imagine back in the day, 1993, that a whole console was needed to play this game), anyway a few months later he was playing it when I visited and he completely kicked my arse. It was a bit like the young pretender finally taking the crown of game-playing, a sad feeling, still, I taught him well.

Gauntlet (Amstrad CPC464): Spent many a day with this, usually playing with my brother, who tended to be the wizard, I would tend to (and have tended to ever since when it comes to games of this ilk) play as the barbarian. Gauntlet was a fantasy hack ‘n’ slash game, you had a birdseye-view, the graphics were simple and the game was hugely playable. The purpose of the game was simply to escape each level, finding the exit after a myriad of dead-ends and huge variety of monsters, if you ever saw “Death” chasing after you (I always thought it looked like a gorilla) then you had to just run! The game never actually ended, to my knowledge, after a certain point the levels would just randomly generate. And if you ever got stuck, you could just sit in the same place for an age (seriously, it felt like hours) and every block would turn into an exit!

Monkey Island 2 (PC): The best adventure game ever, enough said. If you ever played this game then you’ll know just how fun, and difficult it was.

Dune 2 (PC - 486): I’m not sure how many people played this game but it is one of the most influential games ever and essentially established the real-time-strategy games that most people later took for granted like Command & Conquer and Starcraft.

Duke Nukem 3D (PC): “It’s time to kick arse and chew bubblegum, and I’m all out of gum”, those opening lines will always be remembered. Duke Nukem blew away the previous competition (Doom II) with the added ability of being able to jump and explore much more of the world you played in. We used to design levels for this at college and have big multi-player games (sometimes in lesson!) in the same room, very fond memories. It’s also where I decided on my first game name, Albatross, though that changed when Counterstrike came along.

V-Rally 2 (PS1): Many laughs were had with friends playing this game, you could play 4-player split-screen, obviously this is before the age of mega-TVs being more obtainable so 4 people sharing a 20” screen didn’t leave you with a lot of room to look at! However, it was great fun and the single-player game was also mesmerising, not to mention one of the most unforgiving games you’ll ever play, it wouldn’t take much to knock you flying although when you became more skilled at the game it made you appreciate it much more.

Baldur's Gate (PS2): This series of games is significant in the sense that my wife will happily play them, so I get to game without getting moaned at! Balders gate is your typical walk-around hack and slash RPG, but it’s done very well.

Micro Machines up to and including V3 (Megadrive – PS1): The first game I can remember that allowed you to play with more than 2 people at one time (the cartridge housed 2 extra controller slots), brilliant! So you’re racing along against your friends and basically if anyone falls so far behind that they disappear from the screen then they lose a life, which made for great entertainment. The 3V sequel took things to another level with the 3D element of the game, although the original was equally playable.

Double Dragon (Amstrad CPC464): Scrolling beat ‘em up game, basic, but brilliant, and at the end of the game after playing co-op through the whole bloody thing you had to fight each other to get the girl, needless to say when my older brother and I would play this game the fight at the end would sometimes turn into a real fight.

Tomb Raider (PS1): This is brought platform games into the modern world, gone were linear 2-cd landscapes, enter fantastic (at the time) 3D graphics and all sorts of difficult situations in your way.

Bioshock (PS3): One of the current-generation releases in my list, this game reignited my love of single-player FPS games, that had been on the wane since Quake II.

Silkworm (Amstrad CPC464): Another game I would play with my Dad, one of you could be a helicopter, the other could be a jeep, a basic scrolling shoot ‘em up game but great fun.

Descent 1 & 2 (PC - 486): Another FPS-type game but this time you had control of a small ship in often claustrophobic surroundings, the controls were fantastic, given you complete control with its 6DOF (six degrees of freedom) gameplay. This spawned the ultimately superior “Forsaken”, but Descent was where it began.

International Track and Field (PS1): Another communal game, the rivalry my friends and I had on this game was stupendous and also led to many different playing “styles”, I invented the fleece technique, by wrapping my finger up in my fleece I could glide over the buttons with great speed rather than trying to tap each one separately.

Honourable mentions:

Resident Evil (PS1):

Sonic the Hedgehog (Master System)

Diablo (PC)

Speedball 2 (Mega Drive)

Book review: Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape

The Moral Landscape (How Science Can Determine Human Values) by Sam Harris

 

This is the first of Sam’s books I have read but it certainly won’t be the last (in fact I ordered The End of Faith at the start of the week). The book is about the concept of a science of morality based on the well being of conscious creatures, made possible as we begin to understand more and more about everything that happens at the level of the brain. Using a baseline of the worst possible suffering for the longest amount of time (for everybody), we can see that all experience moves up or down this landscape Sam has created (if one does not want to avoid the worst possible misery for everyone for the longest possible time, then I don’t know what you’re talking about, and more importantly I don’t think you know what you’re talking about either). Everything we do that is worth talking about is something that alters our consciousness (mostly very little, other times hugely so) and anything that affects consciousness is happening at the level of the brain.

I had the pleasure of getting tickets for an evening with event that Sam and Richard Dawkins were doing at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford in April earlier this year. I hadn’t yet read the book, in fact I only picked it up earlier that same day so I could get it signed afterwards. The talk was filmed and you can watch it here on youtube:

The talk is a good primer for the book (and while some people have attacked his idea as another form of utilitarianism, I think the tour he has done in support of this book shows he is not guilty of this), and of course some of his introduction is almost a direct lifting from it (as you would expect), but the book certainly goes into more detail. If I were to note a slight disappointment then it would be that I was expecting perhaps a bit more on the technical aspect of the brain given Sam’s expertise in neuroscience, though there is plenty about the brain and his FMRI experiments and it's these moments where the book is most compelling. Regardless, the book left me wanting more in that regard (better that way than bore me to tears), Sam writes with a razor sharp clarity and shows the fallacy of religious moral teachings admirably, if religion is ever right, it’s right by accident.

The criticism towards the book comes from a misunderstanding of the matter in my opinion, Sam has not written (or attempted to write) a book that has all the answers, merely opening the door and exploring how and why we should be able to deride moral values from science. Perhaps this humility is disappointing for some people. It’s a liberating idea and not one that should be met with scorn, he makes plenty of analogies towards a science of physical health, when Doctors tell us things like “smoking causes lung cancer”, we don’t picture this as hostile men in white coats telling us how to live our lives in some kind of Orwellian horror show. Indeed, physical health itself is difficult to define but we don’t doubt that a science of medicine is based on physical health, and so we should deal with moral science in a similar way. Sam points out the blurred lines between facts and values as processed by the brain (this is why beliefs matter so much), how we should not confuse a position between not having answers in practice and not having answers in principle, and how there will doubtless be many different ways to travel up and down the moral landscape regarding the same questions. Harris has responded to the most compelling criticisms of his book on his website - http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-critics/

It’s a huge topic that should be taken seriously, in my opinion, and hopefully The Moral Landscape is a means towards a rational dialogue on the matter.

8/10

I'd also urge you to read Sam's blog which never fails to make you think.

Anna Calvi: Artist and album review

 Water Rats, London - July 2009

I first saw Anna Calvi supporting Carina Round (whom I also first experienced as a support act, opening for Gutter Twins) in July 2009 at the Water Rats. She was jaw-droppingly good, cue close to two years waiting impatiently for her self-titled debut album to be released on Domino Records...

The record remains one of, if not the strongest release of 2011 and has what seems a rare sense of identity and confidence seldom seen from a debut these days. It's been described as a dark record and while one could easily nod in agreement to that statement, it perhaps conjures the wrong impression, yes it's dark on occasion but I find it a beautiful and uplifting effort. Anna knows when to leave space for the songs to breathe and other moments to let the music soar to a natural crescendo. It's the ease with which Anna is comfortable in such a wide dynamic range and volume that demands attention from the listener, and it's certainly an album that rewards any attention you can afford. When it's all too easy for music to become a bit more disposable in this digital age, it's seemingly hard to make time to just sit down and listen to something, but I assure you, dear readers, this deserves your time.

Having first experienced Anna in a live setting, you can't help but be struck at how incredible her guitar playing skills are, this virtuousity appears in a more subtle form on the record overall, so I would certainly urge you to catch her live if at all possible. Though this is not to say these studio versions are in any way watered down, there's just something about the intensity and passion with which she performs live and her range of skills from classical to flamenco, rock and blues become overtly evident.

Oxford - May 2011 

Anna is complimented by drummer/backing vocalist Daniel Maiden-Wood, who dominates his modest setup and knows just the right moments to add a bit of flare or drive a song forward. Mally Harpaz completes the lineup, mostly playing the harmonium (that's an instrument you don't see all that often) but also contributes with other instruments and additional percussion.

Calvi's vocals are reminiscent of some of my favourite singers such Jeff Buckley and PJ Harvey (unfortunately it seems to be quite hard to be a good female singer without being compared to the great Polly Jean at some point...) among others.

The album kicks off with a low-key guitar instrumental, Rider to the Sea, which hints towards an Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western standoff. Desire is the second single release from the record, Calvi uses phrases like "the devil" as personal metaphors and this song features Brian Eno, who is a huge fan. Desire has a real drive to it while it's also hard not to be entranced with the perfect production on the record, you get some sense of euphoria as she belts out the chorus while the song builds to a triumphant finale.

My personal favourite song on the album is Suzanne And I, I love the pounding drums and the perfect guitar sound, it's a real victory and as you hear the album unfold you feel as though the band have really agonised over every single second of every song, they must all take their art very seriously but do so in a way that doesn't come across as pretentious. Listening to interviews where Anna is so mild and softly-spoken you wonder how she must flip some kind of mental switch to project such a powerful and commanding vocal when singing.

Oxford - May 2011  

The Devil certainly evokes the Jeff Buckley reference I made earlier and it's these quiet, reflective songs that really draw you in, immersed in the space between each note, aching for the next snare hit like listening to the best slowcore can offer. The mood perks up again with the album's debut single, Blackout, which features some rare bass guitar but at this point that only emphasises how little the presence of a bottom-end has been missed (and this coming from someone who plays bass).

I think this performance of Love Won't Be Leaving (from the TV show Live From Abbey Road, the song starts at 1:21) showcases Anna's all-round qualities, the dynamic range I spoke of, great voice and the blistering guitar solo is something to behold. Please give it your time, I do wish the extended mid-section was on the record. The only word I can use is blistering!

I wanted to get this blog piece done in time to predict that Anna would get nominated for the 2011 Mercury Prize - I couldn't really care less about it, but people do usually get some extra exposure from it, which will hopefully be the case here. There's something old and new that Anna is doing and I imagine I will continue to be entranced by her and hope she has a long career, let's hope she isn't put under too much pressure and allowed to flourish on her own terms.

Oxford - May 2011  

All photos taken by me apart from the album cover.

Misconceptions of Atheism

(Image by Terry Border)

The term atheist strikes many different emotional chords which usually depend on a person’s own feelings towards the existence of deities (all across the scale from the major religions to simple deism and even agnostics). I want to convey what it actually means to be an atheist, and the unfortunate misconceptions that people tend to have towards the subject of atheism.

So, let’s start off with what atheism is. There is only one thing that makes someone an atheist, and that is the lack of belief in the existence of deities. Aside from this relatively simple criteria, atheists are free to think and do as they wish (though atheism is no free pass to anarchy!). This is a very liberating position in which to be.

It’s true that as a consequence of not believing in the existence of god (or gods, but from this point on I will specify god as a singular entity as not to continually repeat myself) there are likely and logical conclusions that the majority of atheists will share. Agreeing or disagreeing with other atheists does not make one a bigger/better or lesser atheist, however. You can’t sort-of believe in a god, anything greater than 0 (the number of gods one believes in) is not atheism. People also confuse atheism with secularism (separation of church and state) or humanism, which is a non-religious belief system. Atheism needn’t be confused with either as many religious people are secularists, seeing the benefit of a church/state separation and atheists needn’t adhere to any particular belief system.

“But why aren’t you agnostic?” - One of the more common attacks on atheists is that we’re sure that there is no god, how arrogant! We’re all atheists with regards to Zeus, Poseidon, Neptune or any of the numerable gods that are no longer considered in our current discourse. The only difference between atheists and monotheists is that we have gone one god further. Theists (and I would urge, agnostics) only need to understand why they themselves do not believe in any number of other gods to realise why we don’t believe in theirs. Which position holds greater arrogance - the one that doesn’t believe the universe was created by a deity with only our benefit in mind, or the one that does? We also don’t make or have materials to make claims about physics, chemistry or biology that not even the greatest scientists currently know.

And yet, people who criticise religion are often claimed to be little more than disrespectful bullies. This is usually a last resort from a theist or religious apologist. Similar low-blows include claiming that atheism is just another religion or that there are fundamental atheists, it’s funny to consider that such desperation is little more than saying you’re just as bad as we are! However, atheism is not a religion (how could it be? Consider whether not collecting stamps is a hobby, for example) nor a belief system or a way to live ones life, and if there are atheist fundamentalists this is a case for fundamentalism being wrong, not atheism. When criticising religion I believe it is important to recognise a couple of things: Criticise the idea, not the individual – ignorance is not a crime and neither is stupidity, we are all ignorant and stupid with regards to many subjects and every single person is capable of being the victim of delusion. We can only hope that people are honest enough to look at evidence and come to a realistic conclusion when better reasons appear to believe something (in other words; ignorance is redeemable, but choosing to remain ignorant is indefensible). Secondly, one has to realise that when criticising religion, all people are doing is delivering rational critique, ridicule and satire in the same manner that everybody else does when it comes to every other topic available to us, and hope that people have the requisite mental capacity to deal with that as they would in those other topics (this to me, is nothing but a mark of respect). People who scream about intolerance and lack of respect must recognise hypocrisy whenever they use these tools elsewhere. 

 (Images from the Hubble Telescope)

 

I’ve heard that atheists see no wonder or mystery in the world by reducing everything to a material/mechanical level – Science may tell us how things work or what things are, but this does not take away any beauty in reality. Stars and galaxies are no less awe inspiring just because the god of Abraham didn’t click his fingers and make them. The flora and fauna on this planet are no less miraculous having ultimately evolved from a common single-cell organism billions of years ago. There is beauty and awe for all to see in every direction, past and present. Flying horses and burning bushes cannot hold a candle to the images we are treated to of space (see images above). Atheists can be spiritual, have spiritual experiences and appreciate the numinous - these words need not be linked with the supernatural.

Consider the crimes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc - often cited as criticisms towards atheistic or secular societies. The problem with these monstrous dictators of the 20^th century were not that they were the opposite of religion, they were too much like a religion! Any form of totalitarianism is a very, very bad thing indeed (as well as dogmatism/fundamentalism, these are the greatest crimes of which the human mind is capable). It’s also worth noting that wherever there is fascism in history, the catholic church doesn’t tend to be very far behind. It has been said elsewhere, but no society has ever suffered for being too reasonable.

Thankfully the notion that atheists have no sense of morality has long been quashed but it does crop up from time to time. There is no genuine moral action that a person of faith could undertake (because of their faith) that a non-believer could not. However, there are numerous immoral actions that religious people have undertaken because of their doctrine. Do people who make these claims on morality think that they themselves would be raping and pillaging were they to stop believing? This line of reckoning strikes me as having little confidence in their own moral compass. The golden rule, and versions of it, has been in many cultures throughout history much earlier than many appear to give it credit. We have great evolutionary reasons for our innate sense of right and wrong.

My own path to atheism? I suppose I can’t remember a time where I did truly believe in a deity, I don’t remember a eureka moment where I suddenly decided that religion couldn’t possibly be true, or that any of the numerous gods were simply man-made. I remember at primary school, dreading that we had to waste our time in communal prayer at assembly every day (basically forcing all the children in the school into a single room to utter the lords prayer among other bible stories), perhaps this early attempt by society to unjustifiably force worship down our throats was the beginning of my critical thinking (in which case I should be grateful?), but how many were lost to this seduction? Skipping ahead a few years into my first few days of secondary school, our first lesson in Religious Education (compulsory in schools, which I don’t disagree with, but it should be taught purely in a historical and cultural context. The King James Bible in particular is a fine work of literature with which one must be familiar to appreciate the English language at all) and our homework was to draw god. I failed to complete this task as the teacher said it was due for not the next lesson but the lesson after, yet called for the work in the next lesson and was angry when I said I hadn’t done it (not my fault!). Since the rest of the class had already completed the work, my god page remained blank, with hindsight this seems the best possible answer in any case. I don’t even remember ever hearing the word atheist until I heard Captain Sensible mention The God Delusion with praise at a Damned Gig back in 2006 (I got the book as a present the next year), perhaps we shouldn’t even have a word for atheism, we don’t feel compelled to describe ourselves as non-racist, for example. I’m happy to call myself an atheist given the current zeitgeist, but who knows if culture will change in the future. For the most part, I would argue today that it’s generally considered that most people have a religious belief unless otherwise specified, therefore it feels necessary to have such a label for those that don’t believe. Personally, I can hope for a time in the future where the roles could be reversed - through means of rational inquiry and critical thinking.

There is nothing wrong with having the humility to admit ignorance to things we don’t know, indeed it is a necessary position in all topics until compelling evidence arises (this is the reason why most atheists have come to their conclusion about god - a lack of evidence) and to accept change when yet better evidence becomes available. Let’s be realistic about our ignorance and not give in to the temptation to give credence to fanciful ideas and mere wish thinking, even if a religion may help someone behave kindly, there are surely better reasons, and reasons where one doesn’t have to cherry pick and ignore numerous acts of cruelty. One should be able to take influence from their religion (if they have one) the same way that one can take influence from anywhere. Claiming that holy books are the word of god is an unjustifiable and immoral position, and is one of intellectual dishonesty we can ill afford. Who knows, one particular religion may be right, but let’s not fool ourselves in the face of the evidence we currently have and the great lengths our species has gone to achieve it.

Desert Island Discs

Hello and welcome to Some Other Sucker's Parade! I hope this blog will be of interest and I plan on keeping an account of my interests in music, science, ethics and whatever subjects takes my fancy.

My first blog entry will be that of a long-standing tradition. I confess ignorance to the actual broadcasts, having never listened to any, yet the format is so ingrained in our culture that it should need no introduction. For the uninitiated, the point of this self-indulgent exercise is to choose 8 songs that have been of influence to you (one is tempted to pick the 8 current favourites at the time of writing, but it’s more interesting to have some other reasons), one book and a luxury item (for yet more information, see the official website). Of course, many of us may spend too much time considering the importance of food, shelter and creative ways to pick a luxury item (such as an industrial city…) upon finding oneself stranded on a desert island, but pragmatism plays no part in this game and we shall leave such rational thoughts at the door.

For a brief biographical introduction, I was born in 1982 in Oxford to young parents even for the time (doubly-so considering I am the middle offspring of three). I wasn’t musical at all in my youth and there may be many reasons for this, though I tend to think it most rational to conclude that the popular music of the time was simply rather inferior. This is a bold statement of course and many great artists from the 80s reveal themselves with little investigation, however, my own memories of the music of my youth remain ghastly entries from the likes of Journey, Foreigner, etc and if you quizzed my 7-year old self in 1989 I can say in all certainty I could not name another person associated with music other than Michael Jackson. It is no wonder I was so late to the party…

It wasn’t for the want of trying (I presume) or even exposure to music itself, music seemed to be on very frequently, either on the radio or my parent’s choice of record, it’s just that nothing clicked. I envy the stories most people can tell of early musical gifts, rifling through parents/siblings musical collections (with or without permission), poring over record sleeves and anticipating the crackle of needle-on-vinyl, these experiences are simply not present in my early years. In any case, it’s hard to look back on these missed opportunities of youth with too much regret for I have since made up for it, and perhaps I would not have the love I do for music had I followed a different path.

1 – REM – Man on the Moon:

My first entry will be the first song of any kind I can remember actively enjoying and for this I have to fast-forward to the ripe old age of 10, though it would still be a few years before music would become terribly important to me. The song is Man on the Moon by REM, I cannot explicitly remember the first time I heard it but I do so vividly remember being in primary school one day and having it in my head, the first song I can remember ever being trapped in there and the realisation that it was a pleasurable experience was a striking one. To this day I dearly love REM and it is hard to be objectionable about their output, the only album I wouldn’t rank highly is the rather turgid Around the Sun, though no doubt when I listen to it I probably still enjoy it.

 

The song may not change the world, it may not even be one of REM’s best but every time I hear it I can’t help but be filled with giddy excitement. The marriage of acoustic and electric guitars, all the background harmonies and I just love amazingly simple chorus (and the drum introduction to the chorus, there must be a word in drumming where the drummer hits a drum (in this case, the snare) with both sticks at the same time?), has there been a set of cymbals produced with such clarity as this song? I don’t know. Moral to the story to this point – music is good!

2 – Del Amitri – Be My Downfall:

My second entry will be from Del Amitri, I was starting to like music a little more after hearing Man on the Moon and some other assorted songs (for my sins I include Two Princes by the Spin Doctors in that assortment, we all have our guilty pleasures) but when I heard Del Amitri at aged 14 I suddenly loved music. The missing link in my musical evolution up to that point, there are few who share my deep passion for this band and it was a point of ridicule at secondary school. Del Amitri are not cool, never have been and never will be and that’s perhaps one of the reasons I relate to their songs, though it is not the root cause. I could wax lyrical about the reasons I came to love their music (perhaps more worthy of a separate blog entry), from Justin Currie’s masterful wordplay, as if he was writing for me (though having never had a relationship at that stage of my life, I could only relate to what I thought relationships and loneliness would feel like!), to Iain Harvie's guitar parts, to any number of reasons, but something in my mind clicked the day I listened to a cassette tape of Change Everything. I’d actually listened to side B first and was instantly converted with songs such as The Ones That You Love Lead You Nowhere, Always the Last to Know, etc, etc, but upon flipping to side A I was greeted with Be My Downfall and I remember noticing the lyrics to a song for the first time and what a profound effect they could have on the listener. Suddenly, a lyric like the bus is pulling out and I guess I’d better go, before I make a grave mistake and let my feeling show had a visual, emotional and melodic resonance to which I had not previously experienced.

Del Amitri - Be My Downfall

I can not overstate the importance Del Amitri had on my appreciation of music for which I will always be grateful, or perhaps given the thousands of pounds I have since spent on music I should not be grateful! If I were picking a desert island album then I suspect 1995’s Twisted will forever be my number 1, but Be My Downfall was certainly the catalyst from which all my love of music has spawned. Moral to the story to this point – music can be life changing (also add - lyrics can radically enhance the experience)

3 – Rush – 2112:

So, where to go from there? All personal experience from music would appear less important from that moment, but this needn’t be the case. When you are so obsessed with one particular band so much it is hard to think you’ll ever listen to anything else! But my attention was soon to be divided by Rush, what’s odd about my love for Rush is that I hated them for years, but a slow war of attrition was won by this Canadian trio. What’s more interesting is that it was the same song that caused so much discomfort to my ears that was the one I came to obsess over, and that is 2112. I think the biggest problem I always had with the band was Geddy Lee’s banshee wail, and perhaps it’s the reason that 2112: Overture was the point that swung the balance, I was hypnotised by it… DA-DA, DA-DA-DARRRRR… DA! DADADA! It was a combination of musical virtuosity and energy that perhaps I was not ready for. After this point, the rest of 2112 became the next phase to appreciate. Clearly, I was not ready for Geddy Lee’s shrieking vocal, but it was not long before mere intolerance became tolerance, which later turned into great appreciation. The other striking revelation was the ability of Geddy’s bass playing, there probably is no greater contrast of bass players than Justin Currie’s incredibly basic style and Geddy’s fret board acrobatics. Moral to the story up to this point – don’t dismiss anything, opinions can change.

4 - Tim Buckley – Song to the Siren (live on the Monkees TV show)

I am a huge fan of Tim’s son, Jeff (for me, his death is the greatest loss to music, given what he didn’t have time to do) and so it was a natural progression for me to explore his father’s work. I dipped my toe into Tim’s music with the excellent 2-CD anthology, Morning Glory, and having been wowed by both discs I was overcome with emotion on the final song of the second disc. Song to the Siren has been covered by many artists over the years and Buckley’s own studio version is very good, but it’s this acoustic performance on the Monkees TV show that resonates far greater than anything else. When I first heard this it affected me greatly in many ways, the beautiful music and Buckley’s enchanting vocal, but as a recently turned 21-year old, relationships with the opposite sex had always eluded me (I can’t say I blamed them!), though I was besotted with a girl on the other side of the Atlantic ocean with whom I had recently began conversing, the distance and difficulty of which seemed to be exactly like the song. I flung the song on the end of a compilation CD I made as a kind of admission, for I was far too shy to show my feelings. Thankfully for me (possibly not so much for her), this girl eventually became my wife and I think we’d both agree that this is our song. Moral to the story – music can connect people and sometimes convey emotions better than individuals.

5 – TV On the Radio – The Wrong Way:

I’ve never taken much influence from reviews and/or magazine articles. Most of my discoveries have been from recommendations of either friends or bands/artists that I admired. There are exceptions, however, and I remember being utterly captivated by an article in a magazine I bought called Plan B, I purchased the magazine because Stephin Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields) was on the front cover but there was an article which described a new band in such an interesting way that I had to check them out. The band was TV On the Radio and their debut album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes was somehow a favourite before even hearing the music. Thankfully I was not to be disappointed! The band’s website advertised a streaming of the album and it kicked off with a bang, The Wrong Way opens with horns and the most sludgy and dirtiest bass sound I had ever heard, there was a confident swagger to the whole thing and a myriad of sounds that were blowing my mind. TV on the Radio remain the greatest band of this millennium and it will be a dramatic day when/if they are knocked off that perch.

6 - Arvo Part – Spiegel Im Spiegel:

I remember a few years ago jotting down a list of artists that Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree) had listed as favourites on his MySpace page (remember those?) and browsing other MySpace pages to see what they sounded like. After sifting through a variety of what you could call the good, the bad and the ugly, I was utterly mesmerized by Spiegel Im Spiegel by Arvo Part, there are many recordings of this piece but by far the best are the ones on the Alina record and it is without hesitation these days when I say that this is my favourite piece of music. It is a devastatingly beautiful and relatively simple piece of music and it would be guilty of all clichéd praise such as tugging at the heart strings, but if anything it causes a gentle caress of the tear ducts, I don’t think I’ve failed to lacrimate upon hearing it. Part created the tintinnabular style of composition, of which this is a wonderful example. Moral of the story – always have a tissue nearby.

7 – Unida – Black Woman:

If I’m stuck on a desert island I imagine that sometimes I am just going to be fed up and in need of an injection of energy and there’s no better man for the job than John Garcia. Garcia is best known as the front man of the sadly departed band Kyuss (I’m not sure if the newly reformed Kyuss Lives is quite the real deal, but no doubt a lot of fun), while Josh Homme has achieved much critical acclaim since the demise of Kyuss, Garcia has quietly been releasing material of far greater worth. Unida represent Garcia at his peak and Black Woman is a face-ripping 5-minute onslaught of the senses. If I’m on a desert island, I should have some desert rock! This song appears on my favourite stoner/desert rock album of all time, Coping with the Urban Coyote. Moral to the story - never forget your inner rock!

8 – The Flirtations – Nothing but a Heartache:

My final entry will be my current favourite song of all time which I heard on a cold evening in October (2010), having acquired the rhino boxset One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found, a 120-track 4-CD essential collection (buy it!). After hearing Nothing But a Heartache by The Flirtations for the first time… words seem inappropriate... perhaps I was under a delusion, thankfully I had the benefit of simply repeating the experiment again, was it really that good? The answer was an emphatic yes, it was that good, in fact, it was better! My love of soul music has taken off in the last year and this song has been the driving force of my obsession. The group never bettered this song but there’s a compilation called Sounds Like the Flirtations that is well worth a purchase. Moral to the story – never stop searching for new musical experiences. I made reference to being late to the party earlier on, now I feel like Mr Creosote, sometimes I feel like I’m about to burst and yet there’s so much more music I still have to experience! 

What book would I choose? When I said I would be leaving rational thoughts at the door I was perhaps not entirely truthful. My selection of book could be considered a fairly queer entry for those that know me, for it is a book I haven't read. I can’t recall if I’ve ever read a book more than once, there are too many other books I would like to experience. So the thought of being stranded on a desert island with something I’ve already read and enjoyed is a much different proposition than listening to songs I will continue to love again and again. I have a practical agenda for this choice and that is, if I am to be stranded, alone on a desert island for perhaps the rest of my life, I think it’s rational to explore meditation. Even as a staunch atheist I think one has to accept that there just may be something worth exploring when it comes to the art of mental training and introspection. One needn’t put a religious spin on such a practice. Sam Harris (I would very much recommend his book The Moral Landscape and search YouTube for various debates and speeches) has many interesting things to say about meditation (reassuringly so, given his rational mind), culminated in one of his blogs and so I would pick one of the books he recommends: Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana, The Experience of Insight, by Joseph Goldstein or Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Whilst I currently do not have the inclination or time to pursue such practices I can see a great benefit to using ones time, and one has rather a lot of it in this scenario, to exploring the plasticity of the human mind (without giving credence to religious wishful thinking).

And what of a luxury item? If I could get away with such a request (and also assuming that the island I am stranded on has the necessary natural ingredients…) then I think a good luxury item would be some kind of wine-making kit, if my attempts at meditation failed to bear fruit, at least I’d be able to get drunk, bottoms up!