The Soapboxx
Friday, March 16, 2007
Does 'Evil' Have A Face We All Know?
If I said to you: think of something 'evil', what picture forms in your mind?
The Devil? Hitler? Jeremy Beadle?
Now think of something 'good'. What do you see?
Family? A loved one? An animal? God?
The concept of good and evil is, of course, a difficult one to truly define. Indeed, some philosophers argue that both terms are essentially useless because they fall very much into the one man's meat/poison argument: terrorists are 'freedom fighters' in some parts of the Middle East, many religious groups think abortion is 'evil'. Hence, the process of motivation becomes somewhat important in regard to the categorisation.
Wikipedia suggests:
More Wiki on this:
In religious philosophy, the 'problem of evil' concerns itself with the suggestion that a truly good God would not have created a world/universe that contained even the slightest whiff of a hint of a flutter of a glimmer of a shadow of evil. But He clearly did. This is know as the Epicurean paradox.
"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" (Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief).
Looking at this problem from a mathematical perspective, this assumes that God is both benevolent and omnipotent. One formulation of the problem of evil may be schematized as follows:
Therefore, one can conclude that God either does not exist, or is indeed, evil, or partly thereof, which suggests to me that it's not God running the show at all, but rather, his once-close pal, and I suggest possibly the true King: Bill. Z. Bub.
The Devil? Hitler? Jeremy Beadle?
Now think of something 'good'. What do you see?
Family? A loved one? An animal? God?
The concept of good and evil is, of course, a difficult one to truly define. Indeed, some philosophers argue that both terms are essentially useless because they fall very much into the one man's meat/poison argument: terrorists are 'freedom fighters' in some parts of the Middle East, many religious groups think abortion is 'evil'. Hence, the process of motivation becomes somewhat important in regard to the categorisation.
Wikipedia suggests:
Many critics reject the current common usage of the term evil, suggesting that motivation must be taken into account. Thus, they feel it is inappropriate to apply the term to just anyone committing significant acts of violence such as terrorism and mass murder. Only those people motivated by sadism, lust for power or greed of wealth (in many forms) should qualify as evil. That does not mean they think violent acts like terrorism and murder are acceptable, just that perpetrators of those acts should not automatically be labeled evil. Under such applications of the term evil, malicious juveniles and sadistic minors are classified as evil despite their misguided purposes.Which is probably fair enough. I wrote before about whether Hitler consider himself an 'evil man', and inevitably he did not. Whilst most of us probably do, his oft-mentioned redeeming qualities of being a vegetarian and an animal lover probably don't go far enough to save him... but they do perhaps prevent him from being 100 per cent categorically evil in any absolute definition of the term.
There is a school of thought that holds that no person is evil, that only acts may be properly considered evil.
More Wiki on this:
Psychologist and mediator Marshall Rosenberg claims that the root of violence is the very concept of "evil" or "badness." When we label someone as bad or evil Rosenberg claims, it invokes the desire to punish or inflict pain. It also makes it easy for us to turn off our feelings towards the person we are harming. He cites the use of language in Nazi Germany as being a key to how the German people were able to do things to other human beings that they normally wouldn't do. He links the concept of evil to our judicial system, which seeks to create justice via punishment ("punitive justice")- punishing acts that are seen as bad or wrong. He contrasts this approach with what he found in cultures where the idea of evil was non-existant. In such cultures, when someone harms another person, they are believed to be out of harmony with themselves and their community, they are seen as sick or ill and measures are taken to restore them to a sense of harmonious relations with themselves and others, as opposed to punishing them.Perhaps one way to look at true evil is whether the actions are entirely self-serving; most 'evil' beings in history seemed to have some ultimate purpose that benefitted themselves or their race, but this theory excludes those who have no choice but to commit acts that others find verge on the threshhold of evil (i.e., they certainly are not 'good' acts) - stealing food to live, for example, or those people who kill doctors and nurses involved in abortions, or animal experimentation. Essentially these are 'evil acts'. To the perpetrators, they are probably closer to the opposite. In these examples, as detailed above, those involved excuse their actions because they feel they are doing what is essentially right, what is needed, and required. Two wrongs don't make a right, as well all know - or at least are told - but for many, they definitely do.
Psychologist Albert Ellis makes a similar claim, in his school of psychology called Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. He says the root of anger, and the desire to harm someone is always one of the thought: 1) That they should/shouldn't have done certain things 2) That someone is awful/bad/horrible person for doing what they did 3) That they deserve to be punished for what they did.
He claims that without one of the following thoughts, violence is next to impossible.
In religious philosophy, the 'problem of evil' concerns itself with the suggestion that a truly good God would not have created a world/universe that contained even the slightest whiff of a hint of a flutter of a glimmer of a shadow of evil. But He clearly did. This is know as the Epicurean paradox.
"Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. ... If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. ... If, as they say, God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" (Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief).
Looking at this problem from a mathematical perspective, this assumes that God is both benevolent and omnipotent. One formulation of the problem of evil may be schematized as follows:
- If God exists, then there would be no evil in the world.
- There is evil in the world.
- Therefore, God does not exist.
- If P is true, then Q is true
- Q is false
- Therefore, P is false
Therefore, one can conclude that God either does not exist, or is indeed, evil, or partly thereof, which suggests to me that it's not God running the show at all, but rather, his once-close pal, and I suggest possibly the true King: Bill. Z. Bub.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Have A Few Quid To Spare? Fancy A Swimming Pool Full Of Liquid Gold?
Quick - what's the most expensive substance on the planet? Gold, silver, platinum, diamonds...?
Actually, it's something else entirely - Californium. Yeah, Californium. I mean, who comes up with these names? Some bloke in California, I guess. Indeed, Californium was first synthesized by University of California researchers Stanley G. Thompson, Kenneth Street, Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn T. Seaborg in 1950. It was the sixth transuranium element to be discovered - that being, a chemical element with an atomic number greater than that possessed by uranium, which is 92 - and the team announced their discovery on March 17, 1950. Obviously pressed for time, they named it after both the State and the University. It doesn't even occur naturally on Earth, but is, apparently, all over the universe. Just not here. And therefore hence the price tag - at $3.8 billion per troy pound, you won't get much change from a fiver. Bill Gates is supposed to have a personal fortune of some $50 billion, but I'd wager even he would be unlikely to ask for "a couple of pounds of Californium, a dozen eggs and some apples, mate," at his local grocers.
Troy pound? That's 12 troy ounces, each of which is 480 grains. A grain? That's exactly 64 milligrams. Alright, dunderhead?
But the problem here is that even assuming you had access to the sort of money that makes men and women go weak at the knees (but for vastly different reasons), there simply isn't enough Californium around to do anything good with it. So how exactly is a multi-billionaire supposed to impress? Silver's no good - it's far too tacky and the only attention you're likely to attract is from goths. Platinum is kind of the Jerusalem of precious metals - caught in a no-man's land between the other two and nobody really knows what to do with it. So that leaves gold. At the very least, it's nice and shiny.
So, say we could get our hands on a lot, what's the best thing we could do with it? A swimming pool full of liquid gold? Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's out of the reach of everybody on the planet. Apart from maybe the Catholic Church, and I'm not sure that would send out the right message. Let me explain.
A US Olympic pool contains 660,253.09 gallons of water.
There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon.
So 128 x 660,253.09 = 83,232,395.52 ounces in a pool.
Spot Gold, as of 9.22am, March 6, 2007, just traded $643.50 per ounce.
So, an Olympic-sized pool filled with liquid spot gold would cost: $53,560,046,517.12. Or, more precisely, almost $54 billion, or £28 billion in British money.
So, it's not really going to happen, I don't think, but at the very least we can console ourselves by noting that not even Gates himself could swing it; that is, not without a lengthy phone call to Picture ("Yes, I do have a mortgage.")
Actually, it's something else entirely - Californium. Yeah, Californium. I mean, who comes up with these names? Some bloke in California, I guess. Indeed, Californium was first synthesized by University of California researchers Stanley G. Thompson, Kenneth Street, Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn T. Seaborg in 1950. It was the sixth transuranium element to be discovered - that being, a chemical element with an atomic number greater than that possessed by uranium, which is 92 - and the team announced their discovery on March 17, 1950. Obviously pressed for time, they named it after both the State and the University. It doesn't even occur naturally on Earth, but is, apparently, all over the universe. Just not here. And therefore hence the price tag - at $3.8 billion per troy pound, you won't get much change from a fiver. Bill Gates is supposed to have a personal fortune of some $50 billion, but I'd wager even he would be unlikely to ask for "a couple of pounds of Californium, a dozen eggs and some apples, mate," at his local grocers.
Troy pound? That's 12 troy ounces, each of which is 480 grains. A grain? That's exactly 64 milligrams. Alright, dunderhead?
But the problem here is that even assuming you had access to the sort of money that makes men and women go weak at the knees (but for vastly different reasons), there simply isn't enough Californium around to do anything good with it. So how exactly is a multi-billionaire supposed to impress? Silver's no good - it's far too tacky and the only attention you're likely to attract is from goths. Platinum is kind of the Jerusalem of precious metals - caught in a no-man's land between the other two and nobody really knows what to do with it. So that leaves gold. At the very least, it's nice and shiny.
So, say we could get our hands on a lot, what's the best thing we could do with it? A swimming pool full of liquid gold? Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's out of the reach of everybody on the planet. Apart from maybe the Catholic Church, and I'm not sure that would send out the right message. Let me explain.
A US Olympic pool contains 660,253.09 gallons of water.
There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon.
So 128 x 660,253.09 = 83,232,395.52 ounces in a pool.
Spot Gold, as of 9.22am, March 6, 2007, just traded $643.50 per ounce.
So, an Olympic-sized pool filled with liquid spot gold would cost: $53,560,046,517.12. Or, more precisely, almost $54 billion, or £28 billion in British money.
So, it's not really going to happen, I don't think, but at the very least we can console ourselves by noting that not even Gates himself could swing it; that is, not without a lengthy phone call to Picture ("Yes, I do have a mortgage.")
Friday, March 02, 2007
The Perception Of Good And Evil. Or, Did Hitler Think Of Himself As A Monster?
In his autobiography, Carl Panzram, a serial killer in America at the end of 1920s, wrote of himself as 'rage personified'. A prolific thief as well as a murderer, Panzram would often rape the men he robbed not, he claimed, because he was a homosexual, but because it was a way to dominate and humiliate them.
"In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry." —Carl Panzram
Panzram is somewhat unusual in his stance of his position in society. He considered and thought of himself as a bad man; as an evil man. He didn't try and justify his actions and he didn't try and redeem himself in any way. He accepted who he was.
I've often wondered if others in the history of inhumane activity shared this self-analysis; Hitler, for example.
Did Hitler consider himself a bad person? Did he think of himself as a fascist? As a monster? Or did he consider himself a good man. A humanitarian, even. A righter-of-wrongs.
Consider also the animal abuser; does he (or she) consider himself above the actions, the damage being caused? Does he think of himself as an abuser of animals? Or does the kind of mentality that allows and encourages abuse separate one's self from the cause and effect, and from the analysis and conclusion?
I fully realise there is no universal answer and that, for example, one kind of, say, rapist, who could be completely insane, would not have the same thought process as another. One also accepts that the activities above inevitably lead to a conclusion of madness. I am pretty sure that Hitler, however, was considered a sane individual, even if to all intents and purposes, and to the majority, his actions were anything but.
Is it fair to say that any kind of serial-offender shares similar qualities with another? And that on some level they should be able to self-analyse their actions and respond in some way to the question: are you a bad person?
Are you?
"In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry." —Carl Panzram
Panzram is somewhat unusual in his stance of his position in society. He considered and thought of himself as a bad man; as an evil man. He didn't try and justify his actions and he didn't try and redeem himself in any way. He accepted who he was.
I've often wondered if others in the history of inhumane activity shared this self-analysis; Hitler, for example.
Did Hitler consider himself a bad person? Did he think of himself as a fascist? As a monster? Or did he consider himself a good man. A humanitarian, even. A righter-of-wrongs.
Consider also the animal abuser; does he (or she) consider himself above the actions, the damage being caused? Does he think of himself as an abuser of animals? Or does the kind of mentality that allows and encourages abuse separate one's self from the cause and effect, and from the analysis and conclusion?
I fully realise there is no universal answer and that, for example, one kind of, say, rapist, who could be completely insane, would not have the same thought process as another. One also accepts that the activities above inevitably lead to a conclusion of madness. I am pretty sure that Hitler, however, was considered a sane individual, even if to all intents and purposes, and to the majority, his actions were anything but.
Is it fair to say that any kind of serial-offender shares similar qualities with another? And that on some level they should be able to self-analyse their actions and respond in some way to the question: are you a bad person?
Are you?
Friday, February 09, 2007
To Give Or Not To Give? – That Is The Question
At the tail end of 2006, the media had a bit of a hullabaloo when Paul Hunter’s widow revealed that she had a supply of the late snooker star’s sperm on hold in her freezer. This followed a timely and rather urgent NHS appeal for more donors to come forward, following a chance in the law – the country, you see, has a massive shortage. And when you delve into it a little deeper, it’s fairly easy to see why.
Once an applicant is successfully screened (one imagines for disease and any blood history that possibly connects you to the Royal family), they are allowed to submit up to ten servings, for which they will receive the princely sum of £250. Or, more precisely, twenty-five pounds a throw. In the United States, a donor receives between $200 and $3,000 per vial unit of semen – which is around 0.7ml. A return ticket to New York with Virgin costs around £299. You really could be making money hand over fist.
The thing is, dear reader, I’m willing to make a bet that you’ve never donated sperm, either. Nor, is my hunch telling me, do you know of anybody who has. There are two reasons for this: one, because it's not something that comes up at the dinner table ("I had a great wank yesterday; don't worry, it was for a good cause.") and two, with the recent change in legislation which has eliminated donor anonymity – the child, at 18, now has the legal right to be told of their father's details – I don't see it getting any better any time soon. And either does the NHS – hence the outcry.
An estimated 7,000 patients receive treatment with donated eggs and sperm, known as gametes, every year and, as a result, 2,000 children are born. Around 500 sperm donors and 1,500 egg donors are needed each year. This is just in the United Kingdom, and recent figures estimate that the total amount of registered sperm donors in the UK has dropped to just 169. So, that’s East Finchley sorted, then.
What sounded like a good idea on paper might have actually turned out to be a total disaster. The thing is, does the good outweigh the bad?
The problem, of course, is donating one's love-juice anonymously is something that I think a lot of men probably wouldn't have an enormous problem with. That's not to say that all would willingly hand it over, but let's face it - under current legislation you have to make two big decisions. One, to actually go down there and do it in the first place, and two, that you're actually willing to be somebody's father.
Because that's exactly what has happened as a result of this change in the law. While the new legislation also prevents the 'father' from being in any way financially responsible for the child, when your kid shows up at your door at eighteen years of age, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?
"Well, nice to meet you. Now, let me go and explain this all to the wife and my other four, 'real' kids..."
It's a potential disaster, isn't it? At least before you could rest in the knowledge that you'd done a good deed (and got a cheeky bit of me-time out of it with a foxy nurse eagerly awaiting the results) but it all ended there, with the last drop in the cup. Now... well, it's basically the same for eighteen years, and then you're toast. Like a ticking bomb.
On paper, of course, this benefits the child, and perhaps that's the important thing. But, ironically, as a result of the change, there's going to be a lot less of them out there. Children, that is. And fathers.
But, I’ve come up with a solution.
I know! Shocking, isn’t it? Me, a lowly prole, has seen the light at the end of the tunnel that all the doctors and nurses and whoever else is looking anxious at NHS, Inc. have quite clearly missed.
It's so simple but such genius that, dare I say it, kills two of society's problems with one stone.
Hookers.
That's the solution: your common or garden prostitute.
Instead of paying men to donate their sperm, pay our esteemed ladies of the night the same money to, ahem, work it out of them. I tell you now, for a fact, that if the NHS announced "Come down and give sperm and you'll get a free blow-job out of it" by mid-afternoon today they'd have to board-up all of the clinics because the places would be inundated with a throng of sixth-formers and 50-year old widowers in about half an hour flat.
There's two possibilities, neither of which are particularly crude-free so prepare yourself. One, either the prostitute takes the 'catch' and then spits it into a waiting cup, or, if that's not medically sound (and I can’t imagine why not), the man simply agrees to do the male standard "I'm coming, I'm coming", probably while tapping her repeatedly on the head, and, forewarned, she does a quick release and manoeuvres his output into the appropriate receptacle.
And if a blow-job at £20-25 isn't a reasonable trade for the working girl then a hand job would have exactly the same effect too.
This way, not only do we keep a lot of working ladies off the streets and in the protective arm of the NHS, but you'll get a guaranteed boom in sperm availability, too.
You know I'm right on this. I wonder if it’s enough to bring the wife around?
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
How Do You Fend Off A Dangerous Dog?
This isn't all that pleasant, but it is timely.
We've all read the awful news story where the five-year old girl in Merseyside was killed by the family pet, albeit one whose breed had breached the Dangerous Dogs Act and had a formal history of council warnings about its behaviour. I think many of us are shaking our heads at everything that forms a part of and even led up to this story - what kind of moron leaves such an animal with a child in the first place? - but perhaps the important thing is that it should lead to measures that ensure it doesn't happen so easily again. But what if it does? What if it were to happen to you?
There is one very effective way to eliminate the threat from a dog that is about to attack you, or to divert its attention to protect a child or loved one. It isn't nice, but it does work.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being threatened by a dog, particularly one that is running after you or seems likely to do so, calmly remove your jacket or jumper and wrap it several times around your arm. Facing the dog, but leaning away from it, move backwards (obviously trying to get away if you can) and hold your arm out as 'bait'. It sounds like madness but all trained dogs and many others will automatically go for your arm by default, particularly if it is held out in front of them.
When the dog grabs your (somewhat protected) arm, kick it very hard and, if necessary, repeatedly in the throat. You will have to act fast, but in nearly all cases it will go down very quickly. At the very least it will release its grip and be severely weakened, giving you time to escape. Obviously this is not something to be taken lightly as it can cause serious harm to the dog, and may even kill it. However, in a situation where your own life is at risk - or particularly that of a child's - it's something we should perhaps all be aware of.
Meanwhile, if the owner is nearby, try the same same trick on them. You might have to wrap the jacket around your other arm to really fool them, but if you can get a few kicks in there as well, so much the better. At the end of the day, it's wise to remember that it isn't really the dog's fault at all.
We've all read the awful news story where the five-year old girl in Merseyside was killed by the family pet, albeit one whose breed had breached the Dangerous Dogs Act and had a formal history of council warnings about its behaviour. I think many of us are shaking our heads at everything that forms a part of and even led up to this story - what kind of moron leaves such an animal with a child in the first place? - but perhaps the important thing is that it should lead to measures that ensure it doesn't happen so easily again. But what if it does? What if it were to happen to you?
There is one very effective way to eliminate the threat from a dog that is about to attack you, or to divert its attention to protect a child or loved one. It isn't nice, but it does work.
If you find yourself in the unfortunate position of being threatened by a dog, particularly one that is running after you or seems likely to do so, calmly remove your jacket or jumper and wrap it several times around your arm. Facing the dog, but leaning away from it, move backwards (obviously trying to get away if you can) and hold your arm out as 'bait'. It sounds like madness but all trained dogs and many others will automatically go for your arm by default, particularly if it is held out in front of them.
When the dog grabs your (somewhat protected) arm, kick it very hard and, if necessary, repeatedly in the throat. You will have to act fast, but in nearly all cases it will go down very quickly. At the very least it will release its grip and be severely weakened, giving you time to escape. Obviously this is not something to be taken lightly as it can cause serious harm to the dog, and may even kill it. However, in a situation where your own life is at risk - or particularly that of a child's - it's something we should perhaps all be aware of.
Meanwhile, if the owner is nearby, try the same same trick on them. You might have to wrap the jacket around your other arm to really fool them, but if you can get a few kicks in there as well, so much the better. At the end of the day, it's wise to remember that it isn't really the dog's fault at all.
Monday, December 11, 2006
It Must Be A Right Pain To Be An Agony Aunt, But What About The Readers?
In the past few months, without reason, meaning or justification, I've found myself drawn towards the Agony Aunt columns in pretty much every tabloid newspaper or trashy magazine I've been reading.
And I have no idea why.
I do know, however, that it's got me thinking. About a couple of things actually. First of all, how desperate do you have to be to write a letter to a publication for help when you must know that the answer you receive will be very generic, tailored to a greater point and basically useless? And secondly, do Agony Aunts have any kind of government body (the 'AAA' perhaps), that judges these judges, because even that general advice can and probably does cause all kinds of misery and destruction? Or is the entire business absolutely and totally fake and has itself kind of become a weak parody of those letters in Viz that spoofed the entire thing in the first place?
Think about it. Somebody - let's call him Jim, from Somerset - is feeling a bit uncomfortable that his wife is suddenly working late at the office each and every day, going away for 'training' most weekends, wearing a lot of push-up bras and expensive perfume and staying up late at night watching Bravo. So what does he do? Speak to his or her friends, follow her to work, hire a private investigator or, heaven forbid, confront her directly? No. He puts pen to paper and sends a letter off to bloody Claire Rayner. And what's she going to do exactly? State the bleeding obvious, of course, and tell him all the things he really must have known anyway. And if he didn't, then he deserves to be cheated on, let's face it.
But let's say she tells him to do what I suggested (in your face, Rayner) and he confronts his wife about her behaviour. What if the wife isn't cheating, and has made all of this effort for Jim, because she feels bad that she's working all hours and doesn't want him to feel left out? What if they have a massive row about it and end up splitting up anyway? What then, Rayner? What then? Another visit to the cake shop, I'd wager.
Nobody follows these stories up. Even assuming that they're true to start with, we're all none the wiser. We weren't aware of the problems before we read the letter, and we aren't aware of the end result.
But, believe it or not, another failed marriage isn't the end of the world. Neither is erectile dysfunction, a failure to achieve orgasm, an inability to prevent orgasm, bleeding nipples, incontinence, bestiality or most of the other typical letters the Agony Aunt receives (believe me, I know, because the bastards have ignored all of mine).
What concerns me is how many of these letters they must not print, either because they're simply not suitable for mass consumption, because they're too weird or, and this must happen, they're just plain wrong.
If I was a serial killer and fancied a bit of help, I know that I'd want to write to Miriam Stoppard and the Daily Mirror. "Dear Miriam," I'd say, "I'm on to my sixth victim and I can't see this coming to an end. Any tips or pointers? Yours, Disturbed from Hastings." And let's take a flight of fancy and imagine that she actually (a) read, and (b) published it, what could she possibly say?
It probably helps to consider how she approaches these things in the first place. "I'm not sure I give advice," she once said, "What I hope to do is to give the reader, for a moment, a new pair of spectacles which might put a different slant of light on their problem."
Well, OK. So going with past performance I'd expect a certain vagueness in the reply, and would envisage something like, "Dear Disturbed," she'd write, "Oh my! You have got yourself in a pickle. I suggest that, next time you leave the house, instead of packing a variety of knives, duct tape and chloroform, bring a good book instead. And a stress ball. Good luck!"
And it's not as if they ever ask anyone to write back again and let them know how they got on, because that would start adding a cheques and balances system to the Agony Aunt column, and suddenly make it all very serious indeed. But it is serious, surely, because if you're the kind of person who writes into these things in the first place, it has to be serious to you, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure you must have ran out of options. It's safe to say you're looking for decent advice.
And you'll be comforted to know that both Miriam Stoppard and Claire Rayner have had the best of training. Oh, wait, sorry - they haven't. Stoppard was a physician for about two weeks before she became a 'TV doctor' (translation: walking pamphlet) and Rayner was a nurse. Now, while these lovely ladies might be able to come up with a basic quick-fix answer to a reader concerned about Bird Flu or whether that bleeding mole on his left testicle needs to be checked out by a (real) doctor, they're not going to be an awful lot of use when it comes to anything that's even remotely psychologically pressing, are they?
And that kind of defeats the point, to me, because for the most part, the letters that are sent into these publications are problems of the mind. That's the agony part. Nobody writes in to the Daily Mirror and says, "My leg hurts." It's not that kind of agony. It's matters of the heart, and I fancy that 99.99% of the experience of both Rayner and Stoppard comes from their column in the first place. Chicken and the egg? Well, that's a bit rude, as I'm sure they both have lovely personalities.
I tell you what: I bet if somebody did a big exposé on what appears to be the safe and harmless Agony Aunt industry they'd uncover a web of sin. And more, too: intrigue, carnal lust and crime. And that's just in their own offices. Even if everything that is ultimately printed is not genuine, they must still receive tonnes of letters that they could never possibly publish, that are handed over to the police only after they've been photocopied and passed around Fleet Street. Letters that contain all manner of foulness and depravity. Tales of mass-fornication, Devil-worship and sheep worrying. Outside of Wales. And worse.
Because, believe me, it does get a lot worse. Robert Ressler, ex-FBI agent and the grandfather of the modern serial killer profiler, once observed that "Whoever fights monsters, must become one themselves." If that's even halfway true, just imagine how messed up Marje Proops was.
And I have no idea why.
I do know, however, that it's got me thinking. About a couple of things actually. First of all, how desperate do you have to be to write a letter to a publication for help when you must know that the answer you receive will be very generic, tailored to a greater point and basically useless? And secondly, do Agony Aunts have any kind of government body (the 'AAA' perhaps), that judges these judges, because even that general advice can and probably does cause all kinds of misery and destruction? Or is the entire business absolutely and totally fake and has itself kind of become a weak parody of those letters in Viz that spoofed the entire thing in the first place?
Think about it. Somebody - let's call him Jim, from Somerset - is feeling a bit uncomfortable that his wife is suddenly working late at the office each and every day, going away for 'training' most weekends, wearing a lot of push-up bras and expensive perfume and staying up late at night watching Bravo. So what does he do? Speak to his or her friends, follow her to work, hire a private investigator or, heaven forbid, confront her directly? No. He puts pen to paper and sends a letter off to bloody Claire Rayner. And what's she going to do exactly? State the bleeding obvious, of course, and tell him all the things he really must have known anyway. And if he didn't, then he deserves to be cheated on, let's face it.
But let's say she tells him to do what I suggested (in your face, Rayner) and he confronts his wife about her behaviour. What if the wife isn't cheating, and has made all of this effort for Jim, because she feels bad that she's working all hours and doesn't want him to feel left out? What if they have a massive row about it and end up splitting up anyway? What then, Rayner? What then? Another visit to the cake shop, I'd wager.
Nobody follows these stories up. Even assuming that they're true to start with, we're all none the wiser. We weren't aware of the problems before we read the letter, and we aren't aware of the end result.
But, believe it or not, another failed marriage isn't the end of the world. Neither is erectile dysfunction, a failure to achieve orgasm, an inability to prevent orgasm, bleeding nipples, incontinence, bestiality or most of the other typical letters the Agony Aunt receives (believe me, I know, because the bastards have ignored all of mine).
What concerns me is how many of these letters they must not print, either because they're simply not suitable for mass consumption, because they're too weird or, and this must happen, they're just plain wrong.
If I was a serial killer and fancied a bit of help, I know that I'd want to write to Miriam Stoppard and the Daily Mirror. "Dear Miriam," I'd say, "I'm on to my sixth victim and I can't see this coming to an end. Any tips or pointers? Yours, Disturbed from Hastings." And let's take a flight of fancy and imagine that she actually (a) read, and (b) published it, what could she possibly say?
It probably helps to consider how she approaches these things in the first place. "I'm not sure I give advice," she once said, "What I hope to do is to give the reader, for a moment, a new pair of spectacles which might put a different slant of light on their problem."
Well, OK. So going with past performance I'd expect a certain vagueness in the reply, and would envisage something like, "Dear Disturbed," she'd write, "Oh my! You have got yourself in a pickle. I suggest that, next time you leave the house, instead of packing a variety of knives, duct tape and chloroform, bring a good book instead. And a stress ball. Good luck!"
And it's not as if they ever ask anyone to write back again and let them know how they got on, because that would start adding a cheques and balances system to the Agony Aunt column, and suddenly make it all very serious indeed. But it is serious, surely, because if you're the kind of person who writes into these things in the first place, it has to be serious to you, doesn't it? I'm pretty sure you must have ran out of options. It's safe to say you're looking for decent advice.
And you'll be comforted to know that both Miriam Stoppard and Claire Rayner have had the best of training. Oh, wait, sorry - they haven't. Stoppard was a physician for about two weeks before she became a 'TV doctor' (translation: walking pamphlet) and Rayner was a nurse. Now, while these lovely ladies might be able to come up with a basic quick-fix answer to a reader concerned about Bird Flu or whether that bleeding mole on his left testicle needs to be checked out by a (real) doctor, they're not going to be an awful lot of use when it comes to anything that's even remotely psychologically pressing, are they?
And that kind of defeats the point, to me, because for the most part, the letters that are sent into these publications are problems of the mind. That's the agony part. Nobody writes in to the Daily Mirror and says, "My leg hurts." It's not that kind of agony. It's matters of the heart, and I fancy that 99.99% of the experience of both Rayner and Stoppard comes from their column in the first place. Chicken and the egg? Well, that's a bit rude, as I'm sure they both have lovely personalities.
I tell you what: I bet if somebody did a big exposé on what appears to be the safe and harmless Agony Aunt industry they'd uncover a web of sin. And more, too: intrigue, carnal lust and crime. And that's just in their own offices. Even if everything that is ultimately printed is not genuine, they must still receive tonnes of letters that they could never possibly publish, that are handed over to the police only after they've been photocopied and passed around Fleet Street. Letters that contain all manner of foulness and depravity. Tales of mass-fornication, Devil-worship and sheep worrying. Outside of Wales. And worse.
Because, believe me, it does get a lot worse. Robert Ressler, ex-FBI agent and the grandfather of the modern serial killer profiler, once observed that "Whoever fights monsters, must become one themselves." If that's even halfway true, just imagine how messed up Marje Proops was.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Being A Great Dad Is Easy - Just Ignore Every Piece Of Advice You've Ever Been Given
One day last week, making my way back home on the 1740 from Cannon Street, I found myself in the position of being thoroughly bored.
I'd read the Evening Standard, skimmed through the London Lite and the London Paper, and even had a quick look at somebody's discarded Metro before realising I'm not one of those idiots who reads that morning's free paper later that evening. Which, incidentally, is the very definition of cheap. And daft. Not only are you too mean to hand over fifty pence for a Standard, you're too moronic to realise that a dozen other free papers, magazines and supplements are available for your commuting pleasure each and every weekday evening. Clearly, you're happy with old news, as long as it's free. What a result for humanity.
My iPod, curse it to Hades and back, was once again complaining of a flat battery, even though I'd charged it to the hilt for seventy-two hours and it was proclaiming itself satisifed for a good forty-eight of them. No, clearly forty seconds of Won't Get Fooled Again was too much for it, and it died a miserable and undignified death.
So, with a heavy sigh and a quick glance into the window of the train to ensure that I looked really miserable, I let my eyes wander around the carriage in search of amusement. I didn't have to look far, because there, just in front of me, was a discarded magazine, still shrinkwrapped.
And it had Alex Curran on the cover.
Alex Curran is, probably, the only woman I would ever leave my wife and family for at 4am on a Tuesday morning. Every other day of the week she wouldn't stand a chance, but by God, she's a cracking lass. I'm not sure my wife even knows who she is, which of course works in my favour, but if she saw her, she'd definitely agree. How could she not? We're only human, after all.
I tore off the wrapping with something approaching bloodlust, and while doing so, glanced at the rest of the cover. Stephen Gerrard was on there, too, of course, which put me off slightly as he's (a) a prat, and (b) about as deserving of Curran as Hitler was of Eva Braun. Which however you break it down, is not very much at all. He's also, alas, (c) a multi-millionaire, which I, again alas, am not, and probably says as much about Curran as anything on her magnificent frame, because she quite simply must realise that Gerrard isn't fit to lick the chewing gum off of her stilettos. I wouldn't go as far as proclaiming her a gold-digger, but let's face it: if Gerrard worked in Tesco, he'd be doing well to get a kiss on the cheek from Ann Widdecombe.
I scanned the articles listed on the cover: '17 Deadly Dad Sins, And How To Avoid Them', 'Are You A Pushy Parent?', 'Santa's Sorted: Twenty Best Kid's Presents' and, and I kid you not, 'Staying Alive: John Travolta's Guide To Parenting'. I suppose we should be grateful they didn't ask Chris Langham.
And then I noticed the title of the publication: FQ. And finally it hit me.
Father's Quarterly.
Really, who thinks this stuff up? Somewhere, at some point, some team of somebodies brain-stormed this and concluded that the most appealing title a magazine written by and about fathers could have was Father's Quarterly. And, better, they could make it a heck of a lot cooler by shortening it to FQ. Christ, even 'Dad's Mag' would have been better, and they must have known this because underneath the title in small print it excitedly states that it's 'The Essential Dad's Mag'.
But all this, of course, is absolutely moot, as I was soon to realise, because in no way, shape or form is this magazine worth even one second of your time, and it's about as far away from 'essential' as a human being is from the moon. And as nobody has been there since 1972, that's bloody miles.
Eager as I was to unveil more pictures of the delicious Curran, I plouged on. It opened to a two-page Mamas & Papas pushchair advert, which was good, because as a father I only took care of that months before any of my children were born and don't really feel it all that likely that I'll be looking to trade it in for a newer model. And of course the parent in the advertisement was a woman, so well researched there.
The index had a feature on some of the contributors, and one of them - and I swear this is true - had the surname of Cholmondeley. If anybody needs to not be having children, it's him.
A few adverts for 4x4s later we come to the first main feature, 'The Top Ten Songs About Fathers', and one of them was only Madonna's frickin' Papa Don't Preach.
Then the aforementioned John Travolta piece was upon me. 'If you let a kid decide on their own, they'll fall asleep within 30 minutes. If you're strict, they'll be up to midnight,' says the near-billionaire, Jumbo Jet-owning and Scientology-preaching master to forty or fifty servants. How many nappies do you think he's really changed, realistically? A couple for each kid, maybe?
After a piece where the token female contributor whined that all of her single mates were out having a blast while she was at home looking after her child - yes, that does come with the job, dear - there was another advert for a pushchair, again featuring a woman.
By now I was losing patience, so I rapidly flicked through the pages trying to find the feature on Curran, which I'd assumed would come with some kind of reward, like maybe a tastefully-done breastfeeding sequence. But no. Because this was Father's Quarterly, it only had eyes for Gerrard, and in several pages of him waffling on about how he hates it when the baby wakes his fleet of nannies in their £2m mansion, there was only one tiny picture of Curran, and she wasn't even naked.
The '17 Deadly Dad Sins' suggested that, post-natal, you should record your waist-size twice a week in case you turn into Kerry Katona, be mindful not to be too jealous of the baby while being careful not to neglect the missus, control your rage during the sleepless nights and avoid being a 'baby bore' with friends.
All sound advice. All blatantly obvious to everybody except for the sort of people who are never in a million years going to come anywhere near a magazine like FQ, because it just won't fall into their social circle. You know, inbreds and people who live on council estates.
Then we had several thrilling pages on father fashion, several pages on family cars, another pram advert and an odd section called 'Dad Reviews', where the male parent cast his learned eye over the latest music, books and films. Quite why anyone thought that simply because one is a father one is suddenly a member of some kind of club where because of this we all have similar tastes and expectations in our entertainment basically beggars belief.
The magazine closed with a predictably trite quotes page (which they at least had the good sense to title 'Blah Blah'), and even included one from Tom Cruise. As Cruise quite clearly isn't anybody's natural father, one wonders if this really was intelligent copy. Surely his contribution would have been better served in AQ? And if they haven't got around to publishing that yet, well, somebody really needs to pull their finger out.
In short - and I realise I've rambled on a bit here but these things need to be done - the whole thing is rubbish, and offers about as much enlightment to a new parent as a packet of value nappies. Which doesn't go any further than, "Crap. I won't be buying that again."
The thing is, being a great dad is basically pretty simple. All you have to do to be a winner in your children's eyes is to make things fun. A lot of fun. If your baby daughter can't find her dummy, make a huge game out of tracking it down. And when you do, pick her up by her legs, spin her upside down, start doing the theme from Mission Impossible and relish in her laughter as she flaps around trying to pick the thing up.
If your 6-year old wants to play ninjas with the baby's doll, a giant Spider-Man figure and a few random bits of Lego, by God, let him. Better yet, join in. Give the doll a deep, cockney voice and make Spider-Man a bit of a whoopsie and you're pretty much guaranteeing you'll never be dumped at a rest home.
And if your 10-year old comes home from school in a really foul mood, once you've established that nothing serious has happened and he's just being his usual I'm-really-17-year old self, take the piss something chronic. Then, when he gets really wound up and says or does something awful, ban him from the Playstation for the rest of the week. It's the only way they learn. Heck, it worked for me.
Basically, use your common sense. Homework, putting together elaborate art projects, decisions to do with clothes, or anything else that comes with an unhealthy dollop of dull: pass that over to mum. Women live for that stuff. It's a bit of a cliche that the man is the 'fun parent' and the woman is the comforter, but like so many other stereotypes it's an absolute fact and we all secretly know it.
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, some friends of ours relished in enriching us with their own experiences of what, quite clearly, were nightmare children. It put the fear in me, for sure, and took me a good few months before I realised that it was actually all a bit of a doddle. Yes, they fall down, and yes, sometimes they creep away and hide at Tesco and absolutely terrify you for about nine minutes, and yes, a bin full of nappies really does make you question whether you could get by without nostrils, or perhaps just one, but overall, when you really look at it, they're a snip.
Which, coincidentally, is something I must be getting myself, and soon. I've had three of the little buggers now, and a forth one really does sound like a bloody nightmare. I wonder if WH Smith has the new edition of VQ?
I'd read the Evening Standard, skimmed through the London Lite and the London Paper, and even had a quick look at somebody's discarded Metro before realising I'm not one of those idiots who reads that morning's free paper later that evening. Which, incidentally, is the very definition of cheap. And daft. Not only are you too mean to hand over fifty pence for a Standard, you're too moronic to realise that a dozen other free papers, magazines and supplements are available for your commuting pleasure each and every weekday evening. Clearly, you're happy with old news, as long as it's free. What a result for humanity.
My iPod, curse it to Hades and back, was once again complaining of a flat battery, even though I'd charged it to the hilt for seventy-two hours and it was proclaiming itself satisifed for a good forty-eight of them. No, clearly forty seconds of Won't Get Fooled Again was too much for it, and it died a miserable and undignified death.
So, with a heavy sigh and a quick glance into the window of the train to ensure that I looked really miserable, I let my eyes wander around the carriage in search of amusement. I didn't have to look far, because there, just in front of me, was a discarded magazine, still shrinkwrapped.
And it had Alex Curran on the cover.
Alex Curran is, probably, the only woman I would ever leave my wife and family for at 4am on a Tuesday morning. Every other day of the week she wouldn't stand a chance, but by God, she's a cracking lass. I'm not sure my wife even knows who she is, which of course works in my favour, but if she saw her, she'd definitely agree. How could she not? We're only human, after all.
I tore off the wrapping with something approaching bloodlust, and while doing so, glanced at the rest of the cover. Stephen Gerrard was on there, too, of course, which put me off slightly as he's (a) a prat, and (b) about as deserving of Curran as Hitler was of Eva Braun. Which however you break it down, is not very much at all. He's also, alas, (c) a multi-millionaire, which I, again alas, am not, and probably says as much about Curran as anything on her magnificent frame, because she quite simply must realise that Gerrard isn't fit to lick the chewing gum off of her stilettos. I wouldn't go as far as proclaiming her a gold-digger, but let's face it: if Gerrard worked in Tesco, he'd be doing well to get a kiss on the cheek from Ann Widdecombe.
I scanned the articles listed on the cover: '17 Deadly Dad Sins, And How To Avoid Them', 'Are You A Pushy Parent?', 'Santa's Sorted: Twenty Best Kid's Presents' and, and I kid you not, 'Staying Alive: John Travolta's Guide To Parenting'. I suppose we should be grateful they didn't ask Chris Langham.
And then I noticed the title of the publication: FQ. And finally it hit me.
Father's Quarterly.
Really, who thinks this stuff up? Somewhere, at some point, some team of somebodies brain-stormed this and concluded that the most appealing title a magazine written by and about fathers could have was Father's Quarterly. And, better, they could make it a heck of a lot cooler by shortening it to FQ. Christ, even 'Dad's Mag' would have been better, and they must have known this because underneath the title in small print it excitedly states that it's 'The Essential Dad's Mag'.
But all this, of course, is absolutely moot, as I was soon to realise, because in no way, shape or form is this magazine worth even one second of your time, and it's about as far away from 'essential' as a human being is from the moon. And as nobody has been there since 1972, that's bloody miles.
Eager as I was to unveil more pictures of the delicious Curran, I plouged on. It opened to a two-page Mamas & Papas pushchair advert, which was good, because as a father I only took care of that months before any of my children were born and don't really feel it all that likely that I'll be looking to trade it in for a newer model. And of course the parent in the advertisement was a woman, so well researched there.
The index had a feature on some of the contributors, and one of them - and I swear this is true - had the surname of Cholmondeley. If anybody needs to not be having children, it's him.
A few adverts for 4x4s later we come to the first main feature, 'The Top Ten Songs About Fathers', and one of them was only Madonna's frickin' Papa Don't Preach.
Then the aforementioned John Travolta piece was upon me. 'If you let a kid decide on their own, they'll fall asleep within 30 minutes. If you're strict, they'll be up to midnight,' says the near-billionaire, Jumbo Jet-owning and Scientology-preaching master to forty or fifty servants. How many nappies do you think he's really changed, realistically? A couple for each kid, maybe?
After a piece where the token female contributor whined that all of her single mates were out having a blast while she was at home looking after her child - yes, that does come with the job, dear - there was another advert for a pushchair, again featuring a woman.
By now I was losing patience, so I rapidly flicked through the pages trying to find the feature on Curran, which I'd assumed would come with some kind of reward, like maybe a tastefully-done breastfeeding sequence. But no. Because this was Father's Quarterly, it only had eyes for Gerrard, and in several pages of him waffling on about how he hates it when the baby wakes his fleet of nannies in their £2m mansion, there was only one tiny picture of Curran, and she wasn't even naked.
The '17 Deadly Dad Sins' suggested that, post-natal, you should record your waist-size twice a week in case you turn into Kerry Katona, be mindful not to be too jealous of the baby while being careful not to neglect the missus, control your rage during the sleepless nights and avoid being a 'baby bore' with friends.
All sound advice. All blatantly obvious to everybody except for the sort of people who are never in a million years going to come anywhere near a magazine like FQ, because it just won't fall into their social circle. You know, inbreds and people who live on council estates.
Then we had several thrilling pages on father fashion, several pages on family cars, another pram advert and an odd section called 'Dad Reviews', where the male parent cast his learned eye over the latest music, books and films. Quite why anyone thought that simply because one is a father one is suddenly a member of some kind of club where because of this we all have similar tastes and expectations in our entertainment basically beggars belief.
The magazine closed with a predictably trite quotes page (which they at least had the good sense to title 'Blah Blah'), and even included one from Tom Cruise. As Cruise quite clearly isn't anybody's natural father, one wonders if this really was intelligent copy. Surely his contribution would have been better served in AQ? And if they haven't got around to publishing that yet, well, somebody really needs to pull their finger out.
In short - and I realise I've rambled on a bit here but these things need to be done - the whole thing is rubbish, and offers about as much enlightment to a new parent as a packet of value nappies. Which doesn't go any further than, "Crap. I won't be buying that again."
The thing is, being a great dad is basically pretty simple. All you have to do to be a winner in your children's eyes is to make things fun. A lot of fun. If your baby daughter can't find her dummy, make a huge game out of tracking it down. And when you do, pick her up by her legs, spin her upside down, start doing the theme from Mission Impossible and relish in her laughter as she flaps around trying to pick the thing up.
If your 6-year old wants to play ninjas with the baby's doll, a giant Spider-Man figure and a few random bits of Lego, by God, let him. Better yet, join in. Give the doll a deep, cockney voice and make Spider-Man a bit of a whoopsie and you're pretty much guaranteeing you'll never be dumped at a rest home.
And if your 10-year old comes home from school in a really foul mood, once you've established that nothing serious has happened and he's just being his usual I'm-really-17-year old self, take the piss something chronic. Then, when he gets really wound up and says or does something awful, ban him from the Playstation for the rest of the week. It's the only way they learn. Heck, it worked for me.
Basically, use your common sense. Homework, putting together elaborate art projects, decisions to do with clothes, or anything else that comes with an unhealthy dollop of dull: pass that over to mum. Women live for that stuff. It's a bit of a cliche that the man is the 'fun parent' and the woman is the comforter, but like so many other stereotypes it's an absolute fact and we all secretly know it.
When my wife and I were expecting our first child, some friends of ours relished in enriching us with their own experiences of what, quite clearly, were nightmare children. It put the fear in me, for sure, and took me a good few months before I realised that it was actually all a bit of a doddle. Yes, they fall down, and yes, sometimes they creep away and hide at Tesco and absolutely terrify you for about nine minutes, and yes, a bin full of nappies really does make you question whether you could get by without nostrils, or perhaps just one, but overall, when you really look at it, they're a snip.
Which, coincidentally, is something I must be getting myself, and soon. I've had three of the little buggers now, and a forth one really does sound like a bloody nightmare. I wonder if WH Smith has the new edition of VQ?
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