Turning in their graves

This week on BBC Radio 4 a reporter was interviewing some of the people of Woolwich where there was a high profile murder of a serving soldier - allegedly by two young Muslim men.

The news story is far from funny, but one of the interviewees said something that made me hoot with laughter.

They claimed that our grandfathers fought for this country, and if they were alive now they would be turning in their graves.

Humour gets everywhere!

Atheists redeemed, but not yet saved

It's official!  Atheists have been redeemed by the death of Jesus and it is possible for us to be good people, according to a story in The Guardian.  Pope Francis has announced it!

Now don't get too carried away by this 'good news', if indeed it is a surprise to anyone who has actually thought about the subject at all.  As any good Catholic will tell you (if you can find one) redemption and salvation are not the same thing.  As Michelle Arnold says on Catholic Answers

" . . . redemption is collective and salvation is individual. By his passion, death, and resurrection, Christ redeemed humanity collectively from slavery to sin and from the debt of punishment mankind -- as a whole -- owed due to sin. Each and every person, Christian or non-Christian, is redeemed because he is a member of the human race.

Salvation is the application of redemption to individuals. Although a member of redeemed humanity, and therefore himself redeemed, a person can freely choose to deliberately reject the graces won for him by Christ and go to hell."

Obviously that makes perfect sense and wins an award from the Campaign for Clear English, but in spite of the religious babble you get the point.  Because of the mythical death of a fictional character, you are forgiven for the sins that you didn't commit and relieved of a debt that you apparently owed for inexplicable reasons, whether a believer or not.  But you are not yet forgiven for the ones that you have personally committed including those that you are even thinking of committing.

So the pope might seem to be giving some ground, but not enough for us atheists to get to heaven.  He implies that salvation might be achieved by being good, but even he doesn't have the authority to override the bible does he?  Good works alone will not get you to heaven.

Now he only has to work on one thing that is more important.  How can he get his own flock and their priests to start to be good!

Another Islamic attack?

Today there was an incident in Woolwich, London.  Some say that it was an islamic attack on a British soldier who was off-duty.  Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't.  Some say that it is what is happening in Syria every day, and they probably have a point. 

After all, the media can't even decide whether it was a machete attack or a knife attack, or whether the murderers were wielding a knife or a gun, or both.

But they looked a bit foreign and a bit Islamic!

The one thing that seems odd to me is that the Muslim Council of Britain apparently said in a statement: "This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly.  Our thoughts are with the victim and his family."

Nice words, coming from a self appointed bunch of islamic clerics who have no right to claim to speak on behalf of anyone at all.  It must mean that they are feeling guilty about something.  One of the problems with Islam is that it has no hierarchy and no authorities who can speak for it.

Will we ever know the truth behind this incident or will BBC/government propaganda be the only thing we find out?

Incidentally . . . how many other murders happened in London today?  Why are they not newsworthy?

Distrust of sharia in Parliament

Why does my own MP (Member of Parliament) not speak out for justice like this?  If he does then I never hear about it.

Kris Hopkins MP has written a brilliant article in the Yorkshire Post, republished here via the National Secular Society.  As he says, referring to a recent BBC documentary . . .

"On seeing the programme's evidence, the chief crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in the North West said that he was disappointed, but not surprised. If the CPS is not surprised about such findings, why are we, as a Government, allowing such things to happen?"

Why indeed?

Surely the answer is that religion gets special treatment, whether it deserves it or not.  For what it is worth, it doesn't deserve it!

Plagiarising Douglas Adams

If you saw this book . . .

Douglas Adams plagiarised by David Wilkinson (or his publishers)

 . . . might you be tempted to think that it had been written by Douglas Adams? 

It has the same title as one of Adams' own works, it has a cover reminiscent of The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, and there is a reference to the number 42 in the notes on the front and back cover.

42 meditations??? 

It is such an obvious attempt to steal the intellectual property of the Douglas Adams estate that I'm surprised to find that it is still on the market.

On Amazon there is only one review (rating it at 4 stars) which amuses me.  The small notes are mine.

"David Wilkinson's book is an excellent series of short meditations. [I assure you - it isn't!]  Its one drawback is that to be fully understood, the reader needs to have a close acquaintance with popular culture [of the 80s!]. Some of the references to films and TV programmes were lost on this reader!" [Whereas . . . I would say that it needs a grounding in modern neuro-science to be fully understood!]

In the circumstances, being so detached from the whole point of the plagiarism, I can't see why that reader found it inspiring at all.  Personally I found the extracts that I read to be puerile and pathetic shams compared with the original works of Adams.

Only dead fish go with the flow

We are often exhorted to 'go with the flow'.  But as the name on the side of this narrowboat suggests . . .

Only dead fish go with the flow

. . . only dead fish go with the flow!

Seven cygnets

Two weeks ago this pair of swans was aggressively defending their nest on the Caen Hill flight of locks at Devizes, and today the nest was empty.  Nearby these seven balls of fluff were exploring their environment, escorted by mum and dad.

Seven new cygnets for the Queen

Naturally, they belong to The Queen.  Exactly why this might be the case is not entirely clear to me.  She doesn't claim ownership of wild sparrows, after all.

A ticket to Avoncliff - and great service at "The Boatyard", Trowbridge.

Planning a rail journey I went to buy my ticket this morning.  Avoncliff is a small station near Bath, and it can't be common for people to want to travel from my home station to that specific location.  The man in the ticket office asked if I had bought one yesterday.  Apparently he hasn't sold one for months, and then there were two in two days.  Coincidences happen.

So I planned to get the 14:12 train, and was waiting on the platform for the train to Bath.  I had noticed the display saying that my train was on time, and one came into the platform at exactly the right time. Since there were no announcements and there was nobody to ask, I got on board.  By chance I heard a lady speaking on the phone, saying that she was on the train to Cardiff and would be home soon.  Alarm bells began to ring.  My train was not going to Cardiff due to the second coincidence of the day!  It had arrived at the right moment for my train but it was going to the wrong place.

Too late to get off, the only option was to change at Swindon to get onto my planned train!  It arrived in Bath too late for the connection, but the nice people there put me in a taxi without me even having to think of compaining.

I don't think the taxi driver would ever have found Avoncliff station.  He ended up on the wrong side of the river which in fact was where I wanted to be.  The road was definitely 'interesting', hilly and single track for a lot of the way.

So much for the efficiency of the railways in UK!  All things considered though, it was a good service.

The only thing was that I had already been on a tight schedule if everything had gone perfectly.  Setting off from Avoncliff on the boat I was keen to get to Trowbridge, a few miles away, to fill up with fuel.  "The Boatyard" is well known for selling fuel at rock-bottom prices and its always worth calling in there.  I made it with only minutes to spare and they had already started to lock up, but they very kindly filled my fuel tank with diesel - at only 80p per litre!  5p less than it was two weeks ago!

If you are on the Kennet and Avon Canal and need fuel, this is definitely the place to go.  I have already recommended it to two people, and no doubt I will tell everyone else I meet.

Test your grammar

Just a quick post tonight.

If you think you are good at grammar, try this test.  (Sorry if it doesn't work outside UK, but I think it will.)

I'm embarrassed to say that I only scored eight out of ten, but then again it is obvious that a devious mind produced two of the questions!

The bite of the honey bee

Yes - I meant bite, not flight, and honey bee, not bumble bee.  But having misused the name of a famous piece of music for rhetorical purposes, here is a surprising (and interesting) bit of information about the familiar insects that are so important for our crop pollination.

You would think that we know nearly everything that there is to know about bees, but it seems that this is not the case.  Now we discover that bees bite and that the bites have a surprising role in the evolutionary struggle between the bees and their parasites.

This interesting information about bees came to my attention in the newsletter of the British Beekeeper's Association (BBKA).  This is not a journal that I have ever read before, but I happened across a well-written article in the February 2013 edition of the magazine. 

Even though the bite phenomenon had been recognised previously, it was not known that it is used to inject a natural anaesthetic called 2-heptanone (2-H).  When bees bite their enemies the 2-H temporarily paralyses the victim and this gives the colony the chance to eject the creature from the hive.  Bees actively use this method to fight the larvae of moths and the parasite varroa which is often heralded as bringing certain death to colonies of bees.

So it seems that bees do have a natural defence against enemies that are too small to sting.

It has been suggested that 2-H might even have a use as a new natural anaesthetic for humans too. Isn't nature amazing?

The BBKA magazine also gets another plaudit from me.  Unlike the article in the Daily Telegraph, the BBKA takes the trouble to reference the scientific paper on the subject by Dr Alexandros Papachristoforou, of the University of Thessaloniki in Greece.  You can find it on the free online, peer-reviewed, PLOS ONE web site at this link.  It gets technical, as all scientific papers ought to do, but the introduction and many other parts are written very clearly and accessibly.  Everyone would get something from the introduction.

Small note:  In the news in recent weeks, people of Europe, particularly UK, have heard a lot about the banning of various pesticides that are alleged to affect bee colonies.  I say 'alleged' because it seems to be a slightly controversial example of science being misused in a public campaign to obtain signatures to promote the passage of legislation.  Unlike many of the campaigns of organisations of 38 degrees, Avaaz and other such bodies, this one about neo-nicotinoids perhaps demonstrates that good science cannot always be applied through democracy.

Should psychics be prosecuted?

If psychics offer their services to the police in order to solve a mystery or a crime and it all goes horribly wrong, which party should be considered culpable?

From time to time we hear about cases where psychics seem to offer that vital clue that police needed in order to solve a difficult case.  Correlation does not always imply causation of course, but facts like this do not often convince a gullible public who are left thinking that 'there must be something in it'.

One recent case where a psychic's total failure has been revealed was that of the investigation of the disappearance of kidnap victim Amanda Berry about 10 years ago.  With the final escape of Amanda we now discover for certain that the psychic Sylvia Browne had (at least) made a mistake.  Her claim that Amanda was no longer in the land of the living has now been shown to be complete fabrication.  I seem to remember that there was a similar case in Bristol UK, just last year, resulting in a false accusation of an innocent man.

Now I wouldn't like to suggest that this particular failed psychic is necessarily using her fame to interfere malevolently with police investigation.  It is quite possible that she truly believes in her abilities (not that she is just using a high profile case like this as a publicity stunt to bring the punters in to see her stage performances.)  I have a friend who also believes that she has these abilities even though she is a scientist.  She realises that the evidence is not yet compelling enough to convince me. 

However, the simple belief in one's abilities is one matter, but when interfering in matters that are truly a matter of life and death, actions should surely carry a degree of responsibility.

No doubt Sylvia Browne's stage work carries the disclaimer "For entertainment purposes only" in small writing, for legal reasons.  So I wonder why her work with the police should not be treated in the same way - also for legal reasons.  Should a prosecution be initiated for supposed psychics who waste police time in this way?  I speak in general terms - not necessarily in this specific case, but surely YES.

On the other hand, are the police failing in their duty by even considering that a psychic might be able to help?  In my view, the answer is an emphatic YES.  Disciplinary action should be taken against the officers who have failed in their duty to the public by even entertaining the idea that this might be useful.  Naturally it might have been a media propaganda stunt on their behalf too, but this sort of thing is at best a smoke screen to placate the credible public.

It is time to stop tolerating interference with the due process of law.

My two 'spirit guides'

A dear friend told me today that I have invisible companionship.

This is not just one spirit guide, but two!  Apparently not everyone is blessed in this way, but it is far from unusual.  My friend claims to have more guides than me.

I find it genuinely interesting that I know people who believe in things that I can't recognise in the world.  My Christian friends know God through his son Jesus (in spite of all that nonsense about the Trinity which makes no real sense to anyone as far as I can tell).  My Islamic friends have faith in Allah and his prophet Mohamed (upon whom I wish no peace or blessing whatsoever).  At least Islam is a little less 'spooky', even though I find it more frightening in other ways.  And my own sister sees ghosts and has always been much more sensitive to the paranormal than I am.

I'm almost jealous of them.  It seems that I am missing this special, interesting, sixth sense.

I don't even believe that we have souls in this dualistic sense, so I find it very difficult to believe in ghosts or spirits.  But I am still fascinated by the idea.

As for these invisible companions who (apparently) know so much about me, very little has been revealed.  They don't have names and nothing is known of the lives that they no longer have.  Both are (or were?) male, which I find genuinely surprising since the minority of my close friends would want to claim that. 

Apparently one is mischievous and the other is 'a free spirit'.  What that happens to say about me is unclear.

What questions can I ask my friend to find out more about my guides?  Your input would be useful.  Please leave a comment if you can help.  I can already think of a few questions.

• Have they chosen me of have I chosen them?
• Do they like me?
• Do they 'guide' anyone else?

Any more?

Sharia still active in UK

Note that I didn't mention sharia 'law' because it is not law in UK.  And yet our barely-elected government is doing little to safeguard the rights of Muslims who find themselves subject to the rulings of these unelected 'councils'.

Leyton's pseudo-court - or 'sharia council'

Read more at the site of the National Secular Society.  If you are outside UK you will have to adopt some subterfuge to watch the BBC programme that is linked by the NSS.

Taqiyyah for dummies

Taqiyyah for dummies

200W from The Earth

200 watts!  That is the amount of energy that the Earth/Sun system is emitting as gravitational energy as they orbit each other - according to Einstein's theories of relativity.

When I say they 'orbit each other' of course I meant that the Earth goes around the Sun and the Sun wobbles a bit.  (See more in the Wikipedia article about gravitational waves.)

You could run a few light bulbs on that much power, but that is all.

Dinner with believers

Inviting a group of 'believers' for dinner is always interesting.  This evening there were three visitors - all nice folks - invited by Mrs PE who is firmly on their side of the fence.

In these situations, it is only a matter of time before something triggers me into refuting a comment that they make to comfort each other.  This evening the first one related to the doubt that a non-believer could ever truly forgive.  The clinching comment was that the word 'forgiveness' has been misappropriated by the secular community.  This seemed to be an ideal opportunity to strike.

Armed with a good catalogue of stories about altruism among the great apes, and challenging my guest about the use of the term 'misappropriation', I gently but assertively suggested that it might be the other way round.  He did at least have the decency to admit that he didn't actually have any evidence for his original claim, and kept retreating into the refuge of semantics.  Fortunately his wife - sensible lady - then pounced on him too. 

A later discussion about the meaning of the term 'secularism' demonstrated that they regard it as a threat to Christianity too.  When will they learn that secularists are not attacking Christians but only defending the right of everyone not to be bullied by any particular religion?

Outnumbered four to one, I felt that I defended my position adequately, although not expertly.  It would be nice to imagine that something I said might sow the seeds of questioning and doubt, but I know it won't.

I'm sure they will come to dinner again.

No - nothing surprising

Sorry - but today turned out to have nearly nothing surprising and for a blog of this name that is a bit frustrating.

The day had some nice points, at least one that was more disappointing and others that were frustrating.

My boat is now stranded in Bath.  You might wonder why that would be a problem.  Bath is a nice city isn't it?

However, it is because the visitor facilities for the River Avon are second to none in their paucity.  I can't get back to the canal until they manage to fix Lock 11 of the Kennet and Avon Canal, and nobody is giving any more news than that.

I have to go to move the boat on Friday, but there is nowhere to move it to.

This is an interesting paradox.  It seems that internet technology has not yet reached the Canal and River Trust.  Or maybe customer service is not their top priority?

CRT's reputation has been confirmed.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Even before I realised that I was a skeptic, I thought the tradition of kissing the Blarney Stone was an example of the Irish getting their own back on the English - not to mention the other nationalities!

This is a view of my daughter trying to do it (a little while ago).

Kissing the Blarney Stone

So tell me this.  If this is truly the 'other half of The Stone of Scone', why would anyone build it into the outside of an Irish castle?

It doesn't ring true to me, but I'm open to being corrected.

Bath to Bristol - by boat

What a glorious sight to wake up to . . .

Reflections in the River Avon, Bath.

and then to cruise down the Avon on a sunny day with a stop for lunch at a nice pub was even better.

Those who have met my boat will understand why I took the opportunity to show this picture of a pretty young lady at this point.

Name that b . . . beer!  Bath Ales finest.

Perhaps the highlight of the day was to cruise around the 'floating harbour' in Bristol.  It gets this name because ocean going ships can remain floating in this harbour, whatever the state of the tide.

SS Great Britain - Brunel's fine ship

And a bit too much sun - yes, in England - perhaps that is today's surprising concept!

Approaching Bath

My boat is moored in Bath tonight.  The approach to the city along the Kennet and Avon can is quite enchanting.  I've moored on the River Avon, after a late evening visit to the famous weir by Poultney Bridge.  I had to find a mooring before it got really dark.

The famous weir in Bath, late in the evening

This might not be a surprise to you, but until very recently I never expected to see the view of this famous site from my own boat in the middle of the Avon!

The boat is moored in a place that is not entirely legitimate for a fit young fellow like me, but we'll move on tomorrow, very early in the morning.  I have very good reasons for needing to be moored somewhere accessible.  (Elderly mother on-board.)

Finding visitor moorings turned out to be more difficult than I expected.

Bristol tomorrow - I think!  Come and say hello.