Best video clip of the year

As 2012 draws to a close, I have reviewed all the comedy video clips that I've seen throughout the year in order to pick a winner.  And there is one video that stands head and shoulders above the others.  I present it here in all its glory.  Entitled Santa and Hitler, sit back and enjoy some classic footage from Hitler's bunker.

Deer crossing in Minnesota

I sometimes worry about our friends across the pond.  Please watch this video and see if you agree that some of them should maybe have the right to vote taken from them...

Celebration Day!

Went to see "Celebration Day" starring Led Zeppelin last night - what a movie!  It's the filmed version of their fantastic concert at the 02 Arena, five years ago, which was staged as a tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun, president of Atlantic Records, the label that gave Zep their first big break in the States.

I recommend it to one and all...

Interesting Perspective on the King James Bible

Fantastic "Gimme Shelter" video

Fantastic video.  Different people all around the world playing at the same time and collaborating on the same Rolling Stones track. It's things like this that make me feel uplifted and proud to be human.

Just came across this and had to post it...so funny, yet so true!

Strike Me Down!!

Frank Skinner recently hosted a talk show on BBC2 called “Opinionated” where celebrity guests and a studio audience would discuss news events of the preceding week.  One week Frank called on a member of the studio audience, who was a noted atheist, to make a comment about a news item.  The atheist duly commented, and Frank’s response was unsurprising, given his staunch Catholic convictions. He said “What gets me about Atheists, is that although they’re quite happy to deny the existence of God, if you ever ask them to hold their arms up to the sky and shout “God –If you exist, prove it by striking me down now!”  they never take you up on your offer!  Is this because they’re hedging their bets?”

Well, this was like a red rag to a bull to me.  As a staunch atheist, could I do this?

After a few days, and, plucking up all my courage whilst in the middle of walking my dog in the park on a Monday evening, I raised both arms skyward, and said, in quite a loud voice “God! If you exist, then strike me down - now!”  As you all  must have guessed, nothing happened because a) I’m typing this right now, and b) there’s no such thing as God.  

Ok “Big deal” I can hear you saying.   However what I found hard to get over was that this is indeed a big deal.  Certainly for me.  It was something I could only do after thinking about the act for a great deal of time.  It certainly wasn’t something I could do easily and without a second thought. And – I’ve figured out why this is so  – it is because of the sheer mass of indoctrination that bombards us all from a very early age, that God does exist and that he is all knowing, and more importantly, all seeing.  I know  that this is not true – just a myth dreamt up by some clever people a  few thousand years ago, but that myth pervades because of its constant repetition and reinforcement by so many people when you are young and impressionable.  I’m very confident that there’s no such thing as God – indeed I’ve been confident of that since I was 16, but – it’s still difficult to throw your arms in the air and deny his existence.  It just shows the power of propaganda.  I know absolutely, in my heart of hearts that having spoken, nothing is going to strike me down, but that insidious propaganda – religion – just causes that tiny little niggle in the back of your mind that says “are you certain you know what you’re doing?”

Nevertheless – I’ve now said it – more than once – and feel liberated.  So f*ck you, Frank Skinner!

The day I renounced rampant consumerism

I'm reminded of the time when I renounced rampant consumerism, because of Christmas. It's an apt reminder and an apt time of the year, so I'm happy to share it with you all.

Back in 1995, cable was being laid all over our town. Leaflets were regularly pushed through our door telling us about the benefits of cable television and promising instant access to many new TV channels. Dates were promised about when the service would go live. I contacted the company (Birmingham Cable) and made an appointment for the rep to visit us (a necessity if you wanted to sign up). The rep duly arrived and got me all excited with his promises of new channels, clearer signal, and no need for an aerial. He said, that if I signed the DD that minute, he could get the necessary cabling work completed before Christmas, so that we could see all these new channels over the Xmas period. Wow, was I excited! All this for only £10 per month! (plus another £10 a month to shift my line rental from BT to cable).

Men came and dug up our garden. A cable was duly laid to our lounge. Another man successfully installed a box under our TV, and carried out all the necessary wiring. All this was completed by December 20th. I was so looking forward to this Xmas! A Christmas with 42 channels! Not just the 4 that I'd become used to, but 42!

Well, I'm going to cut a very long story short here by pointing out something that dawned on me by New Year's day. Xmas was no different whether you had 4 channels or 42! Basically what we had was 4 channels churning out the usual (newish, generally watchable) Christmas fayre, and the other 38 churning out complete and utter tripe - repeats, repeats of repeats, American repeats, repeats of old American shows that I certainly would never have watched the first time they came around and more old, old American films than even I could count. And 100s and 100s of advertisements. Complete and utter rubbish. Taught me a great lesson - more does not equal better. In fact more choice generally leads to a dumbing down of standards, so more in effect, means less. I cancelled the 38 channels on the 2nd January (had to pay for another 6 months as I was locked into a contract) but realised that consuming more is definitely worse than consuming less. Consumerism - yuk!

I now consume as little as possible, especially on the TV front.