Comments open

A few people have been e-mailing me and they’ve been courteous and polite so I’m activating all comment facilities on this site. If you have something interesting to add, feel free to comment.

I don’t have time to be wading through irrational ramblings, though, and I don’t take kindly to idiotic threats or abuse. Since I run this site I’ll just delete that kind of thing and tell people’s Internet Service Providers.

I might not have time to get into much of a debate anyway actually – it’s all I can do to get articles down once in a while – but I look forward to seeing what people have to say. Maybe there are some who share my concern about the dumbed down, politically correct, religion-appeasing society we live in!

The BBC’s self-destroying business model

The BBC is such a big organisation it’s difficult to generalise about it. I find it painfully politically correct, and therefore irresponsible, in its news reporting, I get tired of its constant religious bias and sickened by its payment of obscene salaries to essentially unskilled people who just utter inane banter. But that’s not to say it’s entirely useless.

There was a time when you’d turn on Radio 3 and hear either complete silence or some weird triangle sound as they played a live broadcast of someone’s Bar Mitzvah celebration. They’ve been doing well recently though and had an excellent weekend last year all about Mendelssohn. There are some decent programmes on Radio 4, the World Service can be better, and there’s BBC 7 spoken radio. Then there are the films they broadcast and the dramas, occasionally okay, there’s the news and there’s the enormous wealth of articles on their website. The best thing about it is:

I get all of this for free.

That’s right, I don’t pay them a penny. So when I do become annoyed with political correctness of the BBC I can at least take consolation from the knowledge I don’t pay them anything. I watch their films, listen to their news, watch their news, watch anything else I want, use their website and all its frills, all for free. (This is largely made possible by their iPlayer service.)

What is the BBC thinking of, giving away all its content for free? And how long can it last? Not forever, I’ll bet. One does not have to be an economist to see that this business model is crazy. Should I be using iPlayer and not paying for a TV license? Well, I answer that I don’t make the rules. They could change them. But then perhaps I would pay to go to a provider who is less PC.

Hacker should obviously be tried in US

Regarding the case of Garry McKinnon, he has admitted to hacking into 97 US government computers including those of the US Navy and NASA, where he stole and deleted data. This is electonic trespass on US territory and a crime against the US. He should obviously be extradited, as requested, and tried there, Asperger’s Syndrome or not. There is no need even for any debate about this.

Amusing sketch

Here’s one of my favourite comedy sketches from the Nineties

How really to cook rice

You’d think cooking rice like you have in Indian restaurants would be simple. I did. But when you look around the Net for instructions you find countless different methods, involving “absorption”, washing the rice multiple times, soaking it, straining it, frying it, all kinds of things. You try these methods and invariably end up with a big lump of rice like a rice pudding, with all the grains stuck together. You say to yourself “I followed the instructions exactly!” – but that doesn’t seem to work.

You feel cheated. It ends up seeming like some arcane special secret: how to simply cook rice that is fluffy and separate.  What are these people, geniuses? It seems like Mission Impossible.

Well, it turns out it’s not hard. Put away all those obscure recipes, close down your web browser (after printing this! ) and prepare to cook rice the easy way and get the elusive result you have been seeking.

1. Get the rice. It doesn’t need to be some special brand. Just make it basmati rice.
2. Weigh out 300 grams of it. This amount will serve two people with proper portions (not supermarket ones!).
3. Don’t bother with washing it, soaking it, rinsing out the bleach or any of that business. It’s a waste of time and unnecessary.
4. Measure out some water. 1 litre per 300 grams is about right. The point is you want plenty of water to allow the rice to fly around while it’s cooking: the exact opposite of the fabled absorption method.
5. Put the water in an empty kettle and boil it. While this is happening turn your oven on at about 175° C and turn a ring on to warm it up.
6. Water has boiled. Pour it in a fairly big steel saucepan, so the pan is about half full.
7. Let the water come to the boil on the ring.
8. Once it’s boiling well, tip the rice in and note the time. Stir it around a little, gently, to stop it sticking to the bottom on the pan. You can use a desert spoon to do that.
9. If you fancy having a subtle flavour to the rice, and having it a little yellow, you can stick a few strands of saffron in at this point. It’s expensive but nice. You just need maybe four or five small pieces.
10. Keep the rice busy. Keep the ring on high and the water boiling. Stir it around gently occasionally.
11. We come to a crucial point now: you have to get the rice out at exactly the right time. The right time is when it hasn’t gone soft but it’s no longer hard either. In Italian this is called al dente. You check the rice (I use a small desert fork) occasionally to see when it’s reaching this stage. With the measurements we’re using it happens after 7-8 minutes. You don’t want to miss this moment, so check it before then! You can actually see the rice swelling a bit at this point, but you want to get it out while it still has a bit of “bite”. This is because any longer and it will start sticking together – and it will cook more outside the pan. You’re planning for that.
12. Once the rice seems to have reached the point described above then, take the pan off the boil. Anchor a large sieve above the sink and pour the whole pan load into that.
13. Leave it there for a few minutes and prepare an oven tray or bowl with some foil covering, oiled a little. The foil is simply to protect the container and the oil to stop the rice sticking.
14. After about 3 minutes, when the rice has drained, spread it out in the container. You don’t need to be washing it through with cold water or anything like that.
15. Okay, this next stage is not even crucial, but now you put it in your pre-heated oven and leave it there for about 15 minutes. This will dry it out and fluff it up a bit.
16. After 15 mins is up, you take it out, mix it up a bit with a fork and maybe transfer it to the bowl of your choice. Then just leave it to cool. It goes more separate when it cools. (Rice freezes especially well and this helps with the separation process too. It microwaves fine.)
17. After allowing it to cool for about 10 mins, you’ve got yourself a bowl of separate, fluffy, very tasty rice of exactly the right consistency. Heat it up a little in a microwave if you like, but it’s ready to go now! I recommend a nice hot curry and a pint of something you like.

And that is how really to cook rice.

Snow on my birthday

It is snowing in London today on my birthday, making my Flash “masthead” above not so inappropriate for the time of year after all. That’s English weather for you, global friends.

I was born on this date 35 years ago and was very ill as a baby. I have been extremely lucky regarding the family I was born into. I’ve had more ups than downs, and these days things are going better than ever.

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema: Spring Flowers

It may look like winter in my “masthead” above, in fact it is of course spring. Here’s a more appropriate image, and perhaps one of these days I will get around to replacing the Flash! (Hopefully this will be before summer, or perhaps it will end up staying there all year round until it finds its propriety once again… )

Darwin Day Lecture 2008

This evening I attended the British Humanist Association’s Darwin Day Lecture at University College, London, which was on this occasion given by Tim Lewens, a lecturer in Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. You can see some photographs of the occasion here and some short video clips are on my Facebook page.

I will admit that the principal reason for me attending this lecture was to be in the presence of Richard Dawkins. I am delighted to say that I was able to speak to Professor Dawkins and tell him face to face how much I admire his courageous work, and how I am keen to assist further in the cause of fighting irrationality.

I can tell you that in real life Prof. Dawkins comes across as the same highly capable yet humble person that he does in videos and, while direct and to the point, he is always unfailingly polite and devoid of the arrogance sometimes wrongly attributed to him (but sometimes possessed by other senior academic figures to their own disadvantage).

With regard to Tim Lewens’ lecture, Mr Lewens spoke well – it is difficult to speak in front of a room full of people – but did seem, from his style, to be more used to addressing undergraduates, and did insist upon refering to Darwin in the present historical tense (“Darwin thinks”, “Darwin says”). I was pleased that Richard Dawkins picked him up on this at the end, because indeed it does not fully take into account the period in which Darwin was writing and it can sound pretentious.

Regarding the contents of the lecture, I would need to see a transcript to analyse them in detail, but to a large degree Mr Lewens seemed to be “bolting Darwin’s subject onto his own”, because – it seems – Darwin did not actually say very much about philosophy, prefering to to write about science. This left Mr Lewens with not much material, I felt, but the lecture was interesting when he discussed the commonly perceived conflict between acting selfishly and acting altruistically. Here I feel he would have been well advised to have mentioned not only the Peacock theory (mentioned in The Selfish Gene) which I find very convincing, but also Sam Harris’s excellent points made in The End of Faith, where he explains that to act really fully selfishly actually entails acting altruistically as well as we seek psychological fulfilment (there is more to human beings than simply the selfish gene, as Mr Dawkins himself has said – we are unique in this respect) . I would like to expand upon this argument in detail at another time, because a widespread comprehension of it would undoubtedly be the solution to a great many problems in society.

With regard to the evolutionary advantages of being altruistic, these were rightly attributed to the group surviving, as Mr Dawkins pointed out even in The Selfish Gene, and with regard to our sympathy for disabled people, whose genes do not seem to favour natural selection, I believe this too can be shown to actually be compatible with natural selection in the sense that nobility is again beneficial at a group level – however this topic again is derserving of an article in its own right.

Mr Lewens made a number of claims about and interpretations of Darwin which jarred with me and I found rather unlikely, and I was therefore not surprised when Prof. Dawkins picked him up on them in no uncertain terms at the end of the lecture, but the lecture was to some degree informative. When Mr Lewens seemed to disagree with Prof. Dawkins, I (and probably most of the audience) had the distinct feeling he was picking the wrong man with whom to disagree, and it even crossed my mind that he might have been doing so in order to try to make a name for himself rather than through genuine disagreement, though I don’t claim this with certainty.

Following the lecture the floor was opened to the audience, and the kind of questions asked were, for the most part, typical of audience questions at such an event: lacking precision, forethought or relevance, and a little embrrassing for the speakers to have to contend with, but then Mr Dawkins is now a veteran of handling such remarks and it must come as a very pleasant surprise when an intelligent question is asked or valid point made.

All in all I do not want to be too scathing of this lecture because it is all in a very good cause and the BHA needs, and should receive, all the support it can get. Professor Dawkins spoke excellently prior to the lecture and so did a senior member of the BHA (whose name I missed), stating clearly that the organisation will not stop fighting the encroachment of religion in our secular lives and law. Thank goodness, for all of us, that we have many great people in the country doing this, but there is a long way to go yet. Why not sign up and help?

Nice quotation

“If little labour, little are our gains;
Man’s fortunes are according to his pains.”

Robert Herrick

In other words, we must work hard to feel fulfilled, and a reward that comes easily is not much of a reward at all. In other words – “no pain, no gain”.

Nice quotation

“Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity.”

(Occam’s Razor)

Article backlog

I ran a word count today which revealed I have a backlog of more than 14,000 words of jotted thoughts which which will become articles. Most relate to human nature. I wrote ten times this amount in my late teens and early twenties, and I only took time off to study philosophy formally and learn Flash. Now I split my time. And with that, I must get on with work.

No more TV

“I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There’s one called brightness, but it doesn’t work.”

Eugene P. Gallagher

I am pleased to report I have just cancelled my TV licence. I’ve done this because:

• Most TV is rubbish.
• The advertising one must tolerate between programmes is even worse.
• If there is anything you wish to watch you can usually do so on the Net instead.
• I use my TV (which is a high quality Bang & Olufsen model) only to watch DVDs (and a virtual fireplace).
• TV watching is passive and saps your time.

This move is going to save me £140.50 per year and bring me the satisfaction of not paying for things I do not watch. And all the time I can still listen to the intelligent speech on BBC Radio 4 (and to any other radio station).

Here are some interesting links regarding this issue:

• Remote Controlled by Aric Sigman
• Pravda article
• More links

I’d like to see the licence fee (and advertising funding) abolished and subscription only services introduced instead, so that you get only what you pay for and pay for only what you get. I hope now the TV Licensing people don’t come pestering me. If they do they will be given short thrift..!

The Cloud Horizon

One of the reasons I love flying…

Virgin on outstanding

Let me start this post by mentioning how I will never forget the time David Dimbleby said how these days he gets to avoid “the horrors of flying and airports”. With this one remark he gave away the snobbery and privilege that taints his entire outlook on life (in another he declared what a delight it must have been to have been an ancient farmer with only a fire in the middle of the room to warm you). While many people can only fantasise about flying, and never even get to leave their home town, Dimbleby resents spending a few hours defying what is naturally possible for human beings, seeing an aerial view of earth, and being waited upon in what is effectively a moving hotel (I bet he doesn’t fly economy either). Enough said about that, let’s talk about Virgin.

Richard Branson seems to have a unique midas touch when it comes to public services, and (although many may have stories to the contrary) he seems to have achieved the impossible feat of providing a good service, being very successful in business and being a nice guy at the same time. Credit where it is due, always.

I am flying with Virgin Atlantic today, from London Gatwick to Orlando, Florida. The booking was easy, using their website, and 10 pence cheaper from the closest reseller (Expedia). I am always happy to cut out resellers, as they have no right to take your money for doing nothing but standing between you and the service provider, so I was pleased to book directly on the Virgin web site (all in cost £308). Not only can you book online with Virgin but you can also check-in online, which I did. On arrival at the airport there were many staff to assist, and no queues. The plane left on time, and there is more leg room on this plane (a Boeing 747) than I have previously experienced. Food is better than usual, service good and entertainment selection exceptional.

Branson is doing things how they should be done – which is rarely seen in business. There are even little touches like the headphone jack on the seat is not some weird one whereby the airline can insist you buy headphones for it. No, it’s a normal headphones jack and they give you free phones or you can use your own.

By far most depressing aspect of this flight is the presence of so many incompetent parents and graceless people, but blame for this can hardly be laid at the door of Virgin. Their only shortcoming so far is that the on-board entertainment is scheduled and not controllable by the viewer – and that is hardly much of a criticism.

A visit to the hatter

When I was 18 years old I bought a bowler hat. As is my way, I researched carefully before buying, and finally located a shop called Bertie Wooster in Chelsea. The hat I bought was actually a riding bowler, with a hard shell. I wore it with pride around Durham, no doubt much to the mirth of imbeciles.

I have retained an interest in hats and lament the passing of the age of chivalry, when both gentleman and ladies wore hats and courtesy was regarded as a strength and not a weakness. To this effect, I today visited two hatters in the Piccadilly/St James area of London. One is called Bates, on Jermyn Street, and the other Lock & Co. The staff of Bates are not particularly friendly, perhaps too fed up of tourists, and they are usually to be found reading books.

Lock & Co. is a little further out of the way – one needs to know of it to find it – and the staff are extremely friendly and unpretentious. I spent some considerable time in this shop and ended up buying a waxed cotton explorer hat and an ivory cotton Monaco trilby. I shall wear the latter during my forthcoming trip to Florida.