Something borrowed, something old, nothing blue and little new

The world has seemingly gone Daft Punk daft (as it were). Their new album has apparently caused music journalists the world over to experience a collective aural orgasm the likes of which has not been seen since… since… well, since David Bowie released his new album just over two months ago, actually. Which rather undermines my attempt to present this as some kind of epochal moment. Still, there’s a blog post to be written, and if some misfiring attempts at hyperbole are the price for that, so be it.

I’m slightly taken aback by this since I didn’t realise, in my ignorance, that there was pent up demand for new material from the band. I had mistakenly assumed DP were one of those dance-y acts, like Propellerheads, who no-one was really interested in once they’d had their brief period in the limelight. I only really know DP for one track, ‘Around The World’, which I not only dislike but find actively annoying. It’s one of those songs that seems tailor-made to be used as ammunition by anyone trying to argue that dance/ electronic music is dull and soulless: it’s thinly produced, lacking in ideas, and the instrumentation is almost parodically cheap and nasty.

But each to their own – just because I lack the ability to appreciate DP’s oeuvre doesn’t mean that others are similarly limited. I’ve never been one of those who thinks that there are absolutes in cultural taste, and I certainly wouldn’t argue that their music is bad, just that I don’t enjoy it. Neither do I begrudge them their success (although I do find it a little hard to take when they are praised for their ‘alternative’ credentials at a time when they are selling so well they are the clear definition of mainstream). I am, though, struck by how easy a ride they are being given in some quarters. It’s almost being suggested that they are doing something new – terms like ‘ground-breaking’ are used with dismaying regularity – when they are obviously just the latest iteration of a number of long-standing trends.

Evil and atheism

Well, that’s a heavy enough sounding title, isn’t it? I sometimes feel I should write more posts with titles like ’7 Reasons Why Kittens Are Nice’, or ’3 Tips for Baking the Perfect Apple Pie’. Everyone likes blog posts about cats and food, whereas those which focus on evil and atheism tend to upset people.

Anyway, yes, I’m an atheist. I think the idea of a benevolent God who cares for us and will wash away all sorrow is perfectly lovely, but unfortunately I just can’t persuade myself that the principle of “wouldn’t it be lovely if” is a sensible basis on which to think about fundamental questions. I’m an atheist because, despite millennia of looking, there is no evidence to suggest that God exists, and therefore no reason to propose that He does. It’s not a matter of asserting that God doesn’t exist, it’s a matter of noting that those who assert that He does have no evidence on which to base their assertion. That’s why atheism is not a belief – because it’s about discounting the erroneous assertions of others, not making assertions oneself. (The same goes for other varieties of belief in the supernatural, by the way – if it can’t be demonstrated via evidence, I discount it.)

That said, I’m the kind of atheist who doesn’t find atheism especially interesting. I’m the kind of atheist who recognises that many theists are kind and good people, and I’m also the kind of atheist who dislikes prejudice. For these reasons I tend to avoid the blanket condemnations of religious people that some – some – atheists indulge in; I prefer to judge every individual by their own actions and words, rather than make assumptions in advance about them. This doesn’t preclude me speaking out against religious ideas I disapprove of, or condemning religiously-motivated people who I perceive as doing harm, it just means I don’t assume in advance that I know what a particular individual thinks and believes just because they describe themselves as a Buddhist or a Zoroastrian. Apart from anything else, I’ve met too many contraception-using Catholics and gay-positive Muslims to accept that the religiously-minded are anything like as homogeneous as their leaders and detractors both like to pretend.

John Gray, though, is not a believer (which may make you wonder why I’ve just spent two paragraphs talking about atheism; all will become clear in due course).

Mental health campaigns can backfire

Mark ‘One in Four’ Brown has written a typically thoughtful and interesting blog post for the BBC to mark Mental Health Awareness Week. In it he wonders whether a standard tactic deployed by self-appointed mental health campaigners – that of drawing public attention to glamorous people who have managed to have super-successful lives despite their MH problems – may actually prove counter-productive.

At a time when experiences of disability are becoming politicised by changes to social security benefits, some feel that inspirational figures drawn from the ranks of celebrity obscure the real challenges faced by disabled people. These challenges include a lack of relationships and money to make sure that life is not just bearable but enriching and enjoyable.

Where the […] gap between their [the inspirational figure's] life and ours is too great, the effect is not one of encouragement but of disillusionment – especially if their story is told in terms of personal qualities like bravery or persistence. […] Most of us will never scale Everest, compete for our country at sports or have a showbiz career. This doesn’t mean we’ve failed.

I fully endorse these comments. In fact, I’ve said similar things myself in the past. Here I am, for example, back in March 2008 demonstrating the problem with presenting exclusively hopeful stories about mental illness (in only my third-ever post, when I was still writing directly about my own mental illness):

My contribution to the Great Grammar Debate

That perennial focus of heated debate, grammar, has recently risen to renewed prominence. This is partly the result of the announcement of the inaugural Bad Grammar awards, and partly the result of the imminent introduction of a new grammar test into English primary schools. Taken together, these events have caused a small explosion of comment on matters grammatical, with articles appearing in a number of newspapers including The Times, The Independent and The Guardian (which has published several such articles); the matter has also been raised on the BBC News website.

In general, these articles (and the public discussions appended to them) seem to have generated rather more heat than light: intransigent positions have been restated with absolute conviction, both by those who think ‘poor grammar’ is a cardinal sin and those who think that the whole notion of grammar is an elitist imposition. My own view is different, and I have not seen it entirely replicated anywhere else in current discussions (though this may, of course, reflect no more than the inadequacy of my research). I have therefore decided to publish my own contribution to this Great Grammar Debate.

‘Vicious’ bingo

Here’s a fun game that everyone can play – I call it Vicious Bingo. Pick a review of ITV sitcom Vicious – really, any review at all – and then award yourself a point any time you come across one of the following words or phrases: creaky, camp, old-fashioned, like a farce, laughter track, theatrical, John Inman, stereotypical, hammy, not as good as The Job Lot, homophobic. The winner is the person with the most points. The prize is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word “groupthink” in casual conversation.

If you haven’t heard of Vicious, it was co-created by gay playwright Mark Ravenhill and gay sitcom writer Gary Janetti, and it’s written by the latter. It stars gay actor Sir Derek Jacobi and gay actor/ film star/ gay rights activist Sir Ian McKellen in the leading roles of an elderly gay couple. (That’s a lot of gay – something you might want to take into consideration when you read straight people accusing it of homophobia.) I’ve watched the first couple of episodes now (as can you, if you live in the UK – they’re available on ITV Player), so I feel able to comment on some of these criticisms.

Let’s start with ‘laughter track’: the show doesn’t, so far as I can tell, have one.

BBC bias and impartiality

So, my last-but-one post – the one about Brian Milligan’s not entirely convincing attempt to persuade us that it’s possible to have a delicious, varied, nutritionally balanced diet for £1 a day – exploded. I don’t know any other way to describe what happened. It was noodling along in a perfectly normal way for one of my better-read posts, and then at some point it suddenly started to be shared on facebook and twitter. Last Wednesday I had over 56,000 page views, almost all of them visits to that one post, and the days since have stayed well above normal.

At one point, the post was being either liked, reblogged or commented on several times a minute. That’s extremely flattering, obviously, and I’m genuinely grateful to all the people who read it, or commented on it, or recommended it to other people. It’s also quite scary, though – a bit like having got used to living alongside a quiet country lane, only to find it has turned into a motorway overnight. I’m glad it coincided with a time of relative mental stability for me, at any rate, not one of the periods when I was in the grip of paranoia. That probably wouldn’t have turned out prettily. (For the benefit of people new to the blog – hello, by the way, nice to have you here – I have mental health problems. When I say paranoia, I’m using the word in its formal sense.)

Anyway, the purpose of this isn’t to give dull lectures on the condition of my psyche, or to brag about having written a (by my standards) popular post. I want to write instead about something that some people have raised in relation to that post – namely the suggestion that Mr Milligan’s article is part of a pattern, and that it represents bias, or even pro-government propaganda, on the part of the BBC.

Reflections on turning 40: my ankle is middle aged

Last August, I hurt my ankle. I was walking along a rough path, and I twisted it in a slightly awkward way. At least, I assume that’s what happened. I can’t be sure because I didn’t actually notice the injury at the time. What happened was that the next morning, when, in my usual manner, I rose from my bed like an eager gazelle grunting warthog and began my quick scamper slow shuffle to the bathroom, I was suddenly struck by a sharp pain.

The acute pain phase lasted, I guess, for about three weeks, before it was replaced by a feeling that’s quite hard to describe: not pain, exactly, and not weakness, exactly, but some kind of hybrid of the two. I didn’t google for guidance – I’d only have discovered that a sore ankle was a symptom of bubonic plague, or something – and I got gradually back to both usual speed and usual distance in my walking. (It was a strange experience, during those weeks, to find myself being lapped in the supermarket by people with walking sticks.) I still had to treat some things with care for several months: walking up and down slopes, for example, seemed to put a kind of strain on it that could kick me temporarily back to the acute pain phase within a few steps. It’s not completely recovered even now, although it’s so much better as to hardly warrant mentioning.

Here’s the thing. I’ll bet you that, if I’d twisted my ankle like this twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have noticed a thing – it would have been flexible enough not to get injured. And ten years ago I reckon I’d have had a few days of twinging, but nothing worse. Ten years into the future, I would probably develop a comedy limp for a while. Twenty years hence, an injury like this would probably more-or-less immobilise me, for a while at least. The truth is that my ankle is already middle aged, and in a couple of decades it will be old.

Or, to put it another way: bloody hell, I’m 40.

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Slightly dodgy ankle aside, I don’t seem to be entering in on my fifth decade in too bad a shape.