An Open Letter to Sheilas' Wheels

I received an advert leaflet from Sheilas' Wheels. I kid you not, it makes the following absurd and insulting claim:

"It's official - women are better drivers."

Interestingly, I can't display it here, for legal reasons not related to this post - despite the fact that I'd be advertising their advert for free. There is a different version that makes the same claim, which can be seen by clicking on the link given on the above title [not available - see Addenda at bottom of post]. However, my copy is considerably more forthright in this assertion, and includes the following justification for this astounding 'fact' in the smallprint:

"Source: Ministry of Justice National Statistics Offences relating to motor vehicles England and Wales 2006, published April 2008. Based on motoring offences taken to court."

It is with the leaflet version in mind that I write the following open letter to Sheilas' Wheels in response. A copy will be sent both to Sheilas' Wheels and the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). I will post details of any signifant response. If you would like to complain to the ASA, you can use this link to find out how. Please feel free to leave a post about it, and good luck. Update: Three years after my letter was sent, in 2012, The EU finally came round to my way of thinking and banned gender discrimination in relation to insurance premiums. Sheilas' Wheels no longer pulls this stunt.

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Dear Sheilas,

I have to say that I and my intelligence are insulted by your leaflet that arrived through my door (see attached). It claims that "it’s official – women are better drivers." The given source for this is the Ministry of Justice National Statistics relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales 2006, based on motoring offences taken to court. And as the leaflet says, I indeed can’t "argue with the facts." However, I can and feel compelled to argue with how the facts are utilised and portrayed.

Neither Sheilas’ Wheels nor anyone else is in a position to make such a claim, regardless of the evidence quoted. Evidence is not proof, whether it be statistics, empirical analysis or otherwise. The claim is akin to me saying that, for example, based on the official statistics of people’s salaries by gender, "it’s official – men are better than women at more important jobs" (see refs. [1] & [2]), or that, again based on selected official statistics, "it’s official – black people are more criminal than white people." (ref. [3])

None of these statements is 'official,' regardless of the statistics used. As we should all know, it’s more of a complicated world than that. To this end, I of course do not believe that the references quoted do in themselves show either of the above claims to be factual or official. In fact, I’m sure I could find statistics showing the contrary. However, allow me for one moment to use your own rules for establishing "facts," and make a case in point. If you penalise men in general for being "worse drivers" for committing more motoring offences, do you also penalise black men additionally for being "more criminal" and thus "even more likely" to cause a motoring offence? If not, why not? It would certainly be consistent. If the answer is "because that would be illegal and unfairly discriminatory," then why are you allowed to use the same means to "show" that women are "better" drivers than men?

Just because it seems more socially acceptable for women to discriminate against men doesn’t make it the right thing to do. I apologise for pointing out the sorts of basic morals that we were taught as children, but it evidently needs reiterating.

I’d also like to express concern about what and who makes a "better" driver. Allow me take the source you quote as an example: It is not enough to say that, based on motoring offences taken to court, women are "officially" "better" drivers. Here are some of the more obvious reasons why:

• "Better" is a subjective word. What it means depends on the eye of the beholder. You cannot prove, or claim as factual, that something is "better" than something else.

• The claim does not take into account the possibility that men spend far longer on the road than women. I would have thought it obvious that the vast majority of truck and taxi drivers are men. Should this be the case, then it would be out of proportion to use the statistics cited in the leaflet in order to make such a statement. Using the crash statistics of Formula 1 Racing, it would be easy to say that women drivers are "better" drivers because they never crash, but of course this would be grossly unfair because of the number of men competing in F1 compared to the number of women.

• It may be the case that a small proportion of men commit multiple offences. The claim would seem to assume that each offence is committed by a different person. If a minority of men commit all of the offences taken to court, then it is unfair to say that all men are worse drivers. The statistics suggest that this is the case, but that doesn’t amount to an official confirmation.

• The statistics only take into account motoring offences taken to court in one year. What about other evidence that can equally validly be used in an attempt to evaluate who is a "better" driver? What about people who are not caught committing offences, or who commit offences that are not taken through court? There is no sense of proportion and thus no fair treatment given in the statement. The statistics used are entirely and deliberately out of context to reality.

• Official statistics could be used to establish the "excellence" of drivers, in the same way that your leaflet determines a "better" driver. It could then be argued that the "excellence" of male drivers might outweigh those men who are "worse" to the point that, on the whole, male drivers are still "better" than women drivers. In fact, does the absence of women in F1 not give this some credence?

• Another thought occurs – which official body endorses this specific "fact"? Surely if there is no such endorsing body, this claim cannot legitimately be made.

I anticipate the claim that the leaflet is intended to be light-hearted, or tongue-in-cheek. If so, I fail to see the joke – mainly because there isn't one. It quotes evidence and attempts to assert facts, and its tone is portrayed seriously. There are no exclamation marks and there is no clue about any a jocular nature. Even if it were intended as a joke, it is certainly not in good taste. Instead, it simply seems to use a biased and severely limited set of statistics in order deliberately to portray women as better drivers, and then make the ludicrous jump to claim this as a fact. To say that men are statistically in a more high-risk category may have merit; to say that women are better drivers is simply an unfounded, sweeping statement.

As a consequence of this, I would ask that the claim be withdrawn and that people not be subject to such insulting, female-chauvinist propaganda. Furthermore, I would hope that more care and consideration be employed in the future to treat everyone, regardless of gender, with the same level of courtesy.

Yours Sincerely,

Alan Nyquist.

Footnotes/References

[1] Far more women are in part-time jobs than men - source: Office for National Statistics, Sept 2008 (link - PDF)

[2] On average men earned 17% more than women in 2007 – source: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, Office for National Statistics, Nov 2007 (link)

[3] According to the 2001 UK Census and the Office for National Statistics, 2% of the population was black (link). However, as of June 2007, 15% of male prisoners were black (source: Ministry of Justice Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2006, Oct. 2007 (link, see p91).

* * * * *

Addenda

[19.01.10] I recently received an e-mail regarding the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I kid you not, it features this sentence. Spot the dubious bit.

"In the medium and longer term programmes will also include temporary shelters; nutrition for women and children; control of infectious diseases and helping to rebuild the livelihoods of those affected by this disaster."

[10.06.10] As of checking today, the link to the advert that made this claim has been removed. I like to think that I had a small part in it, but who knows. It's also suspicious that a Google search of "It's official - women are better drivers" with reference to Sheilas' Wheels yields no results, including cached pages.

So-called Feminism

I paid a visit to that most saintly of companies the other today, Tesco. The woman behind the till was talking to one of the packers, also a woman. As I approached the till, the packer moved to end the conversation. All I heard her say was,

“...typical man.”

Till Woman agreed, with a stern look. No-one in the queue so much as batted an eyelid.
Being too surprised to do anything about it at the time, I also did nothing. But I kick myself not to have asked her whether, if a man had exclaimed, “...typical woman,” she would have considered him a male chauvinist pig, or whether she would have considered it tolerable behaviour.

I doubt that the latter would have happened, because, while it’s perfectly socially acceptable for a woman to insult a man (indeed, all men) in this way, vice versa is not. “But that’s sexist, you can’t say that!” they would no doubt exclaim. If you can’t say something because it’s sexist, then you can’t pick and choose which sex can have a bash at the other. That would be… well, sexist, funnily enough.

So there you are: Socially speaking, sexism is wrong, unless a woman does it.

I wonder whether this social acceptance has wheedled its way into the public hive mind because of so-called feminism (i.e. female chauvinism). There is quite a big difference between feminism and female chauvinism: Feminists strive for equality between men and women. Female chauvinists strive for more power to women. It’s a subtle difference, I know, but it’s quite a huge one when you think about it. The former is a worthy cause; the latter is the same sort of reasoning that dictators and other compulsive egomaniacs use to fuel their never-ending desire for conquest.

The next time you watch someone spouting their spiel about women’s rights and woes, whether on the TV, in Tesco or elsewhere, just consider: Are they really fighting for justice, or are they fighting for their own selfish and vain desires? If it's the latter, then it's your duty as a citizen of humanity to point it out. You'll get it off your chest, they'll learn something (even if it's that they can't get away with such a remark) and society can go forward more positively.

Whatever it is, it seems to have given these women the power base that they obviously crave for shallow reasons. The men are just as pathetic for being weak about it and allowing it to happen as the women are for being vain and childish to do it.

The dawn of so-called feminism, at least in the UK, seems to have been around the time "girl power" entered the lexicon. I'm not sure whether the marketing team that came up with the 'Spice Girls' product invented the term or jumped on the bandwagon. Regardless, the effect was to amplify something evil and add to the descruction of the society. Even worse, it was all presumably for the sole purposes of cashing in.

The lyrics to their song, "Wannabe" has it all. Read those lyrics and you have the complete picture of female chauvinism. Of particular interest is the lyric, "If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give." That's what so-called feminism is all about: Gaining something without giving anything back, at men's (and, ultimately, everyone's) expense.

The Spice Girls should be ashamed at themselves for what they purpetuated. They failed the cause of Feminism, by become female versions of the supposed oppressive men that resulted in feminism in the first place; and they were pretenders to the concept of Equality, tempting a lot of young, equality-driven admirers subtly across to the dark side towards bitchiness, anger and hatred. That the Spice Girls might themselves have been young and innocent to their crimes is no defense: As adults, they were (and are) responsible for their own actions, and they have never apologised since.

I’m sure this post will get some poor soles' hackles up. Well, good – I welcome it. If you’re one of those people, then the chances are that I’ve hit a nerve due to personal reasons you may not have considered or admitted to yourself. Understanding is the first step towards acceptance, and then self-improvement. There are no vendettas here, except regarding crimes against humanity. If you’re offended, it must be because you have an axe to grind to the contrary, or else you've been misled. Go and do some thinking, and find out the truth about (and for) yourself. See it as a challenge. It’s certainly a worthy one.

So, what do you think about that? Now you know how I feel.

Martin Creed

You could be forgiven for not knowing who Martin Creed is. Indeed, he should not be known at all. Unfortunately, he seems to be the subject of considerable media hype, and he’s currently “cool” in the modern art world (or should I say “scene”, to borrow a fittingly pretentious and fundamentally meaningless word).

The blame for the popularity of Martin Creed can only be placed in part upon Martin Creed. Again, it is the media interest and the pretentious art world (as distinct to the art world in general) that provides the advertising crap. Creed just supplies the artistic crap and goes along for the ride. But it’s all still just crap, nevertheless.

Let me refer you first to a Reuters story on his June 2008 creation, “Work No. 850”. The whole thing is so telling that I could just quote the whole lot and be done with it, really. But let me go through it in bits, for the sake of completeness, and justify my viewpoint.

The Reuters article mentions that Creed’s latest creation is a runner who runs from one end of the gallery to the other every 30 seconds. It would be easy to say that this isn’t art, but this would be wrong: Anything can be considered artistically, and it is to this tedious and tenuous argument that artists (particularly the worse ones, who cannot find their own justifications for their works), often use by default.

Unfortunately for them, it evades the real point: whether a work is worth being considered as a work of art. What is the point of the work? If its significance is not be justifiable, then it is not in a state to be exhibited or pondered over. If a work doesn’t show anything worth considering, such as something profound or new, then there really isn’t any point in anyone wasting time on it, the artist or the viewer. (See also, ‘Pop Music’ blog.)

That a work is popular with the public is not really a good justification: Given enough media coverage and hype (i.e. marketing), people would go and see a Tesco frozen chicken in a cage. Particularly if it were controversial in some way, let’s say if it had tattooed to it a naked picture of a dead man in a wheelchair holding a Nazi flag. But that doesn’t make it art: At best, it makes it meaningless, sick and attention-seeking. Besides, anyone can come up with that sort of tripe. It takes more than this to justify oneself as a good artist.

So, there are four fundamental things that Creed needs to identify in order for his work to be considered a worthy addition to art. The rule-set goes for any other artist and work of art (in any form), as well.

1. What does it try to show? Or: What does it represent?


2. Does it show something that hasn't been shown before in other works of art? Or is it just a weak imitation of the works of artists that have already been there and done that? In other words, what's the innovation?


3. Is his chosen medium the best one to use, in order to express what he wants to express?


4. Should anyone care what it is it's trying to say? How does it inspire people? Is it going to add to culture in any meangful and positive way?

Let’s start at the beginning, and then when we’ve reached the end, stop.

1. What does it try to show/represent?

In the Reuters article, Creed gives the following explanation for what his work tries to express.

“Running is the opposite of being still. If you think about death as being completely still and movement as a sign of life, then the fastest movement possible is the biggest sign of life. So then running fast is like the exact opposite of death: it's an example of aliveness.”

What? Surely that’s excusable logic for your average ten-year-old, but a fully-grown adult?

Here is his thesis in a nut-shell:

• Running fast is the opposite of death. (Funny, I always thought that life was. But what do I know.)


• Those living things which are the most alive move most rapidly.

Where do I start on that bombshell? Firstly, if running fast is an example of aliveness, then that does not in itself mean that it is the opposite of death. Secondly, literally speaking (as indeed Creed is in the above quote), how can anything be any more alive than anything else? Is a baby, who can only crawl slowly, less alive than Paula Radcliffe?

Indeed, this argument holds for any sense of the word: Even if you’re taking the word ‘alive’ to mean something less literal than ‘not dead,’ or even ‘close to death,’ then surely you can say that something that is brighter in colour is more ‘alive’ than something that is darker. Why hasn’t he created a work of art based on colour instead? How does he justify that his interpretation is the best one for his purpose? There are many interpretations of ‘alive,’ and I’d say that Creed’s interpretation was a pretty mediocre one at best.

2. What’s the innovation?

Even if it is innovative to represent aliveness as someone running, the reason why no-one else has done the same thing is probably because they rejected it as a crap idea.

The best justification of innovation I see is of the use of the medium (whatever the medium actually is, in this case. And don’t give me some pretentious claptrap about life or nature itself, being the medium). But it is severely limited. It’s easy to say “a human form in motion has many levels and shows many things that can only be felt and not expressed in words.” From what Creed has said about it, however, this is not what he’s trying to do.

All he is trying to do is to exemplify aliveness artistically. I can go into the street and see or do the same thing. It requires no thought on the part of an artist to represent aliveness in a live person in movement. Similarly, it is of no inspiration to the viewer. In any case, ‘nature itself’ shows us many more things than the human form to demonstrate aliveness, and it does it better. Nature can do it much better than we can, so the whole exercise is pointless – he may as well present his ‘work’ in the form of a directive: “go and have a walk in the park.” Why impersonate downwards? Why buy sterilised milk if you can get Jersey cream for free?

3. Has he chosen the best medium?

His reason for choosing the medium (if you can call it that) of a runner is that he likes running. The trouble is, I like Kung Fu, but I wouldn’t try to explain something by knocking people to the floor just for the sake of it. (Having said that, it would be an interesting justification for giving idiots what they deserve: “I’m a martial artist, this is my way of expressing my opinions, so it’s my prerogative to knock you unconscious.”) In terms of a medium, I wouldn’t say that his explanation was enough to warrant a justification.

4. Is it going to add to culture in any meaningful way?

Here, we can summarise the previous three points. He’s given a ‘full’ account of its purpose in just two sentences in the Reuters article (see quote in point 1, above). Its only innovative quality can be bettered by other means, and even if it is intended to be an innovative expression of nature, it’s a pretty weak one. It isn’t even an interpretation – it’s just taking something straight from life and presenting the thing iteslef as art. The same goes for the chosen medium.

* * *

If this is all the justification he can give, and that’s all there is to it, then what’s the point in trying to pass it off as art? It’s not clever, interesting, insightful, innovative nor inspirational. Thank God for artists like Banksy, who express what they want to express through real desires and with real talent, with none of the pretence and being free of the purely financial motivation to be “contemporary.”

The Notion of 'Love at First Sight'

Let me let you into a little secret. Whoever you are, you did not fall in love at first sight. Stop saying you did, because you didn't. By all means cling on to your pathetic delusions if you must, if it gets you through your life. But for gods' sakes, stop spouting them to the rest of us.

Am I the only person to see what a pathetic pile of crap the notion of “love at first sight” is? Let me be clear that I'm not on about Platonic love. I'm on about the sort of love that is a combination of friendship and sexual attraction, respect - an affinity for all aspects of a person. In other words, the sort of love that people are thinking about when they use the term, ‘love at first sight.’

Are you trying to tell me that you can get all of this information from a person within a few moments of seeing them? Even before you actually meet them? Wow, that's quite a powerful delusion. You must be the sort of person who believes that it's one of the unexplainable miracles of life that God throws at us. Well, that explains a lot.

Let's get back to reality. All you had, in those first few moments of seeing him/her/it/them, was a feeling of lust and (consequently) a drive to get to know them better. That's probably what they felt when they met you as well. Sorry to spoil your romantic mental masturbation here, but you're clearly living a lie. Any evidence that might seem to back your point up is coincidental. It must be. There are only two ways you could possibly love someone on first seeing them: You must either be telepathic, or you must have at least spoken to them beforehand, say on the phone, and decided that you were “in love” at this point instead. Both of them are ridiculous, and the second one is slightly missing the point about what the phrase is supposed to mean.

A common reply to such so-called “sceptics” as myself (I would prefer the term, “rationalist”) is this:

“Aah, you need to experience it, and then you'll know.”

What a brilliant non-answer. Religious people use this ploy to defend against arguments which “offend” their gods. (I’ve always found that one odd: If I were religious, I would try to refrain from believing that my god or gods were weak enough to succumb to vanity.)

Let's just suppose I tell you that I have seen the tooth fairy in my back garden. The sane-minded amongst you might argue that this cannot be, to which I can reply “aah, wait until you see it, then you'll know.” In a way, it's a perfect argument - the arguer cannot battle against that one easily, without waiting in garden until my tooth fairy appears. The response to its inevitable non-appearance is, “well, you haven't waited for long enough.” If, eventually, you believe that you have seen the tooth fairy, then in all probability you were so focused on it that your brain mis-associated it with something else. Imagine all the times you've desperately searched around the house for something you needed urgently. After a while of looking, you get fatigued, and your mind will trick you into thinking that you've seen it in the corner of your eye. You look around and it's not there. I would expect that mirages are a similar experience.

Love at first sight is this unwavering belief, the stubborn, irrational, religious clinging-on of an ideal that you want to believe in, that eventually tricks the mind into thinking it is real. As far as I can see, there are three ways of succumbing to the delusion:

1. Introspectively, by deciding from the outset that you want to fall in love at first sight, probably out of sexual or egoistic desperation, or a hyperactive sense of romance. In this case, you are likely to assume that any person you meet who you “fall in love” with was down to that first encounter. Here, “I knew from the start that we were in love” translates as, “I assumed from the start that we would fall in love,” which of course is somewhat different.
2. Posthumously, by changing the way you remember first contact in order to suit the retrospective situation. Here, “we were in love from the start” translates as, “I remember that we were in love from the start because that's how I want to remember it.”
3. Mistakenly, as one Henry Velez suggests. On first contact, a person fits the stereotype of who they would like to “love.” Later on, if this develops into a loving relationship, they mistakenly and lazily assume that the initial spark must have been love at first sight, because of a lack of alternative explanations that are immediately apparent to them. It is easier to latch onto a well-known idea that is easy to understand (because there is no explanation to understand) than it is to search endlessly for another explanation. Rather than subscribe to the idea that there is no explanation to search for, this sort of person will choose the “love at first sight” explanation because it is both decisive and conforting.

I find this article from RomanceTracker.com particularly engaging, although for unfortunate reasons. I'm particularly interested in the way it tries to justify the supposed existence of love at first sight. Let's take a look at all the points it makes to this effect.

“the concept of Love at First Sight has been lauded in countless stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions. Poets and romantics regard Love at First Sight as an unquestionable truth”

All of these poems, stories, plays, books, films and oral traditions are, no doubt, works of romantic fiction. No wonder they contain concepts as fanciful as love at first sight. Based on this observation, the second sentence almost invites its own answer:

“millions of lonely people around the world pray every day that it will happen to them.”

The fact that millions of people want it to happen doesn't make it real. What’s more, the sentence just derogates a section of society, painting them as pathetic, weak individuals who would cling on to a flimsy and unlikely hope rather than going out and doing something about it. I'm not sure how this goes in their argument's favour.

“So, how do you know if you’ve experienced Love at First Sight? Well, if you have to ask, you probably haven’t.”

Aha! One of those nonsense circularity responses that I was talking about in paragraph 5.

“before you roll your eyes and underestimate the power of romance, be careful [...] Love at First Sight can happen to skeptics [sic], too!”

I had to summon a lot of willpower to avoid using swear-words in response to this patronising, childish, demented tosh. Having failed at proving, or even providing valid evidence as to the existence of love at first sight, which is both the basic and the fatal assumption of the entire article, it then presumes to impose authority over the subject by offering pity to those not self-admitted into the asylum of fantasy.

And that's it! They are all of the points that this great authority on the subject has to offer. It doesn't even attempt to define the word ‘love.’

Look, you can't have it both ways. Either you can own up to the whole package – believing in love at first sight, telepathy, mysticism, astrology, superstition, deism, little people in the garden – or you can drop the charade and admit that you think you fell in love at first sight, simply and only because you want to believe it. Please, open your brain to rational thought, and stop degrading yourself. Frankly, it's painful to have to witness.

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Unfortunately, this BBC News Article on the subject seems to lose track of the “at first sight” bit, which is quite pivotal really. Or perhaps it's just BBC News making up any old headline to grab attention, gutter-press style – it is BBC News, after all.

This Guardian article makes the same overall point as me. I would be surprised if it is “new research,” as the article claims, though – not only have I (and, no doubt, many other rationalists) found it patently obvious for a very long time, but philosophers must have been spouting similar for centuries.

The Financial Misery

We're all going to die! Death, destruction, misery! The markets are going to collapse, and there's going to be complete mayhem!

Hang on a minute. I'm still here, you're still here. We still buy things which are expensive but affordable if you're careful about what you buy. Petrol's gone down in price. What's the problem?

I tell you what: The "misery" isn't in the supposed "crisis" that we're in. It's in the constant barrage of media hype that we're bombarded with day after day. I've been checking on its progress on Reuters. How long has the so-called "credit crunch" been the headline? Three weeks, a month?

But why? Have people stopped starving in the nation's poorest countries? Are the various altercations around the globe in a state of suspense? Is there no good news to report? (Don't tell me the standard line that no-one's interested in good news. This mentally disturbed minority are the sort who watch EastEnders and Celebrity Love Island, listen to vacuous music and use the word "cool" as if it actually means something. Enough said.)

Is it really such a bad a situation that everything else in the news has to be put on hold? Is it not suspicious that the term "credit crunch" is coined, and soon afterwards referred to as if it is real? (Credit to Channel 4 News last night, who ran a fascinating and off-beat cultural story about Lucian Freud campaigning to save a Titian painting.)

What is a "credit crunch", and where is it defined? If it is defined, was it defined by experts in the field - economists, philosophers, mathematicians? Somehow, I don't think so. If it were, then it has been very carefully hidden. Frankly, I find the politicians who must have come up with the idea laughable, and I find the people who are taken in by it laughable. I have to, because if I didn't laugh then I'd be depressed, which incidentally is what the people who make money out of market turbulence would like me to believe is happening to the economy. No doubt, that is the real reason for the invention of the term "credit crunch".

What a crap state of affairs that, not only does the news spread this tripe as if it's the end of the world, but people actually buy it, in more ways than one. Where's George Galloway when you need him?

- - - - -

Update (30.10.08): Today's Reuters front-page headline mentions rising fears about the economy. Perhaps, just perhaps, media propaganda such as that same article might have something to do with it. Hmmm.

Faith

Sod the meek.
- The Pope

This month (July 2008), a quarter of Anglicans boycotted a religious conference because of unrest over Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop.

Now, if I boycotted work because it employed someone who was openly gay, I’d probably get the sack. If I boycotted my gym because a member was openly gay, then other members would think less of me. If they didn’t, it would probably be a pretty crass, thuggish, chav-type gym that you wouldn’t really want to go to. If I boycotted a conference on the grounds that one of the speakers was openly gay, people would probably be baffled. The thoughts of those that worship rational thought might even posit,

“Why the big hoohar? He’s giving a lecture about botany. He’s hardly likely to go onto the stage in drag, make a series of homosexual double-entendres, pull members of the audience onto the stage and embarrass them with fake sex acts involving flowers. How dare you stereotype him so severely and unfoundedly on the grounds of his benign, personal and private preferences?”

Well, Rational People, you'd be right.

But the Church? Oh, that’s different. It doesn’t have to abide by moral and legal rules – instead, it has its own set of rules, enshrouding a meaningless notion backed up by circular and dead-ended arguments that it likes to call “faith.” The following brainless pattern of justification is typical and - worse - widely accepted as valid by the 'outside world':

“Why do you believe that bishops should not openly be gay?”

“Because it’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?”

“Because it’s against the principles of my faith.”

And so into the black hole the argument goes, the faith-defender hiding behind the ridiculous notion that he believes (in) something, and that that's a justification in itself. They believe it “just because.” Not only that – only to those who are members of various exclusive posses that call themselves religions or denominations does the law give an exemption to sense. Even The Public has been taken in, although we know what The Public's like.

Believe in something because it makes sense, by all means. Believing in something as long as it doesn’t unfairly discriminate against someone else is no problem. But believing in something not only immoral, arbitrary and unfounded but hateful is just one step too far. In fact, it's evil.

There is a further point to be made about the word “belief”. Faith is belief, but without rationale. It is unquestioning belief. “I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have faith.” The sentence sounds convincing, except that the “because I have faith” bit doesn’t really mean anything. It’s also yet another circular argument: it’s the same as saying “I believe, because I believe.”

Faith is pathetic and cowardly. It’s a cop-out that requires no thought (and indeed, hides from it) as to a purpose; it gives the ignorant a delusional sanctuary, and provides a convenient way of ‘explaining’ something without really giving an explanation. You might as well replace the word “faith” with “bananas”:

“I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have bananas.”

It makes just as much sense, and it's just as valid a point.

To return to the gay bishop story, such behaviour is childish. If children can’t play with their toys without abusing them, then their toys are taken away. Why does the same not go for religious bigots? I was under the impression that hateful organisations and practices were illegal. They certainly shouldn't be tolerated, regardless. So ban them from practising their faith, if it breaches or erodes the peace between innocent people. The rest of us have to live by these rules, and I see no reason why these haters can get away with such things on grounds that it is “their faith” and that it is “part of the religion.”

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the word “bigot” originally meant “religious hypocrite.”[2]How apt for an organisation that claims to be founded on a doctrine of tolerance and morality.

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[1] Reuters. (16.07.08) “Quarter of world’s Anglicans boycott conference”,http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1572153620080716

[2] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot

Nature, God

Nature? Crap. What the hell was God (or the gods, the Architect, Mother Nature, evolution, luck, fate or whatever else you happen to believe in), thinking when he/she/it/they invented the concept of nature and of the sentient being? It’s made a complete cock-up of humans, for a start. It is the nature of things for living beings to die, but it makes no sense for us to (be able to) worry about death. We only need to have the drive to avoid it. Worry gives us the added complication of thinking about death even when there's nothing we can do about it and when we are not in danger of dying. So why have we been made to worry about it? Why do we have to worry about anything full stop? Things are, people die, and the best we can do is to avoid it as much as possible. What’s more, we have in our possession the ability not only of irrational thought, but negative irrational thought. Oh well done, God, very useful that.

Another thing is that Nature would have us evolve to the point where we live in huge artificial communities. What’s that all about then? We’re put together with a lot of people that we don’t care about, who distract our time and attention from the people who matter – those emotionally and spiritually closest to us. While this is happening, we’re surrounded by artificial constructs that house, clothe and feed us, and have to pay particular attention to politics, law and making money, which wouldn’t be necessary in a natural environment. So, while we’re biologically configured to being “close to nature,” Nature has given humankind the mistaken ability to “better” itself by “improving” on these things. Yep, it’s some improvement: stress, cancer, pollution. Abstraction from the real realities of living can only be a bad thing. Whether you believe it damages the soul or contradicts what comes naturally, it’s at the very least not what we’re intended for. The happiest communities are quite clearly the smallest and most tribal communities. What more proof do we need? This is where happiness comes from – working for others because it’s in the best interest of the friends around you, and doing jobs that please you to do simply because they help everyone. Less stress, no cancer, minimal pollution and everyone knows his place. It doesn’t really offer much room for argument when you think about it.

Intelligence is crap, too. Intelligence is God’s way of admitting, “I can’t do a good job of guiding you on the right path, so you decide.” It’s an admission of defeat. Some reliable, guiding force for good God is, then. And it’s a non-argument to say that God’s purpose is to give humanity the ability to think for himself, and that at the same time He gives humans guidance. God’s perfect, right? And if that’s the case, everything He creates is perfect. So we should need no guidance, because we’re perfect creations. Seems like He’s shot Himself in the foot on that one. Or perhaps God knows this fact, and the theists have missed the point.

Intelligence is also evidence of God’s hobby of tormenting His little pets. The most intelligent people I know are hardly the happiest. The happiest people always seem to be those who are oblivious to what’s going on and those who bypass intelligence in pursuit of a simpler or more natural life. So what does that mean? That the purpose of intelligence is for it to be ignored? Or that God enjoys causing misery?

Here we are, held in a perpetual web of artificial worry, through modern living and evolution, that captivates us with things that, any way you look at it, shouldn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it’s all a big test, for a higher purpose that we’re not aware of. But to me it just sounds like God is having a laugh. And I don’t think much of His sense of humour.

The Alleged "Oil Shortage"

The laws of profit and loss are simple. If you sell more goods or services, you make more money. If you sell less, you make less.

So why, in a world where we are supposedly facing an oil shortage, are oil companies making record profits? It’s all hype, and it’s all just crap designed to make powerful people more money. This week it was Shell (see main link on title). Even better – the first paragraph (at least, at the time of writing) says that Shell needs continual price rises, otherwise it will suffer a loss in profits. Aww, boo bloody hoo.

There are other examples from around the world of profits increasing over the last 12 months, occasionally even because oil output has increased:

Indian Oil Corp: 17% profit rise[1]
Shanghai Petro: 50% profit rise[2]
Canadian Oil: 400% profit rise[3]

Equally suspiciously, no-one in the media, nor in government, has uttered a single word about the gaping inconsistencies, either to say "haaaang on" or to rationalise them. The conspiracy theories are too obvious and numerous to be mentioned here, and it's getting bloody difficult to discredit them merely for being conspiracy theories, which seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days.

What's next? I predict that, as a result of the problems of Northern Rock in the UK and the so-called sub-prime "crisis" in the US, both countries will soon introduce a raft of measures to allow financial institutions to make lots more mon... I mean, to recover so that they do not adversely affect people's savings. I don't know about the US, but in the UK it's already happening: the government is thinking of allowing banks to be bailed in secret[4][5]. Who needs transparency when it's far simpler to hide problems behind people's backs? And this is despite Mervyn King's excellent statement that:

The only thing that will stop banks taking risky activities is the knowledge that if things go wrong, they, and they alone bear the consequences.[6]

Needless to say, if I go missing within the next few weeks and this Blog is suddenly shut down, then you'll have a good idea as to why.

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[1] Reuters. (31.01.08), “India’s IOC Q3 net profit rises 17 percent yr/yr”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKBMA00028720080131

[2] Reuters. (31.01.08) “Shanghai Petro says 2007 net rose over 50 pct”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKSHA16615320080131

[3] Reuters. (30.01.08) “Canadian Oil Sands profit jumps on prices, output”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKWNA784920080130

[4] Guardian. (31.01.08) “New Powers for Bank to Stage Secret Rescues”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/31/northernrock.bankofenglandgovernor?gusrc=rss&feed=business

[5] publicradio.org. (30.01.08) “Bank of England to save banks in secret”, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/01/30/bank_of_england_bailouts/

[6] Reuters. (24.09.07) “Regulation stalled Northern Rock Rescue”, http://uk.reuters.com/article/personalFinanceNews/idUKNOA03409820070924?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0

Drivers

This is a sort of update to the other entries about drivers and driving. Drivers are such oddities that I thought their (usually crap) habits could be classified. Here's my perception of the idiots (and occasionally not) that we have to tolerate on the road.

1. The Learner Driver

The sort of driver that other, more experienced drivers should aspire to be, but not become. They know all the rules of the road and can drive safely. However, they lack the “sixth sense” necessary to pre-judge other drivers’ intentions and predict and avoid dangers that can manifest themselves within seconds in hitherto tranquil circumstances.

2. The Boy Hurtler

Popularly known as Boy Racers, presumably in that they appear to have racing cars and to know how to race them, except for a few major qualities that disqualify them (excuse the pun) from actually being racers. They would make good racers, if only they knew anything at all about racing. So, in fact, they are useless on public roads and they would are useless on racing tracks as well. The differences between racers and Boy Hurtlers are, most notably:

• Boy Hurtlers have no knowledge of safety. Racers at least make the best attempt they can to avoid other cars. They also drive cars meant for racing, and drive on racing tracks intended for the purpose, hence the name “racing track.” On racing tracks, everyone drives in the same direction and everyone knows that everyone else is going for it as fast as they can.
• Racers typically drive racing cars. Boy Hurtlers tend to drive clapped-out red Fiestas. Not only that, but they adorn them with tasteless, non-functional visual and audio augmentations that seem to self-parody theirselves and their vehicle.
• Racers know how to drive properly. Racing tracks have racing rules. Normal, public roads have different types of rules, which racers (well, most of them) are aware of when driving normal public road vehicles on them. Racers also know how to avoid screeching tyres (it wears down tyres and slows down potential acceleration) and how to take corners. Curiously, I have never seen a Boy Hurtler drive in such a way that showed any knowledge of taking proper racing lines, which of course a racer would.

3. The Ditherer

Ill-confident, incompetent and unsafe drivers who have a child’s knowledge of using the road, ditherers are prone to sudden, random and violent manoeuvres such as braking hard without reason, swerving, indicating left and turning right, not using headlights in dark weather, being in the wrong lane (that is, the right-hand lane, except when turning right at roundabouts) and pulling out in front of oncoming traffic. Their minds seem to be stuffed with half-baked notions such as “I’ve indicated, therefore everyone is aware of my intentions – so I’m now going to pull out [regardless of whether it’s safe].”

They have the unique ability to close their eyes and hope for the best in the crises that inevitably unfold (which they have caused), and amazingly usually get away unscathed. However, it is this category of drivers that causes most accidents. Although they do not appear to be involved directly, they set off a chain of events that, due to other drivers compensating for their mistakes, snowball into a catastrophe.

A convergent minority class of reformed Ditherers ("neo-Ditherers"), who are attempting to be more consistent and thus safe (as a result of previous near misses that were their fault) has also appeared. Traits of this unusual oddity include those who indicate immediately before manoeuvring, a conciliatory and perhaps apologetic if fruitless gesture to show at least some knowledge of the existence of other roadusers and of the need to state their intentions.

4. The Golem (or Drifter)

This category of drivers assume that consistency equals safety. The other driver types know that it just isn’t as simple as this. Golems are mysterious, underestimated, silently dangerous drivers that tend to assume that, with a smooth, consistent approach to driving, other drivers have no reason not to like them. Or perhaps they simply don’t care.

On first contact, they seem to be careful, methodical drivers, until all of a sudden they will do something that makes you think, “hang on, a safe driver wouldn’t do that.” Then you know that you’re stuck behind a Golem.

A major point of note is that Golems tend to drive at the same arbitrary speed regardless of the speed limit – for example, 35mph in a 50mph, 40mph and 30mph zone and regardless of the conditions of the road.

Golems also exhibit other common behaviours. They include:

• Drifting slowly between lanes without warning. They may do this by drifting on dual carriageways without indicating, cutting up right-hand-lane users on roundabouts, and using two lanes at once for long stretches of road, often removing the possibility of overtaking and using an overtaking lane.
• Generally not making any indications about anything they’re going to do. These include not using indicators when turning left or right or stopping at the side of the road, not using hazard warning lights and positioning the vehicle incorrectly in the road for the impending manoeuvre.

The result is that other drivers behind them get either nervous or annoyed, and have to either constantly second-guess the Golem’s intentions or keep well back as if following a learner driver.

This category includes some Ditherers who are attempting to be more consistent, and thus safe (as a result of previous near misses that were their fault), and old people. Farm owners, whether in their Land Rovers or their tractors, tend to favour Golemism, although they also exhibit some of the habits of Stones (see below).

5. The Stone (or Pace-maker)

Extremely slow drivers. They tend to drive at two thirds the speed limit at all times. Variously irritating, unfair, dangerous and illegal (see below).

On motorways, fast roads and dual carriageways, this is a driving hazard, particularly around a corner and when it is reasonable to believe that people are driving at a reonasonable speed appropriate for their vehicle as the road conditions allow. Instead, they are obstacles in the road that, in particular, cause irate drivers (e.g. Boy Hurtlers, Bulls and some Level-heads - see later) to exacerbate hazardous conditions while trying to overtake, since they have already had to slow down and people are driving at much faster speeds in the overtaking lane.

On other roads, this is a menace. Driving at 35mph in a 50mph area in the rush hour in perfectly good road and weather conditions causes a huge and unnecessary backlog of traffic, reduces driver morale and increasing tempers and frustration. It also incites people, in desperation, to attempt to overtake, which in rush-hour traffic is often dangerous.

Obstructing (the flow of) traffic unnecessarily is a civil offense. There’s no reason for it, and it’s unfair on other road users. It is more pleasant to drive slower, but roads are there for practical reasons rather than to be enjoyed. A pleasant, slow drive should be relegated to less-often-used roads, such as country roads and forest drives. If Stones feel unsafe driving at higher speeds, then this is an indication that either they do not know how to drive properly, or are insufficiently experienced, knowledgeable or confident with driving. In any of these cases, they should take driving lessons and improve, for they are not fit to drive.

God knows what odd assortment of people are comprised within this category. One often-seen member is the farmer driving his/her 20-year-old Land Rover.

6. The Bull

Mad bastards who intend someday to rule all the roads in the world. Typical Bull vehicles (along with their drivers) are heavy and masculine. They range from Chelsea Tractors to articulated lorries. Similar to the terminally annoyed mothers who, in a crowded pedestrian area, will use their prams as weapons to barge people out of their way, Bulls like to ensure dominance of their terrain (which with their vehicle, they would insist, comprises all terrains, including the sea) by showing everyone else who’s boss. The bigger the penis extension, the closer the Bull drives to the vehicle in front and the more ridiculously he parks – in-between two bays, at an odd angle, even occasionally parking in a place not designated as a parking space, making life harder for everyone else.

Whereas Ditherers cause others to have accidents, Bulls are the ones who are directly involved in them. In fact, Ditherers and Bulls are perfect companions in this respect: All other categories of drivers apart from Bulls have the sense to stay well clear of Ditherers, while Bulls by their very nature do otherwise.

Taxi drivers and Boy Hurtlers with expensive cars also exhibit similar behaviours to Bulls. However, their intentions respectively are to get somewhere as quickly as possible, and to pose, rather than to drive other road users off the road.

7. The Level-head

Comprises the majority of ‘sensible’ drivers, in the sense that they are far from perfect but nevertheless have it about right. All qualities are pretty much average, but the temperament of the Level-head irons out any of the negative eccentricities inherent to the other categories. In other words, they are a sort of taxi driver, but without the need to rush around so much and without the arrogance that they know the road so well they can go over roundabouts and cross junctions as if they're merely cosmetic.

Level-heads come in a number of flavours, the most extreme of which involves efficient driving to the point of ignoring changes in speed limits, taking racing lines and using both lanes of the dual carriageway to navigate around corners whenever necessary. While this extreme consists more of a racer bent than the Boy Hurtler, the other extreme consists of a sort of half-arsed cross between a Learner Driver and a Golem: sedate and aware of (but not necessarily intimately knowledgeable in) the official Rules of the Road, while also aware of the unofficial "Roolz" of the Road - accurately predicting and reacting to the behaviour of other drivers, assuming other drivers are idiots, making the most of the available lanes and the gap ahead to drive efficiently, etc.

Interestingly, if all drivers belonged only to one of the above categories, the only categories of driver that wouldn't eventually annihilate all drivers would be Stones or Level-heads. Personally, however, I'm glad and relieved that I'm a Level-head.

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Update (15.01.08): Here's a thought - why not allocate cars to people depending on how good drivers they are? New drivers can have new, low-powered cars, bad drivers can have low-powered bangers and better (more powerful, nicer-looking etc) cars are earned by longer periods of good driving.

"Psychologists"

I have come to the conclusion that there are good psychologists, who are naturally good at judging and dealing with the way people think, and bad psychologists, who have to study it at University. The former think nothing of their talent, assume it’s a normal ability and use it in everyday life. The latter cannot do this, and instead have to use what they’ve learned by taking a psychology-related job that recognises their newly-found “skills”.

The result of this situation is that psychology-related jobs draw not on talent, but solely on skill. So no wonder the ability of psychologists, when occasional studies emerge into the public eye, seem so pathetic to the rest of us. Skill applies standard procedures to all possible tasks. But what use is this when everyone's different? Surely, in practice, the best method is to be innovative. Learning - that is, research into previous work - should only be the starting point in becoming a successful psychologist. The other 90% should be realising that no-one knows much about the human mind, and coming up with one's own theories, not endlessly reusing those of other people. So what use is a degree in such an area as psychology that only tests for the first small bit, when in practise it's the rest that matters?

The consequence of this stupid state of affairs is obvious - it only serves to degradate the quality of the work of these so-called psychologists. For example, I draw your attention to this piece of genius (see link):

Women find men more attractive if they see other women admiring them, a study has suggested.

Psychologists discovered that a man was judged more desirable by a woman if she saw her peers using positive facial expressions, such as smiling.

Previous research indicated that facial attractiveness was based on personal taste and types of person.

But Aberdeen University's Face Research Laboratory found facial expressions of others could influence attractiveness.

In other words, they found that “women are attracted to popular men.” Another world-beater from the world of psychology. Society will be ever so much richer for that pearl of wisdom. In fact, not only have they found something that the rest of us knew already: Oh no, it gets worse. Later on, the same article mentions this:

Dr Ben Jones, who led the project, said: [...] "It is really the first time that a phenomenon called social learning - where we learn by what other people think or do - has been shown to influence attractiveness.

No, “Dr.” Jones, it’s the first time that psychologists like you have realised that “social learning” (as you call it) has been shown to influence attractiveness. The rest of us were way ahead of you, I’m afraid.

From reading articles like this, it’s like looking into the world of a bunch of degenerates who don’t have the skills in life to pick up facts of life like the rest of us, but who we should applaud for trying out of kindness because it isn’t their fault that they don't know otherwise. If it weren’t for the fact that this work was publicly funded, I’d pity them for wasting so much time and energy.

Another thing: “Face Research Laboratory”? So we have a publicly funded laboratory that thinks of something to study, gets a load of people in a room and records their facial expressions, and then notes down any trends. Is this even in the least bit useful to society? Is it not something that we do in our everyday lives without thinking about it, because we don’t need to think about it? Is it not something that anyone could do, let alone a group of people arrogant enough to call themselves “psychologists” who are paid to do it?

There is only one way of using empirical evidence to discover and substantiate claims about psychology: by observation. The psychologist’s way is to gather a group of people into a controlled environment and perform experiments on them, experiments of which the group is aware. Everyone else’s way is to see and talk with people in their natural environment – friends at the pub, people in the street, the family at home – and learn about how they think that way instead. Which is better: an artificially created situation where people will inevitably react similarly artificially, or a natural situation where everyone is reacting in a real environment? It doesn’t take to much observing to realise that the general public has a better approach to it all than so-called psychologists.

Perhaps the most famous consequence of quantum mechanics is that observing a photon alters the state of that photon, and, consequently, that one can never know what the photon was up to (its velocity) prior to the observation. There are lessons to be learned here by “psychologists” about observing people in controlled environments. Yet it’s obvious to the rest of us. Perhaps we should found a psychological journal for so-called “psychologists”, written by people who do not call themselves psychologists. I think the first article will be about the common-sense fact that if you control the way people act, then that might just invalidate studies into the way people act.

The thing is, we are all psychologists. We are all experts in human minds, because not only do we have human minds, we observe others with them too. We all have our own theories about how the mind works, regardless of whether we are aware of our theories, because they are necessary in order to help us to get along with people in everyday life. Our theories are just as relevant as any of those invented by those who call themselves psychologists, because none can be proven and all of them can be supported by observations. So if we’re all psychologists at heart, those that call themselves psychologists must really be arrogant in order to think that the rest of us are not capable of doing their jobs.

God bless the psychologists – just let them be, making their irrelevant and often incorrect conclusions. And perhaps the human resource managers, as well, for similar reasons to those discussed. As for the rest of us, lets continue to observe human behaviour in our own way and use what we naturally learn in a meaningful way. After all, it’s all just common sense, surely?

The Question, “Can God create a rock He can't lift?”

To ask whether God can create a rock he can't lift is to ask whether someone can do something he can't. It's simply a logical abuse of language and a meaningless question to ask.

Driving on the Hard Shoulder to Cut Congestion

What a crap idea the government has had to ease congestion by allowing people to drive on the hard shoulder (see link). Have they forgotten that the hard shoulder is there for a good reason? Now, even if you’re parked on the hard shoulder for a reason that isn’t a dire emergency, you’ll certain be sucked into one when someone smacks into the back of you. Imagine how terrifying it’s going to be when you’re parked there and cars are continually driving up to you at what are clearly going to be far greater speeds than the imposed 50mph limit, and then changing lanes last minute.

Which brings me to the second reason why it’s a crap idea. Congestion is caused by traffic waves. The general idea of traffic waves goes like this:

1. Someone slows down or changes lane.
2. The person behind slows down more than necessary to compensate, chiefly because they were driving too closely and are reacting out of shock.
3. The next person behind slows down even more than that, again due to a tendency towards overcompensating, and so on.

And thus traffic slows down and gets more congested. A way of looking at another reason for congestion is this: If you increase the thickness of a wire, then its current will meet with increased resistance and power will be wasted. Similarly, if you have more lanes, the traffic won’t necessarily go faster, because people will have more of a tendency to change lanes and slow the traffic down (again due to traffic waves).

This problem will increase massively when the hard shoulder is used as a lane. All it takes is one broken down car on there, and the entire lane becomes a pile-up. Even worse, the lane to its right will become jammed as people constantly try to pull onto it to get out of the pile-up, and the lane to the right of that will become jammed for the same reasons, and so on.

Those who have broken down and need to move onto the hard shoulder as soon as possible will have a terrible time trying to find a gap. No-one will want to let you in, because they know that they’ll have to slow down or stop and change lanes. In times where there’s mass congestion, when few people are likely to let you pull into their lane, that’s the last thing you want to face.

The hard shoulder, as I’ve said, will have an official speed limit of 50mph. Why? If it’s a lane safe enough to be used as one of the other lanes – that is, if it’s wide enough and there’s no debris – then it should be used in the same way as other lanes. Otherwise, don’t use it as a normal lane.

For those using the hard shoulder and obeying the speed limit, it’s perpetually very difficult to get into the next lane due to having to pick up speed first. By the time they have, the gap (if there is one) has gone. For those disobeying the speed limit, it gets more dangerous because there might be broken down cars in front of them and there’s little time to react and stop. Either way, it’s a crap, dangerous and terrifying idea to use the hard shoulder for normal traffic.

Pop Music

Pop music, n. A symptom of the inevitable degeneration of the art of music that results from the rise of music as a commodity and the fall in the wealth, and thus interest, of musical ideas worth exploring.

“Pop music” is the soap opera of the music world. At the top of the music tree you have the recognised geniuses that were so influential they changed the course of music and allowed it to explore other meaningful areas, resulting in entire ages – the Baroque, the Classical and the Impressionist, for example. Then you get the ones in between – the composers who explore these established areas and enhance the age by imprinting their own slant, or style. Then come the “lesser” composers, those who emulate the greats and write influential and effective but nevertheless watered down and less imaginative and innovative works, such as modern “classical” and film music.

Then, at the bottom of the pile, you get pop artists – people who know little about musical forms, but know a lot about what sells to the masses and makes the most money. The vast majority of it is churned out for a few months and then forgotten by those masses. It is throw-away music on demand.

But since when have “the masses” ever been right? Judging something as popular has never been a successful benchmark in determining whether it is good. Just look at EastEnders.

Sure, laud them for tricking an audience that gets what it deserves. But don’t blinker people to the point that they don’t even bother to examine what higher pleasures there are in the more major examples of music as an art. The three main problems here are as follows:

• The saturation of the music market with relative crap. Here, people think they have a lot of choice, but in fact they are bombarded with many slightly different examples of the same thing. (Thanks for this point go to Richard Stead, who aptly and succintly describes it as "ridiculous choice.") Pop music, regardless of how many pitiful and petty genres there may be, is just a menial exploration of the massive treasure-trove of ideas that music has to offer.

• The destruction of decent music education. At least since as far back as when I was at school, music has been taught in a way that makes it come across as dull, stuffy, old-fashioned and boring. Children are taught the same old dull pieces, and as a result people grow up with the stigma that all “classical” music is the same old dull crap.

• The fact that kids are brainwashed into listening to pop music (and not listening to other forms of music), because pop music is cool and (therefore) because of peer pressure.

The problem is perpetual, because adults who grow up to listen to shallow pop music are not likely to introduce their children to anything better. In fact, most pop fans don’t realise that they’ve yet to live, that there is far more music to the cliché recordings of the more boring works of Mozart and Johann Strauss and the glorified karaoke that is pop music.

Imagine this happening in the visual arts. Imagine that the only contact with paintings that people have is the same old boring, black-and-white, generic-looking prints of bygone painters. Their authors might be brilliant, and their fame justified. But if everyone is exposed to limited works, and no one is taught why their works are important to the art, then you can only expect people to turn away from what those works stand for. For younger people - and now, in a world of ever-increasing vanity, older people too - paintings would become uncool.

But there is money in every art, because it is a medium of expression capable of being desirable to people. So, now imagine that entrepreneurs realise the money potential and produce the sort of pretentious, cheap, shallow, abstract tat on display in the lobbies of hotel chains. People would accept these prints as brilliant in comparison. Their attention would be drawn because they look so much better than the boring prints, which are the only things that they can use as a comparator. Soon, the entrepreneurs move in, clever advertising brainwashes the nation, the tat becomes cool and thus very desirable, the entrepreneurs make their money as the masses blindly buy away.

The reason why the above scenario does not happen to visual art, and why so few are capable of putting pop music in context and realising how trivial it is, is this: People are exposed to many stimulating paintings, statues and monuments. Everywhere you look there are free galleries, buildings of different architectural styles and cheap prints of famous pieces. The “wonders of the world” – which are all visual – are preached constantly through TV programmes. Every time you go on holiday you’re likely to come into contact with visual works of art.

On the other hand, you can’t see proper music, it is rarely advertised to a wide and general audience, and it usually costs a lot to go and see live. You don’t see classical concerts on holiday, and any local music is designed to give a flavour of the culture rather than to show you how good the music is. There is no exposure, either for children or adults.

Of course, nowadays, a good “classical” concert can be cheaper than a pop concert. There are the BBC Proms, and “classical” music is almost always cheaper than pop music in the music store. But it’s all too late: People don’t buy (into) it because they don’t know why they should bother. There are two many barriers, most notably social and educational. They are denied access to a wealth of higher pleasures simply because of the ignorance of the person. On the other hand, pop music is everywhere – on the TV and radio, in the music magazines and on the news (usually because a singer has been arrested). It seems that everyone’s talking about it.

An orchestra and a musical genius can say more than you ever could with two guitars, a drum, a singer and a group of mates that come together in a garage. It is a fallacy to believe that, if you provide enough opportunities for people to make music, then the art of music will benefit. All that happens is that the music industry gets flooded.

When a culture is stable (without extreme situations like war and mass hardship) for a while, it gets complacent, and with this it devolves. Similarly, when a culture comes out of an extreme situation, it is kick-started into a flurry of creative activities. “There’s nothing like a good war to give culture a kick-start,” said a colleague of mine, Richard Stead.

Well, he’s right. And we’re seeing the polar opposite of this situation now, in music. There hasn’t been hardship of any kind in order to create the tension, anxiety and emotional extremes necessary to produce great works, and so the great works have given rise to shallow tat. The best music of modern times exists as a servant to the film, where musical devices are reused to death almost to the point of cliché to portray musically the major scenes of box-office films. Even here, evidence can be seen of the superiority of “classical” forms of music over pop music: If Pop is so good, why is it not used in films to portray high drama and suspense as much as orchestral music is?

Another reason why music has gone downhill is that the ideas worth exploring have already been explored. It's all been done. The best pop music can do is repackage these ideas in what appears to be new - that is, in new formats. The band that perhaps most closely provides cutting-edge pop music is The Divine Comedy, although Neil Hannon and Joby Talbot can be regarded more as classical composers than Pop-song makers due to their techniques, musical training and use of orchestral insruments.

Consequently, musical ideas within the Pop world are not only thin on the ground, they’re getting thinner. This can be seen in the pop world’s use of gimmicks that are irrelevant to the music they’re put to. Videos, loud drum beats and lyrics serve either to take attention off the shallowness and lack of quality of the music, or to make up for a lack of musical content. All gimmicks do is show Pop music up for what it is. Good music need never have any gimmicks; it will speak for itself on its own. Examples of gimmicks in Pop music are numerous, and here are some of them:

• Shouting, swearing and using stupid voices (such as those used in so-called “death metal”)

• Using sex to attract attention (such as in music videos, lyrics and sound effects)

• Using deliberately provocative themes in music videos and lyrics, such as murder, drugs and rape

• Giving so-called “genres” of pop music pretentious, over-hyped titles such as “euphoria,” “hardcore” and “heavy metal”

• Similarly, overhyping musical titles with self-flattering words such as “essential”

• Having a lead singer with a false but distinctive, provocative and clearly invented character

Not that its audience is capable of seeing any of this. If they actually bothered listening – genuinely listening – to a broad range of proper music, then they might actually find that it’s pretty good. It takes time to appreciate good music. They’d sooner ignore and ridicule it instead, and they’re allowed to do so because covertly it’s socially encouraged. They’re as closed-minded as those devout religious nutters who denounce all other faiths, even though they know nothing about those other faiths.

The best music is capable of telling a story with the music itself – in the melody and the structure – without any of the faff that comes with Pop music. That gimmicks are routine is testament to the fact that Pop has nothing relevant to say. Remove the lyrics, the over-the-top, hyper-cool drum beats and rhythms, the videos and the hype, and what you have left is what any given piece of music – if, in some cases, it can be called music – is worth. (In the case of Pop music, the end result is very little. In the case of rap as a definition, there is no music at all - more about this later.) After all, how can a music-maker be a master of his art if he doesn’t even know how to commit something to manuscript, compose in a number of time signatures, deal with more than a couple of simultaneous harmonies or write for more than one or two instruments?

The musical rules of the vast majority of Pop are overly restrictive, and unnecessarily so. But this is deliberate – it’s an excuse to do put in less effort. Why bother enhancing the art of music, when merely broadening it sells well enough? It goes back to what I said earlier, about why providing more opportunities does not necessarily yield better music.

On another point, a problem is pop music’s perpetual popularity and coolness. Why would people, as a mass movement, listen to anything else? The crowd goes with the crowd, and to do so is comfortable, easy and convenient. Pop music sounds nice and thus requires no thought, and it is widely socially acceptable. Why destabilise a comfortable situation?

The answer is that, while Pop might be convenient to its fans, more advanced forms offer much more. They give inspiration. They have the capability of conveying ideas in more depth, are rich in innovation and ideas, and are awe-inspiring to listen to considering the work that goes into them. The best composers can re-represent images in music – Moussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, or variation 11 of Rachmaninov’s Paganini rhapsody – and use tricks of sound to convey the most tragic and exhilarating of emotions.

All Pop music does at its best is to use instruments unusual to Pop and apply them to Pop music, to use strong language to gain attention by pathetic means, or to use musical devices that are new to the Pop music world but were old hat centuries ago to composers of finer music. Compared to a half-decent piano concerto, a pop song is a piss in the park. Gone are the decades of training at musical academies, not because they’re no longer conducive to producing the best music but because they’re no longer needed to sell records and they're no longer a priority of the Public. People have been brainwashed into listening to watered-down crap, they like it because they don’t know any other, and neither producer nor consumer thus complains. The consumers are happily blinkered, and the producers are happily lining their pockets. What a wonderful equilibrium.

From a technical point of view, Pop music is tat. All composers throughout time have written music in the general form it takes today in Pop – by writing songs, which consists of musical themes with lyrics. But they had the good sense to acknowledge that this was hardly the be-all-and-end-all of music. Instead of restraining themselves to an unnecessarily tedious and restrictive form, they used a wide variety of instruments and themes, produced comprehensive pieces of music that spanned far longer than a pitiful three minutes, and contributed much more to music than Pop ever will. The music of Muse sets the latest Pop precedent, because its song-writers have studied the great musical forms and incorporate them into their own music to give them richness and newness not seen in pop music before. Perhaps pivotally, their melodies are predominantly developed from playing around on a piano, rather than on a guitar. Yet even these innovations were already explored centuries ago. Once again, it might be new for Pop, but it’s old hat to music as a whole. In the case of Muse, it seems that the vast majority of the musical influence comes from the first movement of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2. (Compare the chorus melody of "Space Dementia" on the album Origin of Symmetry, the piano riff in "Butterflies and Hurricanes" on the album Absolution, and parts of the melody in "Rule by Secrecy" on the same album). Most of the other ideas by Muse simply incorporate semitonal key signature shifts, simple tonic triads and arpeggios.

There is a common conception that the definition of music is a pleasant sound. If you ask me, that’s utter crap. Music is a progressive melody, a story written in sounds that augment the story. Anything else – beats and rhythms being notable examples – are merely parts of music, things that augment the story. So, in fact, if you ask me, rap “music” isn’t music at all. I don’t care whether or not rap music is an attempt to convey genuine emotions and ghetto hardships, it still ain’t music. At its core, it’s just some words loosely spoken in time to a beat. Rap is, at its heart, poetry; what it has got to do with music, I have no idea. As far as musical excellence goes, it doesn’t fare too well – in fact, it’s hard to think of anything more primitive. It isn’t that I’m knocking tribal cultures in the Amazon that use drums and words as the only components of their “music”. Such pieces aren’t written to be good, they’re written to serve a specific purpose, such as in religious and shamanic rituals. The tribes themselves would not claim that it is good music in itself, if they understood music in context.

Music demands the most from writers, performers and listeners. Back at the other end of the spectrum, Pop music is formulaic to the point of ridicule. This is why there are so many genres. The more genres there are, the less free the music in each genre is likely to be, because it is more strictly defined. This is a travesty for musical variety. Here are the ingredients of the ultimate pop song:

• Cool yet unoriginal drum-beat. Let’s face it, there are only so many beat styles you can do with a drum, so you can’t do anything original here.

• Cool yet unoriginal rhythm, improvised from the drum-beat.

• One guitar that plays the melody (if any), and optionally another guitar that is played either two or five tones lower.

• A sequence of four base notes.

• A main theme or melody, which is an improvisation of the base sequence.

• A short, punchy and repetitive chorus.

• Lyrics that are based on sex but claim to be about love, string together sayings and clichés, and/or make no sense at all.

The method is equally simple: Get the beat and rhythm going throughout. Keep the guitars as simple as possible, repeating the same short sequence endlessly. Alternate the main theme/melody and chorus endlessly, with no variation. Repeat the four base notes endlessly. For the lyrics, choose words that have long vowel sounds. Sing the vowels slowly and in an exaggerated way to make it sound more interesting. Use cool instruments that people accept not because they enhance music but simply because they’re cool and expected.

It really is that formulaic. All you need to do is choose a pop “genre” and exploit it by reusing the devices that that genre offers. It doesn’t matter whether you create something new. (For an excellent case study of formulaic use of chords, listen to anything by Oasis. For lyrics that string together sayings and clichés, listen to Coldplay. For nonsensical lyrics, listen to Muse.) The creation of John Peel Day makes me laugh: How many of the acts he introduced have gone on to revolutionise, redefine or significantly enhance music? Or even, for that matter, Pop music?

All of this brings me, with much evidence, to my main argument: Pop music is by its very nature crap compared to “classical” (orchestral?) music because, while the latter contributes to the enhancement of music itself, the former merely exists to make money, pander to the masses and flatter the egos of the performers. The only ultimate and meaningful goal of any art should be to enhance that art – to give it interesting new directions that redefine what it is and how it is perceived. It is organic. Pop music has, instead, made it stale. Its protagonists staunchly adhere to the philosophy “we’re making money as it is, we’re getting what we want and we’re getting the attention that we crave. Why change it?”

You can tell good music just by closing your eyes and listening. You can tell brilliant music by studying the notes on the manuscript. Both these methods of appreciation give no haven to musical pretense, hype and general crap, and they allow you to see what is truly left behind - if there is anything left at all.

“Classical” Music

What a load of stuffy crap classical music is. It belongs to an earlier era. It is largely the preserve of the pompous and pretentious. You only have to look at the stuffy academics, the rich fat upper-class and the dangerously old who go to classical concerts in order to get an idea of what it’s like. Given the other, more popular and more prevalent forms of music out there, why bother with it? Classical music takes a long time to get into, while you can get as much as you want straight away from pop music. Where’s the fun in having to try hard studying music, when all you want to do is listen to it? It defeats the object.

Of course, there are those that point to new forms of classical music, such as film music. It isn’t dead, they say, it’s still going strong. This supposedly proves that classical music still has a place in the world, and that it must service its purpose well, otherwise other forms of music would by now have taken its place. But to these people, I say this: Film music is designed to augment films, not to be listened to in its own right. This hardly lends support towards the music itself.

They say that classical music has more depth, can convey stories with greater emotion and is written by geniuses who know more about musical forms than is the case with pop music.

Perhaps so. But most music that you will ever buy will be listened to once. By that, I mean that the first time is when you really listen to it. After that, it’s just played in the background while you go and do something else. If music is listened to in this way – as it usually is – then why do you need music that has any more depth? You just want it to sound good. This way, it serves its purpose of relaxing and entertaining on the first listen and being good background music to half-listen to thereafter. As for “stories with greater emotion”: anything that can be said in classical music can be said in the form of words – namely, lyrics. Besides, there is plenty of good pop music that conveys a good story; it just takes time to experiment with music a bit and filter out the crap. It doesn’t matter how genial someone is, if it fulfils the above objectives then it does its job.

Pop music even gives us additional benefits that “classical” music doesn’t have. It is classified into genres that are meaningful to us, which help us to choose our own musical tastes. There are those who prefer R&B, those who prefer dance and electronica. If you stick to albums and artists under these specific headings, then you generally know what to expect and you probably won’t be disappointed. Similarly, music is an art, and as such it cannot be described nor quantified in terms of being better or worse. Instead, it should be judged on how it makes you feel.

People who Cough Unnecessarily Loudly at Concerts

Coughing is a fact of life. Everyone coughs. Sometimes you cough and it’s so sudden you can’t help making a noise. Sometimes you cough and the world coughs with you – it catches on. But there is one thing that I can’t stand, which can be avoided: there exist multitudes of incessant crap-heads who engage in serial coughing at concerts when everyone else is quiet.

If you know you’ve got a cough, you can prepare and counter for it. And – here’s the apparently difficult part – you should counter for it. It goes beyond politeness and courtesy. To serial cough unnecessarily loudly is depriving people of the ability to listen to the concert and of reducing their ability to concentrate and absorb themselves into the music, as well as making it difficult for the orchestra.

It’s simple: As soon as you’re about to cough, cover or close your mouth. Before the concert starts, they should put the obvious and patronising but nevertheless necessary notice, “Please serial-cough quietly” alongside “Please switch off your mobile phone.” And they could also add “…or we’ll shut you up on your behalf.”

If I yelled every five minutes in a live orchestral concert, I’d get thrown out. And rightly so. So why aren’t the serial coughers?