Diary of a Suburban Squeen

I have (yet another) dreadful tale to relate. You’d better all sit down. Yesterday, I WENT OUT WITHOUT A BOOK. I know. Horrible, isn’t it? I can’t remember the time I made such an awful mistake. Rest assured, it wasn’t deliberate, merely an oversight, but still: tragic.

Anyway, moving on. The weekend: Katie was off at Connotations, so I had the run of the flat which, natch, I managed to trash in approximately 3.7 seconds (a personal best), which meant I had to get up at 6 o’clock yesterday morning to make some vague attempts at tidying. Other things I did over the weekend included watching TV and making egg fried rice. Also, I read Genesis, which was interesting, if a bit mental. It’s odd though, that most of the bible stories I was taught at school, all happen right at the beginning. Anyway, I’m looking forward to Exodus and the all-singing, all-dancing Joseph.

Last night I tottered off to the theatre with Xanthe and Kerry (with whom I went to school) to see All’s Well That Ends Well at the National. And when I say ‘tottered’, what I actually mean is ‘walked all the way from St John’s Wood to the South Bank’ – go me. Along my route (which encompassed, for any who might be interested, Baker Street, Oxford Street, South Molton Street, Brook Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Charing Cross Road, St Martin’s in the Fields and Charing Cross Station), I encountered the former residences of no lesser personages than William Pitt the Younger, Ernest Bevin, George Handel, Jimi Hendrix and Prince Talleyrand. I also saw St George’s on Hanover Square which is where any couple of note in any Regency romance ever gets married (unless they elope to Gretna Green, natch).

Eh bien, the play. For the play, as we all know, is the thing. Oh, William. William, William, William. What am I to say? I mean, I should have known. I’ve seen A Comedy of Errors. I know the hideous depths to which your ‘comedies’ can sink. AWTEW is a ridiculous play. Absolutely absurd. Helena remains determined to have Bertram LIKE A MENTALIST, and Bertram is a cad and a bounder! You know how I feel about the noble Claudio? BERTRAM IS WORSE. They are welcome to each other. Bertram and Helena, I mean. Not Bertram and Claudio. That would be another play altogether and, for all we know, a better one. Anyway, the set was absolutely beautiful, very dark fairy-tale-ish, and worth the trip for that alone, frankly. The acting was so-so – it was mostly very STAND BACK, WE’RE PERFORMING SHAKESPEARE NOW with a lot of random monologues etc which got slightly tedious. Having seen various productions of Shakespeare (the Donmar Warehouse’s Twelfth Night, for one, or the Open Air Theatre’s Romeo & Juliet) where the action and language flow as easily as any modern play, to see this performed in such a pedestrian manner was disappointing. Still, as shit a play as it is, they probably couldn’t have done it much better. It was nice to be back in the Olivier, though – I can’t remember the last time I saw something there.

La. So, that was last night. Tonight, I was supposed to be going to Kathye’s, but I need to prep for my interview tomorrow (if anyone happens to know anything about diabetic retinopathy screening (or, in fact, about any DoH mandated screening programmes), please tell me everything!!), and possibly do some photoshopping for Alexandros’s leaving present, so will have to stay at home and be productive. Also, must remember to wash some tights.

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No.

Me: [ranting about religion]
Me: And creationists believe the world was created about six thousand years ago. Which is apparently when the Sumerians were inventing glue.
Ben: Maybe the Sumerians created the world.
Me: Ooh, you may have hit upon something there.
Ben: Once they’d invented the glue, they thought, “ooh, we could do something with this! Look, I’ve made a collage!”

Katie sent me this link yesterday morning, and to be honest, leaving aside the ridiculous stupidity of the thing (what, so it's fine that for MILLENNIA people have been poncing around variously proclaiming the existence of God or gods, but SWEET BABY JEE don't let anyone suggest that the big G may not exist?), seriously, how do they expect to demonstrate to anyone that God does exist. Cuz isn't it sort of the point that no-one can? Twats.

♥ You know how I posted a day or two ago about Katie getting trapped by Jehovah's Witnesses? Well, I felt a bit bad about it, because she said they were quite nice (which they were, though I had to struggle to restrain myself from shouting out "she's a heathen!" when they asked if she'd thought much about the Bible, but I was wearing a towel and didn't want to involve myself). Until some anonymous bod replied that I could learn something from the Bible, the self-righteousness of which made my instinctive response "fuck off!" Because whilst (a) I believe that there are valuable moral lessons to be learned from the Christian doctrines, viz being nice, I think that actually that's fairly universal and I don't *actually* need the Bible to tell me and (b) um, whatever, stop touting your deluded personal fantasy. I'm sorry, I think people can believe and say what they like about stuff and I'm with Voltaire on the whole not necessarily agreeing but fighting to the death for your right to say it (only, admittedly, less noble and thus only really willing to fight to the mild discomfort and/or slight personal embarrassment), but when it comes down to it I don't believe God exists and therefore any "relationship" anyone has with him is entirely in their heads. Which, whatever, if that works for people, but keep it to yourself (which most people I know do). It's not like I try and involve people in my personal fantasy (viz being secretly descended from the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia and thus heir to the Russian throne, as will be proved by my Romanov jewel, purchased very reasonably, and even more mystically, at the Kingston H&M). Well, OK, except for Megan, whom I almost managed to convince. Yes, that's right. I abused her childish trust and belief in me by making her think that one day my £1.99 necklace will fall open to reveal a Faberge jewel that will cement my claim to Russia. Heh.*

♥ On an entirely different note, a new poster has appeared in Baker Street (northern Jubilee line, should anyone be interested. Not that I can really imagine that. Moving on...) for the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. There is a little box on the poster considerately telling me that the film contains scenes of Holocaust, Threat and Terror. Well, thank fuck they told me, frankly, because the picture on the poster of two boys on either side of a CONCENTRATION CAMP FENCE didn't give that one away or anything... FFS, how stupid is the public assumed to be these days? Pah, I say. And I say it vehemently.

♥ Have read a great number of comics recently, including majority of the Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive storyline (really like the Batman comics - can anyone recommend any good Batman and Nightwing fic? Not slashy, necessarily, just sort of angsty family stuff?). Also, latest issue of Fables - two very enthusiastic thumbs up!

♥ Anyway, you might be asking yourself what I've been up to recently. (Or you might not, but I can't cope with that possibility of no-one caring, so will pretend it could not exist.) So, yep. Um, not much, actually. I tidied my room a little while ago but since then I developed my current art project (a sort of collagey-wall-hanging thing) which is half-finished on the floor, with every single vaguely craft-related item I own silting up the room. The odds of it being spoiled are increasing exponentially (not literally, that was a little bit of hyperbole). So, there's that. We're going to the Bad Film Club this week to see Robocop III which should be a little bit of a treat. That's about it. Ooh, we had a BT line installed on Friday, that was a bit of excitement in the week.

♥ Bah. Mid-September already. Must remember to fashion the remains of Grandma's birthday present and send it. Re my little plan to bop up to Sheff and surprise her, I surreptitiously floated the idea to Grandad and he was dubious on account of Rosie etc and not knowing what they're doing in advance. So on the one hand I want to post it so she has her present for her birthday, and on the other hand want to save it till I next go up so I can see her little face. *making see-one's-little-face-when-receiving-present gesture*

♥ Ooh, totally forgot to mention that on a whim we went to see Tim Minchin at the Bloomsbury the other week, which was really ace (though there's a funny story there, cuz I saw a thing in the paper about it on the Friday, and had a little email conversation with Katie about let's go tonight! and we agreed to do that, and I bought the tickets and was quite excited and we were making plans about meeting etc until I realised that in fact it wasn't till the following Friday, so that was side-splittingly funny but fortunately worked out OK despite my own stupidity and inability to know what the date is), though I was nearly late because the Gower St Waterstones is there, and I got sucked in by the books. So, yes. Tim Minchin. Katie discovered him back when Mark Watson made the world substantially better and made me listen too. He writes songs (and then performs them. Obviously). They are funny. And ace. And on Youtube. Go and watch. Or go and see him live, which was much better. Also, I wrote a pome (which was nice, on account of having lost my pome-fu! 0.o Like my fic-fu and my computer-genius-fu... I am fu-less. Fu-free. Sans-fu. Tragique), because that seemed an appropriate medium:

( Pome, or, I tried to think of a genius title but failed )

My god, I actually will one day become the next poet laureate. I can see it now. Please don't interfere with my personal fantasy by commenting on the pathetic attempts at rhyming with words that don't quite fit. Or that it's crap. I just want my fu back!! *g*

( Also, I have a little confession... )

Anyway, I'm going to go to bed again. I woke up at about two in a bit of a bedlinen tangle and couldn't sleep, but I've gone tired again. I'm never going to be up in time in the morning, and Emma will have yet another reason to bully me. I didn't mention, did I, that in the course of my day's BT-man-leave on Friday, she called me three times merely to bully me? You've actually got to give her kudos for the kind of persistent hard work she puts into it... *g* Apparently Roman brought in jaffa cakes, and I missed them. :(




* Actually, I must sadly confess that I didn't entirely succeed in making her believe my little tale of intrigue and romance. She remained mostly sceptical till the end.

I love this song. Very, very much. (As the title suggests, it's a bit talking-about-religion.)

Voltaire - God Thinks

ETA - So, yep, thinking about it, some people might find this offensive.

Further to my voyage of religious discovery, I have spent the last couple of hours talking to half a dozen of my nearest and dearest, canvassing their opinions on the existence or otherwise of God. Is it strange that I have never known what anyone in my family actually believes on that front? Anyway, the results were pretty much as I expected, and I had a couple of very interesting discussions with Daddy and Grandma on the subject (Daddy and I, not surprisingly, having fairly similar views, being as how we have pretty much the same brain). Neither Rosie nor my mother showed much interest in the subject (Mummy believes; Rosie doesn't, which did surprise me a little), and Grandad didn't discuss it beyond answering the question (he said yes he did believe, though oddly Grandma said she thought he didn't), but said it would be interesting to talk about it more when I go to stay. Chris believes basically the same as me, I think, but is far more cynical about the role of organised religion in society. So there you go. The collected religious views of the Hallatt/Webster clan. (I imagine it goes more or less without saying that where there is religious persuasion, it is of the Church of England variety, and none of us are church-goers, even the ones who believe.)

As a final tally of my mini survey:

7 people were consulted (yes, I include myself)
3 men, 4 women
6 with a university education, 1 without
6 were brought up with a C of E background, including some form of regular church attendance (forgot to ask Daddy, and actually that maybe ought to be 5, because my regular church attendance was at a Methodist church)
5 were confirmed, 1 was not (again, forgot to ask Daddy)
3 believed in some kind of God, 4 didn't

Also, I do not understand in the least how Pascal's wager (in its basic form) is supposed to convince anyone that God exists. Surely all it proves is that, in the most basic dual terms that given equal probabilities of the existence and non-existence of God, believing in him might be better for your posthumous existence. That doesn't then logically prove that God *does* exist. It just shows that being a bit craven about the whole thing might be a way forward.

I did a meme on xanantha’s journal, and one of the questions was about my philosophy on life. Which is a pretty good question I think (unlike the inevitable and annoying “Are you a glass half-empty or a glass half-full type person?”), and so I thought I would tell everyone about the Squeenly Philosophy of Life™.

You all know (well, probably most of you know), I am not religious. I do not believe in God. God may or may not exist, I don’t know, but I don’t believe he does. I believe the world is as it appears. I believe people are physical entities which are born, live and eventually die. I don’t believe in the concept of a soul as distinct from our bodies: I believe our personalities, what makes us us, is just the result of the electrical impulses of our brains processing our experiences. When we die, we die. That’s that. Game over. Our bodies are destroyed, and the world goes on. I don’t believe in any kind of heaven/after-life/whatever. There is no higher plane of existence to which we should aspire. Life isn’t a passing phase, a test, something you have to get through before you hit the good stuff. As Hannah says, “if the answers are in the back of the book, I can wait” – I don’t think there are any answers (or a back of the book, for that matter). All we can do is to make the most of our lives, because that’s all there is. What is the point in striving for greatness in life, if that’s not what it’s all about?

I hate the idea of fate, or pre-determination. So, yes, if you could understand the world and everyone in it, maybe you could predict the future, so really there is no freedom of choice blah blah blah, but you know what? Nobody can understand the world and everyone in it, so the point is moot. I still make the decisions I make: I still decide what path my future will take. If it’s inevitable, so what? I don’t know that. I still make my decisions not knowing how they will eventually turn out. I dislike the idea of people palming off the consequences of their own decisions with “it’s fate,” or “this was always going to happen,” and blaming some higher entity for what they have done themselves. I don’t believe in abrogating responsibility for my actions to anyone else.

I believe in social rules (the Ten Commandments being an obvious example from my own religious background), but I don’t believe they were handed down from on high, because that implies that we can’t think of these things for ourselves. Human beings can and do know the difference between right and wrong; we can formulate our own social rules; we can see how best to organise society so we can all rub along (just because this doesn’t happen doesn’t mean we can’t work out what should be done in theory). We are not given these rules but then must be punished like naughty children when they go wrong (flood!God, I’m looking at you…): we can decide for ourselves, and take the consequences when they happen.