Stewart

The reasons I am an atheist

As I have mentioned before when I got excited about Christmas and annoyed at Rachel Reeves on Question time, I am an atheist. If you are interested, I will go through the reasons for this. Actually, I will be doing so anyway, even if you’re not but obviously you don’t have to read it if you’re not interested.

When I was little, I was quite inquisitive. One of my favourite fictional characters was (and still is) Sherlock Holmes. I was always very keen to understand the world around me and to know everything. I didn’t know everything, so I chose to study philosophy at university in an attempt to find some answers.

In fact, all I got were loads more questions. Descartes made me believe that nothing else existed, and all of the possible answers to this failed to satisfy me. Other areas of philosophy I found too pedantic or bizarrely at times illogical. The best thing I took out of my degree was an interest in social philosophy and therefore in politics.

Going back to Descartes, all of the scepticism and attempts to overcome it led me to come up with my combined theory of how the world came into existence, what we are doing here and what awaits us after death.

I like to call it the “I’m Never Going to Fucking Know Theory of the Universe.”

This theory, basically, does what it says on the tin.

One of the things I took away from my degree was Occam’s razor which, in short, suggests that the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected. It’s a little more complicated than that, but I used to help me differentiate between the following two hypothesises:

1. The universe just exists.
2. The universe was created by God who just exists.

Occam’s razor trims off the second hypothesis and leaves us with the stubble of the first.

Now, obviously, there are several arguments around this used by religious people. I have heard some of them. I’m sure there are more that I’ve not heard.

But in all honesty, I don’t really care. No disrespect to anyone who wants to argue against my theory, but I feel that I will never have enough proof one way or another and hypothesis one is the simplest for me to go about living my day to day life.

There are many things that I do like about religion. Mainly the visual elements. I enjoy religious architecture and some of the imagery is very powerful. And Christmas, obviously.

I feel there are many benefits to my theory.

I am amazed at how the world happened to come into existence the way it did. As stated in the title of my theory, I will never know how, but I can be astounded that it did. No amount of watching Brian Cox will even give me the vaguest inkling because, if I’m being honest, science isn’t my forte, and I am quite happy with this. I am filled with much more awe at the natural world than I think I would otherwise be.

Another bonus is that the part of my degree that I enjoyed the most, the social philosophy side, allows me to form all my own decisions about what is ethically right or wrong. I’m not implying that people who believe in religion follow blindly, but as there is an ethical code already laid out, if I believed in it, I would be less inclined to construct an ethical code for myself based on what I thought was right and which therefore makes me have more confidence in the fact that the actions I am doing are the right ones to do.

This is again, all from an entirely personal point of view. Other people might not get these feelings, feel confident enough to come up with their own ethical code, but that’s not the case for me.

I have formed my opinions on the basis of all the information in front of me. It may well be that growing up in a household that wasn’t particularly religious, that I was predisposed to view the information in a certain way which would lead me to become an atheist. I am fine with this. Someone from a stronger religious background may have seen all the same information I did, read all the same books, attended all the same courses as me and used it to assume the existence of a god or gods. I am fine with this too.

I am not an agnostic, although I am willing to be proved wrong on this. However, the amount of proof needed from either side in this discussion is ludicrous and I believe impossible. Being agnostic would suggest that I want to think more about whether or not there is a god. I don’t. I have had enough thinking about it, discussing about it, arguing about it.

I’m Never Going to Fucking Know, so I have moved on and I am living my life in the knowledge that this is one piece of knowledge I am never going to obtain (at least not whilst I am alive).

Other benefits to this include the fact that I can spend my Sunday mornings doing more productive things, such as recovering from my hangover, having a lie in or playing Sunday league football.

Note: One of the things I really hate is people who feel like they are forcing their views on others.

My intention in writing this is partly to explain to anyone who might be curious why I have my point of view – I did the same with my vegetarianism a while ago, and partly just to get everything out. Sometimes, if you don’t have to articulate things, you are not completely sure of what you actually think.

Lots of other people try to force their views on people which I find annoying. I am happy for people to discuss issues or ask people if they are interested in learning more, but the ones who – on both sides – try to pressure people into believing the same thing as them, or making insensitive comments are dicks. Militant atheists such as Dawkins and the religious suicide bombers fall into this category.

However, it is important not to class everyone in the same group as these extremists. All atheists are not as dickish as Dawkins, all muslims are not suicide bombers and all catholics are not kiddy fiddlers. Classing people based on an extreme element is a bit like saying that because they support Liverpool, every fan is going to try to bite other people.

Children’s TV: They don’t make it like they used to

I am a boy. I love stupid boy projects. Since living on my own, I seem to embark on more stupid boy projects. And when one gets in my head, it is pretty difficult to get it out of my head. This is the reason I now own guinea pigs. More on that another time.

I’m not sure how or why the idea got in my head. I think I realised that this blog has largely become about television – see my Take Me Out rant, my anger at a throwaway comment on Question Time or my media studies essay on the stereotypes in shows such as The Only Way Is Essex.

Which is quite odd really, as I don’t actually watch much TV.

So, for some reason, I got it into my head to watch one episode of every childrens’ TV show on BBC iPlayer.

I could try to tell myself that it’s so that I can make sure the shows these days are not corrupting my 6 month old niece, or that I’m actually trying to fill in all the bits of my general knowledge that have fallen out and been replaced with information about superheroes but it’s more likely just because I actually have the mentality of a 5 year old.

The task was a much bigger undertaking than I thought it would be at the point when I started. If I’d have counted the number of shows there were, I would probably have given up before I started. All in all, it took about 3 weeks of my spare time to get through them.

On the plus side, if and when I find a woman silly enough to procreate with me, I will know which ones are the ones to avoid already.

That makes it sound worse than it is. Some of the shows were, predictably, rather rubbish. Some of them were outstanding though. I found I developed the ability to tell within about 30 seconds which it was going to be.

Some of the shows I used to watch were horrendous, if you watch them back nowadays. Nostaligia does tend to rose-tint your opinions of things. Some of them make very little sense except to children’s minds and the same is true for some shows these days. Perhaps all that changes is the drugs that TV producers are on when they come up with the ideas.

In a way, it does seems as if they have some sort of random idea generator, as there are a limited number of shows. I would narrow it down to seven main types of shows. Not everything will fit these seven but I’m not going to spend even more time coming up with the equivalent of Propp’s 31 functions of fairytales.

The seven types of show are:

1. Children doing grown up things
2. Creatures/aliens/puppets living with humans
3. Animals that talk
4. Purely educational
5. Bizarre creatures making nonsensical noises
6. Things that can’t usually speak are able to speak
7. Wacky stuff happens

Into the last category, I would place some of the game shows they have, such as Copycats. On the topic of game shows, lots of contestants seem to be from Liverpool for some reason. I couldn’t work out why it is other than perhaps assuming that they have some studios near there.

Copycats, is hosted by a duo called Sam and Mark. They are effectively the next Ant and Dec, although they’re probably not as good at rapping. Is it wrong to have a favourite out of Sam and Mark? Because I do. It’s Mark, as Sam reminds me of Michael McIntyre who just annoys me.

They seem to have used up a large number of ideas for TV shows, as very few of them are completely original. Below I have given a short summary and my views on every show I watched, and – if you were to read them all – you will probably get bored by the number of times other shows are referenced. Aside from the shows that are still going such as Blue Peter or the obvious re-makes such as Postman Pat, lots of shows seem to borrow heavily from others.

Pet Squad is a re-make of Powerpuff Girls but with pets, right down to the visual style. In The Night Garden is Teletubbies with a different type of character. And those are just two of the really obvious ones.

I guess this is understandable. There are only going to be a limited number of ways to put a TV show together, in the same way that there are only a limited number of ways to put chords together to make music, which is why you get similarities between songs and which inspired the Pachelbel Rant.

Anyway, if you can’t be bothered to read through all my summaries below, here are the shows that your children should be watching:

Infants: Alphablocks, In The Night Garden
Young children: Shaun The Sheep, Walk on the Wildside, Sarah and Duck, Newsround, I Can Cook
Teenagers: Absolute Genius with Dick and Dom, Horrible Histories, All Over The Place, How to be Epic at Everything, My Life

You’re welcome.

Show: 4 O’Clock Club
Episode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: 2 brothers – one is teacher of the year and one is troublesome student at Elmsbury school. The gimmick is that they frequently break into rap songs. At times it seems a bit like a music video and the budget seems quite high because of this. The show is actually pretty good on it’s own rights and the gimmick is probably not needed. However, I did disapprove of part of the show where they were picking on a girl because she was different but no real comeback for the bully.
A bit like: Grange Hill with rap.
Rating: 7/10

Show: 64 Zoo Lane
Episode: Season 3 Unknown
Premise: A cartoon where Lucy lives with a load of zoo animals. Definitely aimed at younger audiences. This episode features a story to help children accept things in the world. Lucy didn’t get exactly what she wanted but it was better because other peoples input helped improve it.
A bit like: an urbanised jungle book.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Abadas
Episode: 2
Premise: A kid name Ben has a book which contains a hippo, bat and fox who come to life and the cartoons jump out of the book into his room. Brightly coloured and trippy. In Welsh, so I’m guessing I didn’t pick up on absolutely everything that was going on, although the moral that I took from this episode is that it’s okay to draw over yourself with pens that you find on the beach.
A bit like: Being captured by a cult and force fed LSD.
Rating: 2/10
Note: From this point on, I avoided anything else that was in Welsh.

Show: Absolute Genius With Dick and Dom
Episode: 1 – Archimedes
Premise: Dick and Dom pick a genius and tell you all about their inventions and how they work with practical examples and applications with their cute scientist friend Fran. I love science but I don’t understand it very well and this explains it in a very simple to understand manner. All kids should know this sort of stuff.
A bit like: Brian cox’s year 6 school project.
Rating: 10/10.

Show: The adventures of Abney and Teal
Episode: Season 1 Episode 13
Premise: Two children live in a woods and are friends with a sort of sea creature, an accordion playing dog, some things called Pokpoks and a character called Neep who can only say “neep”. Incessantly. It’s worse when his friends turn up as well.
A bit like: Being hungover in a room full of screaming babies.
Rating: 2/10

Show: All over The Place.
Episode: Season 1 Episode 5
Premise: Four young excitable presenters travel across America visiting the weirdest tourist attractions, singing and entering competitions.
A bit like: Bill Bryson on Red Bull.
Rating: 9/10

Show: Alphablocks
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Some really cute creatures who all have a letter on their head spell out words and hold hands and then that thing appears or happens. They usually say words only beginning with that letter.
A bit like: Penny Crayon decides to teach spelling.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Andy’s wild adventures
Episode: Season 1 Episode 12
Premise: Andy works in a zoo. He and his pet puppet cat Kit travel the world in a crazy flying machine and using strange gadgets to educate us about different types of animals.
A bit like: Attenborough goes sci-fi.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Arthur
Episode: Season 10 Episode 5
Premise: Some animals of indeterminate species live human-like lives although title character seemed to disappear. There was a song which seemed to celebrate everyone’s differences and this episode is about appreciating the opera.
A bit like: Some sort of warped version of Toy Story.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Baby Jake
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A family with ten children live in a windmill. Baby Jake likes to go on adventures narrated by his brother Isaac who is the only one who can speak baby-ese. Jake’s disembodied head is put on a cartoon body and he joins dancing hamsters in space.
A bit like: Round the Twist combined with your wildest nightmares.
Rating: 1/10

Show: Bear Behaving Badly
Episode: Season 3 Episode 7
Premise: A guy lives with a couple of sock puppets who get into mischief. Heavily reliant on dramatic irony.
A bit like: A cooler version of Bodger and Badger.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Blue Peter
Episode: Flying with the Red arrows and Eating bugs
Premise: A magazine show which has been running for approximately a million years and has features on creativity, culture and conservation among other subjects. Always seems to leave you with an appetite for life and a “I can do that!” attitude
A bit like: Blue Peter
Rating: 8/10

Show: Bob the Builder
Episode: Unknown
Premise: Bob and his anthropomorphised vehicles build and fix things around their town. If you haven’t seen it before then you must have been living on a different planet.
A bit like: Thomas The Tank engine for The DIY generation.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Cbeebies Bedtime Stories
Episode: 12. Whinnies flying carpet
Premise: “Celebrities” read bedtime stories in an armchair with pictures from the book
A bit like: Jackanory.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Cbeebies Birthday Cards
Episode: 21st February 2013
Premise: Seems to be a compilation of all the bits of the show where presenters pull out birthday cards for viewers and wish them a happy birthday. Quite impressed that they still make people post them rather than email them. They put a CBBC character over the top of one of them who had a jumper for a non CBBC character or logo. I’m a bit dubious about the kids being able to recognise themselves on TV though as they might not have that much self-awareness. It seems to happens 4 times a day.
A bit like: A modern version of when they used to pull out pictures of kids faces on the front of Thomas The Tank Engine.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Charlie And Lola
Episode: Season 3 Episode 27
Premise: A cartoon with a boy called Charlie and his little sister Lola who he has to look after. They hang around with their friends and train dogs. I very much approve of Charlie coordinating his shoes with his top.
A bit like: Watching a little boy take care of his little sister.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Chuggington: Badge Quest
Epsiode: 41
Premise: A train is on a quest to get badges and has to complete certain tasks to obtain them. In this episode, Wilson cleans leaves from The track using water which in reality would have just got wet and stayed there. They must have been the right kind of leaves.
A bit like: Thomas The Tank Engine joins The scouts.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Cloud Babies
Episode: 37
Premise: The cloud babies are some brightly coloured seemingly human creatures called Bobos who ride strange horse creature things who take care of all the things in the sky, including the moons polish to keep it shining. It explains who the universe works with stories such as Bobo Pink fluffs the clouds. Obviously they are actually teaching children lies.
A bit like: My Little Ponies and the Wombles mated.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Copycats
Episode: Season 2 Episode 39
Premise: Two kids get a team (seemingly mainly to consist of their relations) and battle it out against each other for a trophy. Sam and Mark lead the teams through a series of games where they have to copy what their team mates or a TV screen shows them.
A bit like: Ant and Dec bastardised Family Fortunes and turned it into chinese whipsers.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Dani’s Castle
Episode: 1
Premise: A girl/woman named Dani inherits an odd castle in the middle of nowhere in Ireland. It turns out that she actually only inherited half with a cousin owning another half. It is haunted and the ghosts try to make friends with the humans. With canned laughter.
A bit like: An Irish version of Rentaghost.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Dani’s House
Episode: Season 1 Episode 12
Premise: Dani lives in a house with her brother who she doesn’t get along with. Watched by aliens. With canned laughter.
A bit like: Dani’s Castle but worse.
Rating: 4/10

Show: The Daredevil
Episode: 3
Premise: The Daredevil presents a team of competitors with a lot dares for them to complete to get lives to take forward to the final challenges. Presented by a guy who wants to be Richard O’Brien but has a lot worse puns and comes across as fake.
A bit like: The Crystal Maze has mated with I’m A Celebrity.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Deadly Mission Madagascar
Episode: 2
Premise: A group of school kids visit Madagascar to see how they can help to conserve the wildlife in the area.
A bit like: Greenpeace commandeered a TV show.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Dennis and Gnasher
Episode: 26
Premise: Dennis the Menace and his dog Gnasher get up to mischief. If you don’t know more than that, then you’re either too young or not cool enough to have read The Beano. I was frankly a bit disappointed there’s no Roger the Dodger cartoon as he was clearly the best Beano character.
A bit like: Your childhood has come alive and been voiced incorrectly. You’re not sure if you like it or not.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Diddly Movies
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: Dick and Dom’s heads are on diddly bodies as they parody various movies with really high helium voices.
A bit like: A more annoying and less funny South Park episode meets the Chuckle Brothers.
Rating: 3/10

Show: Dipdap
Episode: 9
Premise: A little creature walks along a line which creates challenges for him
A bit like: A cartoon version of Morph.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Driver Dan’s Story Train
Episode: Season 1 Episode 44
Premise: A sort of lion/flower creature called Dan drives the story train randomly around to find someone to tell a story to/with. The train has no tracks and can go wherever it wants so probably doesn’t count as a train in the strictest definition.
A bit like: The Magic Roundabout does story time.
Rating: 7/10

Show: The Dumping Ground
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: A lot of kids in care going through the problems of growing up and all of that sort of stuff. It features disabled characters in a positive light.
A bit like: Byker Grove meets Eastenders.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Everything’s Rosie
Episode: Season 1 Episode 25
Premise: A girl with rainbow coloured dreads and a selection of human and animal friends live in a playhouse with talking trees and get up to normal children stuff
A bit like: Watching children play if some of them were of indeterminate species.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Fierce Earth
Episode: 1
Premise: a team of thrill seekers investigate the worst kinds of weather suffered on earth and explain the science behind it. The show is a bit American/Anglo centric classifying the three worst hurricanes as Ike, Sandy and Katrina although they are not in the top three according to this list. And is based on the cost of repairing the damage not the death toll.
A bit like: If Brian Cox sky dived.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Fit
Episode: 9
Premise: A sketch show vaguely based around sports, health and fitness. I’m aware I’m not the target audience and I probably have a more sophisticated sense of humour but I didn’t lol once.
A bit like: The slow show.
Rating: 2/10

Show: Get Squiggling! Letters
Episode: 1
Premise: A giant monster thing called squiggler has a squigglepad and a squigglestick (known to you and me as a crayon) and encourages children to practice writing letters. The letter then turns up and squeaks to squiggler before a story is told involving lots of things beginning with that letter
A bit like: Snufflepaugus from The Muppets was given a show to educate children.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Get Well Soon
Episode: 27 The Raspberry Surprise
Premise: A singing doctor treats a bunch of hypochondriac puppets to explain illnesses and how to treat them.
A bit like: Embarrassing Bodies: The PG edition.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Grandpa In My Pocket
Episode: Season 2 Episode 9
Premise: Grandpa has a shrinking cap which he can put on to cause mischief/bully bullies
A bit like: Honey I Shrunk The Grandparents.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Help! My Supply Teacher Is Still Magic
Episode: 1
Premise: A number of magicians take supply classes at schools and instead of teaching them, they do magic tricks. Interspersed with magicians doing street magic.
A bit like: Penn and Teller meets Grange Hill.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Hero Squad
Epsiode: 6
Premise: 6 kids are trained up to be lifesavers. They go through training and a series of challenges to compete to be squad leader.
A bit like: The extreme Young Apprentice.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Horrible Histories
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A show presented by a rat featuring actors in period costumes acting out periods of history with true facts and slightly exaggerated stories for comedic effect.
A bit like: An educational Life of Brian.
Rating: 9/10

Show: How To Be Epic At Everything
Episode: 1
Premise: A 15 minute show with about 10 different skills for you to learn, such as the splits, how to flick a card… You had me at how to survive the zombie apocalypse
A bit like: A little bit of everything for dummies.
Rating: 9/10

Show: I Can Cook
Episode: 16
Premise: A group of children join the host who helps to teach them to make simple recipes whilst singing and making it fun for children. This show is actually brilliant. I didn’t learn to cook until I actually left home and it’s something very enjoyable and that I think kids should learn earlier
A bit like: Nigella without all the fancy recipes and innuendo.
Rating: 10/10

Show: Iconicles
Episode: 7
Premise: An inventor called Nat lives in a futuristic looking apartment with a CGI hedgehog called skitter interspersed with cartoons and life lessons.
A bit like: A futuristic Rainbow.
Rating: 6/10

Show: In The Night Garden
Epsiode: Season 1 Episode 1
Premise: People in costumes dance around and sing nonsense rhymes and speak nonsense words. In a garden. In the Dayime.
A bit like: The Teletubbies. Give or take a few details, it is identical. I know a lot of people get annoyed at this show but I think it’s actually pretty good and is no worse than shows from a few years ago.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Johnny and Inel show
Episode: 1
Premise: Johnny and Inel present a sketch show in front of a live audience
A bit like: A more street version of those sketch shows Ant and Dec used to do.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Junior Vets
Episode: 1
Premise: A group of kids join the vets at Edinburgh university
A bit like: X-Factor mated with country file.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Just Kidding.
Epiosde: 11
Premise: A bunch of kids play a load of practical jokes on grown ups whose laughter makes it look like they were already in on the joke
A bit like: Beadle’s About with kids
Rating: 1/10

Show: Justin’s House
Episode: Season 2 Episode 20
Premise: A slightly camp man in a waistcoat with a robot in his house sings songs and entertains large groups of children in his house which is aridiculously bright and quirky set. Potential paedophile
A bit like: A pantomime with no real direction
Rating: 1/10

Show: The League of Super Evil
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A team of super villains go about their every day business of doing things like winning chilli cook offs.
A bit like: An Invader Zim/Pinky and the Brain hybrid.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Let’s Play
Episode: 20
Premise: Two grown ups sing a song hoping that they’re going to be the one who gets to dress up with the random fancy dress generator and be the one to get to play today. Features humans living in a cartoon world.
A bit like: Mr Benn with living people.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Little Howard’s Big Question
Episode: Season 3 Episode 7
Premise: A cartoon character named Howard lives with a human called Howard and a computer called mother and if this episode is anything to go by, learns some pop psychology in every episode.
A bit like: A Freudian Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Rating: 7/10

Show: Me and My Monsters
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: 3 monster puppets live with the Carson family and generally get in the way and make nuisances of themselves.
A bit like: Monster Muppets at home.
Rating: 7/10

Show: MI High
Episode: Season 1 Episode 3
Premise: A number of school kids are actually undercover spies.
A bit like: Spooks meets Spy Kids.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Mike the Knight
Episode: 11
Premise: A knight called mike has lots of knightly adventures with dragons and the like
A bit like: A CGI knights tale.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Mr Maker Comes To Town
Episode: Seaosn 2 Episode 9
Premise: Mr Maker drives around in a brightly coloured vehicle when kids call him to get him to help them make brightly coloured things. He also has the same bright blue converse as me.
A bit like: Art Attack mated with Playdays.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Mr Bloom’s Nursery
Episode: 3
Premise: Mr bloom has a greenhouse with lots of talking vegetables which resemble those from the Muppets’ Christmas Carol. He finds little children and teaches them about gardening.
A bit like: Titschmarsh simplified.
Rating: 7/10

Show: My Life
Episode: Season 4 Episode 1
Premise: Children tells of their life, hopes and struggles
A bit like: An inspiring show proving that you can do it.
Rating: 9/10

Show: My Story
Episode: 10
Premise: People tell their family history through shared experiences, such as
A bit like: A less inspirational version of my life.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Naomi’s Nightmares of Nature
Episode: 1
Premise: Naomi comes face to face with nightmares of nature. And uses the phrase “nightmare of nature” at every conceivable opportunity. And is a big wussy girl.
A bit like: Watching Ray Mears sleep.
Rating: 2/10

Show: Newsround
Episode: 14/3/13
Premise: All the top modern stories presented by explaining in full so that children will understand
A bit like: Newsround.
Episode: 9/10

Show: Nina and The Neurons: Go Engineering
Episode: 16
Premise: A Scottish scientist and CGI representations of each of our senses answer science questions asked by children.
A bit like: The New Scientists’ Last Word column.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Numberjacks
Episode: Season 2 Episode 3
Premise: A group of numbers are secret agents living on some sort of spaceship who enter the real world to solve number based problems
A bit like: If Star Trek had a mathematical premise.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Numtums
Episode: 12
Premise: A bunch of squirrel like creatures with numbers on their tums (hence numtums) live in a very colourful and noisy world (at least for 7am which is when I watched it). They send a number to have adventures with real life children.
A bit like: Thunderbirds. Even though it was nothing like it, for some reason I couldn’t get the comparison out of my head.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Nuzzle and Scratch: Frock and Roll
Episode: 21
Premise: Two alpacas live with a guy called the captain who dresses posh, like. The alpacas get confused about what is going on and go out and adventure in the real world.
A bit like: if Gonzo and Animal were the Chuckle Brothers. But were actually alpacas.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Octonauts
Episode: Season 1 Episode 16
Premise: Some cgi animals live in a submarine. From their accents, They appear to have come from all over the world. They came up against some evil anemones.
A bit like: A sci-fi set in the sea. A sea-fi.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Officially Amazing
Episode: 4
Premise: A show showcasing world record attempts and other amazing things.
A bit like: A modern day Record Breakers but without the theme tune.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Uncle Jack’s Boat
Epsiode: 16
Premise: Seafaring uncle jack tells of his mystical stories from the high seas
A bit like: A less grumpy Father Jack making up stories.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Pet Squad
Episode: 25
Premise: Three crime fighting animals with super powers save the city from dastardly villains.
A bit like: The Powerpuff Pets. Right down to the visual style.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service
Episode: Season 1 Episode 1
Premise: Postman Pat has been upgraded to work of the special delivery service in the same stop motion style of the original and with only a slightly amended theme song.
A bit like: Your childhood has been lovingly and respectfully upgraded unlike the blasemphemous remake of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Rastamouse
Episode: 16
Premise: A stop motion reggae playing mouse fights crime with stereotypical Jamaican accents
A bit like: A slightly racist Fingermouse.
Rating: 2/10

Show: Rocket’s Island.
Episode: 2
Premise: A kid called rocket lives on a secluded island where he has a Cave that makes wishes come true. Only someone has vandalised it and he wants to know who!
A bit like: Round the Twist set on the Isle of Man.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Sadie J
Episode: Season 3 Episode 1
Premise: A teenage girl and her friends complete with stereotypical gay friend live their lives with lots of coincidences and canned laughter.
A bit like: A worse version of Clarissa Explains It All.
Rating: 3/10

Show: Sam and Mark’s Big Friday Windup
Episode: 1
Premise: An audience of children and their parents are embarrassed by Sam and mark of copycats fame who get their relatives to do embarrassing things or to do Noel’s house party style windups with famous people scaring children.
A bit like: Saturday night TV from the 80s.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Same Smile
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Misha visits children and finds out what they’ve been up to.
A bit like: Taking a child to the park.
Rating: 3/10

Show: Sarah and Duck
Episode: 6
Premise: Sarah has a duck that lives in her bath. She feeds it bread on a plate
A bit like: A ludicrously cute cartoon.
Rating: 9/10

Show: Sarah Jane Adventures
Episode: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith Part 1
Premise: A Doctor Who spin off with his former companion and her son
A bit like: Doctor Who Lite. Without the doctor.
Rating: 6/10

Show: School of Silence
Episode: Season 2 Episode 10
Premise: A game show where children are subjected to things that are likely to make them scream where they will win prizes if they don’t.
A bit like: A load of gunge tanks
Rating: 5/10

Show: Shaun the Sheep
Episode: Season 3 Episode 6
Premise: Shaun is a sheep. He has sheeply adventures.
A bit like: 7 minute fixes of Aardman.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Something Special
Episode: Season 7 Episode 5
Premise: Justin from Justin’s house is a clown called Mr Tumble. He uses a lot of sign language whilst talking to an off screen child who is asking him what he is doing.
A bit like: A signing clown.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Splatalot
Epsiode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: Dick and Dom present a show where the defenders of the castle try to stop children reaching the castle whilst taunting them at the same time.
A bit like: Those Japanese shows where the contestants have to try to get across obstacle courses.
Rating: 6/10

Show: The Story of Tracey Beaker
Episode: Season 5 Episode 12
Premise: A group of children in care suffer from loneliness
A bit like: The Dumping Ground: The Younger Years.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Superhuman Challenge
Episode: 1
Premise: Sara Cox narrates as we investigate superhuman people.
A bit like: If X-Men were filmed as freaks of nature rather than going to Professor X’s School for the Gifted.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Tilly and Friends
Epsiode: 47
Premise: Tilly lives with a bunch of talking animals and has fun doing human things with them.
A bit like: A really simple show that is made a little more exciting as the characters are animals not humans.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Timmy Time
Episode: Season 2 Episode 7
Premise: A bunch of CGI non speaking animals hang about with each other.
A bit like: A 10 minute hit of aardman.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Totally Rubbish
Episode: 9
Premise: A couple of excitable people show you how to make stuff out of your rubbish.
A bit like: Art Attack for the credit crunch generation.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Trapped
Episode: Season 3 Episode 1
Premise: A game show where everyone works together but there is one saboteur. They then vote on who they think was the saboteur and the votes person is trapped in the room they were in. Doesn’t seem to be a reward for being an undetected saboteur though.
A bit like: Crystal Maze crossed with The Weakest Link
Rating: 7/10

Show: Tree-Fu Tom
Episode: 21
Premise: In a CGI fantasy world, a guy named Tom does a lot of dance moves and calls it tree-fu to fight off talking mushrooms
A bit like: If that song that goes “one step one time…. Criss cross” actually had magical powers.
Rating: 1/10

Show: VIP People
Episode: 8
Premise: Going behind the scenes of important people to find out who helps them do what they do.
A bit like: Careers advice in how to do a job around a famous person.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Walk on the Wildside
Epsiode: Season 1 Episode 5
Premise: Comedy voice overs to nature videos
A bit like: Fit. But for animals. And actually funny.
Rating: 8/10

Show: Waybuloo
Episode: Season 2 Episode 24
Premise: CGI animals with human faces talk in poorly constructed sentences using nonsense speak. And do yoga. And speak to human children. And something about a sundial.
A bit like: An even weirder version of In The Night Garden.
Rating: 3/10

Show: What’s the Big Idea?
Episode: 1
Premise: Animated show where a thing called Hugo who looks naked investigates the idea behind things, such as perspective and why we go to school.
A bit like: 5 minutes of philosophy for children.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Who Let the Dogs Out and About
Episode: Season 2 Episode 6
Premise: Children take their dogs along to the roadshow and compete to see who can teach them a set trick the best. With cartoons as well.
A bit like: One Man and His Dog in town.
Rating: 5/10

Show: Winging It
Episode: Season 2 Episode 5
Premise: A high school student named Carl has a friend who is an angel who makes his life better by performing magic
A bit like: Al from Quantum Leap is transplanted into Saved By The Bell.
Rating: 6/10

Show: Wolfblood
Epsiode: 11
Premise: A bunch of werewolves try and live in the real world and argue about the use of use some sort of stimulant called eolas. With a Celtic theme tune but seemingly set in Newcastle.
A bit like: Twilight doing Grange Hill’s Just Say No.
Rating: 4/10

Show: Woolley and Tig
Episode: Season 2 Episode 16
Premise: A girl named Tig and her toy spider Woolley go on adventures and she learn life lessons from the toy spider
A bit like: Incy wincy teacher.
Rating: 7/10

Show: Young Dracula
Episode: Season 4 Episode 8
Premise: I’m not entirely sure. There are definitely vampires although they use the term ‘dracula’ to describe them. Which I disapprove of as it’s a proper noun. There is a family feud when the main chapter finds out that the boy who has been living with him is actually his brother and there is some issue with The Council
A bit like: Dracula: The Soap Opera.
Rating: 3/10

Show: Zingzillas
Episode: Season 2 Episode 1
Premise: A band of People sized animal things in colourful colours perform songs on a tropical island.
A bit like: Pugwall’s Summer meets The Muppet Show.
Rating: 7/10

The Death of the Pub Quiz

I love pub quizzes. I love anything that will test my knowledge or powers of logic. I even love the pub quizzes when they are aimed at older people and I stand no chance of getting the questions right. I still like being able to try.

I’m a big fan though of the Chambers pub quiz. There are a few reasons for this. One is that on Boxing Day there is an abundance of free alcohol and Christmas hats. This makes it my favourite day of the year.

Another reason is that whilst I don’t know too many of the answers to the quiz itself, there is a background music round and generally Chris who puts the quiz together seems to have a similar taste in music to me so I often score well in that round.

However, since the invention of mobile phones that are able to easily connect to the internet, the pub quiz seems to be dying out. It is no longer a test of intellect but a test of who has the best 3G connection and the best Googling skills.

This annoys me greatly. It effectively renders the whole exercise pointless. I have been known to shout at people in the past for looking up answers and have even insisted that we put the answer down that we originally thought it was, even though they had looked it up and we knew it was wrong.

There’s no point in taking part if you’re going to just cheat your way to victory. You wouldn’t do it any other competition (and I do get very competitive) so why would you do it in a pub quiz? Honesty is a much under utilised trait.

At the Chambers pub quiz last week, there was no conclusive winner. Instead the prize was distributed between the top 4 teams as Chris knew that the winning team had Googled/Shazammed their way to victory. He didn’t simply strip them of their victory but protected their identity to hopefully allow them to learn from the experience.

I hope they do. It’d be a shame if society got into a state where we stopped having pub quizzes because we couldn’t trust one another to act in good faith.

As an aside, I was going to write a blog about Thatcher’s death and why celebrating it is wrong but I felt that the death of a pub quiz was important.

However, in short: today we are in no different a situation to that we were yesterday. Thatcher dying has made no difference to the world but the day she stood down did. That day should have been celebrated, not this day.

5 bad things I think would happen if Superman really existed

I dislike Superman. It’s partly because he’s a cheat, it’s partly because he’s a bit smarmy but mostly – and this is extremely important – it’s because he’s not Batman.

Now, I know that’s probably not the most logically thought out argument for why Superman sucks, so I’ve come up with some extremely practical implications that I believe would arise from his existence.

1. People would take more risks knowing that they’d be saved

People take risks when they think they’re safe. Bungee jumping – no-one would do that if there wasn’t a giant piece of elastic strapped to their legs; sky diving – people wouldn’t do it if they didn’t have a parachute. People will start to take more risks such as standing up to ruthless evil villains knowing that Superman would fly in and save the day. And other such things. Superman is the safety net for idiotic actions. Which brings me to point 2.

2. Superman would have to open a complaints line for anyone he didn’t help

People would start to think they had a right for Superman to save them when they were in danger and would take it personally when he didn’t help them. Because Superman has saved Lois Lane on numerous occasions, the rest of Metropolis would be angry if he didn’t ave them. Superman would get treated as public property and would essentially be another emergency service, only one that you didn’t have to phone as he could use his supersonic hearing to detect your danger.

In this respect, Superman is a bit God-like. One argument for God’s non-existence is that he cannot be all loving, all powerful and all knowing because he doesn’t help out those in need.

Superman is essentially all knowing due to his heightened senses. He is all powerful because he is from Krypton. So if he doesn’t save everyone in danger, then he will be deemed to be a bad person for not doing so. Hence, he’d need an 800 complaints line and a dedicated workforce to deal with the fallout.

3. There would be less state funding for the police force

The government would look at Metropolis and see that it had additional assistance in policing the city (Superman isn’t vilified in the way that Batman is) and decide that this meant they could reduce the funding to the police force.

This would have the effect that all the low level jobs such as parking tickets, jaywalking and littering would be either neglected and chaos would ensue. Chaos, I tells ya!

4. The world’s strongest man contest would be a farce.

I have checked records dating back to 1977 and there have been no extra-terrestrial entrants in the tournament. There is also no ruling that says that you have to be born on Earth to enter the tournament.

So Superman would either enter – I reckon he would as he’s a bit of a show-off – and turn the tournament into a farce by beating all of the other contestants by a ridiculous margin, or not enter and turn it into a farce because everyone would know that he’s actually a billion times stronger than whoever wins the tournament, making it a hollow victory.

5. The space race would start up again

If the world leaders knew that there was life in space as evidenced by Superman, then they would want to go out and explore it. Whether or not they would battle it out as they did during the Cold War, who could say. What would happen though, is that funding for the space program would go up substantially.

NASA’s budget is currently around 0.5% of the Federal budget according to Wikipedia. At the height of the Cold War, in 1966, the budget was 4.41% of the Federal total. It would definitely go up to close to this, if not beyond and would mean that there is a reduction in the basic services needed such as education, health and literally keeping the streets clean which would make life on Earth worse whilst they search for further life in space.

Snow fun

Snow is ace. Maybe it’s because I try to always have a childlike outlook on life but I can’t fail to get excited when it snows.

The last few times it’s snowed I’ve not been able to go out and play in the snow properly. Various things such as work, sickness or being in a recording studio have prevented me from doing so for quite some time.

However, on Monday evening this week, whilst I was enjoying a nice warm bath (snow makes you cold, apparently), I had a ring on my doorbell. Which I promise you isn’t a euphemism. I went downstairs and found Natalie, Adam and Alice on my doorstep asking if I was coming out to play.

The answer, obviously, was yes.

We spent an hour outside, freezing, with snow pounding down in our faces and it was possibly the best hour I’ve spent this year. We tried throwing snowballs and making a snowman but unfortunately the snow was a bit too powdery to stick together. So instead we kicked the snowman to death and drew a face on Lisa’s car so that it looked like a car from cars. We made snow angels and jumped in the deepest snow we could find.

I don’t get why people don’t enjoy snow. I love snow. I love it so much that me and Natalie once made a snowman outside the Kremlin. True story. Here it is:

I know that snow does cause problems for people. I know some people had ludicrously long journeys home or got stuck in their cars overnight or even had accidents and these things all suck.

And I know – from looking at Shepway District Council’s Facebook page – that some people were exceptionally angry about the snow. Regardless of the fact that they don’t deal with gritting the roads. The anger vented is in some ways understandable, however the manner that some posters go about it is nothing short of disrespectful and I’d quite happily pay a bit more in council tax if they promised to spend it on teaching the local community some common courtesy (not to mention nothing of spelling and grammar).

Sure, other countries are more prepared for snow. This is because they have snow all of the time. The same people moaning about the lack of gritting would I’m sure moan about the misuse of spending disproportionate amounts of money on snow protection for the 5 days of the year when it actually snows.

The fact is that voter turnout in council elections in 2011 ranged from 30-60% although was generally at the lower end of the scale makes it more likely than not that the people complaining didn’t vote in the election which is the best way to complain about the current state of affairs rather than abusing people who can’t see you from behind your computer screen or mobile phone.

But I digress. Maybe these people would benefit from relaxing and playing in the snow for a little bit. After all, life is short and it snows so infrequently.

Why Take Me Out may actually be the work of the devil

On this day of forced romanticism, I thought I’d take a few minutes out to write about another example of forced romanticism – Take Me Out.

It is actually one of my favourite shows – I’m not sure why, sometimes I just enjoy really trashy television – and I don’t think that I’ve missed more than a handful of episodes over the last few years. In fact, I even went to see an episode being filmed around a year or so ago.

At least 5 different people have also told me I should apply for the show.

However, something about the show has been bugging me recently. And that is the fact that it seems to perpetuate stereotypes about what men and women look for when selecting a partner.

I’m sure not everyone is as familiar with the show as I am, so I’ll give you a brief rundown of how it works.

A man comes down the “Love Lift”, parades himself in front of 30 women who each have a light in front of them which they will turn off if they decide they don’t want to date the man. The first chance they have to turn off is after they see what he looks like and he introduces himself (e.g. “Hi, I’m Dave and I’m from Scunthorpe!”).

So at this stage, a number of women will usually turn off based on how the chap looks. There are then two further rounds, during which the women will be able to turn off their light at any point they choose. These rounds are generally the bloke talking about himself on a video for a little while followed either by him showing off some talent (such as skateboarding, firebreathing, chopping vegetables really fast) or by his friends and family revealing some really embarrassing piece of information about him.

At this point, if there are any women with their lights still on, then the fella has got himself at date. However, this is where the disparity comes in. The man then has to narrow it down to two women based solely on looks and anything they’ve said previously. He does this whilst the crowd are baying at him. He then asks these two a question and selects between them based on their answer.

The guy has divulged a lot of information about himself over the past ten minutes or so, so the women are making an informed decision about whether they think he’s a suitable partner, but he is making his decision based on their physical appearance and their answer to his question in which usually doesn’t divulge any information about them at all. Either they give some sort of flirty answer (e.g. I’d be a curry because it’s hot and spicy just like me) or they miss the point of the question entirely and just basically tell the man to pick him.

It seems like this is perpetuating the stereotype that men don’t look past a women’s physical appearance when choosing a partner which, believe it or not, is actually untrue.

This won’t stop me watching the show though.

For a slightly more upbeat Valentine’s Day post, read the loveletter I wrote to my kettle last year.

Please don’t waste your time watching Man on a Ledge

The cover is actually the best thing about the film

Lovefilm recently sent me the film ‘Man On A Ledge.’ I don’t recall ever adding it to my rental list and now I am beginning to suspect that someone who dislikes me hacked into my account and added it on there.

The first time the disc came through, it was unplayable. I should have taken this as sign. Instead, I returned it to them with a note advising them of this and they sent me another copy above my rental allowance which was nice of them.

I watched the film last Sunday and it was one hour and forty two minutes of my life that I am never getting back so I thought I would write this to prevent anyone else wasting their time watching this piece of drivel.

To give you an idea of why you might be suckered into watching this, here are a few excepts from reviews on Lovefilm:

“This clever thriller takes you on an entertaining ride and isn’t all it seems to be.”

“Intriguing thriller”

“This film, with a solid cast and a decent script, is original, intriguing, fast-paced and genuinely entertaining. I really, really enjoyed it.”

“Such a clever thought out plot!! no dull moments, a very good, gripping film, really enjoyed it. Would even watch it again”

All of these, coupled with an average rating of three and a half stars is probably enough to convince you to watch it.

The trouble is, it’s all a bunch of lies from a bunch of lying liars. If you genuinely haven’t been put off by my rants so far, I should warn you that the next paragraph will contain spoilers. Ok, here is the plot of the film:

A man is imprisoned for stealing a diamond that was never actually stolen. He escapes whilst attending his brother’s funeral and stands on the ledge of a hotel room threatening to jump using the media circus as a distraction whilst his brother and his girlfriend (who predictably become his fiancée in the final scene of the film) break into the building next door

That’s it. Ok, there are other things happening as well, but I don’t think that counts as being “a clever thought out plot.” Seriously, I could get a bunch of eight-year olds to write a film and it would be more exciting.

I don’t ever remember watching a film where I cared so little about every single character. None of them had anything interesting about them or were portrayed with any sort of empathy.

Then the script… the dialogue is so poor, it is almost as if the person who is writing it has never had an actual conversation in their life and had to guess at what people say in conversations.

And the acting is so so so horrendous. When I was 11, I played King Herod in my school’s nativity. My evil laugh was so poor that the audience laughed at it. In comparison to the actors in this film, however, that was a performance of De Niro or Pacino standards.

The really frustrating thing is that I can’t stop watching something. I’m a bit OCD and when I start something, I have to finish it. I don’t know why but I do. So, after realising about 2 minutes into the film that it was going to be dull as dishwater, I knew I had a further 100 minutes of torture to endue.

I cannot stress enough how bad this film is. This has beaten You Got Served which I once forced Lewis to watch (possibly as punishment) when we were both off sick from work one day. I think by the end of that film, we were both ready to call into our respective offices and tell them that we’d had a miraculous recovery and were on our way in.

This film was so bad that it left me wishing that I was the one up on the ledge so that I could jump and end the torture.

Living on my own

This is one of those posts I meant to write ages ago but then got distracted by many things.

There are lots of things that have been distracting me since I lived on my own in fact. I seem to get caught up in awesome but largely meaningless projects, such as playing through all of the Pro Evolution Soccer games based on a pun or watching all of Battlestar Galactica so that I don’t accidentally kill people for playing in character when we play the board game.
I have been living on my own for coming up to two years now. Initially I thought the best and worst things about it were:

Best – No one steals your milk
Worst – There is no one to steal milk from when you have run out

As time went on, I realised that this things changed and that Tescos is only 5 minutes walk away so if I can’t be bothered to walk that far for milk then I clearly don’t want it enough. Which is a lot actually, but that’s largely due to laziness. However, I have also learnt that if I wake up and there is no milk for my fake Frosties then I get exceptionally grumpy.

For around 10 years after moving out of home, I had houseshared with between 1 and 4 other people at various points. There is always someone hanging out for a chat or to play a game or to “banter” with, as I believe the kids are calling it these days. I used to just call it “picking on Lewis because he was ginger*”

This is one of the things that I have missed most about living on my own. There isn’t someone around to get me out of a slump if I get into one. I have spent a lot of time just doing very little productive (see the aforementioned projected) on my own and being quite anti-social.

As part of my new year’s resolutions mentioned on my bucket list, I am going to try to reconnect with people I haven’t spoken to enough recently and also spend more time with those around me. This is what you need to do to prevent yourself going completely crazy.

I would say that is the main downside of living alone. The other downside I’ve found is due to having bought my flat, when things go wrong is that you have to be a Grown Up and work out who it is that you have to call or how to fix it yourself. There is no landlord to phone up and tell to fix things.

However, having spoken to a few people who lived on their own before I did, they all said they couldn’t go back to sharing and I can see why. Having your own space is awesome. You can do whatever you want. These are some of my favourite benefits to living on your own:

You can go to the toilet or shower with the door open. I have no idea why this is good but it is. It makes you feel a little less enclosed, I guess.
You can wander around naked. Admittedly I don’t do this very often, partly because my friends Amanda and Ian moved in directly opposite me (personally I think they were stalking me very badly) and could see directly into my flat.
You can put up the Christmas decorations whenever you want. You don’t have to wait until Lewis has seen the Coca Cola advert or for it to be December or any other silly conventions like that.
You have complete control over the TV. This means there is no-one to get annoyed that you’re watching The Muppets for the 15th time.
No-one will take the mickey out of you when you want to listen to Avril Lavigne.

So in conclusion, I don’t think I’ll go back to sharing a home until I get married to Drew Barrymore.

* Please note that there were many other reasons why I picked on Lewis other than just his hair colour.

The businessman who needed a poo

In the style of Amanda, I have decided to write about something I witnessed the other day and found amusing. Anyone who follows me on Twitter may already know the story as I was live-tweeting as it occured.

I was on my way back from a gig in London on Thursday and I got on the train at Waterloo. I managed to get one of those single seats next to the toilet and decided to try and have a bit of a snooze on the way home as it was a schoolnight and I had to be at work at 9am the next day.

Sat opposite me was pretty much your stereotypical businessman, wearing suit and tie and holding an umbrella even though it had not been raining at all that day. I would like to think he had a bowler hat on as well, but that is a detail that I have probably embellished for my own amusement.

The toilet door was locked and it was obvious that the businessman needed to use the facilities. He tapped on the door with his umbrella a couple of times, getting no response he used his umbrella to push the open button but the door remained closed.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with the new toilets on South Eastern trains, but essentially there’s two buttons on the outside which will be lit up if the toilet is vacant and able to be used. These buttons will open the door and then once inside, there are buttons to close and lock the door.

So the businessman obviously waited patiently for a little while to see if someone emerged from the toilet. When they didn’t, he tried knocking on the door with the umbrella and pushing the button again. Again nothing. He tried this repeatedly for the next half an hour until we got to Tunbridge. I’m not sure what he was expecting to happen after getting no response the first few times, but the other 84 times he tried it annoyed me as almost every one awoke me from that nap I was trying to have.

By this time I was imagining that a golgothan would emerge in due course.

At Tunbridge, the man waited impatiently for the doors to open before running one way down the platform and then the other, clearly attempting to find a toilet.

Just as the man gets off, a woman walks onto the train, pushes the other button on the door and walks straight into the toilet.

I will not grow up

It is my birthday next week. I am going to be old. But I will not be grown up.

Earlier this year, I got my dad to dig out some old bits and pieces that I could use for my brother’s best man speech. He found this little gem that was in our local newspaper, which I have scanned and uploaded.

Essentially, it says: My name is Stewart, I am 8. I like football and Batman.

My name is Stewart, I am about to turn 33. I like football and Batman.

Sometimes it amazes me how little I have changed. Okay, so if you read the excerpt from the newspaper in full, it also says that I support Liverpool which as I have discussed on Unbelievable Jeff is no longer the case.

It also says that I like swimming which whilst true, is something that I have managed to forget how to do. It’s not like riding a bike. I have over the course of the last 3 years or so tried to learn again but I get the feeling that if I really wanted to, I would have done so. Partly my lack of progress is down to Dan Johnson trying to teach me and being mean and making me put my head under the water all the time. Anyway, I digress. I’m talking about growing up.

There are times in my life when I’ve been keen to grow up. When I was about to leave primary school and when I wanted to get a job where I had to wear a suit are two that predominantly stick in my mind. What I have found is that once I have grown up, I slowly become more and more child-like again. Which personally, I think is wonderful. I wrote last month about how I thought that this was influenced largely by Roald Dahl and his general kids vs. grown ups philosophy and how I am glad that I can still class myself on the kids side of the fight.

Dahl writes in Danny, the Champion of the World: “Grown-ups are quirky creatures, full of quirks and secrets.” And I think this is true. Grown ups often feel that there’s things they can’t tell children because they wouldn’t understand. I think that grown ups underestimate the power of children to assimilate anything into their world whether t be fact or fiction.

The thing about being a grown up is that you have lots more responsibilities, lots more stress, lots more worries and lots of social dilemmas. Children have none of this. They don’t think more than a couple of hours ahead and any arguments and problems are quickly resolved. We could probably learn a lot by being more child-like in our approach to the world.

Grown ups are often world weary, whereas children will see things with a sense of wonder all the time. One of my favourite things to do when I go on holiday is stare out of the taxi window on the way from the airport to the hotel. Not only does this make me feel like I’m in a movie but I am always interested in looking at the little things that make that place different from any others.

The places that I enjoy going on holiday are those which are quirky and unusual and different and exciting. I can’t stand going to the same place over and over or having the same beach holiday just in a different location.

I am proud that the things I like now are the things I liked when I was a kid. It makes me feel that even though I’m getting older that I’m still not one of the dreaded Grown Ups.