Sam Jordison

The Book Of Mormon

2010-08-14T08:27:00.004+01:00

I've just been reading a really interesting post about Mormonism over on one of my favourite blogs, The Age Of Uncertainty. It's prompted me to put up something I wrote a few years ago about The Church Of The Latter Day Saints in my book The Joy Of Sects.

The Latter-day Saints, AKA Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints, AKA Mormons

Founded: 1830
Country of origin: USA
Membership: 7,000,000 plus
Gods and guiding voices: ‘God’, Mormon, Moroni
Texts: The Bible, The Book Of Mormon
Famous associates: The Osmonds

Basic beliefs: America was originally settled by people from the Tower of Babel. After his death on the cross, Christ made an appearance in America where he again preached the gospel. Indulgence in caffeine and alcohol is not good for you. Hard work is. The highest heaven is open only to baptised Mormons. The official church does not believe in polygamy any more.

Main blurb

In 1820, Joseph Smith, the founder and first prophet of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was confused about which of the many contemporary Protestant sects he ought to join. He solved his problem by asking God directly. ‘None of them,’ He said, appearing before Smith as a pillar of light. It was the first of many visions Smith was to receive in his lifetime.

Just over three years later, in 1823, another divine personage, an angel called Moroni, appeared by Smith’s bedside. He was dressed in a white robe, ‘his feet did not touch the floor’, and he claimed to be the son of Mormon, the departed leader of an extinct American race called the Nephites. Moroni told Smith about a set of golden plates that contained a written history of the mysterious races that inhabited America before the time of Columbus. Then he disappeared to heaven in a shaft of light. A few minutes later Moroni reappeared at Smith’s bedside. He repeated everything that he had just said, and then vanished, just as he had done before. Then he came back again and repeated the same words a third time.

Smith said that he didn’t get much sleep that night. The next day he was understandably exhausted. He passed out when attempting to climb over a fence on his way out of a field – and the angel Moroni came to him yet again. This time he told him where to find the golden plates, buried in the side of a hill named Cumorah (near Palmyra in New York state). Smith went there right away and unearthed the famous plates. Buried alongside them was a pair of supernatural silver spectacles, the ‘Urim and Thummim’, which Smith was to use to translate the hieroglyphics on the plates. These were written in a language called ‘reformed Egyptian’. (Curiously, archaeologists and Egyptologists say that there is no evidence that any such language existed).

Smith spent the next four years preparing himself to do this great work of translation. Then he carried the golden plates home in a buggy (managing to get them there without anyone – not even his wife Emma – seeing them). He then set himself up behind a screen, so that the plates were still concealed, and got stuck into several years’ hard graft.

A great deal has been written about the flaws in the resultant tome, the Book Of Mormon (for more on this, see Appendix 3). It isn’t just the inaccuracies and alleged plagiarisms that have offended the Book Of Mormon’s detractors. Its literary qualities are said to leave something to be desired, too. ‘It is,’ said Mark Twain ‘chloroform in print.’ The celebrated author of Huckleberry Finn also laid into Smith’s habit of peppering his otherwise fairly contemporary nineteenth-century prose with biblical-sounding words and phrases like ‘exceeding sore’, ‘yea’, ‘exceedingly glad’, ‘unto’, ‘great joy’, ‘harkening’ and ‘smiting’. If, said Twain, Smith had left out his favourite phrase, ‘And it came to pass’, then his 500-page bible ‘would only have been a pamphlet’.

When the book was first published in 1830, it was savaged by the press. No reviewer seemed to have any doubt that Smith was a confidence trickster who had invented the whole story. Nor did Smith’s personal life escape criticism. In 1834 an investigative journalist published a series of affidavits from friends and neighbours who described him as a lazy, untruthful, religious con man. They characterised the rest of his family as ‘illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless and irreligious’. They also suggested that it was no coincidence that Joseph’s father, Joe Senior, was a persistent treasure seeker and that the young Joseph Smith had often accompanied him on his expeditions, hoping to find the loot left by Captain Kidd and indulging their fondness for the occult and fortune-telling on the way.

In spite of – or perhaps even because of – the negative publicity he was receiving, Smith soon gathered a considerable following. They gradually moved towards the less inhabited west of the USA to avoid religious persecution – persecution that only increased in 1843 when Smith declared that God had ordained plural marriage. A firm believer in practising what he preached, Smith was said to have gathered 27 wives by the time he died (some estimates put the number as high as 60).

Smith’s death came in extraordinary circumstances, when a mob broke into the jail he was being held in, shot him and threw him out of a window. It was left to his successor Brigham Young to lead his followers on the long arduous trek across the deserts of Utah until they finally settled in Salt Lake City. There, safe from too much outside interference, the faith prospered. Brigham Young (also said to be a prophet – as are all presidents of the Mormon church) was a shrewd administrator and by the time he died the city was thriving. He had collected 140,000 followers and no fewer than 25 wives (‘The only men who become gods are those who enter into polygamy,’ he declared).

Since Brigham Young’s time, the Mormon ideals of hard work and abstinence have paid off in abundance – as has the church’s levy of a tithe on all of its adherents’ incomes. Since officially abandoning the policy of polygamy in the 1890s (although several pockets of fundamentalists still exist who engage in plural marriages – outside the sanction of the church) the faith has become the apogee of American respectability. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns most of Utah, a large part of Hawaii and land in Canada, as well as the Marriott hotel chain, the Beneficial Life Assurance Company, and TV and radio stations. Its morally austere adherents have some of the lowest cancer rates in the US – and some of the best physical fitness. They promote the boy scouts, have short haircuts and the missionaries they send out around the world are scrupulously neat and remarkably polite.

Consequently, the religion is growing faster than any other in the US and spreading around the world at an incredible rate. What’s more, in order to give those unfortunate enough not to be baptised into the Mormon church a chance of attaining the ultimate Mormon goal of divinity (they believe the most devout will get to populate their own planets), the Church is posthumously baptising thousands and thousands of people. If expansion continues at its current rate, by the year 5000, the entire world will belong to the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints. Not bad, considering how it all began.

The Curse of Darkness

As recently as 1978, black males were banned from entering the Mormon priesthood.
Mormon writings had long pointed to a ‘curse’ God put on Cain for the murder of his brother Abel, as told in Genesis. ‘Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to the line of human beings,’ announced the prophet Brigham Young. ‘This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.’ Dark skin was also the curse inflicted on the Lamanites in the Book Of Mormon and there are many passages extolling the splendour of ‘whiteness’.

‘Negroes’ are ‘not equal’ with other races, wrote Bruce McConkie, a church apostle, in his book Mormon Doctrine in 1966. The Latter-day Saints have since modified this doctrine, as they have the other embarrassing doctrine of polygamy, although this puts them in the embarrassing position of having to renounce the teachings of men they consider divinely inspired prophets.

Roving Report

The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints is not a secretive cult. It’s easy to get to talk to Mormons. In fact, I’d recommend it. If you’re ever lost in a strange city, need directions and you see a street preacher with a short haircut, smart suit and black plastic badge declaring him an ‘Elder’, ask him. Chances are he’ll speak excellent English, be scrupulously polite and he won’t steal your wallet. It’s a resource I’ve used on several occasions. Once, when I was in Basingstoke researching my book Crap Towns, an Elder was even kind enough to tell me that he would describe the town as being ‘like hell’.

There’s also a good chance that representatives of the church will come knocking on your door. The fiercely proselytising church sends thousands of young men and women out on missions all over the world each year. As luck would have it, a couple of them came to my house just as I was starting to research this book. I asked them in for a cup of tea – forgetting, of course, that Mormons generally avoid caffeine. They politely declined, settling instead for glasses of water, and started to tell me the incredible history of the Nephites and Lamanites. They knew that the book is true, they said, ‘through faith’. ‘But,’ they went on, ‘there is also scientific evidence. In the pyramids “scientists” found a picture of a white god descending from heaven and teaching people. Therefore the Book of Mormon must be true.’

I was interested to learn that Mormon communities usually ostracised people who left their church – and that people only generally left it because ‘they are lazy’. This started to make more sense when the young men described a typical day on their two-year ministry. They woke up at 6.30 a.m., exercised and studied until 10 a.m., knocked on doors for a few hours before having a one-hour lunch break, and then hit the streets again until 9 p.m. When they got home, they prepared for the next day. TV is strictly forbidden. ‘We don’t really know what’s going on in the outside world,’ they told me.

It’s a tough routine, especially since most people just slam the door in their faces. The travelling Elders often also face violence. The young men told me about a friend of theirs who was chased through Crystal Palace with a blowtorch. Conversion rates can be depressingly low. Although a minister in the poorer, less literate regions of Africa can expect to perform up to 75 baptisms a year, most missionaries in Europe would consider themselves lucky to bring about a single conversion. Still, with 60,000 missionaries out and about every year, even this paltry success rate begins to be significant. Small wonder that the church is growing so fast.

Earnest and serious as the pale men sitting across from me at the table were, we never really reached an understanding. In fact, I got the impression that my persistent questioning began to freak them out. However, they left as politely as they came, giving me a copy of the Book of Mormon as they did. In it one wrote the instructions, ‘Read. Ponder. Pray.’ They certainly weren’t your average twenty-year-olds.

[And here are those appendices... Sorry... The book layout doesn't lend itself well to blogs. Doesn't lend itself particularly well to books either. But that's another story...]

Appendix 2

The Mountain Meadows Massacre

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints recognise their leaders as divinely inspired prophets and their teachings as sacred. Sometimes, this can be tricky to deal with politically. One of the less well-known Mormon policies is that of blood atonement. The prophet Brigham Young taught that certain sins could only be amended for with a man’s own blood. Killing can be a righteous act. ‘Loving our neighbours as ourselves … if he wants salvation and it is necessary to spill his blood … spill it,’ he said. This policy found its most chilling fulfilment in the Mountain Meadows Massacre when Brigham Young ordered his co-religionists to attack a party of emigrants who were crossing Mormon land on the way to California in 1857. One hundred and twenty men, women and children were massacred.

Some modern adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints have denied that the policy ever existed. However, many still put forward the idea that certain ‘grievous sins’ place the sinner ‘beyond the reach of Christ’s atoning blood’ as a justification for capital punishment.

Appendix 3

The Book of Mormon

While Joseph Smith slaved away behind his screen producing the Book of Mormon he was largely left in peace. At some point during the process, however, an acquaintance of the prophet, one Martin Harris, called round and Smith despatched him to New York carrying a piece of paper with some of the ‘reformed Egyptian’ hieroglyphs on it. Harris took the paper to a professor named Anton, who issued him a certificate saying they were genuine – but then ripped it up on discovering that the characters were supposed to have been sent by an angel. So, tragically, the only piece of impartial evidence for the existence of the plates – and reformed Egyptian – was destroyed. (Smith returned the original plates to Moroni as soon as he had finished the translation. The book does contain several testimonies of other people who claim to have seen the plates – but they were all church leaders, or the relatives of church leaders.)

The work Smith eventually produced, the Book Of Mormon, is the cornerstone of the Mormon faith. Among a lot of moralistic preaching, it explains that America had originally been settled by people from the Tower of Babel, but that these inhabitants had degenerated and perished as a result of their own immorality. A later group of Jews then ended up in South America after fleeing Babylonian captivity. They divided into warring factions, the Nephites and the Lamanites. After his death on the cross, Jesus Christ appeared among these peoples and preached again. But the factions continued fighting and the Lamanites nearly wiped out the Nephites (the price of their victory was a curse – dark skin). After the final defeat, the prophet of the Nephites, Mormon, wrote up the history on gold plates and buried them on the hill – where Smith was to find them more than a thousand years later.

Critics have found it strange that, although it was supposedly written many centuries before the 1611 King James Bible, many passages appear to have been lifted verbatim from that book, complete with its translation errors. They also point out anachronisms like references to the ancient Hebrew use of steel and to domestic animals that weren’t around at the time. Similarly, the book describes American Indians using weapons for which there is no archaeological evidence. Oddest of all, Mormon described elephants roaming around in places where there is no evidence elephants ever roamed.

Other investigators have found an earlier novel by the Reverend Simon Spalding that bears a marked similarity to much of the Book Of Mormon. There’s also another book, The View Of The Hebrews, by the Rev. Ethan Smith (written in 1824, three years before Joseph Smith started work), which also contains many passages echoed in the Latter-day Saints’ holy book.

Organic Peas and Orderly Queues

2010-05-20T11:12:00.004+01:00

Do please head over to the blog I'm writing about my people, the middle classes:

Organic Peas and Orderly Queues

You might also want to test what class you are by doing this nifty facebook quiz.

Catullus still rocks 2000 years on

2009-11-24T17:58:00.019Z

I wrote this for Guardian.co.uk, but annoyingly (for me anyway), their resident classicist Charlotte Higgins had spotted the same story and wrote this neat piece at the same time. Being the freelance, I got spiked. Such is politics. But I still enjoyed writing my version, so thought I'd give it a bit of life here. Especially since I think there may be different ways of looking at the interesting First Century BC context...

More than 2,000 years after his death, it appears that the poet Catullus still has the power to shock and cause controversy. An employment tribunal in London has just heard that Mark Lowe, the millionaire boss of Nomos Capital sent a work experience girl an email containing the phrase “pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo” .

The lawyers opposed to Mr Lowe suggested that this line was, inappropriate and likely to "violate" the dignity of the email’s recipient. Lowe, meanwhile, claimed the poem: “… is burlesque, it was always light-hearted in the first century and it still is now.”

Rather wonderfully then, a court case dealing with such specifically modern phenomena as hedge-funds, email communications and Thai prostitutes has stumbled across a question that has been exercising poetry lovers for the last 2000 years: exactly how rude is the poem we now call Catullus XVI?

As far as we moderns are concerned, until fairly recently, the simple answer would have been ‘unprintably so’.

Those plosive-heavy words “pedicabo” and “irrumabo” refer to anal and facial penetration. “I will bugger you and stuff your gobs” is the admirably literal translation suggested by Guy Lee (in the 1990 Oxford translation). Catullus then goes on to refer to Furius and Aurelius, the addressees of the poem with the lovely chiasmus: “Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi.” That’s to say, it’s Aurelius who will enjoy the attentions of Catullus’ penis in his mouth and Furius who will get it in his bottom.

For years, these first two lines were considered so indecent they weren’t translated into English. Even in the 1960s the Loeb edition of the poem, with translations by FW Cornish, rendered the contentious line thus: “…” Cornish also refused to print the last 8 lines of the poem, even in Latin. Other editions have seen it translated into Greek, French or just duplicated the original Latin phrase in place of translation. When they have dared tackle the lines, scholars have come up with curious suggestions like: “Nuts to you boys! Nuts!” or “I’ll show you I’m a man!” or “Furius, Aurelius, I’ll work your/ own perversions on you and your persons.”

That probably says more about 19th and 20th Century squeamishness than Catullus’ contemporaries. The marvellous “it was light-hearted in the first century” defence put forward by Lowe is not without substance. Certainly, Catullus is making a joke.

Later in the poem he says that the reason he’s made these threats to his friends Furius and Aurelius is that they’ve suggested his poems may be a bit soft (molliculi) and that he’s less of a man because he’s written a poem addressed to his lover Lesbia suggesting that he’s going to give her many thousands of big kisses.

The most obvious solution to the poem that follows from that is that Catullus is being heavily ironic. Suggest he’s a softy, both in the sense of being effeminate and unable to perform sexually, and he’ll prove you wrong by making vigorous love to your bottom. An act that becomes even more transgressive since Catullus also suggests that the “pius” poet ought to be “castus” (normally translated that the pious poet ought to be chaste.)

Of course, this being Catullus, there are further potential interpretations. The poem is steeped in innuendo and ambiguity. That word “castus” , for instance, could be understood to mean “acting correctly from a masculine point of view”. In which case, having lots of sex wasn’t such a problem. Even the famously censorious Cato the Elder had declared it perfectly acceptable for Roman men to frequent prostitutes.

The joke in the First Century might also have depended on the feminisation of Furius and Aurelius. The important point is that because they have suggested Catullus is a bit of a girl, they are going to become the passive recipients of his attentions. And that could be seen as a serious insult.

The charge of feminity, to give one notorious example, was at the heart of a 62 BC scandal involving Publius Clodius Pulcher. (Neatly, he was the brother of Clodia - the woman whom many scholars suspect is the real subject of the poems dedicated to ‘Lesbia’. The ones to which Furius and Aurelius objected to in the first place…) Clodius had dressed as a woman in an attempt to get close to Julius Caesar’s wife during a rite from which men were excluded - and he had also been caught in incestuous relations with his sister. A massive bribe got Clodius off the hook in the following court case, but his arch-enemy Cicero would attack him ever afterwards on the grounds that he was lascivious and feminised. Suggestions that were meant to really sting – and which took on extra weight thanks to a wide-spread rumour that when Clodius had been captured by pirates during the Third Mithridatic War, he’d paid the price of his freedom with his anal virginity. A rumour whose very existence proves that receiving anal sex as a Roman man was no laughing matter.

In such a context, Catullus’ “burlesque” takes on fangs. Yes, he’s being funny, but he’s also launching into the furthest stratosphere of rudery and insult. As far as the modern court case goes, it seems a shame that history doesn’t record how Furius and Aurelius reacted to this metaphorical fucking. But the fact that it remains troubling after all this time (not to mention hilarious) is testament at least to Catullus’ unique and wayward genius.

Google ego-alert ego-massage

2009-08-31T18:59:00.003+01:00

My google ego-alert email service had a link to this review of Sod That today in the Huddersfield Examiner, by one Chris Mellor.

Here's his conclusion:

Walking on fire is over-rated, he says. Ask the 28 people who suffered serious burns during an attempt to break the fire-walking world record in New Zealand.

Going shopping in Milan, riding a gondola in Venice and visiting Florence are all kicked into touch, although I actually did visit Florence. Nice girl.

“This book is a rallying call for common sense and dignified indolence over hectic, wasteful and morally dubious over-activity. Sometimes staying at home is the best thing to do with your time,” he says.

I couldn’t agree more.

I'm all aglow. Especially since Chris Mellor seems to be a fellow (non-) traveller.

A fantastically awkward encounter

2009-06-24T21:28:00.005+01:00

Just got back from The Connecting Worlds event at this.

It was an excellent evening, with four moving and entertaining readings. Two of them really brought home the sadness of exile. (Especially a very touching poem from Chenjerai Hove about how you forget to appreciate lovely things when your world is filled with horror). Two of them were really funny.

But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the gloriously awkward conversation I had with the last reader Geoff Dyer.

After Dyer's reading (typically amusing, with a cruel cliff-hanger relating to an involved encounter with a monkey that is probably going to force me to buy the book, the sod), there was a lot of milling around and shuffling home kind of activity. I was keen to get back to the nest myself, mindful that my girlfriend was home alone with a teething baby and that my bike didn't have any lights. So I'd tucked my trousers into my socks and got out my helmet when my friend Nathan waved Geoff Dyer over and introduced him to me and said:

"Geoff, this is Sam he’s a massive fan of yours."

Geoff Dyer remained cool, but a brief flicker in his eyes told me he had the fear. Nathan had just landed him with a stalker. With weird trousers. At this point, of course, Nathan walked off.

Geoff D: I’m glad there’s one here. Fan, I mean.

Me: Hahahahahahaha.
(For just a little bit too long).

Geoff D: Er.

Me: Er.

Geoff D: I see you're on your bike.

Me: Yes my machine is out there.

(I indicate some bike stands visible through the glass front of the building. I have no idea why I called it a 'machine').

Geoff D: Nice weather for biking. Bit windy though.

Me: It’s okay. When you're going downhill.

Geoff D} (Silence)
Me } (Silence)

Geoff D:Are you coming to the dinner?

Me: No. I’ve uh got a wife and baby back home.

Geoff D: That’s nice for you. Cosy.

Me: Er, yes.

Geoff D:Well, goodbye.

Me: Goodbye.

Happy Bloomsday

2009-06-16T09:55:00.005+01:00

Here's a Bloomsday extract from my book Sod That: 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die... In which the message is don't read Ulysses.*

Read Ulysses

If you do as we’re all urged and take up James Joyce’s overlong magnum opus, it is guaranteed to clog up your all too short life. Banned, criticised and suppressed on moral grounds when it first came out, it thereby became far more famous and far more durable than it would ever have been otherwise. Had it been published openly originally, the book would in all probability have been openly ignored, or at least gained wider recognition for the pretentious nonsense it is. The lives of generations of English Literature undergraduates the world over would have been considerably eased as a result.

Many readers might experience a strange feeling of guilt at thus disregarding a book that has come to be considered as such an important part of the mythical literary canon. Wading through Ulysses is often regarded as a kind of coming of age. You have to get through it to prove your worth to those invisible cultural arbiters who we imagine sit in judgement of us all. You have to know what happened to Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus in Dublin on 16 June 1904, even though the answer is, basically, nothing.

The other thing to remember about trying to prove your bookish credentials by knowing about Ulysses is that no one who actually possesses a wide knowledge of literature will believe you if you try to convince them you've read every word. They – having attempted to grind through it themselves – will understand what a thankless task it is and won't believe you.

OK, there are some fine qualities to the book. There’s some magnificent worldplay, some world beating writing and top class rudery. But a few clever turns of phrase and a couple of pervy passages don't make up for the fact that if you want to understand even half of it you have to lug a dictionary user’s guide around with it – unappealing when the book alone already weighs more than a small child.

The only passages that do make sense are the rude ones. So just do what everyone else does and cut straight to them. Skip the rest. Especially skip the 150-odd pages of punctuation bereft prose that starts: ‘Deshill Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshill Holles Eamus’ and ends ‘anyway I wish hed sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give us room even to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them like that a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away pianissimo eeeee one more song.’

Everything you need to know about this section is neatly contained in the word ‘nonsense’.

There is at least one good thing to be said about Ulysses, however. It does at least also have the distinct advantage of not being Finnegan’s Wake. Now that's a book you should die before reading.

Useless Trivia

On Ulysses’ first release the Sporting Times declared that the book: ‘appears to have been written by a perverted lunatic.’ Paper of record the New York Times opined: ‘The average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it – even from careful perusal, one might properly say study, of it – save bewilderment and a sense of disgust.’ The popular critic ‘Aramis’, meanwhile, correctly pointed out that: ‘Two thirds of it is incomprehensible.’

More Useless Trivia

A 2007 poll commissioned by teletext discovered that 28% of Britons confessed to being unable to finish Ulysses, making it the third most unread book in the country, following DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

ADVERT!

Sod That is still available at amazon and perhaps even a few good bookshops. (Beware of poor quality imitations!)

*I may not agree with everything I have written here.

Haworth

2009-06-10T13:15:00.001+01:00

Haworth
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

Oh the irony!

2009-06-10T12:53:00.002+01:00

RBS: Evil rarely has a sense of irony
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T16:03:00.007Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T16:03:00.005Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T16:03:00.003Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T16:03:00.001Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way...

2009-01-21T15:49:00.005Z

On the Marriot's Way...
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T15:49:00.003Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T15:49:00.001Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

Factory in the woods

2009-01-21T15:48:00.003Z

Factory in the woods
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

Cold water flat

2009-01-21T15:48:00.001Z

Cold water flat
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

On the Marriot's Way

2009-01-21T15:45:00.001Z

On the Marriot's Way
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

Another photo from my watery ride

3AM interview

2008-12-15T17:29:00.000Z

Andrew Stevens from 3AM asks me about Crap Towns. A nice trip down memory lane... Almost makes me think I'd enjoy doing a follow up. There's still a lot of crap out there...

Books to read

2008-12-08T10:39:00.001Z

Books to read
Originally uploaded by Sam Jordison

Here's my to-read pile... Thomas Pynchon has been temporarily removed as I was sizing it up to write my blog about it over on GU... Note Staying On by Paul Scott... next booker blog subject! Also I've read Hero Of the Underground, not sure why that's still there. Really excellent book too.

My Alan Partridge moment

2008-09-29T11:10:00.000+01:00

Reading this Guardian article about Alan Partridge style local radio DJs and author interviews this morning, I had a painfully bright flash of recognition. Normally, I've been nothing but impressed by the DJs interviewing me as I do the rounds when promoting my various book projects. They've been witty, knowledgeable and even kind when giving me the on-air opportunity to punt my wares. But just a week ago, I had my own moment that, no doubt unfairly - as the article suggests - but inevitably, put me in mind of the great chief of chat.

Things went smoothly enough in my interview (one of a number I did to promote Sod That!) until I was asked:

"Does your book give away a lot about your personal life?"

"Well, it might give you some information about my prejudices," I blustered, not sure what the two DJs were getting at.

"Well what does your girlfriend think of it?"

"I'm..."

"What does she think of the entry where it says that you should never be honest with your partner?"

At this point, there was an interjection of dead air. There was no such entry in my book. I would never suggest such a dreadful thing, either. Perish the thought. Slowly, the horrible truth dawned on me. My problem was that 'Sod That' has been afflicted by the release of a suspiciously similar work, which was quoted in the Daily Heil a week or so ago. It seems that the DJ team who were interviewing me had read this article, but not my book. Understandably enough, since the rival work is painfully like mine in intent, if not content, they had assumed that I had written it. In fact, that was the next question:

"Did you write this book?"

"I did, but not..."

"Well I was reading this thing in the Daily Mail..."

It was at this stage that I was forced to explain that they had been quoting from a different publication... But half way through this explanation I was cut off, in classic Alan Partridge style, my splutterings interrupted by a hit from the 80s... Leaving me alone in the ISDN studio in Oxford, echo-drums pounding in my ears, reflecting on what a giant nob-head I must have appeared to everyone listening.

Sadly, I've been unable to find the embarrassment on 'listen again'. Even more sadly, I didn't have the dignity of Hardeep Singh Koli and bail out of the interview, before it got too late. Hopefully, I at least gave a few people in the region a laugh. Even if it was at my expense...

The author reads from his work

2008-09-18T15:57:00.000+01:00

To buy the book, click here.

Appearing on Sky news

2008-09-18T15:51:00.001+01:00

If you can't see the video, please click here.

2008-09-16T18:18:00.000+01:00

The day I got a life: Things not to do before you die

After writing a book ridiculing 'Things to do before you die' lists, Sam Jordison investigated if extreme experiences really are 'liberating' – or just plain silly

Book extracts

2008-09-16T18:17:00.001+01:00

Things Not to Do Before You Die

Some activities should really be saved until you're dead. These are just a few of the essential must-nots offered by Guardian books' resident life coach Sam Jordison in his new book

Sod That! 103 Things Not To Do Before You Die

2008-08-29T15:05:00.000+01:00

It's in the shops on September 11 and available online at amazon and similar.

The Flat Earth Society

2008-08-28T10:00:00.001+01:00

A small extract from my book, The Joy Of Sects

Founded: 1892
Country of origin: UK
Gods and guiding voices: ‘God’
Membership: Last recorded in the US in 1990 at around 2,800
Texts: The Bible; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Earth Not A Globe; Samuel Birley Rowbotham: Zetitic Astronomy
Basic beliefs: The Earth is flat. God says so.

Are you really sure that the Earth is a globe? Do you have real scientific knowledge to back that up? Or are you blindly believing in Scientific Truth and taking all that stuff about Foucault’s pendulum and measurements of curvature on trust?

Flat Earth theorists would say that if you are taking it on trust, you’ve been fooled. Nearly all ideas that support the Earth’s ‘globularity’ are, in fact, contrary to reason. People that say they know that the Earth is round because ships have sailed around it are just displaying ‘wretched logic’. After all, ships can sail around the Isle of Man and that doesn’t prove that it’s a globe. It’s ‘absurd’ to believe that there are people living in the so-called Antipodes. Wouldn’t they just fall off? And don’t say they’re hanging on because of gravity. What is gravity? Is it solid, liquid or gas? Have you ever seen it? Didn’t think so. Do you subscribe to the theory that the Earth is rushing through space at the awful rate of 63,000 miles an hour? If you do, why haven’t you been whirled off into space?

Flat Earth theory isn’t a recent phenomenon. It’s as old as, well, the Bible. That’s the source of phrases like ‘the four corners of the Earth’, and that’s why Christians suppressed Ancient Greek mathematical proofs for the roundness of the globe during the Dark Ages. However, from the ninth century onwards, the fiercest debates were not about the shape of the Earth, but its position in the universe. Galileo was imprisoned for saying the Earth went around the sun. Nobody really objected to the fact that he also thought it was round. It wasn’t until an English gentleman, Samuel Birley Rowbotham, published his book Earth Not A Globe in the mid-nineteenth century, full of logical arguments like those printed above, that the shape of the Earth once again turned into a burning issue.

A six-mile stretch of canal called the Bedford Level became the scene of fraught experimental showdowns between the ‘Flat Earthers’ and ‘globularists’. One convert to Rowbotham’s cause, John Hampden, offered £500 to anyone that could prove him wrong. When Alfred Wallace did indeed prove that the Earth was round in an experiment conducted on the canal in front of impartial judges, Hampden called him a ‘knave, liar, thief, swindler, imposter, rogue and felon’. He dedicated a large part of the rest of his life to writing poison-pen letters to Wallace and his wife.

In spite of Hampden’s lost bet, Flat Earth Theory continued to thrive. Christians all over the world began to form societies attracting thousands of members. The original British Flat Earth Society was founded in 1892 and kept on going strong until the early 1970s when its last active members, Samuel and Lillian Shelton, died. The pictures of the round Earth taken from space had proved to be something of a crushing blow – although the society did come up with the rather neat explanation that the entire space programme was a con, and the moon landings were scripted by none other than the mischievous Arthur C Clarke.

There are still plenty of Flat Earthers in the US. They claim (logically enough) that creationists and other Biblical literalists are hypocrites for insisting that the Bible disproves the theory of evolution, but failing to also maintain that the Earth is, ‘as God says’, flat.

A Month In The Country

2008-06-19T13:10:00.000+01:00

A few shots of the book to accompany this article.

Inside illustration:

Cover:

Inside cover:

Life's Too Short

2008-05-17T09:41:00.001+01:00

Life is too short update this blog very often, clearly, for which I apologise. It's also much too brief to waste it doing a lot of other daft stuff... As is explained in full here.

Yes, it's a new underpopulated blog. I'd be very pleased if it received visitors and they started to fill it up for me... Just follow the simple on screen prompts.

Paris Bitter Hearts Pit review

2007-12-13T09:01:00.000Z

"If Schadenfreude is what you usually get drunk on, prepare for a massive piss-up. Sam Jordison delivers, with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) one of those indispensable coffee table books (you can also read it in other, more secluded places) that trigger some needed chuckles in these dreary autumn days..."

Nice! More here.

Have a scan of the rest of the Paris Bitter Hearts Pit too...

More reviews for Annus Horribilis

2007-12-12T09:37:00.000Z

This time from splendind Malaysian blog: The Bookaholic, Bibliobibuli:

"This collection of :

Mistakes, mishaps, cock-ups ...

is joyously funny, and deeply reassuring ... for it's really nice to know that there is always someone in the world capable of doing dafter things than you..."

AH also got a pleasant 'passing' mention in the Scotsman:

"To complete such a study, a particularly nasty dose of constipation is, for once, desirable. It can be claustrophobic in the WC, but there's always someone worse off, as toilet books can confirm. If you turn to today's date in Sam Jordison's Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99), a calendar book of comic misfortune, then you will read about Moira Poor, an Auckland woman who in 1994 was trapped in a lift for 67 hours."

Another review for Annus Horribilis

2007-11-26T12:09:00.000Z

Another nice one too.

From The Guardian Review:

Humour

The wit parade

Carrie O'Grady journeys through the circles of comedy hell to reach Wodehouse heaven

Saturday November 24, 2007
The Guardian

Ah, Christmas humour books. A funny old concept. As I write, there sits at my feet a box overflowing with titles that were so unfunny, so irritating, so desperate to make a quick buck that they don't deserve to be listed here. I'll deal with the books that at least have a chance of provoking a smile.

"List books" make a strong showing this year; half a dozen attractive hardbacks manage to be amusing and informative. Faber's meaty Ten Bad Dates With De Niro (£12.99) is endlessly dip-into-able. Its offbeat, detailed top-10s are all the better for being written by some of our wackier stars: the Coen brothers, Steven Soderbergh and DBC Pierre all chip in.

As a Dodo (Summersdale, £9.99) brings together entries from a popular blog that publishes faux obituaries - so, for example, RIP Humanity's Sense of Superiority, which kicked the bucket this year when chimps were shown to use tools. Touch Me, I'm Sick (Portrait, £9.99) enumerates the 52 creepiest love songs, from Maurice Chevalier's icky "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" to Sophie B Hawkins's outright illegal interpretation of "Hansel and Gretel".

'If all that depresses you, enjoy a little schadenfreude with Annus Horribilis (John Murray, £9.99) - 365 tales of real-life "comic misfortune". One for fans of the Darwin awards, although save some sympathy for the intrepid Blackpool hamster that got nicked by the police for speeding down the pavement in a mini-racing-car (really!)."

Annus Horribilis reviewed

2007-11-23T09:28:00.000Z

Three really lovely reviews.

yay!

First the bookbag: click here

I can't defend the typos... Yikes! But I should say that the absence of February 29 is supposed to be a joke. Obviously not such a good one as no one has got it yet, but if you look in the index...

Second, Toasting Napolean: click here

Happily, I can return the compliment to Harry Bingham because I've been reading his Little Britain book and am finding it fascinating, stimulating and all the positive -ings you can think of.

Finally, here's a nice capsule from otherstories:

"This is a fun little book which is excellent for irritating people with (by reading out random entries, even when they don't want you to). A reminder that someone, somewhere, is having a worse day than you."

Just in case those persuade you to buy the book: click here

Annus Horribilis

2007-11-05T14:51:00.000Z

My new book is in the shops now and available on amazon.co.uk

Here's the blurb:

"Mistakes, mishaps, cock-ups - they just aren't given the recognition they deserve. They make life interesting and human beings (some more than others) have a genuine flair for them. So why does history only record the world's dull and worthy achievements? "Annus Horribilis" sets the record straight by celebrating good old-fashioned failures. From the man whose spectacular escape from prison was spoiled when he was eaten by a crocodile to the husband who choked to death on his own wife, via several exploding whales, numerous celebrity meltdowns and countless predictions that proved to be wholly inaccurate, "Annus Horribilis" proves once and for all, that there's no success like failure."

The Bible's Literary sins

2007-08-16T09:41:00.000+01:00

A blog about the Bible that seems to have interested a few people in the Philippines.

If you're one of the religously inclined who seem to be visiting this blog at the moment, you might be interested in the The Joy Of Sects.... Could be some interesting - uh - parallels in there with that Eliseo Soriano chap.

Otherwise, I can generally be found hanging about here.

Literature for the MySpace generation

2007-04-24T15:25:00.000+01:00

Sam Jordison discovers how a new wave of publishers and writers are harnessing the power of MySpace and print on demand to bypass their bricks-and-mortar competitors to find new audiences
Wednesday February 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

More...

Bestseller versus groundbreaker

2007-04-24T15:24:00.000+01:00

Bestseller versus groundbreaker

Guardian Unlimited, Monday April 16 2007

Those who flatter themselves that they are serious about literature rarely see anything they like at the top of the book charts. "Bestseller" clearly isn't a four-letter word but, in some circles at least, it is a derogatory term. There's a broad assumption that there's an inverse relationship between sales and quality - and that the charts are therefore topped with lowbrow, (...)

Guardian books blogs

2007-04-24T15:19:00.000+01:00

Who's Paul Auster Dad?

Delderfield and other authors devoured by our parents have sunk into obscurity. But why, and who will disappear from our current favourites?

The enduring magic of Eric Newby

Returning to the great travel writer for the first time since he died, I am reminded of what we've lost, but consoled by how much life his books retain.

Catullus: The Supreme Poet of Spring

The end of winter has produced mountains of poetry, but two thousand years' worth has not bettered Catullus's lyrical evocation of this most poetic of seasons.

I can't bear Henry James...

... but at least he's not as preposterous as Thomas Hardy. Who are your pet hates?

Click here to see more.

Unlucky for some?

2007-04-24T15:17:00.000+01:00

Unlucky for some?

SAM JORDISON

TODAY, millions of people around the world are staying in. They won't be going to the office. They might not be getting out of bed. And they certainly won't be going anywhere near a car or a plane. The reason - in case you haven't noticed - is that it's Friday the 13th.

Bad Dates

2006-11-01T20:58:00.000Z

Is now available from all good bookshops and amazon.

Berate your boss...

2006-10-05T11:01:00.000+01:00

...Get even with your co-workers, promote your oppressed underlings and spill the beans on anyone and everything that's going wrong in your office.

read more | digg story

For Rael

2006-07-04T10:36:00.000+01:00

Raëlism

Taken from The Joy Of Sects

Founded: 1973
Country of origin: France
Gods and guiding voices: Raël, the Elohim
Membership: 55,000 claimed worldwide
Texts: Claude Vorilhon: The Message Given To Me By Extraterrestrials; Claude Vorilhon: Sensual Meditation: Awakening The Mind By Awakening The Body; Claude Vorilhon: Space Aliens Took Me To Their Planet; Claude Vorilhon: Yes To Human Cloning: Eternal Human Life Thanks To Science; Claude Vorilhon: Let’s Welcome Our Fathers From Outer Space: They Created Humanity In Their Laboratories
Basic beliefs: Humanity was created 25,000 years ago, cloned by alien scientists called the Elohim. We need to set up an embassy for the Elohim so they can come back to Earth. Meanwhile, let’s have some sexy massages.

The advocates of Raëlism are either scientific geniuses or promotional masterminds – and as their prophet and founder Raël has pointed out, they win both ways. In late December 2002 they gained front-page headlines throughout the world when they claimed that researchers in their company Clonaid had created the world’s first human clone. This was a baby girl called Eve, whom Clonaid claimed was genetically identical to one of its parents. She was born by Caesarean section on the night after Christmas.

Top scientists quickly derided the claim as a technological impossibility. Clonaid initially promised to allow them to carry out independent tests, but then withdrew the offer, saying that they were concerned about the welfare of Eve and her ‘parents’ and wanted to protect themselves from prosecution (human cloning is illegal in most countries). The world’s press began to dismiss the whole thing as a hoax – but not before Raël and his movement had received millions of dollars’ worth of free publicity and ensured human cloning remained where they wanted it on the political agenda – right at the top.

Cloning is a subject dear to Raël’s heart. He not only teaches that the process will form the key to human immortality (when technology is advanced far enough to transfer the memory and personality of a person into their genetically identical double) but also that it was the way in which humanity was created in the first place. We were, he says, cooked up 25,000 years ago as part of a scientific experiment in the laboratories of a race of benevolent space aliens called the Elohim.

Raël first came across the Elohim in 1973 when he still went by the name of Claude Vorilhon and worked as a motoring journalist. According to his book The Message Given To Me By Extraterrestrials, Vorilhon was walking in a volcanic mountain range in his native France when he came across a flying object the size of a small bus sporting a cone with a flashing red light on top and hovering several metres above the ground. A four-foot-tall extraterrestrial in a green, one-piece suit, and with almond-shaped eyes, long, black hair, a black beard and slightly greenish skin, stepped out of this spacecraft and told Vorilhon that he had been selected to spread a message of love, peace and fraternity to all humanity. Vorilhon spent the next few days with the little man – who was called Yahweh, just like the creator of humanity in the Bible – and learned all about the history of the Elohim. He also began to understand his own mission to help set up an embassy for these aliens so that they can eventually make their official reappearance on Earth and give us their wisdom and technology.

A couple of years later, when Vorilhon had taken on the name Raël and was already telling the world of his experiences, the Elohim whisked him away for a holiday on their home planet. There, the Elohim piped knowledge directly into his brain and he met several of Earth’s other leading prophets, including Jesus, Buddha, Joseph Smith (see The Latter-day Saints) and Mohammed. Jesus, said Raël, is a very beautiful man – and very thin.

Later, a robot showed Raël to his room and asked him if he wanted a female companion. Raël, who has something of a reputation as a ladies’ man, said Oui. He was then presented with a beautiful, brunette, biological sex robot. Then a blonde appeared. Then a redhead. Then a ‘magnificent’ black woman. Then a ‘very fine’ Chinese lady and then another voluptuous Asian. Raël just couldn’t decide which of the ‘girls’ to test drive. Luckily, the robot said he could take all six and he shared an ‘unforgettable’ bath with them.

There’s good news for humanity, as Raël says that soon we will all be serviced by these endlessly compliant nanobots. He acknowledges that ‘feminists’ might not like the idea – but then he points out that nobody has any problem about using washing machines or a dishwasher, so why should it be different with sex robots? What’s more, he says, all this android action will remove the curse of jealousy from human relations forever.

Even before the robots came along, Raël had plenty of ways of keeping his followers happy. He’s a firm believer in freedom within consensual adult relationships, and many adherents have been attracted to his Sensual Meditation seminars where he teaches them how to awaken the potential of their bodies for pleasure and love, how to get in touch with their erogenous zones, and how to inspect their bottoms using a mirror.

Until Clonaid was set up in the late 1990s, it was these erotic aspects of Raël’s movement that caused the most controversy. Critics claimed that lonely men were attracted to the group in the hope of getting some orgy action. Raël meanwhile (or ‘His Holiness’ as he preferred to be called), in contradiction to his liberationist philosophy, was said to have told many of his most attractive female followers that they must preserve their sexual favours for the unique enjoyment of the prophets. Of course, this would have redounded to Raël’s advantage, as there’s only one prophet around at the moment – him.

In spite of these criticisms, the group has so far been mercifully free of any of the accusations of paedophilia and physical or mental abuse that plague other similar groups. Anti-cult activists have now focused their attention on the apparent scam relating to human cloning. The Raëlists, for their part, claim to have produced another twelve cloned babies since Eve and say that thanks to all the publicity they’ve been getting, their membership has risen to around the 65,000 mark and their beliefs have spread to more than 80 countries. Because of the secrecy that now surrounds their cloning operations, these assertions are no more – or less – verifiable than Raël’s declarations about his frequent contacts with the Elohim.

Holy Smoke!

EMINEMT

Eminem was made an honorary priest of the Raëlian movement after the release of his anti-George W Bush video ‘Mosh’. The prophet Raël declared that the video was ‘wonderful’ and a great example of the kind of freedom of speech that Bush is threatening with his ‘Patriot Acts’ and anti-terrorist legislation.

Unusually, the eloquent potty-mouthed rapper had nothing to say about the receipt of this honorary title.

Taken from The Joy Of Sects

06.06.06 - A Date with The Devil

2006-06-06T10:23:00.000+01:00

Published in The Scotsman

A date with the DEVIL

SAM JORDISON

IN CASE you haven't noticed, today is 6 June, 2006. Or, put another way, 06.06.06. Or, put another way again, 666, or the mark of the Beast, the Devil's home address and a sure sign of eternal torment for all of us.

In short, it's a pretty unusual, once-in-a-century event. Although, of course, if you haven't noticed it's 06.06.06, that already suggests that the date is far less important than some evangelical Christians have been hoping.

Indeed, if you're still reading this article, you've already proved quite a few people wrong. Because, according to the conspiracy theorists, we should already have been visited by some quite nasty plagues by now. What's more, all copies of The Scotsman should have been consumed by fire, thanks to the giant comet that's due to strike the Earth. And, just supposing that the paper did survive all that, your attention would have been grabbed by the blinding sight of the Lamb of God transporting 144,000 Christian virgins up to heaven - leaving the rest of us to tidy up the mess.

The number 666 has taken on such cosmic significance because of a bizarre verse in the Bible's psychedelic Book of Revelation: "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred three score and six."

No-one has been able to give a straight answer about the precise meaning of these words since they were first transcribed in the fourth century AD. Their significance is anyone's guess.

The current batch of fevered speculators are just the latest in a long history of people convinced that the Beast is about to show up any minute and bring on the Rapture (the technical term for all that nasty stuff with the wailing and gnashing of teeth).

Admittedly, those that think today will mark the beginning of the end are the extremists. But they aren't the only ones that have been worrying. Over in Norway, for instance, a religious organisation has warned its members to remove all combustibles from their churches, test fire alarms and lock their doors. They're worried the local Satan-worshipping heavy metal fraternity will view the devil's day as an especially good one to burn down places of worship.

Reports are coming in from around the world of expectant mothers going to great lengths not to have their babies on 6 June. "I refuse to give birth on that date," Texan Bethany Morian told the Seattle Times. "I'll cross my legs and watch the clock."

Others are even asking doctors to induce the birth of their child early, or delay their Caesarean sections. As mother-to-be Yvonne Colon-Stewart told her local paper in Florida: "I think it's only natural that parents wouldn't want their baby born on the day that's marked for the Devil."

In fact, Colon-Stewart could consider she's got off lightly if her baby were merely "marked". According to advocates of the worst-case scenario, mothers going into labour today could find themselves giving birth to the Antichrist himself: a particularly unappealing prospect, as anyone who's seen Rosemary's Baby will tell you. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of the wacky action is taking place in the US, but even UK mothers have been getting worried about today's date. The website of Mother & Baby has seen some animated discussion from nervous pregnant women, several of whom say they've already asked a doctor to bring on their baby early. Closer to home, however, women aren't quite so superstitious. When asked if there had been any reports of requests for induced births or delayed Caesareans, a spokesman for the Greater Glasgow NHS board said: "Certainly not in Glasgow."

In this secular age, it's a good bet that those fearless Glaswegians are in a majority. Certainly, for every Christian worrying about doom and devilry on 06.06.06, there are plenty of marketing executives rubbing their hands in glee. Chief among these are the brains behind the multi-million-dollar advertising campaign for The Omen 666, a remake of the 1976 film due to be released today (instead of the more usual Friday). Judging by the early reviews, however, going to see this film could be the biggest genuine disaster that happens to you today.

Elsewhere, death metal group Deicide, whose lead singer claims to be a satanist, are releasing two songs on iTunes from their upcoming album, The Stench of Redemption. Not to be outdone, the Church of Satan itself has organised a satanic high mass at a theatre in Los Angeles, tickets for which quickly sold out.

Publicists on the other side of the religious divide are getting in on the act, too. The publishers of the phenomenally popular Left Behind books have chosen today to release the latest instalment. This series about the Second Coming, written by right-wing evangelical Christians in the US, has already notched up more than 60 million sales there (and is predicted to hit the UK market in a big way soon). The latest book, called The Rapture, promises to do the business yet again, helped along by all the 6 June publicity. It will cost $6.66.

America's infamous right-wing commentator Ann Coulter is also publishing a book today. She's the woman who once appeared on the cover of Time magazine, under the headline "Ms Right", and who called for the forcible conversion of all Muslims to Christianity. Her most famous comment about the environment is: "God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'" She's also a canny selfpublicist: 06.06.06 is the ideal date to release a volume she's entitled Godless. Of course, her publishers insist that it's just a coincidence. By contrast, fans of the heavy metal band Slayer are going all-out to make the date memorable, having organised The National Day of Slayer. "Why should the Republican Party have all the fun with their National Day of Prayer?" they ask on their website, www.nationaldayofslayer.org. The homepage also encourages followers of the band to stage a 'Slay out', which involves bunking off work during the day to listen to their favourite band at full volume and then holding a huge party in the evening.

The group themselves are releasing a five-track EP called Eternal Pyre today. Interesting to note, however, is the fact that Slayer had originally intended to put out a full album and launch their world tour, the Unholy Alliance, Preaching to the Perverted tour. Sadly, those plans had to be put on hold because a group member has had to go into hospital for gallbladder surgery. Such karmic bad luck could lead you to suspect that there might be something to this 666 business after all.

The fear of 666 is certainly serious enough for someone to have coined a very impressive sounding name for it: Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

What's more, some of the biggest corporations in the world have succumbed. The most famous legend is that when the microchip giant Intel introduced the 666Mhz processor in 1999, they called it the Pentium III 667 rather than risk association with the Devil's number. The US highways agency also removed all signs for Route 666 in 2003 and changed them to the far less interesting 491. In 1999 the Moscow bus 666 was changed to 616 and, when South Korea first sent troops to Iraq, they added seven to the original contingent so 673 men went to help George Bush's crusade instead of 666.

In a lovely ironic twist, even Ronald Reagan, former president of the US, asked local officials to change his house number from 666 to 668 when he moved to an address in Los Angeles in 1999. Ironic because, until he passed away the former president was thought to be one of the leading candidates for bearing the mark of the beast.

To see why, count how many letters there are in each of his names: Ronald Wilson Reagan. And look at what he did to Nicaragua. The White House's current incumbent has also become a prime suspect for the suspicious: he's George Walker Bush-Jr. See what they did there?

Crazy as those theories sound, however, they have nothing on the idea that it's the internet we should all be afraid of. Counting alphabetically, the Hebrew number equivalent for 'w' is 6, and "www" is, of course, the preface for almost every web address. Geddit?

In turn, those afraid of the worldwide web are nothing like as mad as the people convinced that the number 666 is hidden in every barcode because the binary equivalents of three long double lines you can see at the beginning, middle and end of every code are equal to 6-6-6. And they aren't a patch on their even more extreme cousins who believe that, pretty soon, we're all going to have said barcodes implanted into our skin so that the mark of the beast will be upon us - exactly according to the prophecy.

Funnily enough, even if you do want to take the Book of Revelation literally it's odds-on that 06.06.06 is a pretty meaningless date.

Professor Greg Snyder of Davidson College in the US, one of the leading experts in the study of the ancient practice of number mysticism (known as 'gematria'), says that the number 666 is most likely to refer to Nero Caesar (a Roman emperor who was particularly unpopular with early Christians, thanks to his habit of turning them into candles) because when that name is transliterated into Hebrew and the numerical equivalent of each letter is added up, the total comes to 666.

As Snyder points out, the prophecy therefore refers to events in AD 64/65, so we've now got nothing to worry about - especially since Nero died in AD 68. An even more compelling argument against the significance of 06.06.06 comes in the years 1906 all the way back to 106. Mankind has managed to successfully live through the 20 other 06.06.06s with pretty much nothing of any significance happening on any of them.

The Great Fire of London did put the fear up a few doom-mongers back in 1666, but even that great conflagration failed to spark the end of the world.

What's more even Todd Strandberg, the creator of the Rapture Index (a website which tracks hundreds of world events and biblical prophecies to try and gauge the likelihood of the Antichrist actually arriving) and one of the most Armageddon-hungry pundits out there, has stated 06.06.06 is nothing to worry about.

"On 7 June, we'll be laughing at this whole thing," he says. Let's hope so.

• Sam Jordison is the author of The Joy of Sects (Robson Books, £9.99).

Hare Krishna

2006-05-25T09:23:00.000+01:00

Taken from The Joy Of Sects

The International Society of Krishna Consciousness, AKA Iskcon, AKA Hare Krishna

Founded: 1965
Country of origin: India
Gods and guiding voices: Hare Krishna
Famous associates past and present: George Harrison, Allen Ginsberg (briefly)
Texts: The Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, translated by His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanata Swami Prabhupada
Membership: 5,000 worldwide
Basic beliefs: By sincerely cultivating an authentic spiritual science, devotees are told they can become free from anxiety and achieve a state of pure, unending bliss. Each one of us is part of the all-powerful, all-attractive God Krishna. The most effective way for achieving God consciousness is to chant: Hare Krishna.

If nothing else His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanata Swami Prabhupada was a master of timing. Had he started a daily routine of ritual chanting in a New York park at any other time than the mid-1960s he would probably have been ignored as a harmless, if unusually ugly, eccentric. As it was, he quickly became a worldwide phenomenon.

Prabhupada was 69 when he first arrived in America. He’d already had a successful career working as a manager in a Calcutta chemical plant and raised a family (which he’d abandoned when his wife burned some of his holy books). In 1965 he became convinced it was his life’s task to spread Krishna Consciousness, a religion dating back to the sixteenth century when a Bengali saint, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, founded an ascetic monastic order based on repeatedly chanting the name of the god Krishna.

Prabhupada set off in a boat for the most spiritually dark place on Earth – America – carrying little more than a pair of kartal cymbals, a suitcase and eight dollars. His fortunes began to improve when a group of well-educated hippies spotted him chanting away in the Tomkins Park in New York’s Lower East Side and adopted him as their guru. Within a year he’d opened the first ISKCON centre, started publishing a magazine called Back To Godhead, was feted by countercultural icons like Allen Ginsberg, and had appeared at fashionable events in Haight Ashbury alongside acid Messiah Timothy Leary and the rock group the Fugs – writers of the song ‘Group Grope’. Over in England George Harrison helped produce a single called ‘Hare Krishna Mantra’, which reached number 12 in the UK charts, and when Prabhupada visited the country he was driven from Heathrow airport in John Lennon’s white Rolls-Royce.

Soon Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna monks were a common sight in the West’s larger cities; easy to spot with their flowing robes, beatific expressions and shaved heads (with just a small lock of hair left to grow at the back in case the god Krishna ever wants to grab it and carry them off to heaven). Their distinctive chanting was heard from Oxford Street to Montreal: ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare’ (O energy of the Lord, O all-attractive Lord, O Supreme Enjoyer, please engage me in your service). They touted books at international airports. Motorway bridges were adorned with the legend: ‘Say Gouranga – Be Happy’.

All those smiling faces and that exuberant dancing belie a strict lifestyle, however. Adherents are forbidden to eat meat, fish or eggs. There is no gambling, no sex other than for procreation within marriage and strictly no intoxication. All recreational drugs, alcohol, tobacco, tea and coffee are prohibited. Members also wear a necklace with 108 beads, each representing the Hare Krishna mantra, which must be chanted in full. The complete set must be repeated a minimum of sixteen times a day (that’s 1,728 Hare Krishnas – about two hours’ solid chanting). Monks who live in the temples rarely manage more than six hours’ sleep on hard floors. Women (described by Prabhupada as ‘prone to degradation, of little intelligence and untrustworthy’) are subservient to men. Adherents are encouraged to relinquish close family ties.

Still, until Prabhupada’s death in 1977, the movement went from strength to strength. But soon after, it was engulfed in scandal. Eleven devotees were appointed to act as successors to the old guru, and put in charge of various international regions. Several of them proved to be wholly unsuitable. In West Virginia, for instance, Keith Ham was given a thirty-year jail sentence in 1987 for racketeering, mail fraud and conspiracy to commit murder after two bodies, partially dissolved in acid, were discovered in the creek near his commune. Handsadutta Swami, the man in charge of the northwest of the US and parts of Southeast Asia, hit the press after developing a taste for fast cars and hoarding weapons. The leader in London, James Immel, was dismissed from his post in 1986 amid accusations of drug abuse and sleeping with female disciples. His headless body was discovered not long afterwards in a shop called Knobs and Knockers on Regent’s Park Road. Next to it, the police discovered one of his former disciples, sitting with Immel’s severed head in his lap and muttering, ‘The beast is dead.’

More recently the organisers have tried to concentrate on ascetic saintliness and put the mistakes of what they call ‘the bad old days’ behind them. Fortunately, they’re nowadays far more likely to be seen spreading Krishna’s love by feeding homeless people, selling books (by the year 2000, they claimed to have sold more than 450 million) or banging tom-toms than to be caught stabbing each other (yes, that happened too).

Cult Hero

The God Krishna

Unlike the monks who so fervently chant his name, the Hindu God Krishna was not into self-denial. The Vedic legends portray him rather as a blue-skinned, four-armed flute-playing trickster. He hides the clothes of women bathing, he encourages married women to play around with him in the moonlight, he expands himself into 16,000 different forms so he can marry 16,000 princesses at once – and fathers ten children with each of them. One of his many incarnations also spends its whole time snoozing.

Words of wisdom:

‘The word “guru” means heavy.’

His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanata Swami Prabhupada

‘Philanthropists who build churches and hospitals are wasting their time.’

His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanata Swami Prabhupada

Taken from The Joy Of Sects

Cosmic Ordering

2006-04-08T18:08:00.000+01:00

From The Scotsman 8 April 2006

Everything you always wanted to know about sects

SAM JORDISON

NOEL Edmonds is finally getting what he wants. After years in the TV wilderness, following the undignified exit of Noel's House Party from BBC1, he's back with a vengeance. His new show, Deal Or No Deal, is a massive hit, he's been given a £3 million contract to move the format to Channel 4 and he's just been able to buy a £10 million dream house in Devon.

And, apparently, this run of success is all thanks to the cosmos.

Edmonds amazed viewers of Parkinson last Saturday night by revealing that he has become a devotee of Cosmic Ordering - a new faith based on a million-selling book by the female German author Barbel Mohr - and it's thanks to the messages he's been writing to the universe that all his wishes have been coming true.

"You'll think I'm away with the fairies," says TV's Mr Tidybeard.

That's certainly the conclusion I was rushing towards: he's mad. The alternative - that there's some sinister force at work in the universe that gives the man who brought us Mr Blobby exactly what he wants - is too horrible to contemplate.

Fortunately, it's easy to prove that Cosmic Ordering is a load of bunk. If every reader of this piece were to ask the cosmos politely for Edmonds to conduct the entire next series of Deal Or No Deal dressed in a Playboy bunny suit it still won't happen. Or if Scotland and England fans were to request that their team win the World Cup, one group is bound to be disappointed (and let's face it, they probably both are).

However, it's worth considering just how crazy Edmonds's theory really is. After all, the belief that mysterious and unaccountable forces will help any of us out if we just ask them nicely enough is one of the fundamentals of nearly all religions - and most people regard those as perfectly normal.

And is writing little notes about our hopes and dreams any worse than believing in homeopathy, for instance? Than thinking that traces of elements that have no known curative values will cure cancer? Or, for that matter, is it any less rational than deciding that wine can turn into blood, and if we mutter The Lord's Prayer every day we'll get to meet all our friends again in heaven and whoop it up together for eternity?

Indeed, in this secular age it almost makes more sense to opt for Cosmic Ordering instead of Christianity, which has been a busted flush ever since we discovered the world is round and wasn't created in seven days.

It's human nature to want to believe in something. It's far nicer than deciding we're just spinning round on a cold rock in the middle of space for no reason at all. And - let's face it - there are many far madder, badder and more dangerous faiths out there than Cosmic Ordering. There are all kinds of people I'd set the crazy-doctors on to before I turn them loose on Edmonds.

I'd advise strongly that they have a word with Tom Cruise about his belief in Scientology, the benefits of silent, sedative-free births and the misdeeds of an evil alien called Xenu.

I'd send them round to Madonna's to question her conviction that a piece of suspiciously expensive Kabballah string will improve her life. More urgently, I'd get them to cart off Ruth Kelly for claiming that her support for the Roman Catholic church's sub-sect Opus Dei isn't incompatible with her work as our Education Secretary...

In fact, that list could go on for pages and pages. Compared with most of the bizarre cults and New Age faiths out there at the moment, Noel's touching trust in the power of sending little letters to the cosmos seems positively benign and even rather sensible.

It's just a shame he didn't ask for better dress sense when he was writing them.

ARTHUR BLESSIT

Famous associates: George Bush

Basic beliefs: An evangelical Christian determined to fulfil a Biblical prophecy and take the cross to every land on Earth, Arthur Blessit, born in 1941, has been touring the world since 1969, dragging a 10ft-long cross behind him.

Blessit once hosted an all-night Christian nightclub in the centre of Hollywood's Sunset Strip, where he urged hippies, bikers and hookers to "drop a little Matthew, Mark, Luke and John" instead of their customary downers and LSD. At the end of the 1960s, however, Jesus proposed a new trip. He told Arthur to take the cross to all countries on Earth. By 2000, the intrepid evangelist had walked through 301 nations. He made no exception for even the tiniest: even the Vatican City and the Orkney islands have played host to the indefatigable fundamentalist.

In total, Blessit claims to have walked 36,500 miles and is planning to launch a two-inch fragment from his cross into space. He has also printed more than 20 million stickers bearing the legend "Smile, God Loves You" and intends to launch these into space too. And, yes, Blessit is his original name.

BREATHARIANISM

Founded: 1993

Membership: 5,000 claimed worldwide

Basic beliefs: Breatharians believe it is possible to live on light alone, that unpolluted air contains all the nutrients necessary to sustain life, and not eating food will actually increase longevity.

This spiritual diet's best-known advocate is Ellen Greve, below right, who took up Breatharianism after she was "told" to change her life by her spiritual mentor, St Germain, a Frenchman last seen living in the sixth century. In 1999 she claimed she'd spent the last six years living on nothing more than herbal tea and the odd chocolate biscuit.

However, when the Australian TV programme 60 Minutes challenged her to practise what she preached in front of its cameras, she quickly became ill. Within 48 hours she was showing signs of serious dehydration. After four days she had lost a stone and the experiment was cancelled. Breatharianism received more bad publicity when another prominent advocate was filmed tucking into a chicken pie.

The Breatharian diet has also been blamed for several deaths, including that of Verity Linn, who was found dead in a remote part of Sutherland after fasting.

CREFLO DOLLAR MINISTRIES

Founded: 1986

Membership: Dr Dollar's World Changers Church has a congregation of around 24,000.

Basic beliefs: A nondenominational Christian church teaching total life prosperity: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional and (especially) financial wellbeing.

Few preachers have had a more appropriate surname than Dr Creflo Dollar. He claims to be in touch with "the Biblical formula" on how to increase earnings. It's simple: if you give him a seed he will sow that seed and you will receive the bountiful harvest. Sceptical? Look no further than Dr Dollar; he's living proof that it works - for him.

He lives in a million-dollar home and drives a Rolls-Royce. "When I'm pursuing the Lord," he says, "those Rolls-Royces are pursuing me."

THE FINDHORN FOUNDATION

Founded: 1962

Membership: 14,000 visitors a year, home to several hundred

Famous associates: Ruby Wax, comedian Phil Kay, Waterboys singer Mike Scott

Basic beliefs: Members are part of a living laboratory where sacred works and spiritual beliefs are tested every day.

The Foundation won't adhere to any one religion. It also has a quantifiably beneficial effect on the local economy and ecology of its home on the Moray coast, bringing in millions of pounds a year and pioneering alternative energy usage. It feels a bit harsh to include them here.

Then again, Eileen Caddy and Dorothy Maclean set the whole thing up because Eileen was instructed to do so by her "inner voice", and because Dorothy discovered a rare ability to hold conversations with vegetables - particularly cabbages.

Caddy and her husband settled in the sand dunes near Forres and established a settlement. It has expanded into a huge ecological housing complex and conference centre, as well as a nondenominational "spiritual community". It has a thriving mini-economy based on a printing press, education and organic box-delivery.

Although relatively benign, the Findhorn people are rather unusual, as you can tell by looking at the books on sale in their shop: Baby Om, Gay Spirit Warrior and Raising Psychic Children.

Prominent members have hugged trees and describe it as a "sexual" experience.

EXEGESIS

Founded: c.1980, now defunct

Famous associates: Carole Caplin, right, Mike "Tubular Bells" Oldfield

Basic beliefs: Money - good. Leaving therapy sessions before they're over - bad.

Exegesis ceased to exist in the mid-1980s after David Mellor, the Conservative Home Office minister at the time, described it in Parliament as "puerile, dangerous and profoundly wrong".

However, its influence was felt almost 20 years later when one of its most prominent former members, Carole Caplin, became embroiled in a scandal with Cherie Blair.

Exegesis specialised in alternative therapy, designed to "rebirth" participants by encouraging them to face up to their innermost fears and desires, tell the truth at all times and also tell fellow members what they hated about them. Organisers called it "raising the confront". The group dissolved amid the customary murky rumours of brainwashing and group sex, after which Caplin set up her own company and established herself as a "lifestyle guru".

In the 1990s she introduced Cherie Blair to the healing power of crystals, as a potential aid to swollen ankles among other things.

MATRIXISM

Founded: 2003

Basic beliefs: Reality is multi-layered and The One will come and bring world peace some time before 2199 - as predicted in the films. Yes, this is a religion based on a blockbuster film. Matrixism started as a spoof on the internet, but now claims to have 500 genuine followers.

They have four basic principles: belief in the prophecy of The One (that's Keanu Reeves in the film); acceptance of the use of psychedelics as sacrament (they favour mescaline); acceptance of the semi-subjective multi-layered nature of reality; and adherence to the principles of one or more of the world's religions until such time as The One returns.

Becoming a Matrixist is easy: just go to http://www.geocities.com/matrixism2069 and click on a link entitled "join".

This article: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/critique.cfm?id=539792006

Osho

2006-04-01T10:59:00.000+01:00

An extract from The Joy Of Sects

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and the Sannyasins AKA Osho

Founded: 1971
Country of origin: India
Gods and guiding voices: The Hindu pantheon, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Basic beliefs: Bliss is a birthright. God is the universal consciousness and the enlightened Bhagwan himself is the beginning of a totally new religious consciousness. Man determines what conduct is permissible. Basically an amalgam of Western psychotherapeutic practices and Eastern religion.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had a simple commandment for his followers, the Sannyasins: ‘Enjoy!’ Unlike other more ascetic gurus to have emerged from India in the 1960s and 1970s, he demanded little from his followers in the way of renunciation – and lots in the way of carnal pleasure. ‘Wait not for Godot!’ he preached. ‘The more you risk, the more you grow.’ His was an intoxicating promise: enlightenment, bliss and lots and lots of sex.

The ashram he established in Poona in India in 1974 quickly became a New Age Mecca. It attracted thousands of young Western disciples sold on the charismatic teacher’s mercurial wit and unique brand of Eastern mysticism. Marked out by their happy expressions and orange clothes (dyed at the Bhagwan’s instigation, to reflect the colour of the sun) they quickly spread their guru’s teachings and popularised his unique forms of taboo-breaking therapies. In these sessions, known as dynamic meditation, pupils were encouraged to destroy their religious and social conditioning to find out who they really were. They wore blindfolds – or nothing at all – and explored their deepest selves by screaming, fighting and, inevitably, shagging. Broken limbs were common, as were broken relationships. The latter came thanks to the teachers’ propensity to encourage their students to watch their partners having sex with another person – so they could confront the emotions that this betrayal provoked.

In spite of, or maybe even because of, these extreme practices, the ‘Rajneeshees’ continued to expand in number. Soon they spread out across Europe, establishing themselves in stately homes like the one they named ‘Medina Rajneesh’ in Suffolk, where 400 of the Bhagwan’s followers established themselves in the early 1980s – seemingly in utopian contentment.

Sadly, there were a few signs that all was not well in paradise. One of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s more chilling suggestions was that prominent female followers should become sterilised so that they could better practise his teachings. Ugly rumours of child abuse and the destruction of family life slowly began to surface. The guru’s ever increasing wealth also began to attract the unwanted attention of the Indian tax authorities.

To escape from a whopping bill, Rajneesh packed up his 150,000-volume library and, claiming medical problems, entered the United States (along with twelve tons of luggage). It was there that things really fell apart. Shortly after he’d settled his followers in a 60,000-acre $6million ranch on semi-desert scrubland near the small town of Antelope in Oregon, Bhagwan Rajneesh took a vow of silence (or as, he put it, he determined on a course of ‘speaking through silence’.) The day-to-day running of the huge community fell to his follower, Ma Anand Sheela.

Sheela took to wearing robes and calling herself ‘queen’. Fences, complete with guard towers, went up around the compound and disciples armed with Uzis patrolled the Bhagwan’s residence. Many of the commune’s 15,000 members were forced to do twelve hours work a day for no pay. While they succeeded in clearing and planting 3,000 acres of land, building a 350-million-gallon reservoir, a 10-megawatt power substation and a functioning dairy farm, only Sheela and her coterie seemed to live in any comfort. The others had to endure unbearable hardships.

The most bizarre incidents occurred outside the ranch in the local town of Antelope. The huge numbers of Rajneeshees enabled them to force the results of the 1984 local elections and take over Antelope’s local council. They decided to rename the hitherto upright Oregon backwater Rajneeshpuram. When attempts were also made to rig local county elections by shipping thousands of homeless people onto the ranch, resistance to the Sannyasins grew stronger. Sheela responded by having her followers dump salmonella into the salad bars of several local restaurants. Antelope therefore gained the dubious distinction of being the site of the first successful bio-terrorism attack in US history.

Eventually, Bhagwan Rajneesh emerged from his silence and attempted to distance himself from his disciples. He said that Sheela had been running the place like a ‘fascist concentration camp’ and went on the talk show Good Morning America to emphasise that those with him were ‘fellow travellers’ rather than followers. He also called on the FBI to conduct an independent investigation into the ranch. The FBI quickly found an extensive eavesdropping system that was wired throughout the commune residences, public buildings and offices. They also uncovered a secret laboratory where experiments had been run on the manufacture of HIV as well as salmonella.

Sheela confessed to having a rather ‘bad habit’ of poisoning people and was sent to jail. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh himself was charged with criminal conspiracy, 34 counts of making false statements to federal officials and two counts of immigration fraud. He paid a $400,000 fine and was given a ten-year sentence – suspended on the understanding that he would leave the United States. He returned to India in disgrace and died not long afterwards.

Many of the communes across Europe dispersed in disillusionment and surrounded by their own scandals. In spite of everything, however, many remain faithful to the Bhagwan’s teachings. His spiritual descendents (now calling themselves Osho) have maintained his ashram in India as a major tourist attraction and spiritual retreat. In England, meanwhile, they have a thriving community in a large house in Dorset, Osho Leela. There, they run ‘Singles Weekends’ offering parties, meditations, ‘bundles of fun and … who knows!’

CULT HERO

The Bhagwan

Mohan Chandra Rajneesh was born in 1931. After working as a philosophy teacher for several years he accepted what he saw as God’s plan for his life – spiritually transforming humanity. In 1971 he assumed the modest title of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, meaning ‘The Blessed One Who Has Recognised Himself As God’. He established his first ashram shortly afterwards.

During his life the Bhagwan wrote more than 60 books and recorded upwards of 500 tapes. In addition to embracing the spirit of God, he also embraced the spirit of the 1980s, accumulating millions of pounds and no fewer than 93 Rolls-Royce cars. He said that he’d lived in poverty and lived in richness. ‘Believe me,’ he continued, ‘richness is far better than poverty.’ He claimed to be a man of very simple interests. He was ‘utterly satisfied’ with ‘the best of everything’.

Towards the end of his life, addicted to nitrous oxide (laughing gas) and haunted by the accusations of sex abuse, tax evasion and poisonings, the Bhagwan retreated back to his original ashram in Poona. In 1985 he declared that his religion was dead – and that it had, in fact, been invented by his followers. He said he was glad not to have to pretend to be enlightened anymore. Then, in December 1988, he told his followers that his body had become host to none other than Guatama Buddha. However, when the Buddha disapproved of his use of the Jacuzzi, Bhagwan banished him from his body and said that he was now Zorba the Buddha instead.

He died in 1990, instructing his doctor to dress him in his favourite socks and hat beforehand. When his disciples asked what they should do with him after he passed on he replied, ‘Stick me under the bed and forget about me.’

Words of Wisdom

‘The second problem I had (with my health) was my back … I cannot sit on [an ordinary] chair. It may be comfortable, but my back will not fit with it. Similarly I can use only one car. I have used all cars, and the best in the world; but the seat of just one car, one of the models of Rolls-Royce, the Silver Spur, fits with me perfectly. It is not their costliest car; their costliest is the Corniche, then the Carmargue. The third is the Silver Spur. So I tried a Corniche – it didn't work, my back trouble started. But with the Silver Spur it has settled completely.’

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

HOLY SMOKE!

Religious Ecstasy

Ecstasy was first brought to Europe by the disciples of the Bhagwan. He had adopted the drug as his new spiritual elixir, and his army of orange people evangelically distributed it around the world. Some even set up laboratories to manufacture their own supply.

To buy The Joy Of Sects, click here

Cargo Cults

2006-03-23T09:47:00.000Z

An extract from The Joy Of Sects

The famous Cargo Cults of Melanesia and New Guinea provide a fascinating model of exactly what happens when men use religion to explain forces they don’t understand – and how easy it is for religions to adapt when their promises are unfulfilled.

The remote Pacific islanders had long held the belief that the spirits of their ancestors would one day return to them, loaded down with booty. Back in the nineteenth century, they lived in a society where the technology hadn’t progressed much beyond the Stone Age. So, when the first Europeans arrived on their shores on huge steam ships bearing gifts that they couldn’t even imagine being made, the islanders were pretty impressed. So impressed, in fact, that a new religion was born out of the old beliefs: the worship of ‘cargo’ (cargo is pidgin for goods of any kind). It seemed that the ancient prophecy was coming true – and how.

Over the following years belief in the power of cargo grew stronger. A number of prophets sprang up claiming divine snakes had given them special knowledge of cargo. They set up practices like doctors, curing afflictions on the basis of their familiarity with these snake-spirits. To encourage more cargo to arrive, they also began to affect the lifestyles of the Europeans, who had now settled on the islands and received frequent shipments of the goods. These quasi-European prophets forced other islanders to do their gardening for them, wearing trousers and hats and copying what they knew of the white man’s lifestyle – including sipping at late-afternoon cocktails.

In spite of all these efforts, the prophets still didn’t manage to get their hands on much cargo. However, the cult developed further when missionaries started interfering with the islanders in the early twentieth century. A unique form of Christianity emerged. Somehow, the interesting belief came about that Christians worship a god called Anus. The stories in the Bible, as the islanders saw them, told how Anus created Adam and Eve and gave his treasured handiwork cargo of steel tools, canned meat, matches and rice in bags. However, when Adam and Eve annoyed Anus by discovering sex, he sent a great flood to destroy mankind. Luckily, when he sent the flood, Anus had also given a wooden steamboat to a man called Noah and made him its captain. Humanity survived, but when Noah’s son Ham disobeyed his father, his cargo was taken away from him. The bereft Ham was sent to New Guinea, where his descendants were now convinced that they could get his lost cargo back if they worked hard enough at pleasing Anus by singing hymns and praying to him. So, many of the natives did as the missionaries requested. They laboured in their houses, sang their songs and muttered their prayers. By the 1930s, however, they’d worked out that they were being deceived. While the islanders put all the effort in, the foreigners who did nothing received – and kept – all the cargo.

Just as disillusionment began to set in, the Second World War arrived and the islanders once again revised their opinions. Vast amounts of war material were dropped on the islands during the Pacific campaigns against the Japanese Empire. Those who acted as guides and hosts to the visiting American soldiers reaped the benefits. Suddenly, the long-promised cargo was arriving in huge quantities.

Sadly, when the war came to a close, the cargo stopped coming just as quickly as it had arrived. It was then that Cargo Cult activity reached its peak. It was also then that its fame spread around the world as returning servicemen recounted the incredible things they had seen. To outsiders, these stories seemed almost too incredible to be true. In an attempt to convince the cargo to return, the islanders created straw aeroplanes and runways in the jungle (complete with landing lights made from torches) in the hope that they would cause boxes of cargo to fall from the sky again. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in home-made control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways, marched around parade grounds in the jungle carrying bamboo rifles, and stood saluting in front of flags of their own devising. If you don’t believe it, just look at the photos.

Inevitably, when the elaborate devices of the islanders failed to bring in the promised loot, disillusionment once again set in. Most of the Cargo Cults have gradually died out. However, on the island of Tanu, more than fifty years since the Americans were there, thousands still hold the belief that one day a GI called John Frum will come down from their local volcano and deliver the cargo of prosperity to each and every one of them. It hasn’t happened yet, but the prophecy is open-ended enough to ensure that this time, it will never be proved wrong. Maybe one day we’ll all be worshipping John Frum. After all, stranger things have happened.

Well, did Tom Cruise dance with aliens?

2006-01-06T16:05:00.000Z

"Hello, we're from the Church Of Jesus Christ Of The Latter Day Saints…"

"Great," I said, "Come in."

"What?"

Mormons who are out cold-calling don't normally expect that kind of response. Abuse, yes. Door slamming, undoubtedly. There was even one sad occasion involving hot pursuit with a blow-torch, the two smart young men informed me after I'd finally persuaded them to cross my threshold and drink some water - not tea, they don't touch caffeine. My enthusiasm had floored them. It was only when I explained that I was writing a book about cults, cranks and religious eccentrics that they began to understand. They were so unsettled that they agreed to talk to me anyway.

It was less than a week since I'd signed my contract and I was already completely obsessed. I knew that I was because of the wistful half-smile on the face of my long-suffering girlfriend Eloise when she came downstairs to discover me and my new Mormon friends deep in conversation about the angel Moroni. The last time I'd seen that look had been in a multi-storey car-park in Luton where I was taking pictures of obscene graffiti for my previous book about Crap Towns. It's the kind of expression I imagine a doting mother adopts when her young child proudly presents the 'art' it's created on the walls of her living room.

Back then, Elly had allowed me to persuade her to spend extended periods of time in Thurso and Morecambe and even Hull. Small wonder that she blanched visibly when I started to rant enthusiastically about Findhorn, a foundation in the windswept far North East of Scotland established because of the communicative powers of the local cabbages…

Trooper that she is, she didn't complain. Not when she found her house full of Jehovah's Witnesses, nor when a peaceable evening stroll a few weeks later ended in us being chased up the road by a member of the Jesus Army who was shouting: "To think that Jesus died for you."

However, I still count it fortunate that Elly was spared my most debasing experience. This occurred in the Scientology Centre on London's Tottenham Court Road where I blew a whole afternoon's patient research with one foolish remark:

"This isn't quite what I was expecting," I said. "I was told there's lots of stuff about aliens."
.
"What a load of crap!" yelled the now furious, but hitherto cloyingly polite representative. "Where did you hear about that?"

"Er…"

"Come on! It's bullshit! Do I look the kind of person that would believe in aliens?"

"Er… maybe I read it in relation to Tom Cruise or something. Something about…"

"Oh please. Tom Cruise is one of the nicest people I've ever met. Do you think he looks like the kind of person that you'd find dancing around with aliens?"

It was a question I honestly couldn't answer.

--

Appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on 1 Jan 2006.

I had to leave the Scientology Centre in a hurry as a result of this exchange.

Grim Up North

2005-09-18T14:54:00.000+01:00

The draft of a piece that appeared in the Torygraph on May 27 2005.

---

Britain is no longer crap - at least according to the new guide to the country from Lonely Planet. Anyone who believes “it’s grim up North” should think again, according to the backpackers’ Bible. The authors even say that they like the UK so much that they’ve now added the word “Great” to the title of their tome about the place for the first time.

Leeds, we learn, is “the Knightsbridge of the North”. Glasgow, meanwhile, has “a contagious energy”, Birmingham “is new and improved”; even Liverpool has thrown off its reputation as a city “full of smart-arse scallies who would as soon nick your car as tell you a joke”.

I just don’t agree.

Before proceeding, however, I should perhaps nail my colours to the mast. As the editor of two books about Crap Towns that contained entirely contradictory entries for all these places, I have a vested interest in proving the Lonely Planet wrong. I’d hate people to think that Leeds, Glasgow, Birmingham and Liverpool aren’t a “city of random shouting and violence”, “a dreadful shite-hole”, “menacing, intolerant and highly strung” and “ruined.” That would ruin my books sales and destroy my credibility!

But, even when I factor in my obvious bias and try as hard as I can to “think again” about the North I just can’t see it. Nope. The North’s still grim. And I’m not writing this as a ferret-fearing “Southern git”. I was born and brought up in the North of England, I love it, and I’d prefer to live there still. However, doing so would effectively end my career. There’s no work that I could do around my way. (Unless, of course, one of the faux glamorous chrome and glass bars that’s taken over Leeds were to open and I could serve beer to professionals with real jobs escaping London for the weekend… )

I do at least partially agree with David Else, the Lonely Planet guidebook’s co-ordinating author, when he says that “when it comes to great destinations, the North-South divide is a myth” - but only because they’re both equally crap. If you like a country where every high street looks exactly the same and contains the same bland selection of brands and corporations, the same bored teenagers (who are only outside anyway because they’ve been banned from all the malls for wearing ‘hoodies’) and the same fake heritage black iron dustbins and street lights - then, yes, visit Britain. It’s especially “great” if you’re the kind of traveller that gets anxious about missing important sites. All such anxieties disappear here, because, if you’ve seen one town outside of London nowadays, you’ve pretty much seen them all - give or take a castle or two.

It’s only when you get out of the centres and into the suburbs, slums and industrial wastelands of the North that you can really tell how much inequality there still is. John Prescott, who few would credit with knowing anything more than the painfully obvious, is fully aware of this geographical disparity. That’s why he’s planning to demolish upwards of 200,000 perfectly good homes in Northern cities (20,000 of which are in Lonely Planet fave Liverpool - including, tragically, the terrace that ex-Beatle Ringo Starr grew up in). This divide also explains why big John P’s megalomaniac schemes to burden the country with vast unsustainable estates of new houses are all based in the South.

Still! Enough of this relentless of negativity. I’d heartily recommend that anyone takes a Lonely Planet with them when they go on holiday. I had one with me in Italy last summer and it helped me have a far better time than I would have had kicking around at home. Besides, I don’t disagree with everything in the new Great Britain guide. There are a few things that seem to me to be spot on. I concur that London can feel "dirty, polluted and overcrowded", that the English Riviera is a "rather optimistic" term to describe the Devon resorts of Torquay and Paignton and that the Yorkshire spa resort of Harrogate “has not changed much since Agatha Christie fled there in 1926.”

I especially liked the description of John O’Groats:

“If [John O’Groats] were a person, he’d be a second-hand car salesman or a gerrymandering politician. How else to explain the seedy tourist trap that has grown around the lie that it is the most northerly place in Britain? It’s not — that title goes to Dunnet Head, further west.”

Now that’s what I call travel writing. Maybe I should buy the book after all. I’m due a holiday.

[ENDS]

Sadhus

2005-09-18T14:53:00.000+01:00

Appeared in 2000 in the late 'Mosquito' magazine

Yoga is the new cocaine. The high of choice for Madonna, Goldie Horne, Kirk Douglas, Christy Turlington and all the other beautiful people. And why not? A little spirituality might not go amiss. We're all smoking the polluted roach end of post modernism. The last new thing was Retro, reality TV is better than life and life has been sold to the oil companies. The decade is tired and jaded in its second year: we have to look for something.

And the worship of Siva, high lord of yoga is inherently fascinating to western eyes. His followers, the Sadhus have symbolised the pure ascetic ideal - living chaste lives of contemplation in pure Himalayan isolation - ever since Alexander the Great reached the Ganges. It's cool, uplifitng and doesn't give you nose bleeds or turn you into a heartless gibbering wreck.

Individual Sadhus can often be literally incredible, achieving unbelievable feats of endurance and privation: sitting in the same place, unmoving for 20 years, keeping one arm raised for so long that it atrophies, walking on shoes lined with nails or tying their own bodies into yogic knots. And after more than 2000 years, the their tri-annual festival [Dixie, is this right??] the Kumbh Mela ( where 10s of millions of holy men descend on one small town to bathe in the Ganges) - is still one of the most awe-inspiring sights on the planet.

However, going off on a luxury retreat, saying 'man' and thinking about karma is not even half the story - being a true Sadhu is a hard and disciplined life and a very extreme life choice. Their god, Siva is renowned as being one of the naughtiest gods in the Hindu canon. He's a contemplative ascetic alright, but he's also the terrifying god of fire and eventual destroyer of creation, spending his whole time boxed on weed and draped with penis jewellery. So many Sadhus are deeply holy, peaceful and perhaps even saint like, but most would probably be sent straight to jail if they were unfortunate enough to end up here.

For charlatans (and there are many) it's an easy, idle and greedy life. Public transport is free, it is legal to smoke marijuana, the majority of the Indian Hindu population either fully respects you or is afraid of you, you have a license to beg as giving alms to a Sadhu is considered good Karma, and you live outside the law. The 'sadhus' that western tourists encounter are quite likely to be free loaders - as the genuine holy men are hidden in the mountains [needs clearing up]

There are also many aspects of genuine Siva worship that westerners find difficult to come to terms with. A common facet of Siva worship is the belief that enlightenment and escape from earthly passion can beat be achieved by passing through every extreme. So some sadhus will gorge themselves on everything they can get their hands on for long periods of time (in rare cases including human flesh) followed by sustained periods of fasting. Some will do everything they can to get off their gourds for as long as they can manage.They can also often be seen lifting stones with their dicks or balancing huge weights from them in an attempt to destroy their erectile tissue.

Even for non extremists, initiation into the full Sadhu life, and rejection of earthly desire, is not to be taken lightly - one of its major ceremonies involves crushing the penis three times with a very heavy rock. After this they face a life which is for many undoubtedly rewarding, but is necessarily full of discipline and devotion.

Karma is never instant and never easy.

Ovid

2005-09-18T14:52:00.000+01:00

First published in the Idler, 2003

Ovid was the consummate ancient idler. He happily turned down an influential, financially rewarding, and unpleasantly strenuous career to dedicate himself to a life of sex and poetry. He wasn’t afraid to laugh at the foolish policies and ridiculous arrogance of the most powerful man in the world, and (to declare a personal interest) when he was eventually banished, he took the opportunity to invent Crap Towns.

Unfortunately for the lazy Ovid, he lived in a very hectic era. He was born in 43 BC, the year after Julius Caesar’s assassination. His boyhood was spent under the shadow of the bloody civil war that followed. The three most powerful men on earth, Lepidus, Marc Antony and Octavian battled it out for the control of Rome with a viciousness that has rarely since been equalled. It’s hard to put any exact totals on the numbers of people that suffered: no one was really counting. However, their decimation of the upper classes in one year, 43 BC, when they oversaw the execution of 300 Roman Senators and 2,000 ‘equites’ (the two highest strata of society), gives a pretty good impression of what happened to everybody else.

After more than a decade of furious bloodshed, Octavian emerged as the victor. He crushed his enemies with all the shock, awe and overwhelming force the non-nuclear technology of his era allowed. The final act of the war was the battle of Actium in 31 BC when he sank every single ship in the navy of Marc Antony and Cleopatra. He renamed himself Augustus and became the absolute ruler of Rome, with more unrestricted power than any one man had ever had before – or has had since.

Antony and Cleopatra’s infamous double suicide was definitely the most sensible response to their unenviable situation after Actium. Only the very bravest - or maddest - crossed Augustus, and nobody got away with it. Not even his own daughter Julia was immune to his wrath, as she discovered when he banished her in 2BC for breaking his stern moral laws on adultery. Equally, only a fool or a hero would turn Augustus down if he offered them a position in his spectacularly powerful inner circle – but that’s exactly what Ovid did – before devoting a considerable part of his career to making fun of the image obsessed dictator.

Ovid, together with his brother, was selected by Augustus because he was looking for someone from their home town, Sulmo (which was about 90 miles from Rome), to help him build up an administration that represented the regions as well as the capital. The young poet managed to skive out of the military service most young men in his position were subjected to (unfortunately, nobody now knows how he managed this) but he didn’t avoid being put on the ‘cursus honorum’, the fast track to political power in Ancient Rome. Augustus made him an ‘equites’ at the tender age of 16 and he was packed off to law school. Ovid went along with this, mainly, he later said, to please his beloved father. And it seems that his traditionalist dad also put considerable financial, as well as emotional pressure on the young poet, ominously warning him that “even Homer died poor.”

Luckily Ovid eventually managed to convince the old man that he just wasn’t cut out to face what he termed “the burden of power” or any of the “worries of ambition”. In fact, he was happy to admit that he “had neither the body, nor the mind” to put up with any kind of work at all. Instead, he loved “otium” (the most evocative Latin term for idleness, our word ‘negotiation’ is its direct opposite). He managed to win the protection and encouragement of the powerful Roman litterateur Messalla, and stepped off Augustus’ fast track to dedicate himself to sophisticated city life, getting as much sex as he possibly could and writing fantastic, dazzlingly witty poetry.

Ridiculously, the most common complaint about Ovid’s poetry from ancient and modern critics is that he patently didn’t suffer for his art. It all came too easily to him. “Whatever I tried to write was poetry,” he once complained. He practically thought in verse, the speeches he composed at law school were really all just poems, and as a boy he was even said to have promised that he’d never write another poem to his anxious father - in a perfect elegaic couplet. He enjoyed writing: and jealous puritans have suggested that this devalues his work. However, while it’s true that you can never really take Ovid seriously, this doesn’t mean his work is without feeling, and it doesn’t make his great skill any the less impressive. It’s always an easy pleasure to read Ovid, his irrepressible sense of fun bubbling over into everything he wrote. What’s more, his poetic gift was incredible, his felicity with language unrivalled until Shakespeare. Words were toys to him, delicate shining baubles hung to perfect effect on the verdant branches of his poetry.

Augustus was accustomed to taking such talents under his ‘protection’ and coercing them to write in praise of his reign. Vergil’s patriotic epic The Aeneid is the result of this pressure, as are Horace’s dreadful military odes (he came up with the old lie “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” to please Augustus). However, not only would Ovid not work to serve the state, he wouldn’t even serve the state with his poetry. Instead he dedicated most of his life to singing the praises of the idle life.

Although Ovid found writing poetry so incredibly easy, he didn’t actually write that much of it. In fact, until the age of 40, he averaged just 500 lines a year – just under two lines a day, or about 10 words. He could happily finish a day’s work while dozing in bed before breakfast, and still be confident that he’d done enough to earn himself immortality. He was able to dedicate the rest of his time to research: relaxing in his orchards in the countryside, going to fashionable dinner parties and the chariot races, drinking the finest wines known to humanity, visiting the theatre, staying out until the early morning (when “the cockcrow shatters poor workers dreams”) and arranging dangerous liaisons.

He jokingly called himself the ‘praeceptor amoris’ – best translated as “Dr Love”. In The Amores he wrote declarations of love and lust for women all over town, celebrating their many trysts and bemoaning the fact that his conquests usually had to go back to their husbands afterwards. The Art Of Love meanwhile is guide to how best to go about seducing (invariably married) members of the opposite sex.

Ovid gives himself the persona of a brilliant, witty seducer: virile, passionate, tender occasionally sad, but most often amused. And he finds no one funnier or more ridiculous than himself. He may brag about his ability to seduce anyone, and display the “finest cockmanship” , and he may boast that he’s been able to bring his mistresses to orgasm with a game of footsie, but more often than not we see him completely unable to take his own advice or live up to his self-image. One of his funniest poems is about an attack of impotence that destroyed all his careful arrangements for an adulterous arrangement. His would-be-mistress eventually abandoned him in a huff, splashing water on the bed so the maids didn’t get the impression that nothing happened. Similarly he undermines his own passionate avowal of fidelity to his most frequent muse, Corinna. She thinks he’s been having an affair with her maid, but Ovid fervently declares his innocence asking “What kind of gentleman would fancy making love to a servant?”- especially if he knows how faithful she is, and how likely to give him away. The next poem is addressed to the slave-girl in question, berating her for blowing the gaff and cheekily asking her for more sex to make up for it.

But Ovid didn’t just direct his wit at himself. Augustus was obsessed with promoting old fashioned virtues in his subjects. Ovid delighted in knocking them down. Augustus encouraged ‘virtutes’ – manliness - and the tough military life, Ovid made fun of it in an elaborate metaphor with a salacious punch line: “Every lover acts like a soldier,” he claimed. “A commander looks to his troops for gallant conduct, a mistress expects no less, a soldier lays siege to cities, a lover to his girl’s doorkeepers… Night attacks are a great thing; catch you opponents sleeping and unarmed… lovers too will take advantage of slumber (her husband’s) and thrust home his advantage when the enemy still sleeps." Augustus encouraged his followers to look back on the example of Rome’s ancestors for a guide to moral conduct, the ‘mos maiorum’, exemplified by the early Roman tribe the Sabines whose women faced death rather than betray their husbands. “In the old days things were different,” agrees Ovid. “Those Sabine women stuck to one husband apiece. But then,” he tells us, “they didn’t wash.”

In fact, Ovid’s whole project was an affront to Augustus’ draconian laws against adultery. These laws were more honoured in the breach than the observance – not least by the hypocritical Augustus himself, a well known philanderer who had himself written poems on the subject so disgusting that even the famously dirty Lord Byron claimed they made him feel nauseous. All the same, Ovid’s decision to republish his poems on the joys of adultery, the Amores, and to issue The Art Of Love, his guide to successfully committing adultery in the same year – 2BC, the year that Augustus banished his own daughter for her indiscretions – was provocative, to say the least.

Lots of critics have seen his subsequent work as an attempt to back-peddle and write some more serious poetry in a desperate attempt to make it up to the “injured emperor”, as Ovid later termed him. He even states in his introductory lines to The Metamorphoses, that he’s deliberately chosen to write in the epic hexameter, and is going to write on one serious theme for the glory of Rome. The work he actually produced, however, was more like a Popbitch of the divine world, a light-hearted account of the misdeeds of the gods, that often had hundreds of themes in the space of as many lines. It’s a work of genius, effortlessly intertwining a wealth of mythology and folklore, ingeniously inter-linking the endless variety of stories using the idea of metamorphosis. Characters are turned into birds, fish, insects, plants, flowers, rocks, trees, rivers, fountains, men are turned into women and vica versa, and they all lead seamlessly on from each other. It’s our main source for classical mythology and has been plundered for stories for centuries. No lesser writers than Chaucer and Shakespeare make free and easy use of it, and in their famous renditions of the story of Pyramus And Thisbe they borrow more than a little of Ovid’s irreverent tone.

Predictably, this impressive enterprise did not please Augustus at all, not least because Ovid mercilessly ribbed him once again. Ovid’s comparisons of the newly deified Augustus to the king of the Roman gods, Jupiter, (who like Augustus holds his councils on a “divine Palatine Hill”) should have been warmly received, were it not for the fact that Ovid’s Jupiter is a priapic fool, lustily chasing women (and cows) all over heaven and earth, fearfully avoiding his outraged wife Juno, and siring bastard children and man-bull combinations wherever he goes.

Ovid never got to see his masterpiece published in Rome. In AD 8, he was banished. The reason for the exact timing of this has been lost in the mists of time. It may have something to do with the fact that his long-standing friend and protector Messalla died in that year. And perhaps it’s just too much of a coincidence that “Dr Love” was banished in the same year that Augustus once again exiled a member of his own family (his granddaughter, also called Julia) for committing adultery. Ovid himself only ever said that it was due to "carmen et error" - his poetry and some unspecified mistake.

The outraged emperor chose the most exquisite torture for this dedicated urbane idler. He sent him to a crap town. Ovid was made to go to Tomis, a remote Roman outpost by the Black Sea, where nobody spoke the same language as the talented poet and he was even made to put on a helmet and fight against the barbarians who constantly threatened its borders.

All the same, and despite the two books of poetry he wrote begging to be taken back to Rome Ovid seems to have relaxed into it his situation, teaching himself to do a bit of fishing, and even composing in the odd poem in the native Getic. And, although, in my vainer moments I like to flatter myself that I came up with the idea for Crap Towns, I’m forced to admit that Ovid for one beat me to it by a good 2,000 years.

“I have to live among barbarians” he said, in one of many harrowing descriptions of his new home. “The snow lies continually on the ground, neither sun, nor rain melts it…sometimes it stays for two years. The natives keep out the evils of the cold with skin and pelts, of the whole body, they only dare expose their face…Exposed wine stands upright, retaining the shape of the jar and everyone drinks, not draughts of wine, but fragments! …I’ve seen fish fast-bound in the frozen sea…the barbarian enemy…[uses the frozen rivers as an opportunity to attack], and with his far flying arrows, deprives the locality of its populace… Even when there is there is peace, everyone’s terrified of another war and nobody bothers to do any plowing… the soil here is lifeless, abandoned in stark neglect. There are no grapes, no fruits. There isn’t even any paper. All you can see are naked, empty plains; leafless, treeless. This is a place – damn it – that no fortunate man should visit.”

Tomis incidentally, is in modern Romania. It’s now called Costanza, and by all accounts it’s still pretty awful. Although Ovid wasn’t best pleased to have been sent to such a miserable place, he must have been secure in the knowledge that, as ever, he was going to have the last laugh. His jokes are still funny after more than 2,000 years. His brilliant poetry has won him immortality while drawing an everlastingly ridiculous portrait of his nemesis Augustus. And, most importantly, he’s an example and inspiration to idlers everywhere.

Wit and wisdom of Publius Ovidius Naso

da requiem; requietus ager bene credita reddit - Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - I see the better way and approve it, but I follow the worse way.

in medio tutissimus ibis – Moderation in all things

bene qui latuit, bene vixit - One who lives well, lives unnoticed.

cui peccare licet peccat minus – The person who is allowed to sin, sins less

exitus acta probat - The end justifies the means

gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo - The drop excavates the stone, not with force but by falling often.

omnia iam fient quae posse negabam - Everything which I used to say could not happen will happen now.

nil homini certum est - Nothing is certain for man.

parva leves capiunt animos – Small things please small minds.

Paucite paucarum diffundere crimen in omnes - Do not blame the masses for the crimes of the few.

fas est et ab hoste doceri - It's right to learn - even from an enemy.

saepe creat molles aspera spina rosas - Often the prickly thorn produces tender roses.

leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus - The burden carried in good spirit is made light.

rident stolidi verba Latina - Fools laugh at the Latin language.

Cheese

2005-09-18T14:51:00.000+01:00

Published in the Idler 2003

Practical Idler

Cheese Review

Grandma Singleton’s Extra Tasty

The soft gold colour, and yielding crumbly texture belie the hidden strengths of this singularly assertive cheese. Unless you intend to blight your afternoon with meetings, this pungent date-killer is strongly recommended as a fortifying lunch time snack.

Nose

The cheese gives off the kind of honk that the cartoonists from the Beano indicate with wavy green lines, fainting dentists and gasping kids with pegs on their noses. However, in the same way that a damp Labrador’s head or your oldest trainers are strangely pleasurable to sniff, so the ripe blasts from a slab of Grandma Singleton’s quickly become delightful, evoking feelings of warmth, comfort and potent vitality.

Flavour

Initially delicate and mellow, like a good farmhouse cheddar, becoming increasingly fruity and intense. Just when you’re beginning to feel that the cheese has bitten you rather than the other way around, a warm whisky-like glow spreads round your gullet, and life seems suddenly kinder.

Drink

Strong brown tea, red wine.

Best eaten with

Thick brown bread, tomatoes.

Best tried in

Lancashire, South Cumbria.

Sam Jordison

Moon's bookshop

2005-09-18T14:50:00.000+01:00

Published in the Idler. 2003

Michael Moon’s Antiquarian Booksellers & Publishers

19 Lowther Street, Whitehaven, Cumbria

Few visitors to Cumbria and the Lake District ever make it as far as the isolated west coast town of Whitehaven. In fact, few residents of Cumbria go there, in spite of the fact that it’s one of the biggest towns in the county. This is a shame. Whitehaven is full of character, and, within its unique grid-pattern 17th century streets (designed by Christopher Wren and said - by locals at least - to be the inspiration for New York), it contains one of the best bookshops in the country, Michael Moon’s gloriously eccentric ‘Literary Emporium’.

It isn’t just the fact that there are loads of books that makes Moon’s so appealing. It’s the atmosphere that really sets it apart. An ambience of appealing shabbiness, comfortable yet intellectually charged, immediately grabs you. The room you first enter, leading in from the attractive but unremarkable shop front, is average sized and rectangular. The only physically unusual feature of the room is a large desk at the far end to the door, laden with books and scattered papers, but it quickly becomes clear that Moon’s is a browser’s paradise. It’s in the air.

Further exploration reveals that the shop is huge. At the back of the first room, there’s a flight of stairs leading past a wall of splendid first editions (in an only slightly dusty glass cabinet) up to a large room, crammed with shelves. Doors lead off in two directions from this room, both directions leading up and down rickety stairs and round corners to a bewildering number of other rooms, all full to bursting. It’s comes as no surprise to learn that there’s almost a mile of shelves, and that nobody has any idea how many books there are on them.

Close inspection reveals that many of the books are fascinating. All thoughts of quickly finding a specific volume have to be banished, however, because, aside from a few divisions into fiction, biography, history etc, there is no filing system, alphabetical or otherwise. The owner Michael Moon is proud to say that he hasn’t fallen victim to “the tidying disease.” The only way to approach the healthy chaos in his shop is with an involved, prolonged browse. You’ll probably never find the book you originally intended to buy, but you’re guaranteed to walk out with at least three more you probably didn’t even know existed.

---

Michael Moon’s personality asserts itself in more than just the determined lack of order. The esoteric collection of books clearly follow his interests and areas of expertise and the intriguing labyrinthine building might just as well be an extension of his own cavernous mind. When I visited the shop with my fellow Idler Dan Kieran he charmed us with stories of Whitehaven’s often hilarious, often tragic swashbuckling industrial history, as well as with his own career in publishing and bookselling. He seemed to take as much delight in his failures (like running a huge print run for a book that sold less than 10 copies), as his triumphs (maintaining one of the finest bookshops in the country for more than 30 years).

We ended up talking to him for almost two hours, meaning that had to Mr Moon keep the shop open a good hour after closing time. And he didn’t even realise that we had any kind of professional interest, until Dan found an 18th Century edition of Johnson’s Idler, just before we left and blew the gaff (we were there to research a follow up book to Crap Towns – and no Whitehaven definitely isn’t crap). I’m now more than happy to repay his benevolent eloquence by recommending that all Idler readers visit his shop.

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Records Of The Week

2005-09-18T14:43:00.000+01:00

I used to write Record Of The Week recommendations on idler.co.uk... my favourite was about Dusty Springfield. Sadly this entry, and most of the others have been lost. Here are the survivors:

Collis Browne’s Jamboree by The Chap Collective

Like us humans, insects can demonstrate what seems to be complicated, intelligent activity. A bee for instance, if it comes across a dead lava in the hive, will break open the wax of the hexagon that contains the lava and throw it out. Two separate activities beneficial to the whole community that one bee will carry out on its own, after assimilating a specific signal. Clever bee.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the bee is thinking for itself, or that it has any kind of free will, or indeed that it can learn. Genetic researchers have successfully bred the necessary DNA codes out of bees and stopped them from doing anything about dead lavae, even after they’ve witnessed their fellow bees deal with them.

Thinking about this too much is not good for the head. It has frightening implications. Is the only reason that they haven’t proved the same kind-of thing for humans that it would be illegal to do the experiments? Could we be the same? Does this mean that we’re just obeying our own double-helixes, rather than our soul? Is our complex society just a hive? Are you just reading this piece on the prompting of a series of neuron firings you will never understand? Are those neurons themselves just following some undiscoverable route to ensure the perpetuation of your genes? Christ.

No. It’s ok. There is proof that we really do live in a civilisation of the mind, that individuals are masters of their own destiny and that it will always be better to be a human than to be a bee. For only the most sophisticated intelligence, only the most willful indulgence could have come up with the exquisitely useless art form, dandy-ism.

And only the delightfully dressed members of The Chap Collective could have translated the sartorial so successfully into song. If brogues could sing, this is what they’d sound like. Decadent, witty and determinedly smart. Excellent for kicking the behinds of pompous oafs.

It’s Record Of The Week. You can buy it by clicking here: http://www.comala.net/chapcollective/

Sam Jordison

Michael Franks – Art of tea

This is one of those records that always seems to pop up at jumble sails or
in those dusty cardboard boxes jammed under the main record shelves in smoke-filled side-street jazz shops. I got my copy for 50p. I could have used the
money for a bag of chips, but I decided that anything with such a kind looking man on the cover, and which has a reference to the tea sacrament in its title, has to have something going for it.

There isn’t actually any mention of tea in any of the songs, but there’s definitely something about its gentle jazz sound and Franks’ playful soft-voiced vocals that makes it the perfect accompaniment to a mellow, smoky pot of Lapsang Souchong. Everything about it suggests comfort, warmth and easy afternoons.

A friend of mine tells me that this is his Mum’s favourite record and has been for more than 20 years. Now she only listens to it on her birthday, so it stays fresh and she’s in the right mood to hear it every time. She understands The Art Of Tea completely: it’s an indulgent treat.

Van Morrison – Saint Dominic’s Preview

by Sam Jordison

Van Morrison recorded Astral Weeks, perhaps the best love and loss album of all time. Now he’s into weird skiffle music and swears a lot. “ah feck it” Cool.

This album’s great as well. Two of the tracks are particularly astounding, and since this was the early 70s, delectably long. In the first, ‘Listen To The Lion’, the mad haired troubadour instructs us to listen out for the lion in our souls. He even tells us how it will sound: “Rrrrr. Rrrrrr. Rrrr”. If it was anyone else, it would be laughable, but Van Morrison was touched by genius, and it’s beautiful.

The second, ‘Almost Independence Day’ sounds disconcertingly like Pink Floyd’s finest seven minutes ‘Wish You Were Here’ . Only it’s better… and it was recorded first. Any attempt to describe it is doomed to collapse into a heap of pathetically keening adjectives. It’s too good for words.

Failed revolutionaries

2005-09-18T14:41:00.000+01:00

Space fillers from an Idler magazine about revolution

1

The Paris Commune
1871

In the spring of 1871, Paris came under the control of a revolutionary commune. This unusually democratic, working class and left leaning body was formed thanks to the chaos after France’s crushing military defeat in 1870 when the national government abandoned the city. Karl Marx for a while believed that it could signal the start of the international workers’ revolution.

The most striking aspect of the communards was their relaxed nature once the usual authority figures had disappeared. The city became the stage for what was described as “a festival of the oppressed”. Observers stated that it had all the signs of simply being on holiday. This lasted for almost two months until government forces broke through the barricades once more. Even on the day they got into the city, there were large crowds in the Tuileries gardens listening to one of a series of concerts given in aid of the wounded widows and orphans.

Many Parisians chose to die rather than lose their new society. Horrifyingly, by the time the government had re-established control, its troops had massacred between 20 and 30,000 communards, including huge numbers of women and children.

--

2

Machine wreckers

1780 - 1816

The originators of the word ‘Luddite’ are so poorly regarded that the word has become an insult. It’s an ineffectually mocking term, implying a hopelessly reactionary nature and a quixotic opposition to the tide of technological progress. The group of Nottinghamshire knitters that claimed to be led by ‘King’ Ned Ludd and went around destroying knitting machines in 1811 – and all the other machine wreckers of the early industrial revolution that are usually lumped together with them – are by implication history’s losers.

Yet, the Luddites weren’t indiscriminately fighting technology, they were
were fighting social injustice. They were trying to protect their way of life and individuality rather than being forced to work on a production line under factory rules. It was the machine in the hands of the capitalist, not the machine itself they were after, There are well known cases of machine wreckers (like the Lancashire wreckers of 1788-80) only attacking large spinning jennies suitable for factories, preserving the small ones that could help them. Attacking mill owners’ property was also one of the only bargaining tools available in early industrial disputes. Organised gangs like the Luddites often brought about improved conditions and can even be seen as progenitors of the Trade’s Union movement. It was this success that doomed them. A government bill of 1816 declared machine wrecking a capital offence. It was vigorously enforced.

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Picture of the leader of the Luddites here;

http://www.wcml.org.uk/luddite.html

Interestingly, no-one knows what happened to King Ludd – or if he ever existed at all.

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3

Giordano Bruno

1600

Giordano Bruno wanted to start a revolution in the head. He was a scholar and a vociferous and recklessly brave opponent of the repressive practices of both the Protestant and Catholic church. If his ideas had been accepted, they would have turned the beliefs of the Renaissance world upside down.

Most of Bruno's theories now seem weird; a bizarre combination of magic and science. Some still have resonance, however. As well as writing too incredibly arcane tracts of magical theory, he suggested that the earth revolves around the sun, that the stars in the sky were actually suns like our own and that the universe might be infinite. He also claimed that the Bible was not a strictly historical account.

These ideas were deeply unpopular with most of his contemporaries. He was expelled from his position as a Franciscan monk, and condemned to a life as a landless wanderer. When the Catholic Inquisition caught up with him, they were predictably nasty, but Bruno refused to recant his beliefs even after torture. He was burnt at the stake in 1600.

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4

1000BC – 100 BC

Helots in Sparta

The ‘helot’ slave class in Ancient Sparta attempted to gain more of an equal footing with their masters in a series of bloody uprisings. Their reward was the formation of the famously tough Spartan military system, and centuries of tradition designed to oppress them. One of the choicest rituals was sending groups of teenage boys out to hunt and kill
randomly selected slaves.

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5

Winstanley

1649

During the tumult and upheaval of the English civil war, the magnificent libertarian Gerrard Winstanley lived in Walton-on-Thames. He herded cows and wrote religious pamphlets until he had a vision in a trance instructing him that “the earth should be made a common treasury of livelihood, without respect of persons.” Gathering a band of followers, he began to dig up the common land on St George’s Hill near Kingston-upon-Thames and invited all England to join him. It was the world’s first socialist commune.

His manifesto ‘The True Levellers’ Standard Advanced’ is one of the finest pieces of socialist polemic written, rightly revered by hoary old campaigners like Tony Benn. It was one of the first works to advocate the rights of man and can be seen as a direct influence on Thomas Paine and the American Declaration of Independence. His egalitarian, communist society was, of course, a model for the USSR. Most importantly many of his ideas and thoughts are still moving today. Who could dislike a man who “would have none live in beggary, poverty or sorrow,” and allow everyone to “enjoy the benefit of his creation” ?

All the same, he was little better than a laughing stock in his own lifetime. He was brought before the fearsome roundhead General Fairfax who had been alerted to the ‘Diggers’ activity by the complaints of the horrified Kingston gentry who dismissed the Diggers as harmlessly mad. Within a year they had been forced off their hill and dispersed by the local gentry. Winstanley faded into obscurity. No one has any idea how, or even when, Winstanley died.

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6
Catiline

63BC

Not all revolutionaries are left wing libertarians. Catiline, wanted to replace the Roman Republic with a dictatorship. According to his main (victorious) opponent, the orator Cicero Catiline was a feckless sybarite, given over to indolence and voluptuous indulgence. His main recruitment method appears to have been holding massive grape-fuelled orgies and rubbing the young men of Rome up to such a pitch of excitement that they would die in his name. Having failed to take over the state by guile, with a few well timed, (but hopelessly unsubtle) assassinations he tried to take it by force. The army he raised was crushed in its first battle and killed almost to a man.

7

James Naylor

James Naylor was an early Quaker and political radical. He fought on the Parliamentary side in the civil war for 8 years but felt they failed to “set free the oppressed people”. He was a convincing and popular speaker who gathered a large body of support in a remarkably short time. In 1656, he entered Bristol on a donkey with women strewing palms in front of him. This was probably meant to be symbolic (though plenty of people at the time did have Messiah complexes – like Arise Evans who told the Deputy Recorder of London that he was the Lord his God), as Nayler believed it was possible for any man to achieve what he saw as Christ’s perfection. It was, however, just the opportunity Parliament needed to nail him. M.P.’s devoted six weeks to denouncing him and had him branded and brutally whipped. He died three years later, a broken and considerably quieter man.

Some digests

2005-09-18T14:13:00.000+01:00

Pilchard Teeth was a strange magazine designed to advertise playstations.

I wrote some digest sections in the back directing readers to products relating to the general theme of each issue in 2001/ 2002 (i think)

Not sure if these make sense without the pictures, but I guess if you've scrolled this far down the page, you're interested enough to want to read them.

Film props

GOAT

Beh-beh-beh. What’s going on behind those beady eyes? Beh-beh-beh. Why does it need those horns? Beh-beh-beh. It looks like Satan! Beh-beh-beh. Beh. Beh. Beh.
If well looked after, the goat will also prove to be a good source of milk and cheese products for you and your cast..

www.Goats.co.uk

£200

As seen in: ‘Race With The Devil’

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CHURCH BROAD

“Sing hymns make love get high fall dead
He'll bring his perfume to your bed
He'll charm your life 'til the cold winds blow
Then he'll sell your dreams to a picture show
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cadillacs, blue jeans, dixieland playing on the ferry
Cadillacs, blues jeans, drop a glass full of antique sherry”

King Crimson

www.catholicstore.com

£30

As seen in: The Exorcist

Pictures
http://www.catholicstore.com/search/index.cfm/FuseAction/ItemDisplay/SKU/2930/Category/365/CFID/44716/CFToken/83881957

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HICK*
£15

Donning these dungaree overalls instantly lowers the wearer’s genetic viability, and greatly increases his chances of being turned into a zombie in the third act.
“We ‘bain’t seen your type round ‘ere before. Arr. You’ll be seein’ more of us no doubt. Ooh -arr. That your wife?” Etc.

Dungaree overalls

Dungarees

As seen in
Straw Dogs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

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Carnal desires

£25
Save cutting yourself and your actors up. A box of organic meat, a little imagination and some camera trickery should answer all fleshly cravings. Contents include one whole leg, 1kg of lean mince, one loin joint, one best end joint, 1kg lean diced casserole, half a shoulder and some sausages.

As seen in ‘Blood Feast’

Organic meat boxes

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SOMETHING NASTY

£100

“I saw something nasty in the wood shed!”

As seen in: “Cold Comfort Farm’

Sheds

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FORK IT!

£10

The Devil’s weapon of choice. Looks particularly good silhouetted against a setting sun in the hands of a Hick.* “I jus’ cem buy to fix your roof. I didn’t disturb you did I? Where’s your wife tonight then?” Etc

As seen in: Brain Dead

http://www.tool-up.co.uk/exec/toolup/FAIBFE.html?id=UAQDNHdk

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CHILD'S PLAY

£10

What’s happened to Dolly’s head? Who’s taken her body away? Darling, darling where are the children?

www.cuddlytoys.com

As seen in: Chuckie

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CHALK

£2.50
An increasing rarity in the age of computers and white boards, chalk is still unbeatable when it comes to drawing pentagrams and weirdly significant symbols. It can also be used when crushed to replicate the advertising profession’s narcotic of choice, and to add that much needed ghostly gothic pallor to the faces of your cast.

As seen in:

Sleepy Hollow, Scarface

www.eurooffice.org

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MOVIE MAGIC
£45

ww.abebooks.co.uk

The Lacnunga (or Leech Knowing) is an Anglo-Saxon spell book containing all manner of advice on how to deal with elves, get rid of wen (by making them smaller than a worm’s hip- bone) and what to do when faced with a dwarf. It will look superb in the hands of an old bearded fellow, and if you can get him to read from its pages in a tremulant voice it should add some much needed gravitas to the proceedings.

As seen in:

The Lord Of The Rings
The Magician Of Gore

Picture here
http://www.an-saxim.com/catalogue2.htm#8a

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FUR RABBIT MASK

£10

It’s only when you realise why it’s smiling that this rabbit becomes truly terrifying.

www.staggerin.org

As seen in:

It, Donnie Darko

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Musical Instruments

THE BLADDERPIPE

A common site in medieval times, along with tapestries, peasants and festering wounds, the Bladderpipe is a reed instrument connected to a large pig’s bladder. This bladder provides a reservoir of air used to produce sufficient pressure to work the reed. Care must be taken when storing.

Price:
£180

As featured in:

Pasolini films
Concerts by The Antiquatian Funks (http://members.cruzio.com/~mathews/the.funks.unveiled.html)

Sounds Iike:
A helium fuelled Scandinavian orgy

www.ancestral.co.uk/bladderpipe.html

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VOCODER

The Vocoder has been around since the 1939 when it was developed for the encryption of speech for the military. More recently its been used to make guitars talk and make singers sound like robots.

Price: £400

As featured in:
Kraftwerk records.
Daft Punk records
Sparky The Magic Piano

Sounds Iike:
Stephen Hawking

http://www.intermusic.com/
[Pics at http://www.jarrelook.fsnet.co.uk/KitJups.html]

---

POCKET THEREMIN

The theremin was invented in 1921 by soviet Scientist extraordinaire, Lev Sergeivitch Terman. As you wave your hand around the antenna, it produces sounds of varying pitch. This is singularly satisfying – it’s as if you magically cast the sound – and it produces music of unsurpassed strangeness. The only drawback with this lovely piece of equipment used to be that it was as big as a desk. Now it comes in this handy potable size. Great.

As featured in:

1950s sci-fi.
Good Vibrations - the Beach Boys
Whole Lotta Love – Led Zeppelin
The theremin was also very popular with Lenin himself – who used to play one of his favourite tunes, The Skylark, on it.

Sounds Iike:

The future.

Price: £99

www.fullerton.demon.co.uk/

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ANVIL

Usually the preserve of large sweating men in leather britches, the blacksmith’s anvil has a lesser known, but long running career as a musical instrument. It couldn’t be easier to play – the whole of the technique is to bang it as hard as you can with a large hammer – but it is slightly cumbersome, weighing about 300lb. However, once you’ve exhausted the anvil’s limited musical capability it makes a superb stand for your TV.

Price:

As featured in:
Wagner’s ring cycle.
Verdi’s anvil chorus.
Norse god Thor banged one of these when he wanted to make thunder.

Sounds Iike:
A giant slab of heavy metal

http://www.centaurforge.com/

---

SAMOAN FERTILITY HORN

When blown, this produces a deep resonant moan and induces a feeling of euphoria, well-being and gratitude. Skilled players will find it helps their careers immensely.

As featured in:

Deep Throat

Sounds Iike:
Barry White

Price: £10

http://www.springersmusic.co.uk/sales_other.htm

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JEWS HARP

Known in unpleasantly PC circles as a ‘Jaws Harp’, this instrument is held against the teeth and plucked with the fingers to produce a sound. It’s a mouth guitar. It rocks (quietly).

As featured in:
Scottish and Jewish traditional music

Sounds Iike:

A bee

Price:

£15

http://www.jewsharpguild.org/jhgstore.html

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BONES

Bones can lay claim to being the oldest instruments of all. The modern versions are usually actually made of Rosewood or Ebony, but the principle hasn’t changed for millennia.

As featured in:

Tom Waits – The Pale Rider
2001: A Space Odyssey

Sounds Iike:

A bad day on the piste

Price: £5.95

www.hobgoblin.com/local/

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THE KAZOO

More fun to play than to listen to, the kazoo is the simple inbred cousin of the harmonica. While they may not be easy on the ears, kazoos are as cheap as chips and there is something deeply satisfying about emptying your lungs into it and letting off a tremendously loud parp.

Price: £1

As featured in:
Embarrassing childhood memories.
The Blues.
Grateful Dead records. (NB What does a Grateful Dead fan say when he runs out of drugs? This music’s shit.)

Sounds Iike:
A cow giving birth

www.the-music-room.com

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CHAUCER GREATPIPE

A large version of the bagpipes, using almost a whole cow to provide its airbag. The Chaucer Greatpipe more than lives up to its name, producing a huge stonking noise. Watch out for it at Slipknot concerts in the near future.

As featured in:

The Canterbury Tales
“A bagpipe wel he koude blowe and sowne,
And funkilie he brought us out of towne” (I 565)

Sounds like:
A cross between a clarinet and bagpipes, amplified.

Price: £800

http://www.ancestral.co.uk/gpipes.htm

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THE MOTHER SHIP

Let the mothership land in your pants

£Free – to those that can afford it

As featured in:
The collected works of Funkadelic

Sounds Iike:
You’ve been taking too much acid

http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/pfunk.html

---

TOYS

Remote controlled rat

Pest control??

www.iwantoneofthose.com

Recent research has shown that there are now more rats than humans living in Britain. If you live in London, you’re never more than five metres from one. They were the cause of bubonic plague. They were the original and the worst fear in George Orwell’s Room 101. Their teeth can chew coiled steel.

Why anyone would want anything to do with the little bastards is completely beyond me. All the same, for less than £20, you can own this horrific model and, with the aid of a remote control, send it scurrying across your floor and spinning round in strange circles.

Alternatively, move to Hackney, where you will quickly find yourself in possession of several genuine rats at no cost at all, and have the added pleasure of seeing them pissing in your cupboards and attacking your pets.

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Pregnant Doll

Foetal Attraction??

http://www.takaratoys.co.jp/

Once it was impressive enough to have a doll that cried. Then they brought in dolls that shat, which were, by any reckoning, pretty damn cool. But they’re nothing next to a doll that’s been knocked up.

There’s a little key that you can use to inflate and deflate her stomach, and there’s an accompanying baby, wrapped in swaddling. It’s really weird. And it’s not just any doll either, it’s Licca Chan, the Japanese Barbie, a huge seller for the last 35 years and the star of countless manga and anime comics. Ken now seems like far less of a sissy, but the other implications are disturbing.

Asian news source, AWSE news, reports that young fans of the doll are reported to have been “really surprised” by her new proportions. All the same, tens of thousands have already sold.

Is crack-whore Barbie next?

(Image on http://news.awse.com/19-Nov-2001/Entertainment/5116.htm)

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Death Row Marv

Bluesnake.com

When you flip the switch, on the elegant Death Row Marv, the little man vibrates in his seat and shouts "Is that the best you can do, you pansies"? Parents, teachers, politicians and Amnesty International have called for the toy to be banned. Unsurprisingly, it’s now an extremely sought after item, especially since manufacturers McFarlane toys have done the decent thing and decided to stop manufacturing it. There are still a few thousand out there though, just waiting to be smoked out.

(Images -
http://bluesnake.com/shop/default.htm - look up marv)

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Bearded prophet

This post-modern, faux ancient toy cocoons all its users in a warm glowing layer of knowing irony. Designed by James Jarvis (World Of Pain), the beautifully crafted Bearded Prophet comes with 12 sign stickers and is available with green, purple or orange hair. It’s suitable for ages 21 and over, and according to the packet, it "moves in mysterious ways".

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The Stone

http://www.thestone.com/

The stones, shaped (significantly) like pyramids are supposed to be displayed or worn around the neck on a piece of string. Each one has six symbols inscribed on the side. The pattern of these symbols is replicated on only one other stone in the world. Using clues spread around the internet, your task is to track down the owner of the stone like yours. They become your ‘stone-mate’. The rest is up to you.

(Image at: http://www.sciencemuseumstore.com/cgi-bin/scm/search.html)

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Putt Putt steamboat

www.puttputtboats.com

These lovely little boats will turn any bath into an orbit of nautical delight. Using no more fuel than the stub of a small candle or a few drops of olive oil, they will chug around at surprising speeds for hours. And all to the accompaniment of a deeply satisfying "putt-putt" sound.

Alterntively known as ‘Pot-Pot’, ‘Pom-Pom’, ‘Put-Put’, ‘Phut-Phut’ , ‘Toc-Toc’ or ‘Steamboat Billy’, the boats were invented in 1891 by an Englishman called Thomas Piot. They were hugely popular until the 1920s, but since then they’ve been largely forgotten, surviving only in a few musty physics labs where they’re dragged out once a year to demonstrate the expansive power of steam and something called a Helmholtz Resonator.

Finally though, thanks to the internet and a few enthusiasts dotted around the world, they’re making a well-deserved comeback. They’re fun again.

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Night Vision Monocular

Now you’re stalking

http://www.sciencemuseumstore.com

They think that you can’t see them. They think that you’ll never know. They think that the darkness hides them. The fools.

(image at: http://www.sciencemuseumstore.com/cgi-bin/scm/95648.html)

Jesus Action Figure

“I don't care if it rains of freezes
'Long as I got my Plastic Jesus
Riding on the dashboard of my car.
Through my trials and tribulations
And my travels through the nations
With my Plastic Jesus I'll go far.

“When I'm in a traffic jam
He don't care if I say "damn"
I can let all my curses roll
Plastic Jesus doesn't hear
'Cause he has a plastic ear
The man who invented plastic saved my soul.”

Ernie Marrs

www.mcphee.com

Test

2005-09-16T09:06:00.000+01:00

This is just a test.

My full blog can be found here.