Doug Stanhope - Just add hecklers!

Don’t be fooled by his appearance, he is a really nice guy!

The world is going down the pan! There is a war between the Christians and the Muslims; the global economy is in tatter; immigrants are swarming our borders, say good bye to freedom of speech because the Mayan calendar is nearing the end days! Of course, no one is more aware of the above or vocal about all this doom, gloom and stupidity of mankind than Doug Stanhope.

My first contact with him was from a segment he does in Charlie Brooker’s show. Essentially he spent his slot ranting on about the public, the media and society in general. A harsh reality check like this is exactly what we needed at a time such as now: when Z-listers is plastered all over the front of pointless glossy magazines, gormless morons squirting out offsprings like there is no tomorrow while the news headlines are ruled by dumbasses who can’t tell the difference between a Mosques and community centre (same difference between a church and a YMCA)!!! Yes, my time with Doug at London’s Leicester Square Theatre will be memorable. I demand of it!!!

The show kicked off slow... Although the Swedish cover did a good job warming us up to what’s about to follow with his abortion jokes, Doug struggled to gain momentum with his "Bill Hicks was in Alcohol Anonymous -> AA was a religious cult" routine. Something was really missing. Did he need more alcohol? Was Doug feeling OK? Then the answer came in the form of a plead from the audience: "Buy us some booze!" heckled someone from the crowd. 

Whether or not the request was genuine is unknown - the crowd seems to be a mixture of flagrants, students, yuppies and get stopped in the street by the homeless for change or booze is a common occurrence in the street of London - nor did it matter. What mattered was that this mindless heckle had awaken something inside of Doug that made him famous and loved on both sides of the pond.

You can see that pause... The way he stared back at the audience with this look of contempt. The way his gaze scanned the crowd, baying for blood. He raised the microphone to the lips only to stop short, hesitate and reject the first thing that came to his mind. Holy god! Given we had just been laughing at abortion jokes, what could be more offensive than that?

Then it started! In what I would consider to be the perfect rendition of the Scouse / Northerner accent that epitomises the dredges of British society, Doug mocked the heckler: "Buy us a pint, mate! I am skint!". The crowd erupted into a hysteria and we were treated to a night of comedy gold! 

A rant about recession, a self-depreciating torrent of anecdotal sex/masturbation stories, followed by more complaints about the general public. Being a Star Wars fan, my favourite was his comparison between American football player and Stormtroopers. The night of profanity ended with Doug Stanhope’s graphic and painful description of a torture device he had devised for idiots who takes too long while queuing in front of him. Without going into too much details, I can reveal that the device involves a spinning dildo. Its simplicity was genius and Doug’s eager description had the audience cringing with laughter.

After my experience, I have arrived at a radical theory: Maybe under all this exterior, Doug Stanhope is actually a nice guy after all. Although his muse stems from the crazed, tired, bitterness he carried towards the world, he would rarely pick on the individuals from the audience like other comics would resort to doing. Doug would always wait for the hecklers to throw the first punch, before laying down some tasty retorts, something which he is so good at doing. It is this same back-and-fro that drove the night to its amazing climax, as the audiences are welcomed into the twisted world of Stanhope. 

My advice to whoever wants to check out Doug Stanhope: Bring a heckler (or two) with you because it makes all the difference!

For those of you who have yet to experience the pleasure and genius of his work, here’s my favourite, Stanhope’s take on immigration:

Morrissey need some prospective. And a history lesson!

After what he said, I now think he deserved it.

I was pretty shocked with Morrissey’s comment on the "the Chinese are a subspecies". My brain literally froze for a second and all I could managed was a fit of laughter. Of course, I wasn’t laughing with him! For you see, there have been so many times when I have laughed inappropriately at "foot in the mouth" situations. I mean come on, we all love stupidity! It is where the most basic form of humour is derived! And for public figures to say something so downright stupid, irresponsible and bigoted. Prince Philip, I think you have a successor!

Accusations of racism is nothing new with Morrissey. He had been quoted saying "I don't hate Pakistanis, but I dislike them immensely". Right... But this time, there is a reason behind his comment and the Chinese are renown to be terrible to animals! So saying that isn’t exactly racist is it? Well, it still kind of does...

In a truly tolerant society, each individual should be judged in accordance to their own merits and flaws. To brand an entire nationality as subordinates because of their treatment to animals is very extreme!

Given the above logic, that would make Morrissey the same as those Kennel Club dog breeders, who encourages the perpetuation of malformed animals for their own sick pleasure, afterall he do share the same nationality as they? And how about that football player and all the other people who do dog-fights or use them as weapons?

In terms of animal welfares, human-rights and other forms of morality, it really really IS NOT hard to draw a direct correlation between them with a nation's state of development. Afterall, it wasn't long ago (hundred year is merely a blink of an eye when compared to the entirety of human history) when Britain implemented the use of slavery and enjoyed blood-sports such as cock-fighting, bull-baiting, hare-coursing, hog-dogging, fox-hunting etc etc. The only thing which makes Britain superior in its treatment of animal was that, since the Industry Revolution, it had the surplus resource to educate its people and established laws and regulatory systems to prevent such acts of cruelty. The sad truth is, it will probably take developing countries a long time to move on from such acts of barbarism, considering how some developed countries is still rift with such acts behind closed doors and people still put animals in microwaves.

Humanity has a lot of cruelty instilled within its nature from when we had to survive in the wild. Having experienced a time when the killing of another species would equates the pleasure of nourishment, it's not hard to understand how such habits of cruelty can be hardwired into our psyche. For those of us who are lucky enough to be born into a world of abundance and moral education, I don't think we have the right to look down on those who are without. Of course, this is no excuse for the Chinese but the inevitable reality is that it will take them decades to arrive at Western level of animal rights!

Anyway, it's always interesting to see racists roll around in the limelight. The bottom-line is, their initial points of reference are still racially defined - people belonging to races different from their own are pigeon-holed by their collective racial identity, therefore they must be held responsible for each other's actions.

FFS, Morrissey! Just because you are an animal lover, it doesn’t give you the right to tar an entire population (the biggest in the world, no less) with the same brush! I guess being a racist does though!

Your racist grandfather fought in the Second World War?!?!

Old people in army, probably not racists

Before my trip to the English Defence League’s demonstration and Unite Against Fascism’s counter demo at Bradford, extensive research into both parties was carried in preparation for the event. I have watched Youtube videos, went through many forums and read countless news articles. This same mentality can be seen quite commonly under different guises.

Although I know EDL members hate to be lumped together with those from the British Nationalists Party, I can not help but catalog members of the two groups together based on this particular phenomenon. Hell, this syndrome is so common that I bet even a lot of KKK members suffer different strains of the same disease.

We are talking about this delusional pride of achievement for something their grandfather had done.

That’s right, we are not talking about someone who is being boastful or self-absorbed by something they had attained through individual hard labour, courage or ingenuity. No, these people would choose to leeched off the past glories of the departed and grave-rob their forefather for whatever persuasiveness they could muster.

"My grandfather fought the Nazi and he would be gutted to see all these immigrants here!"

The above sentiment is widespread across forum threads and article comment sections like a bad outbreak of crabs. And nothing can be more indicative of the lifestyles and natures of its sufferers.

The fact is having had a grandfather who have served the Queen and country during the Second World War is not a rare occurrence. Since Compulsory Conscription was established on the October of 1939, anyone within the eligible age bracket (18-41) would be eventually called up to serve in one of the armed force branches. A grandfather would really have to had gone out of his way in order to avoid being drafted.

Now, even if the grandfather in question had proven himself with deeds of valour and heroism on the battlefield, effectively differentiating himself from the common conscript, it does not mean he had the right, the knowledge nor the aptitude to pass judgement on government decisions - namely whether or not this country needs foreign migrant workers!

Another sentiment that had cropped during the actual interview from Bradford Demo itself was "We have lads from the armed forces here today!!!".

Erm... Well, do they have a degree in sociology or geography? Honest, why use their time and service in the army as currency to barter for the acceptance of your right-winged ideologies? I mean what is the psychology behind this mentality? Do they think that since they have sacrificed more for the country, they should be given more privileges to decide how the country is ran? 

I mean, this is baffling. Why would people be thinking like that? Don’t get me wrong, even though I don’t agree with UK’s foreign policies, I still respects the armed force and understands their necessity. However, I still don’t think that they should have more rights than the average citizen, even more so if this bragging right was inherited from two generations ago!

The concept of birthright had been long abandoned (by the general public) since the chivalry days, when people actually need to be of noble blood to amount to anything. Nowadays, we all have the freedom to pursue whatever destiny we want and our efforts are ultimately rewarded accordingly. 

This "my grandfather did this" mentality is strange and, in the many cases I have observed, quite counterproductive because it is this same complacency that prevents people from doing their best. When people stop doing their best, foreigners who can’t even speak the language would come and take their jobs from underneath them. A lot of the anti-immigrant protestors refuse to admit it, but not a lot of them actually possess any knowledge or skills that makes them more valuable to this society than any immigrant.

I would feel extreme disgrace for myself and my ancestry, if after all the years of living in this developed world, I have attained nothing worthy of pride save the colour of the skin which I was born into.

The Ultimate Atheist Theory!

Experiments have shown that some quantum effects are not restricted by time and can have an effect on the past! This is such a good step towards the ultimate atheist theory!!! That "fine tune universe" can be so due to internal programming... Stephen Hawking is right! A conscious external contributor (e.g. God) is no longer required anymore!

The quantum effect basically underlines how the state of reality can be determined by the method which is used in its observation. So photons (light) exist both as waves or as particles based on the method used to detect it. The observer can actually have a crucial role in determining the rule which matter must comply!

Now, one of the creationists' major argument is that this universe is so finely tuned, that there are physical constants so precise, life wouldn’t have occurred if these constant were to differ by a minute value. There must be an external agent to bring about such a precise combination.

The experiments in this article have proven that the state of reality in the past can be also influenced by what is going to happen in the future! The action of the future can have an impact on the past! But what is so significant about this finding?

You see, in the classical definition of time, where it flows in one direction, the effect of causality also is also strictly directional. The act of creation must come before an object and hence creationists would argue that this world must be created by an external agent that precedes this realm of existence (who created this external agent is another question!). The experiment and the justification of Retrocausality effectively refuted the above assumption by proclaiming that the act of creation - the definition of reality - can be done internally within this existence!

I know this sounds insane but science have moved closer and closer to the nature of reality as we continue to evolve. From having a misguided view that the world is flat to looking within ourselves and unleashing maddening knowledge about subatomic particle physics, our skills and ability to analysis have seen leaps and bounds throughout the ages.

Now imagine, thousands of millenniums ahead, at a time beyond imagination, a civilisation or an entity is capable of inspecting reality to its basic cole level. The act of observing the very nature of existence might have the effect of determining how it will ultimately behave or have been behaving before the actual observation.

And since this entity, although powerful, is merely another occupant of this universe like you and me. It differs from the classical external omnipotent God model followed by most Abrahamic religions.

I know the above idea is merely replacing one theologian fantasy with something equally groundless, nevertheless it does disarm one of creationist’s major arsenal and extinguish the need for external influence in order to explain for our existence. And with Stephen Hawking clarifying his stance on the need for a God, I think things are looking bright for atheistic physics!

I haven’t read the Grand Design and I simply can not wait! Considering how much influence "A Brief History..." had on my world view, I sure hope Hawking latest work will just be as compelling!

Stephen Hawking "spelling it out" to dim-witted creationists

Famous Physicist Stephen Hawking has finally mustered up enough courage to owe up to his atheistic belief officially (in NewScientist no less!), just in time for his new book release. Although the wheelchair bound scientist had been quoted on many occasions to expressing opposing view to the intelligent design theory and attempted the refute the "Fallacy of Retrospective Astonishment" and "Fine tuned universe" using the ’top-down' cosmology model, critics or religious have often referred to the book which he had written TWENTY-TWO years ago.

The renown 'A Brief History of Time' ended with the infamous "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God." which have been quoted by many creationists in attempts to tether the megastar scientist into their belief camp.

Dismayed at the religious’ inability to take "no" for an answer, the Physicist turned author has finally decided to take his upcoming book release as an opportunity to say "fuck off" to the dumbasses who still want to leech off his fame and achievements! Figuratively speaking, of course!

Obviously, the surge in sale for his new book was completely unexpected but a much welcome byproduct of his comment. A review can be found here! I am rushing out to get a copy on my iPad as soon as it come out... And as soon as I get an iPad, which will happen when I lose all self-respect for myself as a human being. In the mean time, I am planning on protesting against the pope with Richard Dawkins! Blog entry coming up! *thumbs*

Coping with losses - a lesson from monkeys and cats

So this is the week after the British August Bank Holiday Weekend. Being the last bank holiday of the summer, people usually have tonnes to share after the madness. While I was out at Bradford observing the clash between the EDL and their oppositions, my friend returned from his holiday to be greeted by the news of his cat’s demise. Well, not his cat but his mother’s cat. His feeling towards this loss was strong, which reminded me of a TED speech I once saw. One of the analogy used was the following:

Scenario 1)

You are given £100, then you are two choice:

a) gamble your £100 for another £100

b) an additional £50

Scenario 2)

You are given £200, then you are two choice:

a) £50 is taken from the given £200, no question!

b) gamble your £200, in order to keep the whole £200 (all or nothing)

According to the research, both human and monkey would make the wrong, riskier choice when posed with scenario 2 - gambling the whole £200 for keeps. The explanation to this is that when already been give something, both humans and monkeys find it difficult to relinquish this gain and make the right decision - 1b and 2a both equates to a safe £150.

I guess the same can be said for the passing of a pet or a relative. Rather than appreciating how lucky to have had the cherished memories and great experience in the first place (£100 + 50), most people would choose to see it from a negative prospective (£200 − 50). The matter of fact is, both cases end with £150, it just depends on how you choose to see it.