A gift for you. Unlimited refills available. :) 

Heterosexuality Questionnaire.

• What do you think has caused you to be heterosexual?


• When and how did you first decide you were a heterosexual?


• Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of people of the same sex?


• If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?


• Isn't it possible your heterosexuality is just a phase you may grow out of?


• Isn't it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?


• If heterosexuality is normal, why are a disproportionate number of mental patients heterosexual?


• To whom have you disclosed your heterosexual tendencies? How did they react?


• Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex? Why are they so promiscuous?


• Do heterosexuals hate and/or distrust others of their own sex? Is that what makes them heterosexual?


• If you were to have children, would you want them to be heterosexual knowing the problems they'd face?


• Your heterosexuality doesn't offend me as long as you don't try to force it on me. Why do you feel compelled to seduce others into your sexual orientation?


• The great majority of child molesters are heterosexuals. Do you really consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexual teachers?


• Why do you insist on being so obvious, and making a public spectacle of your heterosexuality? Can't you just be who you are and keep it quiet?


• How can you ever hope to become a whole person if you limit yourself to a compulsive, exclusively heterosexual lifestyle, and remain unwilling to explore and develop your homosexual potential?


• Heterosexuals are noted for assigning themselves and each other to narrowly restricted, stereotyped sex-roles. Why do you cling to such unhealthy role playing?


• Even with all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiralling. Why are there so few stable relationships among heterosexuals?


• How could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual like you, considering the menace of overpopulation?


• There seem to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that could help you change if you really wanted to. Have you considered trying psychotherapy or even aversion therapy?


• Could you really trust a heterosexual therapist/counsellor to be objective and unbiased? Don't you fear he/she might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own preferences?


• How can you enjoy a full, satisfying sexual experience or deep emotional rapport with a person of the opposite sex when the differences are so vast? How can a man understand what pleases a woman, or vice-versa?

Time for Democracy in the UK? I hope so.

I'm maybe coming round to the idea that the election results aren't as shit as I'd thought.

Ok so warmongering Labour won, but with their much smaller majority, the President Dictator Blair won't be able to make as many presumptions, won't be able to get away with as much, won't be able to be so prescriptive without caring about what his other party members think.

He may, then, need to start consulting his party and his MPs, and producing policies which his MPs will vote for. As that will be important now, without the huge number of 'spare' MPs to guarantee a result, even if there were a number who didn't agree.

So I'm hoping that their smaller majority may restore some democracy to this country's government.

Time will tell.

Random, Relevant or Representative?

This may at first glance appear to be a random post, made up of completely unrelated nonsense. But, it is fairly representative of how my life works, how my surfing goes, and the kinds of stuff I like to read or do. So, disability, freebies, funny stuff, money saving ideas, environmental campaigning, health issues... Welcome to a few hours of my life!

Brilliant article written by a woman talking about her experiences as a single disabled women, and the way she was treated by men who can be roughly split into groups: the stalker; the bottler and the healer. It's a great read once again from the marvellous Ouch.

You can get free ringtones for your mobile here.

You can giggle a lot here, or here, or this. But most definitely the first one.

You also must, must, must listen to Ian McMillan's poem / song about living in a marginal constituency, as commissioned by the Today Programme. I adore and love Ian McM!

I'm in one of those weeks where I cannot permit myself to spend any money. And even if I did, the bank wouldn't permit it to come out of my account. But even when things aren't totally dire financially, it's always good to consider Great Ways to Cut Back. It's a great thread on the MoneySavingExpert.com Forums at the moment. A few favourites of mine are:

• Rough Guide to Electricity Energy Consumption


• Old Style Recipe Index


• Pay Off Debts by Snowballing


• Letters to Creditors


• Some ideas from me

Also worth seeing is the thread of Slow Cooker Recipes which is making me lust after a slow cooker... Overall, the MoneySavingExpert site is really a great resource and I recommend it wholeheartedly!

Sign a Friends of the Earth petition against a US petition (filed after much lobbying from Monsanto types) with the World Trade Organisation, stating that EU reluctance to take GM foods is a illegal barrier to free trade.

Friends of the Earth believes that it's just the latest Bush government-led attempt to bulldoze over other countries' rights to protect their people and the environment.

So, sign here!

It is currently Deaf Awareness Week, apparently.

050505 - the morning after.

Voting. General Election. 05.05.05.

What on earth to do?

I couldn't vote Labour because under them, the conviction rate for reported rapes has reduced to 5.6%.
I couldn't vote Labour because they started a vicious war against Afghanistan and another against Iraq.
I couldn't vote Labour because they introduced tuition fees and top-up fees and abolished grants for University students.
I couldn't vote Labour because they have treated asylum seekers and refugees in this country in an appalling, dehumanising, unethical and racist manner.
I couldn't vote Labour because my (Labour) MP is awful.
I couldn't vote Labour because if I never hear Tony Blair's smugness again it will be too soon.
I couldn't vote Labour because they have made life much harder for many people on benefits.
I couldn't vote Labour because their proposed Mental Health Bill is draconian, discriminatory, unreasonable, and is designed to increase fear and prejudice against people with mental health problems.


I couldn't vote Conservative because they are even more racist and appalling with regards to asylum seekers and refugees than Labour are.
I couldn't vote Conservative because they have brought women's rights to abortion back onto the political agenda with a view to reducing access, or banning it altogether.
I couldn't vote Conservative because they have appalling views on women.
I couldn't vote Conservative because they supported the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan.
I couldn't vote Conservative because their politics and actions bear no relation to my own politics and actions.
I couldn't vote Conservative because when they were in power (most of my life) they caused catastrophes everywhere you looked.


I couldn't vote Liberal Democrats because much as they seem to say the right things, when they took over Sheffield Council in 1999 they started a scheme of privatisation and they unaffiliated Sheffield from having 'Nuclear-Free City' status, and described protests against this as gesture politics of yesteryear (I haven't forgotten), amongst other things.
I couldn't vote Liberal Democrats because they opposed the war in Iraq until it got too difficult, and then they backed down once it had started.
I couldn't vote Liberal Democrats because they are pro-pornography and pro-prostitution.
I couldn't vote Liberal Democrats because their biggest corporate donor is McDonalds.


I couldn't vote UK Independence Party because they are outdated.
I couldn't vote UK Independence Party because they are fairly single issue, and I disagree with them on that one issue.
I couldn't vote UK Independence Party because they have racist policies.
I couldn't vote UK Independence Party because for a brief period, Robert Kilroy-Silk was one of their MEPs.


I couldn't vote Veritas because there were no candidates in my constituency. Thank fuck. Cos they're awful.


I couldn't vote British National Party because they are racist shitheads.


I couldn't vote Respect Coalition because it is run by the SWP.
I couldn't vote Respect Coalition because George Galloway is anti-abortion.


Looking at the Sheffield Central election page, I can see that my least favourite Richard Caborn has kept the seat. This isn't surprising in such a Labour stronghold, but I am glad to see that his majority has reduced with a 9.1% swing from Labour to Lib Dem. He still got 14,950 votes though, which is obscene! And apparently in this constituency the turnout was just over 38%, which is ridiculously small. I think it clearly reflects the disillusionment people felt about all the parties, and about voting at all, especially in an area where there was little doubt as to the outcome.

Ali Qadar for the Liberal Democrats came second, with 26.3% of the votes (compared to 19.7% in 91). Then Tory, Green, Respect. The British National Party got 539 votes (spit) and 1.8%, and UKIP came last, with 415 votes.

The BNP in the Sheffield Hillsborough constituency got a terrifying 2010 votes, making up 4.4%.

I'm not happy about any of the results really, but I never expected to be. Labour have won, as expected, with a smaller majority, as expected. Tories have only gone up 1% in terms of total votes, but have gained seats. Lib Dems also got more votes but haven't made much progress in terms of actual seats. Greens have done better than before, which is promising, but so have the BNP, who stood a record number of candidates. Kilroy did so badly he almost lost his deposit. HA.

From Disillusioned in Sheffield, or should I now be known as 福田 菜摘?

---

My japanese name is 福田 (happy rice field) 菜摘 Natsumi (picks vegetables).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

It really makes you wonder...

At some point in the middle of last night's insomnia, I heard on World Service that in Florida, a court had banned a 13 year old girl from having an abortion because she lacks the emotional maturity to make such a decision.

The girl, referred to as L.G., is living in what seems to be the equivalent of in care in the UK, and you can't help but wonder, if she supposedly lacks the competence to choose to have an abortion, how on earth can this court rule that she has to carry a pregnancy to full term? She's incompetent to make a choice regarding her own body and her own life, but by default competent to give birth to an unwanted baby and either look after it or give it away?

The court heard evidence that with regard to her physical health, an abortion at her age was much safer than completing a pregnancy and giving birth. The girl herself, from what I have read, seems to have argued articulately and convincingly about her reasons for wanting a termination, and yet some judge in some court bans her from going ahead, so she now, presumably, has to complete pregnancy and give birth. By which time she will be 14, still living in care (which she regularly runs away from), having a much huger decision to have to make.

Emotional immaturity?? Get some logic! And L.G., wherever you are, Good luck, and keep fighting. You deserve to have the choices involving what happens to your own body, and your own life, and I hope that despite the ignorance, stupidity and arrogance of the legal system you will get your wishes. And that goes for every other woman on this planet too.

How can you trust me with a baby if you can't trust me with a choice?

Collapses, Competitions, Sculptures, Sayings.

Here is a great video of a high-rise block of flats in the Norfolk Park area of Sheffield being demolished yesterday. There's a quite cool moment where they collapse the instant a bird flies behind them. Who'd have thought they were that powerful!

A few weeks ago, I won a competition on the rather lovely grownupgreen website. It involved writing a Letter from the Future, and I was stunned and so very happy when I got a phonecall saying I'd won :)

You can read the essay here. If you want to.

Anyone who reads hippie blog regularly will know about the death of Andrea Dworkin. On Saturday, the Guardian published the last thing she wrote before she died, entitled Through the Pain Barrier, about her experiences of chronic pain and disability which she endured through the last years of her life. It is powerful and thought-provoking and very poignant, given her death so soon after it was written.

Chinese Watermelon Sculpture (seriously) is really, really impressive. And I never knew it existed til, well, 14 seconds ago...

I leave you with a thought:
Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day....give a man religion and he will starve to death while praying for a fish.

Beware of Sheffield Co-op cat food...! 

A bit of light relief...

01 Pick five songs that most people would know.
02 Select lyrics of up to but not surpassing 150 words from each one.
03 Go to Babelfish
04 Translate the lyrics from English to German to French to Portugeuse to English
05 Post the resultant gobbledigook and ask people to figure out what the songs are.

====

1. It does not form of the Jehuda, bad they take to it a song sad and they form it - you better. If if it remembers vocês vósdeixa- to it in your heart, can then better start to form it

2. This is the true life? This is a fancy joust? Verfangen in a landslide, is not run awayed - of the reality. If it opens your eyes, it looks at until skies and, they do not see me are a poor youngster, me need affection, parce necessarily that simple I came, simply to go, high a small number, little slightly, each possible way that really does not constitute the impacts of wind to me, to me.

3. A party launched the employee in the arrest of county. The volume of arrest was there and it collected too much jammern above. The volume was jumpin ' and the relation started to balance.' Should ' ve had been considered to sing it hit part jailbirds. If I made us - er to balance, each one, make to balance us. Each one in complete cell the block was dancin ' to the arrest rocking.'

4. Removed in Krippe absolutely no Krippe for a bed, small Lord Jesus has not stipulated its gentle head. The ASTRE in the luminous sky have looked at in lower parts, true and small Lord Jesus has put him that the dormente are on hay.

5. A God to store our pleasant queen, to live ours much time splendid queen, excluded God our queen sends its victorieux, happily and prachtvoll, much time, more on us to govern an excluded God our queen.

Weights and Whacks.

You can get the details from this Guardian article, but the news is that:

• Overweight people have a lower risk of early death than those whose weight is regarded as normal


• the finding has brought an immediate accusation that the serious health consequences of expanding waistlines in developed countries have been overstated.


• "What is officially deemed overweight these days is actually the optimal weight."

On another positive note, until this entry is referenced by search engines, I have a googlewhack! It is... neuroleptic flump. And yes, I know it breaks one of the mini-mini-mini rules, but wikipedia tells me it's technically called a fubawl. Yes indeed.

I got junk mail today from the Royal British Legion. Random. I also got a free sample of Surf washing powder though, and it was dressed in a grass skirt. 

Yikes.

I'm scared. Are you?

Me. A long, long time ago. 

In Vino Veritas.

I have ranted before about Robert Kilroy Silk, and since all that he has split off from UK Independence Party and started his own party, known as Veritas. It has amused me greatly that after looking through the first 40 pages of google results for Veritas, there is still no direct link to their party on there!

Even on a UK only search they still haven't come up by page 15 of results (and I'm getting bored of clicking).

Anyway, I actually know where their stupid site is, and the gist behind their whole campaign is, allegedly, truth and honesty. The other general theme behind their campaign is one of racism. Kilroy-Silk, when interviewed yesterday, stated that

"no-one voted for britain to become multi-cultural, it was imposed by those liberal fascists in london".

He is basically a hateful man, and I really quite detest him.

As a result of this and other things he has famously said in the past (all along the same racist lines), I got quite an evil grin when I received the following message:

Regardless of your views on Europe, I'm sure most of us can agree that [Kilroy] really is a horrible, horrible man.

His quote of today, "no-one voted for britain to become multi-cultural, it was imposed by those liberal fascists in london"

So wouldn't it be amusing if the opinion poll on his own website about the european constitution showed a yes vote.

Go on, regardless of what you really think, go to www.veritasparty.co.uk and vote YES in the poll.

So, I did just that. And Yeses were rapidly approaching Nos on there. That made me rather gleeful, I have to say.

Then this morning I was sent a link to Veritas-Lies. Oh yessss. Veritas, the party of truth and honesty, seems to have been playing around with the truth and honesty of the poll on their website.

Their poll originally asked 'Do you believe the U.K. should adopt the new European Constitution?' On 14 April 2004, a campaign was started on gay community website OUTintheUK.com, asking people to vote 'yes', in favour of the poll. By the evening of 15 April, the 'yes' votes were rapidly gaining ground on the 'no' votes, as shown in this screenshot, taken at 10pm on 15 April.

The vote narrowed to just 30 votes between 'yes' and 'no' at around 8am on 16 April. But by 9am the 'no' vote had shot up by 500 additional votes, as you can see in this screenshot taken at 11am on 16 April. The unlikeliness of 500 additional no votes genuinely being registered between 8am and 9am on a Saturday morning is reinforced by the fact that only 2,000 votes had been cast in total since the poll began on 2 February 2004.

However, at around 2pm on Saturday, the 500 additional votes suddenly vanished, leaving the 'yes' votes with a marginal lead. However, the wording of the poll had also been subtly changed to introduce a double negative: it now asked 'Do you believe the U.K. should not adopt the new European Constitution?' as you can see in this screenshot taken at 2.10pm on Saturday. This converted all the former pro-Constitution votes into votes against the Constitution.

The party that prides itself on 'truth' has shown quite admirably that it simply can't handle the truth.

Bearing all that in mind, I very much like this song that someone has written. It is a rather catchy theme song that I think Kilroy et al should consider adopting as the party anthem...

And finally, my hamsters seem to have bagged me some search engine referrals today. One person came to me via Pierrot 2005 knitting, and another via "Heidi and Clara" download. And while knitting may actually prove to be a suitable pastime for the rather lazy Pierrot, I'm afraid that Clara, and her unfortunately deceased sister Heidi are not available for download.

Bleaching and Books.

There is something incredibly disturbing about this article, Getting to the bottom of an unwholesome obsession. It seems that the 'latest thing' in beauty salons in Australia is anal / rectal bleaching. It is as horrific as it sounds. One of the beauticians "acknowledges that her long-term clients (many of whom come in for treatments every six weeks) suffer serious skin problems. "I explain that it will give them eczema and so on, but they want it anyway," she says", and the Australian Medical Association say that
"the use of harsh bleaching substances could cause anal burning and scarring. This, in turn, could lead to anal incontinence or an inability to pass stools at all."

It is called Sphincter Bleaching and the article points out a direct link to pornography. We already know how damaging pornography, and the messages sent out by pornography, are to women, and this is clearly spelt out:

"I've got one client who's a divorced woman with a couple of kids. She was looking at a Playboy magazine with her new boyfriend and he was making some comments about how clean and light the women looked. My client started to get a little paranoid."

It seems we need Andrea Dworkin more than ever. It also seems to me that this is the exact reason we need to carry on her work.

There are many people who have never come across Andrea's work, but are reading tributes to her life and politics and are keen to know more. They are asking for recommendations of what to read, and mine are as follows:

Life and Death: Unapologetic writings on the continuing war against women. This is my favourite of Andrea's works. It is a series of writings, essays, speeches, on different subjects around the area of male violence against women. I have read it several times and it never fails to fire me up, inspire me, scare me, and make me go out and act.

Pornography: Men Possessing Women is a seminal work on the effect of pornography on the women used in it, and the effect on how women are treated by men who use pornography. It is vivid and detailed and distressing and absolutely spot-on politically, and is very, very thoughtful and insightful.

Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant is Andrea's autobiography which gives fascinating details of her upbringing and life, and the context in which she based her radical feminism. It is an incredible book which frames her other works in a unique way.

Long Words and Lies.

This obituary is of the negative variety, though there are many, many worse. There were several words I had to look up, including:

vituperative - Using, containing, or marked by harshly abusive censure.

solipsist - one who adheres to the belief that self is the only thing that is real, and can be verified.

vituperation - abusive or venomous language used to express blame or censure or bitter deep-seated ill will.

invective - Denunciatory or abusive language; vituperation.

Those words give you an idea of the kind of writing it is, and the picture of Andrea which it invokes. Bitter, twisted, unreasonable woman.

They know nothing.

"Pornography is used in rape -- to plan it, to execute it, to choreograph it, to engender the excitement to commit the act," Andrea Dworkin testified before the U.S. Attorney General's Commission on Pornography in 1986

R.I.P. Andrea Dworkin

We have lost a warrior. Andrea Dworkin.

Ok, so the press and broadcast medias are maybe catching up.

You can listen to a tribute to Andrea here on Woman's Hour this morning, on BBC Radio 4.

The world's newspapers are waking up.

Worth reading is the Independent article.

Nikki Craft has made a Memorial site for Andrea, where women can talk about her, pay tribute to her and her work, and share their most inspiring and favourite quotations.

I wrote,
Andrea spoke about me. She spoke about so many of us. And she spoke for us too.

She had a way of getting right to the crux of the matter instantly. No messing around, no apologising for what she was going to say, no fluffing around. She said it, right out, right there. She hit the spot with every word she wrote.

I have never been as angry, inspired, fired up, as when I read 'Life and Death'. Every time I read it, the same happens. For me, that book hits right between the eyes, and you can't hide any more from the things that sometimes I would like to pretend didn't exist.

The fact that Andrea has been so vilified is proof, to me, that she was dangerous to the heteropatriarchal establishment. If she wasn't, then the malestream media would not have felt the need to humiliate, dismiss and hurt this amazing woman. But she was dangerous to them, she spoke the truth so clearly, and the only way to escape that was to slate her.

I remember reading the Observer article in which she talked about having been drugged and raped. I cried, and nodded at so much of what she said. And cried some more. I remember her saying something about how, afterwards, she couldn't get her head round the fact that people were just getting on with their day-to-day lives. How could they still be shopping, talking, laughing, when this had happened?

I felt the significance and meaning of what she said acutely.

And then came the backlash. The criticisms, questionings, and downright accusations directed at her following her discussion of her experience of drug rape stunned me. For *any* woman to be disbelieved, mocked and criticised after discussing their experience of rape, is an appalling indictment of the misogyny in the society we live in. But somehow, for Andrea herself to experience this felt even worse.

It felt like those who had criticised her work for so long, were now criticising her for speaking out about her own experience of it too, as an extension of the criticism of her work.

At first I wanted to say, even if you don't agree with her beliefs, her feminist politics, you must still believe her account of this further annihilation of her as a woman by being drugged and raped.

And then I realised that her work, her politics, her beliefs, are *all* about when women talk about this annihilation of themselves. The two can't be separated.

To dismiss Andrea Dworkin's work, is to dismiss women's experiences of rape and sexual violence against women.

To dismiss women's experiences of rape and sexual violence, is to dismiss Andrea Dworkin's work.

The two are inextricably linked as they lead from one to the other. Andrea talked about women's experiences of rape and sexual violence.

She talked about my experiences of rape and sexual violence, about Linda Marchiano's experiences of rape and sexual violence, about Nicole Brown Simpson's experiences of rape and sexual violence, about prostituted women's experiences of rape and sexual violence, and about her own experiences of rape and sexual violence.

She helped women to frame their own experiences within the context of the misogyny and patriarchal society we live in.

We have lost an outstanding warrior, and the only fitting tribute is to continue what she did. To speak, to challenge, to care, to cry, to shout.

Rest in peace Andrea, my sister.

Andrea, My Sister.

Finally, one of the mainstream media sources has reported Andrea's death. It is in The Guardian, a broadsheet here in the UK. Many people are seeing that as a representation of how Andrea was treated in life as well, where she was in many ways taken much more seriously in Europe and the UK than she ever was in the States, her home country.

The Feminist Daily News Wire says,

4/11/2005 - Andrea Dworkin, a feminist icon and scholar, died on Saturday at the age of 58. Her cause of death was not known, but her agent Elaine Markson told the Guardian that she had become frail in the last week and had a series of falls. Dworkin was the author of over a dozen books, and was known best for her writings on pornography and violence against women, as well as her theories on how these issues contributed to sexual inequality.

“The women’s movement, domestically and globally, has lost one of its most moving, brilliant, and clear voices,” said Robin Morgan, a noted feminist author (her books include Sisterhood Is Powerful and Sisterhood Is Global) and former editor-in-chief and current Global Editor of Ms. magazine. “Andrea Dworkin was a fine writer, had a fierce intellect, and was an uncompromising feminist.”

Dworkin, together with feminist lawyer Catharine MacKinnon, wrote a law defining pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights, enabling women to sue those who produce and distribute pornographic materials. The law was passed in Indianapolis in 1983, but was overturned by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals two years later.

The works of Dworkin on sexual inequality and to end pornography have been highly controversial. The Guardian described Dworkin in 2001, saying, “Dworkin is a threat, of course, to exactly the extent that radical feminists have always posed a threat – pointing out unapologetically the degree to which violence against women and children by men remains rampant.”

---

for Andrea, My Sister. (died April 9th, 2005) by Helen Caddes
'My prayer for the women of the next millennium: have hard hearts; and learn how to kill'- Andrea Dworkin (1999)

you died yesterday
and I never knew
because I was sending
a sister
you would have loved
to see Carmen.

I called a good friend
of yours
without knowing
today
and bitched about
the minutae of life,
male privilege,
and how I was going to be
myself again
at long last
how you two had inspired me
to that
how i couldn't stand
to live in a world
that wasn't colored by your
collective radiance.

fiery, raging, angrily
I told her the things
I was brave enough
to tell you in person.

I'm not sure if you understood
the high honor
I felt
seeing you speak
at my college
in Tennessee.

nobody could understand
my excitement.
i wanted to kiss everyone.
i was so impressed by anyone
who even showed up
that night
that i continued to give them credit
years later

I want a tape of that speech
from the Holocaust Conference
where you confided to us
that you'd spit on Hitler's grave.

you died after the pope,
which I'm sure pleased you
immensely.

you died before you got to see
who the new pope was,
but you know,
the world is better without a new pope
anyway.

hierarchies, lies, unjust courtrooms.
my one chance to see you.

I asked you a question,
and my dear,
I will be eternally glad
that I had the huevos to.

I can talk to you whenever I want to now,
during this,
the week before the sixtieth anniversary
at Ravensbruck.

the pope is dead.

Andrea, you will never die.

your fire will live through me
and our sisters
forever.

anyone who misquotes her again
remember,
we've got her back.
and we've got it forever.

trust this woman's wisdom,
get a new perspective on
the world you think you know
and watch it change around you

watch the power of love intermingled
with truth
as it is tapped by my tears.

my anguished cries
no one understood
amidst the clutter of moving
screaming into the night
railing against the angels
from taking ours from us
until her next reincarnation.

an honest woman who should have been president
and you lied about her.

America, you should be ashamed.

you loved men for the sacred virtue
of their genitalia alone
and silenced a fucking legend.

I will never forgive you.

read something of hers
and you will never forgive yourself,
either.

shining amidst the stars
in some spiral galaxy
kissing away the pains
of earthly strife
Andrea shimmers
as the sun shines through
my window.

each new day,
i will live for her
and strive to learn the words
she'd have me say.

R.I.P. Andrea.

Andrea Dworkin died in her sleep early in the morning yesterday.

Information will be posted at nostatusquo, amongst other places, as it arises.

Rain and Thunder have said,

It's been a tough day here for the Rain and Thunder crew since this morning when we got word that Andrea Dworkin had passed away. She died peacefully in her sleep at home Friday night. At this point, there just aren't enough words. Her unwavering committment to women, to naming the violence waged against us, to taking our stories and experiences and the realities of our lives seriously, to challenging our movement to be revolutionary and creative in our resistance to male supremacy, well, it gave life to many of us who struggled as radical feminists in a world hostile to our work, visions, and survival.

I can't say how much she impacted each of us and what she and her work meant. I know when we put together several years ago the tribute issue of Rain and Thunder honoring her and her work, so many women came out of the woodwork to express what she meant. It was the issue that we received the most responses and contributions for -- nothing like it before or since. And that's no surprise since she was a brave visionary uncompromising in her work and an absolute inspiration and a warrior, as one radical feminist put it.

Rest in Peace, Andrea.

'My prayer for the women of the next millennium: have hard hearts; and learn how to kill'- Andrea Dworkin (1999)

Reclaim the Rainbow from the Scary Lesbians.

"A Chronology of Hate": The Pope's words on homosexuality from 1978 to 2005. Nice.

I like t-shirts. Like those from Womenstand and oneangrygirl. But, just as there are feminist and lefty t-shirts, there are also, umm, right(y) t-shirts too. I presume this one is to do with 'taking the rainbow back' from us gay types. And Proud to be a Christian in Texas is just, well, stoopid!

On a somewhat related note, I adore Tom Lehrer. I discovered him through his Elements song, and loved it enough to search for more. Only to discover that he did tonnes of marvellous stuff. A long term favourite of mine is The Vatican Rag which I have finally found online so can link to it. It is most definitely worth a listen, especially to any fellow Recovering Catholics out there.

You know when you are doing something you wouldn't really want to be witnessed, and then you discover that someone is indeed watching. Well, I reckon that's how this Lithuanian right-wing politican felt when he was spotted, well, nuzzling his microphone.

And on a similarly oral note, if you were disappointed at Easter by the hollowness of the chocolate ova, get yourself a solid chocolate egg in a few easy steps! Mmm!

Pierrot Hamster 

Pierrot Hamster 

Charity shops in Chesterfield are the best! 

Paraphernalia.

Following this mention of some class April Fool gags, snopes have an even better list here.

For instance, Black day as EU fools with place names - European bureaucrats will push forward legislation today to force the Scottish Executive to change place-names that offend or discriminate on the grounds of race and gender.

Penises bigger than thought - The average erect male penis size is much larger than previously thought , with 20 cm-long penises being standard for most men, researchers have found.

Buy Your Own Speed Cam Pic! - Speeding motorists are to be given the chance to buy a pictorial memento of their offences.

And finally, the BBC give us a list of 10 stories that could have been pranks - but aren't!

This video is incredibly weird. I followed a link to it from someone who was talking about the huge negative impact of the new(ish) fad for kids to use the word gay to mean rubbish, crap, boring, bad.

I agree this is an appalling use of the word and in particular, gay teens whose peers use this term thoughtlessly must feel dreadful.

So I clicked on the vid and smirked for the first few seconds, then spent most of the rest of it with my mouth dropped open in disbelief. Feel free to watch it, but be prepared for total, disturbing oddity.

Andrew Marr has written an article, What the World Thinks of America. It's a pretty good article actually (even if Andrew Marr himself very annoyingly pronounces the title of one of the radio programmes he presents The Westminster Aaaarrrrr).

Talking about an intense desire to assert a different identity amongst Brits and Americans, he states areas of British life which enphasise the diffrerences most clearly, including

in the mere existence of Radio 4, which is perhaps the most un-American act carried out daily in English.

That's so true, and nicely put.

New word of the day: hagiography: a biography that idealizes or idolizes the person.

No implications of my thoughts about Popes, living or dead, nor what people say about them when they die, influenced my joy to learn and share that great word [cough].

This story, and others like it, make me immensely sad. A man lay dead in his home for 6 years until anyone looked for / found him. I don't know what the solution is to this kind of situation, but if there had been more of a sense of community, and looking out for one's neighbours, or if any of the series of official visitors (a police officer had called, and so had bailiffs for the water company after bills went unpaid. Likewise there were attempted visits by his doctor, the Benefits Agency, and housing officials chasing unpaid rent.) who had tried to contact him had followed it up, Kenneth Mann wouldn't have had to suffer such indignity, if nothing else.

Apparently,

councils [are] encouraged to monitor old people living on their own, but that they had no legal obligation to do so.

Is that good enough? I don't really know, but it clearly wasn't in this case.

And I hate election campaigning already.

Fools and Bombs.

Urgo do a great collection of some of the April Fools jokes which appear on websites both popular and obscure.

I particularly like the Holo-Screen (developed at 'Polo Flair' labs!) and Cradle of Filth duetting with Britney.

---

G0OG1EB0M8ING: liar / ignorant bigots / opportunist / abortion / fuckwit / empty rhetoric / miserable failure / poodle / Roe v. Wade / social security / Online Poker

----
Bombing for Choice
Wiki GBombing
If Automated Answer Machines Could Googlebomb
Go0gleb0mbing: The Rules
rejoice!

Toilets and Trying Times.

I am ill. It varies. I have endometriosis and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). I have various manifestations of madness, and I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). All of these are long-term conditions.

Endometriosis, PCOS, IBS and insanity all have something in common. They are not especially socially acceptable things to discuss in many circumstances. Talking about girlie bits, poo or emotional dysfunction makes many people uncomfortable. They think you are being too personal, or too revealing, or something, and they often want to run away. My tip for chronic illnesses is to try and acquire one which people don't 'faire un cul de poule' with their lips if you mention it and look at you like you just mooned the Queen.

So, I mentioned IBS among that lot. I was diagnosed with this around 7 years ago. At times it is not a big problem, at other times it is entirely debilitating. I developed it post-virally, but once the virus had gone, the IBS stuck, and is still hanging around (no 'like a bad smell' jokes necessary ;) ).

Lists and explanations of IBS symptoms are all over the internet. My own form of it affects me to varying degrees and intensities on a seemingly random basis. I get extreme pain and diarrhoea. Sometimes the pain is milder, thankfully.

But at its worst (which it is today), the pain makes me cry. Even if I could move around easily I'd be scared to in case I was too far from a toilet when I get the sudden cramps and need to go now. So when my IBS is this bad, it essentially halts my life. And there is little warning that it is going to be bad.

Like today for instance. I had to cancel meeting two friends for lunch, as about 20 minutes before I was due to leave, I had an 'attack' which lasted until long after I was due to be there. Thank goodness for text messages.

I felt very bad for having to cancel, especially on the last minute, and I worried, as I always do in this situation, that people would think I was making excuses, or at the very least exaggerating what I was going through.

So, I felt very validated and much better, when I read this, a guide explaining IBS to people who don't have it.

You can (and should!) read the whole document and explanations of the points made at the IBS Group site, but points I particularly liked were:

• WHEN I’M HAVING AN ATTACK, I NEED SPACE


• THE RULES ARE ALWAYS CHANGING


• I’M NOT USING IBS AS AN EXCUSE NOT TO DO THINGS


• IBS IS NOT ‘ALL IN OUR HEADS’


• I CAN’T ALWAYS HELP BEING LATE


• I CAN’T CONTROL HOW OFTEN I GET SICK


• IBS IS A HIGH MAINTENANCE CONDITION

.
My friends may be smirking about the tardiness statement, and quite rightly. Often I am late because I am unorganised, but sometimes it truly is for IBS reasons.

It is not a socially acceptable condition to discuss, and yet it is important for those of us who live with it, to be able to get some understanding from those who don't. Billy has talked about it, and there are IBS blogs. And so now I am coming out too. It might be related to poo, but I live with it and it really, really hurts and disrupts my life sometimes. There.

I take Colpermin which is prescribed for me by my doctor, to help manage the symptoms. Its active ingredient is peppermint oil and the capsule is designed to only disintegrate once it is in the intestines, so the peppermint is released within the intestines and helps to relieve the spasms. When I was first prescribed it I thought I wasn't being taken seriously ("I'm having diarrhoea 12 times a day and you're giving me aromatherapy??") but decided to give it a go anyway, and was very pleasantly surprised at how much more effective it was than the previous prescription medications I had tried.

It's not a cure, it's not even always an effective reliever, but more often than not it helps, and I'm extremely glad of that.

You can also buy Colpermin over the counter I believe. I do have a few tips though if anyone does decide to try it.

The information explains that

The capsule’s enteric coating ensures that it remains intact as it passes through the stomach acids and the small intestine. Once in the large intestine the active ingredient, peppermint oil, is slowly released for maximum effect and relief.

I agree with that, but I also have to state that the other reason the tablet must not disintegrate before the intestines is because if it disintegrates in the stomach, the heartburn you will get is incomparable to anything you have ever experienced. Seriously.

So, for that reason, when it tells you to not eat for at least half an hour after taking the tablet, it means it. Eating seems to keep the capsule stuck in your stomach a bit too long, and it starts to disintegrate there. Similarly, I would add some perhaps odd advice, but it is always worth smelling the capsule before you swallow it. If you smell a strong odour of peppermint, throw it away and take a different one. The capsule is probably cracked, and this can make the capsule come apart too early, in the stomach, too. I'd imagine it is for these same reasons that the packet advises to not take antacids at the same time as this medication. My theory about that is that the stomach is an acidic environment, and the intestines a more alkaline environment. So presumably the capsules are designed to begin to break up on contact with alkaline substances. So if you take an antacid, which are often made of alkaline substances, to neutralise stomach acid, then you are exposing the tablet to an alkaline environment within the stomach, so it will start to disintegrate, leading to heaaartbuuuuuuurn.

Don't say I didn't warn you ;)

Recommend: IBS explained for people who don't have IBS.

Note to Self.

It feels so 80's
Or early 90's
To be political
Where are my friends?
(Get off the internet!)
I'll meet you in the street
(Get off the internet!)
Destroy the right wing
(Get off the internet!)
I'll meet you in the street
(Get off the internet!)
Destroy the right wing
This is repetitive
But nothing has changed
And I'm crazy
Where are my friends
(Get off the internet!)
I'll meet you in the street
(Get off the internet!)
Destroy the right wing
(Get off the internet!)
I'll meet you in the street
(Get off the internet!)
Destroy the right wing

Get Off the Internet - Le Tigre

I Suddenly Lost My Appetite...

Guess where I was when I took this photo. Go on, guess.

I can almost guarantee you are wrong.

I was in Marks & Spencer! Marks and Spencer!!!!

M&S, selling porn? Surely not... I could not believe my eyes, that in the middle of the tasty food section, I was faced with this.

I sent them an email (which you too can do, from here), which said,

I was in the M&S store in Sheffield City Centre and was horrified to see a selection of pornographic 'lads' mags' amid the food section.

I have no idea how this was ever thought to be a good idea by your shop. Your main customers are surely women, many of whom will feel offended and intimidated by naked women on the front of magazines.

I treat myself to your food from time to time as it is high quality, but will certainly re-consider doing this if I am to be faced with pornographic images at children's eye level.

I am, as the cliche goes, shocked and appalled!

Guess where I was shopping? 

My train of thought

at approximately 7.23 this evening.

I feel sick. Did I take promethazine* this morning?
Ummm no, cos I'd run out of diet coke** so was going to take meds*** in the kitchen instead.
But then forgot.
Ok, so, no promethazine, that explains feeling sick.
Hang on, no meds this morning****!
It's 7.23pm***** and I haven't taken my morning meds yet. Argh******!
:-o

Key:
* promethazine - anti-emetic
** diet coke - on offer in the local shop
*** take meds - swallow chemical joy. or something
**** morning meds consist of 5 pills. every morning (note morning, not evening)
***** 7.23pm - evening (thus not morning)
****** Argh - self-explanatory.

Guffaws, Guns and Glasses.

A while ago I was sent a very funny email, which began:

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

by Basil Fawlty, Fawlty Towers, Torquay, Devon, England

To the citizens of the United States of America:

In the light of your failure to elect a competent President of the
USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the
revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all
states, commonwealths and other territories. (Except Utah, which she
does not fancy.) Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony
Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that
there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for
America without the need for further elections. Congress and the
Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year
to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a
British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with
immediate effect:

It went on to detail 17 rules, including:

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize".

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

7. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

Snopes have now done their thang, and completed a piece on the original, and development of this letter, including two rather funny responses to us Brits from USA. Including:

Roundabouts will be banned. What is the point of turning left in order to turn right? They are confusing to Americans and are death traps. You will start driving on the right with immediate effect. Most of the world drives on the right already. You will be allowed to turn right on a red light if safe to do so though you must check local county legislation as this is not permitted in all areas.

All inter-personal communications between family members, even if resident in the same house, must be through a lawyer. It is compulsory to sue somebody at least once per year - be inventive. It is compulsory to have therapy three times each week and to recover false memories of your childhood which allow you to sue your parents and/or your therapist. Therapy will take the place of speaking to family members. You will be given compulsory courses on how to become dysfunctional. Name your children after interesting medical conditions.

It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys.

We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".

The whole thing has rather cheered an otherwise dull morning!

Also on snopes is a (true) story about a man doing a presentation on gun safety during which he accidentally shot himself in the leg. It kind of proves the point that gun + safety are not compatible. Guns are designed to kill and maim, and they are just not at all safe. Ever.

I didn't watch the video of the incident, but it is there.

My absolutely favourite Ian McMillan was just on the radio on You & Yours, talking about how marvellous we spectacle-wearers are. I couldn't agree more :)

Papacy and Poverty.

Ok, people are starting to say nice things about the Pope, now that he doesn't seem to have long left. I disagree with most of it.

Argh! Don't you hate it when you mix up the cooker and the computer?? Amazingly, both seem to cook eggs equally well. But shit, I've got food everywhere.

And to put chocolate eggs and the associated weight gain into perspective, 10.6m children under five die each year, most from preventable causes.

Almost four in 10 die within 28 days of birth and more than four in 10 deaths are in southern and western Africa.
[...]
The deaths are mainly from pneumonia (19%), diarrhoea (17%), malaria (8%), measles (4%), HIV/Aids (3%) and injuries (3%). Premature birth (28%), sepsis or pneumonia (26%), and asphyxia (23%) are the most common causes of very early death.
[...]
Poor nutrition is an underlying factor in more than half of all the deaths under five, according to the figures, published in the Lancet medical journal today.
[...]
An Ethiopian child is over 30 times more likely than a western European to die before his or her fifth birthday.

This is appalling, totally appalling, and that we are allowing this to happen is something I am ashamed of.

As a country we have so much money, food, healthcare. How much did we spend bombing Afghanistan and Iraq? That money could have been so much better spent.

Oxfam here.

Time Flies...

So, the clocks go forward tonight.

I wish people would stop telling me that that means it's an hour less sleep tonight.

It's not if you don't want it to be. Stay in bed then lose an hour of day instead.

Parks, Popes, Pop and Puzzling.

The Guardian tells me that a woman called Andrea Webster has put £100,000 of her own money, and is requesting that another million Christians donate £144 each, to realise her dream of creating a Christian Theme Park in Yorkshire.

It is to be called Ark Alive and the aim is "where Disney meets the Bible". The whole thing sounds incredibly bizarre, and for full effect you really should read the article.

Weirdly, that leads me (rather too cleanly than is common!) onto the Pope, about whom the Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re has just praised for his "serene abandonment to God". Now, I don't want to make presumptions or predictions, but that sounds to me like he's dying. Which isn't much of a surprise if you've been following his health over the last few months.

But think about it. The Pope dying on Easter Weekend. How can I say this...? Well, it would just encourage people to believe in the bigotry even more. [Ducking now].

If you've ever wondered what song was Number 1 when you were born, you can find out here. I actually truly have wondered several times but have never known... and now I do! (Who on earth is Deniece Williams??)

I leave you with a puzzle. First correct answer may get a prize!

A boy is sent to fetch water. He must bring back exactly 4 litres of water from the well. He goes there with a 5 litre and a 3 litre bucket. He can use no other containers, and must not use guesswork.

How does he get exactly 4 litres?

Transplants, Trends, Tokenism, Titles.

This is appalling (Immigration authorities have denied entry to a Sri Lankan needed for her daughter-in-law's transplant).

This is really interesting (Fascinating social trends survey reveals 35-year transformation).

This story is blatant electioneering, which made me laugh.

"I don't think people would reject a prime minister simply on the basis that he was gay," Blair told the magazine.

The fact that he said on the basis that he was gay says an awful lot about tokenism, the old boys' network and gender bias in politics and society. Grrr (Blair: Gay prime minister possible in U.K.).

This is the coolest thing on the internet by far.

Talk Amongst Yourselves.

You know Barbara Millicent Roberts? You're thinking nope I don't but actually you really do.

I have spent a multitude of hours tonight updating my links, on the right. And my kinja page.

I do want to write about abortions, elections and human rights. At least.

Soon.

I am in pain.

I will leave this there for now.

The Things You Learn...

Did you know that helplessness is the rat equivalent of despair? No, neither did I. And it's not actually what the article is about, but it's the thing that stuck out for me!

Did you know that Alabama has a legal right to police the sale of devices that can be sexually stimulating. Umm... where to start?

There are four of us in this relationship...

That's this relationship. My relationship with my (rapidly increasing number of) electricity suppliers.

Soooooooo, at last count I was trying to change from LE to Eco. Eco said they had received an objection from my current supplier, so couldn't go ahead. LE said they had not objected and were about to stop supplying me.

So Eco said they would request a transfer again, to see what happened. Today I had another letter from them, saying again that they had received an objection, and so the transfer couldn't go ahead. I called LE who again said they had not objected and were going to stop supplying me in a few weeks' time.

So I called Eco back.
IncHippie - So you've definitely received another objection?
Eco - Yes
IH - But LE say they haven't objected
Eco - We have received an objection and can't go ahead
IH - But they're going to stop supplying me soon
Eco - Well we can't take it over because of the objection
IH - They say they haven't made any objection

[conversation goes round in circles for a while]

IH - Do you know what the objection is?
Eco - No
IH - And it was definitely from LE?
Eco - Yes
IH - What do I do?
Eco - Speak to LE again?
IH - Ok, but they do say there's no problem at their end
Eco - Could you hold the line a moment?
IH - Sure.

[Vivaldi's Four Seasons]

Eco - Hello! Problem solved!
IH - Great! Yey! How?
Eco - The objection was from S&S, they supply your electricity!
IH - [splutter] S & who??
Eco - S&S
IH - But...?
Eco - Their number is 0845blahblah and you need to quote this number... blahblah
IH - Umm, ok I'll do that now. Thank you, I think.

Soooo I phoned S&S, they don't supply my electricity at all. I knew that already, but was glad they knew it too. But how on earth had they become embroiled in the IH, LE, Eco triangle...

I gave the woman at S&S the long code Eco had given me. That was the reference number for Sheffield City Council's supply of the lighting on my street...

Understandably, S&S had objected to my request to change the electricity supplier of my street lamps.

I laughed quite a lot (mainly nervously! Is it an offence to try and greenify your local authority's power supplies??), and called Eco back, who were closed.

I am sure the saga will continue tomorrow.

Renationalise power, please. If only to stop this hellish situation!

I Am Meme. Ringtones. And Favourites.

Thanks to McBeth,
I AM: A meme in 22 parts.
I AM: a woman
I WANT: a tidier house
I HAVE: stomach ache
I WISH: my dad wasn't ill
I HATE: bananas
I MISS: the sea
I FEAR: discovery
I HEAR: the rain
I SEARCH: my mind for explanations. And for where I put all the knives
I WONDER: if I will go out today
I REGRET: spending so long worrying about being too fat when I was actually too thin. I really am too fat now.
I LOVE: beauty in nature
I ACHE: all over
I AM NOT: pretty
I DANCE: to 60s, 70s and 80s music
I SING: along to Sailing By, before the shipping forecast each night
I CRY: too much, and never enough
I AM NOT ALWAYS: moody
I WRITE: lots of tripe
I CONFUSE: emancipate, emasculate and emaciate
I TASTE: tobacco
I NEED: some TLC

Oh my, I am such a Radio 4 geek. I just paid £3 to download a ringtone of the pips. It is of course for red nose day but I'm still not sure that justifies it. Well, not in any circles other than radio 4 geeks.

My favourite International Women's Day post, is by GirlyDyke.

The word of the day is, by far, found chez Rohit and is, mmmm, mellifulous. I can hear it singing!

Giggle of the day.

Irrefutable quote of the day - "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."
G. K. Chesterton (thanks slow afternoon).

Local Government Lament.

It's great to start the week
With a Council Tax Bill -
Trying to sort it out
Is a struggle uphill.

Eight hundred and forty eight pounds
And thirty six new pence
Is what they are demanding -
Which makes me rather tense.

Of course, I can't afford it
But that's not quite the point.
The fact is that I am exempt
From paying that amount.

I telephoned the Helpline
But I didn't get much joy.

I called up about Benefits -
Was passed around like a toy.

Noone knew quite what to say -
It's all a cunning ploy...

So you get fed up of threatening mail
And pay what you don't owe.

But that I won't and cannot do
So I'll wait til I get their letter.
One day they might sort things out
And I would feel much better.

Would You Be Interested in Saving Money on your Gas and Electricity?

Actually, no I wouldn't. It is totally more effort than it's worth. It's a long, long story and I am frustrated and raging.

Several years ago, I used to get salesmen (not sexist language - they were all men) knocking on my front door several times a week. Trying to get me to change my gas and electricity suppliers, to convince me that whichever company they were working for would save me money.

I didn't do it because the thought of every power company being able to undercut the rest produced mental images of those illusions of impossibility where stairs in a square are all going downwards (on the front of my maths textbook at school), or straight rods of iron were weaving amongst each other while still utterly straight. How can every company be cheaper than every company. Including companies which are allegedly cheaper than them.

Not to mention I did not appreciate the invasion of privacy, and didn't want to sign up for anything being sold to me in that way, in case it encouraged companies to think that cold-calling door-to-door was a good way of getting sales.

At some point I stopped getting my quarterly statements from my electricity company (who we shall call YE, as that is their initials...). However, as I used a pre-payment meter and thus didn't get bills through the post at all, I didn't notice (until much later) that they had stopped coming.

Fastforward two years. I got a card through the door from a different company (let's call them BG), saying that they had come to read my electricity meter but I wasn't in, so could I send the card back with my meter reading on. A strange mistake for them to make, I thought, but I did get gas from them so presumed it was some kind of error. I sent the card back with a note saying that I hadn't filled my electric meter reading in because they did not supply my electricity.

A few weeks later I had a letter from them informing them that they did indeed supply my electricity and could I call them with a meter reading. I called them and said how confused I was, and that YE supplied my electricity, and what was happening.

They informed me that they had been supplying my electricity for the last two years since I signed over to them two Novembers ago. I coughed and spluttered and said I hadn't signed over to anyone, and what on earth was happening.

They didn't seem in the least concerned that some kind of fraudulent transfer had happened, and just informed me that they were owed £hundreds for providing all that electricity, while I was buying my electricity tokens from YE still. They said they would apply to YE for that money, and that they, BG would send me a token meter card so I would buy my tokens from them from then on.

Once I had got over the shock, I called BG back a few days later to ask how this could have happened. The woman I spoke to just said, "Well, there are much stricter rules now than there were then" and that it was impossible to look at the form that was filled in as it would have been destroyed by now.

I also, some time later, emailed BG to complain at what had happened, and was fobbed off by being told I had probably signed over without remembering. Uh-uh.

Then, at the end of last year, I moved house. It seems that nowadays when you move house you have to find out who supplied the utilities to the previous tenants, and sign them over to you. After this, you can change suppliers if you have a preferred one, but you have to start with the suppliers of the previous occupants.

There are phone numbers you can ring to find out. Gas was straight forward, and I found out that I was with good ole BG again. Electricity, they couldn't tell me. Apparently this property had two suppliers. After lots of phonecalls, and an electricity- and heat-free house for a while, I discovered that my electricity supplier was a different supplier, indeed one which seems an odd choice, geographically, who I shall call LE.

It was all quite confusing. I was getting bills from BG for electricity at my previous address, gas at my previous address, gas I had used at my current address, and gas which the previous occupants had used at my current address.

Because there was another ongoing problem with BG. I lived in my previous flat for 5 and a half years. Throughout that whole time I never used any gas. I had district heating for the central heating and hot water, and used an electric cooker, so had no use for gas. When I moved in, my gas meter reading was 0150. When I moved out, my gas meter reading was 0150. Every 3 months I got a gas bill from BG, with an estimated meter reading, and an invoice for anything between about £20 and £80. Every three months I would phone them and say, "My meter reading is 0150, I don't use gas" and they would send me a bill for £0.

On each bill with an estimated meter reading, it always said, Please provide us with an up-to-date meter reading which we will use to build up a picture of your energy use and thus predict your bills more accurately. Every for 5.5 years I provided a meter reading of 0150 and not once did they learn anything about my (lack of) use of gas.

But yes, that was a diversion. Once I moved in here and had worked out which bills were for here, which for other people, which for my previous address, I started attempting to pay them. There was an electricity bill from BG for £300+, which when I phoned to query it, I learned that they still hadn't requested the money I had paid to YE once I had been unknowingly transferred over to them. So it wasn't me who owed it at all.

Dealing with utility companies could be a full time job. And one that you'd need to be paid danger money, for the stress effect on your body and mind.

With LE providing my electricity in my new place, I had a token meter again, but this time could only buy tokens from the Post Office, rather than a much wider choice of shops with YE and BG. So I requested that LE change me onto a billed meter, so I would get quarterly electricity bills. They did this, came and replaced my meter, and all seemed well.

As Alan Davies so often said, I shouldda left it.

But no. I read about a company which supplies all of its electricity from renewable wind sources. What could be better?? It says it will match your local suppliers' prices, and it's eco-friendly. Marvellous!

Arranged to change to them, all going swimmingly, then this morning I got a letter from the Eco ones saying that LE (who, if you are still following, are my current supplier) had objected to the transfer, so for now it wasn't going ahead. I rang LE who said they couldn't find any objection, rang Eco ones and they have one on record so can't go ahead.

The Eco man assured me that I wasn't going to be cut off by LE and not replaced by anyone. Why oh why oh why.

(Embrace the Wind Revolution and get your name on a wind turbine).

Philosophy of Technology and Search Engines (Googology?)

Sunday thoughts.

I adore google. It has improved my web use, through its search engine magic, infinitely. I also love gmail, in particular its message threading and its efficient searching of your own messages stored there.

The verb, to google, is commonly used by me and others on a daily basis. In fact, The American Dialect Society chose the verb to google as the "most useful word of 2002".

An alternative usage of the expression "to google" has sprung up on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. On the campus, the expression has been used as a verb to mean "to copulate with" (...)

An alternative usage of the word is in saying that "some brand or concept does (or doesn't) google", which indicates whether or not useful information can be found on it using a quick internet search (commonly with the Google engine). For instance, a person named David Jones, or a computer program named 'Click' don't google, since using either as a query would return hundreds of unrelated links. Both search engines and companies try to ensure that the most relevant results are returned first, thus virtually every well-known company googles.

Google itself does not like this usage, fearing the dilution and potential loss of its trademark like Yo-Yo, Xerox and escalator (...). The company went as far as to send a cease and desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of wordspy.com, a website that tracks neologisms.

I had no idea I was going to learn those other meanings, and thus no plan to mention them here, but they are really interesting so I had to log them.

Google powers blogger and blogspot too, and you can even google google!

But, what I was leading up to talking about (before I got distracted with marvellous linguistic factettes), was about Google as God. It came about when, in response to an LJ post I read, someone was advised to ask the google god. Wow.

Reasons galore as to why google is the new god flooded my head. I wanted to know what others thought. So who did I ask? Why, the Google God. Many people have wondered about, discussed, read and written about that very thing.

Someone has written a paper entitled Google as God: the Theology of Search Engines. A reiki-practising social worker has written My Google God, there are techies and Christian folk writing about it, presentations at international conferences and comparison charts.

Many of the articles, essays and blog entries I read were written in response to a NY Times article written by Thomas L. Friedman following a visit he made to the google headquarters.

In a lot of what I have been reading this last half hour, Friedman is misquoted as saying,

"If I can operate Google, I can find anything. And with wireless, it means I will be able to find anything, anywhere, anytime. Which is why I say that Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected to God without wires. Now, for many questions in the world, you ask Google, and increasingly, you can do it without wires, too."

In fact, he was quoting Alan Cohen, a V.P. of Airespace.

I think that google is a god of our time. Of sorts.

Throughout history, humans have made God into whatever they wanted or needed Him or Her to be at that time. While following available religious texts, the room for interpretation has meant that the most powerful people of the time could, and would, interpret the readings or lessons or messages in a way which was most appropriate for them or others at that time.

I am talking mainly about Christianity as that is what I know the most about. At times, God has been a punitive, angry and jealous being. At others a loving, caring father. In other circumstances S/He is a dictator of morals, or someone to be adored and worshipped, or to be feared. A lot of the historical periods of Christianity's understanding of God contained elements of all the above, but at different times, some aspects are seen as key and central whereas in other times it is other characteristics which predominate.

God's nature has always been relevant and appropriate to the times of those who believe in him. Humans have always made him fit in with their understanding and experience of life.

So, is Google God? Well, google is pretty much omniscient, and omnipresent too. Omnibenevolent I doubt. And omnipotent - arguably. In societies like that which we live, the media has an awful lot of power. People who decide what information we have, how it is presented, how much detail we learn, execute an immense amount of control over what we know, how we think, what we care about. Google, in being a gateway to the vast amount of information on the net, and the way in which it orders its search results and presents the information, can affect the concerns and awarenesses of those who use it.

Of course google isn't a spiritual or religious God. But it is a god which fits in with our knowledge, experience and lifestyles as we live them now. And in many ways that is what God has always been.

Christianity Today points out that The Internet is arguably the first non-deity in human history to be ascribed with ubiquitous sentience. (...) You can learn the average annual rainfall in Myanmar from a coffee shop in Topeka, or check last night's baseball scores from Siberia.

The author then goes on to look at other bloggers' responses to the question, including

A better question than "Is Google God?", wrote another, is: "Is Google wise? The wisdom of the answer depends on the wisdom of the question."

and

"The answer to Friedman's question ['Is Google God'?] is rather simple: No. Because Google knows but doesn't understand. … Google's ability of metareasoning is limited to one level and it cannot by itself metareason about its metareasoning."

This is also backed up by Quentin Schultze, who says

"Knowledge about is merely the accumulation of mediated information, whereas knowledge of includes intimate understanding, seasoned judgment, and active participation".

These are all valid points, which I respect.

Google has its fans, and many other computer companies are in awe of this corporation which is succeeding so hugely where so many have failed.

Google indexes and analyzes 1.5 billion Web pages. When I typed in a search for 'Mr. Ed's real name,' Google started sorting 1.5 billion pages to find the pages that contain those words. Then Google found and analyzed all the links to all the pages that have those words. Finally, Google combined all of that to give me a list of results.

It did it in 0.17 seconds.

And sure enough, the first site Google listed told me TV's Mr. Ed was played by a horse named Bamboo Harvester, and he was made to talk by sticking a peanut butterlike substance under his gums, which he'd try to get out by moving his mouth and tongue.

(I like logoogle, a collection of fake google logos!).