Stephen Fry, and why he's wrong.

According to the invariably inaccurate Yahoo! Answers, the average vocabulary of human Americans currently hovers around 10,000 words.

I'm unconvinced, partially because the cited "source" for the Yahoo! Answer is actually an article attempting to disprove that 10,000 words in the average vocabulary.  But mainly because I'm pretty sure the average American can name more than 10,000 fast-food brands.

I kid, my American readers (although I would argue that simply clicking on a page and staring blankly at a large cacophony of letters doesn't technically count as reading). An American with a vocabulary of 10,000 words is unlikely to be able to list 'cacophony' as one that they understand.

This is a relief to me, as I have used it incorrectly.

But that doesn't matter.

Because you don't know what it means.

Let us unshackle ourselves from the burden of any further introduction in which I make points that will later be relevant. No, instead we sally forth onto the main event.

I am troubled by the future of the English language.

When people talk to me and use phrases like "bored of", I get annoyed.
Then they get annoyed at me because I'm annoyed.

"Why does it matter?" they ask "you still understand what I mean"

The smarter and pseudo-smarter amongst them may quote Stephen Fry, who once said on QI (and I paraphrase):

"Language must change. It always has done, and to try to stop it now is foolish".

I must disagree, Stephen, I must.

See, I think it would be a perfectly rational statement if it were not for one thing. One thing that has revolutionised us, and continues to do so:

The internet.

Let me explain. English is a fairly universal language. Though apparently not as common a first language as Spanish or Mandarin Chinese, it by far the common second language.

There are estimated to be over 1.025 billion people who speak Mandarin Chinese to a reasonable degree. 845 million of those are native speakers.
English only has about 350 million native speakers, but has over 1.5 billion who understand it to some degree.

Ergo, English is the most important language for overcoming international barriers and establishing meaning. It is therefore absolutely vital that we preserve it as close to its taught form as possible.

What good is 1.5 speakers of English all speaking a completely different type of English that no-one understands. The internet has broken down barriers. We are now more able to communicate than ever before.

We need to keep the English language as what it is, because without it, we lose our best chance to improve the only thing that can ever help us empathise with the world around us: communication.

David Cameron, and the dangers of being agnostic.

It's a sad time for atheist. Christopher Hitchens, one of the finest minds of his generation, has died. And now we've got this bullshit.

So David Cameron has explained that he thinks that the UK needs to revert to it's "traditional Christian values" in an effort to "counter Britain's "moral collapse" ".

Interestingly, and pleasingly, 2 of my friends who don't know each other both reacted with the phrase "Fuck Off Cameron" to this news story.

Depressingly, however, I worry about whether he is wrong or not. Or at least whether the majority of the UK would perceive him to be wrong.

In the most part my Facebook is well educated and enlightened. I would hope that it is also mostly atheist (or at least agnostic, but we are about to get to that) and the absolutely crucial thing is that it understands why it is, and needs to be, atheist.

See, I worry that while a high majority of the UK might consider itself to have "no religion", that it's not because they are enlightened.

It's simply because they can't be bothered.

See having a faith means quite a lot of hard work. There is praying. There is attending services. There is abstaining from the world's finest pleasures.

I think a lot of people who now consider themselves to have no religion do so because they can't be bothered to go through the rigmarole and effort.

They still want to get into heaven though. They still think their dead grandparents have gone to a 'better place'. They still want there to be something else beyond us.

That's what worries me. These people are not atheists. They want to believe. And that is dangerous.

I always think that the aforementioned Christopher Hitchens actually presents a much more convincing case for why you shouldn't want to be religious, rather than why religion is incorrect. Detractors from him would often point out that much of his argument rested on God being a terrible thing and bad for humans, but that regardless whether he was right about that, he couldn't disprove that God was actually there.

Hitchens articulated anti-religious sentiments in a far more effective way than I ever could. And I would highly recommend watching any of the many videos on YouTube to any agnostics. (For full on Christians you can't beat a bit of Dawkins or Sam Harris).

Just as a simple example, David Cameron notes that we are built on Christian values, but ethically that argument never stands up. I mean, we can talk about the ten commandments telling us not steal or kill people or covet our neighbours stuff.

But come on, you're saying the human race just thought murdering and stealing was OK before God came down and said "don't do that"?

If you want their to be a higher power always aware of your thoughts and judging you because of them, then you might as well be a slave.

It is not enough to be agnostic. Being agnostic means you are always going to open to the lies of religion.

The UK needs to understand that we only have this one life. And it is fleeting, so make the most of it. And make it as pleasant as possible for yourself and everyone else. We don't need a religious moral code, we just need to be decent human beings. We are all we have.

Tired.

I get tired of this sometimes.

I get tired of everything always being OK, but nothing ever being great.

I get tired of working hard and finding my prospects diminishing.

I get tired of increasingly realising that it isn't anything tangible that I do the brings me my success, but more a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Blind luck.

I get tired of the sheer mediocrity of so many people. And the praise they get just because they are louder than some people who are brilliant.

I get tired of people greedily reaching for the quick option, rather than patiently waiting for the best.

I get tired of selfishness, and greed, and pettiness, and stupidity, and pessimism, and lethargy, and apathy.

I get tired that I see this around me every single day, and that 95% of people remind me constantly of exactly what I hate about everything.

And I get tired that it won't ever change. Maybe I'll change, maybe I'll get a bit happier and forget all my negativity, but all this will still be true.

Hitch.

Christopher Hitchens has died.

I mentioned him before in my 'Quotes' blog. I think he is the first celebrity hero of mine to die in my lifetime, certainly the first one when I have been more cognitively aware of what it means to mourn.

I am sad about it. I'm sad he won't be around to fight against religion or to surprise me with his views.

When I logged onto BBC News, the most read story was about Amy Pond leaving Dr Who next year. Hitch's death was 7th on the most read. That made me sad too.

Reports often incorrectly label him as 'right-wing', mainly just because he supported the Iraq War. Effectively though his political thoughts didn't really work in wings. He was merely taking atheism to its logical conclusion.

Against political correctness, it wasn't Iraq that he felt needed opposing, but rather Islam itself. That was the heart of his argument. All religion needed opposition to expose it.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Buy all his books I haven't read, I guess.

The party in your pocket.

I run out of credit on my phone sometimes.
I'm a rarity in Generation Y, and in fact a rarity in the under-50 middle class generally, I believe, in that I don't have a mobile phone contract.

It actually frustrates me when some people have them. People who can't afford taxis home after nights out, or people who complain constantly on Facebook about being poor. But anyway.

I don't have a contract for my mobile phone for a variety of reasons. One is that getting a contract would inevitably mean getting a 'smart-phone' and I don't want that for a variety of reasons. But until last night I found it difficult to articulate those reasons. Then last night I watched "Books: The Last Chapter" on the BBC.

I've got a few opinions on the show too, but just for the moment we'll leave them behind. But there was an author who was asked why he disconnected himself from the Internet and technology. I'm going to paraphrase what he said, with my own take:

Imagine that all your friends are at a party, and they are inviting you, constantly. It becomes very difficult to say no. Now imagine that the party is going on all the time, and the party is in your pocket. Through your smart-phone you are continuously connected to he party. And everyone's invited to the party, not just your friends, but your family, and your acquaintances and your enemies.

How can you pay attention to what's going on around you? How can you work productively? How can you gain intellectual stimulation? You become so concentrated on the party in your pocket that you neglect real life.

Don't tell me it doesn't happen because I see people doing it.

Lying.

I always wonder how much people lie to me.
Personally, I lie quite a lot. Not generally intentionally. I'll exaggerate or embellish stories about my life. Not really for my benefit, but for the listener. I tell people I like things that I really don't. I pretend I haven't heard stories they have told me. I even pretend I know less about certain things than I do, so that they can feel like they are teaching me something (although admittedly I'm becoming very bad at this one).

But worst of all, I just generally lie sometimes.
I can think of two 'facts' about my life that are a lie, but they are lies that I am comitted to (I'm sure there are a few, actually). Usually I have either lied to fit in, or to attempt to not fit in, because I'm patholigically allergic to conforming (EDIT: or constructing meaning correctly, it would appear).

I just wonder whether other people are like me. Do they commit themselves to lies? And do they tell the lie again to reinforce it? Are they then bound to tell that lie to other people so that should the question be raised again in front of both parties, a contradictory answer would not need to be explained?

Because I do. If I'm going to lie, I like to make it watertight. I'll tell people who don't even need to know, so that if just by accident it happens to come up between two mutual friends of mine they will both already agree.

I construct a web of lies.

But lying plays an important part in my life. And that is in tempering myself, because, left to my own devices, I'd be pretty angry with a lot of people most of the time. Effectively I am lying by not telling them what I really think about them.

See the trouble is I'm basically limited to two choices. The first is telling people what I think about them all the time, and have them hate me for it. Or two, letting people constantly get away with being the dick-heads that they are, making life difficult for everyone who isn't them and encouraging the selfish behavior that they exhibit.

I'm running out of friends to alienate as it is. I can't afford to lose anymore. A few weeks ago my friends staged an impromptu intervention in which I was told I wasn't allowed to have any opinions about anything anymore because I was becoming too forthright, arrogant and aggressive in vocalising them.

I understand where they are coming from, and I am becoming a bit too bitter and annoying (I've effectively started 'blogging' out loud in real life) but they are my actual friends. My friends. If my friends can't stand me having some conflicting opinions about iPhones and poppies what will people think when I start telling them that their attitudes to life are a joke, and that if I wasn't bound the duties of the law, I would happily kill them and enjoy watching them die.

I don't feel murderous about everyone, in case the police are reading this blog in a future murder investigation against me, just a couple of people (and, no, not the one that I'm accused of killing today, Mr/Ms. Police Officer)

The working annoyed.

I've never really had a situation before where I've had to do work, but I'm also really annoyed and angry. The trouble is that it begins to seep into what I write, and it also creates this kind of atmosphere where you begin to hate the work for what it is. I like writing, but now everything I write is making me increasingly angry.

I don't have a lot else to say, but I had to write it somewhere.

Art.

Now, I'm terrible at drawing. Any type of art, in fact, that doesn't involve words. I can't sculpt, or paint, or arrange or anything. I am artistically numb.

A mouse. Obviously.

To 'illustrate' this (ha ha ha), here is a picture of a mouse I attempted to draw from memory:



This isn't a joke. This is what happened when I tried to picture a mouse, and then attempted to make my hand reproduce it.

See, I think I have two problems in terms of drawing.

The first problem is that I clearly can't draw. Now, I could potentially learn. But the second problem makes this pointless. The second problem is that I can't visualise things. I can't see in my mind what a mouse might look like. I know what it looks like. But I can't see it. I can remember bits, but not the mouse a whole.
You know, as I describe it sounds more and more like a mental illness. Maybe that's true.

With that in mind. I have decided to become an artist.
I might even buy some nice paint and paint brushes and start doing some nice pictures.

My mum recommended I do abstract works. I replied that I felt I was incapable of not doing abstract works.

I plan to become a millionaire from the art-work that I despise, whilst my writing goes unnoticed. I would come to hate everything I stand for, and eventually attempt some sort of creative suicide.