i am sparticus

Filming Discipleship Explored

I'd like to draw your attention to the filming of the Discipleship Explored talks, the exciting spin-off of Christianity Explored currently being filmed in London. Barry Cooper (the most gentlemanly man in all of what's left of Christendom south of the river) is currently blogging the filming of the talks but as he's the one actually giving the talks this seems slightly biased. See for example this made up extract from the website:

I, Barry Cooper, had an amazing day filming Discipleship Explored today at Highgate Cemetery, I think half way through the third take revival broke out, but it was hard to tell as everyone around us was significantly dead.

So, for the sake of journalistic integrity, and because Barry Cooper (who is, may I remind you, the most gentlemanly man in all of what's left of Christendom south of the river) asked me to be, I'll be involved as an extra in the filming on Friday in a secret London location. That's right, all through episode 6 (I think) of the Discipleship Explored series you'll be subject to my face in the background. If that's not going to make you wish for heaven, I don't know what will.

Oh right, but yeah, for the sake of journalistic integrity I might bring my camera and notepad along.

Recent Photos

For more of my photos, see Flickr

Recent Interruptions

Cannabis

You may have missed it, but the UK government has reclassified cannabis as a class B drug It's being reported as the Home Secretary going against the professional advisory panel to change the law, but it's a bit more subtle than that.

Essentially all the panel looks at is how harmful the drug is. Cannabis, and even skunk, while evil drugs, aren't particularly harmful in the way that other drugs in the class B range are. I hate cannabis with a passion because of the waste it makes of young people but I still can't really argue with the logic, in purely medical terms cannabis isn't as dangerous as other class B's like amphetamines. So the logic of changing cannabis to a Class B drug isn't to do with danger but to do with public perception and policing.

The current situation with cannabis and the law seems to be something like this; unless you're caught selling it, the police couldn't care. That's probably overstating the mark a bit, but it's not entirely untrue. Despite that it's two years maximum sentence for the possession of a class B I've yet to meet anyone who has had anything more than a slap on the wrists for possessing cannabis. And so if you increase the class it's in, you'll increase the policing of it and also thereby increasing the severity of how the public see it.

Which is all rather silly when you think about it. Because it means that to get the police to treat cannabis as a class C drug you have to label cannabis as a class B drug. And with that logic in effect you're then going to have to increase class B drugs to class A drugs to get them treated as class B drugs. And then what do you do with Heroin? Label it as A plus? And if you start applying this logic to other crimes, then all of a sudden you're liable for a life sentence for manslaughter, on the principle that you won't get a life-sentence. All this does is de-value the law and make a mockery of justice. Surely a better way to deal with the increase in serious cannabis use would to be enforce the existing laws?

Today's Sad News

We have the lift repair people in the building today, presumably this means that the lift needs repairing but I'm still holding out for the hope that they're installing a system of trampolines in the lift shaft. Being the nosey person that I am, I asked to look down the lift shaft when the doors where open. Alas, to my grave disappointment, it does not disappear into blackness, only marked by the occasional sounds of screaming, nor does it provide a secret entrance to the tube. Instead it stops about a foot or two below the ground floor door, which is probably not even high enough to lie down and hide in in an extreme game of hide and seek.

I've suggested they flood the hole and put a shark in it and then put a trapdoor in the lift itself, but that didn't go down too well.

Boris Backing Down Sweep Stakes

I was going to write an entry listing things like:

• Back down on Bendy Buses slightly - 2 weeks
• Back down on Bendy Buses completely - 6 months
• Back down on reintroducing the Routemaster - 3 months

But then I found out he's still in favour of the tram down Oxford Street. So I'm happy. Well, more so. I'd still want Ken, but I'm fickle like that when it comes to politics.

Your Mother's Maiden Name

With the amount of people whose parent's never got married, or whose parents got divorced, or whose parents, for whatever reason, retained their own names, why on earth does anyone still see "what is your mother's maiden name" as a valid security question?

Shorts 2008

Yesterday was the official first shorts day of the year, slightly later than last year, but still keeping in line with the overall increase in warmness. So the run down so far:

• 26th April 2007
• 14th April 2007
• 4th May 2006
• 16th May 2004
• 7th June 2003
• 17th July 2007

(No data from 2005; either I forgot or it was really really cold)

This year though, our budget has been enlarged and our middle-management has only doubled in size, which means we've been able to splash out of proper colour graphics like the important websites have. Behold!

The British National Party London Election Manifesto

Arriving in the post last week was the London Elects "what the candidates stand for" booklet. The nine major candidates get a two page spread each, which means, at some point last week, seven and a half million people got a book through the door telling them the British National Parties Election Manifesto (The BNP, the only party to include the phrase "because it's not racist..." on their manifesto). But don't worry about clicking through to read it because here is it below:

Dear Fellow Londoner

Please read on to find out what I mean by 'Fellow' and by 'Londoner'

Remember London the way it used to be? Clean, friendly and safe. A capital city with a great sense of community - a good place to live and work.

Remember London the way it was in your head? The one that exists if you elide out, the Roman invasions, the Viking invasions,The Norman invasions, The English invasions, London bridge falling down, London bridge pulled down, the rampant overcrowding, the riots, the riots:, the riots, the riots, the riots, the riots, the riots, the riots, the riots, the riots, the crime, the three hundred years of plague, the two years of really intense plague, the fire, the Blitz, the terrorism, and
the terrorism (which we'd encourage you to forget was done by relatively indigenous white people of the British Isles).

If you would like to see London like this again, then support the British National Party - the only party that wants to put real Londoners first.

We can certainly guarantee riots when we get elected.

As Mayor I will make sure that people like you - the real Londoners - are put first. Asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are engulfing London and are put before you when it comes to housing and hospital care, and are given millions of pounds in benefits.

As Mayor I will make sure that people like you - unless you're an illegal immigrant or an asylum seekers, which let's face it, are exactly the same thing - are put first

Enough is enough, I will make sure that the people who have paid into the system are housed before immigrants - it's only fair.

Oh, and also immigrants are the same as illegal immigrants. Did I mention that asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are the same thing too? And everyone knows immigrants don't pay tax.

You and I know the cost of public transport is too high and as Mayor of London I will give all our pensioners 24 hour travel passes... free!

You and I know that the current mayor is offering this if he gets re-elected, as our several other candidates, but I used an ellipsis and bold type and an exclamation mark! And also I wouldn't give it to immigrants.

Isn't it time we put our own people first

Please don't follow that logic if you're not white.

Please use your vote for change, a change for the better - to put our people first and to make London great again.

We're stockpiling plague.

Richard Barnbrook, BNP Mayoral Candidate

I am as high as a kite.

Why Not To Vote For Boris

Charlie Brooker writing in the guardian is fairly insistent that you shouldn't vote for Boris Johnson, because he's the comedy vote, and comedy vote's shouldn't actually win. Unless it's at Christmas and it's going for number one. Well, he doesn't say that, but he should have. Next time Charlie.

Anyway, that's besides the point. The point being that he's entirely right, you shouldn't vote for Boris, because he doesn't seem to know what he's doing, will offend thousands of people, and his election manifesto effectively reads like Ken Livingston's but without any actual figures (actually, all the election manifesto's read like Ken Livingston's, apart from the BNP one that has the extra point 'we should be putting us white people first'.) You want to increase public transport? Great! But as much as I dislike Ken, he's already done that a fair bit. And said he wants to increase policing. And cut red tape. And build cheaper homes. And so on. Your manifesto is lame.

Also, the Evening Standard hates Ken Livingston, which is surely a reason to vote for him?

Finishing What You Started

I neither finished the long essay I started to write (nor got much further than the first four paragraphs) nor read more than half of a Puritan classic on young people while I was away. That said, I did get to go to Brighton, which is a bit nicer than it makes out to be.

Back

I had a dream last night that, panic, I had lots of photographs I needed to upload to flickr before I could upload the photographs of the event I had just dramatically witnessed. This however, was a dream. In trying to interpret it, the only conclusion I could come up with is that I was having a lame dream.

So, in conclusion, hello internet, I'm back.