“Legitimate rape”: Renegade Grannies right back at ya’, Todd Akin

Lyrics here.

Writing literature review, conference funding application, and making presentations

It has been a productive day – surprisingly so. This was necessary.

I am also attending to the BC community several times a day now, while we are waiting to appoint a new community manager.

Now sleep…. Busy day tomorrow. More writing, unsurprisingly.

Sigur Rós – Fjögur píanó

Fairly odd. And very aesthetic.

More about the Valtari Mystery Film Experiment by Sigur Rós here.

Tropical Brighton

A quiet morning so far. Hoping to meet up with Calum and co. later, and get to meet the new little person.

I have to have a whinge, though (after all, I have lived in the UK for a long time now) – I can’t recall having hayfever this bad for many years! The antihistamines are just about keeping it at bay. Anyway, mustn’t grumble. Think it was the three month long rainy period that did it – vegetation went crazy.

Cai is tweeting away in the bath. All is peaceful for now.

Brave, beach and sun

Katla, Cai and I spent the day on the beach. Sandy, salty, and so forth!

Went to see Brave this evening, which was very entertaining. Cai got very scared, but also laughed hysterically for large parts of the film. All well that ends well…

Jane McGonigal’s new book, and fantastic weather

Stay in and read Reality is Broken, insulting the gorgeous weather outside, or go to the beach? The latter will have to win out today. Summer sure took its time to arrive, but August has actually been, and is still…nice, even lovely. How odd! I had just given up completely, and then it turned.

Anyway, today is looking amazing. I might even have a swim in the sea.

But I am returning to the book later. Make no mistake.

Mr. Brainwash, Secret Screening of The Impostor, and lots more

Phew. I have been too busy with life to write about it.

The literature review is taking up a lot of brain space, yet I never feel I give it enough. Progress is happening, though.

We went to the Shakespeare exhibition at British Museum in the weekend, and it was very interesting – the goal was clearly to create a sense of the times in which the work was written. The picture that emerges is very vibrant, full of tensions, surprisingly multicultural, and torn between enlightenment and superstition. Shakespeare was as much myth-maker for the powers that be at the time as he was the playwright we think of him as now. As I guess anyone else who wanted to earn their crust, have their moment in the sun, and still keep their head in place would have been.

Afterwards we went to Mr. Brainwash’s Life is Beautiful show (see pictures below), which was big, bold, gloriously shallow, a great wet raspberry blown at pop art itself, and quite a lot of fun. As to whether Mr. Brainwash really is just a sock puppet for Banksy or not, I am none the wiser.

A Secret Screening at Conway Court last night turned out to be what must have been the opening or sneak preview of The Impostor, which was compelling. A documentary about Frederic Bourdin, who is a serial liar of some proportion. I shan’t reveal too much, lest I spoil the pleasure for you. It is very worth seeing. And why not pop in for a bit of fun with Mr. Brainwash, too?

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The right to parliamentary vote, and associated complexities and responsibilities

Right. This is going to be extremely un-PC:

When an extensive police presence is needed outside the station to prevent a gaggle of football club supporters in a pub on one side, and a bunch of supporters of another football club supporters in a pub on the other side from causing major public disturbance and risk of bodily harm to themselves and others, ‘because our team is better than yours’, is it not time to question whether such people are more entitled than children to undertake important societal responsibilities, such as voting?

I suggest we either lower the voting age to 12, or introduce some sort of measure to test whether people are capable of complex reasoning and responsible behaviour before letting them anywhere near the polling booths.

I suspect many, if not most, 12-year-olds would perform better against such a measure than people who need police babysitting for the sake of sport.

I know, I know; it represents something else: tribal identity, community, ritualised warfare, and so forth. But being able to tell the difference between real and pretend warfare should surely be something we can expect from adults carrying the right to vote? Are they able to tell the difference between actual war, and games of war or ritualised pretend forms of war, if they confuse football games with a really good reason to beat the living sh*t out of people?

Can we reasonably assume that they can compute chains of reasoning that lead to balanced conclusions regarding the justification for causing harm to others? (Which is something I personally really like to see in people who, through the democratic process, contribute to decisions regarding war, resource distribution, and the criminal justice system.)

I am not confident about that.

Note that I didn’t stoop to calling them f**kwits.

Olympics – the opening ceremony

We went down to the beach and watched it on the big screen outside the Metropole. I really enjoyed most of it – it was quaint, anarchistic, enthusiastic, non-centralised Britain, expressed monumentally. Bold and funny. Quite a different sort of big statement, when compared with the usual Olympic opening ceremonies.

We went for a drive in the country today, and stumbled into countryside gay cruising grounds as we tried to find a place to sit down for a bit. A local gentleman suggested it may be more peaceful elsewhere, and directed us to a place with a lily pond to sit by. Which we duly did.

Jamie and I had supper later, up on Devil’s Dyke. We finished off with a wonderfully messy Eton mess. Yum.

Sporting Minds

Although my interest in sport is rudimentary, last night’s programme was very interesting. The relationship between sound and engagement is of particular interest, of course – but the other speakers were also interesting. And the WellCome is a nice venue.

The weather has been suitably tropical, but it is due to cool down this weekend. Hopefully not too much – it would be great to drive around in a bit of sunshine.

And Wednesday night brought a celebratory swim. Very very good. Makes me happy.

I have also started getting to grips with my literature review properly. I even look forward to my next grapple with it.