Sunday, 28 July 2013

The Russian Regime

My brother did a post on how dangerous it was for David Cameron to use a  phrase used to refer to "the bad guy" to talk about Russia. Cameron was right though, not something I'll often say, Putin is clearly an evil and insane excuse for a human being.
For those of you who don't know, Vladimir Putin is openly moving to make being gay illegal. Any "promotion" of homosexuality in media is treated in the same way as pornography, because if your child sees two men kiss it's life will be permanently damaged won't it? No Russian child can be adopted in Britain now, or France, or Canada, or any other country that has legalised gay marriage. Even if a straight couple adopts them, this country is no longer allowed Russian children.
Next in line is Putin's master stroke, the one that if allowed to go through will forever be remembered as his legacy. He wants to legally remove all children from homes with a gay couple. Not only adopted, but biological children too.
Putin is the head of a broken and medieval regime. A lieutenant colonel of the KGB sitting in the Kremlin pretending the soviet union never fell. Public opinion means nothing to this man but governments and the UN might be able to do something. The plans off the Russian government show a blatant disregard of human rights, wars have been started for far less.
Russia is large and powerful, but not untouchable. Putin believes he can act like Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein with impunity. The civilised governments of the world and the UN need to let him know that this is not the case. Putin has been at the top of Russian government, in one form or another, since 1999. Clearly it's time for a change.

Saturday, 27 July 2013

Happy Endings

I got dumped a few days ago... That was fun.
Shockingly though I am not going to focus on that (it will influence the post a lot though) that was my original plan but I don't think I can without feeling cruel or petty. Part of me says I have the right to be just that, but I love her too much for that.
Luckily an alternative presented itself to me while watching a film (fun size, its brilliant, go watch it) As you'd expect, a bunch of shit happens to the main characters that makes everyone very unhappy. This inspires character development and dramatic adventures and whatnot. All perfectly fine.
My issue comes at the end of the film (and almost every film ever, hence it being an issue) Everyone good ends up happy, everyone bad ends up unhappy. Take fun size as the example, Wren leaves the popular good looking guy to be with the nerd who loved her, April stops rejecting the guy who likes her in favour of coolness, Wren's mother isn't angry she's just happy to be with her children, etc, etc... That is not the way the world works, deserving to be happy is not a good enough reason in the eyes of the universe. The person you love will not suddenly realise they loved you too all along, bad people will not get the punishment they deserve. It's bothered me a little for a long time, it's hardly surprising that I'm more bothered this time.
Films are supposed to reflect real life to some degree, even things that seem totally insane and off the wall have to connect with reality in some way to be enjoyed. So why does no film have a realistic ending? Every film ends in a world where justice has been done to everyone. That's not how it works, life is not just, the world is not fair. Unhappy endings are a part of life and films need to accept this. I'm not saying I want everyone to end up depressed, no one would watch that film, but having one main protagonist end the film suffering at the hands of fate, worse off than they started, would not only be a poignant dramatic device to make for a memorable ending, but it would also be a much more realistic ending.
I know why they don't do it, happy ending are meant to make the watcher feel just that, happy. To me they've always just said one thing "if your life isn't perfect, then you must be the bad guy, only they end up unhappy." The idea that everyone gets their fairytale ending is bullshit, filling people with ridiculous dreams, vous ne revez pas, the world will never be kind to you. So we have to keep going, don't let one thing or person dominate your life, because it will be gone one day. You may never have a happy ending, but a happy life is something worth fighting for.

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Let your children live

I'm encouraging commenting on this post more than any other I've done. Our topic for today is "How much freedom should a teenager get from their parents?" Obviously if you're a teenager or the parent of one I'd like to know how things really work as well as how you think they should. Are you parents too controlling, or your children too rebellious? Are there any cases where it's the other way around, where you feel like your parents don't care about keeping you safe, or that your children can't function without you?
The two situations I'm aware of in enough detail to write about are mine (obviously) and one other who I won't mention by name but you all know who it is anyway. Rather nicely from a blogging point of view, they're very different situations. That's not a good thing from a personal point of view, for reasons you will see later.
Firstly, my family. My mother is fairly relaxed about when I go out, I am expected to sleep at my house and not drink on school nights, that pretty much covers it. If I can tell her who I'll be with, so she knows they're not strangers from the internet or whatnot, then all is well. If I go out early in the evening I don't get told when to be home for dinner, I get a text while I'm out saying "Will you be home for dinner at *whenever*?" The answer is generally yes, but I know that it is my choice. If I go out later than that I obviously get asked when I'll be home, if I don't know (I often don't, I don't know much) then that is the answer I give and it is fine. I don't even ask if people can come over any more, it's not uncommon for me to tell my mum "Heather is on her way over" and that's the first she knows of it. The system for the sister (15) is pretty similar, she just gets told to be home at 10, she of course turns up at 10:15 most nights (it's a 15 minute walk to Jamie Walker's house, coincidence? I think not)
I might be biased because it's a system I'm obviously very used to, but I think it works rather well. My mother makes sure I am safe, then lets me live my life. As long as I am with people I know and have a way of contacting/getting home, all is well.
The other situation I'm concerned with is ever so slightly different. Like I said, I may be biased by my own family, but lets be honest, if you have a 17 year old child that has been out and eaten dinner at someone else's house, but you still demand they be home for 7:30, you are an overprotective cunt. Frankly if you can't cope with your child being out of the house all the way to (gasp) 8pm! Then you're probably just going to drive your child away and cause arguments. I'm not saying all parents should let their children be out for as long as they want, but unless they stopped growing up at 12 years old, then 7:30 is a stupid curfew.
All parents (with a few exceptions) just what their children to be safe and I know that letting them do whatever they like whenever they like is madness, but bubble wrapping your child is just as bad. Protect your children, keep them safe and catch them when they fall, just give them the chance to make their own choices, they will make mistakes, let them, help them deal with it and make better choices, don't force them to hide those mistakes and make everything worse. A parent's job is to raise their child to be able to live their life, not to run their life for them.
I know a lot of parents will think this is just a teenager thinking they know better than any adult, but that's far from the case. (No one show this next part to my mother) I am so grateful to my mother for the way she treats me. I know if I do something stupid, like getting really terribly ill from drinking too much, I will be rescued and made better, then mocked about it mercilessly. Now I don't drink on an empty stomach, I made the mistake, I learnt from it. If I wasn't free to do so I would just make the mistake away from the safety net of my mother later in life, then I could end up hospitalised or worse.
This has not been an angry teenage rant, this has been logic. If you agree, or disagree, or have anything to say about teenagers and parents, then the comment box is right down there.

Monday, 20 May 2013

The Name of The Doctor

Obviously this post will have spoilers, a fucking fuckton of spoilers, let's not joke about here, it's going to be a massive list of spoiler after spoiler after spoiler. I think that should do as a warning, if you complain to me about spoiling it now, I have the legal right to kill you.
My 3rd ever post on this blog was named after a single episode of something (15,000,000 merits, black mirror, season 1) and now, 49 posts later you have this one (doctor who, season 7 part 2) I've only seen the episode 3 times so far, so this won't be perfect, but people have been confused on twitter, one even directly asking me for an explanation. So sit back and prepare yourself for the angry nerd's guide to Trenzalore "fun for all the family"... Well not really, it's a mass war grave.

Trenzalore

The site of one of the doctors battles, described by the great intelligence as "a minor skirmish" the entire planet appears as a desolate burnt out rock, whether  this is a result of the battle on the surface is never explained, but one thing is clear. This was not a minor skirmish by human standards, the entirety of the surface that is shown on screen is covered in gravestones, varying in size based on rank. Of course that cues a dramatic camera pan up a hill, upon which stands a 'grave' that would tower over the largest structures on earth. It is of course the final resting place of the doctor. I put grave in inverted commas there as the monolith is in fact the ruined shell of the long dead tardis.
Point of confusion 1, the doctor refers to "a size leak," where a dying tardis's dimension dams break down and the tardis swells to the enormous size of the one seen on the hill. So is the massive size of the doctor's grave a sign of his unquestioned authority over the forces on one side of the battle, or is it merely a coincidental side effect of the size leak?
One thing is for certain, the doctor would have no shortage of allies. Davros said it best in Journey's end (the one with the 3 doctors) "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun, but this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons." I would be shocked if the doctor fired a single shot on Trenzalore, but it would definitely have been his battle to win or lose. One more thing we're not told (have you noticed how many more questions are raised than answered?) is the outcome of the battle, all we know is one key casualty.

The Tomb

I think there's some media trickery going on here as I can't seem to find a proper picture of the grave/timeline, so rather than take a screenshot on iPlayer and risk a serious (however unlikely) fucking over from the beeb, you can have a reaction shot instead, deal with it.
The final resting place of the doctor is in the only place it could ever be, the control room of the tardis. The command console has been removed and replaced with a glowing tangle of light lines that represent the damage done to the universe's natural timeline by the doctor's journey to and fro throughout time. The lines are described as "an open wound," quite how this works is probably not known to anyone... or really possible, lets be honest. However we must accept that the open wound model holds as it is central to the whole reason the great intelligence summoned everyone there. He enters the timeline to unleash a rather impressive clusterfuck on the doctor's entire life, or as he put it "I can turn every one of your victories into defeats, poison every friendship, deliver pain to your every breath" what a nice bloke. Entering the timestream allows the great intelligence to appear in and influence multiple key events in the doctor's life, appearing as both the same person and many at once... Now who do we know who's shown that impossible trait before?

Clara Oswald

Bingo. From the moment the intelligence explained his plan, the truth about Clara was made painfully clear. Once again we were all wrong weren't we? Although without the knowledge of a timelord's grave, it would have been a miracle if someone had called it. Obviously Clara follows the intelligence into the timestream to undo everything he has wrought. From the theft of the tardis to Victorian London, Clara is there steering the doctor in the direction he was meant to go. Apart from River (we'll get to her, don't worry) Clara is the only companion to my knowledge (I did a little research, I'm not 100%) that has willingly and knowingly sacrificed her own life for the sake of the doctor.
She jumps into a tear in spacetime that scatters her life across the entire existence of the doctor (somewhere between 300 and >1,000,000 years... Yeah, he isn't consistent on that) She doesn't just sacrifice herself at Trenzalore, she dies for him again and again, living life after life, dying death after death, with only one constant factor, she has to save the doctor. Now lets be honest here, who wouldn't want to have Clara waiting around every bend as our own guardian angel? I mean she is (second time I've quoted this on my blog) a total screaming genius, but modest and a tiny bit sexy. Well more than a tiny bit, I mean look at her!.. *ahem* moving on

River Song

I'm not sure if it's essential or blasphemy to include a section on River in a post this filled with spoilers, but we missed her didn't we? (hint: the answer is yes) This is the first time we've seen River post library from her point of view, quite logically you might think seeing as she died in the library. Her body is still there in fact, what we see in this episode is the digital conciousness stored in the library computer. Summoned to the "conference call" by madame Vastra and kept present throughout by a psychic link with Clara, River continues to influence the doctor's life despite the minor setback of being dead. River is the one who speaks the doctor's name (cleverly at one of the points where she cannot be seen by the TV audience) to open the tomb door when the doctor refuses. Anything else I could say you already know about River, so let's get to our final point.

The Doctor

Shockingly I don't have a huge amount to write here. The doctor's name is not revealed, so we can't speculate as to it's significance. I am a little miffed as to how the monumental paradox of the doctor visiting his own grave had almost no effect on anything, far less than Rose meeting herself as a baby and without the huge tardis based machine used by the master. Really we are left with one thing to discus, but it's a big one. What event lies in the doctor's future that requires him to act "without choice, in the name of peace and sanity"? To renounce the name doctor and become something I don't dare speculate about? Is the event even in his future, or his past? The doctor clearly knew what he was talking to 'himself' about, was it that event that made him become the doctor? I don't have any answers in this section of the post. Only questions that we must make do with until November. Obviously priority question 1 is, is John Hurt the next doctor? The next master? Some other ally to the doctor? Or another enemy? Or put simply, who is he?

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Feel sad? Be happy!

Yesterday was fucking awful. Specifically between about 4:30 and 6:30. It's ok, I'll only do a little Katie moping, then I'll get to the point (the point is my reaction, so the moping is context). I told you that Katie came out to me a few weeks ago ("you" being the whole internet... fuck) well obviously, considering my feelings for her, it changed... nothing. You see the issue here? Well luckily we agreed that our "more than friends, less than a couple" thing, was not working before either of us (me) had a full blown breakdown. Unfortunately that meant discontinuing said thing. Have you ever tried to work out how much closeness you need to lose with someone you love is needed to maintain your emotional well being? It is not a fun thing to do, but it was needed so it was done.
Shockingly this put me in what is often known as a "bad mood" spectacularly bad in fact. However I've already cried over Katie once and I'm damned if I'm going to cry for the same reason twice in one lifetime (excluding Les Miserables of course) So instead my brain decided the best thing for it was to go fully in the opposite direction. Since yesterday evening I've been weirdly and inexplicably hyper, I'm surprised I haven't broken any more furniture around school. I must say, double biology in that twisted emotional state is a rather difficult task. I just wanted to carry on "flouncing" as Morbey insists on calling it.
A surprising little side effect of this temporary manic state is a (slightly weird) forwardness with Heather and Lucy, something I would to say sorry for while I'm slightly sane... However the background to my phone is not being changed any time soon.
Right that's all I have for you on manic responses to depressing events, at least without getting super serial. So goodnight my sweet little audience.

Monday, 13 May 2013

A year and a half of total crap

This is my 50th post, I know mad isn't it!? We're coming up to 10,000 hits as well, hardly ground breaking but it's a strange thing to think that people across the globe from Britain to China, via  Canada and the FYR of Macedonia have read the bullshit that pours from my mind onto my keyboard. So this is a simple little post to say thank you I guess. I like to think this is a place where I can be me, away from the real world, but I doubt I'd keep going if I had no readers.
I'm genuinely curious, why are you reading this? Don't get me wrong I'm grateful for every hit, but it hurts my brain to think that there are people thousands of miles away, people I will never meet, who read this little blog and get to see into my crazy mixed up mind. Like I said, I know 10,000 is nothing too special, but it's my (almost) 10,000 and it means a lot to me.
Anyway, that's all I have for you, not much of a milestone entry, but I only wanted to say thank you for reading my pointless little storied. Now, onwards to 100,000 hits and more!

Monday, 29 April 2013

Heterosexual Homosexualphilia

I'm coining that term to refer to a person who is only attracted to homosexuals of the opposite sex, a term made necessary by the fact it applies to me. If you've read my post Nothing Worth Saying, or you know me in the real world, then you'll be aware of Katie and how bloody wonderful she is... Well except for one small issue, I told her I loved her on Sunday morning (just after midnight) and so, just as happened last time I confessed my love for someone, she came out. It was almost the same comment, they both said they were "80% lesbian", which I'm now pretty sure translates as "100% lesbian but not totally come to terms with it yet"
Now you should be able to appreciate just how impressive it is that I've managed to hit 2/2 closet homosexuals, but I want to know just how probable it is, so lets do the maths... Oh come on! It's that or I get depressing and mopey. The maths is better right? Good.
So the current scientifc estimate is that 1.4% of women are openly lesbian and 7.5% report "same gender desire"
Obviously they weren't out when I fell for them so the odds of me meeting them while they were in the closet is 7.5%^2=0.5625% More exactly that's the odds of you picking two random women and them both being in Narnia.
Then we have the more difficult question of "what are the odds of me falling in love with them strongly enough to admit it?" Even if we assume everyone has an equal chance after a certain point, how close is that point? So lets assume some simple numbers.
An apparent formula for people you meet in life is "Your age X 365 + leap years you've lived through X 2" for an average of meeting 2 people per day. I'm not very social so lets loose the "X 2"
18X365+4=6574
half it to eliminate men=3287
now lets assume I only care for about 1/20 of those 3000 women, that the rest are just passing acquaintances, classmates and whatnot=164.35=164 no decimalising of women.
Again, I'm taking estimates here, but apparently the average is 4 real loves in a lifetime, now all 4 coming before you're 19 is insane, so we'll quarter it (giving my lifespan a rough estimate of 76). therefore the odds of me falling in love with any one person I know is 1/164=0.6097%
So multiplying the two together gives us a final estimate of 0.006097X0.005625=0.0034299%
That gives us a rough estimate that there will be somewhere around 240,000 heterosexual homosexualphiles in the world. That's an insanely small number, I'm almost proud to be one of them.
Now before someone like Jonny, or Katie actually, she said stats was easy, turns up to criticise my maths, I want it to be clear that there are a lot of assumptions and estimates going on. Reasonably there could be anything from 1 (that's me) to 2,000,000 of us in the world. Of course if there's a fundamental error going on, feel free to point it out.
240,000 out of 7,000,000,000 though, that's nothing really is it? It's half the population of Liverpool, spread over the globe, I very much doubt that any one in the same situation will ever read this, but if you are a heterosexual homosexualphile, you are not alone!