Someone fetch the Pope a warm milk and some cookies, he's feeling marginalised.

So, according to the Pope, Christianity is being marginalised across the world. To quote from his Glasgow speech:

"as we reflect on the sobering lessons of the atheist extremism of the twentieth century, let us never forget how the exclusion of God, religion and virtue from public life leads ultimately to a truncated vision of man and of society and thus to a 'reductive vision of the person and his destiny" (BBC News website, 2010)

Yes, I feel sorry for the Pope, what with the fact that he gets to live in Vatican City, which is a small, self-contained Christian, city nation. I feel sorry for him with his Pope-mobile, I feel sorry for him with his white, flowing ceremonial robes. I feel sorry for him because when he grins, you can suddenly imagine him as a clown at a six year olds' birthday party, wherein a room of small mites have suddenly burst into tears.

The Pope's visit was historic, according to several media accounts. It may have been, but it wasn't Iraq War historic, it wasn't Coalition government historic; it was smaller than that. He gave a few speeches, blessed a few babies, beatified someone, apologised for a legacy of child abuse within the Catholic Church then got into Thunderbird Pope and went home. I also say it wasn't a historic event because, well, that seems to be what some of his critics are saying too. One Mary Hewson was quoted as being worried about the £1.5m cost of the UK visit, saying

"I'm not a Catholic, I'm Church of England and I couldn't do anything without my faith, but I object to the cost of this event and the inconvenience."

So the Pope's visit is either a historic landmark, or a waste of taxpayer's money, or its both -and Mary Hewson is Christian. According to David Cameron, the Pope has made everyone sit up and think. (Cut to shot of a family sitting up and thinking). Cameron is right, insofar as the Pope's visit has re-awakened, or given new fire to, a religion/secularity debate. But, the "waste of taxpayer's money" argument is a boring and very British complaint. I could argue that I don't want the Pope coming here because he's a endemically homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-contraception and anti-abortion. I could, if I wanted to, also argue that I resent my taxpayers' money being spent on benefits for a person who holds any, or all of those views. He might be Catholic, he might not be. You might question the sanity of someone who shows up in the pouring rain to see the Pope speak. I might question the sanity of someone who did the same to see U2 or Madonna play at a big concert of festival (think Live Earth or Glastonbury)

I happen to know a few U2/Madonna fans, and I already feel a bit sanctimonious for having knocked them to prove a point. But that is exactly what some of the 'protesters' of the Pope have been guilty of. Such celebrity exponents include Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry; I have a lot of respect for the latter, but his over-enthusiastic Twitter following is becoming irritating. My example of just how smug the secularist camp can be is below

http://freethinker.co.uk/2009/10/20/catholic-church-humiliated-by-fry-and-hitchens-in-an-historic-london-debate/

This website offers a commentary of a debate last year, wherein Hitchens and Fry were in attendance; the commentary is fairly crowing. My personal favourite, I shall copy and paste below. CH refers to Christopher Hitchens, PB refers to Peter Brietbart, a contributor to the Freethinker website from which this is drawn.

PB: If all writings from throughout human history were to be destroyed, and you could choose to save the writings of a single author, who would you choose, and why

CH: That’s a very good question. Well, here’s what I would look for. I’d look for the author from which you could reconstruct the work of many, many other writers because of references, quotations, allusions that one is supposed to get.

PB: That’s a cunning answer. Very tactical.

CH: Yes, well, that would put Shakespeare very high, for example. From that there’s a great deal of Biblical stuff, classical, Italian renaissance, history, mythology … there’s a huge amount of other learning in it. I don’t think there’s any other writer of bodies of canon in that way. So from that we could work out quite a lot about what we were before, as a species. But for that reason, not because of it’s extraordinary beauty and wisdom. Otherwise it would be Darwin. It would have to be Darwin. His work, too, is full of great references, and teaches us a great deal about the natural world. He was a literary type.

PB: Ah, I had hoped you might say Darwin. That might just be my choice, too.

PB: Next, what can we do, as individuals or groups, to further the cause -if you can call it that- of reason and unbelief?

CH: Well, it may sound like a religious, or confessional answer, but you have to start with yourself. We all have to overcome our own irrationalities and superstitions first. That’s a lifetime of education, and it’s worth having. I try and do it everyday. I expose myself to other people’s opinions, writings and so forth, so that’s the main thing. Oh, and if you do well enough, you might just get asked your opinion.

The other thing is not to give anything the go-by. You have to get up and say no when someone suggests there should be a tax break for churches, or that the bishops should sit in the House of Lords, or anything like it. Oppose anything that trespasses on the secular line of the separation of church and state, because civilization begins where the separation of church and state begins. There are no exceptions to that in any country. So it’s in the general interest, as well as your own, that we patrol that line with great vigilance.

PB: It’s been a pleasure. Thank-you.

CH: You’re very welcome!

Mr Brietbart is not that much older than me, but even he can't be accredited with 'freethinking' since he just seems to spend the majority of the interview agreeing with what Hitchens says. Hitchens cites Shakespeare as that writer he would salvage, and Darwin of course. His use of Shakespeare is interesting, since Shakespeare's literature is steeped in the Biblical, classical, Renaissance literature that preceded, and surrounded him. Religion, when its being so vehemently criticised, is sometimes completely divorced from the histories and cultures through which it has endured. Religion in today's society is painted as the domain of the ignorant and the stupid, especially when you have Hitchens and Fry on your panel, both of whom are Oxford and Cambridge educated. A lot of what is taught in the English departments of universities of places like Oxford and Cambridge wouldn't exist were it not for the role played by religion, even Cambridge itself was founded by a bishop. Dante is one medieval example. His Comedy is an amazing poem in three parts, made perhaps even more so because it is religious, albeit a religious poem that attempts to understand the contradictions within the Christianity of 13th and 14th centuries. You wouldn't have elements of art, architecture, music, poetry without religion.

If you want a Catholic perspective on events, look at this alternative view of the Pope's (then forthcoming) visit

http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000574.shtml

To clarify, I do not agree with a majority of the Catholic Church's teachings. Maybe because the teaching in all the other subjects I took at school was good enough that I was educated to be fairly critical of Catholic doctrines, maybe because I resented being forced to go to non-credited RE lessons, where our chaplain would try to convince us that the Bible could have happened. When talking to religious people, it's sometimes frustrating to try and divorce them from deeply held beliefs, until you realise you're showing that same intransigence yourself, in a way. The idea that religion is responsible for atrocities in a way that secularism is not, is a narrow and counter-productive argument.

True, wars fought in the name of religion are probably too numerous to mention: however in a post-Enlightenment age, wars have since been fought for even shallower reasons: for weapons of mass destruction, in the name of 'the balance of power', or 'living space' or because one country had a treaty with another. The last priest who served as a chaplain at my school got a lot of flack, mainly because he was held onto a faith that seemed to some, at best, outdated and at worst, bigoted. But he never lost his temper, or his patience, with teenagers who, with the benefit of five years hindsight, might have seemed pretty self-assured and smug because they had an excellent private education and were about to go off to good universities. I try not to ignore people who stop me in the street to talk about their religion, if only because they seem interested in talking to you. A few weeks ago, some Chinese students asked to tell me a Bible story on my doorstep. Again, they were perfectly friendly. The Christian Union at my university gave me squash and biscuits whilst they explained the difference between the Old and New Testament to me.

Catholicism needs to join the twenty first century in many ways. Also, the Pope should get a better PR team (I think I can recommend two lads actually), if his speeches are going to compare atheism to Nazism in a country that fought the latter so completely, and where the monarch is, importantly, still the head of the Church. He also conveniently forgot to mention that the Catholic Church signed a Concordat with Hitler wherein the Fuhrer agreed to leave the Catholic Church in Germany alone. The Catholic Church is like NewsCorp, or the Republican Party, or the BBC, other powerful institutions, in that it looks, nay it is, fairly corrupt from the top downwards. The reported cases of child abuse are starting to look terrfyingly widespread - they have that in common with the MP expenses scandal, which was more trivial, but seemed to receive twice the media coverage.

Both sides in this week's visit have come out with some fairly ill-thought out comments, or have re-iterated old views, or at least made me want to look up the different sides of the debate a bit more. Evan Harris in the Guardian, gives a fairly nice clarification of the differences between religion, secularism and atheism. It's worth a look, if anything. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/sep/18/secularist-manifesto-secularism

Perhaps, if you want an example of the differences between how real faith can bolster a person sometimes, look at the President of the United States. If you want an example of how it can turn you into a bigoted, close-minded, homophobe, look at some of the people in the Tea Party who would call themselves his opposition....but that's for another time.

Taking stock of the Conservative Party, or as I shall now call them "The Boring Old Men with Piles" Party

The Conservative/Lib Dem era is now upon us, and for the first time, I think I understood how their PR and media policy is going to work. Option One, when unveiling a sweeping new initiative, is to bring on a nervous, stuttering Lib Dem to announce that "No, no this is in no way the complete opposite of what the Liberal Democrats campaigned for in the election, and we wholeheartedly agree with our new Conservative partners".
Option Two, when the new government really means business, is to bring out a senior Tory, who will haughtily explain how the new reforms will work and will look at any interviewer who asks questions with an irritation you might show a difficult child. The main culprits this week have been Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, who appeared in front of a panel of GPs on Newsnight on Monday and Francis Maude, who was a speaker on last night's Question Time. Both very seriously explained how the most dramatic reforms to the National Health Service since its creation are necessary to cut waste and bureacracy, whilst shifting in their seats in the manner of one who has rather nasty piles and frowning at any questions that dissenters may ask.
That's the Tory weapon: the Labour one was to look flustered, or to use general obfuscation when asked about the contradictions in their shiny new policy initiatives. The coalition government will get round to this in due time, I'm sure, they've already got down perfectly the ability to completely contradict journalists.
It's the composition of the new Cameron government, I think. After the election, the point was made about how few women are in this new coalition cabinet. Not just that, but with the exception of Dave and George, the new government seems to comprise some real silver foxes, all of whom look at you like a stern uncle, should you feign to question the notion that what the new government is doing is in the country's best interest.
When undertaking such sweeping changes to the education and health systems of this country, as this government is doing, there's a certain need to make them sound attractive, necessary, even hopeful - especially in the wake of one of the worst recessions this country has seen in a long time.

The new government, though, just reminds me of a cabal of line managers: the ones you get at work in any office or department store, the ones who hand down new initiatives, new cost-cutting measures. The ones who check on your work, tell you to work harder and better and faster. The ones who, when you try to get them to smile, simply give you a blank look, because managers and their underlings can't possibly be on the same wavelength.
The massive cuts to public services and public sector jobs, have been justified by the argument that the private sector will jump in and create the jobs that will be lost. This is part of Cameron's election promise "to get Britain working again". To be fair, he can sometimes look as though he means it. The rest of his cabinet have these elderly patrician faces which stare back at you and remind you of the truth: that slightly humourless men in grey suits are part and parcel of every organisation, that the private sector is as much about bureaucracy as the public sector in our post-industrial country. For example, the fact that nPower and Eon are private electricity companies doesn't stop them mindlessly sending you letters about court summons if you happen to be behind on one payment. Nor does it prevent you being put through to a myriad number of call centres when you ring up your bank with a question.
The private sector is a place for new business ideas, enterprise. But the government should throw its weight behind these, looking at ways in which new and small businesses can be helped. Championing the private sector rings hollow in a Britain where most high streets look exactly the same and Tesco can drive a lot of local grocery shops out of business. The public sector costs money and areas of cost cutting can be found. However, in the case of the NHS reshuffle, the BBC has revealed that these measures will cost 1.7 billion to implement; the NHS personnel who will lose their jobs need a good explanation, because with these figures, the British public is left with no logic, and the reforms essentially amount to "private sector good, public sector bad". This is a tired and cruelly familiar neo-liberal refrain, which needs reconsideration.
The age of austerity has been championed as a political necessity by the coalition government. It may not be the government's role to make it's people happy all the time; but the face of the next decade is looking increasingly boring, uncaring, wrinkled when you have, well, bored, uncaring, wrinkled politicians on Newsnight telling you a primary care trust is a waste of money, that your school isn't going to get any money this year, that you can't have Thunderbird Island for Christmas.

No, wait, I just had a flashback to 1993.

Welcome to the Academy, children

I have several problems with the idea of the idea of state schools in this country becoming academies, under the new Education Secretary, Michael Gove. The first is that I can't fathom a world in which we start talking about which "academy" we went to instead of "school". "Academy" always brings a kind of science fiction/Top Gun/action film association along with it. "The academy" is where you go if you're the top fighter pilot for the United States Air Force. You only talk about the academy when one your buddies takes a bullet for you - "Damn, we were at the academy together" The other problem of course, beyond my fifteen year old's imagination, is that the academy system seems neat and will probably yield some good, individual results and case studies for the Conservatives to use in their next election manifesto. However, it still represents another example of the latest government making wholesale changes to the way children are taught, what their schools are called, how they are funded, which ends up being more of a political sleight of hand than a genuine reform.

Note to the BBC: Leave the Queen alone

I think the 24 hour news coverage of the election has finally broken me. The moment in which it happened was during the ten o'clock news last night, when Nicholas Witchell was standing outside the Palace, saying that the Monarchy had 'plans' in the event that a hung parliament came to pass (I'm paraphrasing slightly, though the full article can be viewed here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8667820.stm).

I was left wondering, really? What plans? Where does the Queen keep them? Under her bed? When she was told of the hung Parliament news, did she spit out her tea, pull a handle which opened a secret door to the "hung parliament" room and immediately order the plans be put into effect? Apparently, she's been consulting constitutional lawyers, so she can be prepared for "any eventuality". Again, you have to love reporters' rhetoric, because the word "eventuality" brings to mind a situation in which Brown, Cameron and Clegg would duel to the death outside Downing Street. Or the Queen, sensing there will be no overall winner, activates another lever which sinks the Houses of Parliament into the Thames, similar to Marineville in Stingray. Because that's what the Constitutional lawyers told her must happen. The use of constitutional lawyers makes you think that, as the BBC themselves write in the same article, the Queen hasn't experienced a Hung Parliament before. In fact, the last one was in the 17th century, and the only record is on a mysterious scroll at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

So then the Queen has to dispatch a secret team of archaelogists to get it back, whose leader looks a lot like Nicholas Cage.

Admittedly these are all my crazy flights of fancy. But seriously boys, you can stop speculating as to conversations in Buckhingham Palace you didn't see and probably didn't happen. But then ,where would the fun be if we didn't narrativise everything? I'll leave you with a few of these gems

'The Palace has also been consulting several leading academics who specialise in constitutional law. They have assisted the Palace in preparing for any eventuality, and they will be on hand over coming days to offer further advice if called upon.'

"The Queen will watch how things unfold"

It's all so brilliantly speculative. The advisors will be on hand if called upon. I bet they'll just be watching the snooker

Leave our icons alone Part 2

Following on from the media frenzy over whether Matt Smith could halve the budget deficit- duh, I mean replace David Tennant, another television icon of the Noughties who was shamelessly fought over this week (albeit in a more specifically political context) was Gene Hunt, of 'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes' fame. Labour's decision to use David Cameron's face on Gene Hunt's body, with a slogan 'Don't Let David Cameron take us back to the Eighties',backfired spectacularly and led to a mirror Conservative campaign saying 'Fire Up the Quattro, it's time for change.'

Gene Hunt ranks amongst one of the greatest popular television characters of the last five years. In his original 'Life on Mars' appearances, he was a perfect foil for John Simm's thoughtful and ultra PC character, Sam Tyler. In his first episodes, he was simply an unaccommodating policeman of another age, who had some brilliant lines along the way. Unfortunately, the BBC asked that he be resurrected for another series, and thus 'Ashes to Ashes' was born. In its fascination with Hunt and the recent past, subsequent episodes of the sequel series have seen Glenister's character sometimes become a parody of himself.

If that isn't a thundering metaphor for the whole 2010 election, I don't know what is.

Leave our icons alone...

It seems that in the wake of 'The Eleventh Hour', the first episode in a new run of BBC One's flagship Doctor Who, one thing that has really got the online forums buzzing is the appearance of Karen Gillan, who plays new companion Amy Pond, in a miniskirt. For anyone who didn't see it, the character of Amy was a kissogram and a policewoman's outfit was merely one of her many guises. Golly, it was a very short miniskirt though wasn't it?

I'm sure Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have already become immune to such criticism, but you do get the feeling that sometimes they just can't win. This follows nearly a year of speculation that Smith was far too young to play a character who is, we are often told, 900 years old. When news of his casting was announced, everyone seemed to scratch their heads and complain that they had never heard of him. It's a strange celebrity world we live in now; after all, when you think about it, the only reason he was 'unknown' was because he was just acting to, you know, earn money and wasn't a celebrity. Look him up on IMDB or Wikipedia and you find the Eleventh Doctor popping up in all sorts of (often quite well-received) theatre productions. No, really.

The reviews I have read of Smith's first episode have been mostly positive; there's almost a sense of relief that he has worked out the choice for The Doctor and that he is proving a worthy successor to Tennant. This implies that David Tennant is in fact lying in state at Westminster Abbey and was up there with the Queen, or the Archbishop of Canterbury in terms of his national importance.
David Tennant was a good lead for the show. But since his departure was announced, there's been a tendency to remember him through rose-tinted glasses. For a show that, at its best, appeals to all age groups, some episodes were genuinely bad. The Kylie Minogue/Titanic effort sticks out in my mind, as well as one with Agatha Christie and a giant wasp. Tennant's Doctor was compared to the Messiah/Superman a number of times, characters such as Mickey and the often wooden Martha Jones were brought back again...and again...and again. Plus, when the time came for David Tennant to leave, we were treated to a lot of Russell T Davies's portentous dialogue about how he was going to 'die'. Unfortunately, the media squawking about Matt Smith meant we all knew that really, he was just going to increase in height and grow floppier hair. Many of the best David Tennant stories were written by new showrunner Steven Moffett anyway. In the rush to compare Smith to Tennant, it's also been omitted that Christopher Eccleston had a stab at the role. Remember him?
So, dare I say that this version of the BBC's national treasure might manage to be better than its predecessor? Saturday's episode was a brilliant little hour of television. The opening sequence where the Doctor sits in Amy's kitchen and eats fishfingers and custard was straight out of a storybook, the monsters were genuinely scary but perhaps most thrillingly of all, none of it took place in London or Cardiff.

Journalism is meant to be hard to get into...yet Jan Moir exists. This is something of an enigma

You may not have noticed, but I write a blog when I have time. I'm one of millions of people across the globe who use 'blogging' as a means of self-expression. I also do it under the (possibly mistaken) impression that people care what I write about. My blogging takes many forms, mainly items you'd expect to find in a newspaper's editorial and opinion section. I also review student plays I've seen. Again. it's because I believe people care about what I think. I could be wrong, but then there's probably no way of knowing, because the percentage of the population that reads what I write can probably be written out to twenty decimal places. I don't get paid for what I write, though I would quite like to write for a newspaper or magazine one day. Maybe. If I'm good enough. A nice man called Ian I met at the Independent once told me it would be a good way to let newspapers see what my writing was like.
The second point I should raise in this deeply self-expressive, self-reflective piece is that what I write is often unsubstantiated. It's opinion I gauge from other newspapers, Reuters that sort of thing. Must try harder. I could probably make outrageous claims, snug in the knowledge that no-one's going to notice.

So, I could say that Stephen Gately died as a result of excess fluid build-up on the lungs because he was swilling port whilst watching panda porn. I don't know if Stephen Gately liked port, or if he had a hankering for panda porn. Actually, I didn't know Stephen Gately. Aside from its alliterative value, my claim is based solely on my own conjecture and flies in the face of what a coroner and his own family have publicly stated was the cause of his death. Natural causes.

In making my outraaageous claims about Stephen's love of port and panda porn, I have now placed myself in the same league as the Queen of Tact, Jan Moir. The only difference is that she gets paid to write utter bollocks. I don't and this an imbalance I feel should be addressed immediately.

Her article has already proved to be polemic. The Internet backlash against it has been remarkable. A Facebook group has been set up asking that she retract her comments and Charlie Brooker has published his own counter-comment. Stephen Fry has Twittered about it and his army of Twitter followers are nodding their heads in agreement.

Much like the death of Michael Jackson, Gately's death has become part of public discourse in a way that is morbid and disturbing. Despite the attempts to treat his death with the privacy and professionalism that should be accorded the aftermath of any such tragic death, self-righteous shrews such as Jan Moir and her tabloid/gossip column peers have waded in with their own opinions. Much was made of Jackson's death, the life he led in the weeks leading up to it. It was somewhat gratifying when, a short while ago, an autopsy revealed he DID have the skin pigmentation condition he kept trying to tell people he suffered from.

They were ultimately proved wrong. This is why Jan Moir should not have to retract her claims.

I could name several other Daily Mail columnists whom I dislike. Melanie Philips, Richard Littlejohn, Amanda Platell. They can always be counted upon for their, at worst hateful, at best snide opinions. But this is the Daily Mail we're talking about. Look in the history books and you'll discover it's been spouting the same crap for most of its existence. Even when Britain had an Empire, you can bet it wasn't good enough, that too many Indians were mouthing off, that Germany's empire was better. It supported Oswald Moseley's party for a brief stint in the Thirties. It bemoans the falling education standards in this country, yet has some of the worst grammar and syntax in its editorials. It hates Tony Blair for being born, loves Margaret Thatcher to the point where you think it might just slip her a date-rape drug and book into a seedy B&B with her. It never claims to say immigrants should go home, but indirectly blames them for local councils cancelling Christmas lights. It things tax cuts are the answer to all of Britain's economic woes. Sometimes, it seems think there is a PC, homosexual consensus running the country.

In most cases, if you read around a bit more, you can find a lot of areas where it's wrong, rendering its opinions as just that - opinions. Fairly stupid opinions at that. Stephen Gately's death is a private matter and the Daily Mail should consider editorial standards when it harps on about the Andrew Sachs affair for nearly six months and then goes on to allow a different, albeit equally underhand personal attack on a young man when his family and loved ones are in the middle of grieving at his passing.

Moir's response would potentially be to say that's its political correctness gone mad. This is a tired refrain for the Daily Mail and other tabloid newspapers. There is a line between political correctness and tact. It is a line that tabloid columnists cross too often.