Save Music this Xmas

The god-awful nonsense that is the X-Factor sees some nobody releasing a version of "Hellelujah" for their assault on the music industry.

Happily, music fans all over the country are not happy and are moving to make a point.

Buy Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley this week and send out a message to the music industry that we want proper music, not the manufactured rubbish from the X-Factor.

The following 3 downloads count toward the British chart.

http://www.7digital.com/artists/jeff-buckley/hallelujah-1/ - unencumbered high quality 320k mp3 89p.

http://www.tunetribe.com/product/index.html?id=604507 - cheaper WMA (windows file) only 49p

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=254578201&s=143444 - 79p but DRM AAC file from Apple

Jeff's version is currently number 4 in the iTunes chart.

Genesis: re-written.

Given that the vast majority of religious people now realise that the Genesis story is an allegory (although obviously still a huge number think the world was created along with heaven about 37,000 years ago), I thought it would be a good idea to rewrite it.

A more accurate beginning would be:

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the universe and saw that is was good. 2 Thirteen billion, five hundred million years later, He created Man. 3 In the 13.5 billion years before God created Man, He just really exploded stars and tried to mix matter and anti-matter together."

In other news, yet another Catholic priest has been found guilty of sexual abuse of children. Nothing new there but a particular poignancy in this one as this fella in Sunderland is to be sentenced on the 23rd December...meaning he'll wake up for his first day behind bars on Christmas Eve. I wonder if he'll find Jesus in prison.

The Cult of Scientology

Heeeeeeee heeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

We only have one life. It's this one. Use it well and be friendly.

Thanks,

Stan.

Carlos Tevez's mum visits Man Utd training ground

Cross word in a wordsearch

Oops. If only they'd learned how to proof-read 2,000 years ago, the Bible might not be so inconsistent.

The Subtle Knife and the Sledgehammer

It started with a trilogy of books by Philip Pullman. "His Dark Materials" is the overarching title of them and the three books "Northern Lights", "The Subtle Knife" and "The Amber Spyglass" are just spellbindingly brilliant. Read them if you haven't already.

The National Theatre have made a two-part play of the books (touring the UK next year). See it if you haven't already.

New Line, the cinema people (now merged with Warner) made the first book into a film called "The Golden Compass". It was good. If you hadn't read the books you'd probably love it. If you had read the books you'd love the fact that it had been made as it would encourage more people to enrich their lives with the books.

Anyway, I got myself some tickets for the play(s) and have been genuinely bubbling with excitement (intermittently) ever since. It was with a great sense of anticipation, then, that I headed to the internet to find information on the imminent release of the next film installment.

Imagine my dismay when I find that the studio have decided not to make the remaining 2 films because the fundamentalist christians in America protested so hard against the first one that it only took $70m at the US box office. (they seem completely unaware of the fact that in the rest of the world - where people are more aware of the ridiculous logic behind following the morals of a book written 2,000 years ago- the film took a massive $300m)

But what is it exactly that the church finds so objectional in the films (and books)?

Anyone fortunate enough to have read the books will know that they are fantasy books which involved an organisation which controls its followers and behaves rather appallingly. The only way the church could be offended is if they recognised themselves in it...

Methinks they protesteth too much.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

Last night, this bear went to see Pete Postlethwaite in King Lear. It's a dark play, full of people looking out for themselves and killing anyone who gets in their way. They're all out for social status, money and land and will stop at nothing to get it all for themselves.

Entirely fitting, then, that it was transposed to Thatcher's Britain, where the Conservative ideals of "I'm ok, f@ck everyone else" ran rife through our society. Very nicely done, Congrats go to the director Rupert Goold.

And then to wake up to a landslide victory for young Barack. Oh happy, happy day. Whatever happens now, we can rejoice that today, the people of America have voted for his message of hope, change, peace, togetherness and friendliness. Obama's opening speech is well worth a listen. The overall theme is that human beings are absolutely brilliant so let's use that well and properly, be friendly and bring peace.

No matter what the right-wing d1ck-heads do now, the fact remains that the American people have announced that the Bush way, the Bush foreign and domestic policy are simply not acceptable any more.

We can only hope that the people surrounding Obama and the people in the rest of the world enable him to learn from that message too but even if they don't, the world can now be sure that American people are sick to death of the right-wing nonsense and are ready to be bloody friendly.

And that, I think you'll agree, is reason enough to celebrate...

Bears in the Bible

I thought that on this chilly, autumn Sunday morning, it would be good to have a Bible reading. Please turn to Kings, chapter 2, verse 23.

"From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. "Go on up, you baldhead!" they said. "Go on up, you baldhead!" He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty‑two of the youths."

And the lesson here is clear. Teenagers who say rude things will be mauled by bears at the request of our mighty, peaceful and loving god.

Should, on your way home, a young rapscallion call you a name or refer to a lack of hair on your head or similar behaviour punishable by death, send me a message and I'll get a mate and we'll pop over and maul 42 of the rapscallions.

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are quite tricky to follow so I thought I would help. Here they are translated. The first three are essentially pig-headed self-centred nonsense from God and the rest are fairly standard human sentiments.

1. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME

2. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME

3. ME ME ME ME ME ME ME

4. Have a day off

5. Be nice to your parents

6. Don't be a murderer

7. Don't be a slapper

8. Don't be a burglar

9. Don't pretend your neighbour is a horrid person if he's not

10. Stop being jealous of stuff.

It's really just "worship ME" made to look reasonable by some fairly obvious dictats.

Bored of the Dance

Dance, Dance wherever you may be

But please don't put it on the BBC

Dance at balls but not on the TV

For I am Bored of the Dance, says Me.