A Quiet Sunday

Today, Hedgehog and Mrs Hedgehog have finished off all their Christmas cards and dropped them in the post. At last! This is a task which could quite easily have been completed any time in the past month, but , of course, was left until after the last day for second class post. (Non-Brits can have a translation of this on request).

I am now sitting at my desk in the fading light, with a stripy cat curled up under the desk lamp, pounding this missive into the laptop. It's a quiet Sunday, settling down after a hard frost overnight. Winter cabbages and leeks which have wilted under the blast of frost are just starting to perk up as the temperature slides above zero again.

What will Hedgehog do now? When he gets the plot and his act together, he'll start writing the second novel. Hmm. Earl Grey? Assam? China? Darjeeling? Slurp.

Secret Agents

Having finished the novel (see previous stream of blether in blogs), I have to get it out on the streets. I've trawled through the red book, and the yellow one, for agent names, and have checked the updated lists on the web.

My first agent attempt has been to one who seems friendly, and who accepts, unusually, initial submissions (synopsis, letter and first three chapters) by email as attachments.

Strangely, the major problem was that I'd written the book using LaTeX, a magnificent text formatting system, which will knock beautifully finished output straight into pdf. The real pain is picking my way through the text and taking out all the formatting commands so that it can go into Word. Having tried that and given up in disgust, I tried the Acrobat to Word converter. Beware--it doesn't work.

Finally, I sent the agent a pdf in the hope that this will be acceptable. Fingers crossed, or whatever a hedgehog has instead.

The Novel is Finished!

Yahoo, yo, wahey, whoopee, and jolly spiffing good! The novel was finished at the weekend. At last, I can look back over the 74000 or 84000 words, depending on whether you use a word processor count or Michael Legat's estimation technique for printers.

It's been an unnecessarily long haul, but we're here at last. What I'm doing now is going over the text repeatedly, looking for inconsistencies, imperfect phrasings and general mistakes.

It's at this stage that the really awkward part begins. I need an agent. A nice, kind, agent who likes the book and has a desperate, all-consuming urge to help get it into print. I've trawled through the UK agents' lists, and picked mostly only those who are in the society of whatsits, which cuts it down a bit. The ones who seem to have a friendly approach have been picked out, and I now need to start writing letters to them one by one.

The synopsis seems to be the really difficult part. Should it be one page, or twenty? What do you put in, and what do you leave out? Hedgehog is cogitating...

Acts of God and Earthquakes

Another earthquake, this time hitting Kashmir, and vast loss of life. This always brings me back to the oldest question in the book, namely, is this anything to do with a God, and, if so, what?

If you don't believe, then there's no problem, because things just happen. If you do, then how does it work?

If God is both omniscient and omnipotent, then he knew that the earthquake was going to happen, and didn't stop it.

In a worse scenario, he decided to cause the earthquake in the first place.

Is there perhaps a Devil, and did he decide to cause it, and, if so, why didn't God stop it? (see above)

Maybe God is omniscient but not omnipotent?

The Church, as far as I understand, argues that God does know all about what's going to happen, and at the very least allows the earthquake because he's not in the same moral frame as humans, and because there is a grander purpose that will lead to better things after this shorter-term misery.

There are even arguments that what happens in this material world is less relevant than what will happen later in Heaven.

I draw no conclusions myself, and welcome comments, and pointers to philosophy books where this has all been thought of already and discussed hundreds, if not thousands of year ago.

(Yes, I know about the book of Job, but does it answer any of the above questions satisfactorily?)

Yours in deep thought, Hedgehog.

Novel Problems

Well, as mentioned in previous blogs, the novel is getting further. In fact, it's now about four/five thousand words from completion, which might be three good writing sessions.

This, of course, doesn't mean that it will take three days: there's a lot of procrastinating, which means that it might take a lot longer in real time. Also, there are problems. It doesn't sound much, but it's set in 1995, and since one protagonist had to do something about 28 years before, in 1967, and then take an overseas course with the OU, this is awkward. They didn't start taking students until 1971, and I understand that overseas students weren't taught until the 1980s, which blows a nice hole in the plot. Something's got to give, and if it's not my mind, it has to be a strand of the story.

When it's finished, it has to be revised and checked very carefully, and then sent to somebody somewhere. This would probably be an agent, to whom you send an enquiry first as to whether they will look at it, and then send perhaps three chapters printed off in double spacing, which is some archaic custom in the printing world. You enclose return postage, and they then send it back, saying sorry, whereupon you send it to the next one, and so on.

Does anyone know of any good agents, or, failing that, ones who are daft enough to take me on?

Autumn Leaves

This may be going back a long way, but I seem to remember a singer called Mel Torme who looked as though he'd been moulded in a plastics factory, and who sang "Autumn Leaves". He also trotted out all sorts of opinions about how anyone with long hair was despicable, and how we should all go around in jackets and short hair. This, people, was in the Sixties, when Hedgehog was but a slip of a lad, and thought that such ideas were spot on.

Now, when I look out this Autumn, there's something strange going on: It's the 10th of October, the leaves are still on the trees, and not many of them have changed colour yet. This is weird for Leeds at this time of year, and makes me wonder whether global warming is really showing its true colours now. What do Hedgehog's millions of readers out there think? Have they noticed anything similar? Would they like to tell us about it?

The Finishing Post

Not a suicide blog, but an indication that one project, at least, is nearing completion. The Novel's penultimate chapter was finished last week, and, of course, I thought "Only one chapter to go, so that should take me one more week".

It isn't finished yet. It's strange how we sometimes slow down in sight of the winning post. Also, the plot needs looking at again. Did Andy have access to the room, or was it locked before he had a chance to be there? Lots of loose ends to check. After that, it needs to be stuck in a drawer while I start number 2, and then I need to find a nice agent who will look at it.

I've tried a couple of agents with the first three chapters, but they declined. However, I must say that they were the kindest, most thoughtfully drafted rejection letters that I've ever had. I know they're probably sent to everybody, but these people had taken thought and care in what to say to an unsuccesful author. Good on you, Mr Geller and Mr Trewin.

What else has been happening? Once again, I've sent in three poems to the National Poetry Competition (the British one run by the Poetry Society). It's closed for this year, and winners will be notified by February. The entries are all anonymous, so there's a good chance that we're being judged on merit. Maybe that's why I haven't won it yet.

Enough babble for the now. More on novel when Hedgehog has written it. Now where's my pile of leaves? Yawn.

Hedgehog is Retired!

To be exact, hedgehog is retired early, along with 24 other members of his institution, because the head of his institution is an aerosol (translate that how you will).

It's weird, and a little like being on holiday, but of course you don't go back to work afterwards (hooray I think). All there is to worry about now is the money, and where it's coming from. Ho hum.

Consulting

Well, as far as the job market goes, I'm going to try one of these portfolio careers, as they say.

The idea is that I go in for consultancy and software writing, and try to supplement it with some (grossly underpaid) work for the Open University, who pay their part-time tutors about half what they should. How anybody stays with this regime may baffle you, but when you consider that some money is better than none, and they give you a rather tenuous but present foothold in academia, you can see why the OU get away with it. I suppose that's why, in the past, we've had unions, but OUAUT, and some of the other academic unions like NATFHE, seem to have a habit of responding to employer exploitation by rolling over to have their tummies tickled.

While I remember, London Metropolitan University are behaving like complete ratbags to their staff, and threatening them with sacking if they don't sign a new contract beneficial to the employers, and this seesm to be one case where NATFHE has actually moved itself to some action.

Dyslexics of the world untie! You have nothing to lose but your hcnais!

Hey Nonny No

In Shakespearean vein, it's Spring. I don't know what time it hits your part of the world, but here the last frost may now be over (possibly), the first early potatoes (Rocket) are well on their way, and the second earlies (Saxon) are just beginning to show. The tulips are just going over, and we await the roses. It's all fairly unremittingly jolly.

Does this cheer up the worried job-hunter? (see previous pages). Yes, it does, but for no logical reason whatsoever. On Saturday we got off our respective rears, and drove out to a place called Hellifield, which looks a bit like its name. Hellifield, in case you don't know it, is a bleak and ribbon of housing strung along a road in the middle of nowhere. It's the only place twinned with Krakatoa.

Anyway, on this Spring day, it positively twinkled in the sunlight, and looked almost pleasant.

What' sthe moral of this little tale? Well, maybe perception is a part of reality. Gouranga.

Applications, applications

As described in the blog yesterday, I'm on the hunt for jobs, not entirely willingly.

In an ideal world, I'd write novels for 2-3 hours a day, and do other things such as walking, violin making, programming, gardening and holidaying the rest of the time.

However, the novel (see much earlier blog) is somewhere about the end of Chapter 6, and I'm in, I think, two catch-22s at once. I can't write to finish it, as I need the time to apply for jobs. I need to apply for jobs because it might take a while to finish the novel and begin the next, and ther'e no guarantee that it would produce any income at all anyway. If I do get a job, then I won't have time to write. Aaaaaaaaarghhhhhhh! Does anyone know what to do?

In the meantime, I've applied for various posts, including a lecturing job at a college, and next week I might also put in for the vacant Vice-Principal's job at the same place. Is this hedgehog mad? very probably.

Long Time no See

Well, here I am, back at last. What, I hear you ask, (but fairly quietly), has our renowned hedgehog been up to for these missing weeks? Has he backpacked through Thailand with a flute, a broken-down donkey and a copy of The Wit of Margaret Thatcher?

No. The University faculty where he works has decided to shed 20% of its staff, and has asked people to volunteer before a large anvil falls out of the sky and does the volunteering for them. I couldn't take the chance, and signed up for a pension that's about the size of a gnat's kneecap, and am going at the end of July.

Interestingly, our compulsory graduation ceremony is sometime before we all go, so it ought to be interesting when 25 totally dissaffected and fed-up staff are parked in front of the Vice-Chancellor in the presence of the public. Hmm...

Now all I have to do is to find a source of income to replace the 80% of my salary that will be missing come August, and all will be well. If anybody out there wants some Web/datbase design, or custom sofware, the hedgehog is your man. If not, it's off to join the staff at B&Q or somewhere similar.

Meanwhile your hedgehog must fill in some more job application forms. Now, do I want to be an Asda checkout person? Hmm again...

Snow, Snow, Snow

It's almost the end of February, and here's the snow. In true British fashion, any precipitation of anything remotely white from the sky throws the whole country into a state of complete paralysis. What a good thing we don't have manna any more.

It does make you wonder what the difference is between countries such as Sweden and us. They expect snow, and cope with it when it happens. Over here, in Yorkshire, there has been what looks like about one inch, and traffic is snarling up at junctions and roundabouts, cars are swerving into each other and people are considering staying at home for the day.

Perhaps this country doesn't get enough snow. If we knew that every year we were going to be buried in the stuff, then we'd spend money on precautions and procedures to deal with it, but, of course, we don't.

Outside, it's started to come down again. I wonder if I should leave work early...?

Reynard Rules OK

Foxhunting has finally been banned, and the last hunt ever (possibly) happened yesterday. If you're a fox, this is great news, assuming you're a clever enough fox to read and understand any newspaper that you may have come across while ripping out the odd chicken's throat.

It's not the event itself that's fascinating, so much as the ideas and arguments that have come out of the woodwork ever since it happened.

Anti-hunters are rejoicing that no more foxes will be killed by being chased for up to two hours until they're exhausted, and then being ripped apart while alive, which strikes me as a fair enough comment. Others rejoice that animals are not being killed for human enjoyment, which I can also subscribe to. However, the idea that we all rejoice in animals not being killed at all strikes me as slightly stranger. Should we, for instance, kill or imprison all lions now so that innocent zebras don't pop their clogs?

Pro-hunters have a range of arguments just as interesting. One is that their enjoyment is being interfered with, and I hope we can write that argument off straight away; similarly, it can't carry on simply because it's traditional, like witch-burning. A more convincing version is that dogs finish the job, whereas a marksman (or is it a marksperson?) might leave a wounded fox trotting around. Is this sudden concern for the fox's welfare?

The main question to be asked is why people hunt in the first place. If it's for exercise, it can be done in other ways; if it's for excitement, other things are exciting; if it's doing the farmer a favour, it's a pretty inefficient approach to take twenty horses, twenty people at goodness knows what nominal rate per hour, and fifty dogs to run around for half a day and perhaps kill one fox.
If it's because they enjoy killing things, then there are institutions for such people.

Over to you: is it defensible or indefensible, or don't we really care?

Camilla and Charles

Is the Royal Marriage announcement important, or do we ignore such things in our modern world? If you're not British, you may well be passing on already from this page with a thinly veiled snort, and if you do happen to be from the sceptred isle, you may well be passing on anyway.

Technically speaking, the monarchy still has power; it's the Queen who dismisses and summons Parliament, who appoints the Prime Minister and who signs the Acts of parliament to make them law. In practice, of course, she does what she's told, and any refusal would plunge the country into a constutional crisis and even potential civil conflict. In principle, she could refuse to sign a new act, and have her representative in Parliament say, in medieval French, "La Reine s'avisera" (if I've got that right), which means that the Queen will think about it, which in practice would mean "bury this one". Ever since the reign of Queen Anne, however, the monarch has been saying "Le Roi le veut" or "La Reine le veut", signifying that the monarch wishes it.

One might wonder, then, why there's any fuss at all. The British have a peculiar relationship with the Royal Family: although the royals have little real power any more, the people of the country still wish to handle them as though they do, and every perceived slight or constitutional danger results in the people dictating to the royals what should happen next. It's a kind of monarchic democracy in reverse. In the 30's, when Edward VIII (confusingly actually called David) wanted to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, the establishment and the Commonwealth, prompted by the then PM, Baldwin, came down on him like a ton of bricks.

This might not happen nowadays, but the family and its court are still very sensitive to the fickle breeze of public opinion.

IMHO, C&C deserve a bit of happiness in both their lives, and the forthcoming titles have been arranged so as to avoid rocking the boat.

More ramblings on this, perhaps, in future posts.

Ellen MacArthur

Well, the lone yachtswoman is back at Falmouth, to the accompaniment of much media attention and publicity. Today's questions are:

• Has anything been achieved?
  
• Was it of any use to anyone?
  

She's sailed a yacht alone round the world, but isn't the first person to do it. Will we soon be talking about the first red-haired over 35 to sail round the world, or the first one-legged Albanian to climb Everest?

Was it round the world? That's actually quite a difficult thing to define, since there's (probably) nowhere where you can go round an uninterrupted great circle.

Was it of any use? It may well have further built her powers of resilience, or tested a new boat in untried seas, but I really can't work up a great deal of enthusiasm for the feat. Aren't there better things to be done than this?

Land of The Free

Well, the three Brits from Guantanamo Bay have been sent back to the UK, now, and detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

The arguments for the process that they've been though seem to be that there is a greater good for other people which overrides their individual rights, but the question for this blog post is simply:
If a country (Britain or the USA) imprisons people without trial (and we're talking of periods of 2/3 years), can it justifiably call itself a free country, or a Land of the Free?

As far as I can see, the argument for their treatment in this way is that the end justifies the means. Subsidiary question: is this true?

I have a feeling that deep down we all know the answers to these questions ...

MUD Update

This posts's at the geeky end of the spectrum, so you may wish to skip it. The MUD (see previous post) continues to plod along, if that's the right metaphor, but has got stuck (that's more appropriate).

Since it's a Java-based look-and-feel approximation to MUDOS, a famous MUD operating system, I've tried to use a lot of the MUDOS methods in it. One of these tricks is at login time the code for handling and creating the input and output streams which the game uses to chat to a player is built into each player object, so when somebody logs on, how do you chat to them before you've set up their player character? The answer is to have a dummy player which sets up I/O and gets the login details. A real player object is then set up for the player, and the dummy player is frozen, has its I/O taken over by the real player, and is then destroyed. Sounds very nasty.

What happens in practice is that the dummy player doesn't destroy itself when it should, and persists for one round, messing up the I/O. I thought I'd solved this one, but it's back. It seems to be waiting to destroy itself until it gets another round of keyboard input, which suggest two problems to me:
Either

1. it's hanging until it gets keyboard input
   
2. the fact that every object in the game has its own thread of control means that it's blocking until some other object does something.
   

Well, we'll see. Writing that down may have clarified my thoughts a little, and if and when the game ever gets into beta testing mode, I'll publish login details and you can all play (assuming you want to).

Now that's off my chest, the next post may be a litle less techie. I should actually be doing something else rather than blogging, so I'd better listen to my conscience and do it. Bye.

Harry the Twit

Well, Prince Harry has done it now, following in the diplomatic and politically sensitive footsteps of his Grandad. They used to say that he shortest book in the world was "The Wit of Prince Philip", but his grandson has surpassed that.

I refer, of course, to Harry's jolly wheeze of attending a fancy dress party as a Nazi, just to liven things up. He's sure to have pleased everyone - the far right because they might interpret it as support, and the anti-monarchists because he's dropped the Royal Family several more notches in the popular estimation.

HRH seems not only to have shot himself in the foot, but to have taken careful aim and blown off half his leg as well.

It may well die down, but would we bet on him doing something equally awful next week, just to keep us all on our toes?

This blog offers a miniscule prize of fame for the best suggestion as to what he might do next that's as bad or even worse.

MUDdy ing the Waters

For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, a MUD is a Multi-User Domain (originally a Multi-User Dungeon, but that has always sounded a bit dodgy to people).

It allows many people to log into the same game, as assumed characters, and to interact with each other and the environment.

It has a long history, blending ideas from the paper and pencil board game Dungeons and Dragons® invented by Gary Gygax (probably with influences from Tolkien), and the original single-user Colossal Cave Adventure game written by Will Crowther. There's now a book out by Richard Bartle on the subject, which I intend to read sometime, and which no doubt will prove to be excellent.

Players in these games originally looked for treasure and fought monsters, and in the multi-user version, fought each other sometimes as well. Offshoots from this idea have led to "gentler" games where participants cooperate to solve quests, or chat with each other, and you can find MUSHes, MOOs and all sorts of variants on the networks nowadays, including graphics version such as Everquest®.

The features provided in MUDs are useful and popular. You can have several personae, and join different guilds, such as thief, wizard, fighter and so on, which give you various skills and powers. You can pick up and drop objects, buy and sell them in shops, and trade the with other players.

Chatting and conversation is versatile: you can talk in various locations such as pubs, while sipping fake drinks (?), and the game allows you to display conversational cues on demand, such as smile, shrug, snore, etc to liven up the chat.

Some areas are safe, while in others you can be attacked by other players (if the game allows that sort of thing). The most addictive feature of all is that by performing tasks and quests, and exercising your skills, you can acquire new powers and ratings in the game.

Although the graphics versions have gained great popularity recently, the old-style purely text-based MUDs still abound, and their attraction is easy to see: a skillfully written game is rich in detail and description, and allows the player to envisage their own version of the world that they inhabit. It's like the difference between radio and television: television hands you the author's view, but radion lets you populate your imagination. (I've always thought that good radion comedy can be better than good TV comedy, Eccles). The text-based ones also tend to be free of charge.

I may rant about all this at some other time, and describe some of the (now defunct) MUDs that have given me great pleasure, but if you can't wait, a very good one at the moment can be found on the Nanvaent site.

Why am I gibbering on about this? Well, for one thing, I'm keen on both the technical and the social parts of the game: it's fascinating to see how people behave and interact in these surroundings. Also, I'm in the process of developing a game engine myself. It's written in Java, and will be freely available when it's ready (don't keep asking - it won't make it happen any faster). The purpose is to produce an engine which will then let people build there own MUDs on top of it.

However, I won't be able to resist setting up my own running MUD, just to test it thoroughly!

At the moment, we can handle locations, characters and objects, and the interaction between these is being debugged (and yes, there are bugs at present). When that's all cleaned up, development will move on to setting up a fighting mechanism (very difficult) and a mechanism that will allow guilds such as thief, wizard etc. One of the problems that has recently been solved is to list the contents of locations in a sensible way: that is, instead of "a sword, a orc, a sword" to say "two swords and an orc". It's been a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.

I'll keep you posted.

Jerry Springer

What a strange world we live in. After Jerry Springer, The Opera had been showing in theatres for some time, the BBC decided to put it on TV, and protest exploded. Too much swearing, and some blasphemy, are the claims.

Here's the question, then: if a body of people agree that such a show offends their religion, should it be banned? Is that freedom or censorship? Is it right?

The Opera was shown yesterday on the Beeb; some little time ago, a play which was said to be insulting to the Sikh religion was dropped because of fears of violence.

Have we two standards here when we ought to have only one, and which one should it be?

I can only say that if the opera is anything like the original Springer show, then I'd rather be trapped in a lift with an incontinent hippopotamus.

Woeful Words

Here's a grouse (and that word may typify just what I'm complaining about).

Are we seeing a trend for people to throw away existing nouns that we use and substitute verbs instead? For instance, what we might have called an expenditure seems to be called a spend. A demand is being called an ask, etc. (But then, where does demand come from?)

Or have we just always done this over the centuries? We've certainly messed around with trying to form verbs fron nouns: cities utterly flattened during the war were sometimes said to have been "coventrated", but this has fortunately disappeared. Perhaps they should have been "dresdened", anyway.

I'd generally take the view that where a new word (or a new usage) introduces a differentiation in meaning that wasn't there before, it should be accepted. For instance, we now have (on this side of the Atlantic) program for a set of computer instructions, and programme for a set of items to be presented (as in a concert programme). I have the feeling that a television or radio programme ought to be a set of viewing or listening items, rather than individual items, so that we ought to watch a programme of documentaries, rather than referring to each documentary as a programme. However, that one's gone long ago.

For sweet gooey fruity stuff in a jar, we use the terms jam, jelly or marmalade, which distinguish between ordinary fruity jam with the bits left in, fruity jam with all the bits strained out, and "jam" made with bitter peel as well as pulp from fruits such as orange, where the sweetness has a very bitter edge to wake up your palate at breakfast time.

Rock on, and let's hear it for finer shades of meaning!

More on The Novel

I suppose that whenever anyone mentions a novel, then the obvious question is: "What's it about?". [Thanks, Alastair, for asking this one].

At this point, 90% of you (about 0.2 people) will turn to another blog, go off and do something else, or fall slowly over sideways, polaxed by the power of sheer boredom.

Roughly, it's a "whodunnit" crime novel with literary pretensions. It's set in a University, where an unpopular professor has been murdered. Strange events and hallucinogenic oddities litter the scene as a small team of academics blend their individual skills to track down the killer. Unless, of course, it's one of them...

Well, that's 5 chapters finished at about 8,000 words per chapter. I had planned 10 chapters, but the material for 5 and 6 has all just compressed itself into Chapter 5 alone, so it might turn out to be a 9 chapter book. I wonder if 72,000 words is sufficient?

Also, the discipline of getting down and writing more has made me think more about the possible ending and some of its improbabilities. There's now a cinematically dramatic ending, which may not work so well on the page, and a better tying up of loose ends. Will I ever write any more of it? Well, I hope so, as it seems to be one of the only ways to get off the job treadmill, and even then only a very low percentage of authors make it (that should probably be "makes" it, since the authors are being considered as a collective single unit).

Perhaps there are other would-be authors out there who might consider commenting on the whole process of getting work together, onto paper, and publishing it?

Anyway, back to the spiffing old teapot, as they used to say.

And, of course, The Novel

Yes, like half the planet, I’m working on The Novel. At the moment, it has taken a very long time, largely because I don’t write chunks of it for a while. This may be the ultimate secret: if I want to get the novel written, I’ll have to keep writing it. Why did it take so long for me to work this out?

There’s a story of the novice who came to stay at a Zen monastery, and asked for enlightenment. “Have you eaten?” said the Head Monk. “Yes” replied the novice.
“Then you had better wash out your rice bowl” was the reply. At that moment the novice was enlightened.

The first three chapters of the novel have been off to famous agents (aim high) and have come back with beautifully and carefully written rejection letters. These people are business like, and have an eye to what they can sell, but also very kind.

Oh well, maybe one day…

Sneezes and Snuffles

Not so jolly today. I'm laid up at home with a throat/snuffle/feel grotty bug which, after hanging about for weeks, has decided to come out of the woodwork at last.

What a marvellous hacking sound when I cough. It's a kind of gurgle followed by a snap as (presumably) gunk peels off the inside of the lungs, or wherever it is.

I've stepped up the ashtma reliever dose to double, and am sitting/snoozing in a warm house, waiting for the bugs to get fed up and go.

On Qi last night, Stephen Fry asked which animal in the world was the most dangerous, the answer apparently being the mosquito, which he claimed had killed half the human beings who had ever lived. Is this true?

1. I thought it was the malaria that did for them.
   
2. I thought that man might have a good chance of being the most danerous animal
   

However, these are but the ramblings of a (mildly) sick person, so don't pay too much attention. As others in the world stretch out in the sun, think of me in a kitchen in Britain on a grey, damp day that's already turning dark, and laugh your socks off. Go on - you know you'll enjoy it.

Tsunami and Morality

Strewth. Now I feel guilty. We donated £50 to the appeal on the Web, and then wondered if it was enough. The answer, of course is no. Neither is £100 enough, nor £1000,000 and so on.

Yes, we did spend more on buying Christmas presents than we spent on the aid. I think I'll go and hide my head in a bucket.

It does raise a question. Given an individual's financial situation, what's an appropriate amount for them to give to the disaster fund? Should it be dependent on what they can afford, or what the fund needs? Aristotle, where are you?

Another interesting fact. As of about yesterday, the US had given to the fund about one and a half day's worth of what it's spending on the Iraq war. Hmm.... Better than nothing? Good or bad? There seem to be many moral questions here, which I don't know the answer to.

Yesterday, Newsnight (A Brit news comment programme) had the Catholic bish (or is he an archbish) Cormac Murphy O'Connor (why does he use his middle name?), a Muslim and the atheist Peter Atkins from Oxford in discussion about why a good and moral God would do something like this. (Or, if he's omniscient and omnipotent, why he would let it happen). Atkins said that if God exists, he's a worse terrorist than Bin Laden, and O'Connor waffled ineffectually. The Muslim talked off the point, and it all ended very inconclusively. It would be interesting to see a proper staged debate on such a topic.

Anyway, Happy New Year to those of you who are still alive and can stand it. What a world.