We should meet for coffee/marriage

You're on a first date, you're a bit nervous. You're a bit early so you wait at the back of the bar without a drink because she should be here shortly and you'd like to offer to buy her a drink, it's what one does in these situations.

She arrives, you get a bit more nervous but make a pathetic wave as you lock eyes, matching a face that looks enough like the profile pictures that you're 99% sure you haven't just made a fool of yourself by waving at a random stranger. You buy her that drink (experience suggests that a diet coke is the likely request) and find a seat.

Here's where it gets complex for us Christians... from now on, it's not a date in the traditional sense. The pressure is on, you're being eyed up as future baby-making husband material. At least, that's what it feels like and truth is, that's often the case. Many Christians have marriage on the mind far too soon. It's part of our odd little sub-culture.

I recall being part of a conversation about two friends in the church who had just started dating. Someone mentioned the 'M' word and I lost it and went on a 5-minute rant about the problem with the pressure we, as Church, put on young Christian couples. I think I shocked a few people but I'm not sorry for saying what I said. As a divorcee who's "Christian" marriage lasted barely 8 months, I feel qualified to speak on the topic.

Why do we do it? Why do we pressurise them? Some of it is genuine desire for them to have a happy and long-lasting relationship but I get the feeling that much of it is the excitement of another wedding, another new outfit to buy, and I have to say, sorry girls, this is mostly the ladies.

The other side of Christians marrying young is about sex, or rather, lack of sex. Think about this for a moment; In biblical times, marriage ages were frequently 12-15, now they are approximately double that. The chemistry of the human body, means we hit puberty around 9-15 years old. Modern-day Christians (and now I'm speaking mostly to the men) are having to wait, in spite of their chemistry and it's associated desires, 10+ years and all of this with a culture that's putting it in our faces every second of every day. Of course people want to jump through the hoop that is marriage, they've been told about this mystical & wonderful thing that awaits them on the other side! They've been told about it every day since they were old enough to understand what those perfume adverts were suggesting. Billboards scream it from the roadside, shelves are lined with "magazines for men" that are inexplicably not classed as porn, cars are showcased with models draped across them.

My point is NOT that saving yourself for marriage is wrong or impossible, I did it. My point is that there is so much pressure on dating Christians to tie the knot, both from themselves and from outside pressures, that it is our responsibility towards our brothers & sisters to drag their head out of the love-hazed clouds and back down to earth. Challenge them, question them, HELP them but for God's sake, don't encourage them, they already have enough of that! It is madly irresponsible of us to start talking about their future potential relationship status before they do.

Also, it makes dating so much harder than it needs to be... I have never known a time when "we should meet for coffee" between Christians has ever been anything other than subtext for "I think we could get married some day, lets get things started now".

It has to stop.

Jon Snow's Song of Ice and Fire

BIG BIG SPOILER ALERT
If you haven't read a Dance with Dragons & you don't want to know what happens, don't read this blog post!












Jon is dead... wait... what?

How could GRRM do this agai... aaah, wait a minute...

Lets go all Sherlock on this for a minute. When he killed Eddard he chopped off his head, pretty final. When they killed Robb it was conclusive. Tywin too, and Joffrey. Conversely, when he 'killed' Brienne we never saw that final moment of death and lo, she wasn't dead. Same for Bran & Rickon, Tyrion too, Danaerys had one, the jury is still out on Jaime.

Essentially the point is that unless you see that moment of death, a POV character probably isn't dead.

There are a few other reasons why Jon isn't dead...

Prophecy: Jon is suspected to be the prophesied Azor-Ahai reborn.
"There will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him."
While there are many theories, Jon as the prince that was promised is one of the more compelling. Especially considering the speculation that Jon is the child of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, thus would be descended from Aerys and Rhaella. This is relevant because A woods witch prophesied that their progeny would spawn Azor Ahai reborn.

Additionally, whenever Melisandre consulted the flames for Azor Ahai (whom she believes to be Stannis), she is only given visions of Jon.

He is also a Warg which means that even if his body should perish, his will can pass to an animal, most probably Ghost. This was alluded to in the prologue chapter.

Choice of words: GRRM makes a few word selections that don't make sense without wider context.

Consider the following;
"When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt."

We know about the "red star" and "darkness gathers" refer to the blood-red comet and the coming of winter respectively. Smoke and Salt are slightly more cryptic or perhaps would be if GRRM had spaced out the references more but observe the language in the moments around Jon's 'death'.

Upon being stabbed, the wound is described as 'smoking'. He has just been stabbed somewhere with sub-zero temperatures, surely it should say 'steaming'? But it doesn't.

Also, as Bowen Marsh & co are stabbing him and crying "For the Watch!" it is also stated that Marsh is crying.

Smoke and Salt.

This brings us to the pivotal word here, "reborn". Jon must die.

"Night gathers, and now my watch begins. It shall not end until my death. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. I shall wear no crowns and win no glory. I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. I pledge my life and honor to the Night's Watch, for this night and all nights to come."

"It shall not end until my death". This is why Jon must first die before being reborn as Azor-Ahai.

Thoros of Myr showed us that the Red God's servants have the power to bring people back from the dead. Dondarrion made the journey several times, carrying his wounds with him. Jon's stab wounds might be survivable but as an honorable Stark, it makes more sense that he dies to be released from his watch.

Finally, it simply doesn't make sense that GRRM would kill Jon because there is nobody else up on the wall who can continue the story, no other POV character there.

So, Jon isn't dead... hopefully!

Corruption, a thing of the past?

When you talk about corruption, inevitably you start talking about people in positions of authority and influence. Police, politicians, the press, sports personalities, clergy & big business leaders. It is rarely those lower down the chain, why is that?

Is it that we lowly peons of society are incorruptible? Is it that nobody considers us worth their effort to bend our will to match theirs?

The police have been found to be corrupt in their handling of the Hillsborough disaster. What they have done is awful* but to what extent can we say it is beyond understanding? Clearly the situation was handled poorly and ultimately those in charge must have known that their jobs were forfeit. Every man has his price so says the old adage and, it would seem, that their jobs was the price these men were willing to sell their integrity for. It is wrong, it has caused 23 years of hurt but it is understandable. Think about your own life and how different it might look if your job was suddenly taken from you and what you might do to prevent it happening.

There are two things about the cover-up that don't fall under the banner of 'understandable' that I have erected however;
First, the doctoring of people's records to slur their character, to be responsible for a failing at your work place is unfortunate and shows incompetence but what followed was literally and figuratively criminal and this is an important distinction because we cross the line between culpable and crooked.
Secondly, it has emerged that the police were initially advised by law professionals to approach the investigation considering themselves the accused. This seems to have been overturned when government officials including PM Margaret Thatcher (spits on floor) got involved.

This has crossed another line now. as has already been stated, lying to protect oneself and ones job is understandable albeit still immoral. Lying to save face is quite another matter. The Conservative government will never have the respect of the honest working public for as long as they continue to scratch the backs of those in positions of influence while the working public are left with no options in life but to fund their decadence. Cameron's apology was appropriate and well delivered but it is easy to apologise for the past sins of others, what will people in future governments have to apologise for on behalf of Cameron & his cronies I wonder? Admitting someone else's mistakes politically is one of the best things you can do, it garners good will towards you & your party and doesn't lose you anything and no politician will ever admit their own, at least not while they still have a future in politics.

If, in 22 years time we're talking about how a police shooting of an innocent man sparked the London riots and how it was covered up with Cameron's knowledge then Cameron's apology yesterday to the families of the Hillsborough deceased was phony and just another political tool.

*I'm hesitant to say unforgivable where others might as I believe that no crime is unforgivable

Computer games, I love 'em & hate 'em. They are one of the greatest sources of joy & grief for me. Some may call that sad but it's no more-so than someone who can lose themselves in a good book or movie.


Sometimes they can provide some interesting insight though.


Today's blog is all bout greed. Greed is the single most important driving factor in our capitalist society. Greed is exhonerated, we applaud those who have managed to make their millions. We idolise them on TV & in magazines. We rate them on a world's richest league table. We do the same with companies.


This week I was hoping to enjoy a new game by the name of Diablo III. It is made by Blizzard, they of World of Warcraft. You may have seen the TV ads with Chuck Norris & Mr T. This game is unremarkable in almost every way, it's a simple concept and simple gameplay. The graphics aren't ground-breaking and the story is... nothing to write home about.


It has one unusual feature that sets it apart however. Every item in the game is tradeable on an 'auction house'. Things can be bought & sold on this auction house for in-game currency but also for real money.


This has a number of effects on the game but let me first explain with an example. I put an item up on the RMAH (Real Money Auction house) for £10 and someone buys it. I can choose to allow that money to go to my Battle.net Balance or to Paypal (some countries don't have the Paypal option).


Great? I can make money by playing a game right? Well... sorta...


So, someone bought my £10 item. Instantly the lsit fee goes to Blizzard, it's $1 in the US, I'm expecting 75p-ish here so I get £9.25 right? Well, no. Blizzard now takes a 15% cut of the original sale amount. So, £7.75 then.


Here's the really awful catch, That £7.75 goes into my battle.net account which I can never access in the real world. So, my real-world money has become another in-game currency essentially.


I can of course choose to recieve this via Paypal in which case Blizzard's cut goes up to 30% so my £10 sale leaves me with £6.25 and Blizzard have just made £3.75 from some poor soul.


Now I'm not against someone making money, that's what businesses do, I do have to object with this because of the following...


You MUST play on their servers. You may have heard that many people who just paid £30-ish for a new game weren't able to play it because the servers couldn't cope with the amount of players.


This would be understandable in an MMOG (Massively-Multiplayer Online Game) but this is a game that many will play single-player. Even if you're on your own you MUST connect and stay connected to their servers.


The reason for this is that if the game generated the loot that players receive client-side (on the player's computer) then there is a good chance that eventually someone would work out how to create non-legit items. This happened with a great game called Borderlands (but wasn't hindered because it didn't need to keep the reins tightly held)


This would render the RMAH useless because people could simply make their own uber items if they were so-inclined and would also destroy the motivating feature of the game, that is, gathering loot.


So why not simply allow people to play in a single-player environment with characters that can't be transferred over to the multiplayer environment? Simple, because that is potential money lost. It would make these players the digital equivalent of window shoppers. Never mind that they have already shelled out £30 for a game that has no new features on top of Diablo II, released in 2000.


So, the issue we are left with is a game that nobody can play (because the servers can't cope) and a company that thus isn't making money from it's schemes, all because of greed.


A shame really because the little bit I have managed to play thus far is actually a lot of fun. I'm sure the servers will cope eventually once the amount of players drops slightly (or Blizzard actually put some of the crazy amounts of money they make from WoW subscribers into more authentication servers). I'll just be opting out of using the RMAH & enjoying playing this with some mates.


So, greed making everything worse for everyone else...? Where have seen that before?

iSheep

I'm going to try to write this post without launching into too many mini-rants but apologies in advance if I fail to curb my enthusiasm for this subject...

iPhones... they're not as good as you think they are. Something that really gets my goat is the way many (most?) iPhone users proselytize about their device.

To quote JackFM "A message to all iPhone users, you bought it, you didn't f*****g invent it".

The reason I can't stand this isn't because they like to tell me about the wonderful thing their phones can do though, I'm quite happy to chat about tech & features. The thing that pisses me off is that they think they hold the only device that can do the latest thing their phone does.

Case in point; Siri, Apple's 'new' feature that barely justifies differentiating the iPhone 4S from the iPhone 4. It's neat, it's clever and it's old technology. WHAT? OLD YOU SAY? Yes, old. Apple would have you believe it's a revolutionary new feature that nobody else can offer but it's been on Windows Phone 7 devices since their release in November 2010. See the article HERE for more info.

The bottom line is that iPhones are good devices, even great devices (though iTunes is another matter) but their users, largely are completely ignorant about smartphones and clearly do no research in advance of their purchase.

Apple are masters of marketing to their iSheep.

What makes a good story?

Please join me in a toast to Mr. George Martin for ripping up the book of storytelling and doing it his own way... sort-of!

Many people have now seen HBO's excellent TV series A Game of Thrones, and many, like me may have progressed to reading the books from whence it came. A Song of Ice and Fire is a true fantasy epic the likes of which I have never experienced.

I'm a true fantasy junkie, from Lord of the Rings to Dungeons and Dragons via some Star Wars (which is as much fantasy as sci-fi) but George Martin's series of books has blown them all out of the water for me.

I have never beheld such a beautiful and beautifully brutal story. I tried and failed to explain some of it to a friend. After my failing was complete he decided he might better understand what I was blathering about by asking questions...
"Who are the bad guys?"
Well... there's Tyrion, the dwarf, but he's not really so bad. Or there's Jaime... but he's more complex than you think at first. I thought Viserys would be the big bad but...
"Ok... who is the good guy?"
Well, there's Ned but look where that got him, or Rob maybe.

I realised when I was reading it and even more so when I was failing to explain it that George Martin has truly managed to create a world where the characters reflect reality... nobody is the bad guy, at least not in their own eyes, everybody has their reasons for doing what they do and nobody is blameless.

Everything about the stories from the point you realise this is very organic. The characters experience and respond much like people would. Some retreat into their personality (Cersei), some are changed by their experiences (Arya, Jaime).

He writes men, women, children, even animals as if he had experienced each existence personally (which I assume he hasn't!) Cersei isn't evil, she's just a mother with a megalomaniac streak.

He also writes death, there is blood in them there pages! No character is indispensable which is the failing of many franchises, not least the Star Wars novels. The callous disregard GM has for his own finely crafted character's lives means that you're never bored by a chapter. At any moment there might be an assassination attempt or a fight breaking out or someone getting sacrificed.

There are so many great characters too, your favourite character might die a horrible death but that doesn't make you throw the book down in anger because you want to know what happens next for the other characters.

George Martin is a true servant to his own story. It feels very much like he hated killing some of his characters as much as you might hate reading it but that is the story and he will tell it true. It reads more like a history than a story because of the number of characters involved and the brutal nature of some of their existences.

Stories aren't normally like this, I'm not sure if they should all be like this but I'm glad this one is!