Seriously what is wrong with adverbs?

Okay, so maybe if every other sentence contained the dreaded adverb, a reader might be overwhelmed. But seriously, what is wrong with them? They have as much right to be a part of speech as the great Noun or mighty Verb. If the verb itself is not embarrssed by the presence of its less popular cousin, why should we be? It is highly possible, Mr Elmore Leonard, that a well chosen adverb can enrich a sentence, which in turn enriches the world the author is trying to create.

I may be a novice in the eyes of so esteemed a writer (I make no presumption that I am anything more), but as such, I am entitled to my opinion. I agree with some of the points Leonard makes, such as the overuse of exclamation marks and the problems associated with regional dialect, but  ‘suddenly’ is not an evil word and can be put to great effect at a time of action in a novel. Robert Jordan wrote one of the best prologues in any novel to begin his first book in the  (highly successful) series The Wheel of Time. It actually gave me an idea for a story of my own.

‘Said’ to conclude a piece of dialogue can get ineffably boring. You don’t have to use the fancy endings Leonard quotes like ‘he admonished gravely’ (though I quite like that), but what is wrong with a ‘he asked’ or a ‘she replied’ every so often to break the monotony?

Few of his rules I found helpful; they resembled more a rant about pet peeves than a list of constuctive suggestions.

The top ten points of other authors deserved the bold type in my opinion. (With difficulty) I have chosen my ten favourite:

Read it aloud to yourself because that’s the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out – they can be got right only by ear). Diana Athill

You don’t always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they’d be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it’s the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.) Diana Athill

Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it. Geoff Dyer

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn’t matter how “real” your story is, or how “made up”: what matters is its necessity. Anne Enright

Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. Neil Gaiman

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter. Neil Gaiman

Open your mind to new experiences, particularly to the study of other ­people. Nothing that happens to a writer – however happy, however tragic – is ever wasted. P. D James

Don’t just plan to write – write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style. P. D. James

Be without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones ­until they behave – then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you’ll get is silence. AL Kennedy

 Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page. Margaret Atwood

The full article (which I found helpful and uplifting) can be found here.

Back Boris?

(This is my rather pathetic attempt to show an interest in politics).

We all know he’s very cool and has a… unique way with words. But Mayor? Speaking impartially, I am interested to know how many support our conservative friend. Is it a good idea to ban alcohol on public transport? Oxygenchameleon: you live in London and like Boris. What are your two cents?

And God said…

To continue my rants into the idiosyncrasies of religious belief, here’s a real treat.

Such is the slogan of the $27 million creation museum in Kentucky, which is something of an embarrassment for the US scientific community. It’s easy for atheists and non Bible Belt Christians to laugh, but the “museum’s” calculated merging of religion and science is dangerously misleading, and is aimed at brainwashing its younger visitors into believing that science is able to substantiate Christian doctrine. The fact that the museum was even built is testament to the influence of groups such as its parent, Answers in Genesis. And $27 million! Think of the good that a Christian organisation could have done! This religion constantly urges us to extend the hand of aid to our less fortunate brothers, but where is the charity in this monstrosity of a building? Its hand is busy misleading and brainwashing young minds into believing a hypothesis whose only evidence is located in an age-old, outdated book written by MEN. Since we fell from grace, aren’t all men faliable?

It’s a good job scientists aren’t religious fanatics; if they were, the museum would suffer from more than protesters with innocuous paper signs. I am no scientist, but I have great respect for its practices. Without science, man would still be in the dark ages, worshiping some animalistic deity. Scientific Method is the only way to provide proof of the origin of existence. Think how far we’ve come since Copernicus and Galileo. With knowledge comes power, but also understanding. Why did God order Eve and Adam not to eat of the Tree? Because it would give them the power of autonomy, the ability to make up their own minds. God is by nature a tyrant. Tyrants want to oppress those beneath them, and one way of doing so is to forbid all forms of knowledge that might help the oppressed to become free-thinking individuals.

Science is part of this knowledge. The evidence provided has helped throw off the shackles of religion until secularism is perfectably acceptabe and is the neutral standpoint to adopt.

The creation museum is cherry-picking its scientific elucidations in order to validate some of the Bible’s more unlikely “facts”. Take for instance the Grand Canyon, carved out by the Flood:

Or the strange application of Natural Selection:

Tennyson might be quite interested to see how his words have been put to use. (‘Nature, red with tooth and claw’, In Memoriam, 1850).

The museum even descends into attacking the Pill, which has freed thousands of women from the financial, physical and emotional burden of unwanted children:

The “evils” of the secular world include gay marriage, abortion and evolution taught in schools. To think of it! A substantiated, well researched argument that goes a long way to explaining how humanity came to be. Of course, it necessarily contradicts the existence of god, which is never a good thing for the religious authoritarians who have exercised the use and abuse of power for centuries.

There are some excellent reports about the museum, as well as a first hand account of an American’s visit, complete with photos! The BBC report inerviews the guy in charge, who actually believes that the Bible is the ‘be all and end all’ authority on life. As well as another who genuinely thinks that the first humans played alongside dinosaurs and treated velocorapters as pets. Where did we go wrong?

Ah yes. Of course.

Ben Stein: An Ignorant Fool

I’ve lifted the following parody from Richard Dawkins.net which basically exposes the stupidity behind the pro-creationist film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, whose title nicely sums up the criteria for believing in ‘intelligent’ design:

Anticipating success with their feature film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Producers Mark Mathis, Logan Craft and Walt Ruloff have already leaked a teaser trailer for the film’s sequel. Their “teach the controversy” slogan seemed to work well in getting the general public to believe that Intelligent Design is a viable alternative scientific theory to Evolution, so the team has moved on to promoting other theories that they feel are being suppressed by the scientific community. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed tells of how Sex Theory has thrived unchallenged in the ivory towers of academia, as the explanation for how new babies are created. Proponents of Stork Theory claim that “Big Sex” has been suppressing their claim that babies are delivered by storks. Furthermore, Stork Theory proponents warn of the serious moral dangers posed by teaching children that sex has a function. They point out that evil dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao all believed in Sex Theory, and they may have even had sex themselves.

There is also a late-breaking new development in the controversy, a new theory called Avian Transportation Theory.

Unlike the original Stork Theory, the modern, sophisticated “Avian Transportation Theory” (ATT) merely points out that there are gaps in the orthodox Sex Theory, and that current sonogram imaging is unreliable. Moreover ATT does not specify that babies are necessarily brought by storks but by “large birds unspecified” (although many individual ATT theorists PRIVATELY believe it is a stork).

See more about Expelled:
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

PZ’s post:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/04/pelicans_always_seemed_more_pr.php

Another funny ‘teach the controversy’ video posted today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwUCXkqn-dM&watch_response

Let us have Truth and Liberty!

Everyone raise a glass! Not only because I handed in my dissertation today, but also to celebrate the abolition of the blasphemy law!

Almost two hundred years have passed since Shelley spoke out against this very law, which has the power to sentence a free-thinking individual to imprisonment and hard labour. In Shelley’s time, publishers could be jailed for printing a text such as Tom Paine’s Rights of Man, dubbed an “infidel” tract by authoritarian clergy. The blasphemy law was strictly enforced by a conservative government desperate to cling to power in the sudden upsurge of socialism, post French Revolution. Though Richard Carlile was in fact sent to Newbury prison for his publication of Paine’s work, this didn’t stop him from printing more “infidel” literature. He even wrote pamphlets, whilst incarcerated, ‘To Men of Science’ and ‘To The Reformers of Great Britain’. It was for looking after the bookshop whilst Carlile and his wife were in jail and for selling his pamphlets that Susannah Wright was arrested:

Susannah answered the Carlile’s calls for volunteers to keep the bookshop open and, assured of the support of her ‘atheistical friends’, vowed to ‘attend to the business at all risk’. Like the Carliles before her, and the legion of volunteers who followed, Susannah was soon prosecuted; in her case, for the sale of two tracts penned by Richard Carlile from his Dorchester prison cell. During her first trial in July 1822 she conducted her own defence, which lasted a formidable four hours. Retiring from the court to attend to her baby, Wright returned to conclude her case, advising the Jury to ‘be firm and do your duty’ and insisting that she both scorned ‘mercy and demand[ed] justice’.

The jury obliged, swiftly returning a guilty verdict. It would be four months before Wright again returned to court for sentencing. This time, her notoriety attracted more of the public gaze in both crowd numbers and press interest. When offered the opportunity to address the court in ‘plea of mitigation of punishment’ Wright instead challenged the validity of her guilty verdict, arguing that Christianity had no place in the law.

The Chief Justice issued repeated warnings to her to desist from profaning the law and the church in his court. To the amusement of the crowded courtroom she retorted, ‘You, Sir, are paid to hear me’. Infuriated by her obstinacy the Judge sentenced Wright (and by default her infant) to be confined for 10 weeks in the loathed Newgate prison to deliberate on her plea.

I had seen this article back in January that announced the possible abolition of the blasphemy law, but to find the motion has passed… well this really is a day to celebrate. I’m sure fatalname would agree! 

So cheers, Shelley! And to all those who fought against the blasphemy law in the name of liberty; I am only sad it has taken so long and that you are not here to see this day.

Celebration As Abolition Of Iniquitous Blasphemy Law Is Approved In Parliament

The National Secular Society (NSS) welcomes the passing by the House of Lords last night, Wednesday March 5 2008, of an amendment abolishing the blasphemy law by 148 votes to 87.

The fiery debate had a near record turn-out of bishops, who were split between those accepting the inevitability of change and those lamenting the signal abolition would give about the decline in religious influence and the secularisation of society. Some feared that abolition would unleash a tide of blasphemous publications.

Terry Sanderson, President of the NSS said: “This is the culmination of the Society’s 140-year fight to abolish this medieval law under which many innocent victims have suffered. Even in the 20th century, one of my predecessors was jailed for blasphemy. The laws have been criticised recently as being uncertain, without penalty and widely believed not to be compliant with Human Rights.

“I pay tribute to all those who have suffered under this cruel law, denying freedom of expression, and to those before me who have campaigned for its abolition.

“Our celebrations will be overshadowed by the knowledge that parliaments elsewhere in the world will soon be pressurised into passing a new law even more pernicious than blasphemy. It will outlaw so-called defamation of religion. Pressure to pass this law is coming from a bloc of Islamic countries organised by the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Conference). Having made their demands at the UN Human Rights Commission, they are now planning to lobby the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Nations respecting Human Rights must speak out against the defamation of religious law as it undermines the freedom of expression on which our democracy, and indeed our civilisation, depends.”

Dad’s Thought for the Day

I’ve noticed that human beings are at their happiest at the local re-cycling depot. Sorting their rubbish and putting it in the correct bins. They love it. You’ve never seen such expressions of contentment and joy. As well as using cognitive and coordination skills: the right colour bottles through the nominated holes. There’s also some aesthetic judgements to be made; gently drop them, just inside? Eerrrr. Or throw them to the back in quick succession, whilst there’s no one else there? Or leisurely; savouring every shattered bottle? And then there’s the light physical exertion in climbing the stairs of the skip etc.

Sometimes I think we try too hard to find the things that make people truly happy or discover the essence of our beings, but it’s fun trying. love dad, XXX

Homo erectus extinctus

Is nature determined to make men extinct? Senior scientists believe that women may evolve as humanity’s sole representatives — and social and political trends are lending weight to their theories.

What follows is an interesting but long-winded article from the Times (16/12/07) detailing the scientific research that claims men will eventually become extinct.

‘The bill (the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill) is a reflection of much wider scientific and social changes. The technology to produce artificial sperm, or even create offspring from two females, is already in the pipeline; in addition, genetic evidence has shown that the Y chromosome, the only one that confers maleness, is in a long-term evolutionary decline’.

 So we’re living in a world of genetic experiment. Healthy baby mice produced from two females. Artificial sperm constructed from bone marrow. Female sperm from female stem cells. Manufactured sperm potentially available to lesbians.

“Men will die out as the Y chromosome withers. At the current rate of decline, heterosexual reproduction may only last around 125,000 years. The core sex is female.”

As well as stripping men of their intellectual skill in the face of woman’s growing academic proficiency, the article goes to great lengths to explore ‘Britain’s burgeoning community of lesbian families’. I am no homophobe. I think this report is great and rather funny in places. But I find the issues it raises unsettling.

When it comes down to it, I advocate genetic exploration. It extends our knowledge of the human body and is capable of answering questions about the origins of life. When it is used to fight genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, Down Syndrome, it improves the quality of life for thousands. The misuse of genetics can lead to experiments far worse than designer babies, but I don’t believe we should sacrifice progress to caution. Can we be trusted to use genetic research responsibly?

A world without men. Scary thought. What would happen to animal magnetism? Who would we laugh at or blame for unrealistic things? Seriously though, men extinct? Lesbian relationships the norm? I call upon men to defend their existence and women to defend…well, whatever they like.

Where is The Great Saundini?

Ten pounds more the richer

Now usually I am not one to complain about the commercial services I receive, but the condition of this morning’s Christmas present (for my aunt and uncle) induced me to write a polite but peeved email to the customer service manager at Waitrose Wine Direct:

“This is my first order from you and I must say I am a little disappointed in the presentation of the product I received today. You advertised this champagne gift set under ‘Christmas Gifts’ and yet the box it came in was covered with dust – clearly unsuitable for a present. I had to take the drawer out and clean the whole box before I was satisfied. I am aware that this is a busy time of year, but I feel embarrassed about giving a gift that looks like it has sat around for months in some warehouse. I am not asking to exchange it, as I see you have probably run out. I just wanted to alert you to the fact that a product advertised as a Christmas gift carries with it a certain level of expectation, which my order sadly fell below.

Sincerely,”

— Middle-aged-sounding undergraduate.

I was irritated, and I did spend ten or so minutes with a piece of tissue trying to remove the dust, but only succeeding in spreading it around. What’s more, the expiry date on the accompanying chocolates read 02/08 – surely champagne truffles which expire in February must have been made sometime last year? How long have they been in that warehouse? Are they really ‘hand-piped’? For obvious reasons, I cannot open the seal to find out. Christmas Day will reveal the answers to the three most pressing questions:

1. Is the date-lacking bottle of champagne a good bottle? I am no connoisseur.

2. Have the truffles developed those nasty pigment-less patches due to unsavory exposure?

3. Does my uncle even like champagne truffles?

The moral of this anecdote is: always complain.

For every minute of my dust-spreading, I earned a pound. A nice man called Ian Murray replied to my email within the hour. He said:

“I regret to hear that your Champagne & Truffles Gift packaging was unsatisfactory and I would like to refund your account with £10 for the inconvenience. Please allow your bank three to five working days to process this transaction.

I would also like to thank you for your feedback on this and can assure you that your comments are taken extremely seriously in order to improve our service to our customers.”

Which proves that Waitrose is indeed at the top of the quality-chain. And this generous refund explains why their in-store food prices are so high. I sure hope my aunt or uncle aren’t reading this. It is fortunate that they are very busy people… and unfortunate that they are likely to recognise an inferior bouquet.

So what am I going to do with my new-found wealth?

That’s right. Open a Doctor Who money farm, buy a tardis, travel back in time and ask Shelley to write my dissertation. In return, I’ll give him my infamous literary bananas.

Ah. One more thing if you’re still mad enough to be reading, here is the champagne that arrived with the truffles. Anyone know if it’s a good’un?

Fleuron Brut NV Champagne

Mind Forg’d Manacles

Protesters demand UK teacher’s death

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Hundreds of Sudanese Muslims took to the streets of Khartoum on Friday demanding death for the British school teacher convicted of insulting Islam after her class named a teddy bear Mohammad.

“No one lives who insults the Prophet,” the protesters chanted, a day after Gillian Gibbons, 54, was sentenced to 15 days in jail and deportation.

At least 600 protesters waved green Islamic flags, shook their fists or waved ceremonial swords, and chanted religious and nationalist slogans after leaving Muslim Friday prayers.

The demonstrators made their way to Khartoum’s presidential palace for a rally. Others burned newspapers that contained pictures of the teacher.

But they steered clear of Unity High School where Gibbons worked. The school was guarded by five truckloads of police in riot gear.

Under Sudan’s penal code, Gibbons could have faced 40 lashes, a fine or up to a year in jail.

Teachers at the school say that calling the teddy bear Mohammad was not Gibbons’s idea. They say no parents objected when she sent them circulars about a reading project that included the bear, introduced to the class in September, as a fictional participant.

Britain’s foreign minister said he was “extremely disappointed” with the verdict and called in the Sudanese ambassador for an immediate explanation.

(Reporting by Andrew Heavens; Writing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

— — — A report that concentrates on the political situation can be found here — — —

I thought we were a species well on our way to enlightenment. How wrong I was.

There is absolutely NO excuse for this behaviour. How can we call ourselves civilised beings if one woman can “insult” to the point of her near execution an old and supposedly well-established religion because she named a teddy bear after its prophet? Does that make the bear an idol? Half of the Muslim population are also named Mohammad, as are many Christians named Jesus. And inevitably some will bring far more shame upon that name than an inanimate soft toy. After all, aren’t a couple of the UK’s convicted terrorists named Mohammad?

This event bears a remarkable similarity to the Danish cartoon that had half of Britain’s Muslims up in arms. Television pokes fun at Christians a couple of times a week, far more openly and with jokes as doubly barbed. Why, yesterday’s episode of The Simpsons had the Christian God nicking Lisa’s chocolate eclair; amid the sound of munching were the words, “this’ll go straight to my five thighs…” An innocuous example, certainly. In the Western world, this is extremely mild. But substitute God for Mohammad and Fox would be the target of a lot of flaming torches.

Why? Why is the Muslim’s response to jest so much more violent than the Christian’s? What is this religion afraid of? Christianity has moved with the times; Islam has not. This may be because the former took root in countries which have developed much faster economically. Today, Christianity is still the associated religion of the West.

Generally religion forbids examination and does not want one to reason. But modern faith now recognises the importance of questioning and doubting. I quote Luke (our Luke not the Bible’s):

‘Faith is often presented as not doubting, but really it’s believing despite having doubts and dealing with them, facing reality head on’.

So a little challenging goes a long way. In fact, as Luke says, doubt and dealing with doubt is at the heart of faith; it is what gives it resilience. What are the Sudanese Muslims afraid of? If their religion is as strong as it says, then a little banter about a bear cannot touch it; any sceptic-posed challenge, this minor one included, would inevitably strengthen it. Surely true faith cannot be shaken by any one earthly individual; it lives in the soul. A religion that can’t stand up to a teddy bear is not much of a religion.

“No one lives who insults the Prophet!”

Are we back in the dark ages? The Crusades, the bloody battles where thousands died to slake the thirst of an avenging hypothetical spiritual concept? The Diplomats are confused and ‘disappointed’ because they never thought they’d have to deal directly with a raging mob instead of a country of the civilised world. 40 lashes! Lashes! In 2007! Perhaps stripped and bound to a post? Remember the Spanish Inquisition? Gibbons was reported by a fellow teacher, also a woman. Did that woman experience the same fear that dwelt among those who lived in the time of the Inquisition? Report before you get reported.

Anyone who condones or encourages such treatment has no place in the modern world. Time has moved on. So should the civilised man.