Self denial a go go

Today didn't start as well as I'd planned.

I was offered tea this morning, I asked for peppermint because I find it easier to drink herbal without sweetener, I was given tea with honey in it.

I had been meaning to stay off the honey for as long as possible to see how challenging it would be to do it that way.

PM

I have made the end of the day with one dose of honey, no sugar and no chocolate.

I'm feeling fine and have done a lot of transcription and a bit of dancing.

I'm writing up an interview I did last year that I'm hoping to pitch to a magazine or newspaper.

It has nothing to do with sugar.

Politics

There is of course an election coming up and a 'grown up' debate about who should leads our country, but no one is paying me to talk about anything as exciting as who governs the United Kingdom.

Speaking nerds, again

The Festival of the Spoken Nerd are touring again.

It's all got a lot brasher and brighter and, possibly, nerdier.

Things have moved on a lot since I last saw these guys.

The experiments have got bigger.

The nerdiness has become nerdier, if that's possible...

I was treated to spreadsheets, maths equations and fire...

Who says science is dull?

This performance came complete with running stenographer text for the deaf and the hard of the hearing, making geekdom even more accessible.

These three musketeers of nerd offer up a unique brand of innocently positive comedy at a time when everyone seems to get a laugh by being more offensive and nasty than the last person.

They invite you to wonder and giggle at the truths and explosions that the march of scientific endeavour has provided us.

Sorry I didn't publish this at the time guys I was having a crisis of unpaid confidence.

A spoon less of sugar

I have decided to observe lent.

Odd thing to touch on at this point what with Chelsea fan racism and shootings in France.

Perhaps I'm retreating mentally.

Then again the government has been driving me nuts and other than a bit of pre-election campaigning there's not much I can do about that state of affairs.

So...

I am going to try and do something about myself.

I'm not a Christian so I've only observed lent once when I was having a crisis of Atheism back in my teens.

Giving up chocolate proved very hard and may have contributed further to how I felt about the whole God stuff, it's hard to be sure.

This time I'm doing it for myself in an exercise in self control, in a bid to strengthen my own sense of self determinism.

Cutting the sweet stuff

The luxury in question is refined sugar, and no I didn't fast on Ash Wednesday.

I'm going to start strict with this and see how I go and do quite a mundane blog of my struggles in the mean time.

This may be very dull, we will see, but it will give me something to hang some writing around.

They're giving you more than a hair cut Britain!

I am not going to delve further into the Hebdo nonsense and deaths that have followed other than to say: try not to kill people.

And move onto a different topic: cuts.

Government cuts

As you sip your water, walk paved streets, cross the road...

Ask not what you're country can do for you, but...

What it might have been doing...

And isn't anymore!

Taking the piss for a better future

The Hebdo attacks had my mind whirring, partly because I'd never even heard of the cartoons (admitting to ignorance), and partly because I'd become bogged down in British politics and being reminded of the spectre of terrorism again left me reeling.

So my reaction was first tears, then to join a throng of Je Suis Charlie, only to turn tail when someone described the publication as racist.

While I do not wish to live in a racist world I also do not want to live in a world where religion reigns supreme.

Yet the question rising in my mind is why do I not know about this publication and what does that indicate? Is it their failing or mine?

Freedom of speech

At school I often felt different and left out, so I dislike bullying behaviour and people without compassion.

However, having been that odd ball I value my voice and by that I mean my ability to criticise and argue with anything.

By that I do not mean a right to hurt people and if the Muslim world wishes to take the piss back, let it do so, but that is not the same thing as killing someone.

Let's not play holier than thou

In our supposedly feminist championing West a girl who challenges things often finds themselves unpopular and criticised in a way that most men wouldn't accept.

That can mean as much the devoutly religious girl, as well as the devoutly atheist one.

Then again, getting less male attention generally means you get more done.

So thanks for taking the piss guys, I probably wouldn't have got three A grades at A level without it.

Ridicule is a great weapon

My mistake was to stop taking the piss of things I didn't agree with.

But I and everyone else would do well to remember that you can take a joke too far.

My beliefs are as important as anyone else's and yes Atheists do believe in things.

Ignorance is still the biggest bully going.

To Paris with love

The attack on Charlie Hebdo had me crying and shaken.

The strength of those challenging the attack with ink is admirable.

Please also look at the condemnation coming from the Arab world.

Though as reports reach me that the magazine is to go to press with a cartoon of the prophet, my first reaction is hold fire mes amies.

Satire is a tool against the strong by the weak.

Remember the Muslims in your country that have served you in this moment and let it breathe.

Osama Bin Laden was looking to ignite a war when he attacked the twin towers.

I suspect this attack is also calculated to provoke hate.

Let love and enlightenment win, not over simplification.

Don't panic, put your minds to the problems

After tonight's news I feel I have too much to write about.

So I will turn to the most heart breaking.

Isis are holding a British journalist.

The death of nearly anyone in war is a tragedy, that is what the upcoming Remembrance Day means in my mind.

It means remember the tragedy of every lost life.

As I turn to world conflict bathed in death after death and a Western culture swimming in ego I find my eyes turning to a sky where I believe no God resides.

Stop using journalists as instruments of war. 

Send him home unharmed, he comes to tell and not kill.

Let him go in peace.

Forgive, cease fire, rebuild your land with a ballot box and not a gun that is all I feel capable of saying.