Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

Ellen and Andy got married in Kent on 28th April 2007.

All the digital photos are here. I still have to develop the film ones. More to follow shortly.

Got a hero?

I’m a big fan of George Orwell.

Not only do I admire his incredible mind and writing, but he stuck his neck out for what he believed in. He went out to Spain in 1936 and fought in the Spanish Civil War to defend the elected government of Spain against the Fascists. He wrote of his experiences in Homage to Catalonia, which was later used as the basis for one of my all-time favourite movies, Land and Freedom.

I’m getting a lot of spam. I made the mistake years ago of putting my email up in plain text on my old site and in a couple of other places. I corrected this later, but that’s it. My email’s out there and they won’t bloody stop. Just in the past day, I’ve had to root through my mail and this is the result:

So just under TWO PERCENT of the email that arrives every day is genuine. The rest is rubbish. I’ve got some spam filtering in there, but it isn’t great. It sometimes junks genuine emails and I’ve lost some good opportunities through this (I almost missed the New Statesman gig after my spam filter killed it).

Not only is it rubbish, but it is stupid rubbish; I get stuff in cyrillic, adverts for stuff I can only buy in the USA, penny stock scam tips and phishing attack. I’ve even been promised the opportunity to “ejaculatte“ for my “lady” if I buy some detritus herbal remedy (just as well we both love coffee!).  

One trick spammers use to try to get around spam filters is to use random text or text lifted from magazines or novels. It is very incongruous at times, but I wonder how Orwell would feel if he saw his work used in this way?

Those of you who are Orwell fans will notice that this line comes from 1984 and is recalled by Winston Smith as he writes his diary and thinks of his ex-wife Katharine. You can read it in context, here.

I’m sure the great man would have been delighted to see his work used to sell  condoms, penny stocks, housing stock, rolling stock, vitamin pills, slimming pills, happy pills, muscle pills, penis pills, Russian wives, Malaysian wives, Thai wives, Chinese wives and if you’re not happy with them, you can buy breast enlargement pills too! 

If anyone knows any good ways of getting control over my inbox, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

Update: As if to add insult to injury, a comment popped into my moderation queue quoting this very post within seconds! So now I’m getting spammed on my blog about the spam in my email. How ridiculous is that?? Incidentally, my blog’s spam filter’s pretty aggressive and has fended off almost 8,000 spam comments since last summer.

Bring it on!

I've always been interested in cults and the devastating harm they can do to individuals and the people around them.

The video does outline some of the actual techniques that cults use on prospects and members, and even if it seems a little light-hearted at first, it makes some serious points. These cults are a serious problem, there are lots of cults in existence today and plenty of atrocities throughout time, including:

• Order of the Solar Temple (Famous Swiss murder-suicides in which 48 people died in 1994)
• Peoples Temple (909 deaths, including 270 children in 1978)
• Aum Shinryko (gassed the Tokyo tube system in 1995)
• Heaven's Gate (Suicide Cult – The "Heaven's Gate Away Team" left Earth in 1997)
• Lord's Resistance Army (has been waging a civil war against the Ugandan government since 1987 using child soldiers)
• The Manson Family (of Charles Manson fame – responsible for a string of brutal murders)

Years ago, I read a book that outlined the mechanisms that these cults often use to effectively brainwash recruits into their ideology or religion. If you think you're clever enough to avoid their fate, think again! I knew a good few people at University who got hooked into cults. To read more about cults and be aware of the dangers, take a look here.

Humanist, socialist, World War Two veteran and one of the greatest writers and most original thinkers of all time died yesterday. He was 84.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007)

To get a glimpse of this man’s genius, look here: Kurt Vonnegut on Wikiquote

A few weeks ago, I was approached by the New Statesman Online team after they found my blog and decided they wanted me to write a few articles for them about atheism for their Faith Column. Of course, it's a little ironic to be asked to write about a lack of Faith in a "Faith Column", but it's been a real pleasure to write again on this topic. I've just gotten on with my life, really, and haven't really been thinking actively about my atheism recently. Off I went and dusted off some of my old books and got on with writing the posts. It's been refreshing! The first post went up today, called: I believe in one less god than monotheists…. They'll be serialising another three, and all four will be available here. I'll also archive them on my own site, here.

Happily munching my lunch in the beer garden of my local, this cat walks along the wall. I love cats, so I talked to it and he jumped off the wall and came to say hello back!

I congratulated myself on being a “Cat Whisperer” – having an deep affinity with cats and being able to communicate with them above and beyond that of any normal human.

My bubble was popped mercilessly when the little blighter started trying to get at my food!

I was eating a particularly nice big piece of grilled chicken with salad and he kept trying to get on the table and steal some, so I had to put things in his way and watch him like a hawk. Look at his grumpy little face (and click the picture for more…).

This always happens! I think they want to be friends with me and I then find out that all they want is food!

Was having coffee with Rebecca and Lee this weekend and it occurred to me that Rebecca’s coffee cup was more like a coffee bowl.

And that’s fine by us as we’re both caffeine addicts!