Wednesday 4 April 2007

bliss. home alone, but
not with macaulay culkin.
that would be awful.

The man came to replace our electricity meter today. He looked like the man who plays the drums with Right Said Fred in the Daz adverts.
Checking the news, I find that Iran is prepared to hand our kidnapped sailors back and Keith Richard has been snorting his coke mixed with the ashes of his dead dad, allegedly. That can’t be good for your sinuses.
I had the rest of the afternoon to ponder on the meaning of existence and the cost of books about Evolution (Richard Dawkins' 'The Blind Watchmaker' is £8.99 from Penguin. I was previously unaware that Penguins had evolved the ability to overcharge).
Anyway, I am thinking of starting a Rational Party and will, I suppose, have to draw up a manifesto. Not having drawn up a manifesto before I’m a little confused as to the format. I would have thought that somewhere there’d be a Word 2000 manifesto template specifically designed for the founders of Political Parties but I’m buggered if I can find it.
At this point the best thing to do, as I’m sure my cousin George Orwell would agree, is to make a list of the party’s aims and goals.

1. To promote rational, logical thought in all areas of life and discourage policies, laws and decisions based on irrational beliefs.
2. To actively discourage the presentation of unproven myths as fact.
3. To actively pursue the unbiased scientific and historical investigation of such mythology.
4. To ban the Canadian songstress Celine Dion and her work from any juke-box, radio station, record-shop, pub, club or performance venue in the UK. (I suspect that some future members of the Party may have a problem with this but as the Founder Member and figurehead I feel I should have the right to have one clause in the manifesto just for me. Should we ever come to power, I intend to make it law.)
5. To actively promote scientific investigation in all areas, and scientific ethics based on logic and compassion.
6. To establish a system of morality based on a god-free philosophy, by which I mean that children should be taught respect for others and the basics of good behaviour without recourse to threats of damnation, hellfire and God’s rejection.
7. To establish an education system where religion only plays a part in that there is an ongoing debate and investigation within the curriculum into the existence of God. God’s existence will not be presented as fact, since it patently is a theory which has not been proven and for which there is only a small amount of dubious evidence.

That should do for now. What would Marx have done after a first draft of a manifesto? It probably involved potato soup and a stirring song about Russian boatmen so I'm having a glass of Burra Brook and a pork pie.