Jail just a job for organised criminals?

A humourous email circulated some time ago, comparing jail with work. We all had a good laugh, but as Jimbo Jones once said, every joke has a colonel of truth. I was never a "jails are too lenient" kind of person but I think that for some offenders, jails are too lenient!

For your average person down on his luck, the choice between robbing a bank and getting a job is an easy one. The prospect of going to jail is not a nice thought. And I would think for any casual criminal, the thought is the same. They would try to avoid it at all costs.

But for a member of an organised gang, perhaps doing 2 years in the nick is not such a bad thing. They get paid, like any job, and the possibility of having to spend an extended period in confinement, in the company of others of their occupation, is just part of the job description.

I am confined to my office for 8 hours a day (9 if you consider the fact that it's not convenient to leave the place for lunch), and I get paid. It will generally apply from the age of 21 until 65. I have to do what the boss tells me. Now, I care about maintaining my crime-free status, but not everyone does.

They say that prisoners have access to play-stations, gyms, and the rest of it because they are not supposed to be punished within jail. That being denied their freedom is their punishment. But most honest workers have their freedom denied too.

Channel Sorry 4 Racism

Why are Channel 4 apologising for the Jade Goody's racism? They should be lauded for exposing her idiocy and ignorance!

Jade is a racist pig whether she appears on Big Brother or not, but thanks to Channel 4, she was removed from the position of influence that she once had! If it was a investigative documentary with a hidden camera, everyone would be congratulating the makers, what's the difference?

Stop complaining about Big Brother and Channel 4, put the blame where it belongs!

How not to Eat in Liffey Valley Shopping Centre

First of all, let me tell you this. I *hate* shopping. I mean really hate it. I prefer to decide what I want, leg it into town, buy it, and go home. I don't know how anyone can walk around for hours browsing at things. *Maybe* if it's an expensive item, I might look around to see if I can get a better price in another shop. But that's about as far as I like to go.

So Christmas comes around and I have to get presents for people. Now I am as bad at getting presents for people as I am at shopping, so not learning from past experience I think, "Dublin is a bigger city than Limerick - I'll find it easier to get something good up there". Biggest waste of time, by the way.

But at about 8:00 pm it's time to go home and I'm hungry, so I decide, time for dinner and I'll head home afterwards.

Before I continue I realise there are plenty of people with no food this Christmas - like any other - and that they would be delighted to have had the problems I did. Compared to them I accept I am very lucky. But speaking as an ordinary Christmas shopper, expecting a normal meal, I'm not so lucky

Now the way LVSC is laid out, is a big long main corridor with all the shops on both sides. The proper (well kind of proper) restaurants at are at one end, and at the other end and up the stairs is a kind of general sitting-down, eating area with the counters of some of the well-known fast-food joints built into the walls, and about 50m diameter circle between them, with tables and chairs and things where you can eat. Real airport stuff.

I head down to the end with proper food. As it happens I quite like Eddie Rockets' burgers, they really do a proper job of it. Lovely and juicy and plenty of meat, and other fillings. So, feet aching from walking around since 9:00 am that morning, I approach Eddie Rocket's place - it's a kind of 1950s American "diner" style layout, with a big STOP sign at the door in (!). But that's not going to stop me. What is going to stop me is a big queue about 20 people long, waiting outside! Yes these people are waiting for the eaters inside to finish, and leave their table.

Now I know there's no point in complaining about a queue to anyone that matters. If I say "I left because of a queue", Mr. Rocket will simply say, "There was a queue? Great!". To make it worth his while to take steps to deal with a queue, enough people would have to leave the queue that would have covered the cost of whatever steps he took to eliminate queuing.

So I head over to Spurs, another chain-restaurant (the only kind in this place) - a steak place. This too is stuffed to the gills. The queue is only five people long, but not moving at all. The people in front of me get seats eventually, and I am next. After about five minutes, your one approaches me and says, "she'll be with you in a minute". a few minutes later, I can't stand still any longer, so I thought - look all I want is something to eat so I can drive home to Limerick (the other side of the country). I'll just head up to the Burger King - because of all those dodgy burger places, their flame-grilled one with the bacon and cheese is probably the nicest.

So I trek to the other end of LVSC, hunger and foot aches getting stronger, and get escalated to the "food court" area. Only to see the burger king sign, "Coming Soon".

So I have to get one of lesser ones... It's a choice between McDonalds, KFC and Harry something or other which I never heard of, but has a much longer and slower-moving queue... Read on and you'll see why than the other two.

So not wanting that bloated feeling one usually gets from McDonalds' burgers, I decide KFC is the choice. The most appetising looking thing they have are these things called a "Zinger Burger" or something. Kind of Burger with a bit of lettuce, cheese and chicken and presumably mayonaise or something or other. I get to the front of the queue, and bring myself to say the word "Zinger" in public with a straight face, only to be told, "No burger buns". So a chicken salad it had to be. (with chips and pepsi or something).

I find a table and eventually sit down with relief to be off my feet, take everything off the tray and my coat off and over the back of my chair. I audibly sigh as the aches come away from my feet and back. Open the salad and chips. (The amount of chips is fairly pathetic, I might add at this point, it's the most "regular" sized bag I've seen in a long time). Then I discover, your one never put in one of those small white crappy bendy plastic forks with my dinner. I am a good 30 or 40 metres from the stall, (only table available) so I don't want to leave mys stuff there, lest it be cleaned or robbed, so I think, "Does it really matter?"... Take a look at the salad, yes it does.

So I pile everything back on the tray, put the coat back on, close the salad plastic thing, put the top back on the drink (which has trouble fitting), put my coat back on, drag myself to my feet, and head back over to the KFC wall-stall. Wait in what looks to be the shortest queue. I get to the front, and ask the girl there (a different one this time), for a fork.

No forks, she laughs with a sympathetic face (I'm assuming not at me, just at the whole thing of it). No point in asking for a bit of bread to put the salad in, as I know they've no buns. After a pointless attempt to express incredulity, I head back over to my seat which thankfully is still free, having to eat the with my hands. I decide not to put on the vinagrette and make my hands all slimy, leading to quite a dry chicken salad. Trying to eat a piece of chicken and salad at the same time is not easy with your hands and that's kind of the point in mixing them.

As for the chips. Now you know the chips you get in these places... KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, they're all the same. Scrawny little things about the thickness of a biro, and the length of, well a normal chip. But in this particular bag I got, I'd say, not more than 30 of these little things. Together with the forkless salad and the drink and the one sachet of salt, the whole thing came to €7.49! Abra-kebabra, all is forgiven.

I was nowhere near full when finishing, so I found myself going into the McDonald's queue, and buying a quarter-pounder with cheese. I can't really blame them for this, but I then had to head over to the bins and open the burger and take out the onions and gerkins, because those two foods are disgusting, getting funny looks off others, I stole some of their cleaning tissues to use on my hands, and headed home... Still feeling a bit unfulfilled, but there we go.

Now that I've typed all that I see it is quite a boring story, but I'm damned if I'm not going to post it after typing all that. But hopefully it will help other travellers to Dublin if they are looking for something to eat and are wondering whether to go to the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre. Or maybe it will help LVSC themselves and they read it and decide to put a proper chipper in there. Forks, burger buns, decent chips and all.

Celebrity Charity Kickabout

Am I the only one who yawns at the very thought of another charity football match? Usually a bunch of unaligned and has-been footballers maybe including the odd English 1966er take on maybe a gang of pseudo-celebrities and reality-tv contestants who otherwise don't know where their next photo-op is coming from.

Then we the viewing public have to miss 4 or 5 repeats (sorry, "Classic" episodes) of The Simpsons while $KY One televises the farcical kickabout, bringing the sport of soccer into disrepute with their hand-shaking, hugging and general good humour between opposing team-mates.

"Oooh it's such an honour to lock horns with Geoff Hurst", says Peter Andre (for those of you who don't know who Peter Andre is, he was on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here") or Alex from Big Brother.

But you have to watch it, don't you? I mean just like you had to buy "Band Aid 2000". (Though I was delighted to learn of people buying that and leaving the copies in the shop!) Because it's for a good cause.

CHARITY IS NOT AN EXCUSE FOR CRAP!

There's just no effort put into because they know everyone will just want to support the charity. I mean there's no sign of Thierry Henry curling one into the top-corner or Ruud Van Nistleroy sliding from nowhere for a last-minute injury-time winner and the crowd erupting. There's no risks taken, after all, no one wants to risk injuring themselves or tiring themselves in a *charity* match... after all there's the real league to consider.

Charity matches have to start demanding a reward for winning and punishment for losing. For example, make real league or cup matches charity matches. This way people could both feel like they are contributing to a good cause *and* enjoy the game. Or perhaps there is a competitive match between two countries who previously met in a world cup final (e.g. England & Germany - the English seem to really love this one for some reason - one English (BBC maybe?) survey showed it as one of the top 5 world-changing moments! Though I doubt this is such a big deal to the Germans... they have 3 other World Cup wins... ) have surviving retired players *from* that final - i.e. each team agrees to have the same number of veterans play.

If you really want to involve non-footballing b-list celebrities... How about this... Make an agreement with all the tabloid newspapers. The winning team gets favourable articles in the front pages for the following week. The losing team have their coke habits revealed.
Or what about the English Big Brother contestants versus the French ones (I think France has Frere Grand anyway)... The losing side are not allowed to put on Big Brother the following year, and the winning side not only get to put it on, but it has to be shown on telly in the losing country as well!

(Sorry to keep going on about English stuff, but we don't really get this kind of stuff in Ireland)

The Land Of Opportunists! (Could this happen?)

I had a rather amusing thought about America when reading a recent newspaper article about the theory of evolution vs creation (a.k.a. intelligent design)

Anyway, it seems that George Bush supports the notion of creationism. So the following idea struck me, and maybe political analysts or students out there could tell me if this could happen in the two-party system in the US.

Now let's say one of the two parties... a major right-of-centre conservative one supported by many religious people (including Dubya himself), became populated by many of Bush-a-likes, and this strange scenario where students are being taught to take the hypothesis of creation seriously, really takes off, thanks to this party's control of the American government.

This I see as possible because it seems there is growing conservatism in America, according to what I see on telly. Indeed George Bush himself is said to have retained the presidency on "moral" issues (in other words religious issues). If there are some fundamentalists in the educational system who have enough power to influence the system of entire states to carry anti-evolution messages on *Science* books, then I don't see why there couldn't be more. And if this notion can make its way all the way to the president, then maybe all the senators, governors and ministers of education (or whatever the equivalent), may too be susceptible.

Now let us say for a moment that the other slightly left-of-centre down-to-earth party decide that this is all ridiculous. They should be teaching Science in Science class. BUT, because of the growing religious conservatism in the so-called "Bible Belt", they are afraid to come out and say this because then every bible-thumper in America will vote for the religious-right party. So they pretend that they are OK to send the message to the religious voters, "Look, we can be religious too".

So, now we have the two major parties in the country supporting this dodgy party line, and science teachers shaking their heads in disbelief, but being forced to tell their pupils that God created the earth in 6 days 6,000 years ago, for fear of being caught by the "patriot" act or something, and several generations of kids grow up believing this before someone cops on.

Could it happen?

Newspaper blasts soaring costs of magic

Holy Smeg, did anyone read "The Sun" celebrity speculator today? Now I wouldn't normally give such credibility to this dodgy tabloid "news" paper, which is only marginally more believable than the likes of "Weekly World News", "National Enquirer", and "The Mirror", and I feel even worse about advertising the bloody thing, but this story just seemed so true, and if it is... Bloody Hell!

It was about this woman (a health and safety supervisor - thankfully not mine) who was conned out of €32K (well STG £22K actually - she lived in England - but The Sun were nice enough to translate it for us Irish readers) by a... wait for it... A witch doctor. Her dad had contracted a rare blood disorder, which apparently doctors were mystified by, so Anastacia Adams (for it was she) decided to contact a witch doctor, whose number she found amongst about 20 others in the back of "a magazine". (Unfortunately they don't say which one - probably owned by the same company as The Sun, maybe?).

It's hard to believe that in this day in age, an adult could fall for this rubbish. "I went to see the professor alone, as I didn't want my friends to know in case they thought I was crazy", said Anastacia. I wish she wouldn't insult unfortunate people with serious mental conditions by equating them with the sheer stupidity of what was to follow.

On the first day, she spent 2 hours talking to ethically-challenged entrepreneur Professor Sidya about her father's condition, and he made her feel relaxed, asking for nothing but photographs of her father, herself and "other important people" in her life, for use in his spell. Money would only be required once the request had been accomplished.

On the second ay, it appeared, he would need £350. Although she could pay him installments... (such a trusting, nice fellow)

As she continued to speak to Sidya, he reported the glad tidings that the spirits, in their infinite medical expertise, had given a positive prognosis on her father. He was on the mend!

On the eighth visit, Sidya explained that they required £22,000 for the spell to work! Get this: They needed £1,000 for every year that Anastacia was alive! It gets worse. She had to raise the cash (which she borrowed from a friend's inheritance, feigning the need to consolidate debts), put it under her bed and pray to it! Pray to the money!

Strangely, the tried and tested medical practice of praying to money while rubbing lotion on her naked body had no noticable effect on her dad. However the resourceful Professor Sidya (he didn't get his title for nothing!) had another idea. Of course! He would take the cash and pray to it himself! The spirits couldn't ignore *him*.

She gave him the money anyway. Time went on, the dad did not improve, and soon she became worried about her money. She confronted him, and he explained that the money was buried in the woods! He then told her that the cash-strapped spirits would need another £22,000 to speed up the spell. Although she found herself applying for a bank loan, I can thankfully report that she came to her senses, and went back demanding her money back.

After much attempts to rekindle her faith in the money hungry spirits of blood-diseases, and assurances that he hated to see her upset, he gave her £1,000 back. She went back sometime later to try and get the rest of her money, but Sidya had upped and left.

I'd like to think that... well in a kingdom like the united one, with about 60,000,000 people, the laws of probability state that no matter how unlikely it is, there will probably be one idiot who will fall for this. Just like the lottery, there are so many millions of entrants that despite the odds being nanoscopic, someone will win.

Not so. On her return to the professor's office, she not only found him gone, but she found another man there, just as angry as her. This man had given Sidya £44,000 to save his marriage! The article never mentioned whether Sidya was caught, but we can only assume he's still at large, out there... selling magic beans at £1,000* per year old of the customer.

All I can say is that I would be ashamed to go to the police with this story, never mind an international newspaper. And how can someone like this be allowed in charge of health and safety?


* - may vary depending on the exchange rate between sterling and the spirit world, terms and conditions apply.

Cause without a rebel.

It may surprise you to learn that this time 2 years ago, I was a long-haired hippie. When I announced that I was going to do a charity head-shave, the reaction was pretty much all positive, but there were two dissenting voices. One had a valid point, that she thought I looked better with long hair (unfortunately could not out-sponsor the pro-head-shave people).

The other, however, (jokingly of course) accused me of lying down to the man, selling out my hippie roots (no pseudo-pun intended), and conforming to the status quo of shaven-headed Limerick "lads".

Then, she proceeded to light up a cigarette and smoke it. (This was before the smoking ban in pubs). This brings me to the point of this piece.

This is addressed at all the "Anarchists", all the anti-capitalists, left-wingers, rebels, non-conformists, goths, disestablishmentarianists and anyone else who prides themselves on being free and refusing to bow down to the modern authorities, be it legal or religious or social or fashion or any other kind of authorities.

Now, we'll ignore the fact that many of these people fall into another authority or fashion which may not be the majority, but it is a significant minority.

If you are addicted to cigarettes - especially the legal non hash kind - I'm afraid you are a slave. It may have seen as an act of defiance when you were young because your parents didn't want you to. But while it was cool to defy your parents, you were unwittingly priming yourself for a far worse conformity.

Yes, you are a slave to The Corporation. Every time you buy a pack, you are lying down to The Man. They are giving the orders, which are, "You will inhale these sticks which is bad for your health and may cause cancer to you and those around you and you have no idea what's in them, and you will give us €6 (or whatever the current price is) every day". "Why? Because we are the masters and you are the slaves. That's all you need to know." Of course, they are more subtle than that, but that is effectively what they are saying.

Your addiction is the chain. Your cravings are their whips. Some may claim (as they did against the smoking ban), "It should be our choice whether we want to smoke". If you are addicted, it is not your choice. Meanwhile the profiteers are laughing at your illusion of exercising your rights to smoke.

Now I don't mean to belittle the horrific slavery that happens in the third world, be it from unlivable low wages (sweat shops), or slavery due to debt, or even the actual capture and forced labour of people in some parts of the world. These things are truly horrific, and a mere cigarette addiction is nothing in comparison.

My point is simply that you can't claim to be anti-establishment and anti-authority if you are a keen supporter of one of the worst establishment-authority in the "Western" world.

I acknowledge that are those out there that have managed to avoid addiction and do actually have the ability to smoke the odd fag and get away with it. But these people are in the minority, and quite a few of them have actually been enslaved but won't realise it until they try to escape.


On a related note, some might say, "I only smoke joints, i.e. with hash in them..."

If you are the type who advocates boycotting socially & environmentally irresponsible companies, like Nestle, Esso, Shell, Nike, etc. then I'm afraid by smoking hash, you are supporting evil companies too. Sure they may not be registered businesses, but they are organisations that engage in the evils that those other companies do. The fame of the former is no reason why they should be hated any more than the secret drug-producing organisations.

While you may be sort of defying authority here, you are still supporting organisations that put profits above the lives of others.

You may, of course, argue that since hash is illegal in most countries, you are forced to go to the criminals in order to get any, as they control the only supply.

While this is an argument for its legalisation, it is left to your concience to decide: Is your enjoyment of a joint worth supporting the evil profiteers?

What Nirvana Did For Us (the band, that is)

Nirvana - that is, the rock combo featuring Kurt Cobain, David Grohl, and Chris Novoselic (sp?) are often hailed as one of the revolutionary musical greats of rock music (shudder) history.

(If I start to sound like a magazine here, forgive me)

Anyway, for years after Cobain's death, it came to the point that any bad-mouthing of Nirvana was seriously frowned upon - people made you feel like a musical heathen. I for one was never a big Nirvana fan. To give them a chance, I bought their recently (i.e. within the last few years) released Best-Of album, but listened to it once or twice and was still not so impressed. Then again maybe a Best-Of is not the best way to get to know a band as they rarely contain the best of. (e.g. Guns 'N' Roses a typical example).

They are, however, hailed as a lynch-pin in a revolution, which changed the world of music as we knew it. To this, I agree - they were a hugely influential. But this often gets misinterpreted to mean that they were a trio of geniuses who invented punk music, or invented rock music, or were the Beethovens of the 90s, the Shakespeares of music, legends almost. I hate to bring Nirvana fans crashing back to reality, but the reality is far more mundane.
I would argue that their achievement was either a fluke, or a flash of common sense, rather than a wonderfully crafted revolution.

Here is my opinion of What Nirvana Did For Us.

Nirvana cured the world of Wyld Stallyns Syndrome.

Before Nirvana, rock music had a very different face. One only has to look at the major pre-Nirvana rock bands to see what I mean. Expensive hairdos & elaborate costumes, complicated guitar riffs and solos, perfect voices, expensive-sounding synthesisers. It was obvious that an awful lot of effort had gone into producing the likes of Iron Maiden, Guns 'N' Roses, Megadeth, (to a lesser extent) Metallica, etc. Even by just looking at them it seemed they were a class above us. There was always the image. Even the Guns 'N' Roses "couldn't give a shit" image seemed like a really carefully crafted one, as if they cared an awful lot about looking like they didn't care about anything.

This was hardly inspiring for the grass-roots musicians, the garage bands, etc. With the exception of drummers (who all sounded like Rick Allen at the time, even the ones with two hands), the quality required to beat out a Slash-style solo seemed unattainable by mere mortals. It was quite intimidating, because a bunch of lads couldn't sit down one day, say "hey let's start a band", and hope to be even almost as good at their instruments & song-writing as the rock bands of the time. Even if they could afford the equipment, practise space and lessons, they would have to be really serious, or end up like Wyld Stallyns (pre Rufus) with incoherent guitar riffs or solos, in other words, demoralisingly crap.

Nirvana then came along, and what they did was brought the music to the people (or is it the people to the music?). They were the first band to make it really big, with simple chords, and simple meaningless lyrics which don't appear to be about anything, and simple-sounding songs with no major changes.

They made it OK to keep music simple. Now for a bunch of youngfellas to set up a band, with a couple of cheapish instruments, amps and pedals, and only a few weeks or short months of practise (no lessons or voice-training required), could be covering Nirvana songs, and now that it was acceptable (thanks to Nirvana's celebrity status), they could even write their own simple four-chord songs "almost as good as Nirvana", and play them to audiences without being afraid of sounding like a bunch of tone-deaf monkeys with the shakes. They themselves even looked like a normal enough group of messers. They didn't seem to have a carefully crafted image dreamed up by an entourage of costume, make-up & set designers, with days put into making sure your pout looks just right, and this gave the aspiring youngfellas of the scene the impression, "If they can do it, why can't I?"

Had Wyld Stallyns been trying to copy Nirvana instead of Iron Maiden, they would have easily obtained listenability within a few months. But without Nirvana's simple guidance, had they not had the help of a time-machine and a man from the future reassuring them of their destiny, they too would have faded into obscurity after they gave up trying to be like the anthem-producing perceived-demi-gods of the time.

Nirvana paved the road (or bridged the chasm?) from grass-roots messer-music to best-selling music, dragged us out of muscial dregs the 80s, and severely opened our minds to the possibilities of music - a medium previously controlled by the ambitious and well-resourced alone.

But their huge positive influence - ironically - wasn't thanks to their creative genius, but rather their lack of it (or rather their success despite their lack of it). They weren't the Martin Luther Kings of music, rather the Rosa Parkses.

After Nirvana, bands started popping up everywhere in nearly every city, and far more started making it to the point of playing in front of people. And while a huge number of aspiring young musicians still got bored and went home, there was still a large enough pool to move on and start coming up with their own sounds, decide they wanted to move on, stop copying the four-chord distortion simple songs and experiment and be original, leading to the huge diversity of rock music that we have today.

But thanks to Nirvana, it's now possible for a group of friends to get together and form a band good enough to play... and maybe from there, who knows?

It's also possible for people like me not to like their music, but to accept what they've done for the world of music without feeling like we're giving in to the Nirvana lovers.

The Wasps

Insects are often just pests, causing sometimes discomfort and often annoyance. However, some of them do actually sting. It's the same with scumbags, or uninvited salespeople as they prefer to be called.

However, like the wasp they sometimes just sting and leave. Strangely this next fellow is my favourite example of a door-to-door salesperson. The following tale didn't happen to me, but rather my sister. This is the pushy-to-the-point-of-offensive fellow. Unlike the previously mentioned ones you don't feel sorry for him, and feel no guilt in telling him to smeg off.

This guy called around to the house, selling vouchers for what is admittedly a rather nice pub/restaurant in Limerick called The Bank. At least the pub is nice, I've never eaten in the restaurant part.

Anyway, already you will see the first flaw in this guy's situation. Selling vouchers? He wanted €20 for a voucher which gave you a discount in The Bank restaurant. Maybe the voucher entitled you to more than €20 worth of food, I don't know - but vouchers are supposed to be either a) something you get free by buying another product during some kind of promotion or b) something you buy when you can't think of a real present for someone. In any case it's the first time I've heard of someone selling vouchers door-to-door to dine in a restaurant. They mustn't have been doing very well.

Anyway, my sister replied with the usual excuse, Sorry I don't have €20 on me.
At this point, he replied, "What, surely you must have €20 somewhere in the house!". She held her ground and insisted that she didn't have it, and he continued to press, "are you honestly trying to tell me that you don't have €20?", etc. She may have had the money but it was obviously needed for more important things and she eventually managed to fight him out. (I dread to think that if she had the money to spare she may have been tempted to pay the man just to get rid of him - a common tactic used by these people).

Anyway, surely it's obvious to you now the cheek of this fellow - calling my sister a liar, combined with prying into her business. I can't imagine it's an advised sales method to insult the potential buyer, and he had to leave with one more voucher than he wanted.

I don't think I'd ever get into this situation because I'd probably just say "No thanks" from the outset, but I think I will answer that I don't have it on me the next time as I'd like to see the conversation going like a well-played game of chess, as follows.

Him: "Come on, you must have €20 in the house somewhere."
Me: "Didn't you hear what I just said? Why would I lie about it?"
Him: "To get rid of me?"
Me: "Why would I want to get rid of you if I wanted to buy the thing?"
Him: "Er... because you don't want to buy it?"
Me:

If any readers has any good ideas of how the sales person could manouvre themselves out of that a bit better than my ideal situation above, please please post.

The Earwigs of Society

If you haven't read this yet, you should read "The Nits of Society" below first.

In continuation with the insectoid analogy, I bring you to the next in my vaguely diverting adventures of the dreaded cold caller. While nits are annoying when they get into your hair, and difficult to remove short of washing your hair in this really smelly liquid, they are a mere inconvenience. They at least have the good nature to stay on the surface of your body.

Now as I said before, this is a problem we all may have encountered, the aim here is not to shock but to analyse and for the unsuspecting mind to learn. And I promise this one is shorter.

So allow me to introduce the next. I was on a day off (actually I was out of work for a month) when I heard a knock at the door while in the middle of watching a film. I can't remember why, but for some reason I was delayed in answering the door. By the time I got to the door he was about to leave, but he came back, seeing me open it.

He was a well dressed fellow in a suit, about my own age (mid twenties) and carrying a folder in his hand. He did the usual - ask if I had a brief moment to listen to a possible opportunity. A trick question, as we learned from the last one, the unsuspecting mind will probably have a brief moment.

At this point I asked him what was it about. All he would tell me was that this was an offer and that he could either spend twenty minutes on the doorstep explaining it or I could let him show me in just two minutes, sat in front of the table.

Now at this point let me explain that I'm not just some guy who lets just anyone into my house because I'm hoping of an exciting new offer. Of course I saw through his logic that it could take 20 mins on a doorstep or 2 on a table. But we'll revisit that later. I was more interested in how he would pitch it to me so I let him in. Still probably against my better judgement, he could have been a peamh trying to check out the contents & layout of my house, albeit a well-dressed and well-spoken one.

Anyway, while he showed me through his folder full of details about this great offer, he refused to use the word "Insurance" to describe it (though he did ask if I had Bupa or VHI, which I did), but that's basically what it was - incapacitation insurance - if you find yourself out of work due to injury, you get cash settlements from them.

Now first allow me cite my distrust of insurance companies. I refuse to get insurance unless I have to (car insurance is a legal requirement, as for health insurance, I got it free from my company paid up to the end of 2005). There are the following reasons:

1) In my experience, and in the experience of people I've talked to, excepting car insurance where they have to, it is extremely difficult to get insurance companies to pay out. They sign you up with great promises about how they will save you in case of a little mishap, but when it comes down to it, they say, "No that was just a little mishap, now smeg off." It's supposed to cover accidents, but if it was an accident it was probably your fault is the way they see it. Ever try to get mobile phone insurance to pay up after you lost it or dropped it in water or something? It's impossible.
They don't help with life's little mishaps. You practically have to have been beaten unconscious by armed mobile-phone-robbing lahtchies trained in multiple forms of martial arts, and left unconscious bleeding to death, have an authenticated video recording of the attacks, and then make a report to the guards before you wake up before they'll even stop laughing at you for being so stupid as to buy their insurance.

2) Insurance is a form of gambling. You are betting that you'll have an accident that will keep you out of work, and the odds are stocked against you, otherwise this fellow wouldn't be working for a company that was actually in business.

This fellow hadn't much of a hope of selling this to me. He was good at getting his foot in the door, but that's as far as he got. I don't know if it was his poor technique or just his crappy product, but at the end, he asked is that something I would be interested in, which we learned from the previous post, gave me the opportunity to say, "No thanks". In any case, I'm sure my preconceived prejudices against insurance did much to destroy his case.

But quickly, the lesson we've learned from this is really just:

1) If you don't want to let him in, but he insists that he has to come in to explain it quicker or properly, think about the following
a) It's flawed logic. Anything he can explain sitting down, he can explain at the same speed (though maybe not as thoroughly) standing up.
b) If the product is really that good, a quick 30-second explanation should be enough to let you decide whether you want it.

And remember: Don't make excuses! They know every excuse you can think of and have a stock reply for it. Surely he didn't just think of that one about it taking longer to explain on the doorstep up straight away off the top of his head.

The Nits of Society

This phenomenon is something that I previously thought only happened in other countries...

You read all about them in the foreign news, on the Internet. I am talking about the new evil that is taking over our society, not Rock and Roll, not role playing games, not even underage drinking or premarital sex, not even Marylin Manson. I am - as you may have guessed - talking about cold callers - people who call around uninvited to your house, or ring you on the phone - even send things in the post, and try their hardest to sell you something you don't want.

With this 'blog (shudder) entry, I hope to help people not to buy rubbish that they don't want and only later realise how they wasted their money and time.

Now there are three kinds, two of which are forgivable.

Religious callers: When I lived in the multi-cultural centre of Limerick - Dooradoyle - I was strangely called upon to listen to all sorts of cults - mostly The Church Of Jesus And Latter Day Saints. (For some reason these were all American... or maybe Canadian?) Also, one couple who just wanted to talk about Jesus. This is the first one of the forgivable kind.

They tell you who they are when they call, and take no for an answer. Besides they are just doing it because their God will punish them if they don't. They're trying to save my soul - as far as they're concerned it's akin to warning a blind man to walk a different way lest he fall off that cliff in front of them.

Charity callers: The second forgivable kind. I mean, yes they do try to sell you things you don't want, but isn't that what charity is all about? Buying something not for the wish of getting the thing, but for the wish of helping those who the charity is for. How else could you explain the astounding success of the "Band Aid 2000" song (or was it 2020? Who cares)

The third are people who it's hard to think of a non-derogaratory (sp?) term for... I think the P.C. one is "The uninvited sect of the followers of the salesperson tradition". These people aren't trying to help a better cause, they won't take no for an answer and they won't tell you who they are until you've listened to them.

Now most Irish people find it quite hard to be rude to other people - at least other Irish people (non-wealthy foreigners here may disagree) We are an unassertive lot and prefer to be nice to these people who call to the door. "Ah sure he was a sound fellah" is the prevailing attitude. Maybe we are wisening up now, but presumably not enough. This sales technique is still being used, so it must work, and our good natures are being taken advantage of.

Unfortunately the only way to get rid of these people is to be rude and slam the door in their face.

Allow me to go through an example. This will give me an opportunity to illustrate the devious underhanded tactics used by these people. After answering the phone one day,

Step 1: I was asked if I would be interested in an "opportunity". Actually no. What I was actually asked was if I had a brief moment to listen to it. Already you can spot the first tactic. A "brief" moment we can all spare unless we are on the verge of rushing out the door. So I agreed to listen.

Step 2: The girl on the phone spent the next 2 or 3 minutes explaining to me in a single continuous sentence this great deal whereby I would get "Gold" membership (wow! real gold?) of the Castletroy Park hotel. I tuned out for quite a bit of it (she let herself down here, but don't worry she reminded me), but the bits I remember were discounts on the following things: The Golf course, booking rooms, the leisure centre. Also the restaurant gave a deal whereby if you eat there the cheapest one of your party eats for free (and no you can't go on your own to just get a free dinner, smartarse, there has to be at least 2). She mentioned a 40-euro meal which while admittedly the food is nice there, but... 40 euros?

Anyway, during this time I wasn't allowed to interrupt, except to answer the question about whether I'd ever eaten in the restaurant. (I told her I hadn't, forgetting that I once did, and she told me how beautiful the meals are).

Can you see the trickery here? Not allowing one to interrupt, asking them questions that would get them interested.... The deviousness...

Step 3. She told me the price: €190 for the year. Then she asked me - not if I was
interested - but whether there was anything there which interested me. But you can spot the tactic... If she had asked was I interested, I would just have said something like, "Not really, sorry", but she would get me thinking about the different aspects, and admittedly some of them may have sounded good enough.

In reality there wasn't really. But I told her I don't play golf, I already had a membership of another gym (a lie, but if I wanted one I'd get it cheap & with a 50m pool), and that I lived nearby so I'd never book a room. The only thing I could avail of would be the meals, and €190 seemed a bit expensive for this.

Step 4. But she protested, going on about how I would be able to get special deals on conference rooms (she was calling me at work), and mentioned the golf again (forgetting what I'd already told her). I grumbled - because I actually felt sorry for her kind of (that has changed nowadays as you will read), as she was quite nice and had by now had figured out my demeanour (kind of easy going to the point of laziness) and so was well able to build up a rapport with me. Had she been chatting me up she would have pulled by now, but no she was trying to make me waste my money which is a different story altogether. I honestly didn't want to say "No". She must have detected I didn't want to sign up because she then asked me if anyone else in the office might be interested.

Step 5. So I agreed to call her back if anyone was - but no that wasn't enough - *She* had to call *me* back. She asked me what time would be good the next day, and I said any time after 11:30 am. So I thought I'd have time to get my speech about how I wasn't interested together... OK, so I'd save €40 per meal (!) in a place where I only ever ate once in a lifetime. To break even I would have to eat there at least 5 times a year - to make a profit, at least 6 times... To make a profit worth speaking of, quite a bit more.

As if to preempt this preperation, she rang at 10:30! Unfortunately, someone else picked up (it wasn't exactly my phone - but that's another story) and said, yes I was indeed there so I had to take the call. She gave a little small talk, how was I doing, the weather was nice etc. (possibly to break me back in after my day of freedom) and then asked cheerily, "So, can we sign you up?" (we?). The devious tricks should be obvious here, a less committed person may have been fooled by her nice personality, just agree to do it just for peace and quiet, but I realised that she was forcing my hand.

Step 6. I told her I had thought about it and didn't want to be signed up. She sounded positively dejected, reiterated that surely there must have been something I was interested in. I felt lousy doing so, but I told her that there was no way I would spend enough in a year to make it worth my while, and she then continued to talk about golf courses, rooms, conference rooms, etc.

Conclusion. I basically ignored her protests much like a parent who has to "be cruel to be kind" and ignore the crying of a child who doesn't like being disciplined. Heart-breaking but it has to be done. I repeated that it wouldn't be worth it and I apologised for wasting her time and she replied, "That's OK", and the call ended.

Now you might argue that at any point I could have just told her where to shove her gold member (ship), but for that I would need *disciplined mind*, i.e. what I had on the second day, not the easy-going-to-the-point-of-laziness-ahh-she's-so-nice unnassertive mind I had on the first day. You could argue that there was nothing immoral about it, she could never force me to buy the thing, but I could just as easily argue that if she convinced me despite all the hints I gave that I didn't want it, she would be knowingly selling me a thing she knew I didn't want. You see she *had* a disciplined mind the whole time.

This form of salespersonship is exactly like the "Jedi Mind Trick". Works great against cigarette-addicts and poor guards who have spent the whole day in the desert heat trapped inside plastic armour, but useless against a disciplined mind. But you don't see any Jedi going around using it to sell gold memberships to local hotels with the argument that if anyone concentrated enough they could easily refuse.

But the reason I write this post is to maybe help others who may be caught unawares and give them the key to not buying off these people. The problem she faced with me was not that I didn't want it - that fact was totally irrelevant - it was that I *knew* I didn't want it.

So my first lesson on not buying crap you don't want is as follows:

1) Once you receive the call, put your mind into concentration mode. When you hear the offer, make a definite descision about whether you want it. If you don't want it, KNOW THAT YOU DON'T WANT IT. Also keep in mind, they called you, rather than just advertising on telly or the paper or something - how good could this offer be?

2) When they ask leading questions, keep in mind the whether-you-want-it-or-not. The first leading question is an opportunity to change the subject and explain you don't want it.

3) There is NO NEED to feel sorry for them! The mistake I almost made! They are not "Just being nice", they are being nice so you'll buy the bloody thing!

Why did I title this thing "The Nits of Society"? Because, with nits, no amount of scratching (hinting that you don't want them) will get rid of them, you have to go the whole hog and wash that smelly stuff into your hair. In the same way with members of the salesperson tradition, no amount of hinting will get rid of them.

But finally let me just say that she was the most acceptable of the four examples I am going to give. Tune in next time for another story and another lesson, wherein I get more and more pissed off with cold callers... It won't be as long though.

My Kingdom for a decent Micro$oft application!!!

This time last friday I had typed out a huge rant... but at the same time I was installing Windows NT service Pack 6 on my computer (yeah I use Windows NT, big whoop, whatcha gonna do about it?)

At the end of the installation, the thing says, "You will have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect" and a button saying "OK"... So I assumed I could press OK and then later restart my computer to take advantage of the SP6 thing. I thought, yes I acknowledge I have to restart my computer for the changes to take effect, I'll do it later.

BUT IT DOESN'T TELL YOU PRESSING OK ACTUALLY DOES THE RESTARTING OF THE COMPUTER! >:(

Opera having no "Save everything you just typed" feature upon being closed, disappeared and my multi-page message was gone. AARRGHH! It's like that mouse with the plunger all over again...

Why couldn't it have said "Pressing OK restarts your computer" or something simple like that? Maybe offered a "Cancel" button or something...

So all I typed is gone. But Bill Gates is still rich. Where is the justice?

Psychic or Terrorist?

I have heard about a psychic in Cork (Ireland) predicting that the next attack on America will occur on the 8th of April - This Friday coming... This is the first psychic prediction I've heard where I heard about it *before* the event. Though granted the info is still 3rd hand to me (4th hand to you readers)... If it does occur, then psychicness really exists, or she's a terrorist, or it was a lucky guess....

England's Hilarious History

Why is it there are so many comedians or comedy actors doing programmes on Discovery channel & documentaries & stuff... The list so far

Tony Robinson - Time Team, Worst Jobs in History (I think it's called), The Real da Vinci Code
Chris Barrie - Massive Engines
Rory McGrath - Bloody Britain
Robert Llewellyn - Scrapheap Challenge
Mark Williams - On The Rails
and last night I noticed
Rik Mayall - Violent Britain

Can you spot any more? I'm just not looking forward to when the tables are turned and Adam Hart Davis & David Attenbrough start presenting award shows...

Always Remember: Evolution Is Just A Theory

I always love to hear this "fact" bandied about by those who want us to take on certain belief systems about where we came from. "Evolution is just a theory", or "Scientists have been proving what was previously taken as fact wrong for centuries". It's not just old-fashioned religious zealots like Jack Chick (http://www.chick.com - you'll love it!), apparently, there are some high-ranking members otherwise-reputable educational systems who are trying to push for teaching this idea that God created a male and female human and a male and female of every other animal around 4,000 B.C. and we're all their descendents. In Georgia, science books were at one stage required to carry disclaimers saying that this was only one possible interpretation of the evidence. Which seems like a highly sensible thing to say - after all we should question authority - until you find out that the Bibles and the Korans and Torahs and whatever else there are aren't required to carry the same stickers! Not to mention their copies of The Da Vinci Code. I believe the stickers were later removed, but it still means there are people with influence in education pushing for this. Worse still, while I was looking up the state that did that, I found out that Oklahoma science books were required to state specifically that in fact, it was God who created us all. And we thought de Valera was bad.

Now I'm not going to go into the incestual permutations of the time, or even ask why the Bible doesn't mention dinosaurs, or ask how the half-life of carbon-14 (or whatever it is) could possibly have changed, instead, let me explain a few things.

1) Evolution is a theory.
2) Scientists have been proving things wrong for centuries.

1) "Evolution is a theory", I think the people who say this aren't really sure of what exactly a theory is. First we make an observation, and see, yes life exists. Then we form a hypothesis - i.e. a possible story of where life came from. This is what I think people have in their minds as to what a theory is. But all we have is a hypothesis. Now we make predictions based on our hypothesis, and do experiments to try and find out if our predictions are true. If they are, then we have a theory.

It is extremely difficult to prove something that isn't a mathematical theorem (like pythagoras theorem or something) as fact. Even if you make 999,999 predictions and they all come true, you're 1,000,000th one might disprove it. Furthermore, since your theory (in this case evolution) has to state things *very* specifically, it might have happened but it might be slightly wrong. So Evolution is a theory, but it is very very probably true.

2) Scientists have been proving things wrong for centuries. This is true, but look at the things they've been proving wrong - many beliefs which were before held by religious & philisophical people - the Earth is flat, the Earth is the centre of the universe.

Of course, if Evolution is ever shown to be false, the creationists will jump for joy with a feeling of great vindication. But hang on a second! They still haven't proven their story. From what I see, they are working under the following stream of logic.

Evolution is just a theory, therefore evolution is false.
Evolution is false, therefore creation by God is true. q.e.d.

Furthermore, they have this faith-based system, which is very convenient for them... It means you don't need proof. If you ask them to prove it, they swear that the Bible is proof enough because of the unquestionable faith in the Bible. Imagine me trying to explain that evolution is true because of my faith in it.

So I ask you, where are the predictions that make the story of creation a theory? Are there any? Is there any evidence aside from a book, that Adam and Eve were created and are our ancestors?

Yes it's true, evolution is just a theory.
But creation is just a hypothesis.

Of course, nothing in life is certain. I have just described a method that will solve the world's energy problems. What? You thought it was about creation & evolution? You must have mis-read it. Read it again. You read it 100 times? You must have misread every single time.

Santa Claus: Fascist Vigilante or Iron-fisted Voyeur?

Much has been made of this man, but not enough is known.

Santa Claus (for those unfamiliar with him) is a man who lives in the North Pole, and rewards conformity with toys, and punishes disobedience with humiliation and lumps of coal. Such a punishment would not affect grown adults to any great extent - it would just result in disappointment and possible resentment, but the idea becomes far more disturbing when one discovers the target of his manipulations: Children.

Young, innocent (and impressionable), and given the raised expectations and anticipation the prospect of not receiving an expected toy to a child is akin to a heroin addict being denied his/her fix - or possibly closer to waking up one morning to the discovery that one's house has been cleaned out by burglars during the night. Furthermore a child will have to face his fellows in a school-yard who are all enjoying the toys they received, and will be forced to admit that due to his or her unorthodox behaviour, all he or she was considered fit for was the fabled lump of coal.

The threat of such humiliation and devastation to one's child is - understandably - too much for some parents. In reality, even the brattiest children are far too innocent to commit any act of what could be considered evil by any stretch of the imagination. But Santa Claus does not consider this to be so, and has an unrealistically black-and-white "bad or good" system. This has lead parents of the so called "bad" children to cover their own failures by telling them that Santa Claus does not even exist, and to buy the presents themselves to preempt Mr. Claus' judgement.

But that would all be well and good in the normal run of things - indeed, one could argue that Mr. Claus is under no obligation to provide toys to any children, and that we should be grateful for his generosity, until one considers the more sinister, Orwellian side of this arrangement.

Santa Claus is watching you and yours - especially your children - all the time. There is no action one can take that is not under the microscope of this self-appointed moral controller. Indeed the song, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, by Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots warns of threats considered despicable even to Michael Jackson (he and his family reiterated the warning by covering the song at a later date).

The song warns,

He knows when you've been sleeping / He knows when you're awake / He knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake!

Note the tone of fear in the lyrics as they explain that there is no escape from Santa Claus' prying eyes and imply that one has no choice but to be "good", or else!

The song also outlines examples of what is considered bad, which illustrates my point about his unreasonable moral standards - indeed, crying, a natural tool evolved to allow children to warn parents of problems before they can take care of them themselves, is considered to be immoral by Santa Claus. When one considers that crying is an almost involuntary reaction to a child when they feel pain, frustrated or depressed, one can only assume that one is required to suppress all negative emotion or be convicted of thoughtcrime as Orwell described it.

An image of a jolly, friendly fellow has been painted by the Mass Media, which suggests he may have friends in high-places (indeed, his links with corporate giant, Coca Cola are incontravertible). He is dressed in a warm brightly coloured uniform, with an old, but not too wrinkly face. This combined with the facial hair is portrays an image of wisdom, a technique similar to one used by Stalin, but the fact he is overweight and laughing is to show that while wise, he is not too sensible or stodgy to be attractive to children. Without this image, and the fact that he resides in the North Pole, (a place free from the laws of any nation), he would never be able to continue his activities without being checked, audited, or even asked to explain what he does with the vast amounts information he receives or who he gives it to.

In all honesty, would you allow any fully grown man to watch your children all the time and promise annual toys to them in exchange for their obedience, were he not the embodiment of jolliness and friendliness that is portrayed to you by the television, movies, magazines and advertisements?

a 1000-word essay

Write a 1000-word essay on the inside of a golf ball. EXACTLY 1,000 words. And only one golf ball.

How to win any pub argument in 3 easy steps.

I read this in an email years ago, so I'll share these tips with you loyal readers... I don't have the email any more so really I'm typing from memory.

Here are three infallible tips on how to win any pub/dinner-party/fag-break/social-gathering argument, no matter how radical your claims. Use them wisely and sparingly (lest someone cop on), this should also arm you to counter others who try and use these techniques.

1) Make up quotes and statistics. Invent papers or journals written by fictional writers which "prove" your point. You're in a pub, no one's going to check them out, and if they get a chance later, you can berate them for going on too much about what was just a pub argument. Things like "85% of doctors say that passive-smoking is only harmful in enclosed areas smaller than 3 cubic metres per lighted cigarette" or "According to a government funded report by Dr. Cornelius Kelly, drink driving only contributes to 5% of car accidents - over 30% are caused by panic because of the fact that there are some situations not covered by a driving test".

2) Use clichées and old proven axioms - if some of what you say is true it must be all true, things like, "You can't compare apples and oranges" or "Where there's smoke, there's fire". No one can argue with that. This is an old technique used by advertisers, it has the effect of making the listener think, "Yes, it's true, where there's smoke, there is fire. Therefore the Guildford Four must have been guilty".

3) When all else fails, when every avenue of logic and rationality has been taken from you, when your opponents are about to land the coup de grace and you have no other choice, you have one trump left: the Nazi card. "Didn't the Nazis propose something similar in 1938?" or "That sounds like something Hitler would say". In fact with a little research into the Nazis and Hitler you'd be amazed at the application of this tool.

Warning. This post may contain abusive language. You Have Been Warned.

This is the first post to A1000wan. Seemingly I am the first person in the history of the Earth to ever post these exact words to this exact web site, it's mind-boggling, isn't it?

But if this is an infinite universe, then every possibility must be happening again and again. This means that a long time ago in a galaxy far away, there is a person with my name who looks identical to me, making this exact post to a website identical to this one, all the while, unaware of me, but speculating of my existence.

Ever since my previous home got burned down (http://www.csn.ul.ie/~colm Don't worry, no one I liked got hurt), I have felt that new ground must be broken in the field of me on the WWW. So the one who is called Reese The Law Girl (http://www.somethingdifferentnow.blogspot.com) gave me some inspiring words that would alter the course of history forever*, saying "You should start one". So I did.

* Figure of speech meant for dramatic purposes only, actual degree or duration to which the course of history was altered is purely speculative and is not implied or guaraunteed and is not the responsibility of anyone who if it was their responsibility would result in my being held liable.

The Da Vinci Code (Jesus & Mary Magdelene)

I'm going through a brief philisophical phase so I've been thinking about this question according to allegations by Dan Brown in the Book, "The Da Vinci Code", which is supposedly partially based on fact.

I haven't read the book so the information I'm getting comes from the TV programme presented by Tony Robinson, "The Real da Vinci Code". The allegation is as follows: According to Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus was in an intimate relationship with Mary Magdelene. This was then covered up by the Christian church authorities, presumably so as not to spoil Jesus' image of purity. In fact if you look at the painting, "The Last Supper", you'll see that there is a woman sitting beside Jesus, and the shape made between their shoulders and their elbows is a "V" or triangle shape, which at the time was the symbol of fertility. Furthermore the shape made by Jesus & "Mary"'s bodies is an M whch could stand for Mary.

This has been much the subject of pub discussion, so let me address the question - did the church cover up the fact that Jesus had a relationship with Mary Magdelene?
The answer is an almost definite...
No.

The mere allegation is its own undoing. It's not a question of beliefs - I'm not a staunch Christian - it's a question of simple logic.

The only document which records the events is the Bible. Now the only thing holding the Bible with any iota of possibility of truth is the belief that when scholars are writing the Bible, it's such a holy book that God Himself intervenes to ensure that it gets written correctly. This makes it impossible to lie in the Bible. That is why the word "Gospel" is often used as a synonym for the absolute truth. The Bible - according to this idea - must be absolutely true, we have God Himself on the job making sure. For the church to attempt to cover some of it up would be inherently impossible.

But perhaps that belief is wrong. Maybe God doesn't ensure that the Bible is absolutely true. If this is the case, then surely, I hear you say, it must be possible. I'm afraid not. If God isn't ensuring the Bible is the truth, then no one is. In which case, the whole thing could be true or false, it's just a bunch of 2000-year old stories - we'll never know whether *any* of them are true, whether there was a Jesus and if so, whether He had any relationship with God - if there is or ever was a God. Arguing over whether the church covered up one detail is pointless when faced with the possibility that they could have made up the whole Bible. It makes about as much sense of accusing the Irish government of covering up an illicit affair between Cúchullain and Queen Maedbh. Indeed, there may have been a guy called Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem, who later went on to meet a woman called Mary Magdelene, but without the guarrantee that the Bible is true to make them important, who cares - other than Fair City viewers - whether they had an affair or not? I'd be more worried about the fact that the church have been conning millions of people for centuries by falsifying the entire Bible.

Either the Bible is completely true, or it is almost all false. It would be a great miracle indeed to have a 2000-year old non-divinely-guarded document to be only missing that one detail.

No I'm afraid all Leonardo da Vinci was doing with his V & M was predicting the rise to fame of Van Morrison.