The Arrow of Time

Standard

A change is occurring. I’m 31. But as I’ve always claimed, I’ve aged at around three times the normal rate since becoming a dad. Meaning my actual age is closer to 43.

And I’ve started to notice things. Things that aren’t as they were. I’m not sure when it started, but it seems that Mrs Ben and I have started listening to Radio 2 in the morning (I quickly switch over to BBC6 whenever I realise this). I’ve even been listening to Radio 4 to catch the latest news from Japan.

Mrs Ben had Radio 1 on in the kitchen the other day to listen to the Top 40. It was minutes before I realised I’d been standing there with my top lip curled and my brow furrowed, so repelled by I was by the presenters and the music.

It wasn’t long ago that were I out and about at around 3:30pm I’d gaze at the college girls thinking of… well, you can imagine. Now? Oh, that skirt is awfully short. It’s not even ten degrees and she’s got no tights on. She’ll catch a chill. Do her parents allow her to dress like that? Uh, what awful annunciation.

Then there’s Tasmin Greig. Never fancied her. That is, until I saw her in Friday night Dinner. Where she’s dressed up as a middle aged housewife. So that’s what ticks my boxes now?

At Christmas mine and Mrs Ben’s “big present” from her family was a pot. A big orange cooking pot. Too cook things in. And that bit at the beginning of Homefront where the Koreans shoot the parents of that kid and it screams and runs over to them? A genuine moral outrage, Daily Mail style.

[NOTE – I’ve not yet started reading the Mail, though I’m not sure I’d ever vote Labour again]

Cup of tea > pint of beer. Night in > night out. Napping > not napping.

All that stands between me and proper full-on middle age now is getting a Black & Decker Workbench for my birthday.

Entropy

Standard

I’ve been watching the BBC’s spectacular Wonders of the Universe. In the first episode Brian Cox says viewers might be depressed by his explanation of the inevitable end of the universe.

(That’s proved by ‘entropy’, the second law of thermal dynamics, which explains why  matter will always inevitably descend into disorder and chaos).

The backdrop to this – we’re one planet circling one star that is but one of hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy which in turn is one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

Infinity plus one.

Depressing? Really? I find our cosmic irrelevance and the inevitability of destruction comforting. Because ultimately it reminds me we’ll all be forgotten and that, when it comes down to it, none of the shit really matters, right?

Quote

I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion, I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.

Christopher Hitchens (via ageofreason)

Fukushima No.1 plant

Standard

My ex-girlfriend’s granddad was one of the last living survivors of the Nagahashi bomb. The youngest of nine siblings, he survived when the Americans attacked because of his brothers and sisters, all of whom jumped on top of him. Once the storm had calmed he crawled out from underneath their bodies and was rescued. 

I  desperately don’t want a third chapter in Japan’s nuclear legacy.