Monday Musings #8

So, in an attempt to get back to updating this blog of mine a bit more regularly, here’s another Monday Musings; since it’s been months since I actually wrote one of these in the morning, however, I’m going to drop that part from the title (alliteration be damned).

Rowan Atkinson (aka. Mr Bean aka. Blackadder aka. legendary British comedian who’s creative capacity makes us all look pathetic in comparison) has come out in support of the ‘Reform Section 5’ campaign, giving the movement a much-needed popular front man. You can view his ten minute speech on why he supports the cause here; it’s as articulate and entertaining as you’d expect from him, and has some delicious references to my favourite scene from Not The Nine O’Clock News.

Finally got ahold of a copy of the late and great Christopher Hitchens’ ‘The Portable Atheist’, thanks to the shiny new Kindle I’ve recently acquired (don’t judge me too harshly; books are expensive, and I am but a poor student who’s course books on their own cost far too bloody much). His introduction is of the standard you’d expect from the Hitch, but the book really shines with the variety of authors and commentators Hitchens chose to pull extracts and essays from. A thoroughly interesting read.

Our wonderful Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is makingthat hole he’s digging ever deeper. Perhaps he’s hoping that if he goes far enough he’ll finally be incinerated by the earth’s core in a mercy killing.

Finally, I thought I’d end with a rather awesome quote that I found from an author I’ve been a fan of for a very long time. H P Lovecraft is best known for being the guy who spawned the Cthulhu Mythos, but he had some interesting thoughts on humanity and religion too.

“You are forgetting a human impulse that, despite its restriction to a relatively small number of men, has all through history proved itself as real and vital as hunger – as potent as thirst or greed. I need not say that I refer to that simplest yet most exalted attribute of our species – the acute, persistent, unquenchable craving TO KNOW.”

- H. P. Lovecraft, ‘A Letter on Religion’