The Word of Ward

No one can accuse thewordofward of not having its finger on the pulse. You want zeitgeist? This is it baby!

i-Dosing is allegedly the new craze sweeping the easily swept youth of today. It works on a principal that uses ‘binaural beats’ where opposite ears hear differing sound waves. If I was to be cynical, I would call this fascinating aural phenomenon something whackier like ’stereo’.

But apparently i-Dosing can get you off your tits with the effects replicating a variety of drugs. You can get stoned or coked-up but all legally and without coughing or numb gums. Essentially the audio waves put you into a trance state. This theory has apparently been used in clinical settings to research things like sleep disorders and has been around since its discovery in 1839 by German physicist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.

To add even more credence to i-Dosing’s ability to ‘fuck you up’, it has already been the subject of some panicked warnings by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. Maybe they are over-reacting a tad. I suspect no-one who’s panicking has based their fears on anything as daft as actual fact or evidence.

There are numerous i-Dose tracks available through the genius of the non-judgemental internet. In the name of science I thought I’d try out a couple that are on youtube. So you don’t have to. Nice of me isn’t? Putting my brain on the line for a website. I remember an awesome bit in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash when a guy in a virtual world (like Second Life) gets a scroll and when he reads it, it scrambles his brain and puts him in a coma. This could have happened to me.

In the name of science and journalism I have previously ‘experimented’ with weed and cocaine. The weed was in Amsterdam where it is decriminalised and therefore morally ok. The coke was at a party – I work in TV and it’s practically compulsory. If a policeman reads this then I should point out that I’m lying and you can’t prove nothing copper.

So what happened?

I can reveal that i-Dosing does fuck all. No drug induced state, no euphoria, nothing. I did experience intense moments of boredom and irritation though. I’m not sure what clinics have used this technique but I suspect they also use aromatherapy and healing crystals. This is clearly a lot of quite clever kids having a laugh at the establishment. It reminds me of when Chris Morris invented the drug ‘cake’ and persuaded celebrities and politicians to jump on the band-wagon. Morris even got them to say that ‘This is a made up drug’ that affects the part of the brain called ‘Shatner’s Bassoon’. I’ve said it hundreds of times on this site – the press loves a good scare story and won’t let contrary evidence or pesky facts get in the way of selling their product. Here’s the dozy media terrifying parents over nothing:

In case you don’t believe me I have included an i-Dose clip. I will not be held responsible if you have a good time or get a headache though. If, like with weed, it leads inevitably to you using crack, then it’s because you are an idiot not the ‘binaural beats’. I suspect this whole craze is made up and is some kind of viral hoax to be spread around the internet by drug addled writers like myself. If it doesn’t work, and it won’t because it’s someone having a laugh at the press, I can recommend Thai stick and Pink Floyd. Enjoy!

The Faroe Islands

I saw a documentary the other day called ‘The Cove’. It was a pretty awesome documentary about a secret bay where a load of Japanese slaughter thousands of dolphins for no real valid reason. At the start of the documentary, before you see the slaughter, the activists involved are a bit baffled as to why. Dolphin meat has toxic levels of mercury and don’t make good eating. They then discovered that the fisherman were passing off some dolphin meat as whale meat and people were unwittingly poisoning themselves. My first thought was that it sucks for the dolphins but at least they aren’t endangered like whales – if people ate what they thought was whale but were in fact ingesting toxic dolphin meat, then at least some good is coming out of all this. Lots of dead whale munchers. Then it turns out that kids were being fed this meat too and that’s just wrong. They should at least have the chance to grow up and make their own choices.

As you can see from the photo here though, the Japanese are not alone. Norweigans, Icelanders, and the Faroe Islanders kills whales.They justify it because these long finned pilot whales are on the slight increase and so therefore it’s ok to hack at them with choppers.

One of the reasons given by the Japanese in the documentary for killing whales and dolphins are that the animals in questions eat too much fish and

No more fish

stocks of fish are depleting. This is ridiculous. Numerous studies have shown that fish stocks are depleting because, and this seems fairly obvious, we are all eating too much fish. When you hunt a marine species to the point that less than 10% of its population survives, that species goes into collapse. It has been proven that if diversity drops, then so do fish yields. In about 40 years we may just run out. According to UN studies fish exports rose 55% from 2000 to 2006. Six of the top ten exporters were Western countries (http://www.fao.org/newsroom/common/ecg/1000850/en/fishtradefacts08b.pdf). Killing dolphins and whales won’t help fish recover, not eating them will.

Another argument put forward by all whaling countries, is that it is a way of life. Well, tough shit. Do something else. Unless you’re an idiot you can retrain. Plenty of jobs have gone – chimney sweeps, hansom cab drivers, coal miners, dodo handlers, British Airways staff (soon). Welcome to the modern world. Become a web designer or something. Thanks to the EU nearly all British fisherman have had to do this.

I’ve had friends that claim to be vegetarians but then it turns out they eat fish. It’s weird being lectured by someone with a plate of 30 dead whitebait in front of them that my eating a slice of cow is wrong. Also when people say they eat fish, they actually mean fish, crustaceans, molluscs, arthropods and so on. Basically they seem to hate eating anything that made the evolutionary crawl out of the sea. It’s ok for one person to eat 50 mussels but not 50 people to eat one cow. At least now you can point out that they are causing the death of huge amounts of species and the imminent collapse of marine ecologies, while you are eating an easily sustainable food-source or ’sausage’. (Apologies to these friends as you no longer do this.)

So what should you eat? Obviously something has to die as we live on organic matter. You can eat vegetables and fruit. Woohoo!

I personally think it’s ok to eat cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, insects and swans. The first four can be humanely farmed and can happily trot round fields before you fire a bolt into their brains. Insects are in no danger of dying out and are pretty much the same as prawns. Bit weird though I’ll admit but huge amounts of the planet eat them. I ate a fried grasshopper in Thailand once and it was actually quite tasty although when I woke up with a hangover and found a leg stuck in my tooth, I almost threw up. Swans are ok to eat because they are pure evil. I hate swans.

Basically you should eat your greens and if you choose to eat meat, eat one that is easily sustainable. Preferably one that would die out pretty quickly if we stopped looked after them, like with cows.  I do think that the animals should be organic and free range though. Battery farming is cruel. This will also mean that meat will be more expensive, taste better, and will become more of treat. People shouldn’t expect a chicken for a fiver or meat with every meal.

So please my friends, don’t eat so much fish, campaign against whalers, stop the slaughter of dolphins. Also avoid tofu, it’s just weird.

Sources and pictures:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6108414.stm

United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization http://www.fao.org/newsroom/common/ecg/1000850/en/fishtradefacts08b.pdf

http://www.laughparty.com/funnypicture/Eat-More-Chicken/300/

barcelonareview.com

Sorry for being controversial but the Pope is coming and it has annoyed me. If you are Catholic please ‘turn the other cheek’ and forgive me. There aren’t many left in Britain anyway, so I feel fairly safe.

I am an atheist and have nothing against those of you who wish to believe in all powerful magic being. Do what you want. The thing is, I am having to pay for this visit. The current amount is apparently £15 million quid. Christ knows why. That figure doesn’t even include security, so presumably it’s all going on bread, wine, incense, and gold trimmed pillows or something.

Why should I pay for some representative of a religion I’m not part of? Are people of other religions even more annoyed than me? Officially I’m a Jedi, so why doesn’t the government pay for a huge Star Wars convention for us? Fly in all the stars so we can shake hands with Yoda and get to know the guy when he’s not on screen. Catholics make up 8% of England’s population whereas Jedis make 1% so £2 million should be fair. As it stands, you have to pay to go to geeky conventions, why can’t this be the case with the Pope? Didn’t Henry VIII say “balls!” to the Catholic church and had us separated from the whole religious sycophancy? Why then are we paying for the head of a group we split with?

People bitch about the monarchy all the time but they live here and are our monarchy. They bring in tourism and help pay for themselves and do good things for charity. Besides I like having a Queen and don’t want to be a republic for the simple reason that it just isn’t as cool. The monarchy costs us a chocolate bar a year. Which is worth it in my opinion.

Ok, I’ll stop complaining. Don’t want a load of angry Catholics on my case.  They breed quite quick, so there can be a lot of them. Thankfully they have to be merciful and forgiving or they go to hell, so I should be ok. Apparently they’re already starting to queue up in places like Glasgow so hopefully they won’t read this. Even if they do – I’m chipping in for their benefit not mine, so chill out.

I would just like to have been asked if I wanted a snickers bar or a pope. I love snickers.

This is a really cool video that, like the Total Perspective Vortex, makes you feel like a utterly pointless speck of nothing.

In case you aren’t familiar with the Total Perspective Vortex, it appears in what must surely be one of the greatest series of books / greatest radio plays of all time – The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

The story is this:

A man called Trin Tragula gets pissed off with his wife always saying that he has no sense of perspective. So he builds the Total Perspective Vortex just to shut her up. Essentially, it is a device that shows you a virtual recreation of the entire universe, everything in all its glory and hugeness. Then it has a tiny arrow saying ‘You are here’. Trin Tragula’s wife goes inside and when she realises how utterly and completely insignificant she is, she goes mad. It then gets used as a torture device for shredding people’s minds. The only person who has ever survived this device is Zaphod Beeblebrox, who said that it just confirmed what he has always thought, “I’m a really great guy.”

Well the following video is a bit like that. Someone gave me a link to this, but unless my ego is so huge that I’m immune, it won’t send you mad. It will just make you feel very small. When it comes out in 3D or virtual reality, then be afraid.

Now go back to your pointless job and do some work.

Can I get through a whole review of Pirate Latitudes without resorting to spouting pirate cliches? No shivver me timbers I can’t Jim lad. There, got that out of the way.

This is Michael Chrichton’s last ever book. Which is incredibly sad because he was a great author. Not one to settle on any genre, he has tackled dinosaur parks, the medical world, the aeroplane industry, the environment, vikings, pirates, and more. He is consistently fun to read. This book was found on his laptop after he died, which always makes me a bit wary. Was it finished properly? Why didn’t he send it out?

Pirate Latitudes is about pirates. Of the Caribbean. Had to word that carefully. It follows the adventures of the privateer Captain Charles Hunter as he has a series of what can only be described as ‘rip-roaring’ adventures. The core of the novel is his attack on a fortress called Matanceros in order to nick a Spanish treasure galleon moored under its protection. The fortress is predictably impregnable. Almost.

The book reads like a fun, shallow series of adventures. Every pirate adventure cliche is present, it is almost as if he wrote a list. Rough rogue Captain leads a plucky crew and does the following (tick the pirate story boxes): climbs cliffs, blows up strongholds, has duels, sleeps with whores, has sea battles, gets thrown in a dungeon, fights cannibals, is attacked by a kraken, and lots more. I didn’t give away any more of the plot than is on the cover. Plus it doesn’t matter. Think of this book as an old fashioned periodical adventure series, like Flash Gordon or the basis behind Indiana Jones. If you approach in that frame of mind you won’t be disappointed.

With the above mindset, you can forgive the cliches. And it is very cliched and formulaic. His crew, especially when he recruits them, is like those you would find in a cheesy film. The ones where a leader goes through a load of dossiers and finds one that can fly a helicopter and is good at knife-fighting, another that is a brilliant hacker, and so on. In this: the Jew, aka, Black Eye, is brilliant with explosives. Enders is a brilliant surgeon and one of the best helmsman around. Lazue is a feisty woman fighter who has brilliant eyesight. Bassa ‘The Moor’ is a huge strong black guy with no tongue. All a bit familiar but it really doesn’t matter in a story like this. Look at the Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Arc, or Brian Blessed in Flash Gordon, or anyone in a Bond film.

So is Pirate Latitudes any good? Yes. Not brilliant, but fun. It’s an action adventure about pirates for fuck’s sake, what were you expecting? It is harmless escapism, with lots of narrow escapes and cliffhangers. It is a bit cliched (a word I have used a lot in this review) but that is utterly irrelevant as the book is well-written in a page-turning thriller kind of way. If you want more realistic sea adventures – look at the superb Patrick O’Brian. If you want a rip-roaring pirate tale in the vein of Treasure Island, look no further. Me hearties.