S onewall and the great bigot debate

I've posted before about the use of the word bigot. I've always said that while people may agree with your point of view that doesn't make them a bigot, what does lead to bigotry is the way that you over expound the difference using non-factual, inaccurate arguments or even over-egg the debate.

Yesterday was the Stonewall awards and as is traditional there is the bigot of the year award. Hardly surprisingly Cardinal Keith O'Brien who won it spoke out against the award, but so too the recipient of the politician of the year, the Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson. Now the Cardinal had compared equal marriage to slavery (though not in the correct historical context), called it a grotesque subversion of a universally [huh? hardly universal] accepted human right and declared a war on gay [sic] marriage. All of which I personally think fit into the dictionary definition of bigot:

big·ot  (bgt)
n.

One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Definition from The Free Dictionary 

Even if the Scottish First Minister and Miss Davidson disagree with me on the issue of whether LGBT organisations should be pointing out bigotry, or whether the Cardinal met those criteria. Sadly many of us in the LGBT community face bigotry everywhere we go. Here in Northern Ireland we can face if from our elected and elevated politicians (one of whom was shortlisted for the award the Cardinal won)

Personally I'd love there to be no need for Stonewall to award a Bigot of the Year award. As I said before I don't mind a debate on LGBT rights, I don't mind people having a reasoned debate to oppose things. But when I hear that being in love with a human being of the same sex is equivalent to beastiality. Or that what two consenting adults get up to is the same as pedophiles. Or that LGBT people seeking equality is just like the Nazis denying it to groups (including the LGBT one), then there clearly are bigots out there.

However, one nominee I want to see for next year's Stonewall awars is the audience at last night's awards who booed Miss Davidson. They are bigots and we should not shy away from calling them thus.

It's Friday....It's Movie Night (sort of)

It has been a while since I did one of these It's Friday it's five o'clock things. So before I start here is the prerequisite safety announcements. Even if you have read by blog and the It's Friday series please pay attention, especially around 1:40


Of course the film of the week is Skyfall which sadly because of this horrid flu I have yet to see. Though I am still looking forward to seeing it having followed the videoblogs in the built up. There were so many to choose from but here is one that gives an insight into the underwater world.




Of course the big movie news of the week was that Disney have bought LucasFilm and will be producing Star Wars Episodes VII-IX. Sadly I can't find a good parody YouTube clip yet of that merger. But here is some gratuitous Princess Leia in that dress costume parody that will please some of my readers.

Why the clocks needed to go back

As with every time the clocks clock back this morning I have seen friends (mainly from down south) say we should have kept them as they were to have an extra hour of darkness in the evening.

Yesterday here in Belfast the sun rose at 8:17am, today it rose at 7:19am. Without the clocks going back it would rise after 8:30am by the end of this week and 9am on the 18th November, it would next rise before 9am on the 8th February without the clocks going back to GMT. That would over 3 months.

In Cardiff the sun would rise at 9am for the first time on 4 December until 25 January only 7 weeks, or in London 15th December until 14 January or only 1 month. Only of course if the clocks were not to go back.

In London people never have to arrive for a 9am start in the dark. The latest sunrise there is 8:06am GMT in Belfast it is 8:46, Glasgow 8:48 and Inverness 8:59.

There is of course the journey to work time to be considered. Which takes us even further apart into how much darkness different parts of the country have to face. Now let us not forget that GMT is actually the time that the sun is overhead at noon rather than an hour later as in BST.

Now the argument is put that we need an extra hour in the evening for a healthier lifestyle. Of course keeping BST will only provide that extra hour from when the sun sets. If you are working 9-5 that extra hour will still be within the hour of you leaving work no matter where you are in the country. But add in the winter weather and it likely to get darker earlier as a result of cloud cover anyway, again this may be more prevalent in the north than the south. So while there may be an extra hour of light in the south often in the north where the sun is lower in the sky at this time of year the clouds may mean lights come on earlier.

So those that want to take away a chance of getting to work in daylight for a few weeks more in the north will only make negligible gains for what they want and again probably not be of benefit to those in the north.

The earth rotates on an axis, the sun is overhead at different times. If you want to work with Europe you can do so for most of the hours of yours and their working day. And lets be honest how much work do most people want to do with others in the last hour of their working day anyway. As someone who has worked in a global position I'm used to arranging calls when most people are available. That may include when the Americans are at their desks so early afternoon. It can include the Chinese so first thing in the morning. When doing business you adjust to the times of work going on elsewhere to get the job done, you don't disadvantage everyone else around you for the sake of it.



Let's bin the idea of keeping the extra summer time hour through the winter. The reason it works then is that there is more daylight to benefit from outside the working day, it doesn't apply in the winter months.

Animation of a rousing Obama speech

I have been somewhat quiet this week because the power cable to my laptop failed in the earlt hours of Monday morning. A smartphone is only good for so much.

Plus I'm not feeling great these last few days so have spent much of it in bed.

However, this just needs sharing

And so the end is near....

In an few hours time Dame Mary Peters will complete the digital switch over, turning off the analogue signal here in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's first TV transmitter

For the last hour of analogue from 10:35 BBC Northern Ireland and UTV will be hosting a simulcast hosted by our very won Eamonn Holmes that will look back over the 60 years that we have had dedicated television here in Northern Ireland since 1953. It was the year that a month before the Coronation the first television transmitter here came into service on May Day in Glencairn, Belfast. 

Before then TV signals could be picked up along the East coast from transmitters in Scotland or Cumbria but obviously the signal was intermittent.

Havelock House home of UTV since 1959

Six years later in 1959 with the creation of commercial television BBC Northern Ireland was joined by its younger cousin Ulster Television.

Today that analogue signal will be switched off. In an Olympic year who is more appropriate than Northern Ireland's most famous Olympian Dame Mary Peters. She will be the one to flip the switch, as which point I may well have to head off around the house and retune Freeview boxes galore so we can carry on watching.

The biological cul-de-sac

hat tip (do bloggers still do that or is that Old School?) to Caron

According to my friend Caron Gordon Wilson the former leader of the SNP has been quoted in the Telegraph as telling a fringe meeting for the Coalition for Marriage at the party conference:

"Only a man and a woman can naturally have children and what I would call family marriage is the best way of bringing up children. It's a law of nature. Same-sex marriage is a biological cul-de-sac."

I agree with the first bit that only a man and a women can naturally have children. But after that he goes awry. Their conference is in Perth, the same location that a few years ago I was on the platform moving part of what now is Liberal Democrat policy on this issue.

Now I would officially class myself as bisexual though heavily on the gay side of the gay end of the Kinsey scale, some of you including Caron have actually met the one, unique women who truly stole my heart for five years.Therefore in honour of of such absurdity I have turned to verse:

Speeding along into a biological cul-de-sac

Two roads may diverge in a narrow wood
But they also in each life converge
Two drivers who meet on love's highway
That's nature for you I guess.

Those two can be male and female,
Or two of each don't you know
Sometimes that can lead naturally to children
But it ain't necessarily so.

Now as our lovebirds progress ever onward
They don't want to ever look back
They want to cruise on off into the future
Not trapped in a biological cul-de-sac.

But those that chose a same sex companion
Are not going to increase the population
Its not that they don't want marriage and family
Just that they're unable to multiply naturally.
So get off your high horse and assume they can change
Some just aren't a nought on the Kinsey range.
So asking a six to have sex with a partner
Who doesn't recognise as the same gender
Just ain't gonna happen however you plead.
But marriage equality is going to succeed
No matter how grumpy your arguments get
Like the facist comments when history you forget.

So let the two lovers speed along loves highway
Cause love isn't anyone's cul-de-sac.
Biology says four fifty species have them also same sex
Only one's homophobic a worrying fact.

Stephen Glenn 20 October 2012

Almost time to hang up the trowels

In the words of the famous Beattie BT advert I have an ology.

Even though I also passed physics and chemistry, Beattie thought that only an Ology made you a scientist. Therefore in the first year of sixth form the extra subject I could fit into my time table around my three A-Levels was archaeology. I loved it so much doing an extra qualification in just one year, in fact at the start of the next year I did check out the archaeology department at Queens University Belfast on the Open Day.

After I had graduated, in economics not archaeology, Channel 4 introduced the show that continued to whet my appetite for all things archaeological. You probably know it too, Time Team. As the show progressed from 1994 you knew that Tony Robinson was taking in facts from the experts that surrounded him. I only had a one day field trip and no dig, but Tony went on three day digs year after year and has done 250 now. Those expert teams were usually led by either Mike Ashton or if it was a Bronze or Iron age dig Francis Pryor. They were assisted by others like field archaeologists West Countryman Phil Harding, Carenza Lewis who was replaced with Helen Geake in 2005, John Gater who introduced many of us to Geophys[ics], Stewart Ainsworth the archaeological investigator looking at the lumps and bumps and Victor Ambrus who brought the site to life by illustrating what would have been there. There were others some of the diggers became short term additions.

As well as the archaeology there was often some reenactment of what would have been going on at or near the site of that weekends dig. Whether the food, production of some good, or recreation/fighting skills.

It is reported that since 1994 although they only do short excavations the Time Team have produced more papers than all the archaeology departments in the UK. So it wasn't just entertainment but adding to the combined knowledge of our past including a number of interesting revelations.

The announcement that Channel 4 is pulling Time Team comes as a bit of a mixed sadness and pride for me. I know that in the 20 years the show has been on the air others have been inspired, educated and entertained. But I am sad to see it go, but it is to be replaced with more factual programming.

It hasn't gone yet, the next year will see a series of highlight shows with a grand finale of four special taking the show into 2014. 

For the record I didn't just get an Ology, I got an A in that particular AO Level (AS equivalent).