Oxford Skeptics in The Pub 7/9/10

Background articles: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2009/03/bad-science-by-ben-goldacre_25.html
And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2008/09/skeptic-in-pub-15908.html


On Tuesday night I went to my first Oxford Skeptics in the Pub (http://oxford.skepticsinthepub.org/). Itr's run by a bloke called Andy. The speaker was the "Skeptical activist" Simon Perry, see: http://adventuresinnonsense.blogspot.com/ . He spends his time reporting psychics and alternative medicine practitioners to Trading Standards.
I went undercover this time (The only time I'll be able to do this because Droike, a long-term HPANWO Forum member, is about to shop me to them ), and luckily nobody was there from the London ones who'd recognize me. I asked a question at the Q&A session. I firstly "congratulated" Simon for infiltrating psychic surgeries and Spiritualist Churches, but said: "Have you ever thought about infiltrating the Arthur Findlay College or Canol Hafarn y Coed, where these psychics train?" He replied: "I might well do, and I'll sue them if I'm not psychic by the end of the course." Sadly he missed the sarcasm and irony of my question. He was supposed to say "Why?" then I'd have said: "Because I want to know when they pull students to one side and say: 'Look, this is all a load of crap really, but this is what you have to do.'; and then lead them to the secret passageway from the meditation room to the secret classroom where they teach you cold reading!"

Piranhas are NOT Dangerous!

Well, not very. They have been known to attack humans and can give a swimmer a nasty bite, but the idea that they will come at you in droves and reduce you to a skeleton in ten minutes is a complete myth. There are thousands of other fish species that deserve a dangerous reputation more than the piranha

This film is currently in the cinemas: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464154/ . I've not seen it and have no intention to because it looks rubbish. It's actually the most recent in a whole series of remakes, varying in obscurity, of an original horror B-movie from 1978 by Joe Dante (Explorers, Universal Soldier etc).

The myth of Piranha's nature dates back to the 1940's when Theodore Roosevent mentions them in a speech. It was just a brief aside, an anecdote, however one of the people listening to the speech was an author called Willard Price. The idea of the Piranha being a horrific man-eater captured his imagination and he incorporated them into his 1949 book Amazon Adventure in which there's a scene where they attack an aligator and strip its entire body in minutes leaving only a pile of bones that the author compares to dinosaur fossils. Then more stories and TV shows followed on from Price's vision and in 1978 the first horror movie of the Piranha franchise was produced. The piranha myth had gone viral!

Piranhas are actually quite timid fish that school together only for protection and hunt in small groups. They rarely attack anything bigger than themselves and prefer carrion; in fact they're known as "aquatic vultures". I saw one in an aquarium once as a child and was awed by the sign on the side which said: "DO NOT PUT YOUR HAND IN THE WATER. I had this image that if I put my hand in only bones would come out! No, the truth is that it might just bite me; they have sharp teeth and powerful jaws, and this was the reason for the sign.

I wonder how many other concepts that everyone assumes is real are not. Ian R Crane talks about the "pseudo-myths"; notions that are generally thought of as true, yet not observed to be true. They are false, but are not labelled with the word "myth" and all it's negative connotations.

Credo Mutwa Attacked!

The lovely and wonderful old Zulu shaman Credo Mutwa has been attacked. He was tricked into travelling to Swaziland where some thugs tortured him. They then stole his precious Necklace of Mysteries, one of the few remaining sacred artifacts of the Zulu people that hasn't already been plundered for the black market or western museums. Please join me in sending thoughts of healing to Credo and the wish to have his necklace returned.

See here for details: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/37830-the-torture-of-credo-mutwa-and-the-theft-of-the-necklace-of-mysteries-

Starchild Skull DNA Test Results

The results on Lloyd Pye's "Starchild" Skull are now complete. Lloyd has taken a lot of stick from critics, including those who should know better. Hopefully this will vindicate him.

See: http://www.davidicke.com/headlines/37390-starchild-skull-2010-dna-result-

(Related article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/04/starchild-skull-dna-extracted.html)

Roman Polanski NOT to be Extradited

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10609084

Roman Polanski, the film director of such meaningful films as Rosemary’s Baby, will not be extradited to the US to face charges of having sex with an underage girl in 1977. No, it seems European nations are far more interested in handing over UFO-hackers like Gary McKinnon, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/05/gary-mckinnons-extrdition-suspended.html . When you think about it, Polanski might have technically done wrong, but his “victim” was a streetwise teenage girl, not some little toddler with a teddy-bear. So it’s not fair to call him a “paedophile” and categorize him with the likes of Gary Glitter.

As I’ve said before, maybe there’s a reason why the authorities are coming down on him so hard now!: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2010/04/ghost-writer.html

Big Brother- When the Rules go Out the Window!

A friend of mine works at a hotel and has told me something very interesting and very relevant to HPANWO. His hotel, like most workplaces… and everywhere else… has installed a CCTV system for security purposes. But recently he was pulled up by management. His boss called him into the office and reprimanded him for putting his feet up on a chair while he was sitting at reception. My friend apologized, but it was only later that he asked himself the question: How did the boss know? The incident took place when the boss was not in the building. My friend did a bit of investigating and discovered that the boss had seen him on the hotel’s CCTV recording. My friend was furious and made a formal grievance. Those cameras are intended for security purposes only, not so that the management can spy on the staff. The recorded data from the CCTV is supposed to be strictly controlled and not open to anyone to access it, no matter how high their position. Luckily my friend’s grievance was sustained and the boss was himself given a bollocking, but I wonder how much more this kind of thing is going on. I know for a fact that there is one institution not far from where I live where security guards’ locations are monitored while they’re on patrol by making them swipe their ID badges through the electronic door locks. Such door locks are now almost as commonplace as CCTV; my hospital has them. Again we see the same thing: the door locks, like the CCTV was installed allegedly for “purely security” purposes and has been expanded into its Big Brother role without so much as a nod!

This for me is a sign of endemic corruption and it proves the point I’ve always made: that the Big Brother infrastructure will not be hurled at us violently, it will be delivered in an attractive, decorated parcel that we will open without hesitation or a morsel of fear. When even the rules and ethical guidelines accompanying Big Brother that are meant to protect us go out the window, nobody can pretend any more that the innocent have nothing to fear.

RIP Subway

Background article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2008/08/save-our-subway.html

Related news story: http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/display.var.2437369.0.3m_scheme_threatens_murals.php

This is all that’s left of the London Road Subway in Headington. Builders have filled it in with concrete and are now building a new pedestrian walkway on top of it:

The council went ahead and bowed to pressures of the national government (apparently the redevelopment was engineered with London commuters in mind) and filled in this pedestrian thoroughfare, art gallery and vital piece of local culture. But rest assured I still have all the photos I took of the subway’s glorious street art and I reproduce it here on HPANWO! RIP Subway. The originals may one day be uncovered by future archaeologists. I hope those descendants of ours will raise their hands in shock and disbelief at our stupidity in the same way they do today at the desecration of the Aztec sacred sites and idols by the Conquistadors:

(Addendum- 4/7/10): The local press is covering this subject again and has interviewed me: http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8253852.Keeping_Headington_subway_memories_alive/