while we were sleeping

Flicking through the channels on the sexevision. My eyebrows raise.

The peaceloving Muslim President of Turkey, His Excellency Recep Tayyip Erdogan is speaking to reporters about his latest threats of all out war with Greece, over a maritime gas field no less. He suddenly interrupts the press conference to jump up and start singing his version of a Rolling Stones song.

The President of Turkey sings:

"I was born

In a cross fire hurricane

Ner ner ner ner ner ner ner

Some would say

That's why I'm insane

Ner ner ner ner ner ner ner ner

But it's al-l-l-l-l ri-i-i-ight now

In fact it's a gas

It's al-l-l-l-l-l-l-l ri-i-i-i-i-i-i-gt now

Jumping Jack Erdogan

It's a gas gas gas

Field I mean

Ner ner ner ner ner ner."

The song is quite catchy but my attention span is short these days so I flick the channel again searching perhaps for a nice interesting Corona virus story. I alight on yet another press conference, this time with Vladdie the Pute, President of Russia who is announcing to a coterie of tittering sycophants that he had nothing to do with the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

"How could anyone suspect me?" exclaims Vladdie. "I haven't tried to kill a leader of the opposition in Russia since 2015 when Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on a bridge in Moscow. Do you know how busy I am? I can't be behind every murder, poisoning and kidnapping, of my every rival in Russia. Be serious."

With that he whipped out a Britney Spears fright wig, jumped up on the table and began to sing:

"Ooops

I did it again

Set loose my assassins

On another politician

Oh baby baby

Oooops

I think I'm in love

With being in power I mean

I'm not that innocent.

Na yai yai yai yai."

Even I had to admit he did Britney's "na yai yai yai" bit brilliantly. But I can only take so many sledgehammer subtle song parodies intoned by murderers, so once again I flicked the channel. Imagine my surprise when I came upon a third press conference, this one featuring the Ayatollah Hassan Rouhani, who in between busy bouts of Ayatollahing is also President of Iran. Today he was defying the world about something or other when he too suddenly jumped up and started singing.

The Ayatollah Rouhani sang an apparent reference to the Pope:

"Papa don't preach

I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach

I'm on losing streak

But I've made up my mind

I'm keeping my babies

By which I mean my nuclear missiles

Yeah, I'm keeping my missiles

Oh oh

Gonna keep my missiles

Oh yeah

Papa don't preach

I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach

I'm on losing streak

But I've made up my mind

I'm nuking the Israelis

Oh yeah

Gonna nuke the Israelis

And also quite probably the Saudis

Then the Bahrainis

Then the Emiratis

And then the rest of you

Oh yeah.

Mama always taught me right from wrong

Delineated itself along lines of Shia Islam

And if in doubt I should start a third world war

And I don't mean maybe

Oh Daddy Daddy can't you see

I'm obsessed will millen-ar-ian destiny

And the end of the world

Because I am in love

With death

Oh yeah

Papa don't preach

I'm in trouble deep

Papa don't preach

I'm on losing streak

But I've made up my mind

I'm nuking the Israelis

Gonna nuke the Israelis

And everything else that refuses to submit to me

Oh oh."

This was the weakest parody of the lot since the present Pope is quite accomodating of Islamist adventurism generally and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular.

But I was desperate for a big finish so it'll have to do.

dances with atheists

It seems to me that atheism must hinges on the principle of randomness in existence.

If intentionality is identified, then atheism begins to flounder.

If what we call the deoxyribonucleic molecule cannot exist without design, then it has been designed and atheism is clearly faltering.

If a swan is beautiful for an intended reason, if my capacity to behold that beauty is intended, if beauty itself is an intended meaningful purposeful concept, then atheism fails.

If existence has been intentionally deliberately lovingly incepted, God is real.

One of the unsteady propositions atheists rely on for their world view without ever stating it, is the notion that they have identified some way of measuring intentionality and using this methodology, have excluded intentionality as an explanation for the creation of the universe and our experiencing of life.

Atheistic thinkers have no metric for measuring intentionality beyond refusing to see it under any circumstances.

In anything to do with first causes of the universe. no matter how intricate, splendid, orchestrated, beautiful, extraordinary and wondrous our resultant life and experience of life is, atheism insists it's all an accident.

The famous atheist Richard Dawkins has stated publically that if he saw Jesus returning to earth on the clouds of heaven, he (Dawkins) would persist in his atheism, perhaps explaining the event as some sort of quantum fluctuation.

This is the same Jesus, mark you, who is once reputed to have said that there are those who will not change their ways even if someone rose from the dead to warn them.

For the rest, me and Dawky agree on some things.

He thinks an energy or energetic phenomenon created existence.

Our only difference on this point is that I suggest the energy did it on purpose.

And although Mr Dawkins essentially believes a random molecule of mud in a random primordial pond may become randomly conscious and indeed has become the ancestor of all consciousness, by being struck randomly by an unintentioned bolt of random lightning, he draws the line at accepting that an eternally existing energy which he purports by his scientific statements to believe in, could ever think for itself.

People are strange.

star trek 17 in the forbidden zone all klingon ships are grey you wot guv

Helmsman Sulu: "Klingon bird of prey decloaking off our starboard bow."

Captain Kirk: (Beneath his breath.) "I don't like you."

Sulu: (Beneath his breath.) "I don't like you either."

Lieutenant Uhuru: "Captain. The Klingon Commander is on... is on..."

Kirk: "Come on Uhuru. Spit it out."

Uhuru: "...er.. he's on the phone thingy?"

Kirk: "I suppose it'll have to do. You could call it a com link. It might sound a bit better. Or how about that perennial favourite to wit, the Klingon vessel is hailing us?" Would that be expecting too much?

Uhuru: "That finished badly the last time. You interpreted the word hailing as implying he wished to praise your brilliance as a starship captain and an actor."

Kirk: "Ha, ha. That was a good one. What does this week's Klingon Commander want?"

Uhuru: "He wants to discuss terms."

Kirk: "Okay. Put him on the screen."

Uhuru: "He's on line two."

Kirk: "You mean there's no screen? We don't have a screen. Bloody hell. Okay, okay. Fine. Line two. Hello."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "Ah Kirk. You puny fool."

Kirk: "What do you want Voltek?"

Klingon Commander Voltek: "To discuss terms. Like I just told your Lieutenant with the magnificent silken clad thighs."

Kirk: "We know. We know. It's the dress code in Star Fleet. Blooming ridiculous. You wouldn't believe the number of sexual harassment cases we have pending on this ship."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "It's the times we live in."

Kirk: "You said you wanted to discuss terms. Get on with it."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "What is a somnambulist?"

Kirk: "I think it's someone who can't sleep."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "You ptaak! How did you know that?"

Kirk: (Whispering to Doctor McCoy.) "What's a ptaak?"

McCoy: (Whispering to Kirk.) "It's a makey uppy Klingon term for something not good."

Mr Spock: "Captain I think a somnambulist is actually someone who walks in his sleep."

Kirk: "Shut up you big ptaak. You'll spoil my hundred percent record."

Voltek: "What is a numismatist?"

Kirk: "I think it's... some sort of... drill."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "Curses. How does he do it! You know everything."

Mr Spock: "Actually Captain, a numismatist is a person who studies or collects coins."

Kirk: "Mr Chekov."

Chekov: "Yes Capteen."

Kirk: "Give Spock a root in the bawls."

Chekov: "Yes Capteen."

FX: Vuncchhhhhhh.

Spock: (In a strangulated voice.) "My babies."

Klingon Commander Voltek: "What is a..." 

Kirk: "Voltek I grow weary of these games. Will that be all?"

Klingon Commander Voltek: "Alright. You have bested me again Kirk. And I too have had enough of discussing terms for this episode. But beware Kirk. Next time we meet, say at the Galactic Over Actors Convention in October star date 59 62 7... I may not be so agreeable... Kplaaak."

Kirk: (Whispering to McCoy.) "Kerplunk?  What's Kerplunk?"

McCoy: "It's a novelty children's game from the 1970s."

Kirk: "The game where you put saddles and things on a plastic donkey?"

McCoy: "That's the one."

Spock: (In a squeaky voice.) "Actually Captain, he said Kplaaak! It's makey uppy Klingon for goodbye."

Kirk: "Oh right. I knew that. Kerplunk yourself Voltek."

FX: Click and a dial tone.

Kirk: "He's gone. Thank goodness. Ensign Ricky. There's a dangerous looking planet over there. No one's ever come back from it alive. Nip down to the surface and check it out. Uhuru, put on a pair of trousers for crying out loud. Or why not convert to the peaceloving religion of Islam? You'd look great in a Niqab. And I might get some sleep at night. Spock are you alright? What happened? Chekov stop doing that."

towards a theory of everything

 one should not underrate the zen like quality of garrulousness in budgies

it is the mystical keynote of the species

squawks and chirrups syncopated

convey a philosophy not so readily negated

true my little budgie's attitude to quantum physics is defined

by certain dispositive propensities of her mind

in fact i dare say she believes that all our human intellectual historiographical mathematical syllogistic speculations are just talk

rendered utterly irrelevant by squawk squawk squawk

budgie philosophers may thus quite legitimately conclude

that the human race is incurably crude

hopelessly adrift in a maelstrom of chaos and disorder

but occasionally pausing to do important things like cleaning out a budgie cage filling a seed dish or changing the water