Russia, IOC, and Awkward Questions

OK so the awkward questions are mine, I'll get to those in a bit.



As has been across the news lately Russia has passed a number of laws making it illegal to be gay, or to support gay people or gay rights. This is a really ass backwards thing to have done, there's no debating that ,so I won't.

Famous people like Stephen Fry have petitioned the British Prime Minister and the IOC to boycott the Winter Olympics, or have them moved to another location. This has a LOT of backing.
One openly gay athlete has said the boycott is a bad idea, after all, these athletes work up to this pinnacle oftheir career, and might rather stick with a don't ask / don't tell situation for the duration of the event so as not to miss their shot, possibly their one shot, at Olympic glory.

But I got to thinking, the increasingly alphabet soup of LGBTQ people has more than gay people in it, and I assume there must be Trans athletes out there.

Sure enough a google search brings up a site for trans athletes, and two cases of trans athletes within the Olympics, which is where my 'awkward' questions would be going.

I say awkward because I have a couple trans friends, and at least one reader of my blog is trans and having previously lost a friendship through asking such questions, I have been hesitant to ask any more for fear of a repetition, so instead I've been wallowing in ignorance for some time. That's not good so, Im asking.

The IOC states that a trans athlete can compete in their gender two years after the surgery, apparently this gives time for the body to reach the 'right' levels of estrogen / testosterone etc. Until then athletes are to compete as the gender into which they were born. This leads to the situation of Keelin Godsey who is a pre-op trans man competing with women in the Hammer, he missed uot on going to London as he didn't make the cut although he did throw a personal best. He postponed his surgeries so that hecould have a shot at the olympics (and who would blame him).

Another case that came up when I was googling all of this (I hate to call it research, it's not as intensive as real research) was a MMA fighter, Fallon Fox. She's a trans woman who fights MMA, and it seems that some of the women she'll fight (and the commentators and fans of MMA) object to her competing as a woman, despite complying with the Olympic standards.

Does Fallon's bone density and muscle mass, even two years after reassignment surgery and the various medications she'd have taken in that time, give her an undeniable advantage?

How do trans people feel that in order to compete they have to either wait for two years post surgery, or compete as the wrong gender?

How does that compare with women like Caster Semenya who isn't trans but has high levels of testosterone and has to take treatments to bring her below the 'threshold'?

It seems that the definition of gender in terms of athletics is goverened by threshold levels of testosterone / estrogen and people have to be treated if they don't fit within the levels written down for their gender. Is that fair?

You can't use drugs or anything similar to improve your performance, but if you are naturally a certain way they enforce 'treatments' to bring you back in to a range that they will let perform in?
Does that seem right to you?

I will freely admit, gender and sexuality are subjects I am woefully under educated in, so for the most part I try to apply the same theory as I do to race, religion, and all manner of other things: They're human.

If only the rest of the world could just do the same.

Support Up and Coming Bands

Really - do.

Music these days is just way too much comercialilsed, sanitised clone-garbage. TV shows like 'Pop Idol' (or American Idol etc), X-Factor, and 'The Voice' make for amusing entertainment in the opening stages thanks to the bad singers that really can't sing, is prett bland in the middle, and by the end of it we're hoping something other than the winner's single gets to top the charts.

Thank got for the public upsurge in, I think it was 2009, when Rage Against the Machine beat Joe McElderry to the Christmas #1 spot.

Tom Morello apparently donated all the proceeds from this surprise chart topping to charity. Top bloke!

It's Ironic though - there was a mass facebook campaign here to get RATM to #1 because the media was pumping McElderry's song so much it felt forced, and the emphasis was on the RATM refrain "Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!" which is exactly what everyone who bought the RATM record did - exactly as they were told.

Yes, I bought the record, and the irony of it wasn't lost on me then either.

Anyway, I digress, so, in support of all the people who work their asses off to make anything of themselves as a musician, I dedicate this post to the unsigned bands of the world.

It really is a gutwrenching slog to do anything as a musician. Finding a band is hard enough, sure if you want to play in pub covers bands until retirement you can get a gig almost by looking in the  yellow pages, but if you have the drive, the desire, heck the balls, to get your own music heard then you have a steep hill ahead of you.

You need the right line up, a band that you can rely on to do their job (it's a team effort), to pitch with things that aren't their job - let's face it while it's fun to watch, no one should let the drummer lug ALL of their geard from the van it weight a ton; and running around handing out flyers for a gig is no joking matter either - bands just starting out have to do everything because they can't afford hawkers or roadies.  You have to get along with with your bandmates, not just in the 'for a few hours' way that mates do, but in the 'we'll be living in each others pockets for days or weeks on end' kind of way.

Then you have to get gigs, this means trogging around pubs, clubs, holiday camps, events organisers and giving demo cds. Oh? You don't have one of those, no one's going to listen to you, so you'd best get in a studio and record one ... no cash for the studio, then you'd best have a forgiving family and neighbours because you're recording it in your back room on your computer ... Good luck.

Once you have your first gigs the key then is to connect with a crowd made up friends who've come to see you and people who don't know you from Adam and give them a great night. That means mixing covers with your own material.

Then, and only then, can you build a following, look for a showcase gig and pray that the right A&R guy hears you. Of course today it's a little easier thanks to the wonders of the internet; email, social media, youtube, are all great platforms to promote a band.

Do all that, get lucky, and be in the right place at the right time, and you could go far.

It's a slog. Don't let any TV show convince you otherwise.

These guys below have done what they have the hard way - so please, show them and other hard working bands  a courtesy, listen to them, buy their stuff, and tell your friends to do the same.

Hashtag Alice


Rooftop Farmers


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My Mate Marmite

I do love a controversy, especially a daft one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHjssdNNzP0



Normally the only controversy over this spread / condiment is whether one likes it or hates it. The taste really does polarise people on it. Me? I love it.

However it's not the taste that's being targetted now, oh no; it's the latest advert for it (youtube link above) - "End Marmite Neglect"


Why is it causing controversy?

Well it seems that some people take offence at the advert, yes, they find it offensive. They claim it demeans the work of the RSPCA and the NSPCC and carries heavy overtones and child and animal abuse, especiall with it being aired so close after the case of a 4yr old girl who was sadly abused to death.

Personally I think the advert is intended, and succeeds in being, funny. The people I've shown it too have laughed at it.

I have to admit, I don't find it humours me, but neither am I offended by it, in fact I think it's not a  great advert. The only part about it that works for me is the last segment where we see a family tucking in to some tasty looking Marmite crumpets and the youngest pulls a face.

I really and honestly can't see where people get the sensation that it's offensive, nor can I see how it demeans the work of the RSPCA or the NSPCC - it's an advert, and not a good one, it's just bland TV, and if people don't like it they can change channel, make a cuppa, or put up with it while they wait for 1:40 for the ad to end or their show to come back on.

Really, it's a fuss over nothing people. Get off your PC bandwagons and stop giving the nanny state more ammunition to censor us in to eternity.

Doctor who

On Sunday the new actor to take on the role of The Doctor was revealed as Peter Capaldi, the Internet has since exploded in all manner of tribute and polarisation of opinion.

Of course I am no different and I too have opinions. Usually you'll hear the phrase "Opinions are like arseholes, everyone's got one but we don't all want to see or hear it". In this case it's my blog and ill write what I want. After all that's what blogs are all about.

Dr. Who fans are a big and diverse bunch, we have 11 past Doctors to choose from, so I you ask 10 people who their favourite is you'll likely get a dozen different answers.

Of the 'new batch' I favour Christopher Ecclestone's incarnation; he had just the right balance of humour, alien-ness, and seriousness to be 'right'. Those attributes, to my way of thinking, made home come across in a similar way to Tom Baker's incarnation.

I have to admit that I found David Tennant's gurning and facial contortions off putting. I also disliked the levels of emo and angst in his stories, but I can't blame the actor for that.

Matt Smith's Doctor was generally much more fun and I did prefer him to Tennant in the role, but he lacked the subtle menace that Ecclestone mustered, even when caught in the Pandorica and monologuing about what not to put in a trap Smith lacked any menace.

Storytelling and pacing is what's been the main let down in the series since the reboot; most episodes are self contained so the series lacks the cliff-hanger endings I'm used to from my childhood. This makes the episodes rush through what could be a wonderfully complex story leaving us as an audience feeling robbed of the thrill the show should have. It also means that each season is woefully short.

Then there's the magic wa- I mean Sonic Screw Driver. It used tone just a gadget, now it's wafted around several times an episode and used by the storyteller as a Deus-Ex-Mechanica. I suspect this is either because the writers have a huge fondness for the gadget, or can't wrap up the story son enough without alien techno-magic. What ever happened to the companions? Not enough sadly.

Yes, I said companions, plural. The show works at best when it has an ensemble cast ... A crowded TARDIS is a good TARDIS. For too long since the reboot we've had just one or two companions, bring us more travelers, more people to accompany the Doctor; comedy relief, challenging intellect, anachronism, opposing viewpoint, any /all of those tropes in the TARDIS would spice up the currently dull stories.

Please can we stop putting The Earth in danger - some of the best episodes happen elsewhere, and the show felt more - believable (as far as a 900 year old humanoid alien time traveller can be believable) when it didn't mess with exposing the whole planet (in the contemporary time) to the existence of aliens.

Anyway, that's way too much ranting about the show, I should be talking about the new guy. Peter Capaldi is a great actor, best known for aggressive roles or bad guy roles (the thick of it / Neverwhere). I hope this means a return to some simmering menace and calm alien-ness.

I also hope we see more companions joining him. There have been some corking potential companions that seem to have been discarded; Jen (The Doctor's Daughter), she could lend a military and intellectual companion to the mix; Lady Christina DeSouza (Planet of the Dead), she would lend an aristocratic, roguish element, again with intellect.

Frankenburger

So having artificially grown a burger it has now been eaten by not one, but two guinea-pig taste testers...



It's taken around a quarter of a million pounds, but the world's first artificially grown burger has been grown, moulded in to a patty, cooked and eaten. As burgers go it's expensive, and I'd rather have a wagyu burger than a vat grown one, but that's just me.

The burger was grown in strips from stem cells in a nutrient broth nd stimulated with electricity. It took 20,000 such strips, 200pieces of lab grown animal fat, salt, egg powder, and breadcrumbs, and red beetroot juice and saffron (to provide authentic beef colouring) to make the burger.

When asked if he'd feed it to his children, the creator said he had a patty to take home for them.

As to the taste test, well, two people ate the burger, and they seemed to approve, giving comments of; ‘The absence is the fat. But the bite feels like a conventional hamburger. What was conspicuously different was flavour.’ and 'It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect (but) I miss salt and pepper!'

The real question is - Was it worth it or was it just a publicity stunt?

Well, if the process can be replicated and be made able to mass produce these burgers on a much cheaper scale then yes it probably was worth it as it could give hope for food to areas blighted with poverty and drought.

Also it could possible be marked commercially as a cruelty free, and possible environmentally friendly, meat which could open it up to vegetarians and vegans who follow their path because of animal cruelty.

The scientists behnd it also claim that vat grown burgers would use 55%  the energy of naturally farmed beef, produce just 4% of the greenhouse gases, and take up only 1% of the land use. Sounds like a win doesn't it.

How many farmers would it put out of business though?

What are the long term effects of eating 'meat'  that's been vat grown in an accelerated manner, and so not naturally developed?

The sheep that had been cloned, Dolly, had to be put down because it developed lung disease and arthritis. Dolly was killed as just six years of age, her breed have alife expectancy of 11 - 12 years. We don't know for sure if Dolly's premature death was a result of the cloning (the sheep she was cloned from was 6 years old and some theorise her DNA was thus 6 years old), or the fact that for security reasons she had to be kept indoors, and contracted a disease that affects sheep kept thusly. Several other sheep in the heard also contracted the lung disease.

I know comparing a cloned sheep to vat grown meat for consumption is a stretch but I do have concerns for the long term effects, much the same as I do for GMO foods. I won't go into the whole Monsanto rant because that would be a whole other blog post, but again there are potential parallels, and being effectively a manufacturong process who's to know what else would / could be added in to man-made meat, especially when even natural meat get cross-contaminated with other meats - yes I'm referring to the horsemeat scandal over here in the UK last year.

Now that the financial backer for this being revealed as Sergy Brin, co-founder of google, I do wonder how much of this is going to become a for-profit project, but then I'm a huge cynic.

For me, the Jury's still out on the Frankenburger, I'll stick to normal meats thank you very much.

The Royal House of Windsor

Last week, here in the UK, a new member of the royal family was born, the new Prince is third in line to the throne.



I have to admit, I really don't get the whole media circus that builds up around the royals. The Royal Family are a part of our history, although the current royal line isn't as British as you may think, they are a core part of Britain, and the concept of them along with the pomp that accompanies anything they do, own, or have done, is a huge tourist draw, which makes them probably the buggest single boost to the UKs tourism trade. In short they're a good thing, but I really don't want to see or hear constant updates on things regarding them.

The Royal baby, is news, but after nine months of near constant coverage on Kate's baby bump I was pretty sick of it all.

Historically this is, so I hear, the first time in a long time that there have been three generations of heirs to the throne alive at the same time.

However, let's look at the family a little closer, you see Windsor is an adopted name brought about by King George V in 1917 following the the First World War to move away from the anti-german sentiments of the time. The Familiy name used to be Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (which is German), a result of their descendancy from Prince Albert. However even Queen Victoria wasn't as British as you may think, her monther was the German, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
In fact there has been German Lineage on the British throne since 1714 when George I, of the House of Hanover, took the throne.

For a time, the King of England was also the King of Hanover.

But, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is British surely, with his near the knuckle gaffes and such?
No. He was born Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece, to House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. BEfore he was allowed to marry the, then, Princess Elizabeth he had to abandon his Danish and Greek royal titles, convert from Greek Orthodoxy to and Anglicanism. He also adopte dthe surname Mountbatten (which is derived from Battenburg - his family's ancestry from Germany on his monther's side) due to anti-German feelings following World War Two. None of Prince Philip's three sisters were allowed to attend his wedding because they had married Germans, some with Nazi affiliations.

As well as being Queen Elizabeth II's Great-Great-Grandmother, Queen Victoria is also Prince Philip's Great-Great-Grandmother.

Who'd have though that in this day and age there was so much in-breeding between Europe's royalty? I mean the British queen has effectively married a cousin, quite removed, but a cousin never the less, and that's a trait that today would be levelled more at families in a Southern States trailer park than the high and mighty of Europe. Then again, that's how royal dynasties were planned back in medieval times, maybe old habbits are hard to break?

At least with Charles marrying Diana (then Camilla) and William marrying Kate there is new, British and non Royal blood entering the line of inheritance.
 
Of course now that Prince George has been born and named, the  media circus doesn't stop  there, a google search shows such headlines as 'Will baby George be circumsiced?' who, outside of that family, cares?

On the matter of Kate, while I'm on the subject of the Royals; here in the UK the media refer to Kate as Kate Middleton. Now, as I recall, Kate Married Prince William. When a woman marries, here in the UK, she takes takes her Husband's name, so she stopped being Kate Middleton and is now Kate Windsor. I wish the media would get it right.