Kids: not as bright as adults

A not very difficult moral dilemma from the BBC. Would you let a child saw through a plank he's standing on? Well, of course you would; the talking heads in the article point out that it's a way kids learn not to do silly things. But it overlooks another important question: what is the purpose of kids if we can't a laugh at their expense from time to time? By not thinking about the children all the time we might teach them about their monumental insignificance in the overall scheme of things.

Lets have more of this: Children Admit to Being Little Shits.

If you're going to sell your soul, I'd go onto eBay for the best price

This autumn's hottest ticket in Prague is the work of Satan, as an 800-year-old work of his goes on show after 359 years of it being hogged by the Swedes, who pinched it during the 30 years war.

Codex Gigas, also known as the Devil's Bible — a medieval manuscript said to have been written 800 years ago with the devil's help — has returned to Prague after an absence of 359 years.

This AP report, written in a prose style which could be used to torment hapless, but literary minded, sinners in the afterlife, has more. The monk who compiled the book is reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil in order to get the thing done in one night. He'd apparently promised to do so to atone for his sins, and... well, logic wasn't really his strong point.

Worse, it's not even an alternative bible , something which might, say tell you to do all the wicked things like wear clothes of more than two fabrics; plant different crops in the same field; criticise the institution of slavery; spill your seed in entertaining, non brat-spawning places and eat sausages which the regular Bible deplores – dash it, it could even have even more juicy, lurid and fruity stories than the original. Instead: 'It contains "a sum of the Benedictine order's knowledge" of the time, including the Old and New Testament, The War of the Jews by the first-century historian Josephus Flavius, a list of saints, or a guideline how to determine the date of Easter.'

In other words the same old stuff everyone has heard before, plus lots of boring facts about obscure things and some rather crude and childish drawings. Not really worth selling your soul for: is it? I have some friends who produce books of boring facts about obscure things for a living, but I doubt very much they would sell their souls just to add some rough jottings to illustrate them.

The question I should like to ask you is: what sort of literary work would you be prepared to sell your soul for? It's not as easy as it may sound, when you consider that the while Devil may, perhaps, arguably have the best tunes (though for my money the harmonies of Spem in Alium beat the opening tritone to Purple Haze); Satan's literary output does not stand up to closer scrutiny. He might have inspired the more memorably bits of Paradise Lost and Les Litanies de Satan, but works attributed to him include tedious, self-aggrandising rants such as Liber Legis; obscure, occult unread and other apocryphal stuff; works by religious nutters of which religious nutters of a different stripe disapprove, and the collected works of Jeffrey Archer.

By contrast, the far more entertaining Devil's Dictionary was solely the work of Ambrose Bierce.

No wonder God claims a near monopoly on the disposition of souls, rather than allowing a proper free market to operate. Ought we to sue in a bit to dismantle this cartel?

Obscenity, I'm for it

Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can't shut
If it's uncut
and unsbutl-le.

Tom Lehrer with what oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed.

These thoughts were prompted by this entertaining blog on erudite filth and why the division between porn and erotica is nonsense. (I must confess, though that there is something faintly disturbing about dozens of Guardian readers discussing what gets them going.)

The curious thing is that while smut is easier to get hold of these days, the market for poetry is dwindling all the time. I say this is curious, because poetry (lyric verse, certainly) is possibly the best way to purvey filth: a sort of rhythmical thrusting way to insinuate itself into the reader's emotions, if you like.

Filthy verse has a long and distinguished history, of course: the ancients were adepts, writers such as Byron and Baudelaire had their moments, a glorious last gasp of Gaelic Ireland was Cúirt an Mheán Oíche (the Midnight Court) by Brian Merriman (pretty sinuous when read aloud in Irish) while, in English, the supreme master was Lord Rochester.

But today? There is some good stuff , for instance, I like Neil Rollinson's poem which begins:

Fucking in zero gravity
is something else,
as Jan from the particle lab
ably convinced me.

Here's some more of his erotic verse (note he doesn't call it filth, for pity) but it's all tad literary. This, I think, is the reason why poetry in general doesn't get the sort of penetration it once had: to much intellectual stroking and licking without an aesthetic climax. So what better way to revive the art than adopting a more direct style to discuss everyone's favourite pre-occupation?

Of course, there is plenty of ribald verse out there, but from what I can tell (to be honest I haven't looked all that hard) it's mostly junk writing. Same applies to the market for erotic books (you know, the Mills and Boon with dangly bits marques that you see on sale in railway stations).

So, my question is this: am I missing out on lots of lyrical smut due to the follies of the publishing industry? If there was more reader friendly, well-written smut out there, do you reckon it would sell? Is this the way to revive traditional verse forms as an integral part of modern culture? I think it could just work.

It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination, for instance, to see Rochester as a precursor for some of the hip-hop lyrics which cause such pious angst. (Bling was, after all, popular in Restoration England).

I rise at eleven, I dine about two,
I get drunk before seven; and the next thing I do,
I send for my whore, when for fear of a clap,
I spend in her hand, and I spew in her lap.
Then we quarrel and scold, 'till I fall fast asleep,
When the bitch, growing bold, to my pocket does creep;
Then slyly she leaves me, and, to revenge the affront,
At once she bereaves me of money and cunt.
If by chance then I wake, hot-headed and drunk,
What a coil do I make for the loss of my punk!
I storm and I roar, and I fall in a rage,
And missing my whore, I bugger my page.
Then, crop-sick all morning, I rail at my men,
And in bed I lie yawning 'till eleven again.

Up with this sort of thing. Careful now.

Hunting, nuking and swishing: a guide to saving the planet

Here's irony for you. I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth on a plane to the US. That's life though, messy and uncomfortable. Which is why I hadn't thought to say anything about the Heathrow climate camp: I thought it a pointless exercise which was more about massaging the egos of the participants, making BAA look like twats (a pleasing side effect, I concede) and likely to have no effect whatsoever in terms of getting people to fly less and lead more environmentally friendly lives. (This argument is well made by the Jura Watchmaker here). In fact, I'd add that implying that ordinary people are stupid and evil and guilty of destroying the planet by flying off on their hols is probably the worst possible way to get people to change their behaviour. (Bribery would work better for me if any rich and/or attractive protesters are reading this).

Anyhow, whilst it is both easy and appropriate to carp and sneer at such people (and at the arguments of those who seem to believe that this passive-aggressive hectoring is the best way to start a debate, despite the fact that the climate camp did their damnedest to ensure that the media sources the vast majority of the country relies upon couldn't properly report the thing) it's not enough. So here are some practical hints on how you can do your bit to save the planet.

1. Sleep more, do less. If you're flat out with the lights, TV and so on turned off, you can't do anything harmful or consume any resources. Those of you with significant others might be able to amuse yourselves in the dark, thereby cutting back on your electricity bills. I mean talking and that, obviously, anything that carries the risk of bringing more kids into the world would be disastrous.

Work less too and have a long lie in every morning – you won't be using electric equipment, there will be no polluting journey to work etc. You will expend less energy, therefore reducing the need for food to be transported to your neighbourhood. Best of all, a few months of this regime will leave you with less money so you will not be able to take flights abroad or buy things that might contribute to environmental harm. In the hours of daylight one might be permitted a little light flanerie, or to read. (A hardcore environmentalist might decide to retrain as a bard in order reduce the literary world's reliance on paper).

2. Be less indulgent towards children. They're the ones who'll suffer if the planet goes tits up, after all, so it's for their own good. If children are used to being treated like the most important people on the planet, it's little wonder that they'll demand more and more things like toys and sweets and what not. The toys will invariably be produced in China, which is now the world's worst polluter, and the demand for more outputs from factories will only increase emissions further. Most kids will happily amuse themselves with everyday household objects such as scissors, empty wine bottles, matches or the contents of the bin.

An additional bonus is that if kids grow up with low expectations they will demand less in future thereby easing the strain on the planet's resources. And though I've said it before, I'll say it again: treadmills for fat kids, hooked up to the national grid.

3. Buy vintage clothes. Less demand for cotton, fewer heavily polluting sweat shops in the Far East. Old stuff also looks better and lends one a certain old world charm. It's the only way I get to wear Savile Row stuff, anyhow. This solution also offsets - ha - the financial problems caused by suggestion number 1.

4. Hunting, shooting and fishing. This is not to say we should all live in the country, obviously. All that mud and inbreeding is off-putting, while nothing is quite so annoying as the Goldsmith school of environmentalism. You know, the sort that advocates we all live on several acres of land and grow our own food and keep chickens: indulgence that would have made Marie Antoinette blush.

You're better off living in towns or cities – any environmentalist who does otherwise will end up skewered by their own sanctimony as George Monbiot was when he decided he really did need to buy a car because he wanted to live in the country and still go to events to flog books. (The obvious solutions: stay in a city, get by on fewer royalties or accept that lots of people need cars and stop hectoring them didn't seem to occur to him.)

That said, there are aspects of traditional country live that city dwellers might usefully adopt.
You know beef is really bad for the planet, don't you? And, since soya is blamed for destroying the rainforests, tofu munchers have nothing be proud of either. (Unless the soya used for tofu is somehow magically different from that used to feed cattle.) The best way round this is to eat more wild things. If you can afford to buy game, do so. If you can afford to head up to northern Britain to shoot birds and deer, do so. Take up fly fishing and wear more tweed. Take up fox hunting and agitate for the law to allow the sport to resume more organic killing methods (ie dogs). The sport helps cut down on wasteful farming practices by keeping sheep and chickens alive and it ensures the countryside is given an economic boost, thereby ensuring the unfortunates who have to live there can afford to keep it in decent trim. The Facebook group Vegetarians for Fox Hunting is the ultimate expression of this ideal.

If you can't afford any of these, poaching is a traditional and fun solution. I think we should take a lead from those enterprising Poles one reads about who are catching ducks and carp from parks and canals.

5. Annoy environmental campaigners. Not by telling them to get a job or wash, but by forcefully advocating the merits of nuclear power and GM foods. (As an aside I would also urge you to mock readers of the Independent newspaper in the same fashion you would those of its right-wing twin the Daily Mail. Snort with derision whenever you are in a newsagents and it does another "Climate Change: Bush is poisoning us all" front pages. It's just porn for the politically solipsistic).

However large sections of the green campaigning movement treat GM and nuclear power as absolute no-nos. This despite the fact that, as things, stand nuclear power is the only sure way to meet our power needs without relying on oil. I do get the point about the dangerous of nuclear waste (until scientists manage to crack nuclear fusion, anyway) and poor safety standards at power plants – and yes, I know the construction of the power plants is not going to be carbon neutral – but these are things that might happen, whereas the only other way to generate enough power is to keep on burning oil and coal. And we know what the consequences of that are

That said I would certainly like to see more investment in developing alternative technologies – in fact, if any of you have some spare cash to invest, do so in companies which specialise in that sort of thing, thereby enraging the anti-capitalist crew further.

GM, on the other hand, has the potential to feed millions. Aside from reducing the sum total of human misery in the the here and now, it could also potentially reduce the environmental degradation caused by intensive farming techniques. There is a quite reasonable objection to how large companies might exploit this technology but this is akin to objections about how drug companies exploit their patents. It's not enough reason to dismiss in a most superstitious fashion the technology itself for being somehow unnatural, prevent any scientific study of what impact it has on the environment, seek to protect your organic brand identity or witter on about health risks without providing any credible reason why they should be bad for one's health.

As defenders of the Climate Campers said: we need to debate these issues. And some things are too important to be left to self-righteous hippies.

Keeping it riyal

Saudi Arabia has produced its first ever pop music video. As you might expect, it's a pretty religious affair:

Unlike pop videos popular elsewhere in the Middle East, the video's female star, Ruwaina al-Jihani, appears covered up in black with only her face showing.

The saucy minx. I've a few Arab songs on my iPod. I fondly like to imagine that some of the young ladies singing on them, who have voices that could make an imam kick the kaaba, would show more than their faces. Very sensual it is, anyhow, and not very religious. Anyway, I digress, because I can't imagine they are officially available to the Saudis (who would at least understand the lyrics). Back to the topic in hand.

The song tells of a young Muslim who strays from the true path by smoking, flirting and skipping prayers.

You know this will end well. The noteworthy thing is that this morality tale seems to echo the spirit of a 1950s American pop song (although I'd say it lacks the verve of that sub genre):

He suffers by losing his fiancée, falling behind at work and then having a serious motorcycling accident.

Only he lives, and goes back to the mosque – along with his motorbike gang – and all is well again.

Here is the vid, anyhow. Slick, though they make it pretty hard for anyone not get the message: Western ways, having fun - bad. Praying - good. (I particularly like the bit with his colleagues dressed in traditional dress praying while he lounges at his desk smoking and wearing, the horror, jeans and t-shirt). The music, well, it's no worse than most of the shite godless infidels turn out.

PS: Here's something that I imagine will not be available in Saudi Arabia anytime soon, though I can't rid myself of the suspicion it's all an elaborate joke. (It includes a sample of Serge Gainsbourg's 1967 paen to the Israeli armed forces, which is how I found it in the first place. Do you think I'd go looking for French Hassidic rappers? Now if only he were a techno artist, I could end with a Hassid House gag to complement the headline).

Storming, et caetera

Since it's Bastille Day, I'd thought I'd mark it with this from the greatest Frenchman of all (de Gaulle, Descartes, Voltaire, Asterix and Molliere were also rans).

Apart from being a glorious example of Gainsbourg's ability to adopt different musical styles, his excursion into Freggae managed to upset both Bob Marley (for getting Marley's missus to sing songs such as this) and Jean-Marie Le Pen.

If you thought the fuss over the Sex Pistols's God Save the Queen was ridiculous, this version of La Marseillaise led to bomb threats at venues where Gainsbourg and his Jamaican backing group were singing. (Gainsbourg's Jewish background probably annoyed them even more).

At one show, the hall was packed with FN/ex-Algerian paratroopers. Gainsbourg faced them down by appearing on stage, alone, and singing a straight version of La Marsaillaise. They had no choice but to stand. At the end, according to some accounts I've read but aren't going to spend hours looking for on the net, he gave them the finger, making sure that he showed them his very expensive Cartier watch as he did so.

Never a fellow to mince his words.

Shaggy dog story

Miss Deadline puzzles over a shopping list she found, including such things as

1. Rice
2. Beans drain
3. Ginger
4. Onion
5. Two Canines.
6. Fennen Spods (?)
7. Chopped.

Korean she asks? It's a simple list but enough for healthy and nutritious meal such as a stew or soup. The trick when cooking dog is, of course, to marinade the meat and let is simmer for as long as possible. Otherwise you'll get something a bit tough and stringy: think of venison.

It sounds to me as if with that list you could make a basic version of Bosintang, a sort of soup which sounds less disgusting than Kimchi to me. However, it's too simple for something like Stewed Dog wedding style.

There are also African dog recipes in which you need to beat the dog to death with sticks in order to shift the adipose tissue properly. I don't recommend this to UK based readers as the noise will doubtless annoy your neighbours. In any case, cat apparently tastes better. If you want recipes for dog, cat, as well as things like panda and other endangered species, I reccomment to you the splendind Decadent Cookbook.

Now some of you might complain that eating dog is barbaric (unlike eating a more intelligent animal such as a pig). Leaving aside that the Ancient Greeks and China's 4000-year-old civilisation both ate dog, canine flesh enjoyed a brief vogue in Paris as the Belle Epoque came to an end. (Oh alright, it was the Franco-Prussian war and they'd run out of food).

Still, one Englishman who was present, Henry Labouchere, recorded his impression of eating dog, mouse and elephant among other things (and sensibly, he was more worried about running out of wine) in his Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris.

On December 15, 1870 he wrote:

On the Rue Blanche there is a butcher who sells dogs, cats, and rats. He has many customers, but it is amusing to see them sneak into the shop after carefully looking round to make sure that none of their acquaintances are near. A prejudice has arisen against rats, because the doctors say that their flesh is full of trichinae. I own for my part I have a guilty feeling when I eat dog, the friend of man. I had a slice of a spaniel the other day, it was by no means bad, something like lamb, but I felt like a cannibal. Epicures in dog flesh tell me that poodle is by far the best, and recommend me to avoid bull dog, which is coarse and tasteless.

I really think that dogs have some means of communicating with each other, and have discovered that their old friends want to devour them. The humblest of street curs growls when anyone looks at him. Figaro has a story that a man was followed for a mile by a party of dogs barking fiercely at his heels. He could not understand to what their attentions were due, until he remembered that he had eaten a rat for his breakfast. The friend of another journalist, who ate a dog called Fox, says that whenever anyone calls out "Fox" he feels an irresistible impulse which forces him to jump up.

The whole thing is here.

The ultimate means of transport

Cars are so passé these days, aren't they? Instead, I give you The Dog-Powered Scooter. I can't tell if this is for real, but let me propose a few adaptations.

The Toddler-Powered Scooter: this would be a godsend for frazzled parents. All that running about and screaming would be directed in a positive direction. Why, one could even hail the little darlings in the manner of those rickshaws one finds in Soho. Plus, I needly hardly add, it is a an excellent way to cut back on the number of fat kids one encounters.

In fact, the infants would be more or less interchangeable with the dog. So far as I can tell the method of rearing them (a mixture of bribery and threats) is pretty much identical.

However, I can think of one better way of travelling.

The Harlot-Powered Chariot: Yet again, I must call on the wisdom of the ancient Greeks. In this case that of the sadly under-rated philosopher Diogenes the Renegade who devoted himself to a life of pleasure. One story told about him is that he hired a group of women of pleasure to pull his chariot through the agora. This, I think, is such a fine idea that we should overlook the small fact that Diogenes may or may not have been totally made up. It certainly sounds like more fun than first class air travel. Provided, of course, the correct mode of dress is observed.

My dignity vanished as the spicy sauce dripped onto my trousers

Britain: a nation of drunks who are too fond of internet filth, according to one or other of the guide books that always says something that offends people whose self image is so fragile than any criticism of their country upsets them. I'm firmly in the 'what's wrong with that?' camp on this topic.

But the book also says we're too taken with celebrity culture. I concede that point. Look at some so-called serious websites, HP, Norm, Shuggy, it's all Hitchens this, Fisk that. There's no escape from these people, they've even got their own fan sites. I blame television, myself.

It's bad timing for Dave Hill, who's started a tour round Britain to see if he can capture the mood of the nation. Personally, I think it's like trying to capture the nature of love, but good luck to him.

Incidentally, it does occur me that there might be good reading to be had from someone touring the country looking for love. I wonder if, cough, any blogger is sad or desperate enough to do that. Not for me of course, fretting about being single is best left to girls. There's all that booze and internet smut out there for us chaps, see.