The Ladybird Book of Homeopathic Treatment & High Street Chemists

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Marvin The Homeopathic Android

It occurred to me that the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation may well be inept enough to install a homeopathic GPP chip into one of their robots...

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Storm: A different perspective

The conversation in the dining room of a white walled and carpeted inner North London top floor flat has been well documented by Tim Minchin. However the conversation in the kitchen on that fateful evening has been less well documented.


[Kitchen during Pre dinner drinks]

Physician: OK darling, I’ve given the guests some pre-dinner drinks while they admire my new painting and stroke the cat, how’s the starter coming along?

Actress: Just don’t fucking hassle me, I’ve got 4 courses to prepare. Anyway, how are Tim and Sarah getting on with Storm?

Physician: Yeah, pretty good, just a bit of light hearted chatter, I don’t think you need of worried about Storm and Tim not getting, they seem fine. In fact they're…

Actress: Sshhh

Physician: What?

Actress: Listen.

Physician: What?

Actress: I’m sure she just mentioned astrology.

Physician: Fuck.

Actress: No we’re OK, he’s just ignored her, quick, give me hand to carry the starters through before she gets her fucking star charts out.



[Kitchen between Main course and desert]

Physician: The cheeky fucking bitch never touched her veal. You ordered that in especially from the farm shop too.

Actress: I’m surprised you bloody noticed, I saw you staring at her tits all through the main course.

Physician: I wasn’t staring at her bloody tits; I was trying to work out what that stupid bloody tattoo was.

Actress: It was a fucking fairy on her tit and before you gawp at her arse, that’s a butterfly, and do you realise how much wine you’ve drunk?

Physician: Sshhh, she just mentioned something about Pharmaceutical companies being the enemy.

Actress: Jesus fucking H. Christ, his diplomacy dyke will never hold out to that.



And if you've not seen it yet, here's the legal advice offered to Storm.

Inaugural Winchester SitP Event

PLEASE NOTE, due to increased interest, the venue of this event has been changed to a pub with a larger function room. It will now take place at:

The Roebuck Inn
57 Stockbridge Street
Winchester
SO22 6RP

For updates on this, and future events, sign up on the Winchester Sitp Website
The first Winchester Skeptics in the Pub event will be in the Roebuck Inn in Winchester on Thursday 28th January 2010 at 7:30pm

The guest speaker will be Simon Singh

Simon Singh is the author of several bestselling science books, including 'Fermat's Last Theorem' & 'Big Bang'. Most recently he co-authored 'Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial' with Professor Edzard Ernst. His Radio 4 programmes include 'Five Numbers', 'Five Particles' & 'The Serendipity of Science'.

Recently there have been a series of high profile libel cases brought against scientists, science writers and medical researchers. Simon Singh, who is currently being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association, will argue that English libel laws crush free speech and block scientific progress. He will explain how our libel laws are notoriously friendly towards claimants and hostile towards defendants, which means that international libel cases are brought to London. Singh will also give his views on how libel laws could be reformed to bring them in line with other democratic countries, and will explain why he is backing a national campaign for libel reform.

Simon will be the inaugural speaker of the Winchester Skeptics in the Pub and will be introduced by the fearless leader of the Skepchicks and co-host of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast, Rebecca Watson.

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Trust Boots?

Here's some suggestions for some new homeopathic remedies for Boots to peddle...

Save A Prayer

Here’s a short 42 second video taken from Genesis TV where the presenters discuss the podcast I contribute to, The Pod Delusion. The best advice they seem to muster in response to our podcast, is to pray for me and my fellow contributors, presumably in the hope that we will see the error of our rational and critical thinking ways.

Coincidently, I heard from a good Christian friend of mine recently who also happily informed me that he and his church were praying for me, again as a result of my preference for clear thought and logic over blind adherence to pre-enlightened myths.

Although I do not take offence when being told I am being prayed for (I’ll leave offence as the blackmail weapon of choice for the believers). I am however exasperated by the amount of genuine good intent wasted on this futility.

The cumulative amount of effort and time frivolously wasted on prayer is frustrating when there are so many worthwhile alternatives that could have a genuine effect.

Therefore, if you are religious and you wish to pray for me, in order to ensure some value is added by your good intentions, I would ask that you save your prayer until you have first recently completed at least one of the items on the following list.

1. Donate time or money to a humanist secular charity
2. Give blood
3. Become an organ donor
4. Launch an over ripe tomato in the general direction of Pope Benny XVI
5. Post a fresh steaming turd through Nick Griffin’s Letter Box.

At least then I will know that you have actually done something that might actually stand a chance of having a genuine effect.


NB Actually, if you are religious and you do seriously want to complete one of the above tasks before praying for my condemned soul, please select one of the first 3, as I only added the last 2 for comic effect.

Pod Delusion New Year Awards Show

You can listen to the New Year Awards Show below, or subscribe to the Pod Delusion on iTunes



Political Scandal of the Year by Simon Howard
Product of the Year by Salim Fadhley
Disease of the Year by Billy Abbott
Social Media Mogul of the Year by Liz Lutgendorff
Blogger of the Year by Crispian Jago
Quote of the Year by Martyn Norris
Comedian of the Year by Misty
Gaming Twat of the Year by Jim Dixon
Douchebag of the Year by Owen Duffy
Most Missed 2009 by Jon Treadway
Pod Delusion Listeners Award by James O’Malley

and as promised in my report, here are the links to my Top 10 blogs of 2009:

10. Adventures in Nonsense & Zeno’s Blog
9. The Enemies of Reason
8. Heresy Corner
7. Podblack Cat
6. Dr. Petra Boynton
5. Gimpy’s Blog
4. Carmen Gets Around
3. Jourdemayne
2. Vagina Dentata
1. Jack of Kent

Science, Reason & Critical Thinking: Best of 2009

On a dull October lunchtime in 2008 I decided I couldn’t be arsed to leave my desk and go to the gym, so I started a blog instead. I hadn’t planned to start a blog and had no idea what to call it, so when I was presented with the prompt “Enter the name of your blog:” I just entered “Science, Reason & Critical Thinking” as the first thing that came to mind. Perhaps with a little more planning I might have thought of something a bit more catchy like er... um… well, maybe not.

I wrote a few random thoughts on life the Universe and Everything, which I found quite therapeutic. Of course no one read a word of it, but it kept me off the cross trainer.

Things continued in much the same way for 6 months or so. Although my text never troubled the browsers of any other people, at least when someone at Skeptics in the Pub asked me the inevitable question, “What’s your blog called”, I didn’t have to confess to not writing a blog.

Much of what I wrote was merely a reworking of thoughts that had been expressed much more succinctly or eruditely by other bloggers than I could possibly accomplish with my seemingly limited grasp of my own language.

Then shortly after the preliminary hearing of the Singh BCA trial back in May, I was listening to the SGU podcast on my way to work. On an unrelated topic, Jay Novella happened to mention the Monty Python Witch Trial sketch, which just seemed to be screaming out to be re-written as “We have found a scientist, may we sue him?” Since buggering about with old Python sketches was far more fun than trying to write serious posts, I settled on a new style for my blog.

I didn’t think making silly comments and parodying existing stuff had a name, but at this year’s 9 Lessons and Carols a fellow skeptic introduced me to one of his friends as “sceptical satirist”. My wife who was in earshot sniggered to herself and later told me that she thought I was just being a silly twat, not a satirist.

Anyway, since attempting satire my blog has received a few more hits, so based on the number of visits according to Google Analytics here are my 10 most popular posts from 2009.


Simpsons Top Trumps: Skeptics Edition (62,055)
A blatant plagiarisation of Christina Martin’s excellent God Trumps, but with well known sceptics and rendered as Simpsons characters on account f the fact I can’t draw and I just happened to find a website that converts people into Simpsons characters.
Follow Up Post: A Full Deck of Simpsonized Skeptics (6,633)

Skeptic Park (20,626)
A South Park comic featuring Richard Dawkins, Ben Goldacre, Tim Minchin, Simon Singh and Carl Sagan
Follow Up Post: Skeptic Park 2 with Derren Brown (4,299)

The Ladybird book of Chiropractic Treatment & English Libel Law (13,636)
An easy to understand summary of the Singh BCA case for younger readers
Follow Up Post: The Ladybird Book of Atheist Buses (4,430)

If Homeopathy Works I’ll Drink My Own Piss (13,111)
A short video of me making a homeopathic remedy out of my own piss
Follow Up Post: Can I Get A Homeopathic Remedy Instead of A Malaria Inoculation? (4,467)

Python Plagiarising For Singh (8,319)
A rewrite of the Monty Python witch trial sketch featuring the suing of a scientist
Follow Up Post: Python Plagiarising For Singh Part 2 (412)

Skeptics Tarot Cards (3,579)
A new deck of Tarot Cards featuring a bunch of silly twats
Related Posts: Your Daily Shitoscope reading (609)

Celebrity Quack Trumps (2,737)
More Top Trump milking this time with some celebrity CAM believers
Follow Up Post: Celebrity Quack Trumps Part 2 (839)

The Homeopathy Sketch (2,086)
Is this the right room for some homeopathy?
Follow Up Post: Python In Boots (528)

God Was Never On Your Side (1,896)
My video to accompany this Motorhead classic
Follow Up Post: The Benny Hinn Show (377)

BULLSHIT By Jenny McCarthy (1,723)
A pungent stench of Bullshit from Jenny
Related Post: Reason By Richard Dawkins (1,587)


Whether or not you consider these posts to be satire or twatage, I must confess that compiling a 2009 best of may well be considered akin to John and Edward (Pointless UK TV Karaoke Eraserheads who recently enjoyed their 15 mins), releasing a Greatest Hits album.

Oh, and talking of albums, here's my best albums of 2009, and the best albums of the Noughties

Anyway that's more than enough lists, hope you’ve all had a super 2009 and all the best for 2010.

The Ladybird Book of Atheist Buses

Reason's Greetings

from Science, Reason & Critical Thinking

1023 Sign Up

We critically thinking, rational types are well aware that the reason why homeopathy doesn’t work beyond the placebo effect is because, in all probability, there are bugger all active ingredients in any remedy above 15C. In fact, the scientifically unproven technique of like curing like means that even the remedies below 15C, that might just contain the odd molecule of the original ingredient, are hardly any more likely to work either.

However, to the uninformed majority, homeopathy is often confused with natural herbal remedies. And the fact that you can buy them from your local branch of Boots the Chemist adds an additional air of false credibility. After all we trust Boots to sell us medicines that actually work. Nevertheless, thanks to the Parliamentary Science and Technology committee we now know from the horse’s mouth that Boots sell homeopathic remedies not because there is any evidence that they are efficacious, but simply because they sell.

Perhaps they wouldn’t sell quite so well if more people were aware of what a homeopathic remedy is and how scientifically absurd its underlying principles are.

In order to try and raise awareness of the truth behind homeopathy, a while ago I cobbled together a quick video demonstrating how a homeopathic remedy is made. Much to my surprise the video proved to be rather popular but in case you missed it, here it is again:

Despite the success of the above video, a much wider reaching awareness is required, and this is where the 1023 campaign comes in. If you would like to become involved in the awareness raising campaign then please sign up here to receive more information on how you can help.