Norman Ralph

2010 started quietly for me on the blogging front, apart from my Twitter updates my first real blog post was about the 10:23 Homeopathy Overdose Project (which I was unfortunately unable to attend due to work commitments) and my strongly worded letter to David Cameron.

February was another quiet month on the blog front although I did spend a week in the Lakes and come hoem to find my house was flooded which left me without a PC for nearly a month.

March saw me foolishly making some long term plans about future living arrangements as well as celebrating Normanralph.com’s 3rd birthday. I also gave up my car to cut down on costs and get ready for city centre living.

A good friend of mine was deported in April and threatened with death on his return to his native Pakistan. Leeds Atheist Society ran Reason Week 2010 and I started following Major League Soccer.

In May I spent a lot of time preparing for my speaking engagement at CWF’s Enquiry conference in Birmingham. I also split up with my partner and moved in with Chris and George.

June was world cup month, so the less said about it the better, but I was hardly in a celebrating mood following the events of the previous month.

I spent most of July running around the country with work, really throwing myself in to my job.

Blackpool started their Premier League campaign during August and I started to really get ready for my trip of a lifetime. The month finished with a really great weekend with Sarann at Solfest.

Eurotrip 2010 took up September. In three weeks Chris, Kieran, George and I took in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Munich, Salzburg, Venice, Verona, St Gallen, Montreux, Monte Carlo and Jard-Sur-Mer. I also turned 26.

October was a catching up month. I was working a lot to pay off Europe and to make sure that I got my best ever performance review to date.

I was off around the country again in November. Taking in an audience with Greg Epstein and a load of gigs.

December saw me celebrate the success story of Blackpool FC’s season in the Premier League so far as well as the contribution made by their manager. I also found time to go and see Tim Minchin thank god for Sam’s Mum’s Cateracts.

As you can see, it has been a mixed bag of a year. Some real highs in the form of Eurotrip and the number of gigs I’ve managed to catch, but also some real lows.

I think 2011 might be OK, there are some things that I am already really excited about seeing how they pan out as well as some concrete plans to go to Dublin, Malta and maybe even back to Verona over the summer. I also have some great work to do with some of the organisations I support i.e. the AHS and BHA as well as continuing to build up my own career and developing some projects of my own.

Here’s to you 2011.

This post is just a quick update to tease visitors to my site with a glimpse at a project I am currently working on. I will be releasing more information over the next couple of weeks, but it is big news and represents quite a shift for me.

At the moment, all I can say is that The No Man will be making a comeback, but not in the guise many will expect!

For those that don’t know what I’m talking about all will become clear soon enough. The No Man is a moniker that was given to me when I decided that there wasn’t enough democracy at the student union at the University of Leeds as every referendum motion and other political action was left unopposed.

Keep your eyes on the site as I will be posting updates on this until we go for the big announcement!

Just found this snippet on the NSS website.

A Muslim smallholder in Kent has been fined £3,000 and told to pay £3,799 costs at Bromley Magistrates’ Court after he slaughtered sheep using halal methods but without pre-stunning the animals.
Sheep

Zeki Ismail’s small farm in Keston was raided last December after he bought six sheep at a market in Ashford, Kent. Bromley Council’s food safety officers, meat hygiene vets and animal health inspectors all feared Mr Ismail might kill the livestock for halal meat without following safety rules. By the time they arrived at the farm with police, three sheep had already been killed and the meat shared around the family.

But Mr Ismail claimed that he was completely unaware he was breaking strict farming laws. Mr Ismail slit the throats of his sheep without stunning them first – breaking a UK law which states animals which are not stunned must only be killed at a licensed slaughterhouse.

Mr Ismail admitted failing to stun the sheep before killing them, religiously slaughtering the animals outside of a slaughterhouse, supplying food containing specified risk material for human consumption, and failing to tell the local authority that six sheep had moved onto his smallholding.

London’s Halal Food Authority says animals have to be fed as normal and given water prior to slaughter and one animal must not see the other being killed. The authority also says the “knife should be four times the size of the neck and razor sharp, and as far as possible the slaughterer and the animal should face Qibla or Mecca.”
The organisation does not ban animals from being stunned before their throats are slit, but the UK’s Halal Monitoring Committee insists that slaughter must take place without stunning the animals.

This is an interesting development following my article on this very subject not so long ago that was published in Secular Future.

Last night, at approximately 1am, I witnessed Britain’s largest earthquake for almost 25 years! Reaching over 5 on the Richter scale, the ‘quake shook the house visibly and made quite a disturbing grinding sound. There was a follow up shock at around 4am. There are some great images of the data collected in North Yorkshire here.

I was listening to the Editors’ new album “An End Has A Start” and the opening track has a very interesting lyric/title which goes “…the saddest thing I have ever seen are smokers outside the hospital doors…” and it got me to thinking. Now, I am not usually found to spout too much social commentary on this blog, but I feel quite strongly about this issue.

This post is actually not about smoking per se, but on the slow decline of ambition amongst people in this county. Britain was founded on industry, on the ambition, work and accomplishments of individuals – but not just individuals, of the nation as a whole. This just isn’t true anymore. Take, for example, the title of this post. Is there anything more depressing and indicative of modern society than the sight of ill people killing themselves?

The news continued this theme of declining social values last night when it introduced the story of an eleven year old boy, shot dead by a teenager ina drive by shooting on a BMX bike! You can read the full story here. This shooting is just one in a long line of teenage murders. Murders committed by teenagers on teenagers! This is particularly prevalent on London and Manchester, but the most recent one happened in Liverpool. This whole culture and society is to blame. Usually, I am pretty good at coming up with off the cuff solutions to these problems, usually quite right wing and usually quit impractical. This time, however, I am at a loss. I think we may be at a point where we cannot prevent this from happening again. How can we stop this culture of violence and depravity when it is so far advabced and intertwined into mainstream culture and society. In fact, I would go so far as to say that mainstream culture is itself to blame. We are all to blame for this. We have stood back and allowed too many freedoms and not enough responsibility. As my mum said last night, “..it’s a pity we can’t transport them anymore..”

David Cameron, the Tory leader, suggested that we suspend the driving licence age for those who commit anti-social crimes. A youngster in Bedford was quoted to reply to this by saying “…so? We will just drive anyway…” I am out of ideas. I want to blame the parents, but what can they do if their children are out of control. I want to say that we should just lock them all away and throw away the key, go totally zero tolerance against all violent crime and anti-social crime in young people. Bring in mandatory life sentences for all violent crime. This sounds harsh, but ultimately we are going to need a deterrent that actually deters from crime. A slap on the wrist, an ASBO, community service orders have all been tried and have all failed so spectacularly that it’s actually funny. We need to crack down now. Before it is too late.

Unfortunately, I think we may have already missed the boat on this one. Maybe it is already a case of giving up and going home, starting again from scratch!