UCLan has received lottery funding in a bid to investigate levels of drug and alcohol abuse amongst the gay and lesbian community. Continue Reading

What do Carol Vorderman, Charlotte Church, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Dame Edna Everedge and… er… Ringo star all have in common? If I didn’t know, I’d be struggling!

But eagle-eyed TV viewers amongst you (it’s probably just about the only thing you can rely on in these uncertain times) will have spotted them, geriatric Rock legends to national treasures all on adverts on British Television.

Why, you might ask, are such culturally important figures trying to flog me everything from magazines to insurance, to highlighting the terrifically important fact that Norwich Union has changed its name?

Vorderman can be forgiven. Having been asked to take a whopping pay cut at Channel 4, she opted, or was coerced into making her final Countdown.

Joining the dole cue with the rising numbers of 18-24 year olds and recent graduates would probably have been a bit demeaning. So she’s advertising Reveal Magazine instead.

Charlotte Church is advertising Virgin Holidays, making use of those famed vocal cords when not being slated about or recording her Channel 4 show of the same name. Bet she isn’t even a virgin…

With the birth of that second baby you’d be forgiven for thinking she needs the extra cash. But with two celebrity incomes? If she isn’t just selling her soul, we should all be worried.

Ringo, Iggy, Alice, where has it all gone wrong? Norwich Union, or Aviva, have obviously found your price. But was it a high price at a time when we should all be tightening our belts, in which case, shame on you for indulging their decadence, or a low price, as even international superstars can’t ride the gravy train forever?

Did you have all your royalty cheques tied up in Iceland Ringo? Were you fooled by the friendly hedge fund salesman Ig?

Or was it a bright-eyed marketing guru who came up with this age-old way to shift crap, but this time in a bleary-eyed country that is just waking up to a very harsh financial reality?

We don’t need anything else. We all need to be a bit more frugal. We’re done with our celebrity fragrances; the smell of the fear of financial meltdown serves us all with a constant reminder.

We’ve all borrowed beyond our means, apparently no one saw it coming, and no one’s quite sure how we’re going to pay it all back. And still the perverse mind-games, using celebrities to endorse brands so us normal folk can dream that one day too, might we have to change our name to become a star, because what Ultimate Fighting World Champion is called Gaz Thomas?

I’d be surprised if these celebrities are joining the bread line just yet. And I bet they can all sleep at night in their Egyptian cotton bed linen on the 50^th floor of the apartment in New York with the security guards at the door.

But cheers for rubbing it in!

What do Mr Kipling and God not have in common? Well it’s all to do with the ASA and standards of public taste…

In 2005, a TV advert for Mr Kipling’s mince pies depicted a modern day nativity, ending with Mary having a baby girl and a vicar in the audience proclaiming “Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes”.

The advert was “approved” by a group of 25-45 year old mothers and church representatives, but was still banned following over 800 complaints that it was “offensive to Christians.” It was the second most complained about advert that year.

This month, The British Humanist Association began an advertising campaign on public transport in London. 600 posters will be displayed emblazoned with the slogan “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

So far it has received 48 complaints.

The atheists and agnostics, led by Dawkins, have long been pushing for society to adopt a more secular philosophy in general. Popping up in TV interviews and documentaries around Christmas and Easter, Dawkins often attempts to convince us we’re fools for daring to have faith in the church, the bible and even ourselves.

The latest tactic to rid society of the “God of the gaps” is supported by Father Ted writer Graham Linehan and philosopher AC Grayling amongst others. £140,000 has been pledged through their justgiving.com website; a tool usually reserved for two bit charity runners and sponsored swimmers. Dawkins personally stumped up about £5000.

Amongst the listed donors is Ian Bell who, on 6^th Jan donated £100 and wrote: “Religion is war, hatred, guilt, segregation. It should be clear to any rational mind that we’re above this lunacy now.”

On a lighter note, on 21 October, Charlie Brooker (no proof it’s the Charlie Brooker, Guardian columnist and scathing TV pundit, but we have reason to believe!) also donated £100, with the message “I hope to God this helps”.

The supposed intention of the campaign is to counter the adverts on London transport reminding us of the impending “hell and damnation” we face for our sinful lives. Richard Dawkins also want to persuade more atheists to “come out”. Answering critics by insisting he’s not “strident or shrill” Dawkins explains the purpose is to encourage us to “think for ourselves”… with a little gentle persuasion.

Whilst it may be strangely witty, and like the atheists claim, refreshing in a time when religion, yet again, is the root of so much unrest, isn’t it also an example of the exact intolerance that causes the problems associated with religion… and isn’t it also a little insensitive?

Having grown up in a Catholic family, I find it radical and a little OTT. There is good at the heart of religion, it’s just the fundamentalists let the side down a bit… As too does amassing proof that, after oil, religion must be the second biggest cause of war… And there’s the fact there are a lot of people using religion as an excuse to commit hideous crimes against humanity…. But to me this seems more likely to upset than dissuade those people.

The people who will see the adverts are those who wade through the rainy streets of London on their way to work…if they still have a job. The people who may well have already lost financial security at the end of this life are now having their precious and reassuring dreams of the next quashed!

The Church of England responded by telling the press Christianity “isn’t about worrying or not enjoying life” (hmmm, not the feeling a five year old gets when they’re being told about hell). A Methodist spokesperson seemed to miss the point altogether by thanking Dawkins and saying it showed there was a “continued interest in God”.

The problem for me is that even if something is “right” why rub people’s noses in it for no reason other than your own satisfaction?

I was once told a fable at my (Catholic) primary school about two children in a hospital. One had been there for weeks and couldn’t see out of the window. He would ask the other patients to describe what they could see but all they ignored him. Then a new patient arrived, and when he was asked to describe outside he spoke about a beautiful park with families playing and sunshine. Every day he would tell the other boy stories about what was happening in the park.

In the end the really sick child dies. It turns out there was no view of a park just a brick wall and little light, but the thought of children playing had brought the boy happiness.

It’s a little different in that that particular white lie didn’t hurt anyone. But whilst religion, and persuading people to believe any way of thinking, comes with its bigger problems, the underlying moral fabric is just kindness and respect and the thought that there is a purpose.

Religious tolerance is the answer to the world’s problems. Ignoring, ridiculing and straight out dismissing should get people talking, but it hasn’t done so far. Less than 100 complaints in a week, compared to the 40,000 the Mail managed to provoke in light of Sachs gate… Are most of us atheists already?

The modern world has asked us to believe in a lot worse (namely the banking industry) and has coerced us into abandoning our morality and discipline. Of the shreds of religion that remain in our society, letting people hope that there may be something better in the future, shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Only one message this Christmas… you’re all crazy. Continue Reading