This was, I believe, my most inactive day of the year. I didn't go out of my front door and scarcely stirred from my couch, as I watched TV, played computer games and ate chocolate truffles until I was very nearly sick.
I needed to rest to be honest and was feeling under the weather, though not as bad as I had feared. Possibly I would have been better off reading in bed, rather than falling into a TV based trance, but as long as this doesn't become my entire existence then I think a day like this every now and again can't do too much harm.
Having said that I did feel a bit out of it by the time I went to bed and I had achieved nothing. Nothing at all. I had won a couple of hundred thousand dollars on facebook poker. But that is not real money. And I was playing against idiots. I have wasted another precious day.
I did watch the second half of "Summer Heights High" which is a series I have very much enjoyed watching. There are some amazing performances, and not just from
Chris Lilley, but from all the people who have to act around him. The other school kids and Jonah's dad are especially impressive and the other teachers are so realistic and well observed that I began to wonder if they were actually genuine educators who had been drafted in. It is quite challenging in places and it leaves you wondering if some of the stuff is acceptable. After all Lilley essentially "blacks up" to play Jonah and also portrays him as a hooligan no-hoper, which might be seen as racist. And yet he portrays him with such affection and truth that these concerns are quickly forgotten. And to make him flawed and fucked up (whilst subtly demonstrating some of the causes of this, some of which are down to him) makes it much less patronising than most portrayals of minorities. It's great that the end of the series shows Johan leaving the school, happy with himself, because, it is revealed he has graffitied cocks all over the school and the teacher's cars and his smug enemies' bags. And we share his triumph. Even though what he has done is something that TV would not condone and even though he is as much to blame as them for the way he has turned out.
It's great to be challenged by comedy, but it's mainly just a very funny and beautiful performed and well observed piece, without resorting to stereotypes. It's on BBC3 all the time and is one of the few things worth watching on that channel. So do give it a look if you haven't caught it already.
I was also delighted to see that
Pope Benedict had paid tribute to Galileo and thus seems to admit that he doesn't condone the heresy verdict that was made against this scientist 400 years ago.
It wasn't until 1992 that Pope John-Paul II had admitted that the church's denunciation of Galileo had been a tragic error. 1992? Jesus wept.
But then maybe if he'd mentioned the fact that the Earth actually goes around the Sun when he was down here, then one of the greatest scientists of all time would not have had to live his last years under house arrest for merely stating something that was true and based on fact in the face of the opposition of people stating something that was untrue based on a load of bullshit.
Galileo was not the first person to propose a heliocentric universe (according to wikipedia the first recorded proponent was Aristarchus of Samos), but the discovery is a very important step towards man's understanding of the Universe and himself. It was vital for the Church to oppose the doctrine because it was based on the idea that the Universe was created for man, and so our planet is the most important place and in turn everything on Earth was created for us.
The horrible truth that we are just one of countless spinning rocks at the edge of one of countless galaxies is the first step to the realisation that the Universe was not created for us. And nor was the Earth. Or anything on it. And everything doesn't revolve around us.
That's why they locked up the man who had seen the truth through his telescope and that's why it's taken 400 years for them to admit they were wrong, even though in the meantime man has actually been out into space.
Who knows what the Pope of 400 years time might be admitting. I rather hope that we might have grown up enough not to have one by then, but if it's taken the Catholics almost half a millennium to accept Galileo's fandango and not to lose all their followers when they admit that they fucked up, then I am sure they will manage to keep feckless millions supporting their guff for thousands more years. And if not them, then some other stupid religion will take prominence.
You'd think that them being proven wrong about this would be enough to make the religious take a step back and question all the other things that they're being told. But faith is an amazing thing.
