On Man flu

Last week I was ill. Not incapacitated, just a bit under the weather in an annoying way, rather than debilitated.


It was my son's fault. Millen (which is his name) caught a cold of some sort. Not sure how, he's not really been near anyone with a cold that we've noticed, but that's apparently just one of the things kids do, find and incubate illnesses without any seeming cause.


And, inevitably, I caught the cold too. It seems that if you have someone with a cold and spend as much time as possible in close contact with them and handle all (ALL!) their bodily emissions, you risk picking up any bugs they have. Who knew?


I admit I wasn't expecting to catch a cold from an 8 week old, but more fool me I suppose. It wasn't even a proper cold, it went from having an overweight but irritated bumblebee lodged in my sinus cavities, to my nose running like a satirical commentary on the British drought announcements, to sneezing more regularly than an apprentice pepper tester. Never all at once though, more like some symptomatic triple tag-team.


None of these were, as I say, incapacitating. My wife is on maternity looking after our first child, who is 8 weeks old. Even if I was the sort of person to complain about inconvenient personal ailments, I certainly wouldn't do that to a new mother, especially not one I live with.


But I did mention my cold to a few people. To those in work when I opted to work from home to contain the infection (I have that option), to people on Facebook and twitter, because I like social networking but with a new baby in the house your range of conversational subjects suddenly gets a lot more limited. My having a cold was something a bit different to talk about. It was either that or discuss the contents of Millen's latest nappy, and that seems like it would have 'niche' appeal at best.


So, I mentioned my cold once or twice, just as a passing comment. And, it turns out, I have man flu. This surprised me, if I'm honest.


As far as I was aware, man flu is a joke used by women to describe the phenomenon of men over-dramatising their symptoms and suffering if they happen to come down with a cold, often to a theatrical extent. I'm not denying that this happens. When it comes to physical weakness or failings, most men are seemingly programmed (by society, evolution, hormones, Hollywood, I don't know) to exaggerate whatever it was that caused them to demonstrate weakness. If asked after the event, a guy is unlikely to have been beaten up by one guy, more like four. It wasn't a child's scooter they tripped over, it was a motorbike accident, The fish that got away was always the bigger one.


That previous paragraph was, you may say, nothing but some unfair generalisations and stereotypes. Good point, and it brings me neatly back to man flu.


I thought that man flu was reserved for the over-dramatic emphasis of standard cold symptoms, but lately, as I've found, it's become more of an automatic classification. It could just be my experience, but it seems Man + Unwell = Man flu. If a man mentions being under the weather for non-alcohol related causes, it's man flu. I wouldn't mind so much, but I hadn't complained, just observed that I had a cold. I was still working, I didn't want special treatment or sympathy, I just felt like it was something to say. That's man flu now, apparently.


I'm very much a feminist supporter, as I hope my article about Unilad demonstrated, but I've seen/heard many women who, rightly, criticise this male tendency to be macho about everything, to posture, to reduce everything to a pissing contest, to refuse to show vulnerability or emotion. These women say this, and they have a point. But I've seen these same women who, as soon as a male mentions being ill in some way, immediately start mocking them for having man flu. 


If you're going to insist that men stop posturing and acting so tough, but immediately start mocking them the instant they confess a weakness, this will probably end up being somewhat counter-productive. I've known guys who turn up for work hacking their guts up and infecting everyone around them like a 14th century rat, rather than be accused of being a wimp.


All things being equal, the man flu thing is still mocking someone for being unwell, and that's not very nice. It's completely unacceptable in almost all other contexts. And I've no doubt there are women reading this, perhaps as many as two, who will say I'm being ridiculously over-sensitive, that this is just a front for wounded male pride, that I should grow up and learn to take a joke. All fair points, and to those women I might say this;


I had a stomach cramp once, I didn't even mention it, let alone whinge about it for a full week.


The previous statement would be seen, rightly, as extremely offensive by many. How could I mock someone for suffering in a way that I don't have any appreciation of? Yes, how indeed.


Obviously the man-flu thing is different. Women can experience a cold, and just carry on, whereas it seems to incapacitate supposedly big burly men. That logic cannot be denied.


Except for the fact that it's wrong. It's assuming that a woman's cold and man's cold are the same. But that isn't true. Because man flu actually is a real disease.


It's an evolved mechanism. The human male, evolved for hunting and fighting, has developed a more robust immune system and physiology that can endure more damage. Any virus that infects the human male can be certain of a rugged, durable host for as long as it can withstand the formidable immune system. So a virus would evolve that was strong enough to get through the immune defences and convert this mighty organism to its infectious ways. However, such a virus would be very powerful, too powerful for a lesser system to withstand.


Long story short, man flu is a real illness, and if a woman caught it she'd be killed. Instantly. She'd liquefy on the spot, like ebola on fast forward. And a pathogen which kills it's host in seconds wouldn't have any chance to spread, so would be an evolutionary dead end, so man flu has evolved to avoid women.


But, you say, you've known a woman to catch a 'cold' from a man? Of course, that's because the mighty male immune system eventually beats back this virus, to the point where one or two molecules will 'jump ship', onto a less demanding host, which may be a woman at times.


But what about when a man catches a 'cold' (Man flu) from a woman? It's the same thing, the weakened virus builds up it's strength until it is powerful enough to infect a man again. It takes all of it's strength to do this though, to so the female host is left with only a pale imitation of the true disease.


So think about that, next time you mock a man for being ill.


Although, of course, a lot of what I've just said is absolute nonsense. I'm certain viruses don't work that way. I'm just bored and stuck at home babysitting. And babies don't say much, so my social skills are seriously rusty. 

Life under the glittery Jackboot

I've not blogged in quite some time. Nothing personal, it's just that as of March 7th I've been a dad. Babies in the house tend to take up a lot of your time. Who knew? 


So that's why I've not said much here. I've got an actual full-time job to keep up with, which, coupled with my myriad new responsibilities, means I've got much less time to play with, and priorities have to be made. Long-winded blogposts which will only be read by a few people with nothing better to do? They're not very high up on the list, I'm afraid.


But, sometimes you just have to speak out. Someone says something that strikes a chord, and you can't just remain silent while a great injustice continues. 


Today, in the Telegraph, Lord Carey, former Archbishop, stated that Christians and those who wish to express themselves are suppressed, forced underground, vilified by the homosexuals who have essentially taken over society.


He has been widely mocked for this, via that there Twitter, the Guardian, and elsewhere. But the people mocking his stance clearly don't understand. They must live abroad or in elitist enclaves in the more modern 'hip' cities. They clearly don't know how it is for normal people and wealthy peers who have lived in palaces. I am neither homosexual nor Christian, but ever since the tyrannical homosexuals started running society, life is a constant struggle for anyone who deviates from their tyrannical views on what is 'normal'. So, to enlighten you and show to truth of Carey's words, I've decided to describe a typical day in my life, as a suppressed heterosexual living in homosexual Britain. Or 'The U-Gay' (as in UK, yeah? Geddit?), as it should be called these days. Just so you know Carey is speaking the truth, not living in some deranged fantasy world.


The day starts with me waking up before the wife. She has to feed the baby during the night, so needs to sleep in. I notice in the fridge that we've no milk yet. It's getting harder for me to get milk now, the homosexuals who control society don't approve of milk. It's a symbol of heterosexual reproduction so is considered offensive, especially if a male drinks it as this constitutes transfer of organic material across the genders, which is 'clearly immoral' I'm told. Milk isn't banned yet, but it's surely only a matter of time.


I get dressed for work. I usually wear a combination of tight trousers and/or vests, sometimes with studs or rainbow accessories. I don't suit this stuff at all, and don't like it in the slightest. I'd much rather wear something more sober and plain, but it's really not worth the risk of offending the sensibilities of some of the more flamboyant people I work with, they're likely to lodge a complaint against me if I do. I'd like to just be myself, but that's not a good idea at present.


I head towards the train station. On the way, I pass many gay bars, they're so commonplace these days. One that I pass was recently in the news after throwing out two Christians for public praying. Some of the more tolerant media highlighted their harsh treatment, but most papers and news services just flamed them for threatening to destroy the fabric of society. Seemed like quite an unfair accusation for what was just a bit of public faith between consenting adults, but most media is on the side of the silent majority of gays these days, although whether these people exist is debatable


On the train, there is a group of flamboyant homosexuals loudly singing show tunes and Lady Gaga numbers. They're annoying everyone and making people quite uncomfortable, but you can't stifle people from expressing their views, so everyone just lets them carry on. A conductor does ask them to possibly keep it down, but they are outraged by his attempts to curb their freedoms. They tell him to 'talk to the hand'. I've never been able to work out if/why this is offensive.


I distract myself by reading the free newspaper. The main story is about a community of Bears being bombed by a hard-liner Twink group. It's down to some fundamental difference in views regarding which Madonna album is better. It seems utterly ridiculous and superficial to me, but then I'm not part of that community so am told I'm not able to understand the importance of the dispute. Fair enough, I suppose.


Spend the next few hours in work. Am occasionally pestered by my annoying co-worker who keeps telling everyone they should attend her LGBT pottery class. She keeps telling me I should go and how much good it would do me. I keep declining, she wants to know why. I eventually tell her that I'm not a part of the LGBT community and I just find pottery immensely dull. She's polite about it, but is clearly very angry. That's probably going to get me ostracised for the next few weeks. 

(This happened in my last job. I said I wasn't going to Mardi Gras as it didn't really apply to me, and then I stupidly asked why an event with the name 'Fat Tuesday' always occurred on the weekend? This resulted in a massive backlash, and accusations of me aggressively undermining the true meaning of the occasion by trying to change the name. Madness! I had to leave that job, it was too much. My boss made a decent effort to be supportive, but what with his office filled with Mardi Gras merchandise I don't think he really saw my side of things)


I nip out for lunch in town. I'm waylaid by and incredibly camp man with giving out flyers about how essential it is to become homosexual. He tries to give me one, but I decline, saying I need to be back in work. He gets very angry and remonstrates me, telling me that unless I embrace homosexuality I'll never get into heaven. He means it as a threat, but I don't really have much of a concern. I've never cared for night clubs anyway.


Back in work, a meeting with HR. I've got to sort out paternity leave and the like. It's quite complicated. My wife and I are, logically, married, but society doesn't recognise it as 'true' marriage, what with it being mixed-sex. After all, they argue, men and women are so different, they're practically different species. We're mixed-race as well, which just makes it worse. It's no better than bestiality, they say. I try not to let it get to me, but it's hard going some times. We don't have the same protections that 'normal' gay couples have under the law. 


Could be worse I suppose, at least we're not religious. The treatment they get is worse again. It's not natural, they say. Some of the arguments seem to make sense, sadly. Homosexuality is natural, you can't help that, but being religious is a choice. A wrong one, clearly, judging by this society. But still, the vendetta against religious people seems a bit much, given that they're not hurting anyone with their beliefs. You'd think the gay organisations running society would have bigger things to worry about what with the economy and so forth, but apparently not.


I eventually head home. On the way, I pass a hotel I stayed in once. Fairly low budget, but even then they had the obligatory copy of Alan Carr's autobiography in the bedside drawers. Never read it myself, but apparently it's become the homosexual text which they tend live their life by. From what I know of Alan Carr, he is a very amiable friendly bloke, but in the book there is apparently a miss-print. One sentence should read 'I said "God, no!"', the typical exclamation meaning immediate denial. But instead it reads 'I said "God? No!"', and this is what all the religious persecution is based on. Seems flimsy justification, but like I say, I've never read it. There's also apparently a part that uses the phrase 'straight to hell', which is interpreted as a condemnation of heterosexuals. you could argue that these are very much open to interpretation, but it's never any use.


So I get home. Wife, son, all one happy family. We can't go out much, but we probably wouldn't anyway. Modern society means our lifestyle and relationship isn't really approved of by many, even if those who disprove don't really know why. I'm fairly sure that most homosexuals have no problem with what other people do, but that's not really helpful to us. It's the aggressive, shouty ones who get to dictate what happens. Nobody ever pays attention to the people who aren't saying anything, for obvious reasons.




So there you have it, an account of life in a society run by dominant homosexuals (pardon the double meaning of that). At least Carey has had to guts to speak out, hopefully many more will follow and bring about real change, ending this injustice once and for all.






DISCLAIMER: Sadly, odds are I'll need to state this for clarity's sake; The above anecdote is entirely fictional. It never happened. It is a (probably weak) attempt at satire, intended to portray what life would be like in a society under the control of what are clearly ridiculously exaggerated homosexual clichés, which a worrying number of people seem to be convinced is the case, despite the substantial evidence to the contrary. Any analogues between this blog piece and the real world are obviously intentional, but the society portrayed only exists in some possible parallel universe, and the heads of myself and Lord Carey. I write this disclaimer to show that I, at least, am aware that it's not real.




Twitter: @garwboy

Hot War-on-War action

There's a lot of war about these days. I know that's sadly usually the case globally, but I meant in daily life here in cushy western society. And I don't mean this in the most literal sense. I'm not regularly experiencing mortar fire every time I go to Morrison's to buy some bin bags. I meant the word 'War' is, as far as I can see, popping up seemingly everywhere. And words are funny things, aren't they?

Actually, forget that, most of the time they're not. Words can be quite bland. Slate, Grey, tepid, felt, step, moored, these are just some words which provoke little or no reaction in your average person, they just exist to fulfil a function. Like windowsills. They're useful and we'd miss them if they were gone, but I doubt anybody has ever said 'I do love those windowsills'. If I'm wrong about this and you know someone who does say that, then fair enough. But I'd give that person a wide berth if I were you.

But undeniably, some words can trigger intrinsic emotional responses. This is actually used in clinical assessment in a few ways, one of which is a version of the stroop test. To briefly describe it, subjects/patients are asked to say the colour of each word in a list of words, not to read it. Of course, people tend to be unable to stop themselves reading words, even if it's made more difficult, it's an automatic process much of the time. The emotional stroop test, as it's known, gets participants to give the colour of a list of words, some of which have strong emotional connotations. For example, if the test is intended to assess whether someone is depressed or not, a lot of the words will have strong, 'bleak' connotations (murder, suicide, cancer etc.). In theory, a depressed person will divert more attention to these loaded words than they will to more neutral, generic ones (leaf, wheelbarrow, melon etc.). Depression tends to be a self-perpetuating condition due to the psychological preoccupation and emphasis on the negatives, and this test arguably reveals indications of this.

So words can and do have intrinsically powerful meanings, is what the overall point is.

This has been brought up a lot recently, with the controversy over Workfare in the UK, the government scheme to get the unemployed back in work but without all that pesky payment to sort out. Whatever you think of it as a concept, it's definitely caused a lot of controversy, and there are plenty of other, better informed blogs/articles out there if you want to delve into that.

What struck me was the fact that many people are comparing it to slavery. Some were doing it for satire, which is fine. But many people objected to those objecting to workfare by comparing it to slavery. No doubt a fair bit of the latter is intellectual posturing, people wanting to show that they're even more 'right on' than the 'right on' bandwagon, but there's obviously some relevance to the complaints. I don't think that being compelled to work for several hours a day in order to justify benefits, however unpleasant and unfair it may be, can be seen as directly analogous to being kidnapped, beaten, sold as property and forcibly made to toil all day every day for the rest of your (undoubtedly short) life. Obviously, a lot of people feel strongly about the casual use of such a loaded word as slavery, one with such terrible historic implications.

Some words are too loaded, apparently, unless used with 100% contextual accuracy. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is largely subjective and depends on your views on free speech, censorship etc. I've mentioned before how the previously used term 'depression' may be too generic, meaning sufferers might get short shrift as a result. And the casual use of the term 'rape' is not something that usually ends well, as I may have discussed.

What confuses me, though, is why the same consideration and gravitas isn't applied to the term 'War'. I don't think there are many rational people who actually think war is a good thing. Those who are 'pro war' are almost exclusively people who are very unlikely to actually experience it directly. I may be wrong about this, but I'll go out on a limb and say that people who genuinely think war is a good thing are unlikely to be the sort of people who would object to using a specific term in an incorrect context. They're clearly an 'ends justify the means' type.

But of those who do object to the casual use of meaningful, loaded terms, I've not yet seen anyone object to the causal use of the word war. I'm just wondering why this is?

War is, at best, viewed as a necessary evil. And when the most positive spin you can give to something includes the word 'evil', that's not a good sign. The very existence of war has often been used as a shortcut in sci-fi to show that humans = evil (check out The Fifth Element, or any series of Star Trek). War is bloody. War is destructive. War involves armed conflict and invariably a high death toll. War kills people, usually in their thousands, often indiscriminately. Cultures, societies, populations, environments, there are many examples of each that have been utterly devastated by war. Historically, that's what war does.

In a historical context, War has killed countless millions over thousands of years, and with the invention of nuclear weapons it has become something that could wipe out the human race altogether, and relatively easily. We still have remembrance day and many other occasions across the world to honour those who went to war (and never came back) so we don't have to now. So, historically, war clearly has the same resonance and connotations of words such as slavery, or genocide, or holocaust.

Now, imagine if there was a TV advert for a bleach or toilet cleaner with the slogan 'It's like a bacteria holocaust!' It would be pulled from the air in seconds and those who made it would be pilloried mercilessly (and rightly so, I hasten to add). However, if the slogan was 'go to war on bacteria', that would be fine, people probably wouldn't even register it as anything unusual. Because it wouldn't be.

Just through the use of google autocomplete, here are some wars that are apparently going on at the moment.

War on Women

War on Waste

War on Want

Welfare state

War on Free Speech

War on Christmas

War on Drugs

War on Terror

War on Binge Drinking

War on Teenagers

War on Poverty

War on the working classes

War on Piracy

War on Censorship

War on Islam

War on Christianity

War on Religion

War on atheism

War on science

War on Democracy

War on Unions

Price War

Bidding War

That's a lot of war to be getting on with, and I've not even mentioned the actual armed conflicts (which are these days, contrastingly, being described as 'police actions', 'insurrections' and so on, not 'wars').

The term war is clearly thrown around so casually that I worry it's become largely devalued. Vince Cable declared that he'd 'declared war on [Rupert] Murdoch'. As much as I like the idea of Vince Cable recruiting an army and forcibly storming the offices of the Sun at Wapping, I don't think that's what he meant. I'm pretty sure for something to actually be a war, both sides involved have to actually be aware that it's happening.

War on women, war on waste, war on want, war on working classes, war of words, I now move we declare 'War on words that begin with W purely to take advantage of the phonetic similarity'.

The war on Christmas has been going on for many years now. I guess that's inevitable, as it's one of the only wars where you can't say 'it'll all be over by Christmas'. It's the opposite, if anything.

The War on Poverty was declared in the 60's, apparently. I'm going to assume it didn't involve carpet-bombing impoverished areas with shell casings filled with banknotes and jewels. If anything, the war has stepped up in recent years, with the 'Make Poverty History' campaign calling for all-out eradication of poverty. A poverty-genocide, if you will.

If you believe what you read these days, most of the major religions (and also atheists) are having war waged against them, although none claim to have initiated hostilities nor to be actively taking part in said war. Indeed many are engaging in some bizarre form of pre-emptive retaliation, which doesn't seem logical when you think about it

A lot of these 'wars' are shorthand ways of describing a seemingly orchestrated campaign by a particular organisation or powerful body to limit the powers/rights of another group, or to undermine a process or principle which they see as a threat. I'm not saying these are good things or that they aren't happening, but I just question the appropriateness of describing them as 'wars'. And I'm aware of the irony of me questioning whether or not 'War on Freedom of Speech' is an acceptable term.

It would be easy to blame George W. Bush and co for starting all this, with their 'War on Terror', an official armed conflict against an abstract concept. But there's plenty of examples before this. The Cold war, which had the threat of war but no actual conflict. The Cod war, which was purely about fishing territories, but at least was an official disagreement between 2 countries, which is one of the aspects that normally defines a war. But these days it seems that someone can declare a war against something/someone at the drop of a hat, and nobody even registers it. People even use the phrase 'been in the wars' to describe someone who's had a run of bad luck. Not even one war, several!  

You could argue that the term is being used correctly, as war can be described as 'active hostility, contention, conflict'. Indeed, not arguing that; hostility and conflict can easily occur without actual violence or weaponry or death. But then a slave can be defined as 'a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person'. People on workfare could be said to meet this description, as they are under the domination of the government/social services who will remove their life sustaining benefits if they don't work for free, but this is argued to be an inappropriate term because of the historical context around slavery. Fair enough. This is the case for slavery. Not for war, though. Granted there are still people experiencing slavery today, the fallout from it is still very real and it's undeniably a very real problem that ruins lives. But this is also very much the case for war.

I just can't help but wonder why this casual use of the term war has come about unremarked upon. I can't imagine someone who has written a successful book talking about it being subject to a studio 'bidding war', to a WWII veteran with one leg. Odds are it could happen and neither party would think anything of it. It just strikes me as odd.

Maybe people are more comfortable with using the term war as it is taken to mean 'conflict', and it's very hard to avoid conflict in normal everyday life, whereas most people can easily go their whole lives without enslaving anyone or committing genocide.

I don't have an answer or any real alternative for this situation, other than to highlight a supposed double standard that nobody else seems to have picked up on. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I could suggest that this was an orchestrated attempt by those in power to rob the term War of its gravitas, so that when the next full-on military war is declared (let's say against, oh, I don't know, Iran, to pick a country entirely at random), people are more likely to just tut and sigh, rather than stage massive protests. Another war? Just add it to the pile.

I guess we need a new word to describe initiating a conflict without a violent military component. I propose 'Bilgefest' or 'Lubeathon'. It would be hard for politicians or powerful individuals to declare a 'Bilgefest' and retain any credibility, so they might not bother?

Twitter: @garwboy

Valentine's Massacre

Today is Valentine's Day. SAINT Valentine's day if you want to give it it's full official title. I was told in school that St Valentine was a Roman soldier who was imprisoned for many years and wrote a love letter to his girlfriend/wife/horse every day (it was the olden days, details are sketchy), and that's why we give romantic messages or gifts on the day named in his honour.

This raised several questions, like; since when did they have a functional postal service in ancient Rome? Was it customary practice for the less-enlightened enemies of the empire to provide their prisoners with writing materials and generously deliver their letters for them? What was someone with the ability to read and write doing in a combat situation where they could get captured anyway? This suggests more of a noble background, they didn't do grunt work like that, surely? Maybe all of my arguments are valid, but it happened anyway? This would most likely count as the miracle required to achieve sainthood, so at least it's consistent in a way.

This is all academic anyway, seeing as my attempts to find this account of the origins of St Valentine's day drew precisely nothing. I can't find any mention of this bizarre origin story online. I suspect my rambling old headmaster accidentally picked up a Mills and Boon book instead of his prepared notes for the assembly where he told us about where Valentine's day originates, and as such I have this implausible anecdote lodged in my memory.

But any attempt to find out exactly where Valentine's day comes from is tricky. Just try it. St Valentine was a composite of 14 different people. Or 7. Or just the one. And he was a Roman nobleman. Or not. There are very little (if any) reliable records about who he was and what he did. He's essentially the 'Where's Wally' of saints. The festival in his name appears to have just come from nowhere.

That's often the way with well accepted themes and symbols though, their origins are either arbitrary, unknown or quite surreal, e.g. Father Christmas's red outfit being due to a Coca Cola advert. Some things are even more sinister though, like the supposed origin of the phrase 'Rule of Thumb'. Again, that's not so certain. It's believed to derive from a law that states men could beat their wife with a stick 'no thicker than their thumb'. However, this law never existed. 'Never base a cliché on domestic violence' would, ironically, be a good rule of thumb.

So where do all these Valentines symbols and themes come from? What does chocolate, love notes (later cards), flowers, cherubs, hearts, arrows, all that, where does all that come from? Again, the origins are nowhere near as twee and gushy as that.

The heart seems to take precedence as the organ that most represents Valentine's day. This is most likely due to the fact that the heart perceptibly changes it's activity in response to stimuli like arousal or anything involving hormone release. Arguably, there are certain other organs which noticeably respond to hormone release, and probably have a more direct link to romance, but society has deemed that these are not suitable for children to see, not even in cartoon form.

So where does all this symbolism come from? Well Valentine's day as a festival was, supposedly, introduced and emphasised to supplant pagan festivals with similar themes. A lot of pagan rituals have a fertility emphasis and so on, convert-hungry Christianity at the time would have noticed that offering chastity and discipline wouldn't have been much of a marketing strategy in getting people to sign up.

So you have this Christian ceremony of romance and passion, but presented within the paradoxically rigid framework of the religion which teaches self-discipline and that pre-marital anything is a sin. Religion in general has never had much of a problem with illogical teachings though, so this problem wasn't really of any concern.

Life when Valentine's day was introduced would have been largely based in rural communities, and this would have been the case for some time. The melting pots of cities are harder places to enforce strict religious dogma, but the traditional, rigid, land-based regions are much more amenable to discipline and hard work. Farming, woodland areas, that sort of thing, small communities ruled over by an fearsome preacher or pastor who whips them into a frenzy when it's time to go burn/drown a witch (depending on which country we're talking about).

Such places would take a very intolerant approach to youthful high jinks and deviance from the strict rules the Bible (or any religious text) demands. Fundamentalist areas are the same today, they just now usually have inconvenient 'laws' to stick to before dishing out the brutal punishments.

But if history has taught us anything, it's that horny teenagers can't be stopped by strict rules. If anything, that makes them worse. So in these strict religious communities, on St Valentine's day, when romance and passion were [technically] encouraged, teenagers who have been developing a mutual attraction to each other would arrange an illicit meet up in a secluded area, knowing there'd be dreadful punishment if they were caught. As being seen talking together would automatically arouse suspicion in communities where everyone knew everyone, they communicated via letters and notes, if they could write (hence the Valentine letter, later cards, tradition, and of course they had to be anonymous in case somebody else found them and they got into trouble).

If they couldn't read and write (which was more common) they had to leave a symbol, something romantic but easy to get hold of in rural communities, like flowers. The recipient would then look for the person carrying around the same type of flower, so they knew who had asked them for a 'hook up'.

Of course, fundamental religious communities don't look kindly on this sort of thing. Those teenagers that were caught mid-dalliance in the woods or other secluded areas, committing the cardinal sin of lust, were punished brutally. As the heart was believed to be the seat of emotions and behaviour, and these teenagers were guilt of a deadly sin, they were typically shot by crossbow through the heart, in front of everyone, in order to set an example, or to 'release the demons in them', or something like that. And so we get the image of an arrow through the heart.

Some wilier or well-off culprits were able to negotiate being spared their lives, if they made a substantial donation to the church and agreed to marry their partner immediately, hence the tradition of expensive gifts and proposals.

Of course, small communities with limited law enforcement authorities can't police the wide rural areas in an attempt to catch unruly teen lovers, so it was traditional to co-opt the local children who would go out exploring or playing. If they saw a couple up to 'no good', they could run back and tell the local magistrate or whoever, and they'd be caught and executed in the 'traditional' way. The child informants would be rewarded with sweetmeats and stuff, and so we have the tradition of giving chocolate on valentine's day, and also the image of the cherub, an innocent child shooting young lovers through the heart, seeing as many young kids actively went searching for courting couples to rat out, and essentially get them shot.

So there you have it, a rather grim and brutal story of intolerance, betrayal and death underpins all of our Valentine's traditions. It's essentially based on ritual massacre of young lovers. The 1929 Valentine's massacre was just keeping up the tradition.

You may be wondering why you've never heard any of this before. Is it some corporate or church cover up, to preserve the pleasant image of the annual event and keep people participating?

Or is it because I've just made the whole thing up? Because I have. Valentine's day symbolism is just a mish-mash of Greco-Roman mythology, symbols of fertility and a big helping of commercially manufactured elements. But my version sounds quite believable, doesn't it? So feel free to tell any sappy gits who keep banging on about the gushy, twee aspects of the holiday, perhaps making them think the whole thing is based on child informants and ritual execution might put them off finally?

The origins of Valentine's day are largely artificial constructs anyway, so there's no reason why we can't introduce some darker elements to the story, to try and offset the overly-saccharine elements of the holiday as it currently stands. Consider that my gift to you.

Happy Valentine's!

Don't read this! It'll destroy your brain! (Susan Greenfield article)

Baroness Susan Greenfield has been at it again. Weirdly, out of all people, I was called on to write a rebuttal piece, for the Telegraph of all things.

However, those who know my writing will probably realise that I'm never that concise and clear. My original piece was more verbose and piss-taking in its tone.

Here's the original

(NB: Any Telegraph readers who have found themselves here, this is usually used as a science-themed comedy blog, not a serious science one. Just a heads up, as odds are you were expecting the latter)

Baroness Greenfield has espoused yet again on the potential damage that video games and other technological entertainments are wreaking on the brains of young people.

The key word there is 'potential'. The potential damage could be quite significant. Similarly, if I get hit by a bus, the potential damage to me could be very significant. But this doesn't mean it's definitely going to happen. The mere existence of a possibility is not cause for alarm. As a result, I don't feel like I'm dicing with death whenever I need to leave the house. If I did, I'd probably have massive anxiety attacks whenever I realise I've run out of milk. I don't, though.

As a doctor of Behavioural Neuroscience who works teaching Psychiatry via an online course, I have a special interest in how our brains are influenced by our behaviours, but also the view that electronic media can damage our brains is, by necessity, almost the exact opposite of my own. If Baroness Greenfield is ever proven conclusively to be right, my job will be the first thing to go, so I'm not exactly unbiased when it comes to her claims.

Admittedly, Greenfield's claims have an element of accuracy to them, but it's always aggravating to see people use some basic facts to support outlandish, harmful conclusions, lending them credibility where shouldn't really be any.

Greenfield recently made several comments on the matter of computer games.

"Technology that plays strongly on the senses – like video games – can literally "blow the mind" by temporarily or permanently deactivating certain nerve connections in the brain, the Baroness said".

First off, 'literally "blow the mind"'? Ten points off for a seriously dubious use of the word 'literally'. What does 'blow the mind' literally mean? 'Blow' as in physically cause to explode? Or 'blow' as in force air into or over something? The former would mean the complete physical destruction of the brain by use of force, the latter would mean exposing the brain to the external environment and applying air pressure to it. Neither of these is particularly beneficial to an individual, and those who have experienced such things seldom survive long enough to confirm whether the experience was enjoyable in any way. If video games did literally 'blow the mind', they probably wouldn't be as popular. Or, in fact, legal.

[N.B. Professional pedantry: 'Mind' in scientific terms has no universally accepted definition, and is presently impossible to measure, observe or quantify, so the majority of behavioural and neurological studies simply have to ignore it as a factor altogether. But I'll ignore that matter here (a certain irony there)].

But pedantry aside, the temporary or permanent deactivation of nerve connections in the brain is implied to be a negative consequence of excessive computer game playing, as opposed to a perfectly normal and actually quite essential occurrence in a typical, healthy brain. A great deal of the brain's connections are actually used for deactivating other connections and processes. Arguably the brain's most powerful neurotransmitter (the chemicals used by neurones to communicate with each other) is gamma Aminobutyric acid (GABA), which is inhibitory, meaning it stops activity in other cells. And it's really good at this.

The constant deactivating of parts of the brain is vital to our functioning as normal cognitive beings. There can be times when too much of the brain is active at once, and these are seldom good things, as anyone who's had a seizure or violent hallucination will probably attest to. You could argue that Baroness Greenfield is referring to specific, damaging connections, but I can only be as precise in my comments as she is being in hers. Areas of the brain being shut down or deactivated is as normal a part of development as losing your milk teeth.

She told the Daily Telegraph last night: "The human brain has evolved to adapt to the environment. It therefore follows that if the environment is changing, it will have an impact on your brain.

Baroness Greenfield is right in this, the human brain does adapt to its environment. And changing in response to a changing environment is what allowed mankind to survive as a species. I'm actually impressed by the way she's managed to take this extremely impressive and vital property of the brain and turn it into a negative. That takes some doing.

"If you play computer games to the exclusion of other things this will create a new environment that will have new effects ... every hour you spend in front of a screen is an hour not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug."

The problem here is that this effect is not specific to video games. Anything you do excessively will create a new environment that your brain will eventually adapt to. If you are a keen fisherman you will spend a great deal of time staring at a large volume of water while holding an elaborate stick. Does this have long-term effect on your brain structure? Most likely, yes. Is it seriously damaging? Not that anyone is aware of, in fact most people will argue the opposite. The fish probably wouldn't, but then they rarely say anything of interest.

And yes, every hour you spend in front of a screen is an our not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug. And every hour you spend on a train is not spent on a horse. What of it? Every hour spent doing something is an hour not spent doing something else. You may feel that climbing trees is a more 'positive' activity than video games, but that's purely a subjective view. Climbing trees is undoubtedly a healthy, enjoyable past time, but I think most people would agree though that you have less chance of genuinely falling and breaking your neck while playing on an X-box.

And let's be honest, which is more likely to end up at a psychologist's first? A child who plays a lot of video games, or a child who tends to hug someone constantly for a full hour? I know who I'd worry more about.

... the Baroness urged pupils “to be outside, to climb trees and feel the grass under your feet and the sun on your face".

Yes, as above, indeed this is a good idea, but this black-and-white view that outdoors = good, indoors = bad is seriously simplistic and undoubtedly flawed. A lot of bad things happen outside, as a flick through any mainstream newspaper will tell you.

"Screen technologies cause high arousal, which in turn activates the brain system’s underlying addiction and reward, resulting in the attraction of yet more screen-based activity, the Baroness said.

Again, yes. This is a largely accurate statement. But it's annoying how people (scientists in particular) will use long-winded, verbose methods of describing something in order confuse people, and attribute a meaning to it which suits their arguments. In this case, the phrase "high arousal, which in turn activates the brain system’s underlying addiction and reward, resulting in the attraction of yet more ... activity" is more commonly known as 'fun' or 'enjoyment'. This same effect can be seen in football fans or pretty much anyone who has a persistent hobby. The long-term damaging effects of these aren't being questioned, so what sets video games apart as a negative? The intense visual stimuli? The interactive nature of them? The requirement for concentration? The competitive element? All of these factors apply the any sport you want to name.

The visual aspect of video games is only 'intense' or 'excessive' when considered in technological terms. In real terms, you'll still get a more rich and detailed visual experience from opening a fridge. The brain can handle way more than what even the most powerful console can throw at it (although this seems to not be the case for Baroness Greenfield)

The average child will spend almost 2,000 hours in front of a screen between their tenth and eleventh birthdays, she added.

I don't know where this figure comes from, as no references were provided with this piece. But even if it is right, what of it? Welcome to 21st century Western society. Everything has a screen now. I currently own about 7. I've got one in my pocket at all times, odds are you will have too. That's where we get all our information from now.

A while ago, it was books. Some people would spend a lot of time reading books, which are rectangular, information-rich objects that could cause intense arousal and engage many brain regions. But people who condemn books aren't usually respected for it.

Comparing the dangers to the lack of awareness about the health risks of smoking in the 1950s, she said playing too many computer games could cause a shorter attention span and more reckless behaviour in children.

An unfair comparison which does the Baroness no credit. Indeed, the dangers of smoking weren't know about for a long time, too long for many. But this doesn't mean the same is true for everything else. But smoking involves a process whereby poisonous chemicals are inserted directly into the human lungs. Unless you want to melt them down and directly inhale the fumes, video games cannot do this. All they can do is activate sensory and physical processes in people that were in place anyway. By making this alarming, scaremongering comparison, the Baroness could be said to be implying that stimulation can give you cancer. I genuinely don't think she is doing this, but when you make such alarmist comments, you leave yourself open to such criticisms.

Several scientific studies have suggested that playing an excessive number of computer games or spending too much time surfing the internet can have a physical impact on the brain.

Again, I don't know which studies this is referring to, but it's hardly surprising. The key word is 'excessive'. Excess is a negative term, it means 'too much'. You could replace the word 'computer games' in the sentence above with 'poker playing', 'piano lessons' or 'flower arranging' and the outcome would be the same. As stated previously, too much of anything will cause physical changes in the brain (sorry, have a 'physical impact'), as the brain adapts to better deal with your behaviour. That's why we get better at things with constant practice. Again, this is normally something to be appreciated, but here it's a bad thing.

A paper published earlier the summer in the PLoS ONE journal indicated that internet addiction could rewire brain structures in the inner brain, and even cause shrinkage in grey matter.

In a critique of video games, an article about internet addiction is cited. Odd, that. But I've encountered 'the internet'. There are a lot of things on 'the internet'. This term is extremely vague, like describing a hardcore football fanatic as 'fond of competitiveness'. It's essentially correct, but doesn't really tell you the important bits. And once again 'could' stands out like a sore thumb. As far as the brain is concerned, doing anything constantly for long enough could have all manner of detrimental effects. This is not enough to base firm conclusions on, far from it.

Also, if we're being pedantic, the use of the term 'addicted' means the brain has already been rewired. That's essentially what differentiates addiction from 'excessive use'. So brain rewiring can cause brain rewiring? Quite a tautology.

Another study by Japanese scientists ten years ago warned that because video games only stimulate the brain regions responsible for vision and movement, other parts of the mind responsible for behaviour, emotion and learning could become underdeveloped.

'Could' they now? Funny how some so many bad things 'could' happen. I 'could' develop an aneurysm while reading one of Baroness Greenfield's books. It's a distinct possibility, but not enough to have them banned. I wouldn't even think about demanding it.

Every one of Greenfield's arguments seems to boil down to 'Too much [X] causes a normal brain to adapt in response. These brain changes may have negative consequences', where [X] is video games or other electronic distractions, which seem to be her personal bugbear.

But other scientists have claimed that certain games can help the brain in a variety of ways such as treating post-traumatic stress disorder, boosting intelligence and developing the memory.

This is just a positive spin on my main argument. The brain changes, you use certain parts of it a lot for certain tasks, those parts will alter and possibly grow in size and complexity, whereas lesser used parts will atrophy somewhat. Video games are very complex activities, so the brain will become more efficient at performing more complex actions in response. It's unsurprising that this may have beneficial consequences, as well as potentially negative ones.

There are undoubtedly many things to criticise about video games. They can be needlessly violent, they can be quite unrewarding, perhaps it is unwise to subject children to such graphic themes, perhaps they do teach children unrealistic or dubious things. But each of these criticisms can easily be levelled at any entertainment format. I struggle to see how an hour spent coordinating a detailed assault on a virtual enemy stronghold is more detrimental than an hour spent watching naive young people having their ambitions crushed in front of millions on the X-Factor. But that's just me.

The use of electronic media is an undeniable fact of life now, and is changing the way we see the world. In many ways, it's encouraging that so many children become adept at computer-based activities from such a young age; it'll give them more of a chance of making it in an increasingly technical society. It certainly did for me.

Baroness Greenfield clearly has her reasons for disliking computer games and other electronic entertainments, and they well be noble, well-meaning ones. But this does not justify the use of junk science or the public stating of overblown conclusions based on little or no evidence. With every unsubstantiated claim that video games cause children to become socially deficient or distant, Baroness Greenfield in turn distances herself further from the scientific community that once had such respect for her.

Twitter: @garwboy

Astrology for the Scientific

I've no doubt that this sort of thing has been done dozens of times before by people better at it than me. But it's Sunday, and I'm bored.

So, I saw via that there twitter that some people are claiming that astrology effectively predicted Hurricane Irene. I don't know if that means they predicted it would happen in general, or that it would strike land at a specific time, or that it would be a certain intensity or blah blah blah. If they predicted it happening in general, I'm sure meteorologists would have done that with a greater degree of certainty long before anyone consulted the star charts. But that's just me, ever the dismissive cynic.

Astrology in general is believed to have predicted many things, like the September the 11^thattacks, Royal Weddings, several wars and lord knows what else. I believe these questionable 'successes' can be explained by what is known in the scientific circles as 'throw enough shit at a wall and some will stick' technique. But I will admit to having a soft spot for astrology, despite what I may have said in the past. I always appreciate creativity, even when it's not something I'd necessarily approve of or agree with. But people love horoscopes and star signs, the thought that our lives are being influenced by something bigger and more powerful than we are is obviously very reassuring to many people (see also; All religions ever). I've even dabbled with writing horoscopes myself before now.

So overall, I feel us sciencey types are missing out with our knee-jerk dismissals of all things astrological. So, to hopefully address this concern, here is a new, revamped star chart for scientists, rationalists, sceptics and the like. What does your star-sign say about cynical old you? Find out*.

PLUTONIOUS

(Jan 20^th – Feb 18^th)

You are a brash and confident seeming, with an outgoing exterior that hides a crippling self-doubt and neurosis that eats away at you and will eventually cause you to blurt out all of your worries and fears in one long stream of consciousness, probably to a nearby commuter who will seriously consider alerting the police about you. Scientifically, you will end up in a discipline that sounds very impressive (e.g. Nuclear Physics, Genetic modification, Germ warfare) but makes people back away slowly when you tell them what is you do, which you will do often. If you end up doing research, you will publish your results anywhere as long is means you're first author. If it's a disreputable or poor-credibility journal, you will tell people that they were the only ones who would publish your data as it's 'too groundbreaking' or 'the establishment don't want people to hear it'. A Plutonius is most likely to be the 'lone maverick' or 'sole dissenting voice' when it comes to controversial theories, and will inevitably cause a public panic or scandal. You assume parties never go on later than 10pm, because that's when everyone has left whenever you go to one.

Likes: Olivia Lee, Heston Blumenthal, Hawaiian Shirts, 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Dislikes: All Bran, poets, the peer review process, JLS.

PAISCES

(Feb 19^th – Mar20^th)

Numbers are your friends. Even the imaginary ones. Ergo, you have imaginary friends. Your meticulous devotion to the mathematical properties of everyday life mean people are always keen to get your help when dealing with taxes and such, but you don't get invited out for dinner often, as you have an unsettling habit of only ever eating the items on your plate in a specific order, and your tendency to argue over what constitutes an appropriate tip gets quite embarrassing. Every collection of items you own (DVD's, pens, socks, books) adds up to a prime number. You are not consciously aware of this, but would be pleased if you found out. You have no particular style or appearance, but however you look you are always perfectly symmetrical. Animals tend to look at you with suspicion. You will probably have been tested for autism at some point in your life. You don't really see the point in Sudoku, you never even have to fill it in order to solve it. A Paisces is highly likely to be involved in some heavily numerical discipline, and more are entering the financial sector these days as the huge numbers being used constantly excites them in ways they're not keen to tell people about.

Likes: Pub Quiz machines, logic puzzles, Russell Crowe, the Financial Times, Stephen Baxter

Dislikes: Shakespeare, Hollywood sci-fi, Carol Vorderman, the X-factor, train stations

MARIECURIES

(Mar 21^st – Apr 19^th)

You are strident and forthright, but not in a way that's helpful to you or your career. Everyone is plotting against you. It's likely that your theory about this is true, but it's more often than not a consequence rather than a cause of your behaviour. You are keen to have a family while keeping your career going, largely just to show people you are capable of that. A Mariecuries may enter any number of scientific fields, but once there they will be very prolific, producing data and forging a reputation at the expense of any personal interaction or social skills. You want people to know your name, and they probably will, but any time they say it it'll be prefaced with the words 'Oh no! It's...', or some variation of this. A Mariecuries will get involved with causes of any sort; as long as they a) agree with them, and b) it'll give them a legitimate excuse to berate people and make themselves better known ('a' can be disregarded if the opportunity for 'b' is big enough). If you have a Mariecurie in your lab or institution they will do the work of 3 people, but you're likely to lose at least twice as many due to sudden resignations.

Likes: Ann Widdecombe, twitter, reputable journals, Simon Pegg, online commenting systems

Dislikes: Lottery winners, Simon Cowell, Anime, Banksy, The Guardian.

BOREUS

(Apr 20^th – May 20^th)

You have a very wide range of interests and will absorb and retain information very readily. This is usually at the expense of any ability to relay this information to other people in a manner which is in any way interesting or succinct. You think of clothing purely in terms of what offers the best protection from likely environmental conditions, and see food purely as an energy resource. If it ever did occur to you to go to a high-class restaurant, you would expect the prices to be indicative of the amount of consumable mass you will be given. As a Boreus, you will be ideally suited to lecturing, on any subject that has enough information to fill an hours-long monologue. You have no problem with continuous talking and are actually under the impression that people's default expression is one of crushing apathy or semi-consciousness. Invitations to attend meetings or give speeches rapidly decline as you get older. Depending on age, a Boreus is highly likely to be a big fan of Dungeons and Dragons or World of Warcraft (online). Relationships are sustainable only with partners who understand that it is purely just a means of reproducing and providing offspring with a minimal risk environment in which to develop, in order to ensure survival of genetic information, although a committed Boreus will be happy to explain in depth why this instinct is just an evolved tendency that isn't really essential to anyone who will listen (i.e. No-one)

Likes: Ledgers, grain, books with an index section, the dewy decimal system, cottage cheese.

Dislikes: Twitter, theme parks, news bulletins, the colour purple, Michael McIntyre.

FLORENI

(May 21^st – Jun 20^th)

You are a do-gooder, with helpful intentions that border on the pathological. You will have mastered any and all helpful skills (CPR, Fire safety, Bomb disposal etc.) that you have had the opportunity to learn, and will jump at any chance to put these into practice, even to the extent of assuming minor situations are actually life-threatening so you can spring into action, much to the annoyance of everyone involved. You will most likely be involved in scientific field that has some focus on human health or biology, such as medical doctor, gene therapy, biological research and so on. You will have entered the field 'to help people', as you reflexively tell anyone who has the misfortune to ask you, as they will then be given a 10 minute treatise as to the value of your work in human terms. Your desire to help and be helpful means others will take advantage of your well meaning tendencies, to the point where you become overworked and stressed to far beyond your ability to handle. As a Floreni, you will have several options at this point, but most people opt for either snapping and killing themselves (and many others) in a huge public incident, or resorting to alcohol and narcotics more and more intensely until you find yourself screaming at squirrels in a park for stealing all your marmite (or other spreadable preserve). Any children born to Florenies are likely to experience deep psychological issues after a lifetime of being pampered and experiencing zero risk or challenge.

Likes: ER, Doctor Who, Children in Need, the NHS, fun runs, Vegetables, Red Wine, Aeroplane socks.

Dislikes: House M.D., Scotland, Politicians, the Grand Theft Auto franchise, Secret Santa, Turkish delight.

CHANCER

(Jun 21^st – Jul 22^nd)

You are generally a passive person, one who lets events affect him/her rather than deciding your own course in life. However, when good fortune does come your way, your ability to deal with it and exploit it is minimal so you just make it up as you go along, and end up coming across as, at best, a baffling eccentric or, at worst, a power hungry idiot. Scientifically, you will probably end up in whichever field is most convenient, be it due to parental influence, pre-existing interests or it being a subject taught in a convenient university which accepts you based on the grades you're likely to get. Career progression will be achieved by stepping in for more senior people who leave. A low-level, uninspiring career is likely, except when, as sometimes happens, you stumble upon a new discovery or important finding that will have you achieving notoriety well beyond your competence level. You will either try to coast on this for several years until everyone notices that you've not produced any follow-up work and promptly forget about you, or you will try to make some clever-sounding claims about what your discovery means that will be poorly thought out and annoy everyone else in the field. You will not be shy of commitment in a relationship, as you will desperately need someone to make all the big decisions for you for your own safety. You will also tend to avoid people in your on field as they tend to make you realise the extent to which you've a very poor understanding of what it is you do.

Likes: Public transport, Supernanny, life coaches, CCTV, ready meals.

Dislikes: Elections, audits, assault courses, sushi, delegation, improvised comedy.

Neo

(Jul 23^rd – Aug 22^nd)

You are 'cool'. By which I mean you think you're cool, but go out of your way to show others how cool you are, which is not cool. You are interested in science because it is not as 'square' as it used to be, it features in a lot more films these days and allows you to affect an air of nonchalant superiority when you tell non-scientists what you do (which is probably something cutting edge and/or slightly dangerous, such as nanotechnology or drug development). Your desire to appear cool often clashes with your scientific instincts, such as wearing shades in low-light environments, boasting about your vegetarianism while wearing leather jackets, tweeting about the disgraceful consumerist attitudes of society via an iPhone, and so on. You will embrace all new trends and technologies in order to exploit the brief window where you're more 'ahead' of the rest of the people you know. You will behave similarly in your scientific work, favouring more unlikely and obscure conclusions and theories purely to stand apart from accepted wisdom and get noticed. This will happen, and you'll be labelled a dickhead. You may find yourself working with the media far more than anticipated, but nowhere near as much as you'd truly like.

Likes: Steve Jobs, Night clubs, swords, martial arts, the Sopranos, Thai food.

Dislikes: Carol Vorderman, Nokia phones, the peer-review process, blue cheese, golf, the periodic table.

Vogon

(Aug 23^rd – Sept 22^nd)

You have borderline sociopathic tendencies. You're love of science stems from a deep-seated dislike of people in general. You may have had several negative experiences as a young child that led you to develop this loathing for your fellow man, but are unaware that, in a social context, they were largely self-inflicted. You pursue science, most likely in a biological discipline but not always, as it allows you to mentally reduce human beings to a collection of unconscious processes and also makes it somewhat easier for you to kill them if it ever comes to that. You think this will happen. You will probably excel in your scientific career, seeing as you care not for the concern and respect of others and completely lack even the vaguest hint of a social life. This allows you to get a lot of work done and data produced in a much shorter space of time, and this will reflect well on you with regards to people who don't know you and have no contact with you. The idea of a relationship with someone genuinely baffles you. You invariably dress smartly or at least in a standard manner as anything unusual means attention from people, and you don't want that. Not until you can find a suitable place to hide the bodies, anyway.

Likes: Band saws, plagues, private Health care, silence, the X factor.

Dislikes: Jehovah's Witnesses, Telesales, public transport, pubs, the immune system.

COXIAN

(Sept 23^rd – Oct 22^nd)

You are a somewhat other-worldly creature. Although physically a normal human in appearance and anatomy, mentally you dwell in some other world where the norms are your own. People often ask you if you're stoned or inebriated, you will reassure them at first then become distracted by your own wandering brain again, leaving them none the wiser over all. You care deeply about science as it means you might be able to eventually investigate the wild flights of fancy that occur to you approximately 34 times an hour. You will eventually gravitate towards quantum mechanics, parallel worlds theory, or one of the other sciences which still operates on a largely theoretical basis, so as to not spoil your daydreams with brutal logic and evidence. Your life could end up being a risky one, as although everyone will think of you as harmless of possibly endearing, you do have a concentration problem which means you are more likely to walk in front of buses or fall down manholes. The opposite sex will invariably be drawn to you, but they will eventually express their frustration with your lack of attention to them and leave in a huff. Maybe half the time, you'll notice this has happened.

Likes: Exotic cheese, Futurama, mountaintops, Steve Martin, the Vengaboys.

Dislikes: Census forms, the Peer review process, textbooks, gravity, open manholes.

VENOMUS

(Oct 23^rd – Nov 21^st)

You are the rugged outdoors type. Everything about you says adventure and exploration. You suffer from almost crippling claustrophobia. You will end up pursuing any scientific discipline that allows you to go to places where most people wouldn't go to and have a look around, possibly chopping at bits of it with a comically exaggerated machete. Zoology, geology, anthropology, anything like this gets you going (figuratively and literally). Your preferences mean you may have difficulty dealing with others. You have so many experiences and adventures you wish to tell people about that it's difficult for them to get a word in. Your constant thrill seeking means you will have trouble finding a partner. Some people propose or get married during a bungee jump, you'd probably need to conduct an entire relationship via one. Although an academic career is something you couldn't physically endure, but stories of your escapades will help inspire others into being interested and respecting science, right up to the point where all your good work is undone when you succumb to a hitherto undiscovered and harmless looking poison snail.

Likes: Jungles, adrenalin, arctic explorer ships, barbecues, Bear Grylles.

Dislikes: Desks, suits, mortgages, budget airlines, David Attenborough.

SAGGYWEARYUS

(Nov 22^nd – Dec 21^st)

Despite your best efforts, you will inevitably end up as the type of scientist that is often regarded as 'ridiculous stereotype'. If you are male, you'll start to develop unruly white hair, a ridiculous moustache at some time around your 21^st Birthday, and it will get worse from there. You will discover all your clothes are made from tweed and can be worn over or under a lab coat with little or no bother. You may find yourself starting to speak with an Eastern European lilt for no discernible reason. Regardless of the scientific discipline you are involved with or what level you're at, people will start calling you 'Professor', to the point where you are officially declared one and are given all the associated responsibilities of one. You won't have a clue what you're doing, but it's Ok as everyone will assume you're an eccentric genius. If you are female, the exact same will happen, but instead of a moustache you'll grow shorter, and wear your hair in a bun.

Likes: Tweed, animals, tolerant postgraduates, rats, blackboards, port.

Dislikes: The internet, hip-hop, Starbucks, flamingos, lager.

CAPRIPORN

(Dec 22^nd – Jan 19^th)

Urrghh. You know what you're like, I see no reason to state it here. Disgusting.

Likes: [CENSORED]

Dislikes: Overly-curious computer repair technicians.

* = I'd say one person at most will conform to these outrageous exaggerations. Happy scienceing!

Email: Humourology (at) live.co.uk

Twitter: @garwboy