I spent yesterday doing something I'd never done before - being a videographer. It was the Young Storyteller of the Year competition and I was in charge of recording the performances. It was trickier than I realised; if I let the performances distract me (all too easy - we had an excellent line-up) the more active ones might catch me napping and make it out of shot. A couple of them did, if only for a moment. Oops. I thought it was harder work than stewarding, but did have the advantage that I got to see all the competitors for once.

It didn't help that the hall was sweltering for some reason, despite the fans and the fire doors wide open to let in the March air. Making a rod for my own back, I spent the lunch break and judges' conference time backing up the videos instead of getting outside. A couple of people commented on my slightly wilted look when we were done!

Finally, to the tavern for a couple of cold Newkies with dreamfire and others. Ahh.

And one last note - I don't know whether a change of client would fix it, but one of our storytelling group doesn't seem to have caught on that when she hits 'Reply' the email goes to the sender of the message to which she is replying, rather than psychically divining which person in the chain she actually wants to talk to and addressing itself to them. I wonder whether teaching her how to use 'Reply to all' would make things better or worse...

First the awesome:

All Alone in the Night - Time-lapse footage of the Earth as seen from the ISS

I think no comment is required.

And the fail:

100% PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS - MUST SEE ALL ATHEISTS

Need I mention that it's totally not? It's laughable. ( Just a few of the howlers: )

Now go back and watch the awesome one again.

Sometimes a great deal of ink is spilled without saying anything at all – or at least, anything that speaks to me. Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks' Standpoint article The Limits of Secularism is one such. Even if I allow every single thing Sacks says, the question remains: “So you think I should do what, exactly?”

For, while I'm sure the article will do a splendid job of assisting Standpoint's target audience in patting themselves on the back, it got nowhere with me. Third paragraph from the end, we have:

Putnam argued in his book American Grace, that what makes the difference to people, turning them into good citizens and good neighbours, is belonging to a community, rather than what people believe. He wrote that an atheist who goes regularly to synagogue or to church is likely to be a better human being than a religious believer who never joins a community.

With a quick 'WTF' over Sacks' failure to consider the existence of communities not bound together by superstition, let us move on to his conclusion:

A society without faith is like one without art, music, beauty or grace, and no society without faith can endure for long.

Yes, he definitely does mean religious faith. So, Rabbi, I ask again, what exactly do you want of me? Will society crumble unless I embrace some religion, any religion, or is going to church and taking part in bake sales now and again sufficient?

All this article convinces me to do is read more humanist philosophy. Secular society is a relatively recent phenomenon, and even if it weren't doing okay so far, would retreating into myth really be a good answer? Boiled down, Sacks' argument is a paean to the Good Lie.

A look-worthy Telegraph article on the subject of the gay marriage debate made this aside:

On the other side, people throw around strange accusations, like that gay marriage will lead to people marrying their dogs, or legalised paedophilia, as though animals and children can consent to marriage.

Which prompted this comment:

Your [Chivers'] argument about consent is a mere sophistry.

Consent is, if anything, a less necessary component of marriage than is having two sexes involved. Indeed, throughout history and geography, it's doubtful whether marriages involving true consent are actually particularly more common than those involving mere acquiescence or even active non-consent.

Sadly, in terms of what does go on, he's a hundred per cent correct. It seems to me that his error lies in conflating 'is' with 'ought' and not realising that Chivers' argument was about what should go on.

The comments thread in general is hitting all the bingoes. The people who just don't appear to get the consent issue have me torn between hysterical laughter and headdesking to unconsciousness - leaning towards the latter when I consider that in at least some cases the root of their confusion is that they think lack of objection equals consent.

It would be nice to think GOLD did it on purpose, but it's probably coincidence. I just watched a Bit of Fry & Laurie sketch about a privatised police force. It ended with the Hugh Laurie character getting arrested for having walked in the street - also privatised - without paying.

In other television-related news, I started watching The Almighty Johnsons more because the concept interested me than because I was expecting to like it; but it's growing on me. While I was a bit leery of the entirely-male protagonist line-up, suspicions of a battle-of-the-sexes theme were aroused in the first episode and explicitly confirmed in the third. I'm assuming the writers don't plan on simply having the men win and the women lose; that would be annoying and frightfully dull. What's more, even with their message channelled through the nastiest piece of work among them, it seems that the ladies do have a point.

I believe that Mike would be incredibly dangerous if he ever chose to use his powers to their full extent, which is probably part of the reason why he's so hesitant to use them at all. And I really hope Anders was telling the truth about the limits to his persuasive abilities; it's one thing having a possible sociopath and definite self-centred sleaze on the 'good' team, quite another making him a serial rapist.

A fine satire upon the incredibly stupid Telegraph article making a big deal of Richard Dawkins' ancestors owning slaves:

Richard Dawkins in ‘single-celled ancestor’ shock

I particularly liked this bit:

Adam Lasher of the Telegraph said of the shock findings:

“This comes after I found out that someone in Dawkins’ family did something three hundred years ago which we now consider bad – so these latest revelations finally put paid to the belief that Dawkins comes from an infinite line of human beings with an exclusively 21st-century moral code.”

“That nobody has at any point ever held that belief is neither here nor there. All we really know is that this definitely proves that Dawkins is wrong about God”.

This sounds so like what Lusher was trying to imply, but couldn't come out and say because it's obviously ridiculous.

Speaking of 21st-century morality - will the descendants of people who work at Seaworld find themselves pilloried in three hundred years' time?

Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

The Telegraph plumbs new depths....

OMG Richard Dawkins had slave-owning ancestors!

Dawkins' view

And this matters why, exactly? I'm sure many of the religious leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, who also 'rail' and 'lecture', have men like Henry Dawkins somewhere in their family tree. It's all very well for a country, company or other institution to take responsibility for the sins of its forbears, but demanding individual accountability for the actions of a man's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is ludicrous - and this is clearly about Dawkins, not about Over Norton Park Limited. Where will it end? They might as well ask me to 'apologise and make reparations' to the descendants of the mill workers who made my ancestors their piles of money!

That didn't go badly at all. I committed a slight slip-up at the start of my story, but it wasn't hard to get around it. That's one of the beauties of storytelling - you break it, you can generally fix it without it causing problems for anyone else.

Generally. The opening of Act 2 is a different matter; the storytelling world intertwines with two other worlds, so Dawn has to follow it much more like a script. A dropped story section meant I didn't get my moment to move downstage, which wasn't easy to fix as, being a 'real world' character at the time, I was supposed to freeze during 'Shakespeare world' parts in order to avoid distraction. I had to wait until the next 'real world' bit (oddly enough, it was the part I mentioned in my last post) to get caught up. Which meant that Jon, as well as being subjected to my nasty glare, found me in the wrong place when he came charging on to yell at me.

Still, I doubt the problem was at all apparent to the audience; in fact, the performance was apparent-problem free as far as I was aware. I definitely feel better now we've had a good 'proper' show. Fingers crossed we only get better from here...

Me: So... I was thinking I could be a bit more obvious about dismissing you in this scene. Like glare at you when you say this line and then turn my back on that one.
Actor: Okay, let's do that.

The next run-through...

Actor's character: Wait!
My character: [Deathglare]
Actor: [Stares like a rabbit in headlights as the cue for his next line comes... and goes.]

Apparently I'm scarier than I thought. Poor man.

Has anybody got a human skull I could borrow for a couple of weeks? Doesn't really matter what it's made of.

Nadine Dorries is now a columnist for Conservative Home. I must make sure I stop by sometimes and see whether she's said anything mock-worthy.

Snow! Squee!