Advent 24 — The Consolation of Peace and Quiet

Alun Life 1 Comment

It’s day 24. Tra­di­tion­ally this is a double win­dow, so you get two videos.

First up is a clip for people who are not hav­ing a good Christ­mas. At the worst times, where can you find hope as an athe­ist? One answer is from the Chris­tian philo­sopher Boethius who wrote the Con­sol­a­tion of Philo­sophy. Writ­ten by a man await­ing exe­cu­tion it includes the idea that His­tory is a wheel and that life is in con­stant change. The clip below is from the film 24 Hour Party People where Boethius and his wheel make a couple of appearances.


24 Hour Party People — Boethius and his Wheel.

Finally here’s the last song from Nine Les­sons and Car­ols for God­less People from last year. If I’d real­ised someone had uploaded the whole thing then I prob­ably wouldn’t have bothered with the advent cal­en­dar. But it’s a good song to fin­ish with.


Barry Cryer and Ron­nie Golden — Peace and Quiet.

Wherever you are have a great hol­i­day season.

Advent 23 — Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot

Alun Life 1 Comment

Carl Sagan hasn’t had much of an influ­ence on me. I’ve read and enjoyed Demon Haunted World, but I’ve never seen his tele­vi­sion series. Sci­ence inspir­a­tion for me as a child was Mag­nus Pyke, David Atten­bor­ough and Tomorrow’s World (before the BBC relaunched it to death). It’s my loss obvi­ously as Carl Sagan was clearly a gif­ted writer, and Pale Blue Dot is as mov­ing as any poetry you’ll find.

Carl Sagan — Pale Blue Dot.

Advent 22 — Robin Ince on the top five dead scientists

Alun Life No Comments

The idea for the col­lec­tion of videos as an advent cal­en­dar was inspired by Nine Les­sons and Car­ols for God­less People put together by Robin Ince. He’s one of the best comedi­ans that draws inspir­a­tion from sci­ence because he joy­fully uses it as a tool for high­light­ing absurdity as opposed to a self-consciously worthy way. I highly recom­mend his Radio4 series (with Brian Cox) The Infin­ite Mon­key Cage avail­able as a pod­cast.

Robin Ince on the top five dead scientists.

Advent 17 — Sputnik fall

Alun Life 1 Comment

Tomor­row marks the anniversary of fall of Sput­nik, the first arti­fi­cial satel­lite from orbit. It’s an example of how sci­entific pro­gress so often doesn’t make much sense without the social con­text. David Hoff­man shows why the rest of the world was wor­ried by the pres­ence of a small metal ball that was briefly in orbit.

David Hoff­man shares his Sput­nik mania

Advent 16 — O’Briain and Mitchell on the paranormal

Alun Life 1 Comment

Dara O’Briain and David Mitchell demon­strate why I don’t believe in tele­pathy. It’s not so much the fact that psych­ics and tele­paths do no bet­ter than cold read­ers. Cold read­ing is a skill, and someone who knows how do it it prob­ably could leave you feel­ing stunned and a little bit violated.

It’s simply if tele­pathy, clair­voy­ance, psy­chokin­esis etc is real, why aren’t any anim­als using it to an evol­u­tion­ary advantage?

O’Briain and Mitchell on the paranormal.

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