Dear Gordon,

Dear Gordon Brown,

With interest and sadness i read over the weekend that you have seen fit to dismiss your chief drug advisor, Professor David Nutt.

Now, i can honestly say i don't have the first idea how to run this country, which puts you and me on a level pegging. I do know however, that the sacking of a government advisor for doing his job puts us into frightening territory.

I know Mr Nutt is not adverse to making headlines. I remember the time he declared that taking Ecstasy is no more dangerous than riding a horse. He rightly pointed out there were 100 deaths a year from horseriding compared to 30 deaths a year from taking Ecstasy. Do you not see that Mr Nutt only meant this statistically, and didn't deserve the dressing down he got from your valued ex-Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, for that comment?
It's no different to when people come out with ' Flying by plane is the safest form of travel '.
It is.
Statistically.
But i've had 3 car crashes and walked out of every one. I think if i'd endured 3 plane crashes, i wouldn't be here now. This makes air travel very dangerous indeed. I'm sure you can figure it out. The papers tell me you're bright so i have faith that you can, but i applaud you for your ability at keeping your intelligence well hidden.

I feel the need to firstly say why it was wrong to sack Professor Nutt. He was employed by your government to advise you on drugs. It is then down to your government to decide whether or not to take that advice. He was not there to tell you to do this or that. Not too long ago he recommended cannabis should not be reclassified from Class C to Class B. Both yourself and Jacqui Smith ignored his advice on that, and you and your new-though-no-less-incompetent Home Secretary Alan Johnson could have done so with this too.

Scientists are there to carry out and provide the results of studies and experiments. Science is the quest for knowledge but rather than point out where they're right, most scientists try to prove themselves wrong and in doing so, gain the knowledge they desire.
What you were given by Nutt et al, was the result of a study. The study was based on three factors: the drug's addictive potential, it's possible damage to the user, and it's affect on society.
Sounds like an experiment an A level student could have come up with to me. The study showed various legal drugs were considered more harmful than some that are freely available now.

Up to this point, i see no sackable offence. I see an interesting piece of work that you and your associates could have read and learned from.
I know lots of people addicted to tobacco. I also know a few who, whether they know it or not, are addicted to alcohol. I have lots of friends that have taken LSD, Ecstasy and Amphetamines. I don't know anyone addicted to any of these drugs.

If history is correct, LSD was used by the CIA in thought experiments, and it was also tried as a truth serum. Due to it being colourless, odourless and relatively tasteless, it made it the drug of choice to 'spike' someone's drink with, and the CIA spent a few months spiking their own men to see if anyone could tell they'd been spiked before the drug kicked in.
They couldn't and for a while it showed promise as a theraputic agent. It was 5 times more successful than Alcoholics Anonymous for treating people addicted to alcohol. Only when the drug was 'abused' by the great unwashed did it become illegal to carry and use.
LSD addictions are extremely rare, the chances of an LSD user harming you while on a trip are next to none as any bad trips usually result in the user being more scared of their surroundings than showing aggression towards them, and since the drug is cheap, it's damage to society by potential addicts is minimal.

I don't feel i have to address other drugs in that manner, and point out how the same could not be said of tobacco and alcohol, as these two drugs alone put a bigger strain on the NHS than any LSD user could.

My opinion changes regularly on whether or not drugs should be legalised.
I am sure though, that a person's body is their own, to do with what they please. If they choose to fill it with drugs or poisons to achieve a desired effect it is their business to do so.
I'm assuming if they stroll to McDonald's and purchase and eat a takeaway, this does not upset Alan Johnson. Yet eating McDonald's everyday is bad for you. Some say fast food is addictive too. It is something addictive that is bad for you. Some scientists (those people that don't know what they're talking about) say we're in an obesity epidemic. Gluttony is making our citizens quite ill and also applying more pressure on the NHS. Perhaps this problem needs addressing too?
A drug's potential damage to the user is simply this: none of your damn business.

Ecstasy stimulates serotonin levels in the brain. It gets inside the receptor and vacuums out the stuff, giving the user an intense feeling of euphoria and well being. If someone strives for such a mindset, surely it is fine that they go out and seek it? In Britain under a Labour government there is precious little to be happy about. If one cannot find joy at home, joy can be forced upon people with MDMA. For only 3 pounds a pill, and an effect that lasts most of the night, i fail to see how this can be damaging to society. People walking around feeling 'loved up' can only be a good thing in some towns. Nutt wanted Ecstasy reclassified from a Class A drug to Class B. This was also turned down.

Heroin and Cocaine. People steal to feed addiction to these drugs. People die from overdosing on these drugs. Ask a Heroin user what their first thought is in the morning, and it's more than likely 'How the fuck am i going to make it through today?'. It is right that Prof. Nutt put these two drugs at the top of his 'Most Dangerous' list. If you agree with this also, perhaps you might entertain the idea that he was right with the rest of his findings too.

As i mentioned before, the idea that you sack someone for not 'fitting in' to your ideals puts us into frightening territory.
You're either with us or against us, right?
I have a word for that: totalitarian. Which according to a dictionary, means a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life.

From totalitarian it's only a hop skip and a back hander to communism, which is the frightening place i refer to.

Professor David Nutt produced a study you and your government didn't like the results of, so you did away with him and will fill his slippers with someone who will fit in with your line of thinking.

'The Home Secretary's action is a bad day for science and a bad day for the cause of evidence-informed policy making'. So says the director of the centre for crime and justice.
I couldn't have put it better myself, so i won't.

Yours in tired disbelief,

Steve Eaton
Aged 33 and a half

Witches

The other day i heard some news. Family news, nothing worthy of a front page.
It turns out my brother is to be a Dad.
Becoming a parent is one of the few things i beat him to.
Knowing him as i do, i'm not entirely sure how he'll adapt to this position.

Having a child lives up to every cliche in the book. It alters you, and fundamentally changes your values and outlook on everything.

For me, when my son Jake was in utero, i thought every change was going to be for the worst. I thought my life was being taken away from me and the good times were grinding to a halt.
I was wrong, and while i shudder at the teen pregnancy trend used by young girls to gain free accommodation, i still thoroughly recommend parenthood.

I'm not about to wax lyrical about it all. As i said before, pretty much every cliche is true, and you find yourself faced with this tiny human that you're responsible for. You can fill them up with morals, values, truths and love. Or you can go the other way, and frankly i don't know how or why anyone would want to do that.

With this in mind then, i can only stand with my jaw on the floor when i hear of stories like the one about Nwanaokwo Edet. Hardly a household name i know, but Nwanaokwo was a nine year old boy from Eket in Nigeria. If you didn't hear about this story i'll quickly relay it; Nwanaokwo's family pastor accused him of being a witch. A nine year old boy remember........
As an exorcism, his father tried to force acid down his throat. As the boy struggled, the acid spilled and burned away his face and eyes. A month later he was dead.

Apparently there's a rising trend in Africa of children accused of witchcraft and then tortured and killed by their own families.

When i think of my son, i can't even think of hurting him. I'm not one who's outraged at the idea of smacking. I've smacked Jake only once, and that was on the wrist but you know what? He was being naughty and he deserved it.
I felt bloody awful after it. His face all screwed up and wet with tears. The shrieks and yells.
Usually in that circumstance you rush to comfort them, but when you've just dished out punishment, you can't.
It's a hard one, but sometimes necessary.
Thankfully not often with Jake, he's a cool kid.

The idea of beating, abusing, torturing or going near him with acid actually makes me feel sick.
I fail to see two things.
Firstly, how there could have been any love from Nwanaokwo's father towards him at any point in his nine short years.
And secondly, how fucked up people must be to believe everything their pastor says.
Let's add a third and fourth thing here: how fucked up the pastor must be to come out with such monumental bullshit, and how the job fucking lot of them manage to sleep at night knowing what they've done.

So now we approach the thorny subject of religion.
It's easy to say it's all religion's fault for a Dad throwing acid in his son's face deliberately.
If that 'Dad' wasn't such a gullible dickhead, he might have thought for himself.
If a pastor, priest, vicar, mormon, scientologist or Jehova's witness came up to me and said to me earnestly that my son is a witch and deserves to die, that person would be meeting the God they worship a lot quicker than they first anticipated.
Why then, did Nwanaokwo's Dad not share my mentality on this?

According to Fox News, it's because families are extremely poor and are sometimes grateful that there's one less mouth to feed, and because when communities are under pressure they look for a scapegoat and children are defenseless. In the past month alone, 3 Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another 3 set on fire.

In Nigeria, churches outnumber banks, clinics and schools put together. If you're a pastor, the competition is tough to recruit people to your church.
So now we're getting down to the real reason these bastards are accusing kids of being witches.
Pastors can establish their credentials by doing so. If the pastors are respected they get more people joining their church. More people joining their church means.............ker-ching!

In an odd twist, the church that this particular pastor belonged to is Mount Zion Lighthouse which is based in California. Needless to say the Californians have pleaded ignorance to it, but the Nigerian branch say that with 30 million members, they ' cant keep an eye on everybody '.
Turns out they can collect membership fees from everybody though.

There's more horror stories: one child's mother tried to saw the top of her skull off after a pastor denounced her, another was buried alive and let's not forget the one who was starved, then made to eat cement and finally set on fire.
For me, this opens up so many questions about the nature of religion and the screaming divide between our country and those in the third world.

Science, industry, knowledge and technology surge forward relentlessly, and some citizens of this planet are being left behind. The gap is only getting bigger to me, as stories like this one show.
The actions of these ' parents ' are signs of out and out madness, but at least they used religion as an excuse eh? Baby P's Mum was just an evil fucker.

I hope as my son grows up he'll realise how fortunate he is to have been born here and in this day and age. I'll certainly try my best to make him see it.

It's Halloween on Saturday. He'll be going out with his Mum Trick or Treating. He's 7 now, so he's still at the age where he believes in the kid stuff like the Tooth Fairy, Father Christmas, and ghosts and goblins.

Long may that continue. It's what being a kid is all about isn't it? Believing in magic and fairy tales. I stopped believing in that stuff a while ago. But then i hear about people setting fire to their own kids because somebody told them they were Witches and i realise that monsters really do exist, and that ignorance can be the scariest thing of all.

It Begins......

Welcome to my first blog post. Let's not get too emotional about it. I derived considerable joy from blogging on myspace, and it used to give me a giddy thrill when i checked the blog count and discovered people were actually reading them.

Myspace users have all but disappeared from the radar now, and facebook has welcomed them with open pixels. While i appreciate the fast load up time and ease of use with facebook, it all looks rather cold to me, photos being your only opportunity to stamp your mark on your page. Im a barrel of opinions, so expect regular blogs ranting about things i cannot hope to change.

Last night i played a gig with Far-Cue in Melksham. The Far-Cue story is an interesting one, featuring pretty much every cliche rock n roll moment only without the money to back it up. But then money and Far-Cue are like oil and water, they really don't mix.
We hadn't played in Melksham for quite a while. Brains were racked trying to figure out just how long it was but estimations ranged from a few months ( wrong! ) to a couple of years ( nearer the mark ). Happily, the good people of the 'Sham hadn't forgotten we existed and the pub was what one might label 'heaving'.

This is in no way an attempt of self trumpet blowing on my part. Being a chap who enjoys live music, and being a chap who plays in two bands that partake of that very activity, i have recently observed a disturbing trend in local music gigs.
The ' pub scene ' is not one to be ignored. It gives bands a chance to refine their chops, for people to listen to their music, and God forbid, to even make a bit of cash into the bargain.
The trend i speak of is sadly nothing more than a lack of interest. After discussions with various people whose opinions i respect, it all pretty much points to the same thing: the smoking ban.

Last year, this one legislation was responsible for the closure of 4 pubs A DAY. I can only imagine that figure has increased this year, especially with the recession piling on the misery.
Me? I'm not a smoker. I'll get my cancer for free ta very much. I don't mind people who do smoke though. I dont think i've had a girlfriend that didnt smoke. Growing up around smokers, i actually derive some comfort and pleasure from the tang of cigarette smoke, and second hand smoke is a damn sight cheaper than paying for it yourself.
Of course i'm probably in the minority there, but the impact of the smoking ban on struggling bands is thus; people go out for a cigarette in the middle of your gig and.......they don't come back. I've seen it time and again, both from the stage and quite near it.

In the smoking areas, conversations are struck, anecdotes and jokes swapped and gossip spread. You can do neither of these things with a band playing in your face. I know, because i'm guilty of doing that very thing. I head out to the smoking area with my friends who smoke because i dont want to stand alone like a lemon, then before you know it the band have finished. And lets not forget the smoking ban means you're lucky if people go to the pubs at all anymore.

Bands are up against it. I think live music is taken for granted in this country. We're extremely fortunate to have the breadth and quality of music we do from the pub scene, and punters can just walk in for free and get a taster of it.
Lucky devils.
The only real reward for bands is the reception they get from the audience, i assure you the rewards are not financial. Last night was brilliant. If i did wear a hat, i'd take it off to every last person in that pub. They cheered every song so much we ended up playing for two hours. Take that Bruce Springsteen. Lately, we would not have had the interest to warrant a two hour gig. It runs in a circle. If the crowd love it, you love it, you look like you're loving it so the crowd love it. It sounds a bit like a hippy theory of an energy circuit but it's true.

For a time i thought it was us. Far-Cue took a little break, and came back not with a bang but with a bottom burp. A few months off renders you out of shape, out of favour and out of practice. I sincerely hope last night wasn't a one off because it felt like.....dare i say it.....old times.