No, not normal in the 'you're a weird hairy atheist' sense of the word, but normal as in I am now a 'normal' weight for my height. So this is a quick update of where I am since I started exercising, almost exactly six months ago.

• In those six months I have gone down from 280 pounds (20 stone if you're British) to my current 230 pounds (16 stone 6). That gives me a BMI of 24.6 (anything above 25.0 is overweight). I am normal! 50 pounds is a lot of weight to lose, and there is a big, big difference in the 'before' and 'after' me.

• I've pedalled almost exactly 1000 miles on the exercise bike (over 1600 kilometres). And I love doing it. In fact I recently did a little too much, strained my knee and took an enforced break and was really missing it!

• I've lost so much from my waist that none of my jeans fit - even the really old ones hiding at the back of the wardrobe, from maybe 10 years ago, are too big. Before I was struggling to get into jeans with a 40" waist, now even the 36" ones are beginning to feel a little loose. If I ever make it to 34" I will be at the size I was when I was 18! Those ads you see with the skinny man holding his 'fat man jeans' way out to show how much he's lost? That's me! I can do that now!

• Instead of wearing XL size T-shirts, I now wear M size. I skipped L altogether when I bought a medium by accident. Yes ladies, I now have a torso which I am not ashamed to put in a tight (ish) T-shirt! But no 6-pack yet - I think that is going to take more work than I'm prepared to put in. I always intended this to be part of my normal life, rather than spending my entire life working out.

• Even my face looks different. If you look at my videos from around December 2007 and compare those pudgy features(!) with my 'Sounds of the Street Preachers' video you might be able to see what I mean. Don't ask me to post 'before' and 'after' photos, it ain't gonna happen!

• I eat a lot less but don't feel obsessed by food. I really don't feel great when I pig out like I used to (I get bloated, lethargic and uncomfortable), so I don't do it. Having said that, like anyone I have urges to eat whole packets of something (anything) bad, which is why I never buy anything I will regret later. It's no use getting something and saying 'these can be my treats for 2 weeks' when in reality I will only sit down and eat the lot in one session!

So that's my end of term report from the exercise regime. I don't know about a grade, but I feel as if I've definitely passed with flying colours. The exercise bike was really the key to my weight loss. I sort of lost a bit of interest in resistance training (with my stretchy resistance bands), although I may pick them up again. But the bike is just there, I can get on it and do whatever distance I feel like, including a few (not many!) marathon distances (yes, the full 26.2 miles) from time to time. One last tip: you will pedal faster if you have some classic Iron Maiden in the background - that stuff was just made for it!

The plan now is this: don't lose much more weight, and really just stay as I am. Job done!

I just watched an interesting documentary about the famous 'Skull of Doom' (aka the Mitchell-Hedges skull), the most elaborate of the crystal skulls which were at one time thought to have been made by the Mayan civilisation thousands of years ago. Only fairly recently has science progressed to the point where these skulls could be examined closely enough to determine that they could not possibly have been made by ancient people with ancient tools. They show evidence of rotary tools, for example cutting wheels, which were never used by the ancients. In fact the skulls are thought to have been produced in the late 1800s or early 1900s, when such tools would have been, if not readily available, then certainly available if you wanted to go to such lengths as to fool people with so-called 'ancient' crystal artifacts.

So this smashes to pieces the claims by the happy hippy New Age freaks who believe the skulls are invested with magical powers stretching back to ancient Central America. Right? Er, not quite. It seems that now the evidence proves that the tools needed to create these skulls could not have existed thousands of years ago, then obviously (you'll like this) this is proof that the skulls were made by an alien civilisation who left them behind so that we could use them to keep in contact with the aliens. The word 'wacko' springs to mind.

I'm mentioning this here because it showed to me that again and again when people are faced with overwhelming evidence to contradict and utterly shatter their beliefs, they just make a slight detour, change the story, and head out in a different and even more freakishly stupid direction, without so much as a second thought. This is how apologetics works. Take an element of religious dogma. Subject it to rigorous scrutiny. Thoroughly debunk it. Find a wacky but passably credible explanation as to why the original dogma might not be wrong after all. Go with it until someone else finds the cracks in that theory. Repeat the process, papering over the cracks again and again.

People of faith are people devoid of the power to reason, to objectively look at their beliefs and accept criticism, evidence and the opinions of others. It doesn't matter if it's a crystal skull or a collection of old stories in a religious book, someone out there will believe whatever they want to believe, even if you produce a mountain of evidence proving that the things into which they put their faith have no basis in fact and can often be proven to be unquestionably false.

I'm seriously pissed off that I failed to get in the Guiness Book of Records because I didn't know I held the record for the world's longest tongue. And now it's too late because someone else has beaten me.

Link to the old record (7cm):

Link to the new record (9.5 cm):

For the record (but not the world record), mine is 7.5 cm long.

Still, put the word out - there must be SOME advantage to having a tongue 3 inches long :o)

Slurp

It's been a while. So I wrote you this. I decided to read it at speed - it works better that way. And you can probably tell why the original title was 'Relentless'.

Sounds of the Street Preachers

You wander the streets and you see them around you They all but surround you They're happy they found you They know they can hound you They smile and you hear that familiar sound, you Just know this will end only one way - they'll drown you In scriptures and morals and readings and psalms And they hold up their arms Using all of their charms And already you're moving away in alarm But they really don't mean to bring you any harm Because all that they want is a moment in time In your vision they climb Is that really a crime? Back at home if they told you their ultimate cause You would bar all the windows and lock all the doors Yet alone in the street they can now make you pause As your stress level soars It's their minds against yours And the second it takes them to sink in their claws Is the second they think that they've already won And before you can think of a place you can run The one chance to avoid them is finished and done They are already talking of God and his Son And the street preaching madness has only begun So just who are these people, and why do they care If you don't go to prayer And you don't want to share? In their Bible and all that its pages declare Is the truth of their God, and so fine and so rare That they'd place their hand down on its cover and swear That their lives are now promised. To what and to where? An invisible man who is not even there And where is the source of this deep admiration Intense motivation Such pure inspiration? The son of a God gave them news of salvation And this information This realisation That out of a book they could find revelation And something that gives them a life transformation And turns them away from the false explanation The lies education Has fed to their nation This is what drives them on to fight God's Holy war They must battle the evils they truly abhor Yet they promise us something we all can explore Bow your head to the floor Take the path to God's door And they tell you that life everlasting's in store Yet with no word of warning, no chance to implore When you tell them to leave you alone and 'no more' Disregarding your protests, your words they ignore Because all that they know is the one they adore And the Christian words from their mouths simply pour And it's Jesus and nothing else counts any more They can't and they won't and they don't want to leave They just truly believe That you need to receive All the good news this man, or what they now perceive As a God, has to offer. They cannot conceive How a person like you would be blind and naive For they think that your life is so full of temptation And evil sensation The path to damnation But follow their God and you choose liberation The whole generation A new congregation For one destination A home for your soul at the heart of creation Their pace is relentless, it's like an attack On your senses and if you just try to talk back They ignore all the problems and queries you stack At the feet of their scripture - that Bible so black Has not one tiny flaw that they cannot explain You might try to protest but they're sensing your pain And they know you'll deny God again and again But they tell you to think with your heart not your brain And it drives you insane And meanwhile they maintain That the God who so loves you and who they admire The same God whose book seems to bring awe and inspire Has but one single purpose - his central desire Is to burn non-believers like you in the fire And this is God's love? Then this God is a liar With such statements your lack of belief is exposed And the preachers of God see their message opposed Then a sense of mistrust and hostility grows And the words they compose Are from someone who knows That to deal with such foes Is the reason they pose As such plausible speakers of Biblical prose And just what they suppose Is that nobody knows About truth except them and their kind. They compose Some new ways that your mind Will be led like the blind And one day you'll just find That the doubts of the God you so wrongly maligned Have been put far behind And your faith in the saviour of all of mankind Is the thing that will change you for life and will bind Heart and soul to God's word, and in grace be entwined They continue to say That for them each new day It just happens that way And they simply obey What has brought them to pray For your soul and to sadly and darkly survey That without God your lifestyle has led you astray It just isn't okay To now turn God away In the end you will pay But to their full dismay You're an unwilling prey So reluctant they listen as you have your say And you tell them you've heard them and given it thought That you've studied the same God and Bible they're taught You list all of the ways that it all came to naught And the only good thing from religion you caught Was a spreading infection called rational thought And what stirs up your innards and rattles your head Is the knowledge that fear of a God and the dread Of a life living frightened to speak out instead Is now open to critical words and you tread Where large numbers before you have wanted to go They just needed to grow And right now they can show That their lives without Jesus have meaning, although Almost all of the preachers don't think this is so But the atheist numbers increase in their size And we counter the Christian doctrine of lies And we pull it apart and we dare criticise Try to open the shuttered and half-sighted eyes Of the people who fear God and truly despise This new group of free thinkers who see the big prize Is a world without dogma which faith can't disguise It's a far distant future, I grant you that much But if each of us stands up and throws down the crutch Of the Bible then one day we might even touch The religion around us but meanwhile we clutch At thin straws if we honestly think we can reach The closed eyes and blocked ears of the ones who still preach And as atheists all we can do is take each New found member, new sceptic, and hope we can teach That to flourish we all need our powers of speech We have all the same rights as the faithful and each Of us has our own mind and the terrible leech That is sucking the life from each God-absent day Is some band of evangelists wanting to pray But next time they meet you And cheerfully greet you And start with their God-talk just hot off the street you May give up and walk on and turn them away Maybe just for a laugh you could tell them you're gay Just don't think that you'll change them, at least not today If you try to outwit them they'll just start to pray But when next they surround you, here's what you might say: With my courage restored With religion I'm bored That old book is out-dated, your reason is flawed And you speak of God's peace but his son brought the sword And now all that I hear when you preach is a fraud Yes the root of your hatred for me is your Lord Mindless faith you applaud While good works are ignored And for spreading this folly you claim a reward But when all is explored And the facts still record That there's nobody up there, your prayers ignored Tell me why such a fantasy brings you toward All these innocent people who, walking abroad Step around you, avoid you and will not afford You a look or a glance So they dodge and they dance And they side-step the Jesus crowd if there's a chance To escape from your maddening, saddening trance. When you speak of my sin, just when did it begin? Long before I was born you condemned all my kin And all babies you say hold a cancer within So I wonder what chance has a mortal to win With the threat of damnation the chances are slim And for me with my atheist life they are grim Faith's not part of my skin I don't want to go in To the Heaven you speak of - just more lies you spin Your religion's so fractured, in dogma you're stuck And you claim that no evil lies inside your book But outside its worn pages you never dare look And in science from thin air your fantasies pluck Manufactured from muck All your theories suck Add in fear, mix with hate, when you simply mistook What you heard from a sermon that someone made up And repeated so often that time and good luck Have all made it sound true. Those who question are struck With the wrath of their neighbours and such is the plight Of the words of the doubters and those who would fight To the death for their country but not for the right Just to question religion - most cower in fright And they stay out of sight They are oh so polite And if cornered they'll do their best not to ignite And it's really no wonder the Church has such might Yet the time for its critics to surface is right See our flag? No more white And so now we invite You to join with this battle of words we incite All you Christians take home this message tonight You may think we're in darkness but we bring the light

---

Footnote:
Since several people have mentioned in the comments to this video hints about rap music and Eminem in particular, I'll just say that the spark for this poem came when I was clicking through some of my MP3s at random and came across 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem. The word 'relentless' just popped up into my head because that's what I was getting from it, a barrage of words, line after line after line. So that was what I was setting out to do here, rather than creating some kind of musical rap. For one thing I can't do those double-twiddly rhyme things in different parts of the line, and I also like to stick to a particular rhythm with my poems - here it's 6 or 12 syllables for most of the lines.

D12's 'Fight Music' would be another example of something relentlessly pounding out a message. The idea for me was to emphasise how the street preachers go on and on, and then show that the same kind of medicine can be turned around and directed right back at them. It was important to read the poem quickly, again to emphasise the continuous pressure, the relentless nature of the situation and the message.

So although the idea started when I heard an Eminem song, I wasn't trying to do anything other than my own thing. It was a great way to play with words, and it's always a high to have an idea like this burst into your head, demanding to be written down!