Men in Tights (While my game demo's downloading)

While the Portal Demo downloads off Steam I thought I'd write the third blog post this month on Robin Hood, another story based on grains of evidence. This is on a similar theme to the last post as I was going to put them both in the same post but realised halfway through that it would be too long. So, I decided  to split them, and hence this brings me to this article.

Firstly, Robin Hood. Now, from what I've gathered the only evidence behind this Nottingham legend is mostly consistent of medieval chronicler's and poet's writings. So what? Well, the problem with medieval chroniclers is that most of them were famed for exaggerating events and people and for generally being inaccurate and making up wild stories about heroes and villains. Robin Hood is no exception. Although their is evidence for the existence of various people called Robert or Robin and many of them falling foul of the law their is still very little evidence for most of the legend. The earliest references come from poems and ballads and it is theorised that most of the legend may have been based on earlier folklore and legends (Such as Hereward the Wake for example). So, although I appreciate the culture and benefit to society that such legends bring, I still support the idea that most of the legend was most likely made up by a drunken medieval monk who needed something to do in-between drinking copious amounts of monkish ale.

That's all for this post, I try to keep my posts shortish unless I have some very good points to make and that's really all I can say about Robin Hood, I mean if you want a full investigation go on Wikipedia, I'm just writing for entertainment and because the new Robin Hood film has just came out. Now go and enjoy the £50,000,000 that the new Robin Hood film will generate for Nottingham, that is, if you live in Nottingham...

UFOs and 2012

After various discussions I decided that I had enough content to make a blog post on various myths and legends and plain rubbish that I had heard details on. First off, UFOs. Now although I'm definitely not an expert on this subject but I can tell you one astounding fact: 2,000,000 Americans claim to have been abducted by UFOs. Now, this either means that 2,000,000 Americans have been abducted by UFOs (Extremely Unlikely), or that 2,000,000 Americans are drunk/high on drugs/ too stupid to think things through properly, or that it's all a conspiracy and we're all going to die at the hands of aliens working with the government in some dark, occult conspiracy to bring about the Apocalypse. Your choice.
This nicely brings me on to my next topic. 2012. The very idea that we're all going to die in 2012 is absurd. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that we will all die in 2012 except for the ideas suggested by the film 2012 which is, in concept, a film and therefore a work of fiction (in this case as it's not based on a true story as the year 2012 has not came about yet and unless they could time travel into the future of mankind which in itself is impossible they would not be able to know the information to base the film on). The other thing that annoys me more is that when you challenge the idea that we will all die in 2012, the general response is just a repeat of the original hypothesis, therefore not answering the question or giving any logical evidence.

No Expansion Without Equilibrium

Define: Equilibrium - balance or equality of distribution.

I thought after last month's post on patriotism, I would do a blog post on equilibrium. Equilibrium (as shown earlier) means balance or equality of distribution and is, what I believe, we should strive to gain in everything. Control is very important in our lives, lest our world as we know it descends into anarchy. Staying on the theme brought up by last month's post (See Patriotism: It's Not so Black and White) shows why equilibrium is useful. The most common example of extreme patriotism is the football hooligan; They travel to foreign cities and countries and trash the place in various overly violent and usually drunken ways and people wonder why (and how) anyone could do such a thing and get away with it. Now, don't get me wrong, their are probably hundreds of reasons behind each and every situation, but I'll try to outline a few and relate them back to my main topic.

Firstly, alcohol. This is one of the main things that causes trouble and unnecessary violence in our society and yes, it's not everyone who decides to drink extortionate amounts of the stuff and expect people to accept it, but nevertheless, there are still those who will use it as an excuse to be overly violent, and in the case of football hooligans, they have another reason to lose their sense of balance.

Secondly, patriotism. This gives football hooligans an excuse to get drunk and smash the place because their team has won and they want to celebrate, or their team has lost and they want to drown the despair of defeat in a pint of beer. Supporting and upholding your nation's culture and past and being proud of it is one thing, but equilibrium is important in these sort of situations as, if your pride for your nation takes over, you can lose all sense of logic and common sense to an overwhelming feeling of pride and violence towards those who would challenge that. This overwhelming pride, combined with the effects of alcohol can be a devastating and highly dangerous mix and can lead to riots, assault and even murder (or mass murder in the cases of some although that tends to be due to a medical condition or a drug rather than alcohol). This is why we should strive for balance on the tightrope that is life for, if we lose that sense of balance, we can lose our footing and plunge to our death.

PS The title was taken from a quote from the PS2 and PC game called Fire Warrior and in full is:
No expansion without equilibrium.

No conquest without control.

Pursue success in serenity.

And service to the tau'va.