Celebrating Hume's Tercentenary

Today marks 300 years since the birth of seminal philosophy, David Hume. Hume is widely considered to be one of the most influential and significant philosophers to ever write in the English language. He was at the forefront of the 'British Empiricism' movement and a promenant figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant once said, with reference to Hume, he "awoke me from my dogmatic slumber".

Living in the city Hume conducted most of his work and lived most of his life I decided to celebrate his 300th birthday by going on my own private Hume tour in sunny Edinburgh.

I began at the statue of David Hume which sits at pride of place on the Royal Mile:

Next I went to see the new Hume exhibition at the Scottish Writer's Museum next to Edinburgh Castle. The exhibition opened today and included first editions of his works as well as letters he wrote. Unfortunately I arrived whilst the press where viewing it and had to wait outside for nearly an hour. This is the outside of the building, no photography allowed inside:

After visiting the exhibit I walked to the Old Carlton Burial Site and went to the impressive grave of David Hume. It was quiet but very interesting to see, in a beautiful part of the city. Here I am there:

Note the morose look I have, not due to genuine sadness but because the French woman who took my photo (and had never heard of David Hume) thought it was insensitive to take a photo of someone's grave. I thought a smile might make it look even more insensitive!

Finally I took a photo of an interesting epitaph written on the monument:

It reads:

Behold I Come Quickly

Thanks be to GOD which

Giveth us the victory through

the Lord JESUS CHRIST

Quite interesting to see a man who was notoriously critical of religion (to the point he was blocked from becoming philosophy chair of the University of Edinburgh) to have such an overtly religious message on his grave site. Indeed, shortly after his death had his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion published in which he argues extensively against the existence of God.

It was nice to enjoy the weather and visit memorials to David Hume. It is exciting that such an influential philosopher lived and worked in my city.

My one regret is I found out that there has been a commemorative Ale called 'Enlightenment' which is brewed in honour of David Hume. It even features his picture on the beer mats and logo. Unfortunately I found this out after I got home, but there is a pub on the Royal Mile that is selling it.

I think by the end of the week I shall have to get a real taste of Hume!

Are you with the Bride or Groom?

You may not know who Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa is. If you lived in Bahrain however you probably would. Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (we will call him Salman for short) is considered responsible for quashing the uprising of pro-democracy protestors in Bahrain earlier this year. He directly ordered the destruction of the poetically named focal point, Pearl Roundabout and is regularly criticised by Human Rights group Amnesty International. Possibly the most shocking thing on his recent resume is the charge that he may have directly ordered the army to destroy a hospital full of civilians.

Yes, by all accounts a lovely bloke.

Unfortunately for most of us civilised folk, Salman is a prince, not only any prince but the heir apparent of Bahrain. This, unfortunately, makes him eligible for an invitation to the wedding of William and Kate.

Now despite this being protocol there is nothing to gain by inviting a murderous prince to our country to celebrate the Royal Wedding. He is a man who has wide-spread international condemnation and the Foreign Secretary William Hague has personally singled him out for criticism.

However not only has Prince Salman been invited to the wedding, he has accepted the invitation and will be on our shores next week. Yes, a man responsible for crushing pro-democracy rebellions, upholding a dictatorship and murdering innocent people is the type of person we have decided to invite to our country to celebrate with us.

The Real Problem is the Internet

It has been announced this evening (well last night technically) that the police have been working with Internet Service Providers to find out the home addresses of online bigots involved in Old Firm sectarian hate campaigns. At least 50 people have been targeted by the police, and ahead of the Celtic - Rangers showdown they will be raiding the home addresses of the internet hardmen in an attempt to prevent sectarianism.

Strathclyde police claim those that they are targeting have used sectarian terms to describe Celtic's manager Neil Lennon and people who have used racist terms online to describe Rangers hate figure El Hadji Diouf.

On the one hand I agree that sectarianism is a blight on our society. The vast majority of us want to see sectarianism eradicated, along with racism, sexism and homophobia. But what will this really achieve?

According to police figures domestic violence almost doubles on Old Firm game days. The rate of people in Glasgow attending A&E increases by over a third and Strathclyde police have to put an extra 1,000 officers on duty to try and prevent violence from breaking out. These statistics are shocking. When Celtic and Rangers play there are a large and vocal minority who sing offensive songs which glorify the IRA and express prejudice against Catholics.

This needs to be stopped and I support police efforts to prevent violence and offensive singing at games. But does some eejit on twitter calling Neil Lennon a 'Fenian' really require their home to be raided? Is it worth the effort of not only arresting such people, but going through the difficult process of discovering the home address of someone using the internet pseudo-anonymously?

Do not get me wrong, anyone who uses such language I condemn, but people who sit on facebook or on forum websites using sectarian terms and holding archaic views are not the problem. It is the people who use football as an excuse to kick each other's heads in who are the poison in our country.

Maybe I am wrong, but I can't imagine the wee ned sitting on facebook acting hard and using offensive language is the same person who will spend the day kicking seven shades of shit out of anyone wearing the wrong coloured football top.

I may not like what they say, but the perceived anonymity provided by the internet will lead a lot of people who are quiet as a mouse in reality to act tough. After the recent case where Paul Chambers lost his job and was convicted due to making a joke on twitter about blowing up an airport I have began to fear that the police and the courts are misunderstanding the processes and actions of the internet. I also fear they will misunderstand irony.

All in all I do not want to see people convicted of inciting racial hatred, or menacing behaviour because they ignorantly tweeted something without thinking about any perceived consequences. I fear we will live in a society where everything written on the internet is not only taken seriously, but often taken as being a credible threat to decency. 99% of the time it is just a case of someone acting like an internet hard-man.

The Haar Is Coming!

This is the view from my flat's window. Instead of the normal view of the impressive Fettes College (Tony Blair's School don't you know, the Eton of the North) all I can see is the start of some trees and an incoming gray mist, looking like it is preparing to swallow my fair city whole.

'Haar' is a Scottish Term for the sea mist which envelops towns and cities near the coast. Because of this it always reminds me of the sea, and as depressing as grey clouds can be, there is something romantic and almost pretty about the incoming haar. I think it may just remind me of living in Aberdeen when I was young.

Unfortunately the picture does not show the haar properly. The greyish building at the front of the photo is slightly shrouded in mist in reality, yet in this picture it looks pretty clear. Tomorrow I might post a normal picture of the view so you can see how much of it is being obscured.

Celtic Fans Already Mourning Lennon's Death?

In the wake (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) of Neil Lennon's attempted murder from a parcel bomb the Scottish public have reacted in a few different ways. Most of us have condemned the actions, some have ignorantly shown support for the letter bombing, some have used this as evidence that the Old Firm game on Sunday should be played behind closed doors.

A certain group of Celtic fans, however, seem to have already decided that Neil Lennon is dead, by holding a Candlelight Vigil in Neil Lennon's name. Now to clarify not all candlelight vigils are done in memorial to lost ones. Some are done in order to show support or to protest the suffering of marginalised groups. Groups like Muslims living in Croatia under Milosevic, or a vigil to honour those who died protesting at Tiananmen Square. Groups who stood up and faced persecution and massacre from government and from the society they lived in.

Oh, and now Celtic fans. Apparently fans of a football team are now a marginalised group, suffering unduly because of the football team they support. Really? Now I condemn any death threats or any attempts at the murder of Neil Lennon or anyone else but a couple of absolute idiots sending parcel bombs is not exactly akin to all Celtic fans being persecuted. The vast majority of people in Scotland are not persecuted by anyone, no matter what football team someone supports. To suggest that they are is absolutely ridiculous.

Looking on Celtic supporters forums however you would think they are the most marginalised people in our society. They talk of their suffering at the hands of the rest of us. The claim that they, by holding this vigil, are the best fans in the world. In reality they just come across as absolute idiots. Not exactly the greatest fans in the world (Who, after the recent 4-0 win against my team Aberdeen where not only out-sung by a losing Aberdeen side but also many left early! Yes, seriously, the greatest fans in the world leave early from matches that they are winning 4-0, greatest fans in the world indeed.)

The most amusing comment came from a poster who claimed he loved Celtic because they where a football team who stood up against sectarianism in Scotland. Yes. One of the two football teams which has a sectarian problem is apparently standing up against sectarianism...somehow. He then went on to say that he loved Celtic and "everything represents."

Please tell me, what does Celtic FC represent? They are a football team, all they represent is a soccer team from a certain part of Glasgow. Nothing more, nothing else.

Whilst they stand their with their candles thinking that they are fighting some unknown enemy, standing up against persecution (whilst donating to the IRA on the sly) and congratulating themselves as being the greatest fans in the world they don't realise how much the rest of us are laughing at them and their stupid antics.

Football is about a game, nothing else nothing more.

Totally Addicted to Porn

According to a recent study one in four 18-24 year old males fear they may be addicted, or are at risk of becoming addicted, to pornography. Insiders in the UK Pornography industry claim they are not surprised by this statistic as the internet makes free pornography so easily accessible too many people from a young age. They claim that pornography on pay-per-view television, from magazines and from professional paid sites are not contributing to the rise in pornography addiction.

Unlike substance misuse, or a smoking addiction or even a caffeine addiction being addicted to accessing online pornography seems unlikely to physically harm someone, but it is the psychological damage which is worrying.

According to a certain strain of feminist thought pornography warps the male image of women. I doubt that a little bit of pornography would make the vast majority of male consumers believe women are inferior, or merely sexual objects, but I think this argument is an increasingly valid one. As more and more pornography is accessed by more and more people from an increasingly young age it is clear that society is becoming more used to the ideas that are seen in porn. Pornography is getting increasingly extreme, increasingly violent and increasingly normal.

I would be lying if I said I never looked at porn. On occasion I have done so, and it has not changed my view of women. I still respect women, treat women equally and still consider myself to be a feminist. However I am firmly in the three quarters of men who do not have a porn addiction. What can be said for the increasingly large minority?

If one is accessing porn on a regular basis then it does seem likely that what they view on these videos may become increasingly normalised in their minds.

Now with some porn I've seen this is probably not a problem, much of it is just sex, similar to sex I've had (albeit with far more attractive participants), but some pornography I find absolutely disgusting. Women are often abused and there seems to be a trend of sexual activities which could be said to be negative towards the female participant. If people can watch a video where all the participants are over age and consensual then perhaps this isn't a problem. But what if people watch these videos before they have sex themselves? Perhaps these extreme sexual activities and simulated abuses of women will be normal?

Or perhaps not. Perhaps the vast majority of us would be as likely to be influenced by pornography as we are influenced by rap music. Maybe equating pornography to sexist views or even sexual violence is as far off the point as equating Marilyn Manson records to Columbine.

A lot of porn I think is fine and perhaps even healthy, but when watching certain types of pornography (particularly Japanese pornography, I've never felt so sorry for someone in my life as the woman featured in a Japanese porn video I once stumbled upon) I think it is possible, just possible, that it is presenting negative ideas of sex and negative ideas of what women are to a large demographic of people, this worries me.

Neil Lennon Letter Bomb

Neil Lennon and two high profile Celtic supporters have received bombs which the police suggest had the potential to kill or seriously injure the intended victims.

Voltaire famously said with regards to the Scottish Enlightenment "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation." We are a nation that produced some of the worlds most enduring and enlightened legal and educational systems. Economist Adam Smith single-handedly revolutionised the economic outlook for centuries and philosopher David Hume is widely considered to be one of the most profound philosophers to ever put pen to paper.

Yet somehow we still live in a country where sectarianism is rife and people can get killed for being the wrong religion or supporting the wrong soccer team. We do not have a racism problem here, we are notably more left-wing and liberal than our British counterparts yet we have a problem that people outside of Scotland and Northern Ireland probably couldn't get their heads around.

Should we be shocked at the attack on Neil Lennon? Of course, yet somehow we are not. I am not going to suggest that everyone who sings offensive songs at football games want to kill Catholics or Protestants, but when we have football stadia which are breeding grounds for sectarian singing and songs which call for the deaths of people like Neil Lennon can we really be surprised that someone or some group of people have taken it too literally and too seriously and gone far too far?

Thankfully most Rangers and Celtic fans I know condemn any of these actions, posted bellow are songs I've heard at Pittodrie over the last few years. Listening to them and reading them, can we really be that shocked that the sectarian problem we have in Scotland can and does lead to the deaths of innocent people?

From Rangers Fans:

Hang Neil Lennon

Hang Him High

(How Fucking High?)

So I Can See The Bastard Die

From Celtic Fans:

I Hope You Die in your sleep Nacho Novo,

I Hope You Die in your sleep I pray,

I Hope You Die in your sleep Nacho Novo,

With a Bullet from the I.R.A

Of course if we listen to the party line these sorts of songs are only sung by 90 minute bigots. There is not a real sectarian problem here eh? Just a bit of fun singing at a football ground. I do not want to blame what has happened with regards to the letter bombs on bigots shouting stupid offensive songs at football grounds, and I doubt the vast majority of them would actually want to see Nacho Novo or Neil Lennon killed, but with songs like that being sung regularly and a multitude of threats and now a bomb sent to Neil Lennon and other high profile Celtic supporters it does make one wonder whether we are taking the sectarian element of the Old Firm seriously enough.

The Right to Protest

On the 29th of April Prince William and Kate Middleton will be getting married in London. What is likely to be a grand occasion will undoubtedly be met by a range of different reactions from the British public. Some will be jubilant in celebration, whilst others apathetic and some outright opposed to the notion of their marriage even being televised.

There is one group, however, who want to hold a protest outside Westminster Abby. This protest, one which by all accounts is expected to be peaceful and outside the direct line of the wedding and extremely unlikely to disrupt the wedding itself, has been blocked by the police.

Under UK law to protest it is a legal requirement to gain permission from the police. In all likelihood the police will grant permission and the protest will go as planned, however in certain situations the police can deny permission, as they have done on Royal Wedding Day.

My question is, is it just for the police to prevent members of the British public from protesting simply because of an overpriced wedding?

Delving deeper into the issue it is perhaps prudent to divulge what the protest is actually about. The proposed demonstration is organised by a group called 'Muslims against Crusades'. They are Islamist extremists who believe that the Royal Wedding is an affront to all the Muslims around the world suffering due to British colonialism. They believe that Prince William is a representation of the British army, an army which they feel is a destructive force towards Islam and Muslim countries. They are extremists, and there website is illuminating if rather extreme reading. For anyone interested here it is: http://www.muslimsagainstcrusades.com/

If you think you might have heard of them before they are the group famous for burning poppies on Armistice day.

Another thing worth noting is when Muslims against Crusades announced their intentions to protest, the right-wing extremist group the English Defence League (EDL) announced they planned to organise a counter-demonstration. The EDL are a group of people who claim to be opposed to extremist Islam but are considered to be a far-right, racist group who oppose all Islam and Muslim immigration.

This counter-protest organised by the EDL has also been refused permission.

Unless you are an extremist Muslim or a far-right lunatic then I am assuming that you, like me, have absolutely no time for either group. The EDL are a nasty piece of work and Muslims Against Crusades seem deluded and represent an aspect of Islam which is offensive and potentially dangerous.

But is that reason enough to deny them permission to protest? I am not sure. On the one hand I think the right to protest and the further right to freedom of speech, are very important. Yet at the same time it seems that nothing positive can be gained from these protests. Perhaps the harm to the British public we experience from not being allowed to protest at any given time at any given place is less harmful than the offense caused by these two extremist groups. Perhaps not.

I am apathetic towards the Royal Wedding, but is it fair that two people should have their wedding hijacked by opportunist, extremist groups?

Who's liberty is more important?

My Second Preference Is Yes

I am voting 'No' to AV, simply because I cannot understand why we would adopt a system like the alternative vote.

Given all the options of voting system where would you rank the Alternative Vote? For me it would be 7, above out-right dictatorship, below a system where the winner of Britain's Got Talent automatically inherits the empire. The difficulty is both those who want a more proportional system and people who want to keep the status quo don't want AV. Yet the idea of AV is gaining traction amongst the former group due to this myth that the voting system needs to be changed and any change is good change.

Any change is not good change.

There seems to be this myth that the current voting system is 'outdated' or inherently wrong, but I cannot see how this is the case. Quite simply had the most recent election been held under AV instead of FPTP I would have voted for the same candidate as my first choice...and that is it. This is known as a bullet vote, where a voter only votes for one candidate.

I would bullet vote, as I think would most people who have a strong political conviction. But what would happen to this conviction?

There is one thing and one thing only I want to change about the current political situation in the UK, and that is the Labour party. I wish they where more left wing. Under Ed Miliband I think Labour are taking a slight turn to the left, but under AV they would take another leap to the middle. They would have to. Instead of Labour going for their core voters they would go out of their way to prove to non-traditional Labour voters that they are an electable party, they would do this by becoming more middle-way. As would the Tories.

Views of conviction would disappear and we will be left with groups of parties clamouring towards the middle ground with the middle ground party picking up the secondary support of those of us who actually have the balls to have a political conviction. Having a political system where we have the choice of a centrist party, a centrist party with a slight left-leaning tradition or a centrist party with a slight right-wing ideology is not a better system than we currently have.

No wonder the Liberal Democrats love the idea so much.

The 'Kettle' Incident

Here is part two. Reading these has made me tempted to re-write them but with better English.

The 'Kettle' Incident

One thing, that anyone who’s ever lived in Halls will testify to, is that people like to pee. Not only do they like to pee, but they like to pee in places other than toilets. Not only do they like to pee in places other than toilets, they like to pee in places that everyone else doesn’t want to find urine. These places will inevitably include the kettle, the microwave, the showers (though you knew that already) and the fridge. A few weeks into living in halls you’re perception of what is and isn’t disgusting changes dramatically. From being a typical hypochondriac, obsessive compulsive middle class child, you suddenly turn into a disgusting, long haired waster with very questionable views on sanitation. So when you find out the next day that one of your mates has peed in the microwave, you hardly bat an eyelid. You nominate someone to give it a quick once over before you allow anyone to use it. Well, almost anyone.

As I may have mentioned before, I lived with a few people who liked a bit of mischief, sometimes this mischief turns into damn right disgustingness. As soon as we find out that someone has peed in one of the kitchen appliances we deliberately decide not to tell someone. On one occasion, that person was me.


I was always up for a night out, but once, when money was getting tight, and work was piling up, I decided, just that once, to go home early. The next morning, I awoke, walked through to the kitchen, and saw the usual group of hungover students that bless our kitchen every day till noon. As it was morning, I thought there would be nothing nicer than a warm cup of tea. I thought nothing of filling up the kettle, waiting for it to boil, pouring the water over my tea bag, and taking that initial sip of lukewarm tea. I thought nothing, of smiling at my hungover mates, feeling some sort of strange victory of actually being able to wake up without promising to never touch alcohol again. That’s when they decided to tell me; “Greenhill pissed in that kettle last night”

First Year at University

This is a blog I wrote a few years back during First Year at Uni. It is a fictional account of things that occurred in first year, pretty much everything I wrote did happen but I've used a little poetic license to change certain aspects of it. Anyway, thought I would post it on this blog as I never use my old one anymore. It comes in two parts, here is the first. Enjoy.

19th March 2008

I arrived back after a particularly gruelling episode of drinking to see Phil and Greenhill filling bottles of water, with that sort of mischevious look which meant only one thing: messing with Gav. Fraser, probably Gav’s best mate in halls went to Illa’s room, where ofcourse Gav was ‘Studying’. Naturally Gav opened the door, and began talking to Frasier. I watched, slightly confused, as Phil and Greenhill sprayed as much water as they could all over Gav before he closed the door.


Needless to say, Gav wasn’t happy. When he once again emerged from his room a few seconds later, it emerged that his Economics book had got soaked; for once he really was studying. He was garbed in his usual clothing of shorts and a shirt, suddenly Greenhill ran up to Gav and pulled down his shorts! Naturally the first thing Gav does is try to cover his surprisingly large appendage, leaving a bottle of water he’d hidden in his shorts to fall down to the ground, thus splashing him even more!


One would think Gav would be pissed off at this, but it wasn’t too bad. All he did was stop us from watching the footy highlights on his tv, nowhere near as bad as the time we stole his bed, chair, Strongbow’s and bin from his room. He was not happy with that, and sulked in his empty room for hours before he finally came through, demanding we tell him where we hid his bed. It was a pity really, his bed was nice to sit on in the kitchen. That time we missed the entire football game, never mind the highlights.


Back to the former incident (the now infamous ‘get Gav wet’ evening) the now soaked and exposed Gav went back to Illa’s room, no doubt for a bit of tlc, when Frasier noticed Collin out the window. Collin was the campus Goose, that through a bizarre series of experiments, believed he was a duck. The spotting of Collin inspired Greenhill to run outside and chase Collin into the Loch screaming “Why must you reject me Collin?” He sat down, looking extremely rejected, and as if his life had no meaning any more. The German student from the floor below who happened to be walking past seemed to wonder whether he should give some help to Greenhill. Wonder what he thinks of Scottish people after that? I could imagine his next phone call home could well have included the sentence; “These people are freaks, they fall in love with Geese”. Seems little wonder that he left a few weeks later


I decided to cut my losses and lock myself in my room. The days seemed to be getting freakier, fine and dandy usually, but remember this whole time I was drunk. Not only drunk, but the kind of drunk where you start to consider whether life is ever going to be good. The kind of drunk where listening to a Leanard Cohen album could just end up killing you. The kind of drunk where seeing one mate naked, and another get rejected by a goose seems to confirm all your theories about how shit life really is. It wasn’t till the next morning that I decided the opposite, those things proved how great life is, and how we really must enjoy the little things in life, it’s the lack of those that make a life not worth living.

This Year

At the moment life is proving to be rather exciting. In a few months time I will be graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Politics and Philosophy from the University of Stirling. If that weren't enough to put my excitement level in overdrive come September I shall be enrolling in another degree, this time with the intention of achieving an MA in English from the University of Glasgow.

For a long time I have waited to get to the stage of graduation and as it nears I am becoming increasingly excited about actually finishing my degree. That added to the prospect of moving to a new city, meeting new people and being able to emerse myself fully in student life has made me feel that this year will be one of change, but positive change. As it stands I do have a few regrets about my university career. I feel I was too interested in simply drinking and going out as much as possible and did not experience everything university life has to offer.

I intend this to change when I embark on a new course. At Glasgow there is a Chess club, a philosophy society, various political organisations and the chance to emerse myself within the student council and union systems. I am also interested in perhaps trying a new sport and the prospect of trying my hand at the student papers. Studying English will hopefully improve my writing style (as it is erratic at best and incomprehensible at worst) and being able to practice in a medium I am not used to I think will be great fun.

Sorry to anyone reading this blog, it is essentially just me rambling on about myself and my prospective future but I wanted to write it down and check how my new blog design looks and feels. I am going to try and write more here so a new design to go with a new start in familiar terretory is the theme for today.

"I am going to make it through this year if it kills me" The Mountain Goats