Boys and dinosaurs

Why do children love dinosaurs? What it is that makes extinct, prehistoric reptiles so appealing?

As I have two sons and have no intention of having any more children, I must acknowledge that the whole experience of becoming a parent is now highly unlikely to change the fact I lived with long prior to parenthood – that I don't know much about girls.

But I do know about boys. I used to be one. I went to school with a lot of them. And now there are two living in my house, who clearly expect me to induct them into the mysteries of 21^st century British manhood.

Boys love dinosaurs. And one day, Roger Jr is almost certain to turn to me and say: "Daddy, what is it that makes dinosaurs so awesome?"

Roger Jr is at the point where he loves dinosaurs in an undifferentiated way. They are brightly coloured, they go "RAAAARGH!" and they share many of the thrilling characteristics of that equally undifferentiated archetype – the monster.

The next step in Roger Jr's relationship with dinosaurs will undoubtedly be the pedantic phase. He will learn an encyclopaedic quantity of information about dinosaur taxonomy, anatomy and chronology. I am just waiting to be told "No Daddy, stegosaurus lived in the Late Jurassic period and tyrannosaurus rex in the Upper Cretaceous – separated by a minimum of 78 million years – so it they cannot have a water fight in the bath."

After this period, for most boys, obsession with dinosaurs dwindles and transfers on to something else – obsession with football, dungeons and dragons, sex or bullying others.

There is a clear cut-off point at which a passion for sauropods ceases to be socially respectable.

When I was in the sixth form at secondary school (correct me if this is also historically inaccurate, dear readers – I might have got the year wrong) a new first year pupil started a "dinosaur club". It was possibly one of the single most universally ridiculed actions I can remember throughout my whole school career. He was 11.

No, around this age, specialisation in dinosaur trivia becomes scorned as nerdish. Part of that, at least, must be due to the level of technical accuracy accessible to an 11-year-old. Whereas Roger Jr is likely to tell me that a particular dinosaur doesn't go "RAAARGH!", in fact it goes "RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGH!!!!", being told by someone who could in principle be working for a living that what you thought was a velociraptor, in fact is an oviraptor, is just plain irritating. And it rightly attracts scorn.

If the phase goes on for too long, they will have no choice but to become palaeontologists, and spend their lives in the desert gently wiping huge rocks with small brushes and getting excited by shale.

Of course, some people return to dinosaur love "ironically" or have their interest genuinely rekindled through popular fiction mediums, like the BBC's "Walking with Dinosaurs".

Technologically impressive as that series was, I remain convinced that it was largely bollocks.

OK, maybe you can infer that triceratops mothers looked after triceratops babies because you've found their bones together. Fair enough. But I challenge you to produce any evidence that they nuzzled each other lovingly, that baby triceratops made cute squeaky noises, or that mummy triceratops looked around anxiously for the littlest baby one when a couple of chavvy allosauruses showed up, wearing hoods, drinking cans of lager, and hanging around outside the corner shop sitting on their miniature BMXes.*

Indeed, why do we assume that dinosaurs went "RAAARGH!" at all? I have yet to see a modern reptile that makes any kind of noise above a hiss or a creak.

Most reptiles just sit there doing nothing for 90 per cent of the time. Is it not reasonable to assume that dinosaurs were the same? That tyrannosaurus rex actually spent most of its time sat on a big tree stump, occasionally swivelling one eye – before every so often charging unprovoked to another spot where it sat motionless for several more hours? That brontosaurus spent the best part of its days chewing lettuce, before being put in a box in the airing cupboard for six months of the year?

So why, if dinosaurs were in fact quite rubbish in most respects (as I believe I have conclusively proven in the last paragraph), are all dead, and are in the adult world the preserve of the worst kind of Tony Robinson-alikes, do boys love them?

I can only conclude that it is because they are brightly coloured, they go "RAAAARGH!" and to a two-year-old, these things are AWESOME.

* Again, triceratops lived in the Upper Cretaceous and allosaurus in the Late Jurassic, putting tens of millions of years between the former's genesis and the latter's extinction. This scenario, is therefore, absurd. The picture above, likewise.

You don't understand it because you're an idiot

Just returned from two (working) in London, where people understand that the barriers at railway stations require you to put your ticket in, take it out and then walk through the gate that opens.

Ticket barriers were installed in Leeds about two years ago, and STILL every day thousands of people stand gaping at them like a dog presented with a tin opener: they know that this strange contraption in some way holds the key to getting what they want, but making it work is simply beyond their cognitive capabilities.

As a result of this, at rush hours there are at least two rail employees stationed at the gates opening them up for people who can't work out the whole "put the ticket in the slot" puzzle – one by one, upon the presentation of their ticket.

Naturally, this leads to a colossal build-up of people because instead of using 15 or so gates, the majority of rail travellers use two.

Like the prehistoric fish that first decided to chance their arm on the whole land-dwelling lark, a few brave souls then have free rein over the rest of the vacant gates.

Unfortunately, most of them end up metaphorically gasping and drowning in the fresh air of their new environment – trying to stick the ticket into the wrong hole, or simply gazing at the machine as if instructions for use will shortly appear on it.

Typically, I end up behind one of these people. Up they go, walking brisky and confidently towards a gate. "This person knows what they're doing", I think as I fall into line with them.

And then...stop.

Dum-de-dum...Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal....Hmmmm... what is this curious device blocking my way? It has a picture that looks a bit like that bit of cardboard I was given earlier on it by that man in the blue hat. I wonder where that is now? Maybe it's in one of my pockets. Or my handbag/wallet/purse, perhaps. Or maybe it's in the sky somewhere up there. I have no idea what to do with it if I do actually find it, but hopefully it will all become clear if I just stand here...

I express my rage and frustration at this state of affairs by sighing and tutting quietly when I'm sure no one is looking. How I long to simply hurl them bodily aside yelling "YOU DO IT LIKE THIS!!!"

Thank god they don't have them at Shipley. The locals would be round with pitchforks and torches in a flash.

Talking of dogs (which, you may recall, at one point earlier in this piece, I was) - if it's true that people come to look like their dogs, then there must be a hell of a lot of overweight basset hounds living in Leeds. Badoom-TISH!

To the shores of Tripoli

So Boy George reckons the Libya war (we might as well get used to calling it that) is going to cost £2 million a day, and that it will all be over by April.

Bargain!

Unless, of course anything at all goes wrong. When you consider that one Eurofighter Typhoon costs 90 million euros, that figure could quite easily prove to be a little on the conservative side.

Intervention in Libya is bonkers. The UK, apparently, can't afford hospitals, schools etc, but it can afford to play soldiers in the desert all over again.

And for what? At the risk of being an armchair general, surely the best that an aerial campaign can hope for is exactly what it achieved in Kosovo – ie de facto partition that lasts precisely as long as the West sticks around to protect Free Benghazi from revenge.

The West missed its chance to topple Gadaffi during the couple of weeks he was in Venezuela (or "resting" at a mental hospital or whatever), before the repression started. He's not going to step down politely now, is he?

And it's been clear that regime change is not part of the mission - so he'll sit there like a malevolent toad eyeballing his former eastern provinces and waiting for his chance. I suppose the hope is that there will be a mutiny and a military coup. Well, hope springs eternal, eh?

But here this country goes again, imagining that it's a global power all over again. Why won't any governments accept that the 20^th century happened? Let's adjust our ambitions to our budgets, not our budgets to our ambitions.

Tancred crawls!

Our younger son Tancred has started to crawl. He's just short of ten months old, and while it is in one respect an amazing and inspiring thing to see – Elvira and I have also been dreading this day.

For a few weeks, Tancred has been shuffling around on his bottom and almost getting himself into a crawling position. Generally, this move would be aborted as he failed to get one of his legs into the right position, and he'd make do with sitting up and rotating on the spot.

But now he's off. First stop – naturally - plug sockets behind a rocking chair. There's a room full of his toys, but he's showing his natural aptitude for mechanics by inspecting electrical equipment and heavy spring-loaded pieces of wood. When I left this morning to go to work, he was shaking the cable and transformer to Elvira's laptop. The perfect baby toy!

Now, we've got to baby-proof everything up to a height of about 30 inches off the ground (Tancred is enormous and very determined).

1. Cups of tea are to be confined to the centre of tables, because as we learned with Roger Jr, there's nothing more than alluring to a baby than the sight of a steaming mug high above their head.
2. Shoes also must be kept behind closed doors, lest they end up in Tancred's mouth being chewed.
3. The dogs will need to be fenced off again, for their and Tancred's mutual safety.

This time around, of course, we have the added complication of a two-year-old (who insists that he's six) in the midst of potty training. So we have toilet equipment at ground level. And, of course, the ever-present force of nature that is Roger Jr himself who loves nothing more than to drag Tancred around the floor by his arms.

It's going to be a long 17 years.

Peppa Pig betrays feminism

I have disappointing news for women – Peppa Pig has exploded the idea that it is possible for you to have it all.

For years, we have marvelled at the endless capabilities of Miss Rabbit – unmarried mother-of-two and serial entrepreneur. More than any City superwoman, Miss Rabbit showed that you could be a good parent and have a job. Hundreds of jobs, simultaneously in fact, ranging from helicopter rescue pilot and junkyard owner to supermarket checkout assistant and dental nurse.

Well, I'm sorry to have to let you know that far from projecting this progressive message to pre-schoolers (and their reluctantly entranced parents), Peppa Pig has made it abundantly clear that – sorry girls - it's motherhood OR employment.

The episode "Miss Rabbit's Day Off" (first aired October 10 2010, 8.15am on Five, fact lovers) makes it clear that Miss Rabbit and "Mummy Rabbit" are in fact two separate people. Rabbits, rather.

Like many viewers, I had always assumed that the occasional reference to "Mummy Rabbit" was just a functional description – just as Daddy Pig is occasionally referred to as "Mr Pig" by people (anthropomorphic middle class animals, rather) who are not his children.

Well, I was wrong. Dead wrong.

Astley Baker Davis have retconned this inspirational figure into two sisters. And as the episode shows, "Mummy Rabbit" is not fit for the world of work, failing miserably to handle the least demanding of Miss Rabbit's occupations at the supermarket.

How much more clear than twin sister cartoon rabbits could it be that women must choose between the path of economic and personal liberation or sublimation of the self in the family?

I was prepared to forgive Peppa Pig a lot. It's considerably less annoying that most of the stuff Roger Jr makes us watch. Even the class snobbery inherent in the contrast between the "nice" parents and comedy prole Mr Bull (the binman, carny and foreman of the road workmen) is deft enough not to offend.

But this is a terrible betrayal of Peppa Pig fans, womankind and the whole of the next generation.

Sol Invictus

The late George Carlin did a deservedly well-known comedy routine spelling out why religion is bullshit and as such, why he worships the sun. And Joe Pesci.

One of the main benefits that the sun has over the "invisible man in the sky who loves you, but will sentence you to an eternity of unimaginable suffering for breaking his Iron Age Middle Eastern rules" theory, as George said, is that you can see the sun.

Not that often if you live in Yorkshire, but nonetheless you can see it and feel it from time to time. You certainly notice its absence for months and months on end.

However, you can also see a statue with an elephant's head (under certain conditions) and right now I can see a cup of tea. So while it may be necessary, visibility is not a sufficient condition of divinity.

Our "primitive" ancestors clocked that the sun does a few other pretty awesome things as well:

• When it's not in the sky, it goes dark, increasing the likelihood of being eaten by wolves.
• If the sun is around too much or too little during the crop-growing season, there's less to eat over winter and you and your family die, and get eaten by wolves.

Amongst other scenarios, most of which also conclude with being eaten by wolves.

In Sir James Frazer's monumentally tedious book "The Golden Bough", a simple theory as to how magical thinking developed into religious thinking is outlined.

I paraphrase here a work of several thousand pages – something Sir James' editors singularly failed to achieve:

Early man is faced with a world in which shit happens to him, and he tries to take control of it.

Magic – if you do certain things, other consequences follow automatically. The only real difference between science and magic is that the relation of causality is true in the case of science and false in the case of magic.

Religion – having discovered that magical practices don't do anything, early man concludes that things are actually controlled by spirits or forces that have to be asked nicely to produce the desired results.

Which was a pretty disastrous conclusion to reach, as evidenced by the best part of human history from that point onwards.

How different society might have been had only our ancestors alighted on "you're doing it wrong" as the solution to the failure of magic as opposed to "an invisible man will make it happen if you stab a goat for him".

In general, I find most references to "ancient wisdom" rather tiresome. If the ancients were so bloody clever, how come so many of them got eaten by wolves relative to people today?

Nevertheless, I suspect that they alighted on the right answer here, but drew the wrong conclusions as to what to do about it. They didn't realise there was nothing they could do about it.

The sun, of course, would have remained resistant to all efforts – magical or religious – to influence its behaviour. As George Carlin says, you're more likely to get things done by offering your prayers up to Joe Pesci. But that didn't stop pretty much every culture ever from, at some point or another, proclaiming it a god.

But were they wrong? Maybe not.

It seems to me that there are two main categories into which "things you have to do to be a god" fall:

1. Things relating to creating the world, life and whatnot, and allowing those things to continue to exist (or not).

2. Things relating to how to behave and what's good and bad.

And that's broadly it.

I'm afraid that the sun falls short on 2 – unless "always wear a sufficiently high-factor cream" is taken as a moral injunction and sun burn as an instrument of heavenly retribution.

However, from a scientific (or magical) perspective, the sun is pretty much responsible for all those things under 1.

It is only because of the sun's gravity that the chunk of rock we call home orbits at the precise distance that supports life like ours.

The sun provides the only input of energy into the earth's closed system (entropy!) without which everything would run down pretty quickly.

It's a fair bet that the sun played some kind of role in (i) the creation of life and (ii) evolution from that point.

Even people as mad as Colonel Gadaffi don't dispute that crops grow, trees produce oxygen and we don't all freeze to death immediately courtesy of the sun. You don't have to be on hallucination pills to recognise that.

OK, the sun didn't decide to do all these things because it was bored or lonely. The sun doesn't care, because it is a giant ball of gas – much like some of those who claim to speak for the gods here on earth.

I reckon it's fair to say that bringing about the conditions under which life can come into existence and remain in existence is as close to creating life as you're going to get. If those conditions didn't exist, someone or something else creating life would look rather silly shortly after doing so.

And certainly, the sun can't take any of the credit for creating the rest of the universe – but why do you need one god who's responsible for everything? Give me radical decentralisation and a local god any day – very Big Society. The Greeks had a god whose remit was beekeeping and cheesemaking, so the fact that the sun is only the god of the solar system is hardly a knock-down argument.

What's good about the sun as a god in other respects is:

• The sun doesn't care what you get up to – so there's no hell to worry about.
• The sun does not require you to praise it – it is not insecure like that.
• The sun is going to rise anyway – so you don't have to get up early on Sundays or give it a tenth of your earnings to encourage it.
• Occasionally, the sun moves in mysterious ways – capriciousness is important for reminding us who's god.

This is not an argument for the non-existence of god. If you want that, then read something by Richard Dawkins – although prepare to be thoroughly patronised with a lot of comments like "you don't need to understand that".

No. All I'm saying is if there really is a god, it's up there in the sky – but not in the way they say in church.

And if the sun disappearing is a sign of divine displeasure, then god hates Yorkshire.

Bankers are not the only wankers

It has probably been about 25 years or so since the first cash machines started to appear in British banks – at least in the kind of provincial towns I grew up in.

And when I say "in" they literally were inside the banks, which was not terribly convenient given that banks closed at around 3pm on weekdays and didn't open on weekends.

This was not a great inconvenience to me, as being ten years old at the time, I rarely had a call to withdraw money from the bank.

And yet how I longed to have a card I could put into that machine, press the specific keys for different amounts of money (for 'twas not a numberpad in the early days) and receive shiny new banknotes in exchange.

Indeed, the very thought of receiving banknotes without having write a thank you letter afterwards was pretty exciting back then.

Anyway, I digress.

You would think that after 25 or so years, there would be fewer people around who have NO BLOODY CLUE what they're doing when confronted with a cash point.

Let me explain in case any of you are reading:

1. Put your card in. The one that has the bank's name on it.

2. Enter your PIN. It's four digits for god's sake. If you can't remember a four digit number, you probably shouldn't be allowed to handle cash.

3. Follow the BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS instructions that appear on screen.

4. Take your money and GO. Put it into your wallet AS YOU WALK AWAY, NOT WHILE CONTINUING TO STAND IN FRONT OF THE DAMN MACHINE.

Point 4, indeed, applies at supermarket checkouts as well. Tidy up the myriad of vouchers, receipts and loyalty cards in your purse AFTER YOU HAVE MOVED AWAY FROM THE TILL, so that the cashier can start putting through my stuff. You big silly billy.

I will admit that there is one ambiguous instruction that most cash machines give you – although I doubt it will be what is causing the bewildered rustics I usually find myself standing behind to be baffled.

If it says "enter the sum you wish to withdraw as a multiple of £10" and I want to withdraw £50, the correct thing to enter is "5" – not "50". And yet, no matter how long I remonstrate with machines for, they never accept the ambiguity.