Mills was married to McCartney for four years. She in no way contributed to his wealth. She is financially independent (albeit mostly as a result of the wealth that McCartney transferred to her in the form of property). And McCartney will always be made responsible for the maintenance of the child. So what on Earth does the £24.3 million represent?! Why is she being awarded such a large settlement? She is basically getting an award for simply having been married to him. And at a rate of £17,000 a day at that! Ridiculous. In this day and age, where one may choose to get married and then choose to get divorced, subject to ensuring that the female (because it almost invariably is the female) is compensated for loss of opportunity (“I used to be a P.A. but I left my job to look after the kids”) and the maintenance of children is dealt with, no one should complain about the fact each choice has consequences. You choose to marry someone wealthy, you have the advantages that such wealth brings. You choose to leave someone wealthy, you should be prepared to leave the wealth too. Anything else makes a mockery of marriage. The most galling thing is when they say “It’s not about the money”. It’s always about the money.

I shall leave you with the thoughts of a not-so-well-known authority on the subject, Chris Rock: ‘When it’s time to get a divorce, women got it made. You go to court, start talkin’ that sh*t. “I’m used to this, I’m used to that, I’m accustomed to this.” What the f*ck is accustomed? What’s that got to do with shit? You go to a restaurant, you accustomed to eatin’. You leave, you ain’t eatin’ no more. They don’t owe you a steak. What about what the man’s used to? It might not be money, but during the course of a relationship, a man grows accustomed to a few things. I would love to see a man go to court and say, “Your honor, check this out. I’m accustomed to f***in’ her four times a week. Now I feel I should be able to f**k her at least twice a week. I mean she can have the alimony, but I want some p***y payments.”’

Sounds ridiculous? Perhaps even sexist? No more ridiculous and sexist than the decisions coming out of the courts at the moment. 

Assholes.

In the current anti-anything-that-looks-muslim/arab/foreign climate, I thought it was a wonderfully genuine act of learning about other cultures, and I walked around for the rest of the day with that warm feeling that only those warm gestures can provide.

Consider the following as an example. A sprinter uses human growth hormone (HGH) to speed up recovery from an injury in order to better his performance in a race. Is this cheating? The rules would probably say yes. Now imagine another sprinter gets injured in the first race and he injects himself with pharmaceutical grade painkillers for the second race to better his performance and participate in a race. Is this cheating? The rules would probably say no. My question is, why not? We have two sprinters who have each put a substance into their bodies to improve performance yet one could result in a lifetime ban from the sport and the other would probably result in praise for the heroic effort. Personally, I do not see the distinction. There appears to be no coherent explanation for why one action is banned and the other is not.

Here is another example for you to think about. Protein supplements are used by all professional (and many amateur) sportsmen and sportswomen. It is taken in order to improve muscle growth and to promote regeneration. Testosterone is a naturally occurring compound (in both men and women) and is important for muscle growth and to promote regeneration. Now consider the fact that taking a protein supplement is a perfectly acceptable means of gaining an advantage, yet taking a testosterone supplement is considered to be an unfair means of gaining an advantage. It would be considered cheating. But what is the distinction between the two? There may well be one but I haven’t found it. Nor, I suspect, have the relevant professional sporting bodies that formulate the rules of participation.

The situation becomes even more complex when you consider the following example. An ageing sprinter suffers an injury and is finding it difficult to recover. He gets depressed and seeks the help of a doctor. The doctor prescribes a small amount of HGH for him to facilitate recovery. The sprinter gets better and competes in a race. He is drug tested, tests positive for HGH and is banned for life. The sprinter has done nothing illegal, the doctor has done nothing illegal – in fact, it could be said the doctor was acting in the best interests of the patient – yet the sprinter loses his livelihood. Where’s the logic? Perhaps Ibuprofen was used instead of HGH to aid recovery. This would not result in a ban. Why not?

The whole situation becomes even more complex when you consider what sportsmen and sportswomen around the world are now doing in order to gain an advantage. Electrical stimulation, oxygenation (where pure oxygen is injected or breathed in), hyperbaric chambers and all sorts of other methods, devices and practises of gaining an advantage are being used. Where exactly do we draw the line?

With Chambers, there’s another issue. What bothers me is that he was accepted back into the fold of the Great Britain team in 2006 (after serving his two year ban) for the European Championships in Gothenburg. He helped us to win a gold medal in the 4x100m relay race. He has not been convicted of cheating since yet has become the “leper” of the entire sport. It all seems a bid odd to me. For the athletics ruling bodies to say they are turning their back on him for being a cheat is patently false and disingenuous (evidence: their decision to accept him back in 2006). If we were going to turn our back on him for being a cheat we should have done it before accepting him back in 2006, not now – it is too late.

The horse has bolted (and will probably win).

 … please contact me soonest because I have some excellent shares in Northern Rock that I’d like to get rid of.

Goodboymacbeth.

Why has our freedom to say that some things are just not acceptable being curtailed? We are increasingly being forced to accept some strange homogenised version of values, of morality and lifestyle choices that usually represent the lowest common denominator. Why should I cede to this? I should be allowed my opinions, I should not be vilified for my likes and dislikes and I should not be made to feel bad for believing certain things provided that I do not hurt others in the process of holding those beliefs. Just because a person has a loaded gun doesn’t mean he or she will ever pull the trigger and kill someone. It’s the same with ideas and beliefs and, dare I say it, prejudices (which we all have). Incidentally, if you think you carry no prejudices, there are some interesting tests available on the internet; I think you’ll be surprised.

I am suggesting that you are not necessarily racist because you cross the road to avoid young black men. That you are not necessarily homophobic for believing that homosexual culture is over-represented and over-exposed in the mainstream. That you are not necessarily anti-Semitic for believing that the Israelis are behaving punitively towards the Palestinians. And that you are not necessarily wrong simply because ninety-five per cent. of the population thinks it is right. And even if you were racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic or just plain wrong, provided that you didn’t hurt anybody in the process (refer back to gun analogy), so what? That is your choice and that is what a free society is about.

The following real-life example may be of interest to you. Recently, I encountered a problem in the changing room at my gym. A homosexual male – yes, he was definitely homosexual – was ogling a number of men getting changed, including, unfortunately, Goodboymacbeth. I now fully understand the phrase “I felt violated”. I really did. Now don’t get me wrong; I am okay with being naked in changing rooms and I am okay with other men being naked around me. However, I am not okay with somebody looking at me like a man might look at a woman if he had the power of invisibility (which all men want) and had snuck into the female changing rooms. That is not cool.

Anyway, I mentioned this incident to a couple of people and their reaction was telling. Words like homophobic, discrimination and apartheid were used by a number of them. Such strong words used to describe a sentiment that I think is perfectly reasonable. Just as a woman would object to a man staring at her in a changing room whilst she is getting undressed, I object to a homosexual man staring at me whilst I’m getting undressed. Why should I have to be okay with it?

As it happens, I don’t actually feel particularly strongly about this incident, it was just fresh in my mind and seemed relevant. I was, however, highly surprised at how taboo it was for me to express annoyance at the actions of Mr Pervy Gay. Like I said, it would seem we have to accept everyone and tolerate everything.

At long last, the Egyptian government has (somewhat) done the right thing. They’ve allowed Palestinians to cross freely (after 2/3′s of a border wall was destroyed) between the Gaza Strip (now the worlds largest open-air prison) and Egypt, to buy supplies that have been cut off by the Israeli occupiers. For a long time, Egypt had not only refused to allow Palestinians to enter Egypt, but had refused to allow Palestinians returning from Hajj (religious pilgrimage) through their border to get back INTO the Gaza Strip. What did they propose instead? Go through Israel. What assholes.

The Egyptian government (propped up by American foreign policy, thanks to their ‘flexible’ stance on rendition), is beginning to resemble a previous form of Egyptian rulers, the Pharaohs. With the erosion of their undeserved power and the growing resentment of their actions from the Muslim population, within Egypt and worldwide, it won’t be long before they too are consigned to history. The sooner the better, I say.

Just thought I’d let you in on a couple of thoughts I had on the train coming into work this morning, mainly about the credit crunch. The credit crunch is weighing heavily on my mind at the moment, not least because I work in the banking industry and I’m a homeowner with a mortgage but also because a number of the guys I work with (currently at a US investment bank) are just waiting to be fired in the same way a number of their US colleagues were recently.

Reading about the latest on the Northern Rock debacle, it occurred to me that in the current depressed economic climate, without any state, governmental or regulatory intervention, a number of (at least smaller) banks and financial institutions would perish. The obvious, and most high-profile, example is Northern Rock, which provides a useful scenario to run the free market theory on. I’m talking free market theory in its purest form; the idea that the price of goods and services should be determined purely by the mutual consent of buyers and sellers. If this approach were allowed to prevail, then there is no doubt that Northern Rock would perish, those who deposited cash with it would find their accounts empty and shareholders would lose their entire investments. Nobody would want to buy it, nobody would want to bail it out of trouble. There would be carnage. And it is only because of governmental and regulatory intervention that this has not yet happened.

Now, by running the Northern Rock example, I am not advocating that the government become more interventionist than it already is, particularly in other areas of public policy, such as health and education. I am just simply astounded that so many seemingly intelligent people fail to recognise the flaws and pitfalls in a free market economy. Whilst I recognise that many advocates of free market theory do not necessarily see the purest form of it as a normative approach and that they allow for intervention in times of market failure, a large number of the same people advocate the complete privatisation of the NHS. They don’t transfer the lessons they’ve learnt in one sector into the other.

I completely acknowledge that a wholly nationalised NHS is perhaps not the most efficient approach to satisfying the health demands of our country. However, I hope proponents of privatisation can recognise that perhaps a completely privatised NHS is not the great panacea to the problem they think it is. There is no doubt the NHS could be made more efficient – but perhaps the inefficiency is effectively the premium we pay for the insurance policy of governmental backing. If a previously robust product of free market theory such as Northern Rock requires this backing, there can be little doubt that the NHS might need it also.

Recognise.

Cruise has taken more punches from the media than Ricky Hatton has in the ring. Were it not for the fact that he was relatively protected for many years by the highly-savvy PR executive, Pat “The Bulldog” Kingsley (someone the media learnt not to cross), he would have been mauled alive sooner. But he’s certainly got it coming to him now. Better late than never? Some might think so.

What I can’t understand is why anybody would criticise him for trying to make the world a better place. Cruise does not strike me as a fantastically intelligent man, but whenever I have heard him talk, he has always come across as passionate, genuine and somewhat articulate. Okay, he has some strange beliefs, he might be a little annoying, he does the worst (or best?) fake-laugh ever and he grins when you’re not supposed to, but whatever it is you might not like about him, it’s not fair to hang the bloke for offering an alternative perspective.

He thinks psychiatry is a pseudoscience – so what? Many of us do, including me. He thinks we can deal with the drug problem a different way – great, let’s hear it, we need new ideas. He wants people to care a bit more about their fellow man – Amen to that. He thinks individuals need to start taking more responsibility for the societies they live in – can’t fault this. He thinks he belongs to a group of people that are chosen to lead the way – welcome to the world of the average Jew, Christian and Muslim. So what is it that really annoys us about him?

Aside from the fact people just do not like seeing overt self-confidence in others, Cruise is not liked because he forms part of a group of people that actually scare us. I’m not talking about the Scientologists, though they might be scary enough. I’m talking about individuals who are passionate enough about something to offer up their views to the rest of society: an alternative, a different way of doing things, a different way of looking at things. I’ve realised that people who do so simply open themselves up to criticism by doing so – no matter what the idea, no matter what the intention, particularly if it relates to religion or politics. We seem particularly reluctant to absorb ideas from people who come across as passionate or emotional. I suspect this is because we cannot understand their passion and we do not want to absorb their emotion.

When I use the word “passion” here, I’m not talking about passion in the sense of passion for football or the medium of cinema or stamp collecting or another person. I’m talking about passion for ideas that pertain to more universal constructs, like politics or religion or philosophy or philanthropy. We shy away from people who dare to stick their heads up from above their copies of Hello magazine and take a look at the system they live in and offer an alternative view on it. How dare they tell us how to live? We don’t understand them. We don’t understand how they might wish to offer up a solution to a problem we haven’t been bothered to deal with ourselves. And, as we well know, what we don’t understand, we often fear.

This is possibly the same reason why we might shy away from people who are overtly religious; and why people who are religious might be shy from being overt about it (like Tony Blair when he was in office). We don’t understand their passion or emotion, so, instead of listening to them, we might mock them or be sarcastic or pointedly mean about them. Worse, we might take what they say out of context in order to humiliate them. Reporting of the latest Cruise Scientology video is a case in point. In the video, Cruise suggests that Scientologists are the ones who have the answers to societal problems and he continues the theme by reference to a car crash. If you are a Scientologist, he offers, and you happen upon a car crash, you should not act like everybody else and just drive past, but you must stop to help because you are the only who can really help. Okay, this sounds a little weird. But no matter how I cut it, not for one minute can I accept that Cruise is actually suggesting that whenever a car crash occurs, unless a Scientologist is on hand, nobody will be helped, yet this is exactly how the sensationalist reporting on the video will go.

If we give him the benefit of doubt though, we might be able to draw something else from his example – he might be saying that the isolation of the individual (the I-don’t-care-unless-it-happens-to-me mentality) is not helpful and that we need to help out with problems in society whether they directly impinge on us or not. There are a number of “car-crash” scenarios occurring in society writ-large and too few of us stop to help – unless and until it impinges on us of course.

Nothing annoys us more than somebody who dares to try and suggest that we live our lives according to a different set of rules. With Cruise, he’s simply highlighting that the prevailing approach to certain problems, such as drug abuse and mental illness, is perhaps not working as intended and he (read the Scientologists) may have an alternative. To be fair to him, he puts his money and time where his mouth is – he has bankrolled and facilitated numerous mentoring, literacy and child welfare reform programmes. As for his religious beliefs, I’m not about to start defending them but whatever religion he chooses for himself is his choice. But society has become so isolationist, so selfish, so introverted that we cannot stand somebody suggesting alternatives for us. Everything has become so me, me, me, everyone has become so me, me, me. I often think about the me-me people in the context of a Lord of the Flies scenario. If everything was reduced to ground zero, would it be the me-me people that survive and prosper or would it be those who buy into the idea of societal concern and the concept of being their brother’s keeper?

My guess is the me-me people would be up shit-creek. Alone.

(Cue fake Tom Cruise laugh)