Genes and Memes

Christmas, whose red ribbons and green bows so concisely package that old fashioned feeling of dread. A hideous shape in the corner of the room, whose form has not yet fully appeared. An arduous orbit about a cold and isolated planet. Meekly measuring the distance gone of a journey never to be completed. Nothing comes together in the end, aside from the dust we came from and the dust we become.

Dawkins, like myself, participates in the holiday of Christmas "for family reasons, with a reluctance that owes more to aesthetics than atheistics". Thus Dawkins discerns that even the average atheist can choose to celebrate Christmas as any Judeo-Christian would, from the partridge to the pear tree.

I do not wish to dive into the details of my own Christmas affair, and indeed am having great difficulty in recalling my precise movements about Christmas day; if only to mention that I became overwhelmed by eggnog during a particularly desperate period of the afternoon, and christened my elder brother Gary's new en suite in a most unfortunate manner.

Before I had a taxi arranged for me by Gary's wife, I learned an important lesson. The next time that your nephew shows you a video on the internet of a dog eating its own faeces, and subsequent videos of other dogs eating their own faeces, and then a video of a person dressed up as a dog eating chocolate yogurt from on top of a toilet bowl to techno-music with lyrics saying “lol the dog is eating its shit”, remember to warn him that it is not appropriate. Just like I did when his father [my brother Gary] came in to see what his son was laughing at.

Though Gary is also an atheist, we have never found common ground to really foster a brotherly relationship since mother died, come to think of it, before even then. As children we were very close, but there was a point during adolescence where we simply stopped trying to amuse one another, stopped trying to provoke or impress each other. It still saddens me to this day that my relationship with my brother lost this dynamic. I do still love my brother very much, but I doubt I could impress him at all these days, even if I had Dawkins himself round for a game of rummy. I do not believe he would raise his eyebrows to a crowning achievement such as that.

But back to the dog eating its own faeces example. It is what the youth call an “internet meme”. Now did you know that Dawkins coined the term “meme”? It is a word he invented to explain the cultural equivalent of genes - a self-propagating entity of cultural information. Yet another example of the Dawkins scripture in perfect harmony with the modern social climate.

I wish to end this entry with a Dawkinian Christmas credo. May it ring true, friends: "understanding full well that the phrase retains zero religious significance, I unhesitatingly wish everyone a Merry Christmas."

In solidarity and in service during our year 2010, and indeed counting down the days until Dawkins arrives in our fair country,

The Doctor of Space and Time v The Professor for Public Understanding

Tom Baker’s behaviour with Dawkins’ wife can only be described as lurid. Stream the video below to discover some of the most disturbing flirtation during prime time advertising that modern man has borne witness to:

This gangly oddball couldn’t help it; Lalla is enchanting. Lalla is mesmerising. That I could tune out Baker in all manner and form so Lalla could simply beam directly into me and fill me with her light.

It is a shame that science fiction’s brain damaged great dane sniffed his way around her before she fell so savagely for Darwin’s pit-bull. Being disgusted by Baker from the outset is easy - he is an actor after all. But to twist the commandments of science like some actors fake plastic acting knife into the belly of fiction and force the working class to stare at you, while drinking lager from a can and beating their children, probably, as you [actor Tom Baker] act out the entire monstrosity on television is tantamount to a capital crime.

Even the thought of Tom Baker sends my stomach churning. I want to punch that pallid actor right in his asinine smirk, that stupid smirk that seems forever stranded on his face. He reminds me somewhat of my strumpet of an ex-wife. Not her per se, but the moronic males that she cohorts with during her walks along the Avon river. Well aware that I see her during my lunch breaks. Humiliating me with these grotesque public displays of affection that I never afforded her. Lillian, for Christ’s sake, as if I had not suffered enough.

Dawkins enjoys having neo-Darwinian literature read aloud to him by Lalla. No doubt a little Douglas Adams as well, but only in his memory. Dawkins would only appreciate science fiction in a purely ironic way.

Dawkins believes that humans are robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve their genes. There is simply no space in this reality for likes of Tom Baker. So for all his touting about with Lalla, it is needless to say that the best man won. Reality may be harsh, Tom Baker, but at least in this case it is fair.