Support and promote integrated education here in Northern Ireland (or the north of the Island if the other offends your delicate sensibilities) and within a few generations there will be no culture of hate, or them and us … just US!

When children from one religion actually grow up and go to school with, hand in hand, children from another religion they will understand and respect each other and THEIR children will not see the differences between them, or feel ‘hate’, simply because of which church (if any) they attend, or which football team they support, but will see the similarities.  Children do that, you see, they find the things that make them alike rather than dwelling on the spurious, man-made devices, that make them different.

Maybe they should be running the damn Country; couldn’t do a worse job, after all!

A while back I was extremely honoured to be asked to contribute a guest article to Book Life Now.  Originally the brainchild of Jeff VanderMeer, who ran it since the original site launch in 2008, it is now under the direction of Morgan Dempsey and a talented bunch of people, Book Life Now focuses on the publishing industry and all aspects of it: writing, editing, print, contracts, covers, release schedules, marketing, publicity, touring, anything and everything that goes into putting a book on the shelf and getting it into readers’ hands.

I jumped at the chance and decided to write my own take on the demands of being a writer when it is only one part of your overall sum.

Please do check it out, tell your friends, and I hope that you enjoy it.

The Adulterous Life of the Writer at Book Life Now.

I believe in mankind’s potential for doing good things; I believe in trying to be the best person I can be; I believe in freewill and choices being based on a simple precept of what is good for me while AT THE SAME TIME not being detrimental to anyone else; I believe in hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst; I believe in life, love and family; I believe in hope; I believe in treating others as I would want to be treated and doing so until the prove unworthy of such treatment; I believe in doing whatever it takes to defend myself, my family and my friends from harm; I believe that we should ALL try to be good to one another, be tolerant , and be respectful; I believe that this is the only life that we get and we should try to live it to the full each and every day.

I DON’T believe in God, or Gods; I don’t believe in religion trying to claim that it has all the answers when, at the end of the day, it is just asserting beliefs from its own perspective (not facts); I don’t believe that the worship of a higher power should come before individual freedom, love, or choices; I don’t believe in the need for an external influence/force to inform my ethics or morality; I don’t believe that there is ‘One’ religion (or any) that is right to the detriment of all others; I don’t believe in any man made edifice, be it a book or a religion) being infallible; I don’t believe in life after death as a reward in Heaven, or a punishment in Hell.

However I wouldn’t class myself as an atheist at all. An atheist ‘knows’ there is no God and tries to uses science and facts to prove this; however the lack of hard evidence for something does NOT disprove it being possible. Just as a book, written by man over centuries and generations, translated, changed and edited, does NOT prove the existence of a supreme power any more than Lord of the Rings proves the existence of Elves.

I would say that I am an agnostic with humanist tendencies. I don’t KNOW if there is a God, or Gods, but I also don’t care. I don’t NEED a deity, higher power, divine being, sky father, God, saviour, or anything else in order to live my life. I don’t need the promise of Heaven, or the threat of Hell, in order to try to be a good person. I don’t NEED a book to give me contradicting viewpoints on how to live my life – especially not when it is fallible, and claims that insects have four legs, or that prawns are evil.

However I also don’t need the Humanist movement to tell me that I should state there is no God, that religious people are idiots for believing in fairy tales, or that they are 100% right. They are as bad as religions by trying to PUSH their own belief … the ONE TRUTH so to speak … on everyone else.

Ultimately I believe that no-one KNOWS what is true and what isn’t. It is the ultimate in pride and hubris to state that you are right and everyone else is wrong, after all. Geography and culture have as much to play in what religion you will follow as any real choice; if you’re born in Iran you probably won’t be Buddhist, for example, or Christian, just as if you are born in Northern Ireland, from generations of Catholic/Protestant family, you probably won’t be Muslim, or Shamanistic.

The Book of Me, if I were a religion, would be really small, and really simple (with no caveats or punishments for not following it – and you could end prawns if you wanted to):

Be good for goodness sake, be kind to one another, and party on dudes.

Here’s the latest Following The Nerd radio show, now as an easily downloaded podcast if you missed it live: ‘I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…’

This week Marc and me are honoured to have IDW Comics’ Editor-in-chief Chris Ryall on the show. He talks about why we can’t get The Real Ghostbusters title in the UK, what the plansare for their take on Judge Dredd, Doctor Who crossing over with Star Trek and loads of hits about what’s coming up.

We then get to chat with RB, one of the chaps who run the incredibly successful Stage32.com, the social media page for movie, TV and theatre preofessionals.

Throw in our usual piece from gaming guru Crowbar and all the usual Nerd-tastic news and reviews.

We love doing it, welove you guys and we love that you Nerd it here first…

Following The Nerd – www.followingthenerd.com – all the latest nerd news, reviews, articles & information across all mediums from games to action figures.

However as I realise that your disappointment in knowing no-more may leave in your tangible pain I am going to treat you, my dear readers and whet your appetite with a snippet from said, newly accepted, short story coming soon to an anthology near you:

“He counted at the loose change piled up in front of him, frowning as it stuck to the old, stale beer on the once proud wood, and tried to make it total the price of just one, more drink; any drink, he wasn’t fussy.”

Len Peralta is not only an amazing artist, the talent behind Geek-A-Week, Monster by Mail, 50 vs. 50, and the wonderful children’s illustrated book, ‘There’s a zombie in my treehouse’, but also a very nice and funny man too as I found out when I spoke to him for Following The Nerd.

Now, how do FTN go about getting on the Geek-A-Week cards?

Len can we found at his own website, on Facebook and Twitter…

Following The Nerd – www.followingthenerd.com – all the latest nerd news, reviews, articles & information across all mediums from games to action figures.

Here’s the latest Following The Nerd radio show, now as an easily downloaded podcast if you missed it live: “The children of the night, what sweet music they make.”

This week Marc, Bash and me talk about, among the things, Simon Pegg’s meanness and fixation with Lego, the upcoming sequel to Twins, Triplets (no, really – Bash has an unhealthy fascination with this), we discover it’s quite ok to have a man crush on Timothy Dalton and that his Bond is a ‘grower’.

We chat to Stuart from The Monday Movie Show podcast about movies and why we’re all so hopeflessly addicted.

Marc has a rant about Keith Lemon: The Film and why it has destroyed his confidence in Nerds, Uncle George’s Red Tails gets a UK release and we convince you why you have to see it. Staying in history, we chat about the iceberg that sank the Titanic – it was built in Belfast, y’know – and we get into remakes and classic movies Highlander, The Mummy and we even try to decipher the ending of Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes. And we talk about the best trailer of 2012 so far: Seth McFarlane’s Ted.

And that’s all just in the first hour.

So join in and Nerd out!

Following The Nerd – www.followingthenerd.com – all the latest nerd news, reviews, articles & information across all mediums from games to action figures.

Here’s the latest Following The Nerd radio show, now as an easily downloaded podcast if you missed it live: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

So join Marc, with Big Phil and me as we wade through all the latest news from around the Nerdsphere. Heavy concentration on comics this week and all the usual banter and madness. We are also joined by Crowbar, ost of our sister podcast Following Freeman, who is talking games news. You know it’s Thursday when things start to get seriously nerdy. So sit back, relax and enjoy!

Following The Nerd – www.followingthenerd.com – all the latest nerd news, reviews, articles & information across all mediums from games to action figures.

This respiratory specialist – after months and months of test after test – confirms that I have muscular weakness (so restricted lung function and diaphraghmatic weakness) that would be asscoiated with the genetic condition BUT also thinks that I still have asthma too (aggreivated by a raft of allergies, some of which I knew about some I didn’t).

Last respiratory specialist said there was definitely no asthma and all symptoms were purely down to the genetic condition.

One before that said that there was definitely no asthma but had no idea about the genetic condition so was bemused by the symptoms.

Before that the previous respiratory specialist said all symptoms were down to asthma but had no idea about the genetic condition.

… next one will prpobably say it is because I have gills, or something like that!

You know I realise, completely, that my medical condition (or conditions) are both complicated and complex, and that the effects are subtle most of the time which makes it extremely hard to narrow down and give a firm diagnosis. However it would be nice, just for once, to at least have a small part of the overall picture that doesn’t keep changing!

Anyway, if you’d like to hear my thoughts on a multitude of things – POWERS, superheros, comic books in general, Irish creative types, Avengers movie, and my lack of knowledge about all things Star Wars – in my very own dulcet tones, then you can now do so by listening to the podcast below or by clicking here (http://www.followingthenerd.com/ftn_news/ftn-podcast-ep-12-fortune-and-glory-kid-fortune-and-glory/)