Adventures of the Dread Pirate Emmeline May

kirsten2 texted me to say I was on TV this morning - thanks to the BBC's iPlayer I got to see this one second of red-eyed fame.

The show is called Sunday Life, you can check it out for a week here. The 10 minute section in question is about Sophie Lancaster, and about goths being attacked for the way they dress. It's about 32 minutes in, if you just want to see that bit. You briefly see me crying over my flower during the memorial in Whitby.

Sophie's mum is on it - the more I see about her the more I admire her and her strength. They talk on the show about setting up a programme where people go into schools to teach tolerance and understanding -this is really something I'd love to be involved in so at some point I need to compose an email and write to them and say I'd like to help - I'm sure they get hundreds of emails a day, but it's worth trying as not only is youth work and outreach in general something I'd like to get involved in the whole S.O.P.H.I.E campaign and what it stands for is something particularly important to me, for obvious reasons.

The rest of the show was also very interesting - the section about organ donation reminded me I've not posted my annual 'register as a donor' reminder - I must do that soon, when I'm less hungover. It seems wrong to talk about organ donation when I appear to have attempted to destroy my own liver in the name of fun. A section featuring a family learning about different religions was also fascinating - I know next to nothing about the Sikh religion, and indeed many religions other than Christianity and those other ones cursorily covered in my RE lessons. I have decided to read up about a few - if I'm going to take this 'I disagree with organised religion' stance I should really know what I'm saying I disagree with. The Sikh religion seemed, from the brief coverage on the Sunday Life show, to be a really peaceful and down to earth one, with ethical core values and very much based on tolerance and all things under god being equal. Of course, they only had 10 minutes, and so a limited amount was covered, they didn't go in to the history or any negative sides, which made me want to read more about it; and about other religions too.

I've often said if you're going to have a strong opinion, make it an informed one, so I need to own those words and learn more about organised religions before I decide I don't like them based on news coverage and a few years of RE at school.

I shall get me down the British Museum, I think, as they have a number of exhibitions there about the origins of the major religions.

This post was far too serious and thoughtful for someone with as bad a hangover as I have, so I'm going back to bed now.