That's me in the corner

Last night I represented Hufflepuff on University Challenge.  I hate it when that happens, especially when G is on smug Ravenclaw form. Tsk.

I blame the fact that my mind was still preoccupied with Richard Dawkins' latest display of grumpy, owlish intellectual thuggery in episode three of his Ode to Darwin.  A couple of years ago Charlie Brooker reviewed the very similar 'Root of All Evil' series with this quote...

"it's hilarious because every time Dawkins meets a religious spokesman, which he does at regular intervals throughout the programme, he quickly becomes far too angry to conduct a civil conversation with them - visibly fumes, in fact, and adopts the expression of an outraged Victorian gentleman who's just been mooned by a cackling street urchin while escorting a lady across Bloomsbury Square. It doesn't exactly move the debate forward."

He hasn't changed.  I really think he ought to be more sporting about it all... maybe lay off the brutal editing a little. (e.g. he could have let Rowan Williams - probably his most eloquent opponent - finish his sentence rather than overlaying his still-moving lips with Dawkins' own Peep-Show style thought process, comical though it may be).  G made a rather insightful comment that Dawkins is as far out of his depth when talking to an educated opponent about religion as they are talking to him about Science.  

Mind you, I did wonder whether anyone else became song-virused by 'Blame Canada' when the lady from Concerned Women for America popped up to represent the sweet-faced voice of stupidity, expounding on the lack of fossil evidence for 'in-between' species.  Ho hum.