Not much different from the real version, you may think, or at least any routine trip on the Cthonic Railway London Underground. But the faintly Victorian ambience of this one has seen it labelled as steampunk, which it isn’t actually, not really. Well, there are some brass goggles and a dirigible, but these are bolt-on features rather than key story planks.

Anyway. Echo Bazaar is a work of art, and people have flocked to it. It is crack cocaine as far as effective time management is concerned, and anyone needing something more interesting than the work they are paid to do to occupy their time is encouraged to hurry right along.

The game works through Twitter (hashtag #ebz) and one method of getting more playing time when you have used up your allotted daily dose of server traffic is to send out a Tweet about the game. Some of the most popular involve a mythical creature called The Starveling Cat.

The kind of animal that disobedient children are promised a meeting with in the shadows that follow bedtime if they do not behave like little angels fresh from Heaven’s door.

So much so that a competition was organised for the best rhyming couplets about its activities with the winners added to the available Tweets.

Sadly I began playing too late to partake of this. But, ever one for a pointless literary challenge, I developed a rule of my own. If I should need to Tweet for actions, I would have to contribute to the general commonweal an original Starveling Cat couplet. Here are my best attempts:

“The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Has shat in your hat with amazing eclat!”

“The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Shreds your cravat and then demands a pat!”

“The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Got into a spat with a bloody great rat!”

“The starveling cat! The starveling cat! Distrait from its spat, it could not give a drat!”

“The starveling cat! The starveling cat! It scrit and it scrat but found nothing but scat!”

Think of them as the LOLCats of Fallen London…

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

How did we know to look out for this? Because there’s a service on Twitter called Twisst. This calculates your location based on your Twitter profile and sends you a Tweet telling you when to look up.

And we did. And there it was – extra-bright, at the moment, apparently.

So, what’s going on at the International Space Station right now? Well, the thing is most of the way through its construction, according to its Wikipedia article, which says: “As of December 2009, the station consisted of eleven pressurised modules and the complete Integrated Truss Structure.

“Still to be launched is the third and final American node, Tranquillity, a Permanent Logistics Module, the European Robotic Arm, two Russian modules and the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). Assembly is expected to be completed by 2011, by which point the station will have a mass in excess of 400 metric tons.”

During and after construction, the ISS functions as a long-term research laboratory funded by a consortium of nations from around the world. It allows long-term studies and experiments to be carried out and is permanently staffed.

Areas benefiting from the ISS include astronomy, physics, biology and meteorology. Astronauts are currently engaged in Expedition 22, busy setting up modules and experiments and preparing for a spacewalk.

Want to catch it yourself? Just sign up to Twisst or check out NASA’s ISS pages here.

He says: “The minute that you broaden the conversation in that way you begin to see that, in fact, trying to be inclusive and fair and to have all sides of the argument… is going to interrupt and deeply pollute the educational process.”

He continues: “If it is done well…. they will understand why it is going to be a waste of time and a distraction, if they are studying medicine, for example, to learn about ancient demon possession.”

Wonderful man. Hear his argument in full here:

Anyway, fresh from its BAFTA success, the robot is now collaborating with guest composers. The following video is a tango composed by Bernd Rest.

Triste Tryst, a tango for Cybraphon by Bernd Rest from Cybraphon on Vimeo.

If you like this, you can download the Cybraphon demo album here. But we cannot absolutely guarantee that no automata were harmed in the production of this recording…

To highlight this regressive new blasphemy law, which appears to have no place in a secular, modern European state and which is being used to shore up the case for wider-ranging blasphemy laws at the United Nations, the Atheist Ireland blog has posted a list of 25 blasphemous quotes.

It is asking bloggers to republish them, and to draw attention to its post, in order to express opposition to this and other blasphemy laws. So here we are.

My favourite blasphemous quote of all is not in the list. It is the 12th comment following it: “The Flying Spaghetti Monster is mushy and clearly overcooked.”

Well, well. Never mind cartoons and Mohammed. There’s a truly stiff test of our liberal sensibilities, to call into question the Al Dente nature of His Noodly Appendage…

- – - – -

We ask Fianna Fail and the Green Party to repeal their anachronistic blasphemy law, as part of the revision of the Defamation Act that is included within the Act. We ask them to hold a referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Irish Constitution.

We also ask all TDs and Senators to support a referendum to remove references to God from the Irish Constitution, including the clauses that prevent atheists from being appointed as President of Ireland or as a Judge without swearing a religious oath asking God to direct them in their work.

If you run a website, blog or other media publication, please feel free to republish this statement and the list of quotes yourself, in order to show your support for the campaign to repeal the Irish blasphemy law and to promote a rational, ethical, secular Ireland.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.
2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.
3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.
4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.
5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”
6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”
7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.
8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”
9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”
10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”
11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”
12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.
13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”
14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”
15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”
16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”
17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.
18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”
19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”
20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”
21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”
22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”
23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”
24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.
25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.”

Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

The four exclamation marks in the title are probably alone four more than lawyers have ever used.

This one dispenses with phoney altruism and makes a direct appeal to greed and entitlement. Should you have arrived here via Google and be unfamiliar with this kind of communication, you should know that it is a thoroughgoing scam posted for the purpose of more widely publicising its inauthenticity. You should never reply to such communications.

INHERITANCE NOTIFICATION!!!

On behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Engr.Juriaan Kugger. I once again
try to notify you as my earlier letter were returned undelivered. I wish to notify you that late
Engr. Juriaan Kugger made you a beneficiary to his WILL.

He left the sum of Thirty Million,One Hundred Thousand Dollars (USD$30, 100.000.00) to you in
the Codicil and last testament to his WILL. This may sound strange and unbelievable to you,
but it is real and true. Being a widely traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in
the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous friends abroad who
wished you good. Engr. Juriaan Kugger until his death was a member of the Helicopter Society and the Institute of Electronic & Electrical Engineers. Please if I reach you as I am hopeful, endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible to enable me conclude my job.

You are advice to contact me with my personal email: barr_andfraser_esq@live.co.uk

Await your prompt response.

Yours in Service,

BARRISTER ANDREAW FRASER ESQ.

PRINCIPAL PARTNERS: Barrister Aidan Walsh., Markus Wolfgang, Mr. John Marvey Esq., Mr. Jerry Smith Esq.

Should you have arrived here via Google and be unfamiliar with this kind of communication, you should know that it is a thoroughgoing scam posted for the purpose of more widely publicising its inauthenticity. You should never reply to such communications.

Dear Friend,

Good day and God bless you. I feel quite safe and satisfy contacting you today. Though, the internet has been greatly abused, I choose to reach you through it because it still remains the fastest, surest and most secured medium of communication. However, this correspondence is personal and it should be treated as such [sorry - but no].

As you read this, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will pass away someday. My name is Mrs. Rachel Leyton, a merchant in Dubai, U.A.E. I have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and it has declined all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about a few days or months to live, according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business. Though I am wealthy, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world.

I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that I find myself in this situation, I have willed and given most of my property and assets to my immediate and extended family members as well as a few close friends. I want God to be merciful to me and accept my soul so, I have decided to give aims to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, Myanmar and Pakistan.

Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself anymore. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and distribute the money which I have there to charity organization in Nepal and India, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contented with what I have left for them.

The last of my money which no one knows of is the huge cash deposit of Eight Million and Six Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (US$8,600,000.00) that I have with a Finance/ Security Company abroad. I will want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations. I have set aside 15% for you and for your time if you want to assist me to collect these Funds and have it distributed. I wait towards your prompt reply.

God bless you,
Mrs. Rachel Leyton.

It cites a number of reasons for this pronouncement, mostly featuring Hallowe’en six days earlier. For one thing, there’s little about Bonfire Night to allow shopkeepers to flog endless tat to undiscriminating tweens and teens. (Had they overlooked V for Vendetta masks?) For another, it’s American cultural imperialism, innit? Or, if neither of those explanations ring true, then it must be an oppressive health and safety culture that’s been a little too successful in preventing children from getting their fingers blown off in their own back gardens and thus being maimed for life.

Clearly the correspondent doesn’t live round here. I can’t comment on Hallowe’en, since I was in London and thankfully have no idea how many lisping brats banged on my door seeking nutritionally unsound recompense. But I can tell you that, contrary to the reports of its imminent demise, Bonfire Night is bloody thriving. This is the sort of town that has a large, well-established and very well-organised firework display. On a sportsground at the edge of town is built a bonfire so large you could easily accommodate a small cottage underneath. On the night it featured a small but suitably traditional funfair (are they really still allowed to flog goldfish in plastic bags?) replete with things like candyfloss, toffee apples, tooth-extracting nougat and all the similar things I remember coveting as a child. Wander round the ground’s perimeter and you could sample every kind of outdoor food from soup and burgers in buns to a full-blown hog roast. There was tea and coffee and a rather well-attended bar in the clubhouse.

And it seems like half the town goes to this event. Hundreds of teenagers in attendance and, at least from the bit of muddy grass that I was standing on, not a hint of an atmosphere. Parents and little kids, people like us with no kids at all who just like fireworks. It would not surprise me to learn that there were in excess of a thousand people present, although clearly estimating the numbers milling around on a dark sports field on a winter evening is hardly an exact science.

As to the fireworks? They were superb. Big, flashy, overhead things that looked like chrysanthemums and oriental orchids. Not too much emphasis on the rather boring ground-based ones. Instead the money had gone into great big starburst rockets that could probably be seen in villages 20 miles away and which allowed for plenty of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from those lucky souls standing underneath. And the whole thing was set to music, and they managed to get that 2005 orchestration of the Doctor Who theme tune in there.

And not a drop of rain until we were most of the way home. So don’t give me ‘Bonfire Night is dead.’