The Plainclothes Clown

Well, today my brother Sean has just taken the biscuit for pissing me off. And worst of all, he will never know just how much he has pissed me off, or even that he's pissed me off at all.

I think he's back on the fucking drugs. I think it's dope he's got in that "tobacco" pouch of his, because I've been unable to get a straight answer from him. All night long, he's been outside, staring at the fucking stars and saying how wonderful they are and seeing moving objects in the sky where there aren't any.

Just now, I got really ticked off at the antics of archskeptic Dr Richard Wiseman, who is anything but wise.

Each time there's a debunking article on the BBC's website, the BBC just trot this man out to mouth platitudes about how UFOs, magic, telepathy, psychics, ghosts and all sorts of phenomena are "all in the mind."

I came down to talk to my brother about how irritating this attitude to ghosts was; to point out that even if this doctor doesn't believe in ghosts, he has to believe in death; and that death is the one thing in life we have to approach with more questions than answers, because to answer the question "What happens when we die?" is something he has no answers for - at least, not until he can satisfy his own curiosity, at which point he'll be unable, by his own definition, to tell us about it because his mind will have ceased to exist - and that, in the face of his dreadful worldview that we're all just empty bags of meat and water, and that all thought and mind is meaningless, what's to stop him from just going home and getting out a really sharp blade and slitting his wrists because it's as valid an action as anything else?

All of the above assertions.

And what does my stupid, stupid stoner of a brother do?

He goes and grabs a hedgehog from the garden. He brings the terrified creature into my room, right here, with the bright lights, the humming computer and me screaming at him to get that thing out now.

"Here's your answer," he tells me, dreamily, a big stupid grin on his face.

I really, really loathe this brother of mine right now, because I saw the look on that cringing, terrified hedgehog when it saw me.

I am never going to forgive him for what he has just done.