CULTURE, pronounced 'cow-chaa' after a brilliant French and Saunders sketch, is everywhere, whether we like it or not.

It is defined in the Chambers 20th Century Dictionary as follows:

n. cultivation: the state of being cultivated: refinement: the result of cultivation: a type of civilisation: a crop of experimentally grown bacteria or the like.

The human race, of course, falls into the latter category.

There are many different forms of culture, from Theatre and the Arts, through TV and Cinema, and into Computers and the Wired World, passing books, Star Trek and David Warner on the way.


The French and Saunders Culture Sketch

In this scene, the comic duo, not content with ridiculing Jane Asher, take apart the show "Birds of a Feather" by portraying the two main charactors as completely intellectually disadvantaged (i.e. 'Thick'.) They come into a kitchen typical of the series, carrying lots of plastic shopping bags, with the line: "Gowd! I'm gawsping for a cuppa tea!" in an exagerated London accent. One of the pair then proclaims that she has been improving herself with some 'cow-chaa'. 'Yeah," she says. "I've bin readin' sum books!" (put in the accents yourself).
This is where they realise that it's Thursday, "French and Saunders" day, and not Tuesday, "Birds of a Feather" day, and so exit the set.


But then, of course, comes the question: "What is life?"

I like to resort to extreme conspiracy theories (even more X-treme than those in "The X-Files"). For example, we cannot prove that life as we know it exists, just as I cannot prove that you, the unseen reader exists, or that this Mac I'm working is real - but then what is real? - and how do we arrive at concepts and why do we take what our parents and teachers say to be true?

When each of our brain's developes (by the way, have you ever seen YOUR brain? How do you know it's there? Answer - you don't!) we befin to perceive the world. Why should everybody see the same green, or brown?
There is a short science fiction story by R. A. Laferty, called "Through other eyes" in which a scientist builds a device that lets you see through other people's eyes and brain, and he finds that everybody sees different colours, textures and objects, which words all call the same thing. I strongly recommend his stories (particularly "What's the name of that town" which is about a massive cover-up opperation by removing all evidense of the place in question from history and people's minds - but what is the name of that town?), which astound and entertain whilst opening some of the questions of exsistance. They were available in "The R. A. Laferty Omnibus: Nine Hundred Grandmothers" which was around, but I thinks it's out of print - look in a library.

I had a class on Psychology, and it totally wierded me out because you can talk for hours about strange concepts without being able to prove any of it. Hurray! The ultimate time-waster is found!

But here's some advice: you can't go around assuming that things normally taken to be real are not, because it doesn't work like that. Even though YOUR universe (which may be completely differnt to MY universe) is created, updated and governed by YOUR perceptions, you still have to play by THEIR rules - so don't try walking through walls just because you want to test a theory: believe me, it don't work!

But next time you are really bored, ponder the universe (how do you know it exists?) and ask yourself if YOU exist...