The Adventures of Dysfunctional Dan

We're approaching the end of 2019 and so it is time for the annual tradition where I share some of the things I've enjoyed the most this year. I say "annual tradition" but this is only the second time I've done this. I suppose the act of writing this is making it an annual tradition. TV It occurs to be that I haven't loved much TV this year. I've never watched Game of Thrones  which is probably just as well because it seems most people were disappointed in it's final season. The second series of Killing Eve was enjoyable but no-where near the heights of it's first series and the first version of The War of the Worlds  that actually set the story in the 19th century was a bit of a mess.  Still, there have been some good things. One of them is the BBC's His Dark Materials  which has turned Philip Pullman's excellent novels into something really special. There's a wonderful cast with Dafne Keen as Lyra and the CGI in it is stun...

I sit behind the keyboard waiting for inspiration for a blog post. Suddenly a figure appears before me. A bright lights shines from it's head, almost blinding me. As my eyes adjust to the light, I realise the figure keeps shifting form. One moment it's a young girl, then suddenly an old man, then a head without a body, constantly shifting and never settling as one thing. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past" the figure announces and if I didn't know better I'd say it had delivered the line with a sense of pride. "Long past?" I inquired. "No. Your past" "But I like Christmas, I don't need saving." I tell the spirit. "True. But you do need content so let us travel back to your past". The room fills with bright light and then fades again but I'm no longer in the same place. I'm now in a crowded dining room and a group of people are sat around the table eating Christmas dinner. I instantly recognise my p...

Next week the UK return to the polls for yet another general election. I remember turning eighteen and looking forward to being able to go and vote. The political trauma of the intervening years quickly turned voting as less of a privilege and more of a chore. Once again I shall be heading to the polling station to try to have my say on who should sort the mess out. We're not exactly spoiled for choice right now. Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson is an arsehole and I have honestly not heard anyone disagree with that. This is a man who is extremely untrustworthy who at worst lies and at best misleads. Take the run up to the Brexit referendum when he stated that leaving the EU would give an extra £350 million to the NHS on the side of a bus. It's just one example of many where Johnson deliberately manipulates the facts to grab power. Even his personal life gives cause for concern given he is famous for being a womanizer and won't even admit to how many children he has,...

I was recently asked whether I prefer Superman or Spider-Man. The question was randomly pulled from a set of questions designed to elicit some talk from children and as an adult in the classroom I too had to answer the question. Being a huge superhero fan I had no trouble formulating a rely and could have probably written a lecture on the question had I been required. The answer is clearly Spider-Man. The definition of "hero" is usually something along the lines of "a person who is admired for having done something very brave". The big issue with Superman is that he is basically a god and unless you happen to have some kryptonite around is pretty much indestructible. It therefore means Superman doesn't need to have any courage to save people. Spider-Man on the other hand is basically just strong and sticky and is outgunned in virtually every conflict he finds himself in. Spidey needs real courage to put on his mask and take on impossible odds and that's...

Being in your mid to late twenties can be hard. There's a nagging feeling at the back of your mind that you really ought to have got your shit together by now. I think it's probably human nature that you look to those around you and you find yourselves surrounded by people in long-term relationships and marriages, people who have young children and have very much settled down and found their place in life. I suspect that's always been the case but in the twenty-first century this is amplified by social media. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of good things about social media. But it can be soul destroying as you see a constant stream of how wonderful other people's lives are. Of course that's curated by them and it doesn't necessarily mean they are happy. From the other side though it's easy to sit there and believe you are worth less than other people. My mental health has proved challenging for much of my twenties. I find myself deeply uncomfo...

Last week I had the daunting prospect of attending a wedding. I had a week of trying to put it to the back of my mind because I was anxious about it. Just the prospect that it would involve a journey along the motorway in the dark at the end would probably be enough to make me anxious but that wasn't even my main concern. The biggest issue for me was the fact that I would hardly know anyone attending. There were two people I knew from university and though I generally like both of them I didn't know them well enough to call them more than acquaintances and besides, I hadn't seen either of them for some years. I had met a few of the bride's family but again barely knew them. The only person I really knew was the bride who is my best friend. On any other occasion I would have not turned up but this wasn't about me. Whilst I am probably just one of many friends to the bride, she is my best friend and in the nearly ten years I've known her she's been loyal...

Strap in folks, it's time for some science! Specifically, psychology. It's been understood in the scientific world for some time that a general factor of intelligence, or "g-factor", exists. Put simply, people who score highly on one test of intelligence also tend to score high on other tests of intelligence. This means that you can reliably test intelligence using any kind of intelligence test as long as it is complex enough. This week I read about a 2018 paper which uses the same principle but for a different area of the human personality: malevolence. The researched have come up with the idea of a general dark factor of personality or "D-factor". The use of the word 'dark' comes from personality psychologists who use "dark traits" to mean to describe characteristics of people who display behavior which is ethically or morally questionable. It can be quite complicated when you delve into the details of the paper but the idea is that p...