Now, it’s been an exciting year back home from what I can gather. The biggest Student demonstration in a generation, an alleged democratic revolution, and State visits by the President of the United States and the Queen of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. I’m not saying Malta is without it’s charms (The Divorce referendum is this week. It’s like being in Ireland in 1996, but there’s free WiFi everywhere) but it seems that I’ve missed some fairly important goings on back home. Thankfully, I’ve been able to follow the comings and goings of my Homeland from the comfort of my own desk. I watched the hilarious videos of protesters trying, and failing to burn a Union Jack when the Queen arrived on YouTube, I followed the events of the No to fees march on Facebook and was treated to the election results in Galway West as they came in via Twitter. Today, thanks to a combination of all three, I was able to follow President Obama’s day out in Ireland; knocking back a pint in Moneygall, meeting the president with his entourage, and of course, watching him learn that you can kit out a limousine with the best bullet proof panelling money can buy, it can still be no match for Irish roads.

The standard of oration at College Green was certainly above average. The passionate rhetoric of actor Brendan Gleeson was later followed (after a series of mediocre musical acts) by, frankly, the best speech I’ve ever heard Enda Kenny give and certainly one that I imagine none of his recent predecessors would have been capable of delivering. I agree wholeheartedly with those on twitter who expressed the sentiments “Thank God it’s not Cowen”. The President’s speech was, it had to be said, the best political speech heard in Ireland in a while, although I’ve heard the criticism that it was essentially a remake of Bill Clinton’s speech set in 2011. The whole event seems to have been a sort of pep talk for the country and there can be no doubt that some words of encouragement are needed right now as we face another round of Airlines vs Volcanic Ash, Iran ignoring EU sanctions against its nuclear power programe and the National Debt rising to somewhere in the region of €23,250 per person. But perhaps it might have served us better, and earned him more favour with Irish-American votes if he took the day to have words with the ECB instead?

The latest in this line of idiocy, is the soon-to-be-proven-wrong Harold Camping who, like William Miller and Homer Simpson before him, added up some numbers in the Bible and believes that the world will end tomorrow. His reasoning, if it can be so-called, is that he believes tomorrow to be the 7,000th anniversary of the Deluge, a perfect time for God to smite us wicked sinners with our sinful life saving medical science and godless concept of Human Rights, and cast us into the Inferno. I can safely say that tomorrow, Saturday the 21st of May 2011 shall be as extraordinarily mundane a day as any other. Hungover College students will recover from a night of exam conclusion revelry, athletes will be out training at early hours, and kids will watch Saturday morning television. If you see shoes lying about on the street, don’t get too excited. The physical distance between us and the theocrats will sadly, endure neither breech nor expansion, it’s simply a joke being played by some witty skeptic, hoping to make one of these sheep panic and think that they’ve been left below. Despite the Zombie Warning issued by the Centres for Disease Control in the United States, I wouldn’t expect our graveyards to burst open either. Why? Because there is no reason at all for it.

I’ve heard it touted in the media at least three times since 1995 that the world was going to end, and yet here I am still. As I child, I was fearful of the end. Adults were talking about the Y2K while documentaries on the History Channel went on about Nostradamus and Biblical codes foretelling 9/11 and other disasters (consistently predicted after the fact). All of the prophesies of the end of the world from Jesus of Nazareth to Miller to Paco Rabanne have one thing in common; they’ve all been wrong. The first Christians expected the second coming to be within their lifetimes, and after not just centuries but millenia of being proven wrong by the dawning of each new Raptureless day, it’s absolutely insane of them to still think that maybe this time he’ll come back. Maybe this time Big Brother will come and usher us into the promised Celestial IngSoc, maybe Beloved Leader and Dear Leader will take us into the DPRK in the skies. It’s absurd, and it cannot be believed by any sane person that the Universe will come to an end tomorrow.

But there plenty of real ways that the Earth could end; meteor strikes could throw up dust and ash into the atmosphere and blot out the sun. A gamma-ray burst for a distant quasar could strip away our atmosphere, or far more likely, a group of religious fanatics, Muslim or Christian, could get their hands on apocalyptic weaponry and do God’s job for him since he apparently lacks the eschatological zeal of his disciples. Just see what one follower of Camping had to say about his relatives: “I know I’m not going to see them again, but they are very certain they are going to see me, and that’s where I feel so sad”. How bloody callous and unfeeling would one have to be to sit back and watch innocent people rounded up and tortured by an autocratic authority, while you suck up to it and wait for your reward? If it were true, it would be nothing less than collaboration with a fascistic regime.

Camping, like all his predecessors and all his successors will be proven wrong by the passage of time, but it won’t just be the Fundamentalists who believed him, who said their goodbyes to their infidel relatives, quit their jobs and sold their homes who will be disappointed. They may have to live in a world of Original Sin, but we’re the ones who have to put up with their lust for Catastrophe, their egging on the angels at oblate-spheroid-Earth’s non-existant corners to blow their trumpets and end it all.

All of these things I attribute to maturity. None of these changes happened over night, but over the course of nine years I’ve learned that it can be quite hypocritical to ever say never. Everyone goes through the experience of puberty and adolescence; and fumbling, awkward, confusing as it can be, many emerge at the other end with a different perspective on the world. A former lecturer of mine, Prof. Brian Arkins often noted about the Christian idea of being “born again” that the ancient Greeks would have remarked that going through the ordeal once was more than sufficient. The same applies to the experiences of frequent reflex erections, breaking voices and acne; it’s not really something you want to go through twice. But nowadays, people actually have to go through two stages of adolescence; one Biological, and one Digital.

The advent of the Digital age of Social Media and Online Fora means that we all have to essentially go through another adolescence, but because Hard Drives are better at memory storage than Neurons, there’s a good chance that the mistakes you make during you digital pubescence will haunt you for a very long time. On the whole some people did well out of Internet Fame; Rebecca Black, Antoine Dodson, and depending on how you look at it, Boxxy. But the online exploits of others did not fare so well, the most notable case being that of Ms. Jessi Slaughter. Her videos may only last a few minutes, but the memories and of course, the consequences will last a lifetime.

These are the big errors people make when online. But there are smaller things which I think are the trademarks of a Digital Teenager. There’s no age limit for a Digital Teen, they can be fourteen or forty, it’s just a label for their behaviour. There are simple matters of etiquette, much as there are anywhere, which ought to be followed but often are not. For example, take Twitter (And I refuse to use Fine Gael’s pathetic neologism of “twetiquette”. Only twats and twankers use twetiquette). The point of Twitter is to send short messages to your friends, people who find your musings interesting, and spambots. The messages have a limit of 140 characters, and you just have to be creative to meet that limit. But I’ve noticed that a lot of new users often use services like “TwitLonger” which let you extend the tweet beyond the limit, and that basically does away with the appeal of Twitter; Brevity is better. There are other mores like shortening URLs, keeping Follow Fridays to one Tweet and Hashtags which are often ignored by newbies, or in the case of the latter, overused.

But there are other habits which often make my mouse hand become trigger happy with the unfollow button. For me, there’s an Unholy Trinity of habits; three markers of an immature and boring digital persona. There’s no sin more unforgivable than to be boring, and perhaps I with my talk of Grammatical Fascism and the Internet’s Mos Maiorum, ought not to be the one casting stones. It isn’t my intention to chastise. I’ve made many online faux pas myself, I can list some of them if you like, or you could find them with the minimal amount of sleuthing. My intent is simply get across that I think that these habits are puerile and explain my reasoning behind my conclusions.

First in my troika of pet peeves is the formula “Dear X, Y, Regards, Z”, often seen in Facebook Statues and Tweets. For example “Dear people who talk in the Library, I hate you. Please die. Regards, Charles”. This is something which I’ve posted, and something which I now look back on and think it’s one of the most pathetic things I’ve ever done. I see this in other people’s posts about once or twice a week. What this says to me is that the poster, rather than confront the problem head on, has chosen to make a passive aggressive comment, where there is a minimal chance that the problem maker will see it. It would have been better of me to, as they say “man-the-fuck-up” and tell the clucking poultry to shut up and go back to playing Farmville. Seeing that I’ve done this myself has made me change my ways, and stand up for myself when I need to. But when I see this in others all this says to me is that the individual is so passive agressive and non-confrontational that they ought to be a character in Philadelphia, here I come!

Being a Male from a country that is both predominately Roman Catholic and part of the Anglosphere, I’ve been ingrained with preference for Stoicism and maintaining a “stiff-upper-lip” over excessive expressiveness. So in the second aspect of my Unholy Trinity sit individuals who wear their hearts on their digital sleeves. I’ve no quarrel with public displays of love and affection in real life or on online, just keep it in your pants, but I do frequently get put off by assertions of sorrow, sadness and self pity, much as someone crying in public makes those in their proximity grow uncomfortable. Annunciations like “I’m going to go cry now” or “God, I hate my life”, in a serious context say nothing more to me than “I want attention. Pay attention to me”. I’ve grown tired of even trying to console them or enquire; after all, any attention is good attention. I’ve read enough about depression to know that people who are genuinely in trouble have a tendency to keep their problems to themselves and to put on a presentable face. When I hear outbursts of rage and violent threats in public I often get a slight rush of adrenalin, even when I’m not the recipient, but they just loose their impact on Facebook. I wouldn’t accuse someone who posts vague threats to no-one in particular of being a bore like the attention-seekers in my last example, but I would accuse them of being puerile because of their employment of Cap-locks and superfluous exclamation marks.

Bringing this post to a close is my third major peeve, which I’ll admit overlaps with the second, but belongs less in the realm of Social Media and more to that of Message Boards, comment threads and Online Fora. There’s a saying on the Internet that goes “Not sure if Troll, or just really stupid”. Again trying to be at least somewhat self-deprecating here, but during my digital pubescence, I watched a YouTube video about Oliver Cromwell and then commented. I know, I know, I used to comment on YouTube videos of all things, but I being young and foolish, with common sense I did not agree. I can’t recall exactly what was said but at some point, Cromwell was praised as a great man. For those of you not in the know, there are two contrasting schools of thought on Cromwell on opposite sides of the Irish Sea. In Britain, he’s a hero who saved Democracy, and in Ireland he’s the Adolf Hitler of the 17th Century. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not well versed in Irish and British History, and I gave my knee-jerk reaction. Something along the lines of “Cromwell was a monster who killed innocent people for his God and his King”. Neglecting that fact had Cromwell treated his God as he did his Monarch, he would have been the Richard Dawkins of the 17th Century. Much the same as you ought to put down the Laptop if you’re in any way emotional, you probably should take the time to re-read what you’ve just written before clicking post.

It seems to me that one of the advantages of the everlasting records of our online actions can serve a more positive purpose. If you can look back at what you wrote, posted and commented on and feel pride, that’s great. You’re one of those rare mortals blessed with a great intellect and street-smarts alike. But if like me, you look back at your online adolescence with a slight cringe there is some consolation. Just as we look at ancient civilizations in a museum, we can look back at our younger selves and remark at how far we’ve come

Another Cop-out post by yours truly. I’m still up to my armpits in ICJ Judgements, European Union Treaties and Ovid for the next few weeks. Expect more rants come June 8th.

So I’ll go and administer the traditional remedies of my people (Flat Seven-Up, Tea and Mammy’s homemade soup) and you enjoy this cover of my favourite Beatles’ Song.

This great Homerism captures one of the essential truths of modern life. Alcohol is one of the most widely consumed substances on earth; hardly surprising, as unlike tobacco and marijuana, it can be produced from virtually anything with sugars and so, is readily available. Most cultures, aside from those who consider alcohol to be a taboo, have their own indigenous drinks. The ubiquitous nature of alcohol in our societies is a testament to the simple and undeniable fact; Humans love to drink.

Alcohol has been a regular feature of my life for the last three years, and I can’t imagine going back. Since my 18th birthday I’ve branched out from the myriad of flavourless lagers pumped by multinational corporations to bigger and better brews. There’s an astounding array of delicious drinks for us to delight in, you just need to know where to look for them.

Like all of life’s greatest luxuries, alcohol, along with coffee and tea, is an acquired taste; that’s why a lot of teenagers start off by drinking vodka heavily diluted with cola or orange. And for-shame upon you fourteen-year-olds! One must drink vodka, after chilling it in the freezer for a few hours, from a tall shot glass, (filled only halfway, as a full glass is the mark of a Philistine) and washed down by a glass of chilled fresh fruit juice. Although strictly speaking it ought to be sipped, neither thrown back nor served with Red Bull.

When adapting to the New World Order that alcohol creates, here is the best advice I can offer, from my own experiences and from conventional wisdom. The golden rule of alcohol is never drink on an empty stomach. This is the most common mistake, and goodness knows I’ve made this mistake enough times to know that it is the single biggest error anyone can make. In Ireland and Great Britain, we have the tradition of the Pub; the place where you go to socialise over a few pints without food, but on the Continent, alcohol is a foodstuff; in many wonderful countries, you may have a bottle of beer or a glass of wine with lunch without being branded as an alcoholic, or purchase a beer at the cinema and not have to be subjected to the sickening and teeth rotting soft drinks that we in the puritanical anglosphere must endure. I will never forget the culture shock of going to Spain at sixteen and seeing kids my age going to a restaurant and drinking wine! It was as far removed as possible from the Irish adolescent’s naggins of vodka and bottles of Buckfast (drink this at least once in your life, while you are young so that you understand it is not fit for human consumption).

Cider is the ideal drink for initiates and novices of Alcohol. Even once you’ve progressed to bigger and better brews, it’s a wonderfully refreshing drink, and ideal on a hot summer day. The Irish standard is Bulmers, both Apple and Pear are good choices. And remember, Bulmers is to Magners, what Derry is to Londonderry. The King of all Ciders, of course is the Swedish Kopparberg Mixed Berries; imagine fruit-of-the forest yogurt as a beverage, although after a few sips many people find this to be sickeningly sweet, on top of the upset stomach many get from cider. Also worth mentioning is the Savanna Cider from South Africa, which has a distinctly lip-smackingly dry taste to it; great when you’re very parched.

At some point in life, you have to ditch the training wheels of Cider and graduate to Beer. Some speculate that Beer, rather than bread was the driving force behind the Agricultural revolution, and thus responsible for all subsequent Human Civilisation. The Ancient Egyptians payed their labourers in Beer, and Beer keep Europeans alive during the Dark Ages when water was too filthy to drink. Beer is important to human history, so for goodness sake, show it some respect and drink real Beer.

Since the industrialisation of the Beer Industry, Lager has become the dominant form of beer. For a seasoned Beer drinker, it’s difficult to understand why these beers are so popular. Many lagers, when compared to Ales, Stouts and Weissbiers are often so utterly deficient in flavour that they might as well be carbonated urine. If you think that the regular bavrage or pint of ‘ken that you’re drinking is decent beer, believe me, you’re sorely mistaken, but the fact that you’ve stuck with it is entirely understandable.

Unless you’re some sort of Nietzschean Übermensch, your first beer will be bitter and unpleasant. Lagers are brewed to be as weak in taste so that it appeals to a wider market. These are good for transitioning yourself into beer, and beyond that, they’re no better than the aforementioned carbonated urine. Once you develop a liking for Lagers (I recommend that you progress in the following order; Bavaria or Fosters, then Corona & Lime, then Heineken or Carlsberg) you’re ready to play with the big boys. Carlsberg Export is a good place to start, but if you’re fortunate enough to live near a Microbrewery (or even luckier, a microbrewery that holds brewing festivals & beer tastings) that should be your first stop. A great world of brews awaits you; Ales, Pale Ales, Stouts and Weissbiers, when compared with Lagers are incredibly rich in flavour. And I have take the opportunity to plug Galway Hooker, the best brew available in the City of the Tribes (and lovingly brewed in Roscommon).

The English have a top-notch tradition of microbreweries and if you happen to be passing through Oxfordshire or Buckinghamshire, I can’t recommend the Bitters in that region too highly; in the few times I’ve passed through there, I’ve yet to sample a Beer that I didn’t enjoy. Once you’ve adapted to the richer flavour beers, higher alcohol content brews are worth trying, but be warned; 9% Belgian Trappist Beers are to be drunk to relax. Under no circumstances should be brought along to any drinking games. La Trappe, one such drink, is a very sweet tasting brew, and I shall consider it an insult to beer if you neglect to try it when passing through the Low Countries. For the Irish of course, Stout is a must-have. If you’ve ever eaten Irish Soda bread, then you’ll have a rough idea of the flavour of Guinness, although it certainly is creamier, and much more refreshing. Remember though, conventional wisdom on the Black Stuff states that the most important factor in enjoying it is the Pub in which it is served, and the taste depends on a number of variables, especially the age of the tap and how often it’s serviced. I believe that to really enjoy a pint of Guinness you ought to drink it with an Irish Lamb stew.

The bravest beer drinkers will dare to accept the challenge of Tokyo; a 20% beer by Scottish company Brew Dog. But be warned, this is not for the faint of heart. The Scottish Parliament gave out to them for making it! However, the Beer End Game lies in Brew Dog’s other Beer, The End of History, (So expensive that it comes served in a Squirrel fur pouch) weighing in at an impressive 55%, and it’s opposition, from Dutch Brewery ‘t Koelschip Start the Future, an epic tier heavyweight at 60%.

Happy (Responsible) Drinking.

I eventually conquered my procrastination went down to the GP’s office, sat down for twenty minutes, watching Mr. Bean on an infinite loop on the waiting room telly. Finally, I was called in and I described my symptoms. The Doctor took my blood pressure, checked my pupils and my eyes and all that. Here’s the interesting bit though. He didn’t ask me to lie down and start waving his hands around with faux-oriental music playing in the background in order to augment my chakrahs. Nor did he stick needles along imaginary Chinese lines in my body, nor did he take a some arsenic, dilute it a few thousand times and charge me €18 for the resulting water. Dear me, why didn’t he do this? Surely my anxiety is caused by an imbalance in my bio energy flow, or a misalignment of my spinal column when Venus is ascending? No, my anxiety was caused by my fear that my throat might close up while I’m sleeping!

My Doctor did, however, reassure me that there’s no medical reason for me to stop breathing in my sleep, aside from a gigantic brain tumour pressing on my brain stem, which I might have noticed by the time it got severe enough to cause me to stop breathing; most likely, the problem was caused by my heavily congested sinuses, itself arising out of the mild allergic reaction I was having from living in a different climate, with different flora, and not to mention the fact that I live on a part of the Island which is apparently notorious for high air pollution. Whoops, that must have slipped my estate agent’s mind. Immediately, after talking about my fears, and hearing his reassurances I felt better. My anxiety melted away, even before I got my hands on the month’s supply of anti-histamines, and a decongestant nasal spray. Both of which worked like a charm, and I’ve slept and breathed soundly ever since.

In the most recent issue of NUIG’s Student Periodical, SIN, Jennifer Banaghan has written an article on BioEnergy therapy for students, and I simply must take exception to her claims, and ask, in all honesty; does she takes us for saps? Now, there are people out there, bloggers, authors and columnists who are far more qualified to dissect and disembowel her arguments than I, but well, I wouldn’t be much of a skeptic if I didn’t at least give it a go.

Firstly, Energy, as any Junior certificate Science student will tell you, is the ability to do work; the old idea of the vital energy or the Oriental idea of Qi/Chi, described energy as an ether flowing through the body, like blood flows through the veins. This is what Traditional Chinese medicine (and I pronounce the medicine in that sentence with the same emphasis I would put on tapeworm) is based on; that blockages of this Qi is what causes illness. However, this theory runs into the slight problem that it has never been supported by any scientific evidence. The idea of Energy as an ether flowing through the body runs contrary to what Science has learned about Physics and Biology since the enlightenment. From the get go, alternative medicines like this cannot work (or cannot work as they claim to) because that would mean that everything else we know is wrong. It undermines the germ theory of disease, which states that many illnesses are caused by microscopic organisms; bacteria, protists and viruses, and by extension, these Alternative therapies undermine antibiotics and vaccination; treatments which have saved countless lives and which, unlike this BioEnergy insanity, actually speak for themselves. But these archaic ideas of energy were taken up by the LSD-driven New Age movement, who attach words like “vibrations” and “quantum” to make themselves sound smarter than they actually are, as well as the outright lies that their shamanism is supported by Einstein’s theory of Relativity.

Michael’s career in Bio-Energy began after a close family member lost their sight and was told by traditional healthcare professionals this could not be fixed.

The story which she offers of Michael O’Gara is immediately suspect. It’s an unverified, anecdotal story and to paraphrase the great skeptic and polemicist Christopher Hitchens, is a claim made without any evidence, and thus can be dismissed without evidence.

He was convinced this could not be final due to his mother’s description of a bright light and through him working with her energy field she regained her ability to see.

Before now, this article was simply scientific ignorance, now it’s become something more nefarious. This can be considered as giving false hope to individuals who have lost their sight, albeit in a roundabout and inexplicit way, telling them that this woman had her sight restored, perhaps you can too! Just pop down to a clinic which subscribes to an unscientific eighty’s fad based on outright misunderstanding of Science, and a perfect understanding that a fool and his money are easily parted.

To give false hope to persons who have lost their sight, is a terrible and cruel thing. Fine, fine, I shouldn’t exagerate what she says, and simply judge these words by their ordinary meaning. But if saying that “This man has cured a woman of her blindness” isn’t advertising this as a panacea, then what is the point of including it? To suggest that this pseudo scientific witch doctoring can cure blindness where Medical Science cannot yet do so is utter madness. I ask you, reader, what is more likely, that there was a misdiagnosis of her initial condition, or perhaps a case of spontaneous reemission, or that the Laws of Physics were suspended in her favour by a bunch of flashing lights? It is possible that the story is utterly false, made up by the practitioner to convince customers that this is legitimate. He has every reason to convince her that this works; Alternative Medical practitioners cannot be counted on as an impartial judge of the customer’s best interests because they stand to profit from the transaction going ahead. Secondly, it’s possible that this woman did lose her sight, and regained it, but that doesn’t mean that this BioEnergy Shamanism was responsible for it.

Medical Science, superior as it is to this snake-oil peddling, is not perfect. Every year there are misdiagnoses, there are maladies that cannot yet be cured, and there are times where Doctors can’t find out what on earth is going on with someone. There are also cases of spontaneous reemission, where a persons symptoms can go away for no apparent reason at all. And of course, there is the good old placebo effect, that is to say that sometimes when people think that they will be cured, their symptoms will go away. Quacks and Frauds and New Agers are so quick to say “Science doesn’t know everything”. True, but just because Science doesn’t know everything doesn’t mean that Science knows nothing. Quite the contrary, Medical Science knows enough for us for more than twice as long as our ancestors on the savannah 250,000 years ago. Science knows enough to have globally eradicated Small pox, and to have largely wiped out Tuberculosis from Ireland; an illness which once threatened entire generations in villages and towns across the country.

He stresses that this healthcare system is suitable for all, from babies with colic to adults with various conditions that can be overcome by unblocking the energy passages, so that light educates the cells and the person recovers.

Again, he’s giving false hope to parents, that he can shut up their little bundles of joy with some flashing lights so that they can have some peace and quiet. Cruel, but not nearly as dastardly as saying that this Plexus Clinic offers a cure to people who have no other options. That’s preying on the vulnerable in our society for profit, and that is downright despicable and deplorable behaviour. The final statement of the above quote is just sheer nonsense; cells don’t have memory or consciousness. This is on par with non sequitur preached by Homeopaths that water has a memory, a further testament to the fact that this is sheer quackery. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that is provided neither here, nor on Plexus’ website. The “Research” section of their website reads like it could be parody of New Age nonsense, but at the end of the day is guilty of trying to exploit popular ignorance of science for profit. Books, quotes and names are dropped, but not a single one of these claims refers to a Legitimate Medical journal. When I see a link to a study published in The Lancet verifying your claims, I’ll give you a second thought.

Anyone who believes that this new-age insanity actually works, I plead with you to ask yourselves, and be honest, if it works on par (or better than) Medicine, if it does everything that drugs, antibiotics, balanced diet, exercise and chemotherapy do, then why are these BioEnergy techniques not employed by Doctors? The only conclusion you can draw is that either these New Age treatments are ineffective, or that it is a big conspiracy by “Big Pharma” to control our minds and sell drugs. At this point, I turn to the skeptic’s ally, William of Occam, and his famous razor, Things need not be multiplied beyond necessity, or as it is often paraphrased, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Medical science works, and therefore is the one which is implemented, that is the explanation. The body’s natural healing abilities didn’t exactly do our ancestors much good for their 30 or so years of life and their high infant mortality rates now did they? These alternative treatments are a luxury item. We live in an era when there are treatments available for many illnesses which used to be fatal. Widespread vaccination has culled infectious diseases which claimed the lives of many infants and young children. Denying Medical Science the credit that it is due is biting the hand that feeds you, and I can say confidently that I and indeed most of us would not be alive today without these Sciences. And to those who have the audacity, the sheer nerve to question the value of the advances Science has made for us over the last two hundred years I say hang your heads in shame. Taking a lead from Cicero, let it be written in front of each and every person’s brow that you remain alive because of the achievements of Science, not Ayurveda or Acupuncture, but because of Western Medical Science, and because Science works.

But of course, Ms. Banaghan plays the get out of jail free card for my condemnation, by stating:

“Bio-Energy Therapy is presented as an alternative healthcare system, it does not dismiss conventional methods in any way but offers a different approach to health”.

Well played. But if one approach has been proven to work, and the other one hasn’t, then isn’t it somewhat reckless of you to suggest that they are in any way equals? In “conventional medicine” doctors must achieve the highest standards in the education system; they must undergo years of study, hard work, examination and training. They are worked like dogs for years, and every move they make is subject to scrutiny by other doctors, their administrators, and medical malpractice solicitors. They work in a highly regulated system which, rightly so, demands the highest standards of them, and if they fail then the consequences are dire; they must deal with the guilt of failure, and the legal consequences because they owe their patients a certain standard of care. BioEnergy healing asks for, “one weekend per month, for eight months” of training to be qualified. They are subject to nowhere near the same scrutiny, or peer review as Doctors, and owe their customers a standard of care that pales in comparison. It is an insult to every hard working Medical Student, Lecturer and Qualified Doctor in this University and in this Country for her and for Plexus BioEnergy to suggest in any way that they are on an equal footing with Medical Science. I ask you, in what way can this pseudoscientific quackery be considered an alternative to the hardworking Doctors, Surgeons and G.P.s in this County?

But of course, the article in SIN focuses on exam stress. I shall dismiss this BioEnergy in its entirety, save for one part. The session involves lying down in a dimly lit room for forty-five minutes, with someone telling you to relax, perhaps even with relaxing music playing for the session. Essentially, the entire charade is about as useful as a nap. And during times of high stress, and lots of work and pressure, having some time to yourself like this can be a pretty useful thing. Perhaps taking a nap isn’t for you; going for a walk or a run or a cycle might help you relax better. Maybe sitting down with a nice book or going to get contorted and stood on by a Thai Woman would help you relax and focus yourself. There are two key points here. Firstly, the therapy is some time off, a break from routine, and that can be very good for you. Secondly, there is someone telling you to believe that you can work hard. Belief is a powerful thing; if you believe in yourself and your abilities, if you have the confidence in yourself to study in the library for five hours non-stop, go for lunch and do another five, then you will do it. But for goodness sake, don’t attribute your own drive, determination and discipline to someone else; these feelings come from within, not from flashing lights or New Age Quackery; so cut out the middle man and save yourself sixty quid, believe that you can be the best, do as much as you can when you can, rest when you need to, and take it from there.