Confused Cucumber

Coffee is convincing

2006-06-15T20:54:00.000+01:00

So this is the new way of getting favours from people.

I was listening to Health Check on the BBC World Service on Monday. It was about coffee. Yes, that delicious, stimulating beverage that has been shown to reduce the risk of developing gallstones, kidney stones and even colorectal cancer. The drink, which contains large quantities of caffeine, is also known to have some harmful effects on the body, namely increasing blood pressure and blood cholesterol and also causing dehydration.

The documentary, however, focused on a rather different property of coffee.

Research carried out at Queensland University in Australia suggests that people are more likely to be convinced by an argument if they have consumed about two cups of coffee. When presented with persuasive messages, the stimulant effect of caffeine causes people to be more alert and aware of the strengths of the arguments, making it easier for them to agree with the given messages.

As with all things, there is a catch.

Although drinking coffee raises our awareness of the merits of an argument, it equally allows us to see its faults. We are less likely to be convinced by a weaker argument if we have consumed some caffeine.

Not a tactic politicians will want to employ, then.

Txting Tories

2006-06-06T21:29:00.000+01:00

OK, this post was due over a week ago, but hey, you can't expect to use common sense and logic to reason with a procrastinator.

George Galloway - Respect Party MP for Bethnal Green & Bow - has been spreading rumours again, and what better platform to do it from than his very own "mother of all talk shows" on the radio station TalkSport. On the evening of Saturday 27th May he ranted on about an SMS text message he had received from the Conservative MP David Davis.

Now the guy who informed me about this wasn't very good at explaining it, but from what I understood, the story went something like the following. During the Conservative party's leadership campaign last year, David Davis sent an intriguing text message to Galloway's mobile phone. "Gorgeous George", in his infinite wisdom, decided to retain the message for future reference.

After enduring repeated bouts of criticism from Davis, Galloway has finally realised that now is the time to reveal the contents of the apparently scandalous text message.

Unfortunately, he failed to do so on his radio show, obviously considering it more worthwhile to use it as a threat against the MP for Haltemprice & Howden.

It seems to me that this is Galloway's latest claim to fame. Or just my informant's :)

Political Confusion

2006-06-03T21:07:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone and welcome to my web log! I thought I'd begin with a plea for help (doesn't sound too promising, does it? :s) to anyone who is willing to solve my problem of political confusion.

What is one to do if one:
- voted for the Green party in a mock general election in 1997;
- wanted Labour to win the 1997 General Election and boot out the Tories;
- wanted the Conservatives to win the 2001 General Election and get rid of New Labour;
- voted for the Liberal Democrats in 2004;
- voted LibDem in the 2005 General Election, only to return home and sincerely hope for Labour, rather than the Tories, to win;
- voted for the Christian People's Alliance and the LibDems in the 2006 Local Election, whilst longing for the Conservatives, instead of Labour, to win the ward;
- finds Labour Party members to be tolerant, inclusive, humanitarian and generally amicable;
- finds Conservative Party members to be cold, hard, dull and prejudiced;
- disagrees with the philosophical basis of socialism;
- favours privatisation (to an extent);
- finds pleasure in using the LibDems as "protest votes";
- cannot take the LibDems seriously; and
- is very confused?

Advice would be much appreciated.