Coffee Theology

For a variety of reasons, back in May I came to the conclusion that I needed to do something about my weight.  I had never been a member of a slimming club before, or really tried dieting, even though there had been times over the years when I'd been unhappy about my weight.  Watching what you ate all the time and weighing yourself just seemed a really joyless way to live.  Just as I'd decided that I needed to take action, a flyer for Slimming World came through our letterbox.  I discovered that the nearest meeting was a five-minute walk from our house, so getting to the weekly weigh-in could not have been easier.   The issue of weight, fat and body image is an extremely tricky one for women.  I'm told that men struggle with this too, but I don't know much about it so I won't presume to comment.  As a feminist, I believe that society uses rules about appearance to control women and put them down; as a woman, there are little voices inside my head that tell me t

You know how you sometimes see the beginning of a film, but then get interrupted?  Maybe it's late, and you realise you really have to go to bed.  Or someone rings you and you have a long phone conversation, after which there doesn't seem much point trying to pick up the plot again.  Or someone else wants to watch something on the other channel.  Anyway, I had seen the first 40 minutes of I, Robot  twice, and no more.  The other day I finally got to see the film all the way to the end.  It's based on a novel by Isaac Asimov, although I'm assured that it mucks around with the story, so I'm planning to read the Asimov novel as soon as possible, being a major sci-fi fan.  Nevertheless, I found some elements of the plot really interesting. Asimov invented the three laws of robotics, hard-wired into each robot's brain, which are as follows (paraphrased in my own words): 1. No robot may harm, or by inaction cause harm to come to a human being. 2. A robot must obe