A creative writing exercise on my life thus far.

I started as a sperm in one of my father's testes; shortly afterwards, I made my way through my mother's cervix (after some predictably dull and lacking foreplay) to an ovum.

After a period of nine months' gestation, I was born unto the world in a bloody, stinking mess on March 22nd, 1989, in the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. I'm not sure whether I cried or was smacked by the doctor, but I was presented to my pained mother - who had just loosed a nine-pound infant from her nether regions.

I was grumpy as a child: I suffered from severe eczema on my face and bottom; I cried often, and the first thing I learned to say - aside from the stumbled 'mamma' and dadda' - was a snippet from the Home and Away theme song.

I wore a 'duck-a-duck' coat (with the hood of a duck), and I did a 'thing' with my eyes - I used to try to look up into my skull (God knows how that's cute).

I started at pre-school at four, and moved on to primary at five - at which time I met my still-best friend, Adam. I don't remember prinary school much - just the playfights, detentions, and childish to-and-fro bullying (I was a naughty, unsettled child, but I also brimmed over with academic excitement) - but I recall my first teacher, Mrs Lutrario, thought I'd need extra tuition outside of school hours - the bitch!

At age eleven, I moved to high school in Brighton - which is quite funny, seeing how I was a tall child for my age - away from Adam. I made a few oddball friends almost immediately - it makes me sigh to ponder their importance to me and how much I still cherish having known them.

I went to a college; ducked out. I went to another; did blandly. I studied journalism; didn't follow it through. But now I'm here, in parochial, pokey old Chichester, and I'm certain of my ambitions: I want to teach English language.

My future is uncertain, but I hope it's a happy one; and I hope that I'm delerious with drugs or some other form of mental stimulus when I die - hopefully happily, surrounded by my appreciative, mournful, and yet comically ambivalent, family.

On the proposed Qur'an book burning by Pastor Terry Jones.

Well, first let me begin by stating the obvious: emotions have run way too high with this story (it's also quite sad that people are commemorating the 9th (yes: the 9th) anniversary of 9/11). It was to be expected that most Muslims - even moderate ones - would find this proposed act at least distasteful, if not downright despicable and unpardonable. That Americans, and people in American life, generally, have played to the emotions of the public on this story is more disgusting than the act proposed by Terry Jones itself.

America is one of the few countries on this planet with a written constitution that guarantees its citizens inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Whilst most of these rights were trampled upon or wholly discarded during the Bush years, Americans still have the two most important rights that no Islamic state tolerates or affords: freedom of expression, and freedom of speech.

If this guy wants to burn the Qur'an, I personally don't have a problem with it. I understand that it will have repercussions with devout and small-minded Muslims all over the world, but to vouch to hope to prevent the act from taking place entirely is despicable. If people want to burn flags and other such articles (usually what they believe to be either symbols of idolatry or items of blasphemy), then let them. What no one seems to be saying is that it's unacceptable for Muslims worldwide, generally, to take this course of action. If this isn't a sign that Muslims can't solubly be integrated into western society, then I don't know what is. Whilst that comment might sound fascist, Islam is a clear and present danger to everything western socities hold dear. If you don't believe me, then recall in 1989 when Salman Rushdie was threatened with death by the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran for writing a book on a contentious part of the Qur'an known as 'the Satanic Verses' in which Mohammed condones polytheism (Muslims generally believe he was being posessed by the Devil in this part of the Qur'an). Tell the same to the Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh and his associates: he was murderded in 2oo4 for making a short film about Islam and the abuse of women practised by its adherents; his Norwegian counterpart was shot and left for dead, and his Japanese associate was killed in a scene of bloody religious retribution.

Whilst Pastor Jones might be right about the danger of Islamification, let us not forget the disgusting tree from which Islam sprouted: both Islam and Christianity (not to forget Mormonism) are Abrahamic religions, sourced from the Torah, with all its bloody pages and disgraceful content (both are almost exclusively plagiarised from it - a claim I can back up with verse after verse). So burn your books; burn your flags; put up your effigies: just don't stop me from putting into action the freedoms that my country, with all its flaws and curruptions, guarantees me.