Feb 16 2013

Broken, battered and bruised

Automobile crossing rope bridge

Automobile crossing rope bridge (Photo credit: The Field Museum Library)

Buying your first car is a rite of passage so it seemed fitting that Dad came with me to help me make a sensible choice. I don’t know why this made so much sense at the time because all of Dad’s cars came from that twilight zone between bangerdom and the crusher. Every crap car from British Leyland and Ford had broken down with us in it, usually during the journey to or from our holiday destination. Nevertheless, armed with a thousand of my own hard borrowed pounds, we made the pilgrimage round the classifieds in search of the perfect vehicle.

Car after car didn’t make the grade as Dad carefully looked over them. A superb looking Mini Clubman with sporty spotlights was dismissed as too sporty. Another car went because there was more rust than car. Some cars were too big. None were too small. At the end of our trail, we found the Goldilocks car, a white Renault 5. It was the rock bottom, bargain basement, base model. It didn’t even have the most essential item of equipment in it, a stereo. It had an 850cc engine which had just about enough power to make the thing move and it cornered on its wing mirrors (or it would if it had any wing mirrors).

An awful lot happened in that car. A few weeks after I bought it, I drove along a residential street. I wasn’t going very fast because the Renault didn’t do fast. From in between two parked cars out came a football bouncing into the road. In the time it took my brain to make the connection that it might be followed by a child, a terrified boy appeared spread-eagled on my bonnet before he bounced off. I think it’s the only time I’ve ever hurt anyone. After the police disappeared and the boy went off in an ambulance, I got back in my car, shaking like a leaf. Before I drove off, I noted with sadness that the child’s mates were still playing football in the road despite the earlier accident and the fact that a football field lay on the other side of the road.

Various bits fell off the car and just about everything failed. The brakes failed when I came down Midland Hill once. The car in front of me braked and came to a stop, indicating to turn off. I braked and my car didn’t stop at all. In the end, I had to drive up the bank at the side of the road. The clutch failed when I went to college. I dropped it over at the clutch garage one September morning and made my way to college. That was the day that the hurricane hit the UK. Late afternoon, I gave them a call to see if it would be ready to take me home.

“Errr… we’ve been having a few problems today mate. Was it the Renault?”

His use of the past tense alarmed me.

“You see, the roof’s fallen on it and we’re still digging it out.”

I really appreciated all the time my Dad took to help me choose the right car, but when I bought my second car, I went alone.

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Feb 9 2013

Tastes like chicken

As a child, I wasn’t very keen on eating meat. It was nothing spiritual, I just didn’t like the taste or the texture. I quickly worked out that our family dog had no such qualms. I used to slip my chunks of meat to him through the crack between the table and the wall. It made for a happy partnership. He got to eat something better than dog food and I managed to clear my plate, thus not incurring the displeasure of my mother.

Public domain photograph of various meats. (Be...

Public domain photograph of various meats. (Beef, pork, chicken.) Source: http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2402 (via http://geekphilosopher.com/bkg/foodMeat.htm) Public domain declaration: http://visualsonline.cancer.gov/about.cfm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was only when I joined BP, where the staff restaurant served up 3 course gourmet lunches for the princely sum of 5p, that I started to experiment. As I could pick and choose what I wanted and no-one cared if I left it because I didn’t like it. I found that I enjoyed eating some meat, providing it’s thinly cut and not too fatty. I like meat to have the right form factor. I get very suspicious when the meat chunks are perfect polyhedrons or the edges are perfectly rounded like the chicken you sometimes get in a Chinese take away.

Anyone following the news in the UK will have seen the unfolding scandal of irregular discoveries in the testing of meat and meat based products. Supplier and retailer alike have fallen foul of the DNA tests carried out by food inspectors. Time and again, where one would expect to find beef, the inspectors have found horse. In one particular case, they found pork in supposedly halal meat supplied to a prison. The problem seems to have stretched throughout the supply chain and has probably been going on for some time.

All this makes my toes curl. It’s not so much about eating horse. What else have they been putting into these products? It’s bad enough that sometimes I start looking around for a hungry dog when I think about eating meat. I sincerely hope that the perpetrators are found and harshly punished. Misrepresenting foodstuffs is a low act. If I had my way, they would be sent to prison where they would be fed on a diet of mystery pies filled with all manner of dead flesh. Each day, they would be told they were eating beef.

Maybe it’s no coincidence that the word “hamburgers” is an anagram of Shergar bum or “dodgy beef” is an anagram of “feed by dog”

 

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Feb 5 2013

Reality check

Holodeck

Holodeck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’d like to meet the creative team who placed a holodeck on the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I can understand why they did it. If you are a writer, it’s an infinite source of Deus ex Machina. It doesn’t matter what kind of wacky plot you come up with, you have a room where the cast can experience absolutely anything.

I could forgive them if they came up with brilliant story lines set in and around the holodeck, but unfortunately it became an outlet for transporting the cast to other milieu. Don’t get me wrong, I like Star Trek and I like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‘s Sherlock Holmes but that doesn’t mean I’m happy to see Lieutenant Commander Data in a deerstalker.

Assuming I commanded the Enterprise instead of Jean-Luc Picard, the first thing I’d do is order a full security audit of the holodeck software. All too often, the safety protocols get overridden or the cast get locked in because someone they’ve conjured up is a bit too clever for their own good. If such a thing existed, there would be other problems too. I’m sure some people would become addicted to holodeck use and many would use it for lascivious purposes. I’m sure there are many romantics on board who miss the sound of a babbling brook but I bet there are many more aching to act out their favourite sexual fantasy. Regularly.

When you look at the virtual reality technology available today, all this seems a very long way off. For the visuals, you invariably have to wear a cumbersome headset. In most of these headsets, you can turn your head far faster before the computer can render what you should see in front of you. There’s not much latency on the holodeck. Sound is much easier to get right, but if you want full body sensations, the state of the art is disappointing to say the least. The limit of our technology seems to be flight suits filled with minute pneumatic pressure pads which fill up to give the sensation of feeling.

To my knowledge, nobody has successfully produced a virtual reality rig that convincingly provides for all five senses. I don’t think we will ever get there with purely physical devices. I imagine the VR rig of the future will stimulate the brain in some way to fool it into actually living the experience in question. When they get it right, there will be a huge commercial market (and not just in the porn industry). Can you think of a better way to train people? Or a better way to perform a life saving operation on someone inaccessible. The military will love it, they get to play Ender’s Game.

If you want me, I’ll be on the holodeck, listening to the sound of a babbling brook.

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Feb 4 2013

It’s not a draw! You all lose.

This image was selected as a picture of the we...

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 44th week, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wargames is one of my favourite films. It came in an era when every teenager who was lucky enough to own a home computer spent their spare time plugging away at their keyboards. I wrote loads of games on my trusty Spectrum, so a film about a teenager skilled in the art of hacking just hit the spot.

I would like to think that nearly causing world war 3 by hacking into the NORAD computer is a bit more difficult than suggested by the film, but I found the story entertaining all the same. Our hacking protagonist starts off challenging the computer on the other end of the phone line to Tic-Tac-Toe and ends up playing a game of global thermonuclear war.

In the film of course, everything works out OK because our hero, Matthew Broderick, proves to the machine that it is not possible to win the game. The computer goes through every strategy it can think of and the end result is the same, the world is left a smoking ruin with no victor to share the spoils.

I love playing games. When a friend of mine suggested that we play a game called Supremacy, I asked him what the game was about. It’s about global conflict and there are nukes. We gathered some friends and cracked open the box. The gate-fold map depicted a stylised map of the world, not dissimilar to the schematic shown in the huge command centre from the film. We started setting up the board. Everyone had tokens to indicate their armed forces and there were cute little plastic mushroom clouds to show which bits of the world that were too hot for comfort.

My friend explained the rules, which were fairly standard board game fodder. You could make money by playing the commodity markets. With the money, you could buy conventional forces, nukes or defence satellites (which shoot down nukes). It all made sense until he read out the final rule; “…and if 12 territories end up with a mushroom cloud, every player loses.”

We all looked up. “You mean it’s a draw?”

The player reading the rules insisted “No. It’s a game about trying to achieve global supremacy without leaving the world a smoking ruin.”

“But that’s the definition of a draw isn’t it? Everyone getting the same result.”

My friend was resolute. If the world ended up a radioactive dead zone, we forfeited the game.

Turn 1, the first player crashed the commodity markets. Turn 2, everyone bought nukes. At the start of turn 3, someone landed an army in South America, which resulted in the South American player launching a nuke. Then came the retaliatory strike during which, one nuke went astray bringing someone else into the fray. In the end, we ran out of plastic mushroom clouds and the man who owned the game stormed out with the huff.

We should definitely get rid of all nuclear weapons, especially if the people in charge are anything like us.

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Jan 29 2013

Kicked out of the Disneyland bar

Disney

Disney (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not a fan of Walt Disney. Despite this, Julie keeps threatening to take me to Disneyland with our nephews and nieces. The thing is, I’ve already been to both Disneyland and Disneyworld. It seems bizarre to me that companies select these as conference venues. Techy nerds and Businessmen are hardly the demographic that Walt had in mind. I’m sure there are people who are big fans of these temples to the great Mouse God who go again and again, but there wasn’t much there that appealed to me.

I once saw a documentary about how they train people for a life in the service of the largest media conglomerate in the world. Apparently, they even teach their employees how to smile. Either the receptionist who served me was yet to go on the course or she had forgotten how to do it. I was tired. I’d been travelling for nigh on 18 hours and I really wanted check in to be smooth. I gave her my reservation number which she couldn’t find on the computer. As far as she was concerned, that was that. It took some stamping of my feet and some holding of breath before she gave me a room. To be fair, the room was amazing with more beds than we had in our house at the time.

Whilst we’re looking at the bright side, breakfast was excellent. I loved the spicy house potatoes and the service was superb. I happily tucked into my breakfast whilst reading the complimentary newspaper. I was in a world of my own, so it took a while to notice something moving around in my peripheral vision. There was something dark bobbing around trying to catch my attention. I slowly looked up and came face to face with Goofy. His nose was inches from mine and he gave his trademark guffaw. I told him to go and find some kids.

I went out for a walk. The pretty pastel pathways and the twee music playing from just about everywhere got on my nerves. In the middle of the complex was the bar. In the middle of the bar was my boss. We sat together in the sunshine and had a beer whilst discussing the conference so far. It wasn’t long before some other delegates sat at a nearby table. After a short delay, they waved us over to join them. As the night went on, the conversation became more and more lively. Suddenly two of the girls decided to kiss each other. My boss turned to me and said “I’ll have some of that” and joined in. The rest of us looked on in shock at the three-way kiss.

It was certainly an icebreaker but it didn’t last long. An enormous black man in full blue uniform arrived, only distinguishable from one of LAPD’s finest by the tiny set of Mickey Mouse ear epaulettes on each shoulder. He sounded like a very angry James Earl Jones and he made himself heard.

“Hey! This is not a sex show.” Then in a softer voice, laden with pride “This is Disneyland.”

He ejected us from the bar and we walked back to the hotel. My boss left the elevator first. One of the ladies decided she wanted to go with him. In the resultant tussle, they fell over, breaking his rib in the process. Not a great souvenir as his journey home was agonising.

One way or another, looks like one day, I might be savouring the delights of Disneyland once again. Let’s hope it’s less eventful next time.

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Jan 27 2013

Take him to sick bay!

Medicine

Medicine (Photo credit: iPocrates)

The army is struggling to recruit for the Special Air Service (or SAS), a world-renowned élite force. They find it hard to find volunteers with the right combination of mental resolve and physical prowess. They are missing a trick. They should look among the ranks of doctor’s receptionists. Like many men, I don’t like going to the doctor’s. If you don’t feel well, the last thing you want to face is a number of challenging situations. The receptionist is just the first of many, but in many ways, the most daunting. These highly trained individuals are there to weed out the needy, the snifflers and the feeble of mind.

“Is it an emergency?” Of course it’s not an emergency, otherwise I would go to accident and emergency.

“Do you need to see someone today?” In a week, I’ll either be dead or better and I’d like to do what I can to make sure it’s the latter, so yes – I’d like to see someone today.

Once you are in, you are faced with the next challenge, the examination. Is it just me, or does the examination seem somewhat archaic? Thee stethoscope remains fundamentally unchanged since its invention nearly 200 years ago. If the doctor wants to test your reflexes, he hits your knee with a hammer. To take your pulse rate, he holds your arm and counts. To take your temperature, he pokes something in your ear. If he thinks you might have appendicitis, he pokes your abdomen to see if you hit the roof. The only nod to modern technology is the PC in the corner which is clinically useless. It is just a record keeping device.

You might get referred to a hospital for more detailed tests. If they want to see inside you, they will stand you up against a photographic plate and bombard you with radiation. Or maybe they might stick you in a torpedo tube where they ask you to lie still whilst they try to deafen you. They might even smother your belly with freezing cold gel and thrust an ultrasound wand into your abdomen. They will look at the results on a monochrome screen that looks like a poorly tuned TV.

Number One (Star Trek)

Number One (Star Trek) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why can’t it be like sick bay in Star Trek? As you lie on the couch, a machine behind you monitors your life signs. A steady bass beat echoes in time with your heartbeat. Doctor Bones McCoy waves a warbley box of tricks over your abdomen which tells him exactly what’s wrong with you. Invariably, he then reaches for a different device which makes a high-pitched whining. Whatever’s wrong with you, it is rapidly remedied with a quick wave of this futuristic marvel. All of this is carried out whilst a beautiful nurse in an inordinately short skirt mops your fevered brow.

It feels to me like modern medicine has a long way to go.

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Jan 21 2013

Does progress always have to be savage?

Navvies monument

Navvies monument (Photo credit: phill.d)

Whenever there is a great leap by mankind, someone, somewhere suffers. Empires rise and fall, companies thrive, plateau and die. Whole industries die out to make way for new ways of doing things. It happens over and over. In the long run, the human race as a whole blossoms, but in the short-term, someone, somewhere gets hurt. The incredible feats of Victorian engineering that came about during the Industrial Revolution only exist because of hoards of navvies. Working in appalling conditions for pitiful pay, these manual workers toiled away to produce some marvellous structures. The mortality rate was sky-high. More navvies died building the Woodhead Tunnel than during the Battle of Waterloo.

Jobs in manufacturing disappeared thanks to the rise in mechanised assembly lines. Printing jobs went up in smoke because of the digital age. Where it once took an army of workers to produce a large print run of newspapers, it now only takes a handful. Office workers in their droves saw their jobs vanish due to computerisation. Cars today are much more reliable thanks to the robotised construction techniques, but that means we employ far fewer car assembly workers.

The sheer amount of technology available to us today is mind-boggling. 10 years ago, I only had one multiple electric gang socket. Today, my house is riddled with them. All this technology has an increasingly diminishing shelf life. Many people replace their mobile phones every year if not more often. Today’s laptop will be tomorrow’s landfill.

English: Mobile phone scrap, old decomissioned...

English: Mobile phone scrap, old decomissioned mobile phones, defective mobile phones (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

30 million computers are discarded in the USA every year. Europe manages to ditch 100 million mobile phones. All in all, an estimated 50 million tonnes of electrical waste needs to be disposed of every year. All of this waste contains a cocktail of poisonous substances and useful materials that could be recycled. Unfortunately, much of this waste ends up in developing economies where workers are slowly poisoned whilst earning a pittance to separate the wheat from the chaff.

In this country, we immediately throw our hands in the air whenever there is any kind of project that might affect the resale values of our precious homes. Spare a thought for anyone who stands in the way of a big engineering project in China. They certainly get the job done and progress is made, but at what human cost?

Of course, we eventually clean up our act. If you work on a big construction project today, the laws in place to protect you are legion. We are starting to put together frameworks for the handling of electronic waste. China has even passed a new law, after a tortured 12 year journey through the courts, to better protect the rights of homeowners when faced with compulsory purchase.

But when the trail is being blazed, the damage gets done.

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Jan 20 2013

Snow, why does it have to be snow? I hate snow.

2013-01-19 11.16.03

There’s a bit in Raiders of the Lost Ark where our illustrious hero, Indiana Jones, peers down into the pit he’s about to enter. He spies a writhing mass of reptilian flesh before collapsing back, ashen faced. “Snakes, why does it have to be snakes?” That’s exactly how I feel about snow. The very sight of the stuff makes me feel bitterly cold to my core.

I explained my prejudices to Maisie, to which she responded “Yes Uncle Martin. Let’s go out and make snow babies!” So either she is already not listening to a word I say at the age of 3 or her aching, burning desire to have fun in the snow trumps my need to avoid frostbite. What exactly is a snow baby anyway? When I grew up, snow creatures only had one gender and they were always grown up.

She wouldn’t take no for an answer and before long we were playing in the snow. I started rolling a ball of snow in an attempt to make a snowman. The snow was far too powdery, and as soon as the ball reached any kind of respectable size, it collapsed in on itself. Maisie was not impressed. I tried to convince her of the inferior quality of the snow, but something in the look she gave me dispelled any notion that she might have believed me.

“Let’s go sledging” I said. In the absence of a purpose-built sledge, I reasoned that the lid of the recycling bin was roughly sledge shaped. Up the hill we trudged. When we got to the top, I gave Maisie a hearty shove. Her progress down the hill was much like that of a reluctant mule. The bin lid travelled slowly and stuttered to a stop with annoying regularity.

2013-01-19 14.45.02Drastic action was needed. A trip to the sledge shop was in order. The man at the shop mentally sized Maisie up before proposing a lime green plastic sledge with a lever on each side to control the brakes. Maisie’s face lit up. “My sledge has brakes!” In her mind, she already owned it. A short while later and we were back on the slopes.

This time, when we reached the top of the hill, a shove wasn’t needed. It was all we could do to hold the sledge in place. Once released, it flew down the hill like a rocket with Maisie squealing with delight. Did it soften my stance towards the cold stuff? No. But I might have secretly had a tiny bit of fun. Just don’t tell anyone.

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Jan 13 2013

The Industrial Renaissance

Teenage mutant ninja turtles

Teenage mutant ninja turtles (Photo credit: cubedude27)

I have to confess that the names Michelangelo and Leonardo make me think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles long before I think of Florence and all the amazing architecture and artwork. Even so, it’s an amazing place. We spent a day there and marvelled at all the sights. Our tour guide was a short, round man who sported a massive pink umbrella which he held aloft for us to follow. One of the first things he told us was that he was homosexual. At first I wondered what relevance his sexuality could possibly have, but as he took us around all the beautiful buildings he pointed out, he told us a little about the famous renaissance men.

The way he explained it, they were all lovers and they spent their spare time, whilst they weren’t painting masterpieces or carving marble, sleeping with each other. “It was a marvellous time” he told us in his squeaky Italian accented voice. “There was love everywhere and that’s where the inspiration for all these masterpieces came from.” Whatever it was that inspired those great artists, they did a fine job, even if it does mean you get fleeced everywhere you because you are in the presence of greatness.

Although they are very nice works of art and Florence is a beautiful city, I have far more respect for another period in history. If I could travel back in time, the period of choice has to be the Industrial Revolution. In less than a century, a number of inventors transformed the world. Great advances in textiles, metallurgy and energy made more of an impact than any other period that came before (and arguably afterwards). Isambard Kingdom Brunel built God’s Wonderful Railway and if he’d won the argument about how wide apart the rails should be, we would have much faster, safer and more comfortable trains today. Instead, Stephenson, another Victorian engineer won out. Railway lines spread out across the country in a frenzy of navvies.

It was an age that saw the first postage stamp, the first pedal bicycle and the first flushing toilet. Telephones and typewriters were invented along with petrochemicals. For those with a sweet tooth, someone invented jelly babies and ice cream. Pasteurisation meant you could eat the ice cream without fear of being poisoned. The electric light bulb came along to light up our lives. For those with an ear for music, along came the gramophone and the wireless. Children all over the world (as well as some grown up children) give thanks for the invention of the comic book.

Maybe we will look back at the last hundred years and think it a revolution of a different kind. The internet revolution, although undoubtedly profound, somehow pales in my mind when compared with the achievements of our Victorian forefathers.

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Jan 12 2013

A hurricane in the North Sea?

Esbjerg PedestrianArea

Esbjerg PedestrianArea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We hadn’t been told where we were going. The best man told us where to turn up and to pack for a few days away. Eventually, our coach, packed with rogues and vagabonds, turned up at a port. The terminal was chaotic. The departure boards told us our destination, Esbjerg. “Where the hell’s Esbjerg” asked Bob the Fish.

Eventually we boarded, an hour late, and made our way to the bar. Although the vessel was a glorified ferry, the operators had cruise ship aspirations and there was a full entertainment programme. The compere was a dead ringer for Dale Winton, just a little more camp. He took a shine to us and kept coming over to our table. Someone suggested he fancied Bob the Fish, although I doubt anyone believed that.

The crossing was rough and our drinks slid around on the ringed table. Although much of it slopped over the sides, we consumed enough to ensure a good night’s sleep in our tiny cabins. When we awoke, the ship  had docked and we made our way into town. We had a look around, but found ourselves inexorably drawn to Esbjerg’s only Irish bar, Hairy Mary’s.

The following morning, there was a compulsory sightseeing trip whilst they cleaned the ship. Our party split into those who were hung over enough to insist on staying on board  (including the groom to be) and those who went sightseeing (including myself and the best man). The tour guide introduced himself and the itinerary. It didn’t sound exciting.

“What do you think of my English?” he asked. The coach replied with a chorus of “very good” and “yes”. He explained that Danish children study English from the age of 5, but don’t start learning German until they reach 11. “You might think this is strange, as the only country we border is Germany. This is because we hate the Germans!”

He pointed out Esbjerg’s tallest building (which had burned down) and 3 enormous statues. He asked us if we liked them. Again, a chorus of “very nice” and “yes” from the coach. “We hate them” he said. “They were a gift from the German government.” He took us to a fish museum (which was more interesting than it sounds). Bob the Fish was in his element.

We eventually found ourselves in a quaint Danish village, when I received a phone call. It was the groom-to-be. He told me that the ship would not sail in the morning as planned so they were going to jump on a train over to Copenhagen and fly home. I passed him over to the best man and they had a blazing row.

When returned to Esbjerg, a storm had really taken hold. It was difficult to stand. It was even more difficult after a night in Hairy Mary’s. Making our way back to the ship involved leaning into the wind at a 45 degree angle. At one point, I turned my back to the wind and was astonished to see the road we’d just traversed submerged in water. The cars from the adjacent car park floated into the sea.

Panic reigned inside the terminal building. An angry mob had assembled at the enquiries desk. A German man at the front screamed at the lady behind the counter “You told me my car would be safe!”, every syllable punctuated by his fist slamming on the desk. Somehow, we managed to blag a flight home in the morning  for which we swore not to tell a soul and made our way onto the ship.

We told Dale Winton our story. He told the ship. A TV crew came on board to film the passengers. They interviewed us and Bob the Fish announced our free flights home on Danish TV. As we left to catch our flight, Dale Winton handed the best man a tape. He’d recorded our interview for us. He joked that recorded over his favourite porno. The best man looked very nervous heading through customs.

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