This annual event seems to have become just about as much of an institution as the BBC itself. I sort of want to make excuses for it, but this last two years at least have been a farce. I'd be embarrassed but I'm nothing to do with it...apart from the British bit, which is hidden in acronym anyway. I'm not here to say who should have won it. I do have an opinion, but I'll get trumped by the democracy card. I could have voted, right? And I didn't, so I shouldn't be complaining about the result.
So, Ryan Giggs - a great football player with a distinguished career at the top level. That's my opinion, and I'm not alone there by a long way. But the 2009 sports personality of the year surely needs more than a distinguished, what...15 year career? He's become a bit player. He's nearly at the end of that distinguished career. He's nearly extinguished that distinguished career. There have been many better sporting years for Giggs than 2009. Why not those years? If you (one) are (is) actually voting to celebrate his distinguished career, surely this is the wrong forum? Isn't there a lifetime achievement award? What has he done more this year than any other? Or is it that the competition was weaker than other years?
A motor racing world champion in a début team for example?
The world's best female heptathlete perhaps?
Or is the vote genuinely about personality? Is he the most interesting? the most charitable? the best example to kids?
More so than the others? More so than other years?
Again, I certainly don't want to take away from his achievements. Indeed, I can't and I wouldn't try....but Ryan Giggs, BBC sports personality of the year?
Maybe in '99...
Monday, 14 December 2009
Sunday, 29 November 2009
Bad rap
Since 2000 in Alaska, 6 people have been killed by bears and dozens more mauled. That's according to Discovery's "Alaska - Surviving the last frontier".
But they never mention those bears that dedicate themselves to nursing, or tending the aged. I don't know the statistics, but come on....let's get some parity here.
But they never mention those bears that dedicate themselves to nursing, or tending the aged. I don't know the statistics, but come on....let's get some parity here.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Darth Vader
No, but really.
"Use the red button Luke."
I suspect I've never encountered a red button which meant any good for the device it was attached to. It was surely worth a shot: The Darth Vader 'power off' button.
Something of an oversight by the Empire technical department to leave it exposed, but certainly more so by the Rebel Alliance intelligence not to target it specifically.
Who am I to say? It was a long, long time ago.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
Eternal pursuits
It strikes me that we humans only undertake recreational pursuits at which we stand a chance of achieving a reasonable standard within a lifetime. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense that we do so, of course it does. But I can't even name a past time, or hobby, or whatever, that we apply ourselves to which we are not going to achieve any level of expertise within a lifetime of dedicated application.
There are things that some people are particularly suited to, and vice versa. There will be born footballers, guitarists, chess players etc...well, not born, but 'inclined towards' or something. On the flip side of that, there are those who are not naturally adept at something in particular who spend a lifetime trying and failing to achieve.
Look at football (proper football, not American throwball). Professional players tend to break through in their late teens or early twenties. I imagine there is legislation defining a lower limit for exposing a kid to top level professional sport. But still, there's this window of about five years during which the top players break through. Say 17 - 22 years. Most school kids become exposed to football at about 5 or 6 years of age. There are ultra levels of achievement during a professional footballer's career where training, experience, and maturity come in to play. But then, the modern professional footballer's career is pretty much over by the time they are 35. As such you can define that window of pursuit as about 30 years.
Chess players will start at about 8 - 10 years old, some younger I'm sure, but there's playing chess, and there's moving shapes around on a checkered board (the level I stayed at). Of course, chess players will play until they're dead, or they ran out of lambs to slaughter. Since computers can remember all 7065 variations of the Viennese offensive, and can be programmed to play dumb, there's no reason for any player to stop until their heart does.
So these are pursuits at which most humans are capable of achieving some level of proficiency within a life time. Some will excel, while others will settle at mediocrity or give up entirely.
Now, there are also things like survival, education and technological advance. These are akin to a relay race. Our predecessors learned some stuff and taught it their successors. They in turn use what they know to improve on or add to the stuff taught to them by their predecessors, and teach that to their successors, and so on...
In a sense, this is a pursuit that lasts longer than a lifetime. But these are less personal, more a species advancement.
If the average human life expectancy was 20 years, but everything else was the same, would we bother learning to play football or chess, or guitar? There would still be virtuosos, I suppose, and as such, there would be an audience, and where there's an audience, there's a profession, or at least a performance - not prerequisites by any means, but great motivators. If life expectancy was 20, we'd probably also expedite education...I suppose as such, then a professional life might be expected to start earlier, and thus a footballer's window of pursuit would become 15 years between 5 and 20 years of age, and the pros would peak at 18.
I guess that's it. We adjust our learning periods relative to our life expectancy. Thus, there will be simpler and more energetic things (short distance running, shot put, football, American throwball) that get learned and performed earlier in life, and less energetic and perhaps more complex things (crosswords, chess, piano, embroidery (threading needles!)) which can take longer to learn because our window of pursuit is wider.
I put it to the Canadican: "What stuff would we apply ourselves to if our life expectancy was longer?"
Wizardry, apparently.
I suppose so.
"Alakazam!"
....*pop*
There are things that some people are particularly suited to, and vice versa. There will be born footballers, guitarists, chess players etc...well, not born, but 'inclined towards' or something. On the flip side of that, there are those who are not naturally adept at something in particular who spend a lifetime trying and failing to achieve.
Look at football (proper football, not American throwball). Professional players tend to break through in their late teens or early twenties. I imagine there is legislation defining a lower limit for exposing a kid to top level professional sport. But still, there's this window of about five years during which the top players break through. Say 17 - 22 years. Most school kids become exposed to football at about 5 or 6 years of age. There are ultra levels of achievement during a professional footballer's career where training, experience, and maturity come in to play. But then, the modern professional footballer's career is pretty much over by the time they are 35. As such you can define that window of pursuit as about 30 years.
Chess players will start at about 8 - 10 years old, some younger I'm sure, but there's playing chess, and there's moving shapes around on a checkered board (the level I stayed at). Of course, chess players will play until they're dead, or they ran out of lambs to slaughter. Since computers can remember all 7065 variations of the Viennese offensive, and can be programmed to play dumb, there's no reason for any player to stop until their heart does.
So these are pursuits at which most humans are capable of achieving some level of proficiency within a life time. Some will excel, while others will settle at mediocrity or give up entirely.
Now, there are also things like survival, education and technological advance. These are akin to a relay race. Our predecessors learned some stuff and taught it their successors. They in turn use what they know to improve on or add to the stuff taught to them by their predecessors, and teach that to their successors, and so on...
In a sense, this is a pursuit that lasts longer than a lifetime. But these are less personal, more a species advancement.
If the average human life expectancy was 20 years, but everything else was the same, would we bother learning to play football or chess, or guitar? There would still be virtuosos, I suppose, and as such, there would be an audience, and where there's an audience, there's a profession, or at least a performance - not prerequisites by any means, but great motivators. If life expectancy was 20, we'd probably also expedite education...I suppose as such, then a professional life might be expected to start earlier, and thus a footballer's window of pursuit would become 15 years between 5 and 20 years of age, and the pros would peak at 18.
I guess that's it. We adjust our learning periods relative to our life expectancy. Thus, there will be simpler and more energetic things (short distance running, shot put, football, American throwball) that get learned and performed earlier in life, and less energetic and perhaps more complex things (crosswords, chess, piano, embroidery (threading needles!)) which can take longer to learn because our window of pursuit is wider.
I put it to the Canadican: "What stuff would we apply ourselves to if our life expectancy was longer?"
Wizardry, apparently.
I suppose so.
"Alakazam!"
....*pop*
Kate Garraway
I hold Kate Garraway in high esteem, in a professional, aesthetic and a romantic sense.
I just do.
She's probably quite keen on me too.
I just do.
She's probably quite keen on me too.
Sunday, 6 September 2009
Trade jargon
I've used it. I know I'm not immune. I'm sure my use of trade jargon has provoked ire in the past. Maybe it bothers others less than it bothers me.
Since every second programme on TV seems to be cooking related, one of my peeves has been the uses of 'down' and 'off'. Didn't 'cook' used to mean 'cook'? Now chefs seem to cook 'down' or cook 'off'. What's that all about?
I'm familiar with reduction. I could accept with some tolerance that cooking down is akin to reduction, but it doesn't appear to me to be uniformly used that way on the shows I've watched.
I worked in IT for a while, and one that consistantly got my goat (examine that!) was the 'flavours' of Unix. Granted, this was a while ago, so I apileofgeese if this is all old hat now.
It's almost like the terminology was contrived to give it the nonchelant cool of establishment.
To be fair, it was established. Still is, I'm sure. But it could so easily have been smell, or...texture or something.
I think in reality this is a continuation of my ongoing frustration with people not examining themselves and what they think they know to be true. We take a lot for granted - specifically things that have been taught to us by people we perceive to be an authority on a subject...or an authority in general.
If a qualified (or TV) chef tells us it's cooking down, it's cooking down. Right? I think I saw Tim Lovejoy quiz Simon Rimmer about this once on 'Something for the weekend'. My possibly flawed recollection of the response was simply a look along the lines of "Oh fuck off Tim...it's just one of those things we say."....and that's my problem with it.
I'm certainly not immune to it, but I promise I do examine the accuracy of and my motives for using certain phrases in order to improve my English.
Now...'got my goat' - what's that all about?!
Since every second programme on TV seems to be cooking related, one of my peeves has been the uses of 'down' and 'off'. Didn't 'cook' used to mean 'cook'? Now chefs seem to cook 'down' or cook 'off'. What's that all about?
"I'm going to cook that down for a while."...etc.
or
"That's cooking off nicely"
I'm familiar with reduction. I could accept with some tolerance that cooking down is akin to reduction, but it doesn't appear to me to be uniformly used that way on the shows I've watched.
I worked in IT for a while, and one that consistantly got my goat (examine that!) was the 'flavours' of Unix. Granted, this was a while ago, so I apileofgeese if this is all old hat now.
- "What flavour of Unix are you running?"
- "Fuckin' raspberry...I don't know! What version are your socks?"
It's almost like the terminology was contrived to give it the nonchelant cool of establishment.
- "Aha...it's that young go-getting whipper-snapper Unix."
- "I have multiple flavours you know!"
- "Oh! My mistake, you speak in enigmatic jargon, thus you must be steeped in history. Welcome to the old school"
To be fair, it was established. Still is, I'm sure. But it could so easily have been smell, or...texture or something.
- "What's your favourite texture of Linux?"
- "Kill yourself"
I think in reality this is a continuation of my ongoing frustration with people not examining themselves and what they think they know to be true. We take a lot for granted - specifically things that have been taught to us by people we perceive to be an authority on a subject...or an authority in general.
If a qualified (or TV) chef tells us it's cooking down, it's cooking down. Right? I think I saw Tim Lovejoy quiz Simon Rimmer about this once on 'Something for the weekend'. My possibly flawed recollection of the response was simply a look along the lines of "Oh fuck off Tim...it's just one of those things we say."....and that's my problem with it.
I'm certainly not immune to it, but I promise I do examine the accuracy of and my motives for using certain phrases in order to improve my English.
Now...'got my goat' - what's that all about?!
Sunday, 16 August 2009
How do you solve a problem like the BBC?
The BBC used to be revered as the pinnacle of (inter)national audio visual broadcasting.
So I'm told, anyway. As a proud Brit, it's possible I'm inclined to accept that with less resistance. I think there's a danger that things with a history of reverence can tend to free wheel to mediocrity.
Someone once pointed out to me that Sony was a good brand - past tense.
I had been inclined towards a product on the basis that Sony had a good name, and I forget who it was, but the individual alerted me to the fact that I would be buying a name based on its history - not necessarily folly - and that recent (at the time) reviews of Sony products alleged that their product quality had diminished.
So, the BBC: The figurehead of British broadcasting. Publicly funded to passively resist commercialisation and to promote quality programming - such is my understanding.
I can't remember a time when no one complained about paying their licence fee. It's TV tax, and taxes are reluctantly tolerated necessary evils. Bitching about taxes is a British pastime. It's an international pastime too, I know...but it's something the Brits are still genuinely world class at. I understand that nothing gets cheaper. Even when opposition political parties are promising tax reductions, it's just figure juggling. Did you ever actually feel better off as the result of a political power shift? So, the licence fee has become more expensive over time, and that doesn't surprise me. But to my mind the quality of BBC1 programming has diminished over time, representing an exponential decrease in value for money. It's all news, dancing, doctors, rubbish sports, and selling family heirlooms for buttons. Last year and for the previous five or six years it was how to buy and sell houses, and cricket players dancing...on ice! (insert squiggly face emoticon here). It's crap...all of it.
OK, I'll give a little:
Life on mars was awesome.
Hustle was excellent.
Doctor Who is better than it's been for...well, ever.
There'll be other stuff too of course, but I only know what I know. Day time TV is suicidally bad, and most of the evening stuff is too.
This is BBC1!
The oneth!
It's not a league table, I know, but as my buddy (Eh, buddy!) JJ put it, it's so bad it should be relegated. Yes guy!
So we don't get McDonald's or Coca cola ads every 15 minutes..true. But is it commercial free? Is it buttocks. Between most programmes and, indeed, on a fair few programmes, we get BBC propaganda boasting of its own benevolent excellence.
Eastenders - Everyone's talking about it. Really?...Really everyone? And what about it? How good it is? Are you sure?
News 24 - international news with on-the-spot reporters for timely, unbiased and accurate feedback. Celebrity come dancing results are not fucking international news!
Celebrity come dancing has leaked on to everything. It's on Breakfast, it's on the One show (a hideous, hideous programme despite Adrian Chiles' (arguably the best thing about the BBC currently) best efforts), it's on Something for the weekend, it's on between programmes, it's got midweek update programmes. I could easily conceive of an hour long Eastenders entirely dedicated to Dot Cotton and Peggy Mitchell discussing their favourite celebrity in a come dancing special. (Dammit!...I talked about it.)
How do you solve a problem like Maria?...on TV? Really? We're not watching the show, we're watching the auditions! That's the boring stuff before the actual stuff...and we're paying for it! That in turn 'evolves' into a failure show...it transpires that were more interested in the losers than the winners after all. What exactly was the problem anyway? What was the problem that didn't already have a centuries old solution?
The Apprentice?! It's a job interview! On TV! A belligerent yob selects his favourite imbecile from a bumbling of incompetents.
Dragon's Den - I liked this for a while, but I realised it had become an insult fest. Surely the concept here was to encourage the inspired and the inventive to tout their products and ideas to successful business men and women in the hope that they could net the emotional and financial backing required to nurture it to success. When I see (I resist using 'watch') the show now, I witness ridicule and persecution. It's bullying....broadcast by the BBC. This is the same BBC which condemns bullying on shows like Breakfast, Newsround and Grange Hill (RIP). In its favour I suppose I could concede that programmes like this will encourage the motivated to go it alone rather than suffer public humiliation at the hands of self-indulged elitists. I can only hope that it will evolve itself out of existence....or (dare I?) that someone with scruples and integrity gets a grip on it, if it's not already too late.
So, this has turned into a more general rant than originally intended. I can't entirely remember my original point.
Basically, my solution is this: Make it commercial and kill the TV licence.
There is nothing to lose. We will not have more commercials than we do currently, and honestly, I don't think the programming quality has a great deal to lose either.
At the very least, I can stop bitching about it.
So I'm told, anyway. As a proud Brit, it's possible I'm inclined to accept that with less resistance. I think there's a danger that things with a history of reverence can tend to free wheel to mediocrity.
Someone once pointed out to me that Sony was a good brand - past tense.
I had been inclined towards a product on the basis that Sony had a good name, and I forget who it was, but the individual alerted me to the fact that I would be buying a name based on its history - not necessarily folly - and that recent (at the time) reviews of Sony products alleged that their product quality had diminished.
So, the BBC: The figurehead of British broadcasting. Publicly funded to passively resist commercialisation and to promote quality programming - such is my understanding.
I can't remember a time when no one complained about paying their licence fee. It's TV tax, and taxes are reluctantly tolerated necessary evils. Bitching about taxes is a British pastime. It's an international pastime too, I know...but it's something the Brits are still genuinely world class at. I understand that nothing gets cheaper. Even when opposition political parties are promising tax reductions, it's just figure juggling. Did you ever actually feel better off as the result of a political power shift? So, the licence fee has become more expensive over time, and that doesn't surprise me. But to my mind the quality of BBC1 programming has diminished over time, representing an exponential decrease in value for money. It's all news, dancing, doctors, rubbish sports, and selling family heirlooms for buttons. Last year and for the previous five or six years it was how to buy and sell houses, and cricket players dancing...on ice! (insert squiggly face emoticon here). It's crap...all of it.
OK, I'll give a little:
Life on mars was awesome.
Hustle was excellent.
Doctor Who is better than it's been for...well, ever.
There'll be other stuff too of course, but I only know what I know. Day time TV is suicidally bad, and most of the evening stuff is too.
This is BBC1!
The oneth!
It's not a league table, I know, but as my buddy (Eh, buddy!) JJ put it, it's so bad it should be relegated. Yes guy!
So we don't get McDonald's or Coca cola ads every 15 minutes..true. But is it commercial free? Is it buttocks. Between most programmes and, indeed, on a fair few programmes, we get BBC propaganda boasting of its own benevolent excellence.
Eastenders - Everyone's talking about it. Really?...Really everyone? And what about it? How good it is? Are you sure?
News 24 - international news with on-the-spot reporters for timely, unbiased and accurate feedback. Celebrity come dancing results are not fucking international news!
Celebrity come dancing has leaked on to everything. It's on Breakfast, it's on the One show (a hideous, hideous programme despite Adrian Chiles' (arguably the best thing about the BBC currently) best efforts), it's on Something for the weekend, it's on between programmes, it's got midweek update programmes. I could easily conceive of an hour long Eastenders entirely dedicated to Dot Cotton and Peggy Mitchell discussing their favourite celebrity in a come dancing special. (Dammit!...I talked about it.)
How do you solve a problem like Maria?...on TV? Really? We're not watching the show, we're watching the auditions! That's the boring stuff before the actual stuff...and we're paying for it! That in turn 'evolves' into a failure show...it transpires that were more interested in the losers than the winners after all. What exactly was the problem anyway? What was the problem that didn't already have a centuries old solution?
The Apprentice?! It's a job interview! On TV! A belligerent yob selects his favourite imbecile from a bumbling of incompetents.
Dragon's Den - I liked this for a while, but I realised it had become an insult fest. Surely the concept here was to encourage the inspired and the inventive to tout their products and ideas to successful business men and women in the hope that they could net the emotional and financial backing required to nurture it to success. When I see (I resist using 'watch') the show now, I witness ridicule and persecution. It's bullying....broadcast by the BBC. This is the same BBC which condemns bullying on shows like Breakfast, Newsround and Grange Hill (RIP). In its favour I suppose I could concede that programmes like this will encourage the motivated to go it alone rather than suffer public humiliation at the hands of self-indulged elitists. I can only hope that it will evolve itself out of existence....or (dare I?) that someone with scruples and integrity gets a grip on it, if it's not already too late.
So, this has turned into a more general rant than originally intended. I can't entirely remember my original point.
Basically, my solution is this: Make it commercial and kill the TV licence.
There is nothing to lose. We will not have more commercials than we do currently, and honestly, I don't think the programming quality has a great deal to lose either.
At the very least, I can stop bitching about it.
Shaults
Spell shaults.
Definition?
Short trousers extending to the knee or above.
Can you use it in a sentence please?
Ees grabbed old of eez shaults!
Definition?
Short trousers extending to the knee or above.
Can you use it in a sentence please?
Ees grabbed old of eez shaults!
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Iron Man vs the Black Night
Hulk vs The Thing
Alien vs Predator
...
Lingering in the air like unclaimed flatus for upwards of 35 years is the inevitable, but undiscussed issue of who would win in a fight; Iron man or the Black night?
A bout of fisticuffs twixt Black Sabbath's Iron Man, and Deep Purple's Black Night. No weapons, no allies...just a straight up street brawl at the dawn of heavy metal.
Let's explore the facts...
Iron man
Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? Can he walk? Is he alive? Clearly, these are pivotal issues. Until these are resolved, really we're firing blanks in the dark. During our adventure with Iron man, he "kills the people he once saved" and "lives again". This resolves at least one of the issues, but raises important questions regarding his loyalties and commitment to a cause. Iron man is a turn coat, and a bully. I appreciate that frustration is a manipulative harlot, but warriors intent on victory must contain and channel such powerful conditions. The implication here is that frustration is Iron man's master. This is not virtuous in the heat of battle.
Black Night
Well...clearly, this is not even a thing. It's not your classic horse bound, armour clad, Arthurian legend at all. It's more likely an abstract metaphor for depression, drug use, and/or duress and maybe other nouns beginning with 'd'. I'll work with what I have available.
The lyrics indicate a dull, fidgety, malcontent which craves freedom. We have here a push me-pull you of conflicting traits. This would promote confusion, and likely, in turn, frustration.
While the lyrics don't indicate a specific home advantage to Iron man, black night is a long way from home. Thus Iron man must at least be fighting on neutral ground and could at best be fighting on home soil. Statistically this swings the advantage in Iron man's favour.
My winner? Iron man.
Black night isn't even a tangible thing. You surely can't lose in a fist fight against nothing. Eh?
...Iron man?
...Eh?
Alien vs Predator
...
Lingering in the air like unclaimed flatus for upwards of 35 years is the inevitable, but undiscussed issue of who would win in a fight; Iron man or the Black night?
A bout of fisticuffs twixt Black Sabbath's Iron Man, and Deep Purple's Black Night. No weapons, no allies...just a straight up street brawl at the dawn of heavy metal.
Let's explore the facts...
Iron man
Has he lost his mind? Can he see or is he blind? Can he walk? Is he alive? Clearly, these are pivotal issues. Until these are resolved, really we're firing blanks in the dark. During our adventure with Iron man, he "kills the people he once saved" and "lives again". This resolves at least one of the issues, but raises important questions regarding his loyalties and commitment to a cause. Iron man is a turn coat, and a bully. I appreciate that frustration is a manipulative harlot, but warriors intent on victory must contain and channel such powerful conditions. The implication here is that frustration is Iron man's master. This is not virtuous in the heat of battle.
Black Night
Well...clearly, this is not even a thing. It's not your classic horse bound, armour clad, Arthurian legend at all. It's more likely an abstract metaphor for depression, drug use, and/or duress and maybe other nouns beginning with 'd'. I'll work with what I have available.
The lyrics indicate a dull, fidgety, malcontent which craves freedom. We have here a push me-pull you of conflicting traits. This would promote confusion, and likely, in turn, frustration.
While the lyrics don't indicate a specific home advantage to Iron man, black night is a long way from home. Thus Iron man must at least be fighting on neutral ground and could at best be fighting on home soil. Statistically this swings the advantage in Iron man's favour.
My winner? Iron man.
Black night isn't even a tangible thing. You surely can't lose in a fist fight against nothing. Eh?
...Iron man?
...Eh?
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Amazing but true 3
Due to the Coriolis effect, door handles in Australia work the other way than in Europe.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Of chicken and egg...
It strikes me that I've never experienced a recipe that includes both chicken and egg as ingredients. I have no doubt that such recipes exist, but they're hardly as prevalent as, say, bacon and egg or sausage and egg. I haven't tried putting them together but my early warning system doesn't indicate that this combination would taste foul (I'm sorry, I had to).
So I'm wondering...maybe there's a kind of historical homestead unwritten rule that you don't wipe out two generations in a single meal.
A mate of mine put me on to chicken hearts (this is not a newspaper column for lonely poultry), which I can buy at my local supermarket. This was news to me at the time, but maybe it's not unusual. So I purchased a package of chicken hearts...a punnet, you might say. There were maybe 20 or 30 in there. He suggested that I skewer them, season them, and grill them. I'm not particularly squeamish when it comes to food, so chicken hearts, while a little odd to me, didn't put me off particularly (snails, no.). They tasted kind of....sausagey to my palette...like slightly chewy cocktail sausages perhaps. Not unpleasant.
Until....
...until it registered with me what a punnet of chicken hearts represented. I don't want to sound like some vegan activist or anything, but 20 or 30 chicken hearts represents 20 or 30 chickens. When I buy a package of 2 chicken breasts (a similarly sized package), it represents a single chicken and I'm wholly OK with that. I suspect that I've represented the upper end of the food chain to many hundreds of chickens in the past, but generally one at a time. I know you're hardly likely to purchase chicken hearts one or two at a time, like pick and mix confectionery, but individually polishing off 20 or 30 chicken engines seems rather more decadent than survival or sustenance.
So...caviar anyone?
So I'm wondering...maybe there's a kind of historical homestead unwritten rule that you don't wipe out two generations in a single meal.
A mate of mine put me on to chicken hearts (this is not a newspaper column for lonely poultry), which I can buy at my local supermarket. This was news to me at the time, but maybe it's not unusual. So I purchased a package of chicken hearts...a punnet, you might say. There were maybe 20 or 30 in there. He suggested that I skewer them, season them, and grill them. I'm not particularly squeamish when it comes to food, so chicken hearts, while a little odd to me, didn't put me off particularly (snails, no.). They tasted kind of....sausagey to my palette...like slightly chewy cocktail sausages perhaps. Not unpleasant.
Until....
...until it registered with me what a punnet of chicken hearts represented. I don't want to sound like some vegan activist or anything, but 20 or 30 chicken hearts represents 20 or 30 chickens. When I buy a package of 2 chicken breasts (a similarly sized package), it represents a single chicken and I'm wholly OK with that. I suspect that I've represented the upper end of the food chain to many hundreds of chickens in the past, but generally one at a time. I know you're hardly likely to purchase chicken hearts one or two at a time, like pick and mix confectionery, but individually polishing off 20 or 30 chicken engines seems rather more decadent than survival or sustenance.
So...caviar anyone?
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
A collection of thoughts on global warming and the future
I had been led to believe that the current increase in the average temperature due to global warming was unprecedented in history.
I read in the Bill Bryson book - 'A short history of nearly everything' - that dramatic temperature changes in short periods of time are not unprecedented at all (see chapter 27 - 'Ice time' for Bryson's summary), and that history features many unexplained sudden rises in average temperature. These historic rises in temperature are allegedly evidenced by ice core samples. Admittedly, the quality of the data gathered from such samples is not something I can comment on. My whole current philosophy is based on personal experience, research and various 'expert' analyses, so it's clearly exposed to inaccuracies. What I think is for certain: humans are not helping.
I'm not here saying we are nothing to do with the current climate change. I applaud the messages from world governments and high profile individuals and, indeed, the less heard voices which are no less earnest, for us to pull together and to reduce or reverse what we perceive to be our contribution to the climate change. This is all good and fine and I'm all for it. But I think we need to be careful with the premise that we are solely and entirely responsible for the currently changing climate.
I'm going to bandy around some 'facts' here that might not be entirely accurate but which I think are better than ball park.
For starters, I think I heard some projection that we have 40 years to reverse the damage we've done lest we reach a point where the climate becomes irreversibly catastrophic for the environment. That's around 2050 (that's the year, not ten to nine. Don't panic!) I'm sure there are projections which place 'the year of irreversible catastrophe' sooner or later than that. The year is largely irrelevant in this case (unless it's right now, or already gone - in which case it's truly irrelevant and we might as well just crack open the factor 1000, enjoy the summers, and move to higher ground). So, fine. Let's reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and concentrate on green energy sources. We can do that. My point here is that we could spend 40 years doing that and get to 2050 only to find that our contribution to global warming was actually negligible to start with. We could find ourselves sliding towards oblivion regardless of our best efforts to turn things around. I'm not saying we shouldn't try. Let's. But I'm thinking maybe we should also focus our efforts on the "what if?" scenario:
What if we do everything we are capable of in order to fix the climate, and it turns out we were no more capable of reversing it than causing it in the first place. It's just a "what if?". I think we should consider, as a species, methods of surviving the catastrophe should it turn out to be unavoidable. I'm not saying I have the answers, but I do have some of the questions.
I also have a not-entirely-unrelated theory about fossil fuels.
My limited understanding of fossil fuels is as follows:
Millions of years ago, the atmosphere had a very high carbon content and was not particularly accommodating to life. What life there was, consisted of simple single (or not many) cell organisms, the likes of plankton and algae, countless billions of which populated the oceans and which were somewhat partial to carbon. They consumed it from the atmosphere to power their existences, reducing the carbon content of the atmosphere as a result. When these life forms died, they sank to the bottom of the oceans, and tectonic activity folded their remains into the earths crust. Millions of years of the correct circumstances (heat and pressure etc) formed the remains into oil. We drill into the crust, extract oil and process it for various combustion based fuels.
When we burn these fuels, carbon is released again to the atmosphere, and that is observed to be at least partly responsible for the greenhouse effect (trapping heat that should normally escape through the atmosphere) and, thus, global warming. I'm not disputing that this happens. My point is more about that carbon cycle. I note that it's also estimated that we will shortly run out of fossil fuels. It strikes me that this is all happening at about the same time. We are supposedly pumping the atmosphere 'full' of carbon, which was there millions of years ago, and which got 'eaten', then processed by the planet into oil. We don't create or destroy carbon. It's just there...it's in the atmosphere, it's in a plankton, it's in the Earth's crust, it's in a barrel, it's in your fuel tank, it's in the atmosphere again. We don't have millions of years...but the planet does. And so, I assume, will millions of generations of plankton (or similar). I suspect the cycle will continue regardless of us. Had we not extracted the oil and burnt it in our automobiles, what's to say it wouldn't have been pumped into the atmosphere by a volcano? (- this is just flippant conjecture. I don't have an idea of how realistic this is.) The deal is not so much who or what released the carbon into the atmosphere, but that it was released. Anyway, my point is this: we're running out of fossil fuels, seemingly at about the same rate that carbon is becoming dangerously abundant in the atmosphere. Running out of fossil fuels might be the very best thing to happen regarding climate change. The planet has found its way back before, and it'll get there again.
When we talk of the end of the world, really we refer to the end of human civilisation. History indicates that this ole rock will be around for some time longer than our species.
Now, what of ant farts...?
I read in the Bill Bryson book - 'A short history of nearly everything' - that dramatic temperature changes in short periods of time are not unprecedented at all (see chapter 27 - 'Ice time' for Bryson's summary), and that history features many unexplained sudden rises in average temperature. These historic rises in temperature are allegedly evidenced by ice core samples. Admittedly, the quality of the data gathered from such samples is not something I can comment on. My whole current philosophy is based on personal experience, research and various 'expert' analyses, so it's clearly exposed to inaccuracies. What I think is for certain: humans are not helping.
I'm not here saying we are nothing to do with the current climate change. I applaud the messages from world governments and high profile individuals and, indeed, the less heard voices which are no less earnest, for us to pull together and to reduce or reverse what we perceive to be our contribution to the climate change. This is all good and fine and I'm all for it. But I think we need to be careful with the premise that we are solely and entirely responsible for the currently changing climate.
I'm going to bandy around some 'facts' here that might not be entirely accurate but which I think are better than ball park.
For starters, I think I heard some projection that we have 40 years to reverse the damage we've done lest we reach a point where the climate becomes irreversibly catastrophic for the environment. That's around 2050 (that's the year, not ten to nine. Don't panic!) I'm sure there are projections which place 'the year of irreversible catastrophe' sooner or later than that. The year is largely irrelevant in this case (unless it's right now, or already gone - in which case it's truly irrelevant and we might as well just crack open the factor 1000, enjoy the summers, and move to higher ground). So, fine. Let's reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and concentrate on green energy sources. We can do that. My point here is that we could spend 40 years doing that and get to 2050 only to find that our contribution to global warming was actually negligible to start with. We could find ourselves sliding towards oblivion regardless of our best efforts to turn things around. I'm not saying we shouldn't try. Let's. But I'm thinking maybe we should also focus our efforts on the "what if?" scenario:
What if we do everything we are capable of in order to fix the climate, and it turns out we were no more capable of reversing it than causing it in the first place. It's just a "what if?". I think we should consider, as a species, methods of surviving the catastrophe should it turn out to be unavoidable. I'm not saying I have the answers, but I do have some of the questions.
I also have a not-entirely-unrelated theory about fossil fuels.
My limited understanding of fossil fuels is as follows:
Millions of years ago, the atmosphere had a very high carbon content and was not particularly accommodating to life. What life there was, consisted of simple single (or not many) cell organisms, the likes of plankton and algae, countless billions of which populated the oceans and which were somewhat partial to carbon. They consumed it from the atmosphere to power their existences, reducing the carbon content of the atmosphere as a result. When these life forms died, they sank to the bottom of the oceans, and tectonic activity folded their remains into the earths crust. Millions of years of the correct circumstances (heat and pressure etc) formed the remains into oil. We drill into the crust, extract oil and process it for various combustion based fuels.
When we burn these fuels, carbon is released again to the atmosphere, and that is observed to be at least partly responsible for the greenhouse effect (trapping heat that should normally escape through the atmosphere) and, thus, global warming. I'm not disputing that this happens. My point is more about that carbon cycle. I note that it's also estimated that we will shortly run out of fossil fuels. It strikes me that this is all happening at about the same time. We are supposedly pumping the atmosphere 'full' of carbon, which was there millions of years ago, and which got 'eaten', then processed by the planet into oil. We don't create or destroy carbon. It's just there...it's in the atmosphere, it's in a plankton, it's in the Earth's crust, it's in a barrel, it's in your fuel tank, it's in the atmosphere again. We don't have millions of years...but the planet does. And so, I assume, will millions of generations of plankton (or similar). I suspect the cycle will continue regardless of us. Had we not extracted the oil and burnt it in our automobiles, what's to say it wouldn't have been pumped into the atmosphere by a volcano? (- this is just flippant conjecture. I don't have an idea of how realistic this is.) The deal is not so much who or what released the carbon into the atmosphere, but that it was released. Anyway, my point is this: we're running out of fossil fuels, seemingly at about the same rate that carbon is becoming dangerously abundant in the atmosphere. Running out of fossil fuels might be the very best thing to happen regarding climate change. The planet has found its way back before, and it'll get there again.
When we talk of the end of the world, really we refer to the end of human civilisation. History indicates that this ole rock will be around for some time longer than our species.
Now, what of ant farts...?
Friday, 3 April 2009
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Shrubbery tomfoolery at Neville Towers
Shrubbery tomfoolery at Neville Towers
England football star Gary Neville has had his new shrubbery vandalised only days after having it fashioned into the letters 'MUFC' to represent his club side Manchester United Football Club.
The Man U captain will have been dismayed this morning to find his pride and joy shrubbery has been defaced
to read 'MOFO' - derogatory ghetto slang - in what would appear to be a guerrilla gardening incident, rumoured to have been perpetrated by anonymous rival fans in the grounds of his £7m converted farmhouse mansion.
Local involvement has not been ruled out, since it has been reported that his neighbours were less than impressed by the topiary in the first place.
One local resident who declined to be named said "The property is somewhat imposing as it is, and the addition of the shrubbery spelling out the football club was just over the top."
The new look shrubbery has caused amusement amongst the diminutive rural Greater Manchester community.
"Besides, it looked a bit rubbish anyway.", he continued, "The alteration is a bit uncalled for, but I must confess to a smirk of amusement when I heard about it."
He dismissed the gravity of the incident.
"I don't think you can really call it vandalism though: planting shrubs? That's like saving the environment!"
The Man U captain will have been dismayed this morning to find his pride and joy shrubbery has been defaced
to read 'MOFO' - derogatory ghetto slang - in what would appear to be a guerrilla gardening incident, rumoured to have been perpetrated by anonymous rival fans in the grounds of his £7m converted farmhouse mansion.Local involvement has not been ruled out, since it has been reported that his neighbours were less than impressed by the topiary in the first place.
One local resident who declined to be named said "The property is somewhat imposing as it is, and the addition of the shrubbery spelling out the football club was just over the top."
The new look shrubbery has caused amusement amongst the diminutive rural Greater Manchester community.
"Besides, it looked a bit rubbish anyway.", he continued, "The alteration is a bit uncalled for, but I must confess to a smirk of amusement when I heard about it."
He dismissed the gravity of the incident.
"I don't think you can really call it vandalism though: planting shrubs? That's like saving the environment!"
Survival of the preparedest
'They' (you know...'them'!) accuse Bear Grylls of cheating for 'surviving' by sleeping in hotels and having a support team, so they make a big deal about putting Les Stroud in a desert with no support team and carrying his own cameras and stuff....except he's got a crashed truck with a load of water in it, next to a tree containing berries which he researched beforehand, and found that he could eat. The other day (on TV), they put him in a life raft and ditched him in the ocean, but it's in the ocean under a sticky out bit of land where there were a multitude of little islands with coconut trees. And because he had to carry his cameras, they gave him a little dinghy, which he slept in because his life raft was filling with water. And he had a support team which towed him to shore when it got stormy. It's not like I want to watch the guy die on screen or anything, and I have to say, I'm in awe of his skills, and I don't claim that it's easy or that I could do it....but, if you're the best, and you're going to show us how to survive adverse scenarios, strap a single camera to your head, and get out in the middle of the Pacific on a plank.
He was in the canyons in America the other day - again, on TV, obviously...Nevada way I think - and lit a fire with scrapings from a chunk of magnesium he had in his pocket. How very convenient!...that you had a block of readily combustible magnesium in your pocket! Fancy that...what good fortune! Thanks Les, I've learned.
I've learned that you can survive in the middle of nowhere with a tent, a coconut tree, some berries, something to light a fire with, and gallons of water.
No shit! That's called camping!
Might as well take bog roll too
...and a car.
...and a house.
He was in the canyons in America the other day - again, on TV, obviously...Nevada way I think - and lit a fire with scrapings from a chunk of magnesium he had in his pocket. How very convenient!...that you had a block of readily combustible magnesium in your pocket! Fancy that...what good fortune! Thanks Les, I've learned.
I've learned that you can survive in the middle of nowhere with a tent, a coconut tree, some berries, something to light a fire with, and gallons of water.
No shit! That's called camping!
Might as well take bog roll too
...and a car.
...and a house.
Cow punching
So...it's like this. I figure if Rex Hunt can do it, then I've got a bloody ripper on me hands: Cow Punching.
Discovery is going to snatch this up....
It's the most popular sport on the planet, right? Catching a fish by it's mouth on a barbed hook, then dragging it against it's will to the surface, yanking it from the water which it requires for breath, watching it gulping at impossible air and flapping around in distress, claiming that it doesn't hurt and they're too dumb to get stressed. Chuckling at how it wriggles, saying stuff like "Ha! you're a feisty little feller ain'tcha?!" and kissing it, bellowing "Yabbadabbadoo", or similar, and throwing it back so it can experience the same hell again and again.
With that in mind, picture this scene:
So, you've got this bearded (optional) chap who chases a cow around a field with a lasso. He catches it by the neck and snaps the loop suffocation-tight with a flick of the wrist. As he pulls it close, he punches his bovine quarry to the ground and holds it's head in a bucket of water. It struggles for breath while our hero - laughing - compliments it on being a "spirited feller". As the body goes limp - and herein lies the art, like fanning a fading flame - he pulls it's head from the bucket, kisses it full on the nose, smacks it on the backside with his palm..and off it runs, bucking and snorting, for the process to happen time and time again. Now, that's sport!
In subsequent weeks, we introduce celebrities, or a local specialist with distinguished honours in the field of cow punching...with, perhaps, a story of how his (or her) father punched forty cows to the ground in a single afternoon back in the heady '20s.
...I televise it, and broadcast it to millions.
It's a winner!
Discovery is going to snatch this up....
Cow Punching
Fishing.It's the most popular sport on the planet, right? Catching a fish by it's mouth on a barbed hook, then dragging it against it's will to the surface, yanking it from the water which it requires for breath, watching it gulping at impossible air and flapping around in distress, claiming that it doesn't hurt and they're too dumb to get stressed. Chuckling at how it wriggles, saying stuff like "Ha! you're a feisty little feller ain'tcha?!" and kissing it, bellowing "Yabbadabbadoo", or similar, and throwing it back so it can experience the same hell again and again.
With that in mind, picture this scene:
So, you've got this bearded (optional) chap who chases a cow around a field with a lasso. He catches it by the neck and snaps the loop suffocation-tight with a flick of the wrist. As he pulls it close, he punches his bovine quarry to the ground and holds it's head in a bucket of water. It struggles for breath while our hero - laughing - compliments it on being a "spirited feller". As the body goes limp - and herein lies the art, like fanning a fading flame - he pulls it's head from the bucket, kisses it full on the nose, smacks it on the backside with his palm..and off it runs, bucking and snorting, for the process to happen time and time again. Now, that's sport!
In subsequent weeks, we introduce celebrities, or a local specialist with distinguished honours in the field of cow punching...with, perhaps, a story of how his (or her) father punched forty cows to the ground in a single afternoon back in the heady '20s.
...I televise it, and broadcast it to millions.
It's a winner!
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Catbat legend rekindled in remote India
New Delhi, India
The Indian Catbat, largely considered to be a fictional entity, has staged a surprise comeback in rural Indian folklore following an absence of 150 years. Sightings, and subsequent reports of a roadkill specimen has led to skeptical representatives of the international scientific community making the four day pilgrimage from New Delhi to the densely forested district of Arunachal Pradesh in the East.
Locally coined 'BAgha Machchhara' - literally translated to 'Flying Tiger' - the leathery winged catlike species was generally considered to be purely mythological, a physical specimen of which has never been captured. Only one obscure and far from convincing plaster casting of skeletal remains exists in the vaults of the New Delhi Natural History Museum and those who have examined it have regarded this as an elaborate hoax.
Legend dictates that the nocturnal creature preys on swine and
last provoked international intrigue in the mid 19th century when
domesticated dogs were targeted by the beast as a result of local wild boar populations being decimated by a ruthless parasitic infestation.
Sightings were reported but unsubstantiated by British colonial explorers at the time. The plaster cast of remains was thought to be counterfeit. The specimen was found in the possession of the unidentified, dismembered body of a Brit, who appeared to have met his ironic end as the victim of a large tiger attack. (Picture: "Catbat strikes" - artists impression)
Locally coined 'BAgha Machchhara' - literally translated to 'Flying Tiger' - the leathery winged catlike species was generally considered to be purely mythological, a physical specimen of which has never been captured. Only one obscure and far from convincing plaster casting of skeletal remains exists in the vaults of the New Delhi Natural History Museum and those who have examined it have regarded this as an elaborate hoax.Legend dictates that the nocturnal creature preys on swine and
last provoked international intrigue in the mid 19th century when
domesticated dogs were targeted by the beast as a result of local wild boar populations being decimated by a ruthless parasitic infestation.
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