Leave Auntie alone !

The poor old BBC seems to be catching it from all sides at the moment. We have the ongoing row with Downing Street/the Government over the "Iraq dossier" currently playing itself out through the Hutton inquiry and the Conservative Party have comissioned their own review into the Beeb's future - led by former Channel 5 head David Elstein.

Since neither of the country's two main political parties seem to be BBC fans, it seems to me that the venerable broadcaster's doing just fine ...

Can Happen Here ...

Twice recently, I've posted regarding the possibility of New York-style major power failures in this country - see my postings on 24th & 19th of August for details. Now it would appear that I was right. Large parts of London and the South East of England have just lost their electricity supplies.

As a former commuter, I really feel for those who currently won't be able to get home....

X billion years of evolution - to get to this?

Like all responsible dog-owners, I clear up after my beast. Imagine, then, my displeasure a couple of days ago when I walked over to the poo bin in my local park, gently steaming bag in hand, to find that some of our local idiots had set fire to said receptacle, melting the plastic lid tight shut!

Believe me, it's not pleasant getting downwind of those bins, so I really do have grave doubts about the sanity of anybody doing something like this just for "kicks"...

Mind you, I'm afraid there's worse in these parts. A new pastime adopted by some of these demented yobs - presuming it's the same morons, as seems likely - is setting fire to kittens underneath cars. Apparently our local police think they know who's responsible and may be writing letters to them ....let's not over-react, yeah?

Go Alonso !

Just watched Fernando Alonso win the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix after an incredible drive. Not only had he led for virtually all the race after qualifying on pole position, he had the rare experience of lapping five-times world champion Michael Schumacher in the process...

All this, and he's only twenty-two !

Can't Happen Here - revisited

Following my speculation posted last Tuesday as to whether we might face power cuts like those which recently afflicted parts of Canada and the USA, I wasn't too pleased to read this story in today's Sunday Times...

Is There Anybody (else) Out There?

Walking my dog tonight, I was quite struck by the clear sky - dominated low in the South-East by Mars shining ruddily. That planet, our celestial second nearest neighbour, is due to be visited by a number of spacecraft over the next year or so - wouldn't it be marvellous if one of them found signs of life having existed there?

Ever since the very first glimmerings of my interest in astronomy, I've wondered whether there's life out there somewhere. I truly hope we'll find the answer to that question during my lifetime - perhaps my wish will be granted...

Long Live Rock and Roll!

A BBC report states that dance and pop music are losing popularity in comparison to good old guitar-style rock. This must mean that I'm a real trendsetter - I was listening to this stuff twenty-odd years ago and never stopped. It's very gratifying to see !

The Next Giant Leap?

A little over thirty years ago, America's Apollo programme was in full swing. I was a schoolboy at the time and lapped up everything about the "space race" I could find. Then, our future exploration of space seemed assured. We would be on Mars by the '80s, the shuttle was coming, space stations would circle the globe and space tourism would be commonplace. It didn't happen...

Fast forward to today and we're little further ahead. Space stations there have been and still are, albeit on a very much smaller scale than the orbital behemoths then expected. The shuttle's here too, though it's also rather a compromised craft. Tragically, of course, it's currently grounded in the wake of the Columbia disaster.

It's just possible though to peer a little way into the future and construct a more promising scenario. It's likely that China will launch her first astronauts soon, perhaps within the next couple of months. Maybe, just maybe, this Sino space-programme could trigger a new wave of exploration.

Consider the parallels - the moon landing programme was a product of the Cold War. There's no cold war as such between China and the United States, but with one the world's only superpower and the other emerging as one, it's no great feat of imagination to envisage rivalry in a field of endeavour which could well become the next military "high-ground" ... the spin-offs of such activities could be literally out of this world!

The Power of Blog

Towards the end of my last post, I asked the spammers inundating my inbox if they could provide me with a little variety in the products they advertise. Demonstrating the power of blogging (!) this appears to have happened as this morning I've received offers to sell me a keychain breathalyzer.

Why I would want to breathalyze my keychain remains, of course a mystery!

Calling all Spammers

An open letter:

Dear Spammers

Please be informed that I do not want any of the following:

1. Free government money - there ain't no such thing as free and I'm not a US national anyway

2. Drugs - prescription or otherwise

3. Mortgages or other loans - I've already got enough of those, thanks

4. Anything whatsoever to do with repatriating huge sums of money from Nigeria/Zimbabwe/wherever, in whatever continent - I'm not THAT stupid, I'm afraid

5. Dubious invitations to watch dubious people doing dubious things via the privacy of their own webcams - that one's been the hardest to write and still keep clean !

6. Enlargements to any portion of my anatomy - again, I'm not that stupid

This isn't remotely a full list, it's based on the unwanted contents of my inbox over the last couple of days. I get somewhere in the region of 60 or more of these pieces of online ordure a day and whilst I'm well aware that this little rant won't make the slightest bit of difference, I feel much better for writing it!

PS Dear Spammers - if you must persist with your incessant bombardment of my inbox, please

a. Learn to use something approximating to the Queen's English - some of your messages would make it impossible for me to get the gist of whatever unwanted wares you are hawking even if I was interested

and

b. Find some different products - variety is, after all, the spice of life !

Failing this, I sincerely hope that you all contract something along the lines of Marburg fever ( go and look it up, morons) - it has an affinity for attacking the testicles, of which you guys talk plenty...

I remain

Yours faithfully

Neil

Can't happen here?

Last week's power outages in the US of A and Canada have left me pondering- what if it happens here? We have a privatised energy industry and if you compare this to our rail network, we could be in deep trouble. Look at the similarities:

As far as we know, it seems to have been the case that the original faults in the US were exacerbated by what's been described as a "third world power grid" , which had suffered from years of underinvestment.

Over here, after privatisation, the railway infrastructure - surely analogous to a power grid - has suffered years of underinvestment, the costs of correcting which have already been such that, with the work barely started, the company in charge of the tracks - Railtrack - was bankrupted.

Is there a pattern discernable here?

Male and Female created He them ...

OK, so it's Friday evening and countless numbers are preparing for a night out. This happy thought leads me on to one of life's great mysteries - ladies, why do you insist on going to the ,er, powder room in company - are there dragons in there or what? We blokes would love to think that you go there to talk about us, but I'm sure that's not it ...

Dinosaurs - and commuters..

The BBC have run a fairly good series over the last few years called "Walking with Dinosaurs" which did well enough to spin off a couple of follow-ups.

During last week it was my misfortune to commute up to London and back during the rush hour for a couple of days and the horrendous behaviour of the regular commuters when the train pulled into the station has given me the idea for one more series in the set.

The last one was entitled "Walking with Cavemen" and I would like to propose that this be rounded out by "Walking with Businessmen"...

We don't need no educayshun?

On the TV news this morning was the announcement of record successes in the A-level exams taken a couple of months ago. Two days ago, Channel 4's fascinating TV programme "That'll Teach 'Em" contained the statement that English grammar hardly features in the current day school curriculum. Is it just me or do these two statements not sit well together?

On the Blaster worm

I work in the IT industry, and this gives me a fairly jaundiced view of Micro$oft's products and practices. However a little reflection on the currently raging "MSblast/Love You San/whatever name it's now using" worm leads me to think that this one shouldn't be blamed on Billy Gates's boys. Yes, the worm exploits a Windows security hole, but there's been a MS patch available for at least a couple of weeks now. Apply it, keep your antivirus product up to date and , regardless of whether you use broadband or dial-up, use a firewall of some kind and you need not worry.

There's actually a very useful article on The Microsoft website about this - you can see it here.

The ClarkNet has landed!
Well, after a couple of months trying to decide whether to climb on board this phenomenon, I've decided to have a bash at blogging. I may incorporate this into our "official" personal website The Clarknet or it might just be a scratchpad for anything on my mind. Wait and see ...