Work it out for yourself

Here are four facts: -

1. In 1969 I invented the videophone. Whilst this invention was at an advanced stage in my mind sufficient for me to share the conceptual details with E W Hildick, the acclaimed author, I did not actually produce a working prototype.


2. In 2006 it is commonplace to see people walking around with these phones that can both play videos and take photographs.


3. In the 1960's and 1970's people who walked around seemingly talking to themselves (or voices in their own head) were locked up and put in mental institutions.


4. Now it is commonplace to see people walking around seemingly talking to themselves, whereas in fact they are simply using "Bluetooth" headsets to talk on a "hands free" basis via their mobile phone.

Here are four questions: -

1. Is the current short of world class inventors in the UK partly due to the fact that we locked many of them up in the 60's and 70's?


2. Are those people who are currently walking around seemingly talking to themselves just using a "Bluetooth" headset to hide the fact that they are actually talking to themselves AND should actually be locked up in a mental institution?


3. If parliament is an institution, and much of what is said within in it appears to be "mental", does that make it....?


4. Should the practice of locking people up in mental institutions in the 60's and 70's have been extended to include at least one more person?

A tale (?) of two Hamsters

After last week's horrific crash from which it looked likely that Richard "Hamster" Hammond looked at though he would not survive the night, it is great to report that he was actually able to walk from the helicopter to the ambulance when he transferred from a hospital in Leeds to one in Bristol. He is clearly a "survivor"!

25 years ago, the same could not be said regarding another Hamster.

We had a pet Hamster in our first flat. A flat, which from memory, never experienced temperatures above freezing. (It was supposedly heated by 2 or 3 night storage heaters, but whatever they stored over night it was not heat, or if it was, that heat was never released to the outside world. Thinking about it, they could actually have been the very best "storage" devices ever made.)

Sadly, the Hamster - like Richard Hammond - appeared to be a speed demon as it ran around inside its plastic ball, sometimes crashing into objects with such force that the two halves of the ball fell apart, thereby allowing it to escape for hours on end.

One day, before "Hammy" was a year old, we found him "dead as a proverbial parrot", and regrettably had to bury him in the garden.

Now, when I say "dead", Hammy certainly appeared dead. Unfortunately, what we didn't know was that hamsters can hibernate when there is a sudden change in their environment i.e. sudden temperature drop, lack of water, etc. A hibernating hamster may apparently appear stiff and cold with little evidence of breathing and many owners have assumed a hibernating hamster to be dead at first.

Had we known this we would have been able to follow the recommended advice which is to place them in a warm room or to increase the temperature of the room gradually.

The advice further suggests that the hamster should not be placed near a fire or on a radiator or anywhere in extreme heat, so I guess that putting him in a plastic bag on top of the night storage heater wasn't the best thing that we could have done either.

Two hamsters, two different outcomes. One survived having received the very best medical attention, the other....sadly just had us!!

I look up to them...and they look down on me!

With reference to a previous Blog ("Is there anything worse than coming fourth?) my current position in the Daily Telegraph Fantasy Football League has plummeted to 239,805th!

Now if a podium were created so that all participants in the "League" could take their rightful position, I would clearly be some distance below the person currently in first place.

Whilst there is no standard design or dimensions for such podiums*, if we assume that each level was 20 cm below the previous one, and that each successive level would contain an extra individual to the one before, I would be on the 692nd level at a distance of 14km/9 miles below the winner.

*Clearly I have thoroughly researched this and details can be found in the following link -http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/Olympika/Olympika_1998/olympika0701f.pdf#search=%22medal%20podium%20dimensions%20olympic%22

A global warning!

Unfortunately, Auntie Sheila's visit from the US became somewhat restricted due to the current security restrictions in place. However, we made sure that we visited her in the Guantanamo Bay 'styled' unit where she was staying whilst over here!

It is not quite clear why she has been detained in this way, but it may have been that the security services picked up some of the stories that she has been telling.

One story that may have been "misinterpreted" related to her talking about a future global "threat" that may take place soon.

As with other potential disasters and pandemics - like global warming and bird flu - this "threat" started small, but has grown considerably over the last 40+ years.

Initially restricted to the North Eastern states of the USA, it now transpires that it is about to extend its impact on a global scale.

Soon to hit, China, Brazil and even as far as New Zealand, will anywhere feel safe?

There is no vaccine and no known cure, but very soon Steve Lopiano will be coming to a city near you!!!

The world's fastest hamster?

As TV presenter Richard Hammond fights for his life after a horrific crash in a jet propelled car, travelling at close to 300 mph, tributes appeared at similar speeds all over the internet.

At such times people often think too carefully about the words that they use and consequently don't appear as genuine or as compassionate as I'm sure they really are.

Others don't really care what people think and simply say what they feel. One such individual is Jeremy Clarkson who said that they didn't know whether his friend and co-presenter would live or die, but added that he hoped that they would “...get their hamster (Hammond's affectionate nickname on the show) back soon".

It later transpired that Clarkson had also made “the hamster” smile by telling him that he was a c**p driver!

“...and this year's Ronseal award for plain speaking goes to...”

The downside of "Celebrity"

Having now appeared as an “expert” in THE national daily newspaper in the UK, there appears little left for me to achieve.

Additionally, whereas I could previously stand unnoticed on the station platform, today was noticeably different. All around me I could sense Telegraph readers nudging their travelling companions as they looked in my direction. What started as a single, whispered question from one commuter to another of “...is it HIM?”, soon became a near intolerable caucophony of sound....as the train arrived and everyone (in a vain attempt to show respect to my new celebrity status by treating me as a "normal" commuter) pushed me aside to get one of the few remaining seats on the train.

OK, so no-one actually noticed the article or commented on it!

Apparently anyone quizzing a child today is more likely to hear, “I want to be famous!” as being famous now counts as a career ambition all on its own, partly because as children grow up in a celebrity culture, on first name terms with those who only use one name — Kylie, Posh, Jordan, Madonna, Beckham, Beyoncé — their own aspiration to celebrity increases.

They should however beware, for to misquote a "misquote" in my article, celebrity isn't "...all it's cracked up to be!".

I am pleased to report however that not all schoolchildren have identical ambitions. In conversation with two young, newly graduated teachers on Sunday, one (who to protect her identity shall simply be known as Rachel) recounted a story about an exercise in a primary school in which she was working recently, where pupils were asked to think about what they wanted to be when they grew up.

On asking one young girl what she wanted to be, she replied "...a tooth fairy!". Cute or what?

The Daily Telegraph article

Do you take this goat to be your lawfully wedded wife?

When I was young, I remember my mother using the phrase - “Stop getting on my goat...” Which I was led to believe meant to stop "...getting on her nerves".

However, now I'm not so sure...

Apparently a man in Sudan has been forced to "marry" a goat after the owner caught him in an "intimate" position.

Mr Alifi, the goat's owner, caught Mr Tombe having sex with his goat, and took him to a council of elders.The council ordered Tombe to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50US) to Alifi. Alifi says, "We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together."

Mr Alifi, describes the scene, (which actually happened late in the evening of 13 February 2006) saying, "When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up.They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife."

This romantic tale (maybe the goat did actually have a romantic tail!) gives rise to a number of questions: -

• What did that northern saying really mean?
• Was this an early Valentines Day present?
• Was Mr Tombe so ugly that all that he could attract was a goat? (Surely goats in Sudan can't be more attractive that even the least aesthetically pleasing Sudanese woman?
• How did they know how much a dowry for a goat was?
• Is there a list of differing amounts for different animals? If so, where does the goat feature in the top 50?
• What will happen to the kids?

A community project

Spent the day with a four work colleagues (and various offspring!) decorating a Somali nursery in the East End of London.
It was a bit like DIY SOS, only on the TV programme the experts are required at the start of the project, whereas I think we could have done with them after we'd finished!

However, the end result was still a great improvement on what had previously been there - it was now cleaner, brighter, more colourful and safer - even if there are unlikely to be any awards for the quality of the craftmanship.

How shy is Donald Trump?

When we were last in New York, there was little to suggest that DT was the shy and retiring type.

When we were interviewed by a freelance reporter for the New York Times, he was writing a piece about a new restaurant at the top of Trump (not Tmrup or *****) Tower.

DT also has a number of casinos bearing his name, and his face currently appears on billboards all over Time Square promoting the US version of 'The Apprentice'.
I know what he looks like. You know what he looks like. We both know he is about as shy and retiring as Alan Sugar!!

So, when watching an episode of 'The Apprentice' last night, I was again somewhat surprised by what I saw. DT went out and about in a black stretch limo, stopping at the sites where his "apprentices" were working to assess how well they were doing it. He made no attempt to hide his identity. Anybody there at the time would have been aware by the size of the entourage that DT was "in town" and that filming was going on.

So why, when the camera panned round to the front of the limo was the number (or licence) plate pixelated out?

I could guess what it said...'TRUMP 1', or 'TRUMP 2' or.......'TRUMP 46'! But whatever the number I'm pretty sure it would have started with TRUMP!

Know how you fit into the bigger picture

When John Kennedy bumped into a caretaker at NASA and asked him what he did, the man replied "...'helping' to put a man on the moon".

That's a genuinely inspiring story.

And it raises the question: how many of us really understand the vision behind what we do in our working lives?

Incidentally, when the caretaker asked Kennedy what HE was doing there, Kennedy apologised and admitted he'd walked into the ladies toilet by mistake!

Now this story, which is so clearly true, also demonstrates how close (but never close enough) to greatness I have been at times.

It reminds me of when I was invited to attend an interview in London, for a job in Human Resources. The interview was to take place on the first floor of the HO building in London, and I arrived in good time.
As I reached the first floor I decided that I would visit the "restroom" (clearly because I wanted to have a rest!) to make myself comfortable before the interview. On entering the toilet I found an empty cubicle and sat down to....gather my thoughts.
However, as I sat there I heard the sound of a woman's shoes outside, at which point I realised that I was both in the wrong place and also at the wrong time.

To be seen wandering around the ladies toilets is not the best way to start a potential move into a Head Office job in HR!!

Had I been seen I'm not sure that simply telling the above story about Kennedy would have sufficed. Well, I was able to "escape" unseen, (or I think I was unseen!) attend the interview, get the job etc etc.

Now, how do we set about getting a man on Mars?

It's not what you say....or the way that you say it!

Yesterday, as I drove around the south coast listening to the radio, one of the business news items was about the recent decline in profits of the fashion retailer French Connection, blaming the tired "FCUK" campaign for much of this.

Today, I attended a workshop aimed at helping "authors" write content on the internet/intranet.

It was a fairly interesting day, and I hope that my future offerings, of which the attached is an example, will be a lot clearer to you the reader (singular?).

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

Are these two items connected? Perhaps they are!

Couldn't see the Woods for the trees!

Fantastic news!

Tiger Woods and Colin Montgomerie were in our building in London today, ahead of their attendance at the World Matchplay Championships. Both posed for pictures and autographs and it was a great opportunity to get up close and personal with two of the world's greatest players.

Well it would have been a great opportunity for me had I not spent my morning travelling (or trying to travel) to a conference in Bournemouth - three and a half hours to travel 90 miles!!

See no evil,...or the Law is an ASS!!

Some of you may remember the 1989 film starring Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor, "See no evil, hear no evil", about a deaf man (Wilder) and a blind man (Pryor) who witness a murder.

One scene in the film involves Pryor driving a car, under the direction of Wilder. At one point Wilder remonstrates with Pryor and demands that he "looks" where he's going, to which the "blind" Pryor retorts "OK, if it makes you feel better!".

Well it appears that the scene from the film has been replicated in real life.

A blind man, Omed Aziz, was convicted of dangerous driving, after police spotted his car on the wrong side of the road, and was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison suspended for a year.

Aziz, who lost his eyes in a bomb blast in Iraq, was driving through Oldbury on 23 April.
He was arrested along with a 21-year-old Iraqi at about 2300 BST, after police followed their car along Oldbury Ringway and into West Bromwich Street, the court was told.

Iraq-born Aziz, from Birmingham Street, Darlaston, denied dangerous driving but had pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to driving with no MOT, no licence and no insurance.

However, in yet another example of the law being an ASS, Magistrates said they were required by law to order Aziz to take an "...extended driving test", if he ever decides to apply for a driving licence.

HELLO!! The man is BLIND!!

Five years on

My journey in to work 5 years ago today, would have been similar, although not identical to that today. The train - the 6.36 into London Bridge - now often arrives early - and is a cleaner, quieter and more pleasant new train - the type which replaced the old style slam door trains a couple of years ago.

I sit listening to songs randomly selected on my iPod Nano - an invention of the last 12 months - the current selection being Coldplay's "Trouble". I find that I'm in 'trouble' as the woman in bright pink opposite asks to me to turn the volume down on my iPod (to be perfectly honest the volume was about half what it could have been, and nowhere near as "loud" as her bright cerise shoes, skirt and floral "cardy" - how would she (Old Ma Cerise) like it if I asked her to dress less "loudly" in future?).

Today the skies (plural?) are clear and blue and the world outside appears relatively calm.

London was also my destination 5 years ago although the building where I used to work on the 1st floor, has been replaced by a new 42 storey global headquarters.

How would I have felt 5 years ago watching the events of 9/11 unfold if I'd been sat on the 35th floor (as I will be today) of a building which to some will be totally representative of all that they believe is wrong about western capitalist states? The answer is clear, I would have felt very different. Whilst the events were horrific they were still far enough away for me not to feel personally threatened, especially on the 1st floor of an 8 storey building in the middle of London.

The realisation that what initially appeared to be a tragic accident, was in fact a horrific terrorist attack, only dawned when the second aircraft came into view close to the second of the Twin Towers.

Has the world changed for the better in the last 5 years? On a personal level, most definitely. There has been much success and happiness within the family (albeit that this has been tinged with sadness at the "passing" of some along the way).

But, on a Global level, the world is possibly much worse than it was. We remain less understanding, less forgiving, less accepting of others than we should be. A death in Baghdad, Kabul or Darfur, isn't "felt" in the same way as it is if it happens on the streets of Britain or America. The "Trouble" remains and like in the "spider's web" in the song, we remain "caught in the middle"!

The annoying trend of pixelation

Whilst I accept that on occasions I have used "pixelation" to protect the identity of subjects of previous "Blogs", I am beginning to get more and more annoyed by its use on TV.

It never used to be the case during news broadcasts that every car registration number was pixelated or "fuzzed out". So why do they have to do it now? Is it to protect car drivers who are somewhere where they shouldn't be? How many devious, unscrupulous people can there be in the world? Maybe if there was more of a chance that they would get found out they would think twice before going somewhere that they shouldn't!

I was even watching an interview on TV the other evening with some professor or other, which was presumably filmed in his study or library. On one of the shelves behind him was what looked like a photo frame, with the contents pixelated out. What did he have to hide? If he didn't want anybody to see the photo - because, for example, he had an extremely ugly wife or children - he should have moved the photo out of shot!

The fact that the photo had been adjusted in this way just made me more inquisitive about its contents, whereas had it just been an ordinary photo I wouldn't have given it a second look.

Spot the difference

Looking back on the events of yesterday, both personal and political, I noticed a very strange co-incidence. The day had commenced with:

"T's old grey bear falling from space"

and by the end of the day we had seen, what most commentators were describing as, the start of: -

"T Blair, looking old and grey, falling from grace"

Spooky, co-incidence or conspiracy?"

Murder in the Alley?....Another true story

We discovered the body just after 6am lying face down in the narrow alleyway between the two houses. The gate leading to the alleyway had been closed when we had arrived, and there was nothing about the scene that suggested that a struggle had taken place. There was no apparent blood seeping from the body, no obvious bruising, and no immediate clues as to how it had arrived in its final resting place. It just looked old and grey.

We also knew that in a potential "crime scene" the body shouldn't be moved until the police arrive, but surely we should check to see if there were any signs of life? Proper forensic analysis, if necessary, could take place later, but one small check surely couldn't hurt now? Placing two fingers on the victim's neck T felt for a pulse, but as she had expected there wasn't one, and whilst the body felt cold, (as though it had lain there for several hours), it felt curiously soft. Had rigor come and gone, or had death occurred more recently than we had at first thought. If so, was the perpetrator of the crime - if in fact there had been a crime - still in the vicinity.

As we looked down at the body a noise made us look up at one of the buildings. One of the upstairs windows of the house to the right was open about 9 inches wide and a curtain was flapping in the early morning breeze. Could the body have fallen, or been pushed, from the window above? If so, given that it was no more than about 10 feet above the ground, surely such a fall wouldn't have proved fatal? And from ground level it didn't look as though the window could be opened much wider than it currently was.

The morning was a cold crisp one, and a faint dusting of frost had formed on the concrete slabs of the alleyway and also on the few leaves that had fallen from trees in the nearby gardens. Leaves which would soon greatly increase in number as summer quickly receded and autumn breezed in to take its place.

However, there were no footprints to be seen in the frost other than the faint trail that we had created ourselves. In fact the only signs of anybody other than the victim being there would point back to us; our footprints, our finger prints on the handle of the gate, our traces of DNA on the body itself.

Many questions would follow, about why we had been there at that time in the morning and what had made us look in the alleyway? Had we seen anything or heard anything that had led us there? (Answers to both these questions being an unhelpful no)

What had led us there? Did we need an alibi? How was this going to look?

Everyone had heard of miscarriages of justices, but were we now about to be caught up in one ourselves?

As question after question started to invade our minds we both looked back down at the body. Although it lay face down with it's hands tucked in under its chest, and although difficult to see in the early morning gloom, it appeared as though it was holding something. Something that was large enough for it to have needed two hands to hold it. As we looked closer we saw it was a sign, a sign which simply read "MUM".....

Or to put it another way

One of T's teddies fell off the windowsill in the night and she found it in on the pavement by the side of the house as she was about to drive me to the station first thing this morning....

Is it a bird? Is it a....?

Given the events (or lack of events) at Longleat on Saturday, a strange thing happened at work yesterday.

Being (unusually) the first in the team to arrive at work I was working at my desk when each of my colleagues arrived. Pleasantries were exchanged with the first 2 or 3 colleagues, until one came in and said "Do you know why there is a plane in Reception?".

I had not seen anything, (although I do have a recent history of not seeing planes) and neither had most of my colleagues. Despite previous references to "drug dealing", my colleague appeared in full control of her faculties and remained adamant that she had seen a plane.

Out of a team of 10 only 3 had seen the plane, which (on a later secret visit to Reception) I later confirmed to be a glider with a 40 foot wingspan, and therefore something that was no too easy to miss!!!

I would like to point out that our Reception is quite large, and that it was not something that I had to "step over" as I came into the building, so it had clearly "disappeared" as most of us came into work.

Also, had my interview with the reporter from the Daily Telegraph yesterday, who managed to condense 15 minutes of me droning on, into 180 words of similarly meaningless drivel, which will be appear in print sometime soon.

Having appeared in the New York Times last October, and the Daily Telegraph soon, I will soon be able to add 'newspaper correspondent' to my CV!

STOP PRESS!
Not only have planes been disappearing recently but this evening half of the trains disappeared, considerably delaying journey home.

Oh my God!! ........I've just noticed that my hair and teeth are starting to disappear as well...what kind of conspiracy is this?

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction

Long Weekend at Center Parcs, Longleat - 1st September 2006 - 4th September 2006

Whilst the Saturday of our long "weekend" (see previous Blog) left a little to be desired in the enjoyment stakes, the rest of the weekend actually more than made up for it.

The accomodation, a two storey, two bedroom (both with ensuite) appartment was large enough and comfortable enough for the four of us (and the eight of us for a few hours on Saturday evening).

The company was excellent, and we all managed to pack a great deal into our remaining one and a half days at the Parc.

These activities included many trips to the pool complex, where we all threw ourselves around the "rapids", water slides, flumes etc with as much gusto as those who were 30+ years younger than (some of) us.

However, it should be noted that one of our party, who shall remain nameless, screamed louder than most others as she was swept down the rapids, sometimes upside down, sometimes the right way up....sometimes seemingly doing cartwheels!!!

As well as the swimming (or more accurately, splashing around in the water) we had at least eight games of badminton, six games of squash, 6 holes of golf at the Belfry (on a golf simulator), a boat trip in a pedalo - to which I added 2 short runs (just to finish me off).

Some of this exercise was necessary to offset a very pleasant evening meal and waffles at the "Austrian" Pancake House.

All in all, a very pleasant weekend!!

The proof of the pudding is in the.....making!

Long Weekend at Center Parcs, Longleat - Friday 1st September - Monday 4th September 2006

There are many different approaches to creating a culinary feats, but as any good cook will tell you it is not just about having the right ingredients that determines how good the finished dish will be, but rather the method and order in which they are combined.

Our weekend at Center Parcs, Longleat in part proved this point. The initial reason for the weekend was due to Moog having bought tickets for the Red Bull World Series Air Race which was to be raced at Longleat on 2nd September, and to which he invited not only 'yours truly', but both of his grandfathers as well.

For the event to be successful, it required the following "ingredients": -

1. Tickets
2. Convenient accommodation
3. World class aerobatic pilots
4. Impressive venue
5. Large crowds
6. Good event organisation
7. Good weather

Over the course of the weekend, all of the above ingredients were present....but unfortunately not at the right time or in the right order.

The 11 pilots demonstrated their amazing skills in the qualifying rounds on Friday, (when there was nobody there to see them) but the real event, in front of crowds of up to 100,000 was not due to take place until Saturday.

The weather was great on Friday and Sunday, but unfortunately Saturday, whilst warm, was wet and very, very windy.

The convenience of of accommodation at Center Parcs meant that we only had a 5 minute drive to the magnificent Longleat venue where we arrived at 11.00 am, in good time to see the start of the day's events at 12.15 pm...that is if there had been any events during the day.

Unfortunately, the weather was too bad for the event to take place at all or for the crowds to see anything.

The good event organisation that had got the crowds into the event, disappeared at the end of the day when the crowd was advised that "...it would most probably not be possible to see any flying" at around 4.00 pm. So we, (along with 99,996 others) spent a good hour queuing to get to the car park, and then two hours queuing (not that there was only one queue, there were about fourteen queues all trying to push into one) to get out!

Having left the viewing area at about 4pm we got out of the car park at just before 7pm. In one respect the fact that we then only had a five minute drive to our villa at Center Parcs was a bonus, but in another respect it was b@??!y annoying as it would only have taken us about 30 minutes to walk it had we been able to!

Next year we're going to see the race in Dubai, or Budapest or... anywhere that can guarantee warm, dry, calm weather...so basically anywhere outside of the UK.

All of the elements had been there, just not necessarily in the right order!!