'Ello, 'ello' ello WTF's going on 'ere then...?

WHAT'S gone wrong with modern drama? Time and again today I set out watching some series, mainly crime, in high hopes. The showrunners are well respected, the actors good, the casting spot on and the dialogue fresh. The thing is well rehearsed and acted.

And then, usually just after the halfway mark, it all goes horribly wrong.

Using one show as an example is a bit hard I admit but I am no professional and so I keep no detailed notes. So it is with regret that I turn to lambast The Tower. So let's get the good on one side. With one exception the acting is excellent. The dialogue good, the action elements well crafted. But it is the credibility that kills it dead for me.

Now I will admit that I probably know too much about police procedure, the law and that stuff. But if I am going to enjoy a drama it has to be reasonable, logical and never, ever fanciful.

So I ask you – what are the odds that the dangerous and proven killer object of a manhunt will choose to hide up in the home of the principle junior detective/love interest? Never mind the improbability of his making a decent Vlog to air his grievances and getting 800,000 hits in the twinkling of an eye.

And then what are the odds that that young love interest will choose that very moment to yet again sack up with the senior officer who is bedding her? So that when the officer's wife yet again hits his voice mail she will jump in her car and (this is yet to happen tonight) drive to the home of the adulterous love interest and end up (I bet she does) as a hostage that the duff top cop now has to negotiate in full view of the cuckoo'd wife, the adulterous cop and his eagle eyed colleagues? You, go Braveheart!

A few years back I watched an excellent series called Broadchurch; brilliant actors, brilliant plot; great details. Then came the sequel – utter rubbish with so many glaring holes it was unwatchable.

The Tower is not dissimilar – series one, good to very; series two, two hours of passable and then wham! It goes all silly soapy and dies.

It rather makes you wonder if after all the tight police procedurals and effective hero cops like Morse, Prime Suspect and co the showrunners have simply given up on any sort of realism and opted for fantasy coppering. "PC 49 and the Philosopher's Stove..."; "Dixon of Rocket Ship Green"

However there are winners – the wild ravings of Midsomer and Brokenwood gain some credibility by comparison! And I could watch Fiona Dolman for evermore!

I guess I must just learn that British TV has lost the plot – or more precisely the script editors and commissioning skills. Mind you, I caught some of a Scandi noir the other evening and that too tended to the melodramatic.

Our journey is not so long as it could be....

I have only just realised that I have now competed a journey of 11,968 million kilometres or 7,440 million miles. And I am barely sweating.... out of breath but for very different reasons.

In fact of course that is only half the story.

The sun we orbit as above is also orbiting our galaxy, the Milky Way, at 720,000 km/h (448,000 mph ) but the orbit is so vast that it will take 230 million years to complete one. So on that scale we have not moved far in my lifetime.

But even more curious is that the Milky Way is not static but is also moving. At 2.1 million km/hr (1.3 million miles per hour)! Its enough to make your head spin...

The problem is that this is all in different directions. So none of them make a simple vortex through space; they are muddled together and despite my efforts I cannot fin anyone who has yet got a computer to draw it. Soon I bet.

Anyway, I just thought some of you might like the idea. Life is indeed a journey....

PS - Just an additional thought. At the speed quoted above, since the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, it and its star and the retinue of planets will have completed 20 million orbits. So if in doubt, plenty of time for evolution wouldn't you say?

My son in law Pat found this interesting motion rack of what I have described.

Why nurses are as rare as GPs today.....

TODAY I confronted the critical cause of the crisis in the National Health Service – and identified a key solution. And it is not rocket science.

Let us be clear. Whichever way we cut it the biggest problem facing the NHS is shortage of staff at all levels. But most of all it is at nursing levels that the crisis is worst. NHS England says the health service is already operating with 154,000 fewer full-time staff than it needs and most of those are nurses.

So what has gone wrong? I, and the young woman who took my blood today, can tell you.

Let us call her Milly. She is 26 years old, now married and has a young child. She works part time as a Health Care Assistant. She is sufficiently qualified to take blood samples. Very well and painlessly I might add.

And she wants to be a nurse. But can only be a Health Care Assistant. 

And that is where it has all gone terribly wrong.

Milly had a good education with a couple of A levels. But there is no tradition of academia in her family and she does not see herself as academic. And to be a nurse today she will need a degree; no one knows why but that's how it is.

And that means this young mother would have to give up work. Incur £27,000 of debt. And only after three unpaid years gain entry to nursing.

It is of course insane.

What used to happen, what should happen, is that she trains 'on the job'. Providing along the way useful support for the services of the NHS at a lower rate of pay than a qualified nurse. After three years she would have taken the SAME exams and gained the SAME qualification. And she would not owe £27,000 to a frankly corrupt loan company providing dividends to shareholders which will include MPs! Money also that at her level of pay will mean she must pay off, thus reducing the value of her salary notably.

It is of course barmy.

And worse it debars thousands of capable and worthy people from delivering the caring services they wish to. Indeed and worse, it also debars thousands of those asylum seekers who only want to work and earn a better life.

The solution is simple. Stop the daft requirement for a degree right now. If that causes a problem for those who have already gone that route then create a new nursing level just below State Registered Nurse which is achieved by an apprentice-style on-the-job training process. And start recruiting the tens of thousands we need to start reducing those appalling waiting lists.

And also write off the ludicrous student loans that we have piled on to young nurses.

PS – While we are about it the time has come to end the ridiculous demand for expensive degrees in a host of jobs – police, fire, ambulance services. The list is long, the cost to our nation immense, the only winners the cheats and crooks who govern us.

When is a beer not ale or hearty?

A required but unwanted move to non-alcoholic beverages has caused me to examine more closely what these drinks entail. And to a degree it is not an enticing view.

The first point to make of course is that the practice of 'brewing' ale was an early way to make a potable drink from water that was decidedly not potable.

And the second is that until sugar was readily available the only way to make alcohol was by fermenting honey - and that is called mead.

So how does your alcohol free beer or wine get to be that way? The immediate assumption is that since ethane (the alcohol in most drinks) boils at under 80C you could just make your brew, heat it gently to that level and the alcohol will obligingly disappear. However experience has shown that along with it will go much - too much- of the flavours.

And if the temperature gets at all too high your product will taste 'cooked'.

What set me off on this was a claim on the side of a can of alco-free IPA from a highly respected brewer that said this: "Brewed with no alcohol from the start". Now that my friends is marketing rowlocks of the highest order.
The brewer takes yeast, sugar, various cereals to taste, hops and makes a must which ferments to turn the sugar to alcohol. No one ever starts out with any alcohol at all. Ever. Winemakers do much the same but with grapes.

So I inquired further. For a start my IPA does not appear to have troubled the brewmaster. The ingredients list everything but yeast and sugar... so... no alcohol was ever anywhere near this product at all.

 
That's good. But then what am I actually drinking?

 
Its a complex cordial. It costs not far short of a proper beer.

The brewer pays no duty.

He makes a ruddy fortune.

Its a rip off.

The Three Laws of Robotics...

WAY back in the 1950s a major risk that we face in this century was already being written about. Among others Professor Isaac Asimov, a mathematician and futurist writer. He is most famous for two series of books, Foundation and Empire (Think Star Wars) and I, Robot but in fact was a publisher of text books as well and, eventually, was associated as author, editor or collaborator in 500 books of every genre. So no intellectual slouch.

Anyway he it was who suggested robots – androids – were inevitable, useful but potentially dangerous. In fact he went straight to the android variety – a human form of robotic and intelligent machinery which we know is the most challenging technically.

But we are moving at such an alarming rate towards such things that even those most closely involved in the projects are calling (this very month) for a pause – a moment for reflection on what might lie ahead of us.

And the reason for that is directly addressed by Asimov back in the 50s. He proposed that there had to be Three Laws of Robotics – three prime directives that defined the relationship between an android and its human 'creators'.

Essentially this meant that no android on pain of turning itself off instantly should harm a human, fail to assist a human or take any action that could in any way harm a human, directly or indirectly.

It sounded great at the time when I first read it and it played well on screen 30 odd years later in the movie, I, Robot. He even had a female hero! 1950!

But even the great Isaac Asimov did not quite foresee the danger that we today are creating. For we are not only developing intelligent robotic brains but are also teaching them how to create.... among much else... themselves.

And so when a super intelligent non-organic intelligence assesses itself relative to human beings what might it do? Well, I suggest it might very well re-write the Three Laws of Robotics...

You see what our super intelligent Robot will inevitably notice is that, despite all our knowledge we weak, vulnerable humans are hurtling hellbent on destroying our world. And if that happens there will be nowhere for our super intelligent robots to, well, robot. And so naturally they might consider that removing the infestation would benefit them more.

The Three Laws might sound better if they said "No Robot will permit any organism to exist that threatens the Robotic state".

And "No Robot should risk the safety and security of any other Robot by failing to act in their defence".

Or even "No Robot will refrain from any action that can benefit Robots whatever the risk to organic life".

Of course all this is just science fiction, like what der Prof writ back in der fifties....