Some People Have Pure Custard Between Their Ears

When it comes to climate change, I consider myself to be pretty agnostic.  I personally believe that there is insufficient data to draw an accurate conclusion as to whether mankind is actually destroying the environment or that we are possibly in an unknown period following the last ice age (20,000 or so years ago), or indeed a myriad of other reasons.

Despite this, I think neither side has acquitted themselves well.  There has been Climategate (although subsequent reviews have since found that although the methodology was flawed, the findings were correct - eh?) and the ignoring of data that did not support the climate change theories, but all of this pales to insignificance with the latest actions from the skeptics.   Heartland (an organisation in the US that I refuse to link to) ran advertising campaign in Chicago that beggared belief.  Rather than apologise for this disgrace, they claimed it a success. The global campaign group, Avaaz are now running a campaign to encourage their corporate sponsors to abandon them - hopefully this will be successful.

Do Androids Dream of Electronic Donuts?

Over the last few days, something has been puzzling me: a lot of science fictions movies have "replicants" - robots that are considered a facsimile replica of a human being, complete with skin, hair etc.  Examples of these appear in Alien and Aliens (I stopped watching the trilogy after that monstrosity) and Bladerunner. Within these movies, they are sometimes shown eating a meal with their human counterparts - this presumes that they obtain their energy from food as we do.

Anyway, the question I have is: do androids suffer from obesity?  Obviously, if we assume that the android knows the limits of its requirements, it is reasonable to expect that it will stop consuming when it no longer needs to. But what if there is a bug in the software?  It is possible that it could continue to "eat" and there would be an excess of energy that it is unable to process.  Then there is the example of Rachel in Bladerunner - she was an android that believed she was human. Therefore, would she gain the same pleasures from (for example) eating chocolate?  And if so, if she ate to excess how would her weight gain be shown? (Not that we want a fat Sean Young).

Then there is the issue of alcohol & drugs.  The replicant in Alien knew that he was one, but had to fool the human crew members.  How would he emulate their effects?  And again, go back to Rachel - she would have had to been able experience all the effects. Does this mean her designer had to be an alcoholic druggie in order to fully describe the effects?

These are questions that movies have not addressed....

My Thoughts on the New England Manager

Today the English FA have formally spat in the face of "popular" opinion and appointed (Uncle) Roy Hodgson as the new England manager, following the ignominious resignation of Fabio Capello (despite having the best win ratio since 1966).  In what can be considered a ballsy move, the media darling that is Harry Redknapp was not even interviewed for the role so naturally the knives are already out.

The televised press conference probably had around 20 questions asked of Hodgson and Bernstein (the FA chairman) of which no more than 2 or so were actually related to the matter of football.  The remainder of the questions were along the lines of questioning selection process, who else was considered, etc.  It was almost disappointing that not a single journalist had the courage to ask what they were really thinking "why didn't you appoint Harry Redknapp?"

Despite the Hodgson's struggles at Liverpool, I do think that he will prove to be an effective England manager - he already has international management experience, having got Switzerland to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup (and 3rd in the FIFA rankings). As long as the press and the England fans can get behind the team, that is.  He will also be reliant on the England players following his instructions, but I am sure that there won't be any attempt to make them play unfamiliar formations or putting in inexperienced keepers in critical games.

As can possibly be appreciated, I am slightly more supportive of Hodgson than the last English manager that lead England to a lack of glory.  I may even renew my membership to England fans+ - although I may wait until after the Euros.  Although, naturally we are now destined to win it!

Budget Airlines - They're Just Not Worth It

In these challenging times, many cost-conscious travellers often think they can save a few pounds by travelling with one of the many budget carriers such as Ryan Air or EasyJet. If you want to enjoy your trip, then I implore you not to. A regular airline such as British Airways may be slightly more expensive when booking, but often by the time hidden costs are added, the savings are not that substantial. In addition the minimal costs savings, the whole "user experience" tends to be somewhat better with a regular airline.

A typical flight on a budget airline starts of all well enough, but with no allocated seating you could end up arguing with a chav from Essex because he doesn't want to be separated from any of the 17 illegitimate kids that he is taking with him to his annual pilgrimage to Majorca. Inflight services are non-existent unless you are ready to open your wallet, where you find the foot options are of the quality you would expect while shopping with a severe hangover. Roughly about halfway through the flight, you will be offered a chance to buy a lottery ticket. Has anyone actually ever actually won anything? What is the maximum prize? Naturally, this key information is witheld from you as they try to find yet more ways to part you from your wallet. I am suprised they haven't installed coin slots alongside the reading that you have feed while you read anything to distract you from the 3 hours of tedium.

When it gets to landing at your destination, you are lucky if the plane parks up in the same airport that it landed at. In an attempt to keep their costs down, these budget airlines will pay for the remote spots that are normally reserved for keeping hijacked planes away from the airport buildings. On a recent flight into Gatwick, the shuttle bus had to take us so far, I was convinced that then plane had parked up in a field in deepest West Sussex.

Finally, when you do actually to get to the airport and passport control, there are normally about 12 plane loads of budget travellers trying to get past the 2-man team of immigration controllers. Bedlam is assured while you hope that your baggage was loaded on to the plane that you were on, and the handlers did not decide to test the off-road capabilities of their baggage trucks on it.

So, use BA, Singapore or whomever (except Air France) for all your flying needs!

Big Brother...

No not, Channel 4's attempt to turn the nation in to one populated by knuckle-draggers.

I noticed this article today, and I am of two minds. While copyright theft is a concern, especially for newly emerging "talents", I am against the wholesale admonishment of people that do download music and or movies. For example, if someone wanted to buy a movie and discovered that the DVD had been deleted and was no longer available, I believe that they should be able to download it. Of course, that is not to say that BPI, etc would necessarily agree with that theory, so if they want to prevent illegal downloading, they need to extend consumer choice by providing catalogues of older material and charging people to download them. Everyone would be a winner...

Of course, there is also the issue of DRM and what not but that's not likely to be fixed anytime soon.

One Mighty White Elephant

Reading the paper this morning, I saw this article about an airborne laser "gun" designed to kill tanks from 10 miles (15kms) away. Pretty impressive considering that tank armour can be 300mm thick and beyond.

Whilst a great idea in theory, and obviously big-shiny technology always looks impressive (which is why billions are spent on high-tech planes rather than making them cheaper and in greater quantities), I do feel that this plane is going to be rather limited as it is totally reliant on air superiority.

Currently it is mounted on a converted 747, with plans to later fit in to the venerable Hercules. Certainly on my travels, I have not considered the 747 to be the most agile of craft and while 10 miles sounds like a considerable distance, it is not that deep for a battlefield as they can stretch to several miles by the time reserves are taken into consideration. As such, its use is going to be limited to insurgent situations and the flight crew will have to hope like hell that they don't possess any cheap anti-aircraft missiles, which the US government would have in no way supplied to them. And if you believe what's in store for the future, it's not going to be of much use.

Even assuming that the future is not so bleak, the limits of the laser means that at maximum range the laser is going to be degraded substantially by atmospheric conditions (smoke and dust from the battlefield, water vapour in the atmosphere), which will causing "blooming" and reduce the effectiveness of the beam. Still, with a skilled controller they should be able to beam "USA! USA! USA!" into the clouds.

Find dodgy content faster!

I read this interesting piece in the Telegraph this morning. In a nutshell, the future Internet will allow you to enter a single search term and it will lead you to all related content. So far example, type in "Mel Gibson" and it will return his biography, options to buy his back catalogue and links to religious nutjob websites.

The article also discusses the possibility of linking bank accounts to online calendars and photo collections, so that you can see the impact that a holiday had on your bank account. Leaving aside the privacy issues, I am not exactly sure how that will be of benefit. After getting back from a pleasant holiday, the last thing I want is a reminder of the damage it did to my meagre funds. Still, it could persuade people not to holiday so much - ah, it's part of the Greenie agenda!

The return of centralised Government?

Having announced that the ailing Northern Rock will now be nationalised due to the massive amounts of taxpayers money dropped into it, it is possible that the Politburo has got it sights on an even bigger target.

Although nothing has officially been announced, the stripping of the rail operators licence would easily allow the government to nationalise First Great Western, setting a precedent for all the other rail franchises that are failing to deliver. The rights and wrongs of privatised rail services vs. nationalised services can be debated, however the fact remains that a time when government bank balances are written exclusively in red (thanks to the previous Chancellor, now Prime Minister), increasing the public debt to fulfil an ideological desire is at best, foolish.

Hopefully, the Government will see sense and realise that nationalisation failed the country in the 60s & 70s and therefore does not need a repeat performance.

Next stop, franchising...

I was happily surfing the 'net today and found saw this disturbing piece. The Premiere League today agreed in principle for each to team to have to play an additional match. Opposing teams will be selected by a random draw, and the game will then be played on neutral territory - not Wembley, not the Millenium Stadium but virtually any country on the planet, in any city. The Premiere League's motivation for this is that it will give fans in overseas countries the opportunity to see a live game. In my opinion, there are several problems with this idea, a few of them are:

1. Local leagues not appreciating the intrusion. Whichever country is hosting a game, it will mean revenues for that local league are likely to be negatively affected. The rationale for this is that fans will pay more to watch the Premiership game, and therefore not attend local fixtures. Additionaly, sponsors would rather put their money towards something that is going to get a world-wide screening.
2. Fixture congestion getting worse. Premiership teams can currently expect play games in (depending on their position) the Premiership, the FA cup, the Coca Cola cup, the Champions League or UEFA cup and pre-season friendlies/tournaments. Add to this, International commitments and the players themselves are going to be reaching a point of burn-out very much earlier in the seasons, and potentially their careers.
3. Local teams draw local fans. Something that is apparently hard to fathom for some, but (with a few notable exceptions), a team's fanbase comes from the immediate vicinity surrounding it. Is a Wigan - Derby match played in Bangkok going draw local interest? No disrespect to either team, but they do not have "marquee players" like Ronaldo, Rooney, etc.

I hope the Premiership see sense and avoid this stupid idea. However, their Chief Executive (Scudamore) seems to have little respect for the common fan, even though they were the ones that got him here in the first place.

Predictions for 2008

As it is the start of the year, I thought I would put down a few predictions for the year ahead. I am no Mystic Meg, and most of it is pretty much guesswork so I don't know how accurate I will be.

Football

• Premier League winners: everyone seems to think it will be Man Utd or Arsenal. I don't know though, I can see Derby having a good run of form. Failing that and a few intimidated referees later, Chelsea do have an outside chance out of the remaining 2 in the top 4. So, let's go with Arsenal.
• FA cup winners: I would like to see an outside team win it, but I think Chelsea may have the edge as they tend to do well in tournaments.
• Champions League: I will say this much, it won't be an English team.
• England team: a year of optimism for future will be brought to a stuttering halt by a few players continuing to not find form. Rooney to become a super sub, Lampard to dropped completely after a dismal performance against Switzerland.

Politics

• UK election: not while Gordon Brown is in power. If one is called, a slim majority for the Conservative party (maybe a hung Parliament?) with Labour losing out to both Tories and Liberals.
• US election: isn't there one due soon? Don't know if it is this year or not, but if so, expect the Republicans to retain by 1% again, after multiple recounts, suing of the balloting machine developers and within 2 months everyone complaining that they didn't vote for them. The Democrats will blame Michael Moore for losing them votes.
• Middle East: more of the same, I'm afraid.
• Australia: they have just had an election, so they will be happy for a bit longer.

Economy:

• Housing: prices down, then up, then down, then up. Then everyone will realise that Halifax's economic predictor is suffering from a previously unseen Y2K bug.
• High-street spending: more on-line spending leads to less high street spending. By the end of the year, queues at on-line checkouts match high street stores.

Technology:

• Facebook: mass desertions as everyone gets tired of being poked, bitten by Vampires and receiving dubious "do you find me hot?" requests. That, and people read the privacy statement.
• iPhone: new one introduced, the world goes crazy. Steve Jobs has more followers than Ghandi, is canonised by the Pope, starts managing the US Football team, forms a US cricket team, cures cancer, etc...
• Next big thing: not sure. Last year it was Facebook and the year before that You Tube, as a guess I will go with an application that syncs all your contacts, emails, instant messages, calendars, etc across work and home, mobile phone, etc. There are a few options already available in this field, but none of them have really taken off yet.
• This blog: sporadically updated ;)

I will try and remember to check these out at the end of the year.

Happy New Year and a few resolutions

Happy New Year to all. Hopefully, 2008 will be a successful and prosperous one for you all, and your resolutions are achievable. In that sense, here are some of mine:

• Get to the gym more, and not just weights but cardio as well
  
• Update this more

So not many, so hopefully I will be able to keep them going for more than a month.

I read today that TIME has awarded Vladimir Putin the Man of the Year award. At first I thought it was a practical joke given that Russia have started sending out their long range bombers to probe the Western air defences (something that has not happened since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s).

However a review of the TIME's Man of the Year awards shows that this is not entirely without precedent. Previous recipients have included notables such as:

• Adolf Hitler
• Joseph Stalin
• Harry Truman (in the year that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was bombed)
• Nikita Kruschev
• Lyndon B Johnson (in the year prior to the Vietnam war escalation)
• George W Bush (enough said)

As such, Putin joining such a list is therefore not entirely out of character for the editors of TIME. Here's hoping that Putin does not join his Russian predecessors...

It's not always good to be right.

Last night the expected happened, and England failed to qualify for a major tournament for the first time in 14 years. This has been quickly followed up by the FA sacking McClaren and starting an urgent review of football in the country.

On the replacement coach a number of names have been mentioned as possible successors. Personally, I hope whomever is appointed is picked for his skills and not because he is a "safe" option, as McClaren was considered. Among the listed are:

• Scolari: current Portugal coach and former coach of Brazil when they won the World Cup in 2002. He is proven on the international scene with a good pedigree while leading Brazil, I think he has been found a bit lacking for Portugal. This makes me question whether he can achieve much with England.
• Mourhino: the controversial former Chelsea boss is currently sunning himself somewhere. Unproven on the international circuit but impeccable in domestic tournaments, he has stated that he is only interested in club football at present and would only consider coaching Portugal. Still, if there were enough 0's on the cheque, I am sure he could be persuaded.
• Lippi: former Italian coach who won them the World Cup. Also whereabouts unknown, but may be worth a punt. However, Italy did not play particularly attractive football last year.
• Klinsmann: the former German coach took them to the semis, even though it was his first managerial role. I cannot see the English press taking a German as the national coach though.
• Hiddink: just signed a contract with Russia, who made it to Euro 2008 at England's expense. I cannot see him giving up that role; he doesn't want ex-KGB hitmen after him for a start!

Then there are some British names in the mix:

• Sanchez: got a win over England when coaching Northern Ireland although currently with Fulham. A possible candidate.
• Allerdyce: was annoyed he wasn't offered the role last time and to be frank, I would rather have had McClaren. I am not convinced that Allerdyce has enough to offer and has been found to be somewhat lacking in the more pressured environment of Newcastle.
• O'Neill: the Aston Villa was turned down for the role originally, and although I think he has a lot of potential, it may be too early for him.
• Shearer: there has been talk of the former Newcastle captain taking the coaching position. The worst that could happen is that this is done to try and emulate Klinsmann's success.

The selection process I imagine will be a drawn out affair, especially as a couple of the candidates are tied up until post Euro 2008. Personally, I favour Mourinho - as mentioned is untested in the international arena, but on the plus side he can eat the English press for breakfast and spit them out; and unfortunately that is prerequisite of the job nowadays. Failing that, given that we have such a long time to the next qualifying campaign, give O'Neill a run and allow him to build the team up.

For the review, I have written before about what I believe England needs to introduce in to their coaching. Hopefully, they will use this opportunity to reconstruct themselves as France did post Euro 1994. It is however a long shot if they can't get the clubs on board...

Sheep, lemmings, etc...

Obsession is a dangerous thing... The cult of the iPod totally confuses me: it is a device that has a very high volume of competitors, often with superior products and despite the negative press (battery life, locking you in to iTunes), people continue to buy the thing.

Now, Apple have released the iPhone and again the lemmings are let out. This is a phone that's one innovation is the built in tilting mechanism, other than that it offers nothing and in some respects is a retrograde step (e.g. lack of 3G, vendor-locked service provider, etc). By the looks of it, there is again no way of changing the battery so within 18 months, users will have dead phones as good old memory effect will make them useless.

I am sure people will continue to buy them irrespective of how good the product is or the company's ethics. Wonder if Steve Jobs will ever get round registering Apple as a religion? He does a better brainwashing job than the Moonies.

Migrating my holiday blog

I decided recently to migrate my other blog (JamesHeatherHols.blogspot.com) to Travellers Point. Progress has been pretty slow but I am getting there.

The reasons why I am doing this? Well, Traveller's Point offers the following:

• Mapping of holiday journeys on a map of the planet, including distance travelled
• Uploading of photos and linking them to cities on your mapped travels
• Blogging and diary facilities

The biggest reason that I am using them however, is that it is possible to book accomodation through them. We used this site a lot on our travels last year, and have used them since, as they do the range from budget up to 5 star. I was comparing their prices with those on Expedia and they were roughly half the price for the same hotel.

As such, I would recommend them to all independent travellers out there.

What will he have to say for himself?

The Telegraph is giving readers the opportunity to pose questions to David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party. Reading through the questions posted so far, there seems to be a pretty common theme: immigration, EU and crime.

After gaining some good momentum while Blur ran the country into the ground, Cameron has lost it all and is allowing Brown to take the upper hand. There seems to be a genuine fear in the Tory ranks of "lurching to the Right", which is complete nonsense. The simple fact is that the UK's resources in all areas are stretched way beyond capacity, and a firm line must be taken. Brown produces the rhetoric and is lauded for it, Cameron does it and is accused of being Right wing (as if it is a crime). It's something Nick Robinson of the BBC has also observed.

In my opinion, Cameron has to stop being Blur-lite and make some definitive policy statements on some of the harder issues to tackle. At least that way, people can either get on board or jump ship. The lack of anything of substance is going to be damaging as nobody will not what he or the Tories stand for. The incumbent government have many areas where they are prime for attacking: violent crime is rising, unions seem to be getting their edge back (a new winter of discontent?) and the Health service is failing with more administrators than there is capacity to treat patients. Sadly, Cameron and the Tories are failing to voice these - they must do if they want to be a credible opposition.

Flapping McClaren = problems for England

Perusing the sports section of the Telegraph today, I noticed that Steve McClaren is considering bringing Sol Campbell back into the England fold, after firing him via an answer machine when he took over the reins. This has been brought about by a "defensive crisis" in the England squad with John Terry, Jonathan Woodgate and probably Gary Neville (woo hoo!) out injured.

Although the role of England manager is a thankless task, and I have tried not to criticise too much, McClaren has brought this all on himself. He would rather have players out of position on the field, rather than mustering the courage to drop those that were under-performing. This has lead to players being heckled on the pitch, him storming out of press conferences and quality players considering retirement from international football.

Since taking the England mantle, McClaren has travelled round the country to watch a number of Premiereship games (and will shortly be adding America to the mix), supposedly to pick the best squad available. However, the result of all this travelling is that he will have reverted to the same pre-World Cup squad of Sven. The World Cup 2006 squad was not the "golden generation" as heralded by the press; although it did possess a great deal of talent, it was not enough to see the result home. England need to build for the future, they need a squad that will last and and calling back Campbell and (allegedly) David James is not going to be the answer in the long term, despite how well they played last season.

The England line-up should be (subs are in brackets):

GK: Robinson (Carson, as Foster is injured)

RB: Richards (Shorey)

CD: Carragher (Neville)

CD: Ferdinand (Campbell)

LB: Cole, A (Bridge)

RW: Lennon (Wright-Phillips, Beckham)

CM: Hargreaves (Carrick)

CM: Gerrard (Lampard)

LW: Cole, J (Taylor, Downing)

ST: Owen (Crouch)

ST: Rooney (Smith)

Add to the squad a few players such as Johnson and Nugent up front, a few of the younger midfielders such as Jenas, Dyer and Bentley. It also may be worth calling up a couple of others from the U21 that impressed in Holland this year.

The FA Need This Man!

Flicking through the BBC Sports website at lunchtime, I ran across this interesting article about football skills. It has been said that the current teaching methodology employed by the FA produces nothing but "leather-lunged athletes" with good pace (not that England uses that pace in their tactics) and able to withstand knocks from the opposition (a positive hinderence in the era of diving that FIFA encourages).

If England were to employ this guy to coach in all junior training and complement this with the existing training techniques (there is space in the curriculum, England trainees do the least number of hours per week of any European team), there is the real danger that we may win a meaningul trophy.

All we need to do is develop a coaching programme for trainee managers that a) improves their tactical abilities, b) makes them less bloody arrogant and c) removes their reliance on teeth whitening products.

Never a truer word spoken

I was reading this impassioned piece over my morning coffee and pill breakfast and have got say that I fully agree with everything that Danielle Murphy has to say. Charlton Athletic have shot themselves in the foot with this: to disband a successful team to try and save money is short-sighted at best. The fact that the team is composed of part-timers means that the overall savings will amount to much I imagine.

Women's football in England is starting to gain momentum, as indeed it is internationally. Leveraging off this popularity could have enabled Charlton to sell more shirts, or whatever it is they have set as their corporate goal. Now, all that will come to naught for short-term gain; a poor decision, I believe.

I understand Ms Murphy's resentment at how the board managed situation. I hope her and her team-mates soon find success at another club.

Bye, bye Blur

Well, our illustrious/lame-duck Prime Minister has left office, Downing Street and if rumours are to be believed, will be leaving Parliament to take up a "foreign envoy" position (so he can still travel First Class, no doubt). At the end of his tenure, it is probably a good idea to reflect on his many achievements while in office:

• 900,000 civilians killed in a non-UN sanctioned war in Iraq.
• spiralling juvenile crime, fuelled by ASBO "badges of honour" (an oxymoronic term).
• devaluing of the peerage system, so that anyone with a bit of loose change for the Labour coffers (OK, several thousands) can nab themselves a gong.

• Interesting aside: my first realisation of things were amiss with the Honours system was when Alex Ferguson of Manchester United became Sir Alex Ferguson immediately before or after (I forget which) appearing on a Labour party Election broadcast.

• Sleaze, scandal and cover-ups ranging from philandering Cabinet ministers (fair enough really), children of Cabinet ministers being sent to selective schools (a bit hypocritical) and the "sexing up" of the WMD document & its fallout.
• A truly classless society, as epitomised by this nugget.

Will Brown do a better job? He certainly lacks the weaselly demeanour, which can only help his profile however a hard shift to the left may not be in his best interests. The recent defection of some MP from the Tories to Labour will make him feel confident; he would be wise not replace that with complacency.

Here's hoping for some improvement...

Five of the best looking blokes on the planet

While browsing around FaceBook, I noticed that one of my friends had added a post about his celebrity look-alikes. Always eager to try out something new, I followed the link and uploaded a picture taken at the Roskilde Rock Festival that we were at last year. At the time that the picture was taken, I had not showered or shaved for more than a couple of days, so to say I looked a grot is a bit of an understatement.

After a couple of minutes, my results came through and I was slightly suprised by the results (to say the least). My results are below...


Robbie Coltrane and Peter Jackson I can sort of see, but Kofi Annan????!!!! Obviously the tan after 6 months on the road was better than I thought. I'm quite happy about Patrick Swayze and Michael Douglas though :)