Of Bosuns, Bosons and Bozos

The hunt for the elusive Higgs Boson has been much in the news this last week, as the particle physicists at CERN pore over the latest outputs from the Large Hadron Collider and believe they may have seen tantalising hints of its existence.

Sticking with my recent theme of poor science coverage by the nation's media, this has largely been reported as a search for a totally different entity. Something apparently called a Higgs Bosun. Now I'm not overly familiar with the subject, but to me a bosun has always been something to do with sailing. The oldest rank in the Royal Navy, more properly rendered as boatswain, and the chappy who supervises the deck crew. He also, optionally, may have a locker. But he's got absolutely fuck all to do with particle physics.

Now I know it's an unfamiliar term, but you radio and TV Johnnies really mustn't use that as an excuse to fall back on something you ARE familiar with. It's a BosON. Phonetically: BOSE - as in the world-renowned purveyors of high quality audio equipment - and ON - as in the opposite of off.

I really don't see what the problem is. You never see or hear of people referring to protuns, or neutruns, or electruns. Surely even the densest of media hacks must have noticed by now that sub-atomic particles generally, with some notable exceptions, have names ending in -on. And that this not pronounced un.

I know I shouldn't really get so wound up about this stuff but, well, I do. It's just not proper.

Supermassive black hole collapses Radio 4

There's been a scientific discovery. One that deserves a modicum of awe, along with a pinch of excitement and a sprinkle of gravitas. Instead, the matter was subjected to the usual treatment on the Today programme this morning. That is, amused disdain and wilful missing of the point.

Oh, those scientists! What have they gone and done now? I don't know. Something about a large hole or whatnot.

Humphreys - and don't get me wrong, when he's up against a politician, that is to say firmly in the middle of his comfort zone, he can still deliver an illuminating interview along with the occasional barbed question or withering put down - is always totally out of his depth when attempting to cover science. In fact Radio 4 in general seems to have a schizoid approach to science in all its guises. Material World's guests have to fight with Quentin Cooper's attempts to squeeze a bad pun into every sentence, while in the same slot on a different day we have to endure, in The Infinite Monkey Cage, Brian Cox and some other equally populist drivel merchant trying to out-do one another to find the needle of comedy in the haystack of current science. Dumb, dumber and even dumber than that, science on Radio 4 is already a joke and recently it's been presented (it seems) by nothing but jokers.

But outside of the science programmes themselves, any current affairs reporting of matters scientific - especially by the channel's headline anchor men - is inevitably accompanied by an obvious embarrassment at their total lack of understanding, or even interest. So their stock compensation for that is to make fun of it, or make light of it. Faced with the news of the largest black hole ever discovered, we get the usual re-runs of guff like "we thought at one time the LHC was going to create a black hole, didn't we? Chortle, chortle." No, we didn't. "Do I remember reading that a teaspoonful of black hole material would be so dense that if you dropped it, it would fall right through the Earth?" Well... where to start. The teaspoon wouldn't be dense enough to pick the damned stuff up in the first place. Even if it could, it would be way too heavy for you to lift, so the idea of dropping it never arises. And so on. Pathetic.

One a related but different topic, the dinosaurs on the Today programme never did, as far as I'm aware, pick up on the story of Kepler-22b.

For the first time, astronomers have found a planet smack in the middle of the habitable zone of its sunlike star, where temperatures are good for life. We can't yet determine if the planet has a surface, but if it does it would have a temperature around 21°C. What we do know is that it's about 2.4 times the size of Earth, orbits its (smaller, cooler than our) sun every 290 days, and is unlike any planet in our solar system. Could be rocky, could be icy, might even have a global ocean. No idea. But at a distance of 600 light-years we won't be visiting any time soon.

OB

I may have ranted about this before (although I've checked, and I can't put my finger on the post at the moment), but one edition of the evening news last week really brought it into sharp focus. The problem? Outside broadcasts as a way of lending faux "realism" to news items. It does my head in on a regular basis, but on this particular night we were treated to three in quick succession.

Coverage of the inquest into the London Tube bombings? Let's have the reporter standing outside Aldgate tube station.
Wayne Rooney possibly leaving Man U? Stand outside Old Trafford.
Reporting the latest on the Government Spending Review? Stand outside Number 10.

WTF? The BBC have just had a 5-year licence freeze imposed and are supposedly wringing their hands trying to work out how to save money. Well apart from the obvious - cutting the salaries of prats like Graham Norton, Chrisses Moyles and Evans, et al - you could start by bringing these reporters in out of the cold. It adds a sum total of zero importance, content, or gravitas to a news report to have a reporter on location if all they are doing is standing and talking to the camera. They may as well be in the studio. They'd be warmer, happier and more relaxed. The viewing public wouldn't be subjected to that annoying satellite delay between the anchor handing over to the reporter and the reporter hearing that handover and starting his/her report. And most importantly in these straitened times, the Beeb would save a whole bundle of cash.

I don't know who thought up the idea of OB as a generic news coverage staple, probably someone with a vested interest in increasing the number of OBs, but it was a bad idea right from the off and it should be stopped. Now.

Congratulations to Robert Edwards

Bob Edwards' pioneering work into in-vitro fertilisation began in the 1950s, and its first fruit "ripened" (in the form of "test-tube baby" Louise Brown) in 1978. He must be delighted at today's news that he's been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine, but I have to ask: why has it taken more than 30 years?

I suppose it could have been worse. At least the Nobel committee didn't leave it until he was dead, like his research colleague Patrick Steptoe. Their story contains all the traditional elements of small guys with a vision fighting against opposition from all sides - church, government, scientific establishment, holders of research funds - and not giving up in the face of continual adversity.

Ralph Waldo Emerson famously said "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" but enthusiasm is only one facet of success. An even greater ingredient is tenacity. Something Edwards and Steptoe had in spades, and which is embodied in many other well-used quotes. My personal favourite is good old Thomas Edison and his approach to inventing the electric lightbulb. He didn't view his (perhaps apocryphal) 10,000 unsuccessful attempts as failures, but merely treated each as a discovery of one more way that didn't work. A stepping stone to eventual success.

So whether your particular challenge is getting a book published, or buying a house, or finding a job, or trying to manage the estate of a deceased relative makes no difference. Just keep on keeping on.

Sometimes, the little guy wins

Just been reading a weekly news breakdown on the Guardian website. In among the headlines of Vince Cable's conference speech and Fatty Moyles' BBC Radio One rant, is the story of Paul Taylor, a 61-year-old widower who this week won a fight he began in 1995 to buy his council house under the right-to-buy scheme.

Back then the local authority refused the sale, arguing the house stood on consecrated land and also had a public footpath running through the garden. Undeterred, Taylor took a law degree and eventually was able to prove the house is built on separate land, and has no legal right of way through the garden.

The courts awarded him the right to buy the house (current value £350,000) at its 1995 market price, less the right-to-buy discount for long-term tenancy - in his case 30% - which reduced the price to £63,000.

It gets better. On top of that, he won back payment of rent paid since the fight began in 1995. A total of £36,000. Way to go, Paul. Wonder if he's now going to sue them for wasted time, distress, psychological trauma and hair loss? Be a shame to let that law degree go to waste.

The future's bleak; the future's Bleakley

Warning: rant coming.

In the news recently, speculation that Christine Bleakley is on the verge of signing a new 2-year deal with the BBC worth £1million. An increase of £100,000 a year over her current pay. Shortly after that, news that Bleakley had issued a statement denying this rumour, and stating that she had received offers from both BBC and ITV and was "torn."

Until a couple of weeks ago, my impression of Bleakley was based entirely on her 2008 appearance on Strictly Come Dancing. Personable enough. Made an effort to learn the dances. Usual media speculation about romantic entanglements with her partner. I never watched her on The One Show because I couldn't (still can't) stand her sidekick Adrian Chiles. A talentless buffoon hiding behind faux blokey "charm" who could get right up my nose within milliseconds of being subjected to his pudgy face spouting inanities in a Brummie accent.

Since Chiles left, we've risked the odd half-hour with The One Show. Bland pap for the early evening, when the schedulers must think everyone's rushing to cook and scarf their evening meals in between the regional news and the soaps, and anyone left watching will be easily entertained with a few talking heads and content-free general interest stories.

So has my impression of Christine changed since I've watched her in her natural habitat? Not really. To be honest I can't see what all the fuss is about. She looks relatively pretty, sits on a sofa, smiles and reads an autocue. In a Northern Irish accent, which for some reason virtually guarantees that media luvvies will be falling over themselves to give her air time. Can't understand the attraction myself, but each to his own.

So nurses are worth something like 20 grand a year, police and firemen a bit more. But if you're a vacuous bimbo who can smile and read at the same time, you can get a job with the Beeb and be paid half a MILLION pounds a year. Of our money.

Oh no, sorry. To be entirely accurate you can WRING YOUR HANDS  and be publicly "TORN" about whether you want to accept the offer of half a million pounds, or whether you'd rather run off to the competition for probably a bit MORE dosh, and the chance to once again share the same sofa with an old mate.

I must be missing something, but what is it she actually does that is so difficult? I'm experiencing that stress that one gets when the perceived value of something doesn't match the actual money involved. Let's just hope that the BBC aren't sucked into a bidding war for this non-entity. If she decides to go, let her. If ITV think she's worth more than half a million a year, and their advertising revenues can stand it - with people deserting the channel in their millions and those still watching fast-forwarding through the ads with their PVRs - let them have her. It's June, and university finals are finishing all over the country. Within a few weeks there'll be hundreds of media studies, journalism, drama, and similar graduates tipping out onto the job market. I'd wager there's at least a dozen in that bunch who are (a) as attractive as Bleakley; (b) can read; and (c) would jump at the chance to take her place for one-tenth of the wedge she's on.

There but for the grace of God...

The first funeral was held yesterday for one of the victims of the Cumbrian shootings. It was attended by one of Nikki's colleagues and took place in the sleepy Lake District town of Gosforth.

Some news items swim past, barely touching the surface of our consciousness. So many horrors in the world, so regularly delivered to our living rooms, if we gave them all full heart we'd be constantly ragged with emotion, enraged at our inability to help, railing ineffectually at the perpetrators (if human) or the universe (if natural).

This story though, has a special and chilling significance for us. It is only five weeks since I stood outside the local general store in Gosforth, not 100 yards from where that young man was randomly gunned down. Had we taken our holiday five weeks later, or had Bird gone on his mad spree five weeks earlier, we could so easily have been involved. As eye witnesses, or as victims.

Twice in that idyllic week we spent in the Lakes I drove alone to the shop first thing in the morning for breakfast supplies. And on at least two other occasions, we both attended the store. In uncountable ways, life is a matter of timing, and had our timing been off in this respect, I might never have returned to the cottage, leaving Nikki wondering where on Earth I'd got to, or we both might not have come back from the Lakes.

In nearby Seascale, where another two murders were committed, we spent a couple of hours walking on the beach, picking up pebbles, breathing the sea air, enjoying the view and exchanging polite "Good mornings" with the few other people on the beach. The thought that one of those we encountered could have been carrying a gun with intent to use it on whomever he met, still sends involuntary shivers through me.

The natural desire for retribution, or at the very least for an explanation, is so often thwarted in cases like this after the gunman turns his weapon on himself at the last. Those directly involved are left without an outlet for their anger or grief, staring down their own barrel: a lifetime of anguish and loss. And for the rest of us, for a time, the stark realisation that these terrible incidents can happen anywhere, at any time, without either meaning or warning, is enough to account for some restless dreams.

Water, water, everywhere...

Here we go again. A drier spring than usual has led to reservoir levels being 15% down on the average for this time of year, and we're already getting water companies warning of hosepipe bans and giving us advice on how to save water.

Apparently leaving the tap running while you're cleaning your teeth wastes 7 litres. Imagine that! And then imagine the fact that United Utilities (previously Northwest Water) wastes considerably more each day through leaks. And when I say considerably more, I mean orders of magnitude more. I mean 460 million litres. Per day. "Chief Reporter" Dave Guest pointed this out to the water authority stooge on the telly last week and got the same old reply. We have an ongoing programme of leak control in place. Yeah, and you've been saying that for the last ten years to my certain knowledge. After ten years of "ongoing" leak control, you're still losing 460 million litres a day. How bad was it when you started, ferchrissake?

It's a total disgrace that water companies up and down the country are STILL allowed to sit on miles of old, dodgy, perforated piping and yet declare "profits" every year. Profits that come from ordinary households paying over the odds for their water supplies, only to be told to cut their usage in times of drought. Not even drought, actually. It's been raining on and off for weeks. There is no drought. If this is a drought God help us if it ever gets as "bad" as the oft-quoted summer of 1976 when we went 10 weeks without any rain at all.

Let's do the maths together. If you wanted, through the simple expedient of not running your tap while you were cleaning your teeth, to save the water wasted by our local water company in a single day, it would take over 65 million people changing their behaviour to do it. The entire population of the UK. And then what could we all do to save the wastage by Southern Water? And Severn Trent Water? And Thames Water? And Yorkshire Water? There are 20 water companies serving the UK. 20 companies pissing our expensive, treated, potable water out of their pipes and back into the lakes, rivers and streams, and all the while shelling out the money we've paid them to supply our water, to their shareholders, as "profit."

You couldn't make it up.

Copenhagen

I've had a draft post with this title sitting in my bloglist since the Copenhagen climate summit opened. I intended to write about forlorn hopes, high ambition, good intentions and inevitable failure but to be honest, in the end, the whole thing was just too depressing and predictable.

More than a week on, and what I assumed at the start would be the inevitable end looks as though it is indeed coming to pass.

Twenty years of talking, of governments agreeing, or not agreeing, to emission limitations and then missing their targets by miles, while all the time the palm-oil industry destroys the rainforests at ever-increasing rates and every single government ignores their activities. It's hard to avoid the clichés when writing about this stuff. Vested interests driven by fat cats more interested in protecting their billion-dollar stashes and their "right" to drive across the street in a four-ton, gas-guzzling "sports" vehicle than in any notion of protecting the planet. Desperate presidents and leaders of island nations only a few inches above sea-level and hence in urgent need of, well, greater elevation at least, sharing their desperation with the world in the hope of some compassion and receiving? Not a lot.

And what would a "successful" outcome to Copenhagen look like? It's all talk anyway, so at best they'll all walk out, patting each other on their expensively-suited backs and congratulating themselves on agreeing to some vague target years in the future which no-one actually believes they'll hit and even if they did wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to anything.

Those who never wanted to restrict their emissions in the first place have dived on the emergence of what looks like evidence that some of the numbers have been... manipulated... with such shameless alacrity that you wonder they're not entering the 2012 Olympics as a new form of gymnast.

I don't claim to know whether the planet is actually in danger from CO2 or not. Quite honestly I don't trust any of them. These are all human beings with their own axes to grind and it's every bit as likely that the scientists' main interest is in protecting their research budgets so they can carry on producing their nice little graphs, or promoting expensive new technologies to "fix" the problem. On the other side of the scales sit the oil billionaires along with the other main players in the old carbon economies and we all know where their interests lie. There's an exact parallel between them and the cigarette companies, who for years denied any link between smoking and lung cancer, while all the time piling high and selling cheap death wrapped in small tubes with a filter on the end.

The world is even more addicted to oil than it is to tobacco and anyone who thinks that is likely to change any time soon is as deluded as the poor guy from the island nation who thinks any of his presidential peers is really interested in giving him a leg-up away from the encroaching ocean.

So no, I never believed Copenhagen had a hope in hell of fixing the planet. While individually human beings can exhibit intelligence and compassion in sufficient measure to solve the problem, collectively we are like lemmings heading for the cliff. See you on the other side.

Healthy debate

A three-and-a-half-thousand mile perspective on the current debate in the U.S. about health care can make the whole thing seem like some sort of political pantomime played out on the nightly news bulletins. Living in a country which, for more than 60 years, has had ubiquitous health care free at the point of use (or as near as makes no difference), is a far more significant barrier to understanding the issues than distance. I wonder how many in this country stop to realise how fortunate they are.

A package on this morning's Today programme brought it home to me in a "WHAT?" moment of epic proportions.

The article concerned a regular working mum in the US (so I should probably say mom?) for whom one thing separates her from most other regular working mums. Her medical condition: rheumatoid arthritis. Her health insurance allows her one course of treatment per year costing $500. Unfortunately a year's supply of just one of the medications she requires to alleviate the pain from her crippled hands costs $50,000. As a direct result, she lives with constant pain.

I didn't quite catch whether or not this was directly related to the problem with her hands, but she was recently dug out of a car wreck in which she almost died, and found an ambulance waiting to take her to hospital.

Shaken from her near-death experience and having sustained several injuries, she was nevertheless reluctant to step into the ambulance. She knew she couldn't afford the trip to hospital, let alone the treatment when she got there.

A single ambulance ride costs $11,000.

That was the double-take, jaw-dropping moment for me. First, a silent prayer of thanks that if I'm ever unlucky enough to have a significant car wreck, and lucky enough to be pulled out alive, the last thing I'll have to worry about is the trip to ED. Because our ambulance service, much maligned as it often is, doesn't cost a penny. But second: how much? $11,000?!? How on Earth can one trip by ambulance have that kind of price tag. Someone, somewhere, is raking in an enormous, toe-curling and utterly immoral profit from that, while ordinary people standing beside their written-off vehicles try to work out whether they can afford to be taken to a place of safety and given the treatment they need.

And this, in what is supposedly the richest nation on Earth.

A nation now engaged in an almighty bickerfest of shouted half-truths and vested interest, trying to protect the profits of those health insurance companies at the expense of that nation's most disadvantaged citizens. Wake up people. Someone said that most of middle America is only a single accident away from bankruptcy. It could be you tomorrow.

Thank God for the NHS. Yes, it's expensive. Yes, it needs reform. Yes, it's been allowed to bloat until it is, apparently, the world's fourth largest employer at approximately 1.3 million staff. But for all its faults it will be there when you need it most, and whether or not you can afford it.

I must go down to the sea again...

Everyone has their own favourite places to hang out on the net. I think I'm more conservative (with a small c) than most, and certainly not as widely travelled (surfed?) as my brother-in-law, who's well known for finding the weirdest (and funniest) shit in existence. But wherever you go, sooner or later, you're going to come across an interesting snippet or two.

For instance today, while I was reading an article about the reporting bias (or otherwise) of the BBC, I came across this comment from another reader:
"When it comes to bien pensant issues such as Climate Change, I would definitely NOT trust the BBC. The International Commission on Sea Level Change (INQUA) has just dismissed as scare mongering the IPCCs claim that sea levels are rising. No study in the real world confirms their rigged and speculative computer models. For 35 years the INQUA has been using every known scientific method to study sea levels all over the globe and their results show that it has not risen at all in recent decades. As for tiny island nations such as the Maldives and Tuvalu which such scientific luminaries as Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury tell us due to vanish, repeated surveys by the INQUA confirm that sea levels have not risen in half a century. Do not expect to see news of this report on the BBC!!"

And it's true. You can check it out for yourself on the INQUA website. I've seen a lot of footage recently of melting glaciers - with torrents of fresh water gushing their way to the sea - and heard a lot of debate about exactly how much sea level is going to rise, and by when. Seems it's not actually happening after all. At least, not yet.

That's not to say there isn't a problem. Just that it's a different problem than the one being reported. For instance, that much fresh, ice-cold water being dumped into the oceans at the poles could well disturb, or even stop, the Great Atlantic Conveyor (or "thermohaline circulation") with dire consequences for all marine, and eventually terrestrial, life. Still... look on the bright side, eh? At least Tuvalu - along with all its clever .tv Internet domains - is safe for the time being.

No snow!

And there it was: gone! After listening to the 10 o'clock forecast warning that another two or three inches were expected (that'll be a disappointment for someone) and that some areas could have up to a foot (way too much of a good thing - someone else would be choking on it), what did we have?

A huge melt. There's nothing left.

Which, if repeated across the whole of the UK in these credit-crunchy times would be A Good Thing. At least, if yesterday's news is anything to go by. 6 million people failing to get to work, £1.2 billion lost to the crumbling economy, roads closed or impassable, trains, planes and buses cancelled, people full of the great British spirit battling their way to their local train station only to find that's as far as they're going to get. We wouldn't have won the war if we'd had this namby-pamby attitude back then, I tell you! Cough! Splutter!

Sorry. Got a bit carried away there. Still, it is faintly ridiculous isn't it? It's not like snow in February is exactly unexpected. It was even forecast. I heard Ken Livingstone on the news (mind you, he'll say anything to beat the drum won't he? Still smarting from having to hand over to Boris I expect) blaming the worst of the travel problems on councils who didn't want to send the gritters out on Sunday and pay overtime. What a load of bollocks. I was out and about on Sunday night and followed several gritters all over the North-west.

I tried to work out, in my usual geeky way, what proportion of the UK workforce 6 million came to. There's about 65 million of us altogether. If you assume a linear distribution of ages from 0 to 80 (I know that's not right, but for the sake of argument...) that makes 34 million of working age (over 18 and under 60), of which there's about 2 million unemployed (32) and an unknown number who don't work, or try to, at all. But even if you leave the figure at 32 million that's one-fifth of the entire workforce couldn't get to work! Crikey.

Rather madly I'd decided to stick to my usual routine and go in to the office yesterday. I could have worked at home, but as it turned out (and not surprisingly) a much larger than normal number of my colleagues had elected to do that, and overloaded the corporate VPN shortly before 9am, so I wouldn't have been able to get much done anyway. I really needed some light relief while negotiating the roads into the office, and it was duly provided by Radio 4, where they read out an email from a listener pointing out that we were now suffering the 21st-century equivalent of traffic chaos as well as the more traditional sort.

Yes, not only were the roads blocked and the public transport cancelled all over the place, but the traffic and travel WEBSITES were all crashing too, under the load of people trying to find out whether they should set out or not. What irony! What symmetry! The British do farce SO well.

Postman on the Pony Express

It's been a week for commenting on the news, but frankly it's been a while since there were so many stories in the media that beggar belief. Yesterday's was the story of our national postmen (and women) being told they would have to walk their rounds at an average of 4 mph once some new fangled satellite tracking / round estimating / computerised wizardry is introduced.

Up until now they've gone out, delivered a few letters and come back again. But mail volumes are rising and budgets are tightening and increasingly the delivery chaps (and chapesses) are returning to the depot with some of their rubber-band-bound-bundles undelivered(*). Yes, that's right. You may not have known this, but once the shift is up, postie stops work, whether or not the round is complete. Anything left over has to wait for the next day. So much for "come rain, or wind, hail or sleet, ..." etc.

Things have got so bad that even the managers have to go out on deliveries some days.

So they're introducing this new system. Never before has the walking pace of the British postie been subject to such scrutiny. But wait a minute. Where has the figure of 4 mph come from? Just plucked out of the air by some junior managerial type I shouldn't wonder. One of those who doesn't know his arse from his elbow. You must have met one. "Well, 4 mph is a pretty fair average," I hear you say. And you'd be close. 3 mph is actually closer to the average walking speed, but over what distance? Bear in mind that this speed - this average speed - has to be maintained over a three-and-a-half hour shift. Bear in mind that, while maintaining this average speed, the postie has to push a cart, or carry a heavy bag of post. Bear in mind that the average must be maintained on all surfaces, inclines and in all weathers.

Remember too that there are gates to be opened, slippery paths to negotiate, dogs to avoid, and that a percentage of all deliveries will be "attendance" calls. That is, visits where the recipient is required to sign for the package. So postie has to ring the bell, wait for the bell to be answered, collect the signature, and hand over the package. Possibly even pass the time of day with the punter in order to maintain the semblance of customer service for the good old Royal Mail. Or, if the recipient is out, he (or she) has to write out one of those little chitties that tell you the exact 5-minute period you're allocated to visit the sorting office and collect the undelivered item for yourself.

That's a lot of standing around for a man (or woman) who has to maintain an average speed of 4 mph. Remember also that Internet shopping is on the rise. We're all eBaying and Amazoning and play.comming much more than we ever have before. So the 3-4% estimate of "attendance calls" is actually more like 7-8% these days, and rising. Even more standing around. Much more of this and the nation's posties (and postesses) will have to be jogging between houses. They'll have no breath to spare for passing the time of day.

Oh, and did I mention Belgium has a similar system? Yes. Only their postpeople are only expected to achieve an average speed of 2.3 mph.

(*)I know the bundles are bound with rubber bands, because we find one on our front path almost every morning. Red ones, they are. And we're not alone. Our neighbours find them too, as do many of my colleagues. I wonder what proportion of each first-class stamp goes on buying new rubber bands to replace the ones cast on our paths willy-nilly? Surely it wouldn't add many picoseconds to the average round to actually put them in your pocket, mister postie? And... you know... reuse them? In these times of scarce Earth resources and global warming and all that?

A bugger's muddle

From the moment we're born - no, from the very moment we're conceived - there is only one thing that is absolutely certain about our lives: that they will end. Yes, death is the only certainty.

So why do we find it so hard to talk about? And more to the point, in the week where two high-profile cases of assisted suicide hit the news, why do we find it so hard to treat it rationally, sensitively, and humanely?

The case of Daniel James, who broke his neck in a rugby scrum and was paralysed from the chest down, and the more public (by virtue of it being the subject of a TV documentary that actually filmed and broadcast the moment of his death) but no less harrowing case of Craig Ewert, a sufferer from motor neurone disease who was not much older than me, have opened a tentative debate on the subject of a person's right to decide the time and manner of their death. Which at least in the latter case, was something the poor man had hoped to do.

So when is this fine, upstanding nation (allegedly) going to grasp this particular nettle and put an end to the typically British bugger's muddle that the law finds itself in at the moment? A situation where anyone who helps another to die risks prosecution and lengthy imprisonment (up to 14 years, as I understand it), and yet where increasing numbers of people are dragging themselves off to Switzerland, where a company called Dignitas are (legally) prepared to let them fulfil their wish to die. A situation where the CPS will examine each case on its merits, and in a majority of cases will elect NOT to prosecute, and yet where the threat of that prosecution hangs over the heads of all involved, and results in at least as many people deciding it's not worth the risk (it is estimated) as decide they will throw the dice and help their loved ones out of the terrible situation they find themselves in.

Situations like Daniel's. An energetic, athletic young man staring down the long dark tunnel of 40, 50, 60 years spent having someone else take care of him in the most intimate way, while he remained incapable of taking part in any of the activities that gave his life meaning. Or like Craig's. Facing the certain erosion of his ability to control his own movements until he reached the point where he would be completely unable to do anything for himself, including committing suicide.

Why are such people, already in desperate straits, forced to travel to another country to achieve their wish? Would it not be more fitting to allow them to die in familiar circumstances? At home, where as many family, friends and neighbours as they wish can be on hand to say that final farewell, where the surroundings are comforting rather than clinical, and where the absence of sufficient means to finance the final journey will not present yet another insurmountable barrier to their goal.

Yes, there are risks of abuse, coercion, of it becoming the expected thing. Yes, there are safeguards that must be put in place. But let's at least have the debate, and the maturity to realise that in the end, if no-one has the right to dictate how someone else lives, then no-one has the right to dictate how they die.

Choke on it

In the news yesterday, aside from the death of Oliver Postgate, the Tobacco Manufacturer's Association's response to government moves to ban the open display of tobacco in shops in England and Wales.

The idea is that moving tobacco products "under the counter" will discourage young people from starting in the first place, and evidence from other countries supports this thinking. In Iceland removing displays led to a 10% drop in the numbers of young people smoking.

Smoking research also suggests that people who start smoking between the ages of 11 and 15 are three times more likely to die prematurely compared with someone who starts at the age of 20, and they are also more likely to be hooked for life.

In opposing the display ban, the Tobacco Manufacturers' Association expressed a worry that the move might fuel the sale of illicit tobacco and could damage the income of smaller shops that rely heavily on tobacco sales.

So it's alright to condemn kids to a lifetime of addiction to a proven carcinogen as long as we protect the income of both the tobacco manufacturers and the retailers? Tell that to my mother, who after smoking since the age of 12 now has to fight for every breath, and cannot walk from the kitchen to the dining room without spending the next 20 minutes recovering. In fact why not replace the cigarette displays with looped footage of my mother and people like her?

There's a special place in Hell reserved for tobacco manufacturers, where they are forced to sit like laboratory beagles and inhale their products until their lungs are burnt out. Then a demon comes along and replaces their lungs with a set from another lifetime smoker, and the process is repeated. Ad infinitum.

So farewell then, Oliver Postgate

News broke this morning of the death of Oliver Postgate. I'm not sure how far his fame spread outside the UK, but here he was beloved by several generations of children as the creator and narrator of a whole host of classic television shows, including Bagpuss (once voted Britain's best-loved children's television character), The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and Pingwings, that had been going since the 1950s.

He died at a nursing home near his home in Broadstairs, Kent, yesterday at the age of 83.

While younger audiences, such as those who voted for Bagpuss, are familiar with his more recent work, to me he will always be the voice of Noggin the Nog (pictured here). Noggin, his friend Thor Nogson, and his wicked uncle Nogbad the Bad was Postgate's second foray into telly, from the disused cowshed near Canterbury where he first set up Smallfilms with the artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin.

The fact that such a wealth of brilliant storytelling could come from such humble surroundings is a story repeated several times in British television, especially television for children which was always treated as a poor relation (think of Gerry Anderson). But Postgate's real magic, for me, was in his wonderful narration. At once calm and measured, but also filled with expressive wonder and delight. The perfect package for young children. "Listen to me and I will tell you the story of Noggin the Nog, as it was told in the days of old..."

[Here's my obit for him on TV Scoop]

A stain on your character

I'm thinking bloodstain. With DNA. On a database.

The European Court of Human Rights declared yesterday that it's illegal for UK police to hold on file the DNA signatures of people who have been arrested but subsequently either not charged with an offence, or acquitted. Apparently (and surprisingly, I feel) there were approaching a million of these records - out of the 4.5 million in total - of which 40,000 were for children. DNA from people who as far as the legal system is concerned are guilty of absolutely nothing at all, but whose DNA the police were hanging onto "just in case."

The case was brought by a couple of guys from Sheffield - one who was charged with an offence but where the charges were dropped a few months later, and another who was tried for attempted robbery and subsequently acquitted - who didn't fancy having their records on file for all time. And who can blame them? For me, this case raises a number of profound questions:

• It seemed fairly obvious to me, way before the verdict, that this represented a breach of human rights. Yet the case went before the House of Lords and was thrown out. So that presumably means either the Law Lords are incompetent at interpreting Human Rights legislation, or they were party to, and their judgement affected by, the government's approach to DNA fingerprinting...
• ...which appears to be the establishment by stealth of a national DNA database, populated with DNA from anyone the police don't like the look of. That may sound alarmist, but if the only criterion for storing your DNA is that you've been arrested for something, and the police can arrest anyone they like (and they can), then it's a fact. Let's be clear, I don't have a problem with holding the DNA of known (i.e. tried and convicted) criminals. With reoffending rates as high as they are, it would be madness not to. And we're not talking here about holding unmatched DNA from crime scenes. Those records will continue to be held, offering the chance of a match with someone arrested later for any offence anywhere else in the country. Such cases have already occurred. But innocent people do not deserve to be tainted by having their DNA on record when they've done nothing.
• Whether or not you believe in the benefit of a national DNA database (and I do, as it happens), its purpose must be clearly articulated, debated by parliament in the usual way, and probably, for a change as far-reaching as this, subject to a referendum. Either record everyone, or no-one. However, that said, this government (or any government come to that) has proved time and again that they simply do not have the competence to handle large volumes of sensitive data. Until they have demonstrated such competence, with data of a less personal nature, no-one should trust them with their DNA records. And that's before we get into any debate about the potential for misuse.
  
• A rather over-excited article in the Telegraph (still, what do you expect from them?) states: "Deleting the records could mean that thousands of rapists, murderers and other criminals are not caught." What utter nonsense. Despite a huge increase in the number of DNA profiles on record, crime solving rates have hardly changed. Scotland already deletes DNA records where suspects are not charged, or are acquitted. Is Scotland therefore full of "thousands" of uncaught rapists and murderers? Good grief.
  
• On a more general note, what is the point of the House of Lords when their rulings can be thrown out by a higher court? What used to be the highest legal authority in the country is now effectively reduced to the level of a magistrate's court. Only there to provide a filter for the more powerful European Court, and handle the easy cases. But this means that cases like the one I'm discussing here are subject to interminable delay. Those two Sheffield lads started this legal journey in 2001! EIGHT years they've been waiting for yesterday's result. We may as well do away with the legal responsibilities of the Lords and fund a European court that is resourced well enough to handle all the cases across the whole EU. At least we'd be assured of getting to the real, final answer a sight quicker than we do at the moment, and at a much reduced cost.

Makes me seethe (©1994 Mr. Angry)

The human face of technology

The NeuroArm robot has been in the news a lot recently. I don't know why this has just burst into the consciousness of the UK media - so far I've only managed to catch the last few seconds of every news item on it - but we've been a bit slow to catch on. There's a news article on it here dated November 2007.

Still that's the British media for you. Quick off the mark with the trivial stuff, good at making things up for a catchy headline, but when it's something really interesting and important? Almost a year behind the times. Nice one.

The little bit of the news that I have caught seems to have been focussing on people's reaction to being operated on by a robot. Despite the fact that the device works with pinpoint accuracy in the kind of surgery where being a millimetre off at the end of a gruelling six- or eight-hour op can mean the difference between life and death, will people trust it? It looks like something out of The Terminator, which is bound to be a bit worrying.

Seems to me they missed a very obvious trick here. If they wanted to give the device a more "human" face they should just have called it...

Robot de Neuro.

Are you looking at me?

Every cloud...

In tonight's news Lewis Gordon Pugh, dubbed the human polar bear on account of having swum for a kilometre at the North Pole to prove how global warming has affected the polar ice caps, now plans to kayak all the way up there this summer.

This trip *should* be impossible, but returning from his swimming trip last year he predicted it would be possible "sometime in the next ten years." Now that the ice caps are melting faster than anyone believed possible, turns out it can be done this year.

In a grimly ironic turn, the fact that the North Pole will shortly be exposed for the whole summer on a regular basis has heated up (sorry) the race by the oil and mineral companies to exploit the rich natural resources that exist in the Arctic ocean bed. So global warming will itself allow us easier access to more of the fuels whose burning will ... contribute to ... more global warming.

(*sounds of hollow laughter indistinguishable from exasperated weeping*)

When science fails

In the news today: How biofuels may not be such a good idea after all.

I can't tell you how disappointing this is. How stupid was I to think that we could trust today's scientists to come up with a solution to the world fuel crisis and global warming? The more you hear, the more incompetent they seem. Apparently, the worst offender is fuel made from American corn, which is responsible for releasing 20% MORE CO2 into the atmosphere than regular fuel made from crude oil! How pointless is that?

But naturally, there's more money in biofuel than there is in selling corn to - you know - FEED people, so we're making the world hotter and hungrier at the same time. Great solution guys.