Can't escape.

Oh dear, Strictly Come Dancing is back on and, horror of horrors, one of the BBC Breakfast's presenters is a competitor, which of course means that, like it or not, we shall be treated to news of her progress on a regular basis.  I avoid the programme like the plague but do watch Breakfast in the mornings so I'm stuffed, aren't I?

Uhh???

Interesting question on Reddit (anyone else a fan?) - "if you missed the first 10 minutes, what would be the most confusing movie?"  And that resonated with me, because, before we were married, my wife and I used to go to the pictures after work on a Wednesday.  This was back when cinemas did rolling programmes, so we invariably got there 15 to 20 minutes into the main film, but rarely had any problem in picking up the story.  Then we'd watch the whole programme round again.  But this one time we just couldn't understand what the hell was going on and it wasn't until the second time round when we saw the beginning that it made any sense.  And the film?  The Manchurian Candidate - the original with Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey.  So that would be my answer.

Old 'uns the best?

A survey run by Radio Times to find viewers' favourite programmes of the last 60 years has - perhaps not surprisingly - come up with the usual suspects, like Morecambe and Wise, Blue Peter and Only Fools and Horses.  Is this simply nostalgia, or is it just that they don't make 'em like they used to - or are they both in fact the same thing?

Ha ha.

Liked this one I found on the net -
A woman walking down the street comes across a young girl sitting on the kerb, sobbing her heart out.  She sits down next to her and asks what's the matter.
"My dog died" sobs the girl.
Thinking to comfort her, the woman says "Well, look at it this way - your dog is with Jesus now".
The girl looks at her confused and says "What on earth would Jesus want with a dead dog?"

Ed the red.

So what did you make of Ed Milliband's speech to the Labour Party Conference the other day?  It was a good speech - well written and well delivered, but it was just a speech - just words - so what did it tell us?  Well what came across loud and clear to me is that a Milliband government - if there ever is to be such an animal - will be founded solidly on state control.  Back to the principles of nationalisation and five year plans.  Problem is, that approach has not got a good track record.  Mind you, the market forces approach hasn't been that brilliant either.  There must be a happy medium, mustn't there?  If only somebody can find it!

Well, I never!

Did you know that under section 32 of the Salmon Act 1986, it is illegal to "handle salmon in suspicious circumstances"?  The mind boggles!

Paradox?

No, this isn't really a paradox, it's just an unexpected, counter-intuitive  result. So... you travel from A to B (doesn't matter how far it is) at 40 mph and then travel back from B to A at 60 mph.  What is your average speed - 50 mph, yes?  Well, do the maths.  Speed is distance divided by time, so time is distance divided by speed, right?  So time to get there is d (whatever it is) /40 and time to come back is d/60. So total time for the trip (2d) is d/40 + d/60, which is 10d/240 or 5d/120.  Going back to our original statement that speed is distance divided by time, then the speed for the round trip is 2d divided by 5d/120.  We can ignore the "d"s which cancel each other out so the calculation becomes 2 divided by 5/120, which as I'm sure you remember from school is the same as 2 multiplied by 120/5, which is 240/5 which comes out as 48.  So your average speed is in fact 48mph.  No what you expected was it?

Hic!

In a recent post, I mentioned ABV (alcohol by volume) which is the way in which the alcoholic content of drink is expressed in the UK these days.  But it wasn't always so - indeed the legal requirement to use that measurement only goes back to 1980. Prior to that, several means were used, the oldest of which is "degrees proof".  This goes back three hundred or so years, to the days when British sailors were provided with a daily tot of rum as part of their rations.  To ensure that the rum was of the required strength, it would be mixed with gunpowder and set alight. If it didn't burn, it was rejected.  If it did. this was "proof" that it was good to drink. As time went by, the procedure became more structured, and the rule became that degrees proof was obtained by multiplying the alcoholic content by volume by 7/4. So a hundred degrees proof is the equivalent of just over 57% ABV.  The Americans still tend to use degrees proof on their bottles, although they use a similar but slightly different calculation.

Mountains out of molehills?

I am increasingly concerned at the way the media are seeking to make the news rather than simply report it.  I am no supporter of UKIP as previous posts will attest and Godfrey Bloom does seem to be a bit of a political and social dinosaur, but I have to feel sympathy with him over this "sluts" business.  If you examine a transcript of what was said it is clear that the word was used as part of a throw-away remark which was intended to be humorous and, more to the point, was unquestioningly accepted as such by those present.  But the media have got hold of it, blown it out of proportion, lined up people who weren't even there to make hostile negative comments about it, and Nigel Farage who, whatever you think of him is usually sure-footed when it comes to assessing the public mood, has more or less been forced into throwing him to the wolves.  So - media 1, objective facts 0 methinks.

Biff, bash, bosh!

The theory is, apparently, that because flies have such large (proportionately) and complex eyes, they see the world - and in particular any attempt by us to swat them - in slow motion and are thus able to avoid the newspaper, or whatever it is we are trying to duff them with.  You don't seem to get so many flies as you used to, but when I was a kid, they were a continual nuisance and during the summer months most rooms had an old-fashioned fly-paper hanging from the light fitting. The way I was taught was (1) never try to swat a stationary fly - wait until it moves, and then (2) always aim just behind it - the idea being that in an emergency, a fly will take off backwards. Where that came from I don't know, but it did seem to work reasonably well.  Or perhaps I was just faster back then - these days I tend to open the nearest door or window and try to usher the little bugger out with whatever comes to hand.