Doctor Who Pass Notes (contains spoilers)

Name: The Doctor

Age: Circa 1100 years, although he existed at the birth of the Earth and the end of time.

Appearance: Old/young/middle-aged/young again/truly ancient/young white male. Long/short dark/white/fair hair. Prefers to wear long coats, hats and scarves.

Background: Born on Gallifrey, fairly normal upbringing, then got a bit rebellious and stole borrowed rescued a decommissioned type 40 TARDIS from a scrapyard to explore the universe. Currently has arrest warrants out on ~5000 planets for interfering with causality.

TARDIS? Time And Relative Dimension In Space. A time machine, if you will. Also spaceship. Looks like a 1960s London police call box.

Is he a real doctor? He is a qualified medical practitioner, but has also carried out extensive studies in philosophy, language, physics, mathematics, chemistry, intergalactic law, robotics, vulcanology and cricket. Likes to consider himself a good all-rounder, but still has trouble with basic navigation. Rarely lands the TARDIS on target.

Any friends? Usually has one or more companions, generally human or humanoid but has also been known to carry a tin dog on board. Most companions end up dead or lost in a parallel universe.

Tin dog? K9. A talking mechanical dog, carrying basic armaments and possessing limited intelligence. Almost as lovable as Jar-Jar Binks.

And enemies? Cybermen, Shansheeth, Slitheen, Silence, Gelth, Nestene, Daleks -

Daleks? Giant pepper-pots with a single eye on a stalk. Lacking any depth perception, they tend to bump into things a lot. Perpetually cross as a result.

How does the Doctor deal with his enemies? The Doctor always attempts to talk his way out of trouble by way of peaceful negotiations. When that fails, he usually resorts to genocide. He has utterly destroyed the Daleks on at least four separate occasions, one of which destroyed his own homeworld. Worst. Pest controller. Ever.

What weapons does the Doctor carry? None, although he does own a sonic screwdriver. This is quite handy for turning sonic screws and not much else.

So the Doctor is the last of his kind? The Doctor's home planet was sealed off from the rest of the universe in the Time War with the Daleks. Although his own race, the Time Lords, are essentially extinct, he has a daughter, at least one wife and has dealt with other time-travellers.

He appears human. Only on the outside. On the inside, Time Lords have two hearts. Also, on the frequent occasions on which he gets killed, he is reincarnated or "regenerated" on the spot. Technically, this makes the Doctor a zombie.

Why does the TARDIS resemble a police box? The TARDIS has a chameleon circuit to allow it to blend in with its environment. When we first saw it, it was in 1960s London, so this camouflage worked perfectly. Then the chameleon circuit broke.

Isn't it a bit poky? Like the wardrobe in Narnia and the travelling luggage in Discworld, the TARDIS is bigger on the inside. Be sure to check out the swimming pool, the library, the spiral staircase, the alternate control room and the laundry room.

How does the Doctor communicate with aliens? He just speaks normally. The TARDIS is telepathic and performs automatic translation between all known languages and most unknown ones.

Not to be confused with: Harry Potter.

Do say: "Dock-torrrr!"

Don't say: "Pleased to meet you, Doctor Who!"

Resolutions Revisited

So, I just checked out my new year's resolutions from this time last year and guess what? Oh crap.

Last week I caught up on last year's Sunday Night Xmas Project. Still got months of other stuff still to see, including Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - yes, I've just seen 3, so I can guess who wins.

Still haven't used the digital photo frame - anybody want one? I really don't see the point.

Doctor Who gets to fight an old enemy tomorrow, so no change there then.

I now have a printer/scanner, which I've used more for printing than scanning. Sorry.

Blogroll. Oops. Just look at who I'm following on Twitter, it's far easier.

My resolution for 2010? 1152×864. I am such a geek.

Happy New Year!

Computer Terms Illustrated #22

It seems that even the simplest terms sometimes need a thorough explanation, sigh.

Hover your pointy thing over any image for more info.

Right-Click

Cut

Paste

Hour glass(sp?)

Variable

Constant

Save

Run

Play

Cyberspace

Account(sp?)

Resolutions

Bleargh, what day is it? Friday already? Result!

Well that was an excellent start to the year, so let's see how I can keep up the momentum. I know! I'll think up some New Year's Resolutions. Nobody's ever done that before! *cough*

BOSSY asked for this in Ten Words recently, I forget what day it was, and I guess I may have been a little bit flippant when I said: "Update blogroll. Scan photos into Flicka. Find cure for cancer."

Yeah, like I'm ever going to scan those photos. Did I mention the driver disk for the scanner finally turned up amongst a pile of music CDs? About a few weeks months ago. So yay. That could still happen.

And I updated my blogroll just yesterday. Everybody say hello to Lesley at Um...What?? Three times now I've seen her comments in places and clicked through and thought, "Wow! This is an amazing blog!" So yeah, this time I remembered to blogroll her. Ooh, snap! One of these days I promise to clear out the crap, you know, the links that no longer work because some people have got a life abandoned blogging in favour of sitting in front of the telly.

Talking of telly (tv if you're a Merkan), having been away for both Eckmas and Hogmanay, I now have a mountain of stuff recorded off the boob tube. Some of it's topical, so I'll probly try to watch it over this weekend, but FFS I still haven't seen the Ecksmas Dr Who, so no spoilers please. Although, come to think of it, after forty-odd years I think I can detect a pattern emerging. Let's hazard a guess:

• Having the entire Universe and all of Time to roam in, The Doctor arrives in an exciting new destination, such as Cardiff or London (Cardiff dressed up to save on production costs) in the near future or recent past.


• The Doctor meets a new alien race such as the Daneleks, Sontarans (yawn) or Cybermen. Yeah, I know that much.


• The Doctor decides that the aliens are getting a bit uppity with his favourite race, the humans.


• After a brief struggle, The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver or similar gadget to utterly destroy the aliens. Again.


• The Doctor declares: "I've learned something today. No, wait, that's South Park."

So, getting a bit predictable. It's not even as if The Doctor can be killed, 'cos he just resurrects into a new body, so you know he'll always triumph. You could argue that if The Doctor was totally killed, it would kind of shorten the series, but look at Taggart. Mark McManus died fifteen years ago in mid-episode and they just kept on filming. Still going now, as far as I know. I don't really know, I've never watched it, but still, hey. If they can lose the central character, so could Dr Who. Yeah.

Where was I? Resolutions. Catch up on some telly. Right.

And save some money towards Little Miss Farty's wedding next year. Thank goodness I bought all those shares in Lehman's, The Officer's Club and Woolworths. They must be worth a fortune by now, right? Right?

Oh yeah. I got a digital photo frame for Ecksmas. I haven't opened the box yet, but if I should inexplicably drop off the interwebs in the next few days, well, it's been good. I really love you guys.

Toot toot!

Dying Of Man Flu

*cough* *cough* *cough*

Feck. I hate it when I don't feel well. Seriously, I'd rather be back at work but somehow I don't think they'd thank me for coughing all their germs that they infected me with FFS! back over them. At least, the last time I tried that, they gave me evil eyes, there's gratitude for you.

Anyway.

Am I the only one who's noticed that you never see Miley Cyrus and Hannah Montana in the same room at the same time? Not that I'm suspicious or that, but...

Miley Cyrus
Hannah Montana

There's an old joke about the ambassador's wife at a big function in Hong Kong showing up with a fancy brooch on her dress with pretty Chinese characters on it, which then totally gives her a red face because it turns out the symbols translate as "Official Badge, City of Hong Kong, Registered Prostitute #324" (I may have got the number wrong). Thank feck that sort of thing's never happened in real life. In a scientific journal. Like the journal of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. On the front cover. Horny housewives? Really?

Talking of boffins, that work they're doing on their invisibility cloak is moving along nicely. Although, if it were me, the one place I would want to be fully visible would be when I'm halfway across the road on a zebra crossing.



I was planning to do an Ecksmas-themed Friday Chart post with a bar of gold to symbolise Spandau Ballet's classic 80's hit Gold!, but I couldn't find any songs called Frankincense and Myrrh to complete the trio. Meh. WTF is myrrh anyway? Sounds like a happy cat. Another great idea down the drain.





Only a Merkan would think to make handguns available on prescription for the elderly and disabled. As it says in Slashdot, what could possibly go wrong? Hey, I wonder if I could get one of those off the NHS in my present state? *hack* *cough* Those pesky kids are making way too much noise outside. 'Scuse I...

Science Lesson

Apparently standards in teaching science in schools is are falling. Also English.

According to the Royal Society of Chemistry, schoolkids nowadays seem to know little or nothing of phlogiston, necromancy, dihydrogen monoxide, the epicyclic theory of geocentrism or even the steady-state universe. Nope, anything they don't understand is explained by the simple expedient of "Intelligent Design". And no wonder, with the state of education the way it is.

Claim: Carelessness causes fire.

Wrong. Fire is a self-sustaining exothermic reaction between a combustible material and an oxidizer, caused by an initial input of heat.

Claim: Invisibility Cloaks can be applied from a distance, so that the person rendered invisible can still "see out".

Nonsense. As any Harry Potter fan knows, anyone wearing an invisibility cloak can see perfectly well without any outside help.

Claim: Using a chaotic design, boffins can create chameleon circuits that change their behaviour according to the task at hand.

Chameleon circuit? Why does that expression ring a bell? Click on image to find out.

And now we're being told that lemmings are being driven to the brink of extinction by the wrong kind of snow.
Pur-lease! Everyone knows what kills lemmings.


I weep for the younger generation, le sigh.

Man Crush

Funny how you can see a new word or phrase and instantly know what it means, innit?

By the time whoever it was on telly had finished explaining it for the lumpen masses, I had my list written out and annotated. So here goes:

• John Barrowman Captain Jack off Dr Who and Torchwood, arrr!




• Johnny Depp Maybe I've got a thing about characters called Captain Jack?




• Orlando Bloom Or pirates? He can rescue me any day, sigh.




• Bruno Tortellini(sp?) Off Strickly Come Dancing With The Stars, he's a sexy, sexy man! Ciao! Pronto! Pizza Margarita!



But if anybody could turn me off women for life, it has to be...

• Sarah Palin Seriously, dude.

At the Edge of Knowledge Itself

"We're at the end of the universe, right at the edge of knowledge itself, and you're busy blogging!"

Apparently boffins are planning to destroy the Earth next week in a search for winos and that. Bit of wasted effort, innit? They could have visited any city centre in Scotchland on a Saturday night. Not that they really expect to find anything without a Unified Field Theory to properly tie together gravity and quantum physics.

Be that as it may, if I stay at rest much longer, I won't get my blog up to date before we're all killed to death by an artificial black hole. I'd hate to arrive at FSM Heaven with that on my conscience, I wouldn't enjoy the beer volcano or the strippers.

Logic - You're Doing It Wrong


Favourite Niece slapped her doctor's face after he told her she had a serious heart problem. His exact words? "You have acute angina." Did I mention she also suffers from partial deafness? (btw, he was wrong.)

My notes are getting ridiculously abstruse. One here simply says "wasps PETA". As if anyone could find it objectionable to kill wasps. Oh. Wrong again. FFS.

"My lover's got no money, he got his trampolines."

Damn, should have left that till Friday. Meh.

Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. They were vegetarians.

Oh, hurrah! Little Miss Farty's former abode is to be demolished on September 21. Assuming the world hasn't ended by then, of course. I'd better go and join the protest, I wouldn't want to miss that big bang.

Toot toot!

Summer Caption Competition Results

And the winner is...Sewmouse!



Although I'll also have to give #Debi a runner-up prize for this one:

Oooh, baby! You said you were bringing over some BIG sex toys, but I had no idea! Thanks ever so much! (You can go now...)

Ladies, please email MrFarty at blueyonder dot co dot uk with a snail-mail address where I can dispatch your prizes. Assuming customs won't confiscate them as weapons of mass destruction...

Toot toot!

Speed-o-Blog

I seem to have accrued rather a lot of snippets, so I'll just rattle off my wit and wisdom. Shouldn't take long.

Firstly, there's the story of the six-foot Canadian. Insert Heather Mills joke here.

Q. What does "ironic" mean?
A. Wrong.

Stereogram photos. Remember those Magic Eye pictures where you had to cross or uncross your eyes to see a 3-D image, and give yourself a thumping headache in the process? You can get the same effect by placing similar photos side by side. More on this in a later post.

If there is no spoon, how am I supposed to eat this soup?

I for one welcome our new Dalek overlords. No, wait. That's not been broadcast yet. Remember, last chance to enter the Summer Caption Competition.

Someone has proven that any Rubik's Cube can be solved in 23 moves. Someone should get a life.

Still resisting the allure of Big Brother. From what I've overheard, I'm not missing much.

Jack Spratt could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. They were veggies.

Two blondes in the Weeg (Glasgow) are looking up at the moon.
First blonde: "Which do ye think is further away, Embra or the moon?"
Second blonde: "Helloooooooo? Can you even see Embra?"

Oxymoron: Scientifically proven (scientists can only disprove hypotheses).

Finally, tomorrow is the summer solstice, the anniversary of a sad event in my life. This piece of music somehow seems appropriate:



How's my drivelling?

Summer Caption Competition

Be it pleaseth yowe, Maistre Geoffrey Chaucer hath inspiredd me with his chronicle ycleped Doctor Hwaet and the Daneleks. It hath been wandering arounde mine head for monthes, lyke unto Marco Polo on his travelles.

Any road uppe, Ich haue effected an peynture depicting an Danelek Shippe, but Ich am at an compleat losse for a suitably sombre title.

Et this ys where yowe, gentil reedere, can make yower owne contributione!

Alle yowe have to doo ys to provide yower suggestiones in ye usual place; Ich shall runne an totallye fayre refferendumme to fynd the moost popular one and poste it yn mine blogge. There shalle be an pryze of an actual moving, talking Danelek. (Paynture not to scale, Companion not included.)
Prize ⇒
Competition ⇓



So putte on yower thynking cappes! Competicioun closeth on Vendredi, Juin 20, 2008. Goode Lucke!

Science Spurt

So what amazing facts can I amaze you with today? Amazingly, not a few. Prepare to be amazed.

Things ain't what they used to be

Boffins (God, I love that word!) have decided that the Astronomical Unit (AU), which is used to measure distances within our solar system, isn't as constant as they'd hoped. As any fule kno, variables don't and constants aren't.

An AU to you and me is the distance from the Earth to the Sun (or is it vice-versa?), but to slapheads it's "the radius of an unperturbed circular orbit that a massless body would revolve about the Sun in 2π/k days (essentially, one year), where k is a constant derived from a fixed estimate of the Sun's mass." And since the Sun is losing mass like nobody's business (about 16 Empire State buildings-worth per second), the AU is slowly growing.

The answer seems clear enough to me: switch to an alternative, much more familiar standard unit of measurement - the London Bus. Everybody knows what size they are, they don't shrink or grow unexpectedly...it just seems that way during the rush hour. If you're on the outside, say driving, they seem to get bigger while if you're a passenger on the inside they get smaller. Like an inverse Tardis.

Things can only get better

Over at CERN (should that be pronounced sern or kern? Meh.) eggheads are about to switch on the world's first time machine. (Did you see what I did there?)

According to Einstein's equations of blah, any time machine built in the future can only come back in time as far as the creation of the first one, and the Large Hadron Collider (which is either a large collider for hadrons or a collider for large hadrons, or possibly both) could be used to create "closed timelike curves" - wormholes, mini-black holes and shit - which will allow our psychotic grandchildren to come back and murder us. Um. And that's good because?

You've goat to be kid-ding

The British Navy is to finally stop acting the goat and terminate its experiments on goats in submarines.

*Checks calendar. Nope, definitely not April.*

I can follow that the animals were used to help submarine crews judge whether it would be safer to abandon a stricken vessel or wait to be rescued, but why this particular animal?

Because they're escape goats. B'dum tsh!

And finally, a double-whammy

Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object in motion tends to remain in motion. Darwin's Law of Evolution states that only the fittest will survive. Add these together...

A 55-year-old Romanian train driver chased down his own runaway train after leaving the handbrake off. Finally catching up with it after six kilometres, he tried to stop it. Not being Superman, he wasn't stronger than a locomotive. The train trundled over him and kept going for a further 26 kilometres.

The funeral will be held in Bucharest, Urziceni, Buzau, Focsani, Garoafa...

In The News

Loved this quote today from In The News.

The M/S Explorer was the "world's first custom-built expedition ship" when it began operating in the early 1970s.

Canada-based Gap Adventures claimed it "goes where other ships cannot" on its website, describing its "ice-hardened double hull and a fleet of robust zodiacs" making it a "go-anywhere ship for the go-anywhere traveller".

The firm says the ship's captain, Uli Demel, is "widely regarded as the master of Antarctic navigation".

Excuse me, but I think you'll find quite a lot of ships have already been there, most famously this one in April 1912.

Five Things

This meme came from Misssy over at The Misssy M Misssives. Looks like a lot more than five to me, but I never was too good at sums and that, so here goes...

What were you doing ten years ago?

1. 1997 was the first time, except for a very brief trip to Glenshee, that I went skiing on proper snow. There was a works outing to Andorra, so I took Little Miss Farty along for the ride. It's the first - and last - time I skiied on a black run. I know it was 1997, cos I saw observed comet Hale-Bopp at its closest approach from the top of the Pyrenees. With binoculars wot my bruvva had gave me.



2. I met the girl who broke my heart for the very.last.time. She was up in Scotchland to pick up a fridge, as you do, and stopped off in Embra for a visit. We just sat and chatted, in a bar, for an hour, about nothing in particular, but by the time she left, the empty place inside of me, which had been aching for ever so long, had been healed. Which was nice.



3. I discovered the Slippery Nipple, which despite what it says in the Urban Dictionary is Baileys and Sambuca, in the same glass but not mixed.


4. I learned something about flash photography. Take a glass of Sambuca, set light to it, then dip your middle finger in the glass and hold your flaming finger up while someone photographs it. Try it, that's all I'm saying.



5. And didn't Princess What's-her-face decide to drop out of public view that year? Mrs Farty and I left flowers at the Scotch Monument, since everybody else was doing it. And had a wee greet. Shut up.

What were you doing one year ago?

1. Working my butt off on a certain merger. 12-hour shifts, sometimes 7 days a week, hence not much else.



2. I got sick with that winter vomiting bug, probly related to the above, and took a week off work. I would have been climbing the walls with boredom, except that...



3. I found that my new works laptop had full internet access.



4. So I spent my time off work reading Non-Working Monkey's blog from Day One to present day. Is that what they call cyber-stalking?



5. But back in January, I spent the New Year drinking Amarula beside the braai while the kids splashed in the outdoor swimming pool. Guess where? Not Embra, oddly enough.

Five Songs you know the lyrics to:

Oh, now that's hard, I just like to hum along...

1. American Pie by Don McLean. My sister-in-law brought the album (vinyl!!!) back from the USA for me in, feck, a while ago. 1974?



2. Leaving On A Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary. Long before I ever heard of John Denver.



3. Even In The Quietest Moments by Supertramp. (You might want to fast-forward the first couple of minutes.) A good friend of mine was in a band that played a superb instrumental version of this, but they had trouble memorising the lyrics. So I bought it, learned it and, er, oh yes, I forgot that I can't sing. Bummer.



4. Mr Blue Sky by ELO. Trivia note - the girl with the magic smile in this video is the late, great Rosie Vela.



5. Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. What? A bloke can't be hep with the modern groove? Man.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Give a big chunk to Greenpeace.



2. Emigrate. Abroad, probly. Somewhere warm. Like. You know. SA or NZ.



3. But not before buying a walk-on part in Doctor Who. How cool would that be? Way cool.



4. Take up blogging full time.



5. You think I'm kidding with 4. I'm not.

Five bad habits:

Only five?

1. Picking my nose. I love a good root around. Surely it's no coincidence that the human nostril is exactly the same size as the Pinky?



2. Snoring, apparently. Mrs Farty accuses me of it, but I've stayed awake all night to check and never once heard myself snore.



3. Hitting the snooze button too many times, then being in a mad dash to get up for work.



4. Speaking before I think.



5. Spending way too much time busy blogging.

Five things you like to do:

1. Blogging. Well, that's a given, innit?



2. Playing Go.



3. Reading Science Fiction. The Good Stuff, like this.



4. Take nice photographs. Not many people know this, but I now have a Flikr(sp?) account. I promise I'll put some more pix up real soon now.



5. Make banoffee pie. Gosh, I haven't done that since, erm, Sunday.

Five things you will never wear again:

1. My cowboy boots. I bought them on my first trip to Merka. Oh yeah, I visit Merka all the time. Four times in fifty years, if you count that weekend in June. Anyway, they were too tight on my poor toes even then. But I do still sometimes wear the cowboy hat (when I think nobody's looking). Gen. You. Wine. Leather.



2. Old Spice. wtf was I thinking?



3. Ribbons in my hair. *sob*



4. A bungee harness. It's like this. One year, Mrs Farty and I went to Blackpool with her siblings, spouses (spice?) and that. We went on nearly every ride. We nearly went on the dodgems (bumper cars); we nearly went on the water slide; we nearly went on the roller-coaster; we never actually went on anything. Everyone was like, "oh, yes, I'll go on if you do". Yeah, right. So the next time we went, I decided to have a go anyway. Not one of those scaredy-cats would go on with me, so it was just me. I went on the Slingshot ride. Gosh, it was such fun! I had to go on the Pepsi Max Rollercoaster just to calm my nerves afterwards.



5. Any kind of leather jacket. No reason, I just don't like them very much.

Five favourite toys:

1. My wee moby.



2. My hand blender. See banoffee pie. Whipped cream in 30 seconds flat.



3. Wumpy, my toy rabbit from when I was, like, wee. Long since disintegrated, but I still remember when he had two eyes. And one ear. And a tail.



4. My Sonic Screwdriver. Really.



5. My blog. Does that count? I play with it enough.

Five things you hate to do:

1. Stop to change batteries. I was thinking of my camera, but you can read what you like into this one, eh girls?



2. Say goodbye to friends.



3. Get up on cold, dark mornings. Boo!



4. Work night shift. Thought I'd gotten away from that one 16 years ago, but I still get roped into it now and then.



5. Diet? Exercise? Hmmm...I'll go for a long walk quite happily. Diet, then. I couldn't forego chocolate.

I'm not tagging anyone in particular, but if you do decide to pick this one up, drop me a line. Ta.

Political Correctness Gone Differently Sane

• Ramadana Ding-Dong
  Embra hospital workers have been told not to eat at their desks to avoid offending Muslim colleagues during Ramadan. And Muslim doctors have been requested not to drive burning jeeps into Scotch airport lounges during the summer holiday period.


• Walking Two Short Planks
  Insurers threatened to pull the plug on the annual Plank-Walking Championships in Kent unless entrance forms were amended to warn contestants that "plank-walking may make you wet". Visitors to the Vatican have also been warned to look out for Catholic Popes and hikers planning on taking a stroll in the woods should mind their step.


• Rubbish Flowers
  Paul Newman - who appears to have eschewed Hollywood for Bedshampton in Hampshire - has been snubbed by garbage disposal operatives after leaving a bunch of dead flowers in his household waste. They'd prefer that he puts the lilies in the back of his truck and drives the twenty-mile round trip to the dump to dispose of them in an environmentally-friendly way. With the emphasis on "mental".


• Barking Mad
  Feliciana P. Harrell was arrested in Wisconsin after she "barked at and agitated a K-9 dog". How do you agitate a tin dog?


• Losing The Plot
  June Turnbull, whose gardening skills at the entrance to the high street helped win Urchfont the Best Kept Village Of The Year award, has been given a cease-and-desist order for failing to wear a fluorescent jacket, place women-at-work warning signs or have a second person standing by whenever she wanted to go along and do a bit of weeding. The order comes from Wiltshire County Council, whose county seat lies in Salisbury. Sour grapes or what?

Indistinguishable From Magic

Isn't it marvellous, the way all those ideas that used to be pure fantasy, then science fiction, have been developed into credible scientific theories and built into real, useable technology?

• Crystal balls

Only a hundred years ago, people scoffed at the idea that one day, if would be possible to see major world events, as they took place, on the other side of the planet. Like Paris Hilton being jailed for drink-driving or some cow being given a death sentence. Must...resist...posting...minger...picture...




• Alien planets

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for even suggesting that there might be other worlds inhabited by other beings. To date, more than 200 alien worlds have been discovered. Probly. It's hard to be sure, all you see is a tiny wobble in a star's motion or a brief dimming in its brightness. But the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence continues unabated. As scientists say, we just need more money research.




• Teleportation

Just imagine being able to walk into a booth in Sydney, Australia, dial in a code and emerge seconds later in Kentucky, USA. Dream on - so far, they've got as far as teleporting a single atom held at a temperature close to absolute zero. Besides, who in their right mind would want to go to Kinfucky?




• Invisibility Cloak

This story finds its roots way back in Greek mythology. More recently, Frodo, er, Harry made use of a similar device to escape detection. Just last year, scientists developed a working cloak shed of invisibility. Better known to us lesser mortals as a shed.





• Levitation

Who wouldn't give their eye teeth to fly on a magic carpet? Cue A Whole New World and all that Disney shite. Yes, of course it would be amazingly brilliant, in theory. But have you considered the practicalities? Fending off the squeegee brigade while you wait at busy airborne intersections. Spending all your time hoovering up dead flies and that. Still, the high-speed chases would be much more exciting.




• Time Travel

Hop in the Tardis with Dr Who, step back in time and see Kylie Minogue in the bath. I Should Be So Lucky. But Professor Amos Ori now thinks it might just be possible, using an envelope filled with dust. [You're yanking my chain, right? Ed.] No, really.




• Cold Fusion

Limitless energy, virtually for free. All you need is a few million dollars, twenty years and a gullible sponsor. Or you could stick with hot fusion, which costs a gazillion dollars and will deliver commercial results in forty years. Or so they tell us every forty years. Sigh. Looks like we're stuck with the big round yellow thing meantime.

Trust No-One

Nowadays, it's best to take anything you see on the telly with a large pinch of salt. What with rigged phone votes, invented arguments between Brenda and some foreign snapper, and now ITV faking the death of an Alzheimer's patient, next thing you know NASA will be admitting that the Apollo Moon Landings were filmed in Hollywood. Thank goodness we have t'internet, which is well known for its truthfulness and honesty.

*cough*

Anyway, what's in the news this week? Animals, that's what.

First we have Shipman, the tabby who lives in a Rhode Island nursing home. Once he's given you the cat-scan of death, you'd better start scribbling your will.





Then there's the Doctor Who Woo won a million dollar prize after successfully creating the first human-porcine hybrid.













And now we have the Oxford Goose creating a flap. As it were.


Right. That's me. Off to read Gordon Brown's blog now. You can always trust a Scotchman.

Adventures In The Canada Part 5

Where did I get to? Oh, yes, staying in a "static caravan", as LMF calls it. Well, it's definitely static, and I'm assured it can be hitched to a truck and towed off, so yep, that's what it must be. A static caravan. With two bedrooms, a kitchen larger than ours, wide-screen tv, bath, shower, broadband internet in the computer room, separate living room and dining room, porch, the only thing it's missing is the flashing blue light on top and Billie Piper.

Cousin P took the truck and drove us over to Vancouver Island on Tuesday. Hang on, does not compute. Drove us to the ferry terminal. There was a bit of a queue, so we looked in the shop. Holy cow, even more fudge! This time I resisted buying any, or rather my arteries warned me to "step away from the counter and nobody gets hurt".

The sea was calm as a millpond on the way over, although a breeze picked up and kept us from cooking. Lovely view of the tree-covered smaller islands, with snow-capped mountains in the background. Apparently Pamela Anderson was born on the main island, and is planning to open a marina here. Good luck Pammy, you should do well.

Coming off the ferry, P spotted a logging truck and yelled, "That's my son's truck!" We pulled alongside and gave a wave, then we both pulled in to the side and stopped for a natter. Vancouver Island is huge, look it up, what are the chances of running into your son there by chance? Even though he does live there? P was so pleased.

We stopped at Victoria for lunch and a spot of shopping, then headed up to Duncan in the middle of nowhere. P's semi-cousin made us welcome and showed us around her two-storey log cabin, where we watched the humming-birds feed before settling down for the night.

In the morning I topped up the feeder with sugar/water, fighting off the humming-birds while I hung it up. They're not shy around here, I tells ya. Then over to Chamainus where we saw a cat up a tree cougar carved into a tree. And some murals painted onto the sides of the buildings depicting the place's history. And wow, chocolate hedgehogs!

Next stop, Coombs, where we dined to the sound of goats walking on the roof. As you do. Oh, and they had chocolate and fudge and that as well, no wonder heart disease is the biggest killer in the western world. Probly. And a selection of incense sticks, including cannabis, wtf? I think it was round aboot here that I took a picture of Mrs Farty with a bear behind. So to speak.

Finally, up to Tofino. Why's it called that? "'T if I know!" Wandered around again, although it's a bit hilly, and no fecking restaurant would just serve us coffee, they all wanted to give us the full meal. Saw some nice-looking birds. No, eagles as it happens. And more amazing views. Canada is just wall-to-wall scenery.

Oops, it's a six-hour drive back to Duncan. And it's 7pm. Stopped at Long Beach on the way back down anyway, so that Aunty B could dip her toes in the Pacific Ocean. Stayed for an hour, since Greenpeace kept dragging her back into the water. J took over the driving, as a British driving licence gives you authority to drive anywhere in the world. Allegedly. Out of deference to local customs, he drove the whole way on the wrong side of the road, i.e. the right side of the road. Made the six-hour trip in five hours. Oh, and we saw two (separate) black bears by the roadside, but for some reason they ran off when Aunty B shouted "Oh, look! Bears!"

Next: Farty does Merka.

As Good As It Gets

Oh looky, Doctor Who, Billie Piper, Daleks and The Stupid French all rolled into one.

Yes, ok, this is just a filler while I think of something deep and meaningful to write. But it's a laugh, innit?

(Not Safe For Coffee)

Perfect Day

The early morning sun quickly burned off the fog, leaving wall-to-wall blue sky over Embra. We were up at the crack of 9:00, which for a Saturday is almost unheard-of, and put on the radio while we had breakfast, opened the 50^th birthday cards and that. I heard Mrs Farty talking on the phone in the bedroom and wondered what that was all about, until the music ended and the DJ replayed this exchange:
Mrs F (for it was she): Can you play a record for my husband Farty's 50^th birthday?
DJ: I'm sorry, we don't do birthday requests on this show.
Mrs F: Well, can you wish him a happy 50^th birthday?
DJ: What's his name?
Mrs F: Mr Farty.
DJ: And how old is he?
Mrs F: 50.
DJ: So it's Mr Farty's 50^th birthday today?
Mrs F: Yes.
DJ: Nope, sorry, we don't do birthdays on this show.
Mrs F: Oh, please!
DJ: Well, there is one exception...
Mrs F: Yes?
DJ: You'll have to sing Happy Birthday yourself. I'll count you in: 1,2,3 -
Mrs F: Happy birthday to you -
DJ: Farty!
Mrs F: Happy birthday to you -
DJ: Farty!
Mrs F: Happy birthday dear Farty, happy birthday to you!

Off for the weekend shop. Bumped into some old friends at the Gyle, then LMF called to wish me a happy 50^th birthday. Later, she came over from the Magic Kingdom to give me a hug and a 50^th birthday card. And a webcam. Oh, goody!

Then into town to catch a bit of the Embra Science Festival: Pixar are doing an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotchland; everything there is to know about computer animation, with examples from Luxor Jr. through Toy Story to Ratatouille. They even had a real 3D animation, viewable from any angle, which knocked my socks off. Even when I saw how it was done.

Stopped off at Forbidden Planet to pick up a Sonic Screwdriver, then home for a spot of gardening before Eldest Daughter, Son-in-Law and Youngest Grandson called from South Africa to wish me happy 50^th birthday. Nothing like rubbing it in. We discussed getting a webcam in SA so we could do face-to-face chats without the 12,000 mile round trip, carbon emissions, global warming etc., but the set-up costs out there are prohibitive and the running expenses are treble those in the UK. Which leaves...



Settled down to watch Dr Who, followed by Graham Norton and Any Dream Will ...Dr Who?



There was John "Captain Jack" Barrowman, shooting his weapon...



Denise van Outen taking on an alien cucumber...

And Andrew Lloyd Webber (above) as The Face of Boe (right).

Then a bit of blogging before bed. Perfick!