All posts in category: Technology

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Why...

Are people so keen to replace commercial airline pilots with computers?

If I remember correctly the ‘unfailable’ systems of SouthWest airlines failed in June 2021. It was Southwests turn again in December 2022. British Airways and numerous others have also had to severely restrict or halt services due to computer ‘glitches’. Even the rock solid computer system of the Federal Aviation Administration went tits up in January 2023.

So far I don’t recall a single pilot or co-pilot flopping over in the cockpit needing a reboot.

Now that isn’t to say I go all misty eyed about losing usherettes at the Cinema or bus conductors on the Number 72, but frankly I prefer a human being in charge of an aluminium bullet travelling at near 600 mph

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I want to be left alone - TV and magazine interviews on exactly why, to follow.

December 12, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Friends Sex Technology
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Why...

Do some people who shriek for privacy, remind me of a quote from Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks”. In days gone by, certain people really meant it when they withdrew from the limelight. Every female mimic in the world vamps us as Greta Garbo famously saying “Dahlink, I vant to be left alone”. The difference then was the Swedish icon stuck to it. No frantic interviews as to why she wanted to pull away from the public, an oxymoron of an event if ever there was one. She retreated to Manhattan and her art collection. Manhattan! Can you imagine that? No seeking out the paparazzi and in the one of the most publicity hungry cities on earth. At the height of her fame and beauty she had decided to retreat from the world, possibly due to the negative reviews of The Two Faced Woman. She was 36. The title of that failed movie is pretty ironic when you look at the two-faced women since, who have protested their desire for privacy but who continue seeking the limelight and would attend even the opening of a fridge.

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🎶Memories are made of this🎵

December 4, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Finance/Law Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex Sport Technology
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Why...

Can nostalgia be dangerous? Brrrm Brrrm! Walking straight onto a plane with no security checks Carrying my speargun as cabin baggage in a plane First and business class transatlantic flights with no beds Airplane tickets made by travel agents only Smoking carriages on the subway/smoking sections on a plane Asking what is the movie on the plane Hovercraft to France Railway carriages with compartments and corridors Going for a Sunday drive 101 Octane Fuel Buses with conductors Driving without a seatbelt Just a radio with a single speaker in the car Spare tyres in cars No speed limits on motorways Electric Milk Floats Parking meters fed with coins

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What will you do over the holiday season?

November 13, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Does the impending holiday season now revolve exclusively around my TV? Firstly I should say that while tapping out this blog, the sky here in Malta is blue and the dogs are sunbathing in 22c/72f. Thanksgiving and Christmas are about as far from my mind as next year’s tax bill. However television commercials insist on dragging me away from my balmy reality into the fantasy of snow, turkey, goodwill to all men….and get me to start buying. I really do not understand how these companies who start commercials in November and scatterbomb the schedule for nearly two months with the same message, think this warms viewers to their cause. No matter how brilliant a commercial is, there comes a tipping point when repeated viewing turns into watching it again is worse than nails dragged down a backboard.

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For ffff fakes sake

October 10, 2022
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Technology
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Why...

Care about a fake? I note with interest a puff piece in The London Times about the Hollywood nouveau riche hiring Art Consultants. The need is because these well coiffed beings can shuffle their A list clients to the heads of the queue to get a chance to gobble up a piece of art before anyone else. It also makes A listers feel less insecure having someone there to praise or confirm their good taste or have the expert lend Hollywood Royalty some of their own. Really? I agree if you made a few zillion dollars parading around in Spandex with the superpower to create a hurricane by blowing through your nose, you don’t really have much credibility as a Serious Actor; but in the art world, like any other, money is money. If the Hulk is prepared to pay more than a Titan of Wall Street for a scribble and dots by Cy Twombly, let the richest man win. I would lend more credibility to all these art experts were it not for the unfeasibly large amount of fakes or overbid artwork that has been sold to our brave Hollywood friends! As long ago as 1989 Sylvester Stallone sued his art consultant for $5m.(Brave person. I would have been more worried about a jab and a hook rather than a law suit). Steve Martin bought a fake Heinrich Campendonk (crazy name crazy guy) as have hoards of others. It appears these consultants no more protect you from a painting by Pinocchio rather than Pollock as anyone else

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Fill her up with four star, a packet of crisps, a bottle of Bordeaux and a butt plug please

September 18, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Sex Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Does the content mix of goods on display in some stores surprise me? I was recently in a small hillside village in the South of France when I stopped at the local gas station just outside town. It was a small family run business, not part of a major chain. When I went inside to pay, whilst I stood in the queue, I idly looked at the stuff on display. Oil, antifreeze, air freshener, alcohol (it’s France) then came across dildos, a massive butt plug and handcuffs. Enterprising as this may be, I just don’t see if you popped in for a few litres of fuel, you might suddenly decide… “Ah yes, I need a new butt plug.” Conversely, if you did need such toys, the last place I would think of to go and buy them would be my local garage. It’s not as if this was a major artery where long distance lorry drivers would pull in and buy themselves some personal amusement as they slept overnight in the car park. When it came to paying the elderly grey haired lady behind the till, I was so tempted to ask if she stocked any French ticklers. So now I have started to actively look for the unexpected in shops. Amazing. Dr. Scholl’s shoes in my greengrocer’s, rat poison in my office supply shop and ‘Jesus loves you’ ties and ‘Jesus saves’ Band-Aids at the local coffee shop.

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Just don’t mention the weather

Why...

Can I not turn on the news or pick up a paper without screaming about the weather? The UK news media liken what would be a warm day where I live as akin to the UK living in hail and brimstone. Beelzibub and his minions are stalking the hell-like streets. Pah! However, here in Malta this summer has been hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants. I like the beach as much as anyone but I cannot understand people flocking to be staked out on the sand with the sun hot enough to turn their bodies the colour of condemned veal. Certainly most locals shake their heads in disbelief at the tourists gently sizzling on the shoreline. So instead, my wife, the French bulldogs and I enjoy the view of the Mediterranean from the comfort of the air conditioning, with the occasional sprint into the pool. Even the dogs hop across the garden flagstones to jump into the flowerbed to pee. Forget booties for the snow, you need them to protect your tootsies from turning into ten chipolatas!

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It only has to do one thing

July 30, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Technology
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Why...

Is it so difficult for simple things to do the one thing they were designed for? We have a set of drawers in our bathroom in the built in cabinets around the sink. However, they are all coy. Instead of fully opening they half open. I have checked the runners etc. They are specifically designed only to be drawn out half their depth! I spend my life with my arm half bent rummaging around at the dark recess of the back for medicines, pills, chargers and other bathroom paraphernalia having to sweep them to the front so I can see them. I would really like to meet that designer and warmly shake him by the throat.

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It’s an ATM not a Nintendo game boy

Why...

Do I seem to always be queueing at an ATM with someone who seems to be playing a game on the console? Just put the card in and take out the money! Maybe people miss the interaction with a bank teller? For all I know they could be typing in ‘Good morning, how are your kids/cats/bunions?’ All I see is cards go in, lots of typing, staring at the screen, then reading slips of paper… only to repeat the whole process all over again with another card. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Maybe I am the mad one expecting people just to extract money from an ATM rather than a prolonged electronic dialogue.

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🎶 Here comes summer … or does it?

May 1, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Technology
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Why...

Is the weather schizophrenic? Winter this year has behaved like the house guest who outstays his or her welcome. I have to admit that summer 2021 was hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants, therefore I was relieved for the respite of a winter chill. However, it’s now the beginning of May , yet Nanook of the North would have pulled on extra clothing over Easter here in Malta. Grey skies, a wind that could yank the eyebrows off your face and rain horizontal enough to win a limbo dance competition. Today the sun is shining but according to the forecast, it’s a deception worthy of David Copperfield (the magician, not the Dickens character). In a few days time, the temperature is set to drop low enough to make my pubic hair crackle; so the Ambre Solaire will go back in the cupboard and out will come my hot water bottle.

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I never know what to put in each recycle bin

April 10, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life Technology
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Why...

Do I have so many types of garbage bins when I deeply suspect it all goes into one galopata galopata machine anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I am doing my best to save the planet, whether it means only cleaning my belly button with a Q-tip once a month, or recycling my dogs poop by tossing it over the wall onto my next door neighbours’ geraniums. But bins? I have a battalion of these things standing to attention outside my door. The list is endless. Bins for bottles without screw top collar, sacks for those with them… and then subdivided between clear green and brown. 6 just for glass. Life is all receptacles for spectacles, crates for ash from grates, containers for retainers, hoppers for party poppers and repositories for suppositories. The subdivision for rubbish has gone mad. Surely what burns easily and is non synthetic like paper, real food, clothing and coffee grinds in one and synthetics like plastic, tin and any takeaway food in the other… and maybe one for glass.

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Beelzebub is extremely grateful to TV’s commissioning editors

April 3, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Politics Technology
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Why...

Is streamed TV drama suddenly so boring? I don’t know if you have noticed but after a cracking first few years, Netflix, Prime and Hulu et al are abandoning main stream entertainment for more PC and worthy subjects. “Shame on you,” I hear you all cry. However, this is my blog and you are welcome to challenge me. My theory however, is very simple. Back in the day when Netflix etc. were Davids to the established broadcast Goliaths, the middle aged owners took a keen interest in the commissioning process. Not least because they simply did not have the luxury of appointing high flying commissioning editors. They sought out established producers which gave out massive hits like, Bosch, Money Heist, Sneaky Pete, The Grand Tour, Catastrophe, The Kominsky Method, The Handmaid’s Tale etc., etc. (Before you say Breaking Bad remember that was an AMC show that caught fire on Netflix due to every episode being available in one go).

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A musical instrument is a friend for life

March 13, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Do parents inflict on their children the misery of learning an instrument?

Well of course the answer to the above is probably one upmanship and ignorance.

“My Johnnie is learning the recorder…”

“Ah yes, the sweet little simpleton’s flute. Miranda found that soooooo easy she is now playing the oboe…”

All this lasts as long as the parent can stand the noise. No sane person would ever inflict on themselves, a child practicing the violin. Strangling a cat produces melodic bliss in comparison.

Then of course you get trendy parents who allow kids something a bit more useful and contemporary like drums or electric guitar. That is just masochistic. An electric guitar wails, and it’s the listener who ‘gently weeps’.

Drum solos are like nails down a blackboard even at a rock concert, but performed for hours on end, it is likely to end in mass murder. In addition, unlike a pair of maracas which your child can carry anywhere, you need a lorry to lug a drum kit about and a fork lift truck to load the stuff into the lorry. And then what? If your beloved keeps it up, he or she will spend all their teenage years doing no work but instead auditioning for bands convinced they are the next Nirvana.

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🎶 I’m busy busy busy doing nothing 🎶

February 27, 2022
Finance/Law Food & Drink Technology Work
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Why...

Am I exhausted?

The last year has seen a few upheavals and I now find myself with a bit more time on my hands.

I am being horsewhipped into training five days a week, with my wife giving me the evil eye every time I even mention a carbohydrate.

“Get fit. More energy. More time to do things,” seems to be the mantra.

There is only one solution to get any relief. Find another challenge.

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It’s not over till the fat lady sings

February 21, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Politics Sport Technology
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Why...

Do we expect the TV news anchors to read the future?

Such is our insatiable appetite for news bites, we have forgotten how to sit down for a proper five course news meal.

It doesn’t matter if it’s Oscar nominees (yawn), COVID rules, Putin’s lack of rules or who is going to run as US President in the next elections, newscasters are permanently trying to predict these answers rather than wait and report them.

I am amazed that CNN or Fox News don’t have a crystal ball on their bulletin desks or their outside reporters don’t include Mystic Meg and Nostradamus. I suspect for the weather reports, these last two may be better than the systems currently employed! Last week in London I got soaked on what was supposed to be “sunny with occasional clouds”.

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Now it’s wind power that’s killing the planet

Why...

Is wind about to destroy life on earth?

At the recent COP 26 (have there really been 25 others) there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I am by no means a climate denier but I am also a realist. Much as Greta and co would like, I am not reverting to eating mung beans nor limiting my travel to bicycle or Ox and cart.

In terms of transport, Genies once out of bottles are impossible to put back in. You have to replace them with a better one. Horses for steam train, steam train for car, car for plane… etc, etc. So, if fossil fuel must pass, it will only be because we have something as good, if not better. To me that does not mean running around in cars fired by a battalion of AAA batteries. I am quite prepared to wager major sums of money on two things.

The internal combustion engine is extremely efficient with lowering levels of pollution and will not disappear in the foreseeable future.

Battery cars are the Betamax of transport. The future is hydrogen.

Trains will doubtless move from polluting generated electricity to magnetised super trains and planes will get faster as our insatiable appetite to travel and save time continues to grow. I suspect jet technology will be around for at least another half century unless a real Scottie can be found with Star Trek’s dilithium crystals.

In any event, blocking motorways or just shouting in a march resolves nothing. We need brainpower to solve our current problems, not the boos and hisses usually the preserve of pantomime audiences.

So it’s really power stations, insulation and packaging that need the wake up call. Which brings us to wind. The kind cows emit.

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Stop. Open wide. Swallow. And be grateful

Why...

Are some of my health pills the size of an ice hockey puck and more difficult to swallow than a politician’s promises?

After my recent bout of infection following surgery, I was taking enough pills to sound like a maraca. This has now reduced to about twenty a day, a significant amount of which are health and supplement pills. Some are the size of an M&M, some covered in gel (I know Vegans hate gel) but a significant number are the size of a Buick and have no coating. Surely technology can get these down to a reasonable size… or it is just marketing. Make it look like you are getting something for your money!

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Officer. Arrest that man. His clothes fit

October 18, 2021
Fasion Health & Beauty Finance/Law Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do policemen look like they have been shrink-wrapped?

Maybe it’s rose-tinted spectacles but back in the day when all policemen looked older than me, I don’t recall them being shoehorned into clothing three sizes too small for them.

Nowadays they all seem to be trying to burst out of their uniforms. I understand the theory is… it makes them look intimidating and gives you less to hang onto in case you get into a scuffle. Quite how clothing tighter than a sausage skin is meant to be intimidating, I am not sure. However, judging by the actual size of many policemen, I reckon I could hop faster than they could run. Why scuffle if a brisk walk will leave a Bobby panting like a pug in the Sahara?

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For sale - International Space Station. One careful owner. Huge saving on list price. US $35b o.n.o. Must collect

Why...

Is it ‘time’s up’ on the I.S.S.?

I understand that the space equivalent of Honest Jo’s Car Lot Jamboree have given the space station the once over as NASA struggle to keep it running.

“Hmmm. Well now. The grobulators are worn out and your doo-hickeys are in pieces. These parts are very difficult to track down, you know? They just don’t make ‘em anymore. Huge mileage. Needs a new paint job, a few dents whilst docking I see”. No doubt at this point whilst space walking, Jo gives the tyres a kick.

“Trouble is no one really wants these old fashioned ones anymore. Me, I love all that classic silver and chrome and a really good jet propulsion… but young people nowadays… they want the latest and it has to be green. I could take it off your hands but sorry £1b is as far as I can go. Even then I will probably make a loss”. Selling a used vehicle was ever thus.

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The next Olympic sport should be the Air Guitar

Why...

Are some fun sports excluded from The Games?

I watched the recent Olympics with the inclusion of new disciplines such as mountain biking, karate, skateboarding and rock climbing with some joy mixed with confusion. These are nearly all sports of the current generation which is why some participants had to ask nanny if they could miss their afternoon reading lessons to compete in their sport. They also had to beg to stay up late for their medal ceremony, no doubt wearing slippers and pyjamas so they went straight to bed afterwards.

My grandfathers generation had manly sports such as tug of war with all the men in hooped onesies, rugby boots and walrus moustaches.

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All posts in category: Technology

Welcome aboard. This is your Captain speaking

Why...

I want to be left alone - TV and magazine interviews on exactly why, to follow.

Why...

🎶Memories are made of this🎵

Why...

What will you do over the holiday season?

Why...

For ffff fakes sake

Why...

Fill her up with four star, a packet of crisps, a bottle of Bordeaux and a butt plug please

Why...

Just don’t mention the weather

Why...

It only has to do one thing

Why...

It’s an ATM not a Nintendo game boy

Why...

🎶 Here comes summer … or does it?

Why...

I never know what to put in each recycle bin

Why...

Beelzebub is extremely grateful to TV’s commissioning editors

Why...

A musical instrument is a friend for life

Why...

🎶 I’m busy busy busy doing nothing 🎶

Why...

It’s not over till the fat lady sings

Why...

Now it’s wind power that’s killing the planet

Why...

Stop. Open wide. Swallow. And be grateful

Why...

Officer. Arrest that man. His clothes fit

Why...

For sale - International Space Station. One careful owner. Huge saving on list price. US $35b o.n.o. Must collect

Why...

The next Olympic sport should be the Air Guitar

Why...