There's been a murrrder....!

Riffling through some old paperwork the other day, I renewed my acquaintance with a treasured cutting from the Glasgow Herald, published in 1993. It made me guffaw then, and it still works its magic all these years on. Here's the deal:

Central Scotland Police were called in to investigate a campaign of hoax letters, sent to people in Glasgow and Edinburgh and purporting to offer the recipients the opportunity to appear, as a corpse, in the splendid tv crime drama Taggart.

The production company, Scottish Television, was inundated with complaints from outraged people who'd been told that they were considered ideal candidates in the producers' quest for "someone with a natural, sad, haggard expression, deformed torso, misshapen legs and a large bottom". The letter went on to explain that the person would play the part of a murder victim, and be seen for around five seconds, "naked, face-up and in a contorted position on Glasgow Green".

What a job description! Why do I find this so funny? I don't know, but it has brought me tears of joy over the years.

Never mind the outraged complainants, I wonder how many actually applied for the role?

To Hull and back...

Just back from a trip to Hull, the latest venue for the event often disparagingly termed "Radio Nerd Night". It's always a fun evening, as an assortment of folks from the radio biz get together to scoff and quaff, exchange outrageous gossip and lapse into dark mutterings about the shortcomings of various items of modern broadcasting apparatus.

Hull was curiously quiet, last night. Very strange. It was almost as if there'd been some sort of emergency evacuation of the town, but we'd somehow missed the announcement. Surely word of our impending arrival isn't so drastic as to cause the locals to leave in droves?

By the end of the evening, some of the population had returned. I know this because we encountered two fine representatives in the street shortly after midnight. As we meandered in the general direction of our hotel, along a pleasant cobbled street, two girls clad in the attire of "lasses out on the lash on a summer's eve" (ie not much!) came wobbling towards us.

One tripped on the cobbles and tumbled both sideways and headlong - a good trick if you can do it - into the arms of her friend (sideways) and the lead members of our party (headlong). There was much squealing and guffawing. I decided to contribute some of my most calming words to the incident: "It's alright, we're doctors." From the shadows, into which the tumbling girlie had now stumbled, burst the squawked reply, in broad Yorkshire tones, delicately matured in fags and booze: "Doctors, my f*cking arse!".
"Well, that's not actually my specialism..." I ventured, before deciding on a tactical withdrawal, lest my medical qualifications be put to the test.

Too hot, man!

London has been, collectively, sweltering in a stifling heatwave. It's hell out there. Thank the Lord for office and studio air-con!

Key points noted in the last couple of days include:

• The man who walked past me in Soho, clad in a black leather jacket and black leather trousers. Temperature in the street? 31 degrees How he was not melting, I cannot conceive.
  
• The large hole in the ground in Greenford, West London, where gas and/or water works are taking place. Or rather not taking place. There's a big sign on the fencing, reading:

WORKS SUSPENDED TO REDUCE DISRUPTION DURING COLD WEATHER

How thoughtful of them....

Moron Bad Science

Further to my blast about low-energy bulbs and the dodgy science that seems to trot alongside them....

Last week I found myself in a modern office building, all glass and stainless steel. Boarding the lift for a quick whizz to Floor 10, I spotted the following notice:

This lift has been fitted with an experimental LED lighting system. As these lights are more energy efficient, they will help us to reduce our carbon emissions within the building.

NO. THEY WON'T! Whatever benefits they may have (less heat in the lift, for one!) the one thing they won't affect in the slightest is the amount of carbon released in the building.

Poor science teaching? Lazy journalism? Sinister indoctrination? Whatever is to blame, I'm willing to bet it won't be long before there are people going round B&Q gingerly picking up light bulbs and sniffing them to see if they can detect all that deadly carbon seeping out.

Nurse!

Life

My wife and I have spent the last couple of days at the bedside of a friend, as she trod the pathway toward the exit from this life.

Tonight, the door opened and, at the pitifully young age of 48, she stepped through.

Not much to say, except:

(a) Hug those you hold dear
(b) Melignant Melanoma is a complete and evil bastard
(c) Please support Cancer Research
(d) Wear sunscreen

Bad science, crap copy

What is it about the Green / Climate Change / We're all Doomed issue that makes it ok to tout silly claims that don't stand up?

My gander was goosed today by an advert on the side of a bus. It's pushing the benefits of low-energy light bulbs
and seeks to make its point with the statement:

If every UK household installed just one extra energy saving light bulb in their house, the CO2 saved would be equivalent to taking 93,000 cars off the UK's roads.

OK. Where to begin. What's worse, the rubbish copywriting, or the dodgy science? Well, how about we start with the copy.

If every UK household really did install one extra energy saving light bulb, that would have the effect of putting around 24.5 million additional bulbs into use. I guess they really mean that it would be a good thing if every UK household replaced an existing bulb with an energy saving one, but that's not what they've written!

And the claim itself?

Well, it all depends, doesn't it..... Those 93,000 cars. Would they be ones with little engines or the Gas Guzzlers they keep encouraging us to hate? What if they are small-engined cars that spend all day, every day, doing stop/start journeys, not fully warmed up? Or perhaps they are the modern Gas Guzzlers with some of the cleanest engines around, running efficiently in the motorway cruise for 200 miles at a time? Maybe they are the old cars that the Government wants us to scrap. You know, the ones made before manufacturers focused on the recylclability of materials used in construction? The ones that'll be really dirty to dispose of?

And talking of dirty disposal, what about this:

If every household in the UK threw out one dead low-energy light bulb, there'd be 980kg of mercury in various landfills.

I don't make any great claims for accuracy in this statement, but I suggest that it holds up at least as well as the one on the side of the bus! There is, after all, about 4mg of Mercury in your average low-energy (compact fluorescent) light bulb.


Bad science and Environmental concern. They don't have to go hand-in-hand....do they?

The Court of Public Opinion

Don't things move rapidly in today's world of lightweight politics?

Can it really be just over 2 months since Harriet Harman made her stunningly vacuous remarks about "The Court of Public Opinion", as she sought to hitch an easy ride to popularity aboard the runaway train of Sir Fred Goodwin's grandiose pension pot?

That particular court seems to have gone a bit quiet of late. A shame, as I'm sure its jurors would have something to say on the matter of MPs' expenses.

"Members of the jury, I put it to you that .... oh no, I beg your pardon, I was forgetting that you only convene when someone thinks there's a cheap headline in it. Please retire and don't consider your verdict."