Men With Big Telescopes

They say that men with big telescopes have just discovered a new planet, somewhere out there, which is just like Earth but where you would weigh two and a half times heavier than now.

Given the numerous and many warnings about the obesity epidemic sweeping The Western World, with all its detrimental health and economic implications, I say that the star-gazers are downright irresponsible.

The Metro paper, which can be picked up free at Boston Manor Underground Station before 07:35 Monday to Friday, (or failing that off the floor any tube carriage, also for free, with the added frisson of not knowing what extra delights might have been imprinted on it’s non-smudge-ink surface by fellow tubies), tell me that they’ve invented a machine that The Metro has called a ‘fabber’.

Apparently is just like a desktop printer or fax machine - except it’s not.

You see instead of spitting out paper from Cyberspace, it throws up pattern-cut sheets of plastic-like-stuff-made-out-of-old-potato-starch from a plan held in Cyberspace, that can be downloaded (unlike The Metro), for a fee.

The idea is to stick these two dimensional layers of potoato-plastic sheets together with Pritt Stick in order to manufacture a three dimensional coat-hook.

It’s a wonder of modern science.

Currently they are busy of thinking up other applications.

A trusted source tells me, Industrial Light and Magic have the use of a super-computer, which has a 10-gigabit backbone network, a theoretical network capacity of 11.38 terabits per second, can exchange 11 trillion bits of data a second over the network at LucasFilm and has the processing power equivalent to 10,000 home PCs.

I have no idea what my trusted source is talking about, but I think you’ll agree these are very impressive statistics.

And all achieved at a mere cost of several hundreds of millions of your American Dollars.

The experts say that one of the most difficult computer generated things to computer generate realistically is water. With their oversized-statistics the bods at Industrial Light and Magic are close to replicating, almost perfectly, the real thing.

Another impressive statistic is the 92.3 per cent (or some-such appropriately large number) of The Known Universe is made up of water – the real stuff. Some of it can also be got for free (like The Metro).

I rest my case.

No?

I’m learning it’s not enough to have an idea. It needs to be a good idea. And then it’s only what you do with it that counts.

Anyone out there interested in a chocolate teapot - used only once?

The Tabula Rasa Monster From Planet Void

Who remembers ‘Tomorrow’s People’ on kid’s telly all those yesterdays ago? Jaunting belts? We pressed the buckle and we’re instantly transported to wherever we wanted to be… no? What about Dr Who? Well you don’t have to remember him do you? He’s time-jumped from our childhoods right back into our present.

I’m not talking monsters here. No, the immediate point is this: Shakespeare was a pretty good playwright, but let’s be honest he had it easy didn’t he?

Bear baiting and the pox were the only distractions he had to contend with, and that must have been more than compensated for by the focus one enjoys with a much-reduced life expectancy.

With quill in hand and parchment on desk all that sat in the way of The Great Bard and immortality was the length of a candle and a match.

Chains can bind us or set us free. I know I’m not saying anything new here. But that’s half the problem isn’t it? That’s the trap of the blank page – seducing us to cliché and unoriginality.

‘All that glisters is not gold.’ You see how that word works, how it fits the feeling – that’s why The Bard made it up (and if he didn't he ought to have done). Nowadays we’re a bit more mechanical in our creativity but my chained-linked buddy Stuart has taught me a new word that fits the phenomenon I’m trying to describe, ‘Wifling’

In Cyberspace, anytime, anyplace, anywhere (there’s a wonderful world you can share) is just a hyperlink jump away. We don’t need no TARDIS or jaunting belt just a browser and about fifteen quid a month for eight megabytes and unlimited downloads.

‘I’m sorreee but that’s just too much information Liam.’

Those links can tie us in knots.

Those links can set us free.

Confronted by The Tabula Rasa Monster from Planet Void? Quick Jump! Better to be anywhere than here. For what is more demanding than nothingness? Nothing. That blank page reflects our fears, feeds on our insecurities.

‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.’

‘Should I stay or should I go?’

‘Beam me up Scotty.’

Preamps and Preamble

Apparently you would be a reckless fool to monkey around listening to 'Sherlock Holmes and The Blue Carbuncle' whilst harbouring a fifties cold. And more especially so when 'Grove's Bromo Quinine' is such an available and dependable medication. I'm not sure what it is, but I am assured by the makers that it works. Of course things have moved on since happy families sat around the cheering glow of a transistor radio, now, if we should ever feel the urge, we can all listen to OTR (Old Time Radio) on OTTs (Overtly Trendy Telephones) and perkily-personalised i-pods. Still some things are constant, and as with 'Grove's Bromo Quinine', I don't know what a preamp is, but Simon assures me it's a good thing to have when recording, along with someone called Decent Mike. In the 50's software was a cashmere jumper - now it's something different. It might not feel quite so luxurious to the touch but sometimes it's free. You see Dom was right all along. With any web there must be holes, and as any gravedigger knows filling holes is the easy part - all that's needed is to locate them and do a bit of spade-work. They say that a goldfish has an attention span of two seconds - or is that it's memory? I don't recall. Never mind the point is this, in this age of the mega-bite, bitesize is good. It seems odd that whilst the stodgy recipes of by-gone decades are displayed proudly for consumption, fresh homegrown and organically reared bitesize morsals aren't so readily available. Not even at Ealing Farmer's Market where they sell much available and dependable produce. 'We could have a website' I said to Dom, and later, 'No, not a website, a blog - with MP3 downloads - small ones'. 'Enough of the preamble, ' he retorted in his singular manner, 'the game is afoot.'

All Aboard The Skylark!

Stop. Wait a minute. I want to do it, really I do. It's just that... well it's my first time and I want it to be all right - you know. You will? You promise to be gentle? OK then... It was all very enlightening, evangelical even - my eyes were opened and I saw the light. You see it's all about 'small pieces loosely connected' and some things called Wikis. It's all I needed to know. Seven pounds well spent but yours for free at the excellent following site (posting for April 20th) . Ah yes did I mention, that 'links are currency’? Don't ask me what the exchange rate is - that's something I've yet to figure out. So later I explained to Liz, 'it's really a philosophy you see, a different way of looking at things, it's about relationships - human relationships.' 'Yes,' she said, 'it's amazing isn't it, the kids have been doing it for years, it's second nature to them.' But how to be true to the form? True to myself? (Darlings). If I just wanted to contact other playwrights and related arty folk, surely an ad in Time Out's Personal Column: 'Aspiring Playwright, non-smoker WLTM similar for fun & frolics. GSOH essential. Looks not important.' But in truth I want more. I find them unsavoury, but I understand their need to earn a crust: 'Lovely family sir, I've two ankle biters myself. That you in the strip is it? I see you're a United fan. Good game last week wasn't it? There myself, mind you bit drafty on the old terraces - talking about drafts it's our triple glaze, maintenance free, with patented universal locking system you'll be wanting - as it happens we're doing a promotion in the area, looking for show houses, blah, blah, blah...’ But a blog is a blog and a breakfast club is a breakfast club. 'Honesty is the best policy' seemed to be the mantra of the moment. So I'm thinking journey. I'm thinking companions on a voyage. I'm thinking I get wear the captain's hat and give directions. Cyberspace may not be my ocean, but this blog is all my own spit. So all aboard the Skylark!