The future could be here today

4 December

Yesterday we went off shopping and on the way back we called into the Crow’s Nest pub for a coke or two. For me it was just one, but Jan had two. I also ordered myself a gammon steak and chips was so looking forward to it that posted a status thingy on Facebook. My steak arrived and it was really good, and I enjoyed it all. But by the time I was finished I had a feeling of being bloated, and that is why I only had one coke and not two. That bloating seemed to go on most of the night and even a bowel movement before settling didn’t help all that much. But as Jan said, I’m just not used to eating that much in one go these days. Still enjoyed it at the time though, but it a lesson learned.

Yesterday I had a good moan about smoking and corruption in the tobacco industry, however, I didn’t mention another area where corruption is so prevalent, that is, in sports. FIFA problems have been suspected for years now and at long last there are serious investigations into it. Reports in the past here in the UK have been scathing about various allegations into game fixing in just about every sport there is.

Right from the very bottom in English football there have been players who have thrown matches for cash. We’ve seen it being exposed in cricket as well, with the best known example was with the last Pakistan tour test match in London. Now athletics have been shown to be corrupt, but in this case, over drug taking. How many more incidents that haven’t been mentioned or come to light are there, I wonder.

There’s a lot of dosh about in sports these days and let’s face it, we all could do with a bob or two extra in pockets. But here’s the thing my friends, at what point does and extra bob or two, become thousands of pounds Sterling, or US dollars? While there is so much dosh washing around, there will always be those who want a larger share of it along with those who are will to employ to fiddle the system. Basically, it’s down to greed.

There’s another entirely different issue coming out now. This one is on gene therapy again. Scientist want permission to perform tests on gene manipulation to foetus stem cell, and this one raises the hackles of so many different concern groups. One great fear is that it could be ultimately lead to ‘designer children’. I do have sympathy with this one, and that sympathy grow after I read Peter James novel Perfect People. In this story a couple agreed that a friend of theirs help them become parents. That seems fine, and the story continues.

Eventually it comes out that the friend had manipulated their genes and produce boy and girl twins. So far so good. The twins go off to live in the States with their creator rather than remain with their biological parents. Some years later they return home to England as aged people, not the 18 year olds that the parents were expecting. The gene manipulation had produce two perfect people, or so it was first thought.

And here lies the real danger in messing about with nature; you never know what overall effect of changing one gene will have on others further down the string. But does that mean that all such work should stop? Now, that is an area where differences of opinion really dig in deep. A couple who have genetic conditions that limit the lives of their children would love to see the end of the condition they have. But again, I have problems with that one simply because I have said above about unknown consequences.

In this blog I have used fictional characters to illustrate a point. Perhaps there are people who will say, ‘But that’s only a sci/fi story, told to entertain.’ Is that right? Think of Arthur C. Clarke and his prediction that there will be satellite communications that we will all rely on. Even earlier there’s the story’s on the man on the moon; and don’t forget Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and today’s nuclear SSBNs that we have silently making their way around the world.

And much more up to date, is Tom Clancy’s airplane being deliberately crashed into the Capital building in Washington DC. I don’t really need to remind you of what happened not so long ago. That fourth airplane, where was that heading to I wonder? And no, I don’t accept the conspiracy theories that the US government was behind it. So yes, fiction can be a pointer to what might happen in the future, and no-one can guess what will happen next.  

A couple of weeks ago I was writing about a 500mm lens I have sat here waiting to be used. I looked for one of the few photos that I took with the lens on my Sony A350. I found it yesterday, and here it is … 

Three wind turbine towers off Skegness beach.

Today’s funny then …

It was Christmas Eve. A woman came home to her husband after a day of busy shopping. Later on that night when she was getting undressed for bed, he noticed a mark on the inside of her leg. "What is that?" he asked. She said, "I visited the tattoo parlor today. On the inside of one leg I had them tattoo 'Merry Christmas,' and on the inside of the other one they tattooed 'Happy New Year.'" Perplexed, he asked, "Why did you do that?" "Well," she replied, "now you can't complain that there's never anything to eat between Christmas and New Years!"