ANGEL ROAD

This morning I was sat next to a German couple on the Stansted Express. The guy, who was sitting opposite, was talking a lot. And in a way I was finding impossible to ignore. So I found myself listening to every word, even though I couldn’t decipher a single one. From his voice I formed a mental picture of him, and it was Christoph Waltz.

Eventually I looked up from my iPhone to sneak a proper look. And guess what, he looked exactly like Daniel Craig. For a moment I was terrified. Imagine that: the mind of Ernst Stavro Blofeld inside the body of James Bond. Retreating back into my phone, I wondered why I was instinctively afraid of Germans. Especially ones that looked like 007.

ON ICE

Ranulph Fiennes is sawing off the end of his own fingers with a fretsaw. 

It was all going so well. Well about as well as pulling a half-ton sledge across Antarctica at -40º can go. Nothing too much to worry about, just the usual chronic crotch rot, ultraviolet facial burns, gangrenous toes, frozen eyeballs and, of course, gradual and inevitable bodily deterioration, dehydration and starvation. All in a day’s work for Britain’s greatest living explorer.

SPACE SHODDITY

Posted 12th February 2016:

Big week for Space.

Turns out Einstein was right after all (note to self: never doubt anyone called Einstein) and gravitational waves exist.  The thing is that they always had to exist because of his theory of relativity. It’s just that now they do. Thank God.

So how did we finally find them? Well, we invented a machine that can detect things that are so small, and happen so quickly, that until recently we were happy to conclude they weren’t there at all. Things less than a thousandth the diameter of an atomic nucleus apparently. Now I’m no expert (despite having the Guardian App on my iphone) but I’m guessing that’s pretty small.  Small to the point of not really mattering.  

GUITAR SHOP MAN

When was the last time you went to buy a new car and came back convinced that not only do you not deserve one, but that you can’t actually drive?  Never, I’m guessing. Because dealerships don’t tend to hire wannabe Schumachers to take you for a dozen circuits of the carpark to demonstrate the how well the suspension and braking systems works at 120mph.  And it’s as well they don’t, because if they did a good number of us ego-fuelled menfolk would ditch the car and rely instead on ridiculously expensive racing bikes and tight lycra outfits to get from A to B.  Which of course we don’t.  Much.