Vin Diesel and the analogue-to-digital TV switchover

Watchers of Vin Diesel’s sci-fi epic The Chronicles of Riddick will have watched Vin triumph over many adversaries using his physical fighting techniques. But perhaps none of his battles were as hard won as his fight to actually orchestrate the UK-wide analogue-to-digital TV switchover that meant that Chronicles of Riddick could never be shown on the UK’s fifth channel, Channel 5.

We need a mission statement

In 1985 Vin Diesel was a stringy, wily 32 year old with a dream of making a documentary called the Chronicles of Riddick. The Chronicles of Riddick would document the rise of Vin Diesel against a series of science fiction adversaries using physical fights, and with its entirely fictional, special effects heavy format, would challenge the very documentary form itself.

Some years later Vin found himself starring as a character called Riddick in a movie called Point Black, and the power of that sci-fi fighting scenario was such that his dream feature, the Chronicles of Riddick, seemed only the logical next step. The Chronicles of Riddick was born.

The Chronicles of Riddick chronicled Vin’s success in a series of fights of a series of adversaries and enemies, whose value system was generally at odds with Vin’s, or who were competing for the same resources as he was. Riddick, the character Vin Diesel was to play in the Chronicles of Riddick, was so adept at fighting, that by the end, the entire sequence of combatants he encountered, had been defeated. Physical fighting was his strength, and in the Chronicles of Riddick, he demonstrated that.

Defeating a series of enemies in the Chronicles of Riddick however, was as nothing compared to the challenge Vin faced in orchestrating the UK-wide analogue-to-digital TV switchover, such was his determination never to have it shown on Channel 5, home of the Gadget Show. The details of his fight to achieve this are unknown, but if the Chronicles of Riddick are of any analogous testimony, he must have faced whoever argued against him right down, and done them right in the head with his muscles and a knife.

Who will take up the mantle of talking non-stop about feminism?

Some years ago I saw Germaine Greer striding along round some university campus near Leeds, and it immediately struck me how she was even as barrel-chested round the mid-riff as science presenter Adam Hart-Davis.

I say this because Germaine came to mind to me the other day as I was in Borders riffling accidentally through her latest book, Going On About Shakespeare. Typical excerpt: “Who knows what Shakespeare was thinking as he chose the tainted quill for his next play. His wife didn’t. For it turns out she wasn’t even his wife, but his sister. His sister didn’t know. His wife might have. We don’t know. Did Shakespeare even exist? I don’t know. What is the significance of all this? I don’t know.”

Oh Germaine, I thought, you are wittering on. One can only assume she put her own money into it. Note to other authors, such as Richard Dawkins – never wilfully skidally all over your own demographic.  

Germaine would say that her only topic of conversation in life lies in the field of feminism, which was an angle she discovered in her early twenties, and later managed to spin out into a book called the Female Eunuch. Typical extract: “Ah it is a terrible life, Mary, to be sure, to be sure.”

But in the absence of Germaine, who is to take up the mantle of talking non-stop about feminism? Not her offspring, nor any of her relations, who have reportedly not expressed an interest in getting involved. We cannot rely on Adam Hart-Davis to interject either, as his relationship to Germaine is defined only by my observation that he is barrel-chested also. The potential decline of talking non-stop about feminism is therefore a serious issue worse than racism, as there are more people in the world you could be anti-feminist against, than you could be racist against.

So let us beware, believe and be coming up with a succession plan for Germaine, an important task that I would potentially prioritise over sorting nuclear fusion. There was a lady on TV on Friday I saw that might do, but I didn’t catch her details. Do get in touch if you think you can identify her.

C’mon lads, let’s sort out nuclear fusion!

Since even before the dawn of time, man has dreamed of developing a renewable energy source utilising the properties of hydrogen: nuclear fusion. If we could harness the fusion, to make a car move, then a lot of the serious issues we have could be sorted. The next paragraph I have will discuss this further.

Although oil companies don’t want you to, let’s look at the sun. First take a piece of aluminium foil, say from a crisp packet, and hold it up to the sun. Then pierce a hole in the packet, then place a piece of black card where the sun is shining through. The circular shape you see on the card is a part of the sun where its energy light is passing through. It’s a simple demonstration, but can you see how simple it is to bring the power of fusion to a card? To make this power bigger, therefore, it is simply a matter of scaling the technique upwards. The next paragraph I have is about not abandoning possible scaling ideas.

A few years ago several scientists demonstrated their experiment on cold fusion and it worked. But subsequently it didn’t work, and as a result the scientists’ work was dismissed, saying it didn’t work. But is that a reason to dismiss it? There was only one Jesus and he was certainly an effective communicator. (Or am I wrong?! No. I am right.) We haven’t had another Jesus since, but that doesn’t mean the first Jesus didn’t work? What if we scaled cold fusion up? It might work.

Oprah Winfrey might not like me being politically incorrect, but the fundamental problem is as bad as racism. Too much solar power money being funnelled into the arms of energy quangos, and yes, I’ll say it, the oil companies. They are making a fierce amount of money from solar panel sales, and installation kits. People who know, know there are six or seven ways of doing fusion, but say they are all tied up in other things or haven’t got the initiative. I’m afeared of Esso as much as the next man, but let’s take a stand together and get it sorted.