Thursday, December 27, 2007

Eight for 2008

The other day I received a kindly email pointing out that I had been tagged by blogging friend, Iain Dale with a meme. Now, I have a policy on memes in that I don't do them, but it's Christmas, and this one happened to be about eight hopes for 2008, so here are mine.
  1. The metrication of time. We have ten digits on our hand so why on earth did someone decide to measure time in such bizarre multiples? 2008 should be the year that finally the campaign for the metrication of time takes hold in the consciousness of the planet.
  2. Gordon Brown is humiliated by his own party constantly. Never have I had such hatred and zero respect for a single politician. This is not a tribalist hatred, but a hatred of a man that I see as a calculating Machiavellian arsehead. A man who has lied and cheated constantly for the past ten years and now is trying to pretend that he wasn't really anything to do with any of the many cock-ups.
  3. I can finally write my novel about a one-legged lesbian who desperately wants to adopt a gay orphan under the age of four. The tale will detail her ongoing struggle to find a child that is aware of their sexuality so young so they can be brought up in all the splendour of woman on woman love leading to a later love triangle in the child's teenage years. This will put the deep emotional content of the book on a par with DH Lawrence's Sons and Lovers.
  4. Bernard Cribbins continues to defy everyone by still being alive and popping up on TV at Christmas to choruses in the living room of "I thought he was dead!".
  5. The writers of Dr Who attempt to explain how the actress playing Martha Jones was turned into a half cyberwoman and killed at Torchwood in the last episode to feature Billy Piper and then was suddenly resurrected in the first episode of the next series without anyone saying "errr hang on a second, aren't you dead?"
  6. Deep Purple (Mark II) line-up and Black Sabbath go on tour together and everyone starts arguing again about whether together they stomp Led Zeppelin into the ground of being true Gods of Rock. This leads to Kiss making another comeback in full make-up and lycra.
  7. Christmas Day news in 2008 does not feature a newsreader telling us how many people have died in some explosion or natural disaster.
  8. No one gets slapped; no one dies; no one is injured; no marriages end; and no one sleeps with their brothers' best friends dog or mother in the Eastenders Christmas episode. Everyone just sits down for dinner and is happy and then they all either fall asleep on the sofa or watch the Hollyoaks Christmas Special and complain about the dysfunctionality of Cheshire based soap operas.
As with the last meme about desktops I will not directly pass this on to people like a chain letter on pain of horrible disembowelment and impending death but instead say that if you want to do "Eight for 2008" feel free. Remember that if you don't that puppy you got may really just be for Christmas - this is especially the case if you live in Korea.

14 comments:

Old BE said...

5 - in the last Billie episode weren't they in an alternative reality or dimension or something?

That is how Billie got to meet her dad (again) wasn't it?

dizzy said...

No, that is where she ended up. The Canary Wharf battle was in the normal dimension.

Anonymous said...

The first episode introducing Martha noted in passing that she had a cousin who died at the Canary Wharf battle.

I wish I didn't know that.

dizzy said...

woah! that must have taken balls to admit! a twin cousin.. hmmm.

Steve_Roberts said...

Why we count in twelves and sixties.

Each of your fingers has three segments. By using your thumb as a pointer you can easily and naturally count up to twelve (four fingers, three segments each). You count up to sixty by using the fingers of your other hand to maintain a tally of twelves, or if you want to go for the max, using both hands for twelves gives you 144.

This is at least as natural as counting in fives and tens, and simplifies division because sixty is divisible by 2,3,4,5,6,10,12, 15,20 and 30

Gracchi said...

Totally agree on metric time! Wouldn't it be great not to have to multiply and divide by 60 all the time!

Anonymous said...

Re counting. I prefer the method used by Detritus the Troll in Terry Pratchets books which was something like
One
Many
More
Lots



Gwil ap Tomos

Anonymous said...

there would be no elevenses what are you thinking?

Anonymous said...

Sod metrification of time! We want the reversal of metrification of everything else!

dizzy said...

Well I'm sorry, but I'm 32 so I'm bilingual and don't give a shit.

Anonymous said...

Lawyers have done a sort of metric time for yonks. They charge out their time in units of 6 minutes, ten to the hour.

Damon Lord said...

Metric time has already been written about: http://saiminu.blogspot.com/2007/01/exclusive-european-union-secret.html

Dave Brown said...

Never mind metrication of time - let's get weights and measures metrication programme completed first. UK is still almost as ignorant as the USA - as you have seen from comments already left!

Swordsman said...

The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

(Due credit to Abe Simpson)