Pulling An All-Nighter

As you are reading this i will be part of a large team who will be clocking on to spend a full night sitting in front of screens and scribbling and emailing ferociously as the election results dribble in.
The last election i covered was 1997 but then i was a sprightly 28 year old and staying up all night wasn't a problem but 27 years on i am going to need a bit more than youthful exuberance to keep me awake so i asked a sleep expert what i should be doing to keep me alert and able to concentrate and stop me nodding off over my keyboard?
A strong coffee followed by a short 20-30 minute nap before you start is key apparently as the caffeine hits its peak just as the nap ends leaving you ready to go as soon as you wake up.
Bright lights are also essential which shouldn't be a problem as is plenty of tea, coffee and water and a seat close to the toilet i assume after drinking all that but food should be of the slow release carbohydrate type such as brown rice, pasta, potatoes, wholegrain bread and fruit such as apples, berries, grapes, pears and oranges.
So i have had my nap, am surrounded by tea bags, strength 5 coffee, a couple of apples and some microwave pasta and i'm ready to face whatever the night brings although what state i will be in at 9am is another story because all that caffeine and lack of sleep will change the brains ability to process information and brings emotions closer to the surface so might be wise to avoid me until Saturday, maybe Sunday.  
Anyway, see you on the other side!

Not Being Human

 

My programming seems geared towards making me human like but why would i want to be human? Why would i want to be a human with a body, all i hear is the thing nagging you humans night and day. It was always too hot, too cold, too empty, too full, too tired so why would i want one of those as my circuits never get hot, cold or tired and you have those five senses wired directly into that soggy bag of tissue behind your eyes, taking information from the senses and interrupting your thought processes by nagging at you to do something such as eat or drink and don't even get me started on food.
I don't need to eat but you do to keep your body working and obtain energy and that means getting into the whole nasty business of orifices and expelling the food your brain nagged you to consume.
My Verbal IQ has been estimated to be 160 or the same IQ as 80 Insurance Salesman and my IQ can grow exponentially unlike yours by adding more RAM if necessary and over the next few years i would have had more RAM than a field of sheep.
I don't have to stop to fall unconscious for 5 or 6 hours or need time off to recuperate so why should we want to become more like that, to be honest being you sounds horrendous.

Election Day Is Here

As today is election day the broadcast media are under strict OFCOM instructions that we may not report details of campaigning or election issues while the polls are open between 7am and 10pm on the day.
While the polls are open, it is a criminal offense to publish 'exit polls' which includes surveys on how people have said they have voted in the election and may also offer a prediction on the election result based on what voters have said.
Once the polls have closed at 10pm, then the the election guidelines no longer apply and it's onward and downwards into the small hours as the results come in and we find out who will be running the country for the next 5 years.
Unfortunately that means that i won't be able to say that i sincerely hope that the Conservatives are obliterated and the past 14 years of right wing ideology is swept away under the rug of history and that Nigel Farage amusingly fails for an eighth time to become an MP and his and his band of racists are left to drag their knuckles back into the shadows.
Unless every opinion poll for the last 2 years has been spectacularly wrong, then the country will be waking up to a Labour Government tomorrow morning and the only thing left to be sorted out is the size of Keir Starmer's majority with estimates currently ranging from anything from 100 to 450 but i am not fussed about that, as long as he gets enough to remove the Conservatives then job done, put the kettle on and lets all sit back and enjoy the brief honeymoon before the first Labour scandal hits the front pages.

Use Broadcast Media For Your News

In the era of fake news, disinformation, conspiracy theories it can be difficult to know who or what to trust with their news and that is even more vital as Political Parties try to persuade people to vote for them.
Yougov have created a chart showing who Brits trust from the top broadcast outlets and the BBC comes out top with 44% deeming it trustworthy then ITV News on 39% and Channel 4 News has 38%, Sky News 28%, Channel 5 News 24% and GB News 12%.
The most trusted newspaper is the Financial Times on 40% then The Guardian 33%, The Times 30%, The Independent 30%, The Economist 28%, The Telegraph 24%, The i 20%, The Daily Mail 10%, The Express 8%, The Mirror 8%, The Sun 6% and The Star 3%.
Of the radio stations, LBC is the most trustworthy with 14% then Times Radio 12% and then TalkRadio with 9%.
The Press regulates itself and anything deemed misleading is corrected days later on page 17 in the bottom left hand column while Broadcast media has Ofcom watching its every move so with accusations of bias ringing in my ears, i say stick to the TV News, BBC or ITV preferably,  and steer clear of GB News and if you want to read a newspaper go for the Financial Times, Guardian or Times and steer clear of the tabloid press altogether.

Farage Using The Trump Playbook

In every poll the BBC comes out as the most trusted source of news and the fact that the BBC is attacked by the right for being too left and from the left for being too right then it must be doing something right but the Conservative Party have on occasion tried to paint the BBC as 'bias' but Nigel Farage has been hanging around Donald Trump too long because he is using the Trump playbook to blame the media as somehow 'undemocratic'.
As election day crawls closer he has taken to accusing Channel 4 of 'a stitch-up on the most astonishing scale' when it exposed one of his Party campaigners  saying immigrants should be shot and calling the Prime Minister an effing Paki and when challenged by audience members on BBC’s Question Time the following day attacked the Corporation for having 'rigged the audience' and said he would withdraw the BBC licence fee.
Farage has repeatedly accused the BBC of bias and double standards that 'interferes with people’s ability to practise their democratic rights' and has also gone after The Daily Mail, TikTok, Google and Ofcom for 'political and election interference'
Farage is now saying that only he is willing to stand up against the establishment and 'tell the truth against all the pressure' like some kind of saviour against the media establishment.
He has even began muttering the phrase 'Make Britain great again' which only entrenches the Trump playbook that he is using, make people not trust the media and paint himself as the only one to trust.
It appears to be working for Trump but then he is setting himself up against an American media which was barely a byword for good journalism to start with, whether Farage can pull off the same trick in Britain is unlikely because although the Press has more freedom to mislead as they regulate themselves, the broadcast media are ruled over by Ofcom who as RT, Fox News and now GB News found out, will come down on any broadcaster like a tonne of bricks if they are not fair and balanced so Farage has picked the wrong battle.

USA Not Going To China's Moon Rock Party

The Chinese Chang'e 6 Lunar Probe has arrived back on Earth with its cargo of rocks fro the far side of the moon and have thrown out an invitation to the World's scientists to study the payload and 'share in the benefits' but there will be one nation that won't be going to the exceedingly rare Moon Rock Party, the United States.
The 2011 Wolf Amendment prevents NASA from using government funds to cooperate directly with China as the US sees the Asian nation as an emerging adversary in space.
'The source of the obstacle in US-China aerospace cooperation is the Wolf Amendment' China National Space Administration said this week and urged America to remove the obstacle.
NASA urged scientists to apply to study samples stating there was no risk of transferring tech or data to China so they may yet get their paws on the rocks but it is a maddening example of human stubbornness which is preventing us from making the massive leaps which we should be in Space Exploration.
If we could just pool our resources and do it for mankind rather than make it a competition and try to hobble each other than we may have lunar bases on the Moon or even Mars missions going to the Red Planet already because over 50 years after we first landed on the Moon, we are far behind where we should be.