John's Adventures

Whenever I see someone driving along a road, open their window and throw some litter out, I could quite easily drive them off the road, drag them out of their car and beat them unconscious. Without any hesitation. Setting their car on fire would just be the next natural step.

Trouble is, it wouldn’t do any good. There are far too many people out there with the attitude “out of sight, out of mind” who simply don’t care. Like a baby who throws a toy out of the pram, once someone throws an empty crisp packet out the window, it ceases to exist in their mind. It’s no longer their problem. “Someone else will sort it out”.

Now I see a great deal more of the countryside than most as I spend a lot of time walking around taking photographs and have had many a summer’s day covering miles on my mountain bike. So when people throw out plastic bottles, crisp packets or plastic bags full of rubbish out, I know that it eventually finds its way all over the place. Stuck in ditches, up against walls or fences, wrapped in tree roots, it ends up anywhere and everywhere. It looks terrible and I can only guess what these synthetic products do the the environment. It makes me sick.

Although to be fair sometimes they make for interesting photos (as above). But if you take a long term view of it, I wonder what the countryside will look like in 50 years time. The throw-away society we seem to be a part of is still relatively new, but I don’t see it disappearing any time soon. It’s not going to be pretty if things carry on the way they are. I just wish people would take pride in the planet on which they live – it’s my planet too.

I was idly flicking through the recent transactions on my bank account the other night when I saw a few items I didn't recognise. It seemed that I'd been to Tesco four times over the previous 2 days and had spent around £60 on each occasion. Since I haven't actually stepped foot inside any Tesco store for about a year, this was clearly wrong.

I then realised that in fact someone had managed to clone my card and was spending my money! The fact that it was my debit card and therefore taking money directly out of my current account meant that, unlike a credit card where there's a few weeks delay where you can sort these things out, the money had already gone from my account!

Naturally I called my bank and told them what happened. In fact, they were really good, told me they'd pass the details to their fraud department, stop my card and send me a new one. The next day I looked at my statement again and spotted another 2 transactions (at the same Tesco and each for around £60) that must have gone through before they stopped the card. Another phone call to the bank and they were added to the fraud list. So effectively I was out of pocket by £360 by someone who'd managed to copy my debit card details.

Thing is, I'm ultra-cautious with my debit card. If I'm not sure about it I'll use my credit card (for the time delay effect I mentioned above) so it's a mystery to me how they managed to skim it (which I'm assuming is what they did). Plus, I thought Chip & Pin was supposed to stop all this sort of thing. So much for that.

Luckily, my bank refunded me the money with no questions a couple of days later, so kudos to them! But for all those nay-sayers who say worrying about card skimming is just a lie spread by the banks to make you scared and that it can never happen to you, it most certainly can. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

I wonder if they bought anything nice from Tesco. Maybe some of those tasty flapjacks. Flapjacks are nice! 

The best TV program I’ve seen in years is without a doubt ‘Planet Earth‘ by the BBC. As far as I’m concerned programs like this are worth the license fee alone (to be honest it’s one of the very few things I regularly watch).

It’s a nature program narrated by David Attenborough showing the wonders of the planet on which we live. It’s years in the making and contains some of the most incredible footage of the natural world you’re ever likely to see. This week showed great white sharks (above) attacking fur seals off the coast of South Africa in super-slow motion. You just can’t believe how quick, aggressive and powerful these sharks are – weighing over a ton and yet exploding completely out of the water without warning like lightening. Truly amazing.

But at the end of each episode I always feel a bit sad, almost emotional. Watching programs like this shows what an incredibly diverse, beautiful and awe-inspiring planet we live on. But it’s fragile. And the sad fact is that in a matter of generations – the mere blink of an eye geologically – a great deal of these wonders will be gone.

No amount of reducing greenhouse gasses, cutting down on the usage of fossil fuels, recycling or any other initiative will change the fact that this planet is on dodgy ground thanks to us. You can forget some Star Trek Utopian world where everybody does what’s in the best interests of humanity rather than themselves suddenly appearing because in the last 5000 years human nature hasn’t changed at all. We may have nice technology but we’re still barbarians at heart.

You can also drop that idea of space colonisation. Even if there were a planet in the solar system or within easy reach that could support life, we wouldn’t be able to survive there. We’ve had millions of years of evolution that have allowed us to cope with the bacteria and viruses that are ever-present on Earth. The same won’t be said for another planet with a different set of bacteria – think War Of The Worlds only we’re the aliens – same result. You reckon we could be inoculated? Ha! You’ve been watching too much Star Trek: The Next Generation – I’m afraid 21st century medicine is little more effective than that of the 19th century.

And even colonising the moon or Mars is a bit far-fetched. You wonder why manned missions to Mars have been put off for so long? One of the big problems is cosmic rays that are un-stoppable and long term exposure is little understood, but irreversible damage to human DNA is one of the known side-effects. We’re okay on Earth since the atmosphere soaks up most of it, but these rays cut through metal and space suits like a hot knife through butter.

So we’re stuck here. And unfortunately as long as we’re here the natural wonders on this planet are under threat. I’ve been saying for years the best thing that can happen to the Earth is if all the people are removed from it. And that’s why I’m always a bit sad after watching nature programs – we started out as one of the most wonderful creations on this planet and now we’re destroying the lot for our own selfish, short-term gains. Shame on us all.

Tonight is the 5th of November and every kid who grew up in the UK had the line "remember, remember the 5th of November" drilled into their heads from an early age. Each year on this night, in true British style, we celebrate a failure. We celebrate the failure of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot he was involved in which was a fiendish plan to blow up the houses of parliament in 1605. Mwa ha ha ha! [Rubbing hands together in an evil, super-villain way].

What happens each year is a human shaped effigy is created called the 'Guy' (usually by children from a local school). It's sat atop a large pile of wood, often tens of feet high. This whole ensemble is set alight while children stand around with sparklers in hand (responsibly) waving them around. And then of course there's the fireworks display.

I remember going along to many a Guy Fawkes night as a child and I never really enjoyed them. Sure, the fire part was nice – everybody likes fire, it's warm, colourful and everything looks good by firelight. But fireworks on the other hand do nothing for me. My brother and I have a strange affliction that if you sneak up behind either one of us and shout 'Boo!', then nothing will happen. We'll just turn around and look at you. We don't jump out of our skin – for some reason our panic response has just been turned off. It's quite bizarre. And it's probably one reason why fireworks do nothing for me – they don't make me jump.

Fireworks go bang and so I hear a bang. Big deal. A rocket flies up in the air, explodes, some colours fly out in a spherical pattern and fall to the ground. Marvellous. Now the Northern Lights (which I've seen twice in my life – once in Yorkshire bizarrely) are amazing, awe-inspiring and just plain jaw-dropping. Fireworks by comparison are just irritating.

I remember planning our wedding (well okay, that wasn't me, it was my good lady) and I recall being asked if we wanted fireworks after the ceremony. I just shrugged my shoulders and like the spoilsport that I am said "why would we want to do that?". In retrospect perhaps I should have been a bit more positive, but still, it was £500 saved in the end! So please forgive me if I type up a rant on how annoying fireworks night is for me instead of going out, standing in the cold and hearing people say "wow!" and "weeeee!" as some things go bang and flash.

Bah humbug! Roll on December (which I'll be mostly spending in Australia)! 

Thanks to BT cocking things up and turning off my broadband connection I spent last night completely disconnected from the internet. It was an interesting experience and made me think about how the march of web-based software is making me change where I store my data.

Take Gmail. I love Gmail. Aside from John’s Background Switcher it’s my favourite piece of software and being a heavy emailer I use it extensively. I also store contact details, recipes and all sorts of things on there knowing no matter where I am I can always get at my information. Contrast this with a couple of years ago where I’d have my inbox stored on my computer at home – my contacts in there too, maybe I’d copy them to my work machine or onto a flash drive so I could get to them elsewhere. Hell, maybe I’d print them out and put them in my wallet!

But now Google hosts all this information. A software company. If I’d thought about this possibility a few years ago I’d have been a bit concerned at what they might do with it, whether they’d decide to delete it all on a whim or release all my dodgy conversations with other women to my girlfriend – or blackmail me with that threat. But now it comes to it, I’m strangely indifferent. I don’t subscribe to the “Google can do no wrong” mentality, but by the same token I don’t have a problem with them storing so much personal information. And now I think about it, that’s quite unsettling.

When I read 1984 at school I dreaded the thought of a world where your every action, every move is tracked and scrutinised. I couldn’t imagine how people could live like that. And yet here I am in 2006 in a world much like the one imagined by Orwell. On any given day I’m filmed around 30 times, my every movement is tracked and logged through the mobile phone in my pocket, every call I make is logged and potentially monitored, every credit card transaction I make is recorded. Every email I send, every web page I visit is logged. With access to all that information and more any government agency could virtually get inside my head. And yet none of that bothers me, I just accept it and carry on my life.

Have I been brainwashed into accepting such a scrutinised life? Have I become an automaton who just accept the erosion of his freedom in the name of technological progress and a safer world? Or should I try not to get so paranoid when my net connection is down and enjoy the World Cup instead? I think I should, but maybe that’s what they want me to do… Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you! 😉