Peter Rhodes on fake news, copycat balloons and creepy pronouns
The more the story of spy-balloons develops, the more convinced I become that these objects have been floating above us for years – and nobody's noticed.
Once they are noticed, and destroyed, how many geeks, creeps and assorted weirdos can't resist the temptation to buy an army-surplus weather balloon, fill it with helium and send it aloft, just for the thrill of seeing it brought down by a Sidewinder missile? Every sort of crime has its copycat spin-offs.
According to a survey, the public is getting increasingly irritated with companies showing off their woke credentials. One source of annoyance is employees being requested to sign themselves with their preferred pronouns as in “Joe Bloggs he/him/his” or “Sally Bloggs they/them/theirs.” Frankly, I find it more than irritating. It's plain creepy. Since when did it become acceptable to force, or even to ask, employees to display their gender (and, in some cases by implication, their sexual preferences) on emails and letter headings? It is an intrusion into private lives and the sooner it falls out of fashion, the better.
Tales from the NHS. A reader tells how he came to the top of the waiting list and finally got to see a consultant who asked what the problem was (a couple of small cysts on the hand) followed by some basic questions. Was the patient sleeping well, were his bowel movements okay and did he have any dizzy spells? Thus briefed, the consultant admitted he didn't know quite what to do with the cysts “because I'm an intestinal surgeon.” Wrong patient, wrong consultant, wrong appointment. And back to the waiting list . . .
Dinosaur with Stephen Fry (C5) shows the great man apparently walking with a 30-ton diplodocus. This is computer-generated imagery at its best. It is also a wake-up call, because the technology that recreates dinosaurs for entertainment is capable of almost anything, for much darker purposes.
Thus, one morning in 2024, you switch on your TV to see Keir Starmer conceding defeat after the next General Election. Vladimir Putin claims victory in Ukraine, where President Zelenskyy is seen abjectly admitting defeat. What is truth and what is deep fakery? According to an old saying, the camera cannot lie. Don't believe a word of it.
