Dr Colin Pillinger's sexual escapades

Disclaimer: this is intended as a fair/fictional comment and any names are used as solely to exemplify the issue: Dr Pillinger here stands for any famous scientist and Abi Titmuss/Jordan ... any page three girl. The intention is not to portray neither Dr Pillinger, Ms Titmuss or Mrs Jordan (or even "Daily Star'', for that matter) in offensive manner, even though this piece can be considered critical in nature. If any of the aforementioned (or their lawyers) find this piece offensive please email a comment to the blog and I will as soon as possible consider if any alterations are necessary on the merits of the comment.

I know. The headline of this piece might come across weird, risks me being considered even weirder and dooms this blog to the corners of cyberspace unknown to man, to the eerie interstellar space of ones and zeros without any readers . And even worse, to be shunned and avoided in my workplace. So please, don't stop reading quite yet, give me a chance to explain.*

After all, I am just fulfilling my promises, something I have told you.

Remember me promising to write down any good ideas if I get them? Well, this is one. (Where is the applause?) This idea in fact came to me when I couldn't get sleep and was thinking of you, dear readers, how to not only entertain but also to inform you (believe it or not) in a relatively... maybe unconventional ... way.

First things first. Dr Colin Pillinger is the mastermind behind a sophisticated scientific project that was supposed to land a probe (Beagle 2) on Mars (no, not Venus. But the shuttle will land there as well, metaphorically at least, just read on) . A cool probe that was supposed to roam the unknown contours of his subject and bring home excitement, scientific evidence in a way no man had achieved before.

How sexy is that?

Unfortunately the mission lead by Dr Pillinger failed. No one is quite sure why. Especially not the dailystar-tabloidy-type of journalists to whom canyons and valleys are synonyms to "birds' cleavages", if anything). They did not care. So who would care of "ordinary science", everyday laboratory work, if missions as sexy as this failed to properly excite the hard men of the press.

This has to be changed. That is why I am all for Dr Pillinger's wet dreams (in fact, I am dreaming them for him). Nonetheless, they must became true!

In order to do this, to get millions of funding, fame and fortune and happiness, Dr Pillinger must beat the page three girls. Admittedly, he cannot beat them on their own, very earthly "dale sided by two hills" territory. He needs something bit more high-fly for that.

I am not sure if topics "Dr Colin probes Abi Titmuss (too difficult to find a website not needing censorship) for scientific findings" (hint: look the photo art of the piece and let your imagination fly and you might just notice something) would do that either, not that I would suspect at all that Dr Pillinger could not easily discover a thing or two about this subject.

A most capable man, but unlucky in his pursuit of scientific magnificence in his last go.

But now let's hit the magic button here not to prolong the excitement. The point I am trying to touch here is that everyone, Tony Blair and Tessa Jowell included, are moaning together that science is not pulling enough people; in folk language, is simply not sexy enough. The strategic curve points downwards, the breeding numbers of new scientists are too low.

But as most good solutions, the solution to this problem is simple. Blind-droolingly obvious. The "magic"potion of sex.

Science must be made sexy, to be desired for, and what better way to do it than to use ... science. Using its very own tricks, plastic surgery and voila .. Dr Pillingers will be not only of doctors of philosophy but also - at least - Masters of Seduction.

Imagine Daily-Star drooling about headlines such as "Jordan: I dumped Peter for a ride on Doctor (not Strangelove) Telescopian's magic shuttle." How (male) readers would like to be in Dr Pillinger's (or excuseme the phrase, get out of his pants), knowingly winking at the thought of Jordan's shuttle ride. (Of course: it could be a female scientist for whom Peter would dump Jordan - to experience the magic of science [referee's note: In all likelihood, a female scientist would be too intelligent to consider Peter worthy a so-called 'ride'])

Let's figh celebrity centred publicity with its own weapons, let (us: I do have a science degree as well) all scientists revolt! Anyway it doesn't take too long to engage in audacious romps - it's all about time management and planning - surely being a scientist and, ehm, being an eye-catching celebrity can be combined!

In this way everyone would like to be scientist. And the world a better place to live.

The (happy) End of the modern fairytale. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental. Honestly. This was result of lateral thinking. Done with a clear, sober, albeit very tired mind.

*I will write about more serious matters in the future as well. I hope you, dear readers, will consider each piece by its own merits (if there are any ...)

The abysses of Amazon

As I wrote in the teaser email, I am about to tell a tale of how a beard (mine) and a certain rainforest (Amazon) are kind of weirdly interlinked.

Some of you know that I am sporting a new look, a beard. Not so many of you know that it is mostly by accident and thanks to Amazon (thanks by the way for the positive comments about the beard, I am not going to destroy it completely now).

But let me get into the roots of the ...beard.

Amazon here stands for Amazon.co.uk. I braved my way there (from my comfy room, admittedly) after the electricity cord to my Philishave mysteriously disappeared over a month ago (not even our house cat managed to find it).

As my shaver was rather old, I thought why not buy a new one anyway as the blades to the old one needed changing soon anyway. And having order from Amazon with success before, after a bit of googling I decided to go for it.

Panasonic ES7016 would be it. Why? Ideally I would say that as suitable for adventurous Amazon goer, I was boldly going for something that, well, at least I not gone for before. (Braun and Phillips had been conquered and mastered before, anyway)

But I have to admit as an educated consumer (I encounter a certain consumer agony aunt in my job nearly weekly) I had acquainted myself with Which? online. Panasonic was by far the cheapest of the electric shavers that achieved any success in their test (they are properly tough, these Which? people!).

So, to Amazon I went. The holy grail did I spot. And I ordered it (October 4). Only a little later, at the deliver tracker it struck me. Delivery estimate: 18 Oct 2005 - 27 Oct 2005. Panicking, I decided to wait and see. Luckily before my nervousness reached unbearable I level, got some compliments for the beard (the epilogue at the end should explain a bit why i should panic)

Great. I would wait (Admittedly, those home-barber kits make bearable emergency beard trimmers)

But after hearing comments of my looks starting to resemble a Russian or an Orthodox Jew, I became aware some trimming might be ... convenient.

Then I got a shocking email. Your delivery has been delayed by one to two weeks. This sounded more like stone-age than online-age.

It was time to investigate. Telling my flatmate of the experience seemed a good start. "I know Amazon has been selling books that don't even exist," was not excactly the answer I wanted to hear. Somehow they have ended up there even though the book-projects had been scrapped before publishing, even the "authors" unaware of their existence, he told me.

Could this be true? A quick check to the manufacturers's website only tells about Panasonic ES7026. More inter net searches tell me that no one else is selling this model in the web. Even more alarmingly, Amazon was selling ES7026 as well and promised prompt delivery.

Hastily I cancelled my earlier order and changed it to dor this fantastic new model. But felt a bit annoyed. All my correspondence with Amazon was obviously automated and there was no guarantee how many more "delivery delay" emails I could have received unless realsiing myself what was going on.

This adventure has a happy ending though. Sorting my way out of the jungle, I found shavers.co.uk. Order in Otober 24, delivery October 26. Saving of 5 quid compared to Amazon, and free nose hair trimmer on top (sorry for any lady readers, I did not request it, it was just added as a freebie so i guess should mention it). Being as ecstatic as I am, I say: "This Nottingham-based company turned out to be my Robin Hood!"

I cannot tell anything of the quality of the shave yet, as the shaver is charging now. But I will be back..

The learning of the story: sometimes the solution is nearer home (terminologically at least) than you might expect, this time at Nottingham. But in this online era we sometimes know faraway places better than - more modest UK online stores?

Epilogue: as it would have kind od spoilt the adventurous element og my shaver-shopping, I left it late to explain why didn't I go for the "best a man can get" (I am not saying the brand: if it comes to your mind instantly, you are a co-victim of commercialisation). Simply because no matter if I use the top-of-the-range superturbomachoexcel model, I cut wounds to my face, even if my head could not be seen under the cloud of shaving foam.

Teen-rage London

Heard through the grape wine.

A bloke of 14 decides that his knee should have close contact with his mate's head in the bus on the way to school. The reason: the bloke had made a girl his junior pregnant and this mate was not known for his ability to keep secrets. Hence an attempt to "persuade" him.

Also in the picture. The aunt of the girl, 12, took her to an abortion. Her mother did not know
anything of the whole, well, affair.

In London teachers face hard life, especially in special schools where they have real life "unteachables" without any reassuring TV cameras. Every working day.

Later in the day, the bloke who got beat in the bus decided to attack another bloke in the class. Follows his expulsion from the school.

What were those vicious self-perpetuating circles again?

This is a true story.

As are pupils wearing electronic tags as they are on Asbos or casual threats to "take care of" teachers.

The new laws allowing teachers to physically maintain control in class rooms can sound being properly "tough on yobs" and thus sensible solution. But many teachers are not equipped with the physique of action-film style security guards and "kids" burly youths. There is not always a male tacher in shining armour riding to their rescue from the neighbouring class room.

And the phenomenon of so called happy-slapping where usually physical abuse of someone is filmed with a mobile phoe? My source told me about that months before the issue was written about in the national press.

It is good to keep things in perspective though, I think. Happy-slapping is a particularly obnoxious type of behaviour but people have beaten each other long before mobile phones with videoing capability. It's a fad that will come and go. And some boasted about what they have done. Now there is just a medium for them to enhance their image of "toughness" in the eyes of others - especially if the others obligingly ogle the sufferings of victims' on their mobiles.

Obivously happy slapping and any other kind of activity which involves beating innocent people should not be allowed. But it is a totally different thing to claim that mobile phones with videoing capability would accullyinstigate violence themselves.

Already when I was at school in Finland ages ago (read about 15 years) , there were apparently videos available where real people were tortured and killed, before extreme terrorists or so. I did never want to see any so I am not absolutely sure if it was true. But video cassettes were changing hands.

One of the guys talking about these is now a policeman.

Draw your own conclusions.

Finnishman returns

Back in a new home, to express my freedom of speech. Due to popular demand (thank you for your kind words, I will buy you next time in the pub). To go to my previous home click here. You might also be interested to to learn about the Internet lie detector.

It would be tempting to say that my battle with the car rental company took so much effort that I haven't been able to sleep, let alone write a blog. But of course it's not true.

Actually I am kind of proud to continue the blog, to show it was not just flirting with something new and exciting and then getting bored and dumping it.

Actually, I have a couple of times had great subjects (i thought they were so, anyway) to write about but they never made it into cyber space due to various excuses. And to make it worse, I have forgotten most of them. One of the few actually useful tips I have heard is to always carry a notebook with you and when you have a good idea write it down there.

I will from now on. I want you to be able to ... savour these ideas and create an illusion I am in your service 24 hours a day. Not only on moments like this when I am desperately trying to come up with something witty and worth reading about for my first blog entry.

I try to be more consistent writer this time. I have even some quirky snippet type of series in mind (or i had, i admit i forgot to write them down ... next time i will).

Oct 23

The day started well. Our ex-landlord called and told we can get our deposits back tomorrow (after nearly two months after moving out it's about time, really) thanks to a nice customer servant of npower who left a voicemail to him saying we have paid the gas bill and thus all our bills at that address. Fantastic.

But then it was a bit downhill, really. Don't worry, you will get a painfully detailed account why.

I had given away my regular Sat daytime workshift to see Norwich City play Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road.

I had seen the canaries play live four times previously and every time the result had been a draw. Not necessarily a bore one, as the scorelines 1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 3-3 might suggest. This time I was hoping for them to ... maybe actually win. OK, the previous match had gone all but well (at Luton, 4-2 defeat) but at least we had clawed two goals back from an abysmal half-fime scoreline of 4-0 against a team that last season was two divisions below us. And the pundits are singing their praises of how good team we supposedly are, after all. Robert Green, England goalie, Dean Ashton, maybe the best striker in the division being prime examples of quality players.

How wrong was I.

"I went to football-stadiun called Loftus Road with me mates. I sat on a bench to see my team Norwich City play football. I was really looking forward to it as watching foorball makes me happy. But QPR got a first chance. QPR scores. QPR gets second chance. QPR scores. Queens Park Rangers means QPR. They must make the Queen very happy, I think, when she watches their resuults.

Our players were pointing their fingers at other of our players when we let in too many goals. We let in three goals. This time I was not happy to watching my team play. Our players did not play very well. Dean Ashton played ok. I hope everything will get better soon. I dont want be sad when I watch me team play."
THE END
-Willie Birdman


Schoolboy errors. Our game was full of those.

I sent a desperate text to some friends saying I will walk to Norwich at the end of the season if we get promoted. Why am I so convinced it won't happen?

After all, it is early days, I know. And some of our players and pundits keep singing (pun intended) their praises on how "we are the best team in the division". The truth is we seem (and sound) out of tune, badly. Just imagine a chorus of pundits singing ... ok, a whisky basso might hit the right note at times but ...

Won 4, drawn 4 and lost 7.

Basically we could not lose a match all season anymore to get a straight promotion which I can't really see happening. Our goalie should be great: after all he is to my understanding the only non-Premier league player in the England squad (or then it is a sign of having particularly mediocre goalies for Englad at the moment).

Whatever the reason, we have conceded 23 goals this season. Sheffield United and Reading, the two top teams, have combined conceded fewer (21). Needless to say that their strikers are hitting the target better than ours' and, well, both of them are about 20 points ahead of us.

A good rule of thumb in football is that if you put together a great run, you may catch other teams 1 point per match - which requires they are not doing particularly well.

As all armchair managers, I have been able to spot the problem with my team through ingenius analysis.

My inner armchair analyst tells me that the reason is ... our central defence. Craig Fleming, fantastic servant for the club and long-time captain, is not at the age of 34 a man he used to be and not a player for the future. Gary Doherty, £1M signing from Spurs .. don't get me started with him. To his credit, he wins a lots of headers. And, he wins a lot of headers. His minuses. Let's not get too wordy here...

Let me put it another way. QPR substitute central defender George Santos came on the pitch and scored a half-volley with his practically first touch for QPR's third. On one hand it tells it was "just one of those days" when nothing goes your way for Norwich. On the other: we do not have that kind of class on the pitch from the start. Especially in defence. And QPR are not exactly red hot favourites for promotion.

We had the best player on the pitch - no matter what coloured glasses were you watching through - in Dean Ashton but how long will he play for us?

Luckily there was the half-time entertainment. Normally I don't pay attention to it but this time I was so shocked at our abject display that seeing grown up men spinning themselves around a pole several times and - their heads spinning - stumbling to shoot a penalty kick to a goal guarded by QPR mascot actually made me laugh. Although it was a young girl who deservedly won it, placing her shot more accurately than our players apart from Ashton did.. It was that bad, really.

At the end of the match there was a one man pitch invasion in which a bloke (a surprisingly well-clad wanker) ran onto the pitch to walk on his hands in the centre circle. Bravo.

Read more here .

Prologue

At the end of last season, we went into the final game knowing a win would guarantee one more season of Premiership. We had among others beaten Manchester United in a mazy run that clawed us back from deep down, the abyss of position twenty among twenty teams.

We lost 6-0. Were absolutely trashed and smashed. Everything good achieved went out of the window. The team was Fulham. With nothing to play for.

At the end of the day ...

I won a game of scrabble to end the day ... on a bit higher note. (if you have to know, the winning word was "squit" - Collins dictionary, 9th edition). Dictionaries really come in handy when you play in English as there are words galore in this great language.

PS. I do not intend to engage in lengthy rants about Norwich City in the column in the future. But I do hope this shows I care about the club as I have cared for over 15 years. Yess, it's weird. I am a Finnishman. There should be no reason to sing praises of a rather obscure football team from the middle of East Anglian countryside. But I do. Especially when the time for praises will arrive. I believe it will but when ... cannot tell now. Until that through thick and thin ... and too many witty headlines about the quality of the singing and flying abilities of this certain bird species. Well, at least something remains constant ...

I will be back, latest next Wed