spiffingwheeze

Felix Baumgartner’s spectacular tumble to earth, breaking the sound barrier was a bigger breakthrough than is widely understood.

Behind the jolly facade of breaking a record for falling to earth from a giant rubber johnny full of helium on the edge of space lies a dark secret…

Felix was the test pilot for the first real spacesuit, in a very public trial.

Now that the technology has been proved, statements are being prepared to the effect that the moon landings and all that grainy space footage stuff was all a bit of a wheeze.

This is as far as we’ve gone folks. But now we have a working spacesuit… Time for a rocket!

It was all started by the USSR when they pretended to fire a man into orbit, and was then topped out in a game of tit-for-tat bullshit by the USA with the pretend moon landings.

All of this before people had digital watches… Think about it.

Anyway, once both sides got started, it was all a bit difficult to back down, and so the superpowers publicly fronted up to each other like two piss-heads in a pub who can’t stop talking horse shit. “Go on, punch me in the stomach”. “My old man was a bare knuckle boxer” and so on.

Having come to a mutual agreement that they’d carry on spinning the yarn, whilst spending the money allegedly poured into  the space programmes on ever bigger fireworks for their nuclear arsenals, the ruse continued. And so lots of actors pretending to be astronauts ended up wobbling around on sets in the Nevada desert wearing suits that would have had difficulty keeping a fart in, let alone the vacuum of space at bay.

Until now.

Another interesting point was that apparently, Felix Baumgartner was chosen because he is medically unable to swear, thereby negating the need for the innocent public to endure 2 minutes of somebody screaming “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” as  he hurtled to Earth.

I’m not a huge sports fan, but even I enjoyed some bits of the recent 2012 London Olympics. But mostly I actually enjoyed the Paralympics.

Now there’s this big scandal regarding Lance Armstrong, and his apparently sophisticated, and successful doping programme. Well, not totally successful obviously, as he has been found out.

What I’m wondering is: Should there be an arena for sports where “Anything goes”.

It may be a lot more interesting to watch.

Limbering up for the next alternative Olympics?

Imagine: Win at any cost. You want to take steroids? Go for it. You want to have some technology medically implanted? To the Frankenstein laboratory!

Want to enter a sprint or jumping competition with some of those funky prosthetic leg thingamies, even though there’s nothing wrong with yours? You’re on!

Springs for knees? Do it.

Remove your ears for streamlining purposes? Of course.

Genetically modify yourself so you have giraffe legs? Bravo Sir!

In this way, through a technology and bio engineering race, and maybe via some horrific accidents, mutations and inadvertent creation of comic-book monsters, it might speed up our evolution to a race of kick-ass cyborgs.

Current limp wristed thinking that restricts the use of certain equipment in cycling, or what an athlete can eat, or the technology that is allowed to be used in F1 is just slowing us down.

Look back to the early 80’s and the days of the Group B rally spec, where teams of lunatic engineers, were making cars super extreme, modifying them into supercars capable of tearing around on gravel at speeds that would make an F1 driver shake. Piloted by drivers with conkers made of steel. OK there were some enormous accidents with fatal consequences, but that’s all part of the gamble. But the killjoys extinguished group B. If they hadn’t we’d all probably have cars by now that can do 200mph up a steep incline with the aircon on, and the 48 speaker stereo going full tilt, with a million airbags, still getting 200 MPG, as a result of their trailblazing.

No progress without pain.

So bring it on. I want to watch an alternative to the Olympics full of super-hero freaks sticking two fingers up to the laws of physics, and prudish common sense and “fair play”.

Well, this one will be a little bit of a tricky topic to begin with, so read carefully before ranting.

Another tricky job for the Ministry Of Truth…

The simple fact is that one of the big news stories of the moment is the Jimmy Savile (not to be a Sir for long, I’m certain) story.

The police investigation doesn’t seem to have really started yet. But from the media feedback, I think the direction it’s going in is pretty clear. After all, it’s not often you get a spokesperson standing up in front of a camera and describing the person under investigation as a “sexual predator” with some conviction.

But

what I’d like to concentrate on is this:

Is there a trend towards completely expunging people such as The late Jimmy Savile from history?

Already, his gravestone has been secreted away in the night to be scrapped, a road named after him in Scarborough has had the signs changed. A freshly defaced plaque to him in Leeds has been removed. And a statue in Glasgow has been removed.

Fair enough. Nobody wants to glorify the memory of someone who wasn’t what they seemed (allegedly, pending investigation etc).

So, the physical reminders have been hastily removed. Well, bar the grave itself that was top-filled with concrete. (Oh dear, I’m starting to wonder why).

However:  What about the hours and hours of video of this man? Do you carry on, removing all evidence, and banning the airplay of anything that ever featured him? Forgetting what he may or may not have been guilty of, he was a prominent feature in shows of his time – Top Of The Pops, Radio 1, Jim’ll fix it etc. Do you banish it all? Leaving only  a moving target of mash-ups of questionable-taste jokes on the likes of YouTube for people to guffaw about him.

So what happens? Is it akin to the work of the Ministry Of Truth in Orwell’s 1984, where history is literally re-written as we go along, so that a new version of the truth is quickly put in place, and all evidence of the previous version is modified or erased? Will there be future showings of the cub scouts on the rollercoaster eating doughnuts, only with large swathes of the programme surrounding it gone, and no mention of the show itself. “This clip was brought to you by (Censored: Somebody we can never mention again) ‘ll fix it.”

The whole episode saddens me. And people that take advantage of their positions of power to do anything untoward to children deserve to be vilified. If (post proper investigation) it is proved that he was every bit as bad as the case building daily in the media, as I think it probably will, then that’s that.

But to erase someone from history completely, is in itself a worrying thing to do.

If he’s guilty then he should be remembered for what he did – the BAD as well. He should not just be “disappeared” from history. A difficult thing to do.

Hello there. Started 4 Oct 2012.

Kind of an experiment.

Let’s see what happens.