Boss Radio

Whether our ancestors knew something we didn't or not I'm not sure, but it seems that the human brain finally finishes 'connecting up' when we reach 21. This means that as far as guys are concerned we're two years past our sexual peak already. Girls on the other hand still have 14 years of knowing just who they are and what they want to wait before they reach their peak. I'm not sure who God was laughing at when he was going over the designs.

What this 21 thing also means is that in most countries of the world we get to vote long before we really know what we're going to want, we can marry years before we know for sure that our partner is the one we're going to desire for the rest of our lives, and girls get an added bonus. They get to get pregnant years before they actually know if they want children, which results in their either having an abortion which they will wish forever that they hadn't had, or give birth to child that they'll blame for ruining their childhood for the rest of the poor sprog's days.

This also explains hippies. No really. Back in the days of the draft all guys spent a couple of years having army, obedience, and the rightness of killing into them. The end of the draft in the UK resulted in a new generation who had nothing to fill those hours with, so they made music. DIY music was big in the UK from the late 50s when UK skiffle just sort of happened, finally reaching a peak of a kind when the former Quarrymen skiffle group became The Beatles and proceeded to conquer the world. Up to this point US kids just accepted that you formed a band, then it broke up while you did military service, came home, got married, and joined the rat-race. This paisley coloured music revolution from over the pond suddenly demonstrated a new direction and the 'Hell no - We won't go' generation was born.

You know what? That's so convincing I almost believe it could be true... If no one comes up with a better explanation in the next 42 minutes I'm going to adopt it.

Meanwhile back at this 'brain becoming fully functioning at 21' thing. I'm thinking this might go some way towards explaining this peculiar seismic shift that we get over here in politics every generation or so. The Conservatives led by the Thatcher sweep to power and can't be shifted for about a decade and a half, apparently supported by a generation of people who just plain don't remember the last time the Cons were in and all the power cuts during 'the winter of discontent'. Then 'New' Labour sweep to power and can't be shifted, supported by a generation who don't remember the last time Labour was in and the raging inflation (Or the offshore radio stations... ). Now it seems the Conservatives are about to be swept back into power by a new generation who don't recall the almost endless depressions, slumps, and burgeoning unemployment under the previous Conservative reign.

The only problem with this whole thing is, I can quite distinctly remember changing my mind about all sorts of things since I was 21. If I've just written a whole blog based upon some stupid theory that's about to be disproved I shall be less than really pleased. I might just have to go out and kill someone.

But don't worry. I'll probably change my mind about that.

Yes it's happened again. America's weather is headed our way. I mean, it's all right for them, they've got a couple of really big countries over there, they can afford a bit of bad weather, but we're a titchy little nation and all their weather just plain swamps us.

Once again on the weather map we're on a line. The whole of the south and most of the west coast are now on red alert, the midlands and the mid-east coast are on an orange alert. We're on the line between them. Does that mean we get no weather at all or that we're going to get both of them? I think we should be told.

Of course we were intending to go shopping tomorrow afternoon which is right when they say the worst of the weather is going to hit, now we're not sure whether to stay right at home or to go anyway on the grounds that everyone else will be at home.

I guess my best bet is to wait and see if the roof slates that have shifted from the eathquake are now going to let the weather in. If they hold up we can go out and if they don't I guess we can get by on breakfast cereal, toast, and potatoes for a day.

Heck, if I'm spending the whole time bailing out I probably won't even notice.

Actually that's all there is to it. The title says it all. Sometime around 1 o'clock this morning England was 'rocked' by an earthquake. At that time I was almost certainly still on the computer, in fact probably in Opera reading blogs, if I wasn't then I would have been cleaning my teeth because I sure wasn't in bed.

When I awoke this morning the news was on and reporting the 'quake. It's not unusual for us to get the occasional shaker, it's what keeps us stable. The plates are constantly grinding, they never get time to build up the resistance to cause a major upheaval. What made this one special was that firstly there had been collateral damage, usually we don't even get that, and secondly, we had our first recorded injury when a chimney fell through the roof and onto the bed of the guy sleeping beneath it. Suddenly I'm glad we got our chimney fixed. Actually the way I figured it we were simply out of the way of the 'quake so chimney or no we were never in any real danger.

When I went downstairs we'd had a 'phone call. Nope, TWO 'phone calls. The first had been at just turned a quarter past one this morning. It was my sister. As the crow flies she's maybe one or two miles away. She was just wondering if we'd felt something, it had woken her up and she thought it might be an earthquake. The second had been about 20 minutes later. She'd checked the 24 hour news and discovered that it was an earthquake and was now really excited, she'd felt her first earthquake!

This just gets stranger and stranger. Since I put the new fans into my computer it's been pretty loud, as is the room heater that I'm using during the cold nights, but the telephone is in the next room. Why hadn't I heard it? And if she'd felt the 'quake, why hadn't I? I went outside to see if any of the neighbours had felt anything, which is when I noticed the holes in the roof...

It seems that we had an earthquake and I was so engrossed in my 'pootering that I not only didn't notice the roof being shaken off, but I didn't hear the telephone ringing to tell me about it either.

I have no fun...

...I don't know what to say...

So the anniversary of Elvis Presley's death is also the 100th birthday of the brassiere. Which to celebrate? Without the pelvis there'd still have been rock'n'roll, but maybe not so much of it. But without the bra there'd still have been boobies, just not quite so well presented. Then again it seems a tad weird to celebrate someone's death...

Fortunately I don't have to choose because today is also another great annual event.

Exam results.

Yes, once again it's that time of year when more kids than ever before get higher marks than ever before and everyone says that exams are getting easier. Everyone except the kids, who of course don't actually have any way of knowing, and the people in charge of the system, who once again wheeled out some old guy to say that "I am really stupid when compared to the geniuses that are the children of today". Well, he doesn't quite put it like that, but that's what it comes down to.

Every year more records are broken. Last year's kids were apparently not as clever as this year's kids, but they were better than the kids of two years ago. The old guy they wheeled out must have been at least 20 years away from his exams, which means that he is twenty generations more stupid than this year's output.

Now I realise that this makes me into a really really stupid individual, but even I can see the flaws in this logic, after all, it's these older stupider generations that are posing the exam questions.

And marking them.

So if they're that dim then they're probably doing it all wrong anyway and the record breaking statistics are completely invalid. Today's kids are just as dim as the rest of us, and in 20 years time they'll be the ones asking the questions and shouting about how clever the generation of the day is.

Meanwhile let's think on this. If your education was completed before decimalisation in Britain, then there were 12d in 1/-, and 20 shillings in £1. There were 16 ounces in 1 lb., and 14 lbs. in a stone. 8 pints in a gallon... I shouldn't need to go on. Exams got easier after decimalisation.

Then came the calculator. They got easier still, especially after calculators were allowed into the exam room. And so it's gone on. Television, computers, the internet, they've all done their bit to make learning easier. To me it's immaterial whether exams have got easier.

Taking them has definitely got easier.