Free Time

It's nice to have some free time. It's nice to relax a little after periods of great stress, and finish off a jigsaw or go for a walk. It's simply nice. The GCSE season is almost over, the last of the OU assessments is done for the academic year, there is no pending election or referendum to try the nerves and sap the concentration, and Quirky Muffin 900 is well in hand.

It's hard to remember what it was that free time was used for back in the old days, before everything erupted into that furore. There was more reading, right, and more of the grand 'Watch Every Disc' project? Yes, that must have been part of it. 'Watch Every Disc' has already kicked back in, with a feast of series spinning around in eccentric DVD rotations. There is 'Lovejoy', 'Dear John', 'The Flintstones', 'Star Trek', 'Taxi', 'Quincy', 'Garfield And Friends', and many more. Never all at once, of course, and sensibly spaced out, but still a great variety of shows. There are surprisingly few duds in the grand collection, which is surprising. 'Supergirl' is proving to be often brilliant in its first season, but with occasionally stupid 'fighty' episodes. Well, we can't have everything.

There are spells of origami to come. There's nothing quite so meditative as folding bits of paper and then frustratedly sticking them together with tape that won't come off your fingers, and then your clothes, and then passing oxygen molecules... Yes, it's a barrel of laughs. By far, the most enjoying geometric origami is the sonobe cube, which is beautifully elegant and very pretty if several colours of paper are employed. Yes, six sonobe pieces make a grand cube. It's recommended.

This has turned into a total load of random nonsense, hasn't it? It's just like the good/weird/orange old days! Any moment now, we might segue into a long spiel on the joys of air conducting to the 'Final Round' track from the soundtrack to 'Real Steel'. Ah, it's a grand movie, all about artistry versus brutality and man's plight in the age of automation. Hopefully, they knew that was what it was about when they were making it, and it wasn't just a robot boxing movie to make money. Hopefully.

Roll on, post nine hundred, you're only ten away. Don't get lost on a country walk, like wellies in a mud wallow.

O.

Adam West, Sometimes Known As The Batman

We don't normally do obituaries here, but this is a special case...

For many people, the demise of Adam West is the same as the death of Batman. They were intertwined and interchangeable. Despite the lunacy of the television show, if you had to choose a Batman to help you out of a spot, it would be Adam West who would pop into your mind. He WAS Batman, and he will be missed.

Despite the immense popularity of 'Batman', Adam West never really managed to move on from the connection to the cowl, and it's a shame. It wasn't just stereotyping at work, though, as no-one made it out of the 1960s into the 1970s as a television lead. The cull was comprehensive, and only with five to ten years of exile did any regulars make it back to work at all. Several generations of actors binned in one fell swoop meant West, Shatner, Don Adams, Richard Basehart, Bob Denver and anyone else you can remember vanished into lives of obscurity.

Adam West was an interesting actor. It was shocking to see him appear in 'Maverick', years before 'Batman', and actually play a convincing role as an ambiguous/villainous cowboy. He did it well, unbelievably! A nuanced performance! Then, with the hideously delayed DVD release of 'Batman', the series not the movie, we finally got to see the full scope of his performance and realised that he was an incredibly smart actor. He was playing impossible material almost perfectly, and which no-one else could possibly have done as well with. He was perfect, brilliantly paced, and the show would have been a hopeless mess without him, even with that magnificent rogue's gallery of special guest villains.

After 'Batman', Adam West struggled, but he eventually made a comeback by playing... Adam West? He became a voice actor, a cult hero, and a legend.

Go in peace, Adam West, you made the world a better and weirder place.

O.

Story Idea: Schrödinger's Window

It's entirely possible that the kitchen window can see through time. The view outside never seems to be exactly the same as when I look out through the back door or out the front. It's subtly different, and a little eerie. Could it be the outside from half an hour ago, or thirty minutes from now? Could it? Why does it sometimes look so drizzly through there even on clear days? What is the secret?

It doesn't always function like a time window. Sometimes people go outside and look back in through it. It could be a quantum effect. It could be something to do with Schrödinger's Cat. Maybe if you observe the window from both sides, it collapses down to a single time stream? That would explain the squirrels.

Oh, I haven't mentioned the squirrels yet! We named them Flip and Scoot, and they ramble around quite happily, but they were never there when we peeked out the door. Now, you might claim that is a natural consequence of the animals' superhuman reflexes, but would that account for the nuts suddenly not strewn about the ground, or the burning paw marks on the roof? Something was definitely afoot! In this case something was afoot at least eight times over! Sometimes the kids claim the squirrels did song and dance numbers, but they may have been inspired by cartoons and their imaginations.

In the spirit of curiosity, and of investigating potential damage to resale value, we invited in a scientific team to investigate. The results were... unexpected...

Possibly to be continued. One day.

The General Election Of 2017

The campaigns are virtually over, and now it's pretty much all over except for the most important part: The oft-mentioned interlude with the blunt pencil tied to the wall. Will enough people learn how to make a cross in a box to make a difference? It will be a tough call, especially in the current political climate of utter idiocy. It's entirely possible, with even a vague pretence at impartiality thrown away, that a party that hates governance will be kept in government to asset strip the whole country and spout venom at every opportunity. It might be a good idea to avoid that, if we can. Yes, people of the United Kingdom, you could try voting for any party that doesn't actually hate the idea of government. Please. Pretty please. You know it makes sense.

Yes, the general election is upon us, which means that we will be free of this hate-fuelled government campaign. It has reached a new low this time, beating the dismal and poisonously negative 'remain' campaign in the referendum. You wouldn't believe that that new low would be possible, unless you had perhaps been exposed to some of the attack adverts in US elections. It is utterly amazing that the apparently saintly opposition leader that is Jeremy Corbyn hasn't been trampled into mud far over his head, but he has made it. How can you doubt a Gandhi Peace Prize winner who was pivotal in establishing the peace in Northern Ireland? There will be a credible opposition ideology next time, if they don't win this time, and the next election will surely not be in five years time if they don't win. It will almost certainly be a lot sooner...

However, that is not the most important aspect of the eighth of June, as five of my brave and determined students will be going in for their second maths GCSE papers of the season. For some, it will mark the end of their maths education and exams, but others will still have two more to go and perhaps courses after that. They are brave souls indeed, and to be commended. It's a nervous time for students, parents and even their slightly barmy tutors! They will do well, given all the work they've done.

Beware the mistakes made under tension. It's easy to do rash things in the aftermath of an atrocity, but far smarter to do the deliberate and better thing. After tomorrow, with a clear mind after a conscientious vote, it will be time to cast gloominess to the winds and go back to full barminess. There was an idea for a story about a detective called Inspector Badger, which could be entirely stupid in every way. Excellent...

O.

Note: It would be nice to live in a country where it isn't considered weird to not want to start a nuclear war. Let's make that something to aim for.

Note: No more politics, hurrah! (Unless something miraculous happens in the next couple of days!)

The Unlikely Crescendo

While wandering around in the rain, in the line of duty, many different thoughts started spinning around in the mind behind the Quirky Muffin, while backed by an imaginary recreation of the pivotal music from the movie 'Real Steel'. For one thing, why is cotton wool fluffy? Is it spun super fine, or treated in some special way? Would it be possible to make up a story about a knight dedicated to non-violence, or would it be too similar in scope to 'The Ninja Of Health'? Is walking in the rain fun because you get to interact more with your own medium as it's partly aqueous instead of wholly gaseous? Some of them are very good questions!

Questions, questions, questions. Sometimes the only things that come to mind are questions. It would be nice if you could get only answers on some of the other days. Maybe in parallel universe 3C, you only get answers. Then, if counterparts come together, they could answer most of the lesser questions of the day. Some of the answers might even be '42', prompting much speculation on the nature of the Universe. On the other hand, this might all be pointless drivel being pumped out by someone who doesn't have any idea what's going on!

The rain continues, and continues, shedding droplets of joy. Rain is nice. Yes, it is good to occasionally get a blue patch of sky, but my heart lies with the grand old precipitation. This water has been circulating the planet for millennia, or frozen into polar ice. Unbelievably, the most mutable of elements is also amongst the most venerable and enduring. Water is water, no matter what it's combined into, while rock and earth go through all kinds of diverse metamorphoses, and fire in transient and never lasts.

If you stop to think about how long water has been recycling through its system, you can become overwhelmed by the sheer ancientness of it all. If all the world is but a stage, then the rain is its applause, sometimes and pittering and pattering, and sometimes reaching a crescendo undreamed of by the planet itself. It's also a great medium through which to have a nice walk, and a song and dance, but that's not a new revelation!

O.

Television: 'Star Trek: The City On The Edge Of Forever' (Episode 1x28) (1967)

It's widely regarded as the best episode of 'Star Trek', and critically adored, but I don't really like it that much. It's the odd duck of the series, or at least an odder duck amongst the extremely erratic team. (Yes, the collective noun for ducks is 'team'. Who would have guessed it?)

'The City On The Edge Of Forever', or 'City' for short, is a time travel episode inspired by or adapted from the award winning teleplay submitted by science fiction legend Harlan Ellison. It's certainly a fine hour of television, but it's not exactly an hour of 'Star Trek'. There is no connecting to it in the same way you might connect to 'The Corbomite Manever', 'By Any Other Name' or even 'For The World Is Hollow, But I Have Touched The Sky'. It's different enough from every other episode to be a unique experience and slightly offputting. Sometimes it looks so much like a period drama as to be an entirely different show, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

In 'City', McCoy is accidentally dosed with an unpredictable medicine, prompting him to leap through a time portal on a newly discovered planet while paranoiacally escaping his pursuers, his friends from the Enterprise. The whole timeline of the galaxy away from the portal changes as a result, and so Kirk's landing party is stranded on the planet's surface, with no hope of rescue from the Enterprise or the Federation that no longer exist. Eventually, Kirk and Spock go back in time too, to counteract McCoy's accidental meddling, but the price they have to pay may be greater than anyone would have predicted.

It's a sumptuous episode, with oodles of spent money on production, extras, special effects and wardrobe. It couldn't possibly be better on any measurable visual standpoint. Some of the distance shots of the Guardian of Forever are spectacular even now. The writing, direction and photography are good too. It's a five star production, adored by the 'Star Trek' audience. Why don't I particularly like it? Ultimately, it's not quite a 'Star Trek' story. We spend lots of time with only Kirk and Spock from the regular characters, there is only five minutes of the Enterprise, and there's no sense of urgency in the past, as Kirk and Spock take days and days waiting for things to happen. All of these aspects pop up in other episodes too, but somehow here a distancing occurs. After a few moments of thought, the term 'harsh and unforgiving' pops into mind. Yes, that's what it is.

Correcting problems in time requires harsh and unforgiving sacrifices, and Kirk makes his with great nobility and great pain. The much more Trek-like 'Tomorrow Is Yesterday' functions as a far better episode, with levity galore. 'City' is drama in the grand and usually dour tradition of the time, from which 'Star Trek' usually worked to escape. Perhaps that's it. No, that is entirely it. That's the sticking point. In order to make 'The City On The Edge Of Forever', the series has to defeat itself and go back to the roots of the drama of the time. Poor Kirk, heartbroken in the space of a week that never happened. He really did need to get out of there.

Recommended but definitely atypical.

O.

Eight Hundred And Eighty Six

One week to go until the general election, and then finally the tension will dissolve. Three major votes in three years is quite a lot for any country to handle! Thankfully, it's almost over. What an odd election it is, but still somehow exciting.

Quirky Muffin 900 is fast approaching, and preparations are well underway. It will be a very, very long post. It has to be, as it's a compilation, but a compilation of what? It's a secret. Will anyone even notice? Is the world made of cheese? It will be nice, in any case, a fitting moment. The thousandth post, on the other hand, remains a complete mystery even to its eventual writer. A thousand seems a significant number, doesn't it? At least we won't have to worry about it here for a while!

Significant numbers... The most significant number to all of us is not one we thing about very often. One thing I say to every new student is that our system is based on the super-useful number ten because of one simple fact: We have ten digits on our hands. I don't know if it's true or not, but it is credible. We count in tens because we could always count in tens easily. It's habitual. It's miraculous that there have been societies that didn't use tens! The Babylonians had a numeral system based in on the number sixty somehow, for goodness sake!

My work as a tutor is almost entirely done if I can get a student to understand that it's all about tens. Yes, at older ages, algebra and statistics become important, but it all stems from tens. Despite all that, it is entirely possible to use a different number system. There's no reason not to, except for convention. Convention rules over all, and if you suggest something different, people look at you as if you're insane. Why not build the jigsaw from the inside out? It's not madness! Why not count in thirteens? It's not impossible. What if we would?

What if we would?

O.

PS The Mayan numeral system is so pretty...