Fingers to the Keyboard: 2000 - 2014

Fingers to the Keyboard: 2000 - 2014

Ben Bennetts

Summary

In-between writing ‘proper’ books, the author often dashes off an essay on anything that amuses him or otherwise catches his attention. Fingers to the Keyboard is an eclectic mix and collection of these essays on topics such as the stupidity of politicians, the idiosyncrasies of English grammar, the baiting of scammers, the trials and tribulations of being hard of hearing, commentaries on various sports, religious extremism, the beauty of mathematics, film and book reviews, and a miscellany of grumpy old man moans and groans.

Copyright © 2014, ‘Ben’ Bennetts

Published by Atheos Books at Smashwords

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment. The e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please buy an extra copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not buy it, or it was not bought for your use only, then please return to the retailer and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders of material, textual and graphic, quoted or otherwise used in this book. Any omissions will be acknowledged and included in future editions if application is made in writing or by e-mail to the author.

ISBN 978-0-9573218-5-4

Front cover: author’s fingers on the keyboard, photographed by Mark Bennetts.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to family and friends who put up with me bombarding them with unwanted polemics, diatribes and rants and who, sometimes, commented back either in agreement or disagreement.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Your starter for ten

Skyfall film review

BOGOF and what to do about it

Really, actually

Where did the other £1 go?

Comment on Gary McKinnon’s extradition reprieve

Polemics, Diatribes and Rants 1

British Airways complaint

A Happy 2011 New Year to you all

Bournemouth Airport complaint

Alan Milburn’s off his rocker

On celebrity endorsement of products

English Grammar

Six basic rules for writing good English

On being a pedant

Abolish the apostrophe!

Is the apostrophe a punctuation mark?

The death of the comma?

Hard-of-Hearing Articles

The Mum of Modern Tart

Walking in silence but not in solitude

Tips of the month: 1, 2, 3, 4

The sound of music

Batteries on the blink

Book and Film Reviews

Wolf Hall book review

22 Bullets film review

Trekking in Ladakh book review

Armour film review

Alone in Antarctica book review

Walker’s Anthology book review

Polemics, Diatribes and Rants 2

Reflections on a Royal wedding

Google, Starbucks and Amazon

Hoax call and suicide

Middle lane hoggers

End of year messages

Mystery Solved (Simple Maths)

The twelve pennies problem

Brothers and sisters

Monty Hall Paradox

Regifting Robin solution

Think of a number from 1 to 10

Religion

Pope’s Thought For The Day message

Michael Gove’s Bible distribution

Response to the Shafia murders

Response to the Warsi article

Burning of God

Miscellaneous

What did I do?

On the nature of fitness tests

Brewdog beer tasting notes

All part of life’s rich tapestry

Ten things I have never done

Last Byte article

Cornish pasty recipe

Viagra report

Young fingers to the keyboard

Baiting the Scammers

Prologue

Typical AFF scenario

The players

Bad grammar

Photos and ID

Don’t ask questions

Locating the scammer

The end of Arthur and Martha

Polemics, Diatribes and Rants 3

Useless statistics

British Telecom complaint

What is a bigot?

My thoughts on social networks

Tesco Saver complaint

Smoking in cars

Sugar in beer

Sport

Watching rugby on TV

Wales versus France Rugby World Cup 2011

Wimbledon Men’s Final 2012

Some random thoughts on the London Olympic Games 2012

Postscript: Punctuation Oddity

Acknowledgement

About the Author

Other Books

Introduction

Politicians are elected on solemn promises, and then do nothing. Church leaders make fiery statements from within opulent palaces and with no concern or understanding of the real world. Petty officials confide and collude in stupid regulations designed to make our lives a misery. Legislators propose new laws and other restrictions without realising that such rules are unenforceable or even unnecessary. Those who uphold and take care of the English language are derided and, in many cases, ignored. The antics of the British Royal Family, perceived by many to be the ultimate benefit scroungers, still attract front page headlines. Sport is no longer sport; it’s a massive money-making machine with some participants in-line to make obscene amounts of money. And so it goes on.

We live in a world where the opportunity to screw up, or be screwed by others, is unbounded. People toe party lines and rarely step outside to expose stupidity, ignorance or enterprise. ‘Don’t rock the boat’ becomes the mantra. ‘Make sure you keep your job’ the goal. We even invented a new term to describe such people: jobsworth.

What can we do about all this? Not much except try to bring a little sanity and common-sense to the things we read about, witness or otherwise encounter. This is what I do. I occasionally commit my thoughts to the written word – fingers to the keyboard - and send them to a small but remarkably loyal group of family members and assorted friends. Sometimes I get a response; sometimes not. Sometimes, the response is agreement; sometimes not. That’s healthy. I don’t consider myself especially qualified to write about the topics that attract my attention but I do enjoy the challenge of marshalling my thoughts and structuring their presentation.

The essays in this collection date back to the year 2000 but most were written after I retired at the end of 2007 and had more time on my hands. I’ve collated the essays under general headings and, in some cases, preceded an essay with a short preamble to explain the background, or appended a short postscript to say what happened next, or both. I would like to think that there is something for everyone in this collection: something to amuse you, cause you to rethink a previously-held conviction, or stimulate you to dig deeper. Websites accessible via the Internet offer unparalleled opportunities to pursue a topic of choice and maybe stimulate you to become involved in topics that interest you, incense you, or to which you can just add comment.

It’s all good fun. Enjoy the essays and feel free to e-mail me at ben@hollamhouse.com

Ben Bennetts

April, 2014

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Your starter for ten

Preamble

The five essays in this first section have been plucked from their original sections (Polemics, Diatribes and Rants, English Grammar, Film Reviews and Simple Maths) and assembled here as a sample of what’s to come. If you are viewing the first 10% of the book in an online bookstore, this is your starter for ten.

Skyfall, the new James Bond movie

Ben Bennetts

1 December, 2012

I watched the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, yesterday on the big screen I should add. The movie has been hailed as ‘possibly the best (Bond movie) ever’ (Philip French, Observer) and ‘might be 007 agent’s finest hour’ (Daily Record film critic) and many other congratulatory remarks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyfall Unfortunately, I don’t agree! Here’s why. My reasons are not listed in any particular order; just as they occurred to me.

1. In the opening action sequence, how did Bond, played by Daniel Craig, survive the fall over the side of the viaduct into a river below after being shot, twice; once by the villain he was chasing and a second time by his female accomplice Eve (played by Naomie Harris)? The scene where Bond enters the water after a long fall and then commences to descend motionless morphs into the opening credits and his subsequent escape from certain death is never mentioned again. In previous Bond movies, his escape from seemingly inescapable situations has always been explained. Is he becoming invincible? Are we to believe that he will always survive? Is Bond the new Superman?

After his unexplained escape, why did Bond then hide away somewhere in Turkey? What was the reason? Was he angry because he didn’t catch the villain? Was he aggrieved because he was shot by one of his own side acting on direct orders from M? Or was he just fed up with being a spy and needed a rest? We didn’t discover the reason. All we found out was that he was out of shape and needed a shave by the time he decided to return to London.

2. What happened to the outrageous gadgets that used to be devised by Q? All we had was a gun that only Bond could fire and which, in the event, he never did fire - in fact he lost it to some fearsome dragon; and a matchbox-sized radio transmitter that was used to track his journey to the island hideaway of the arch-antagonist, Silva. Neither of these gadgets is rocket science.

3. Why did Bond have sex with the gambling casino girl, Sévérine, played by Bérénice Marlohe? There was no relationship development, no seduction scene and she was not especially attractive in my opinion. (I am not attracted to females with thin-faced aquiline features such as Nancy Dell’Olio, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jerry Hall. I recognise that this is a personal preference but apart from Naomie Harris, I was struck by the dearth of attractive females in this movie.) In fact, did Bond have sex with Sévérine? All we saw was the outline of a female body, presumably Sévérine, in a shower behind opaque glass and then Bond entering the same shower. That was it! In the past, we at least had some soft-focus shots of naked bodies writhing around on a silk-covered bed and with occasional flashes of what might be breasts or buttocks. But not this time. Maybe the 12A certificate influenced the once trademarked very-soft-porn sex scenes. It seemed to me that this particular scene was in response to someone on the set saying, ‘Hey, we better have a sex scene ‘cos it’s a Bond movie.’ If the scene had been omitted, it would not have detracted one iota from the story line.

Similarly, what happened to all the Bond Girls? There used to be three or four per movie and to have been a Bond Girl was an achievement proudly touted in subsequent résumés. There was only one Bond Girl in this film. Eve (Naomie Harris) and the unknown girl in Turkey where Bond was supposedly recovering from his wounds don’t count. One didn’t get her kit off and the other did, but that’s all she did.

4. Why did Silva kill the girl Sévérine at the whisky shootout - what had she done? - and what was the point of Bond’s sardonic and even callous comment afterwards, ‘Waste of good whisky’? Are we to believe that Bond had no feelings either for the girl he may have had sex with in the shower or for human life in general?

5. How did the bad guy Silva escape from the see-through prison in MI6’s underground headquarters? This too was never explained. Was it because Silva’s laptop computer de-activated all the electronic locks once Q started to decrypt the contents? If so, how did someone as clever as Q (now portrayed by a geeky Gary McKinnon lookalike) let a possibly dangerous laptop corrupt one of the most secure and top-secret networks inside MI6? It makes no sense. What happened to firewalls?

6. Why did the bad guy, Silva, caress Bond’s chest and face in a sexually suggestive way when Bond was tied up awaiting his fate? The sexual undertones were unmistakeable but Peter O’Toole’s torment in Lawrence of Arabia was more sinister and suggestive of latent homosexuality. Was this scene a sop to the gay camp? Are we being groomed for Bond to have an affair with a homosexual in a future Bond movie? Bond hinted as such with his throwaway comment, ‘How do you know it’s the first time?’ when prompted by Silva. Uh-oh.

7. Javier Bardem (who plays the bad guy Raoul Silva) was not especially threatening in this movie - silver tongued and, in the end, physically threatening but he plays a more frightening character in No Country For Old Men. Bardem’s fantastic ability to portray menace was never used effectively in Skyfall.

8. The personal relationship between Bond and Eve (Naomie Harris) could have been developed but was not, maybe because she finishes up as the new Miss Moneypenny with whom Bond has, so far, not had a sexual relationship. The lack of development was a pity. Naomie Harris is more attractive than any other female lead in Skyfall and development of her character would have helped in the closing scene when she revealed her new position as Miss Moneypenny.

Okay, I accept that James Bond films are pure escapism renowned for their improbable story lines, impossible action scenes, hard-nosed villains, and seductive attractive females but, to my mind, Skyfall did not succeed in anything other than the action scenes and, these days, action scenes are two a penny - look at the Die Hard series, Terminator series, Mission Impossible series, and so on. For Skyfall to be awarded all the critics’ plaudits as listed in the Wikipedia article beggars belief. The film caused two-and-a-half brain-dead hours to pass but left too many unanswered questions and stretched credibility beyond the limit. I do not agree with the critics’ general applause for this film. It was average run-of-the-mill entertainment and failed on several fronts to be a memorable Bond movie.

Ben

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BOGOF and what to do about it

December, 2011

Buy One, Get One Free (BOGOF) annoys me. It’s a marketing ploy to persuade you to buy more than you want and increase the manufacturer’s turnover. So, what to do about it?

In the past when I have seen two items bundled together as a BOGOF deal, I have been known to say to the shop assistant, ‘Can I just have one of the items for half the BOGOF price, please?’ The response varies from ‘Uh?’ to ‘That’s not possible. We don’t sell the items separately.’ to just a blank stare that says, ‘Who’s this bozo?’

If you then go on and ask, ‘Why don’t you sell the item separately for those who just want one of them?’, the conversation degenerates into a ‘I don’t know; I only work here.’ type of discussion that gets you nowhere and engenders hatred in the queue of people standing behind you waiting to pay for their BOGOFs.

So, here’s another solution.

Let’s assume that two items are for sale at, say, £10 as a BOGOF deal. Here’s what you say.

‘Can I buy the two items for £10 and then return one back to you for a £5 refund, please?’

‘Why?’

‘Because then you can offer the returned item either as a single item for £5 for those who don’t want two items, or you can couple it with another similarly returned single item and offer the two items as a new BOGOF deal for £10. Either way, you will get back the £5 you’ve just refunded to me so we both win. Whaddya think?’

I’ve not tried it yet. When I do, I’ll let you know the result.

Ben

Postscript

I’ve never tried this tactic. My wife forbids it!

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Really, actually

Ben Bennetts

December, 2013

‘Actually, I'm really fed up with people saying really and actually, I really am.’

Have you noticed? Have you cottoned on to the habitual really actually users? The habit is everywhere: on television shows, in the accounts of what people said at some event, in dialogue in novels, and in normal social discourse. It's infuriating. It's awful. And, it's catching.

Recently, I watched three consecutive television programs: Deal or No Deal followed by Four in a Bed followed by Come Dine with Me; all unscripted television programs in which people talk a lot.

To pre-empt the facetious and immediate response of ‘Don't watch such rubbishy programs,’ I had little choice. I was sitting in my favourite armchair in the living room, reflecting on the price of fish, and my wife Carol came in and switched on the television. The Deal or No Deal player was struggling with a mind-blowing decision about which box to open next and I was intrigued why nobody on the show, least of all the player, realised that it mattered not that 7 was her lucky number, 15 was the date of her beloved arthritic grandmother's birthday, and 5 was the number of illegitimate children she (the player, not the grandmother) had. That's when the reallys hit me and I was caught; caught in the endless flow of irrelevant adverbs by all who spoke - the player, the host, the people behind the red boxes, even the Banker.

Back to the programs. The reallys and the actuallys were literally flying off the red boxes, the bed heads and the dinner plates. Sometimes, I heard a double really: ‘I'm really really impressed with this crème brûlée,’ and the crime, for make no mistake, it is a grammatical crime, is compounded with an additional actually thrown in for good measure: ‘Actually, I'm really really impressed with this crème brûlée!’

Technically, really and actually are what are known as intensifier adverbs; adverbs that intensify a verb. In the crème brûlée sentence, the word really intensifies the verb impressed. You're not impressed. You are really impressed. But does impressed need an intensifier? Impressed means ... well, impressed; spellbound, lost in admiration, favourably influenced, over the moon. What is the difference between being impressed and being really impressed? None, I would say. If you want degrees of impression, there are better ways to express them - ‘I'm less than impressed,’ (an inverse criticism), ‘I'm impressed,’ (regular use) or ‘I'm greatly impressed.’ But, I'm really impressed - what does this mean? How does really intensify the impression? Really means in reality but surely you are already in reality when you say that you are impressed. If you are not in reality, where are you? In fantasy land? Rowling's Hogwarts? Tolkien's Middle Earth? Pratchett's Discworld?

Actually is another overused intensifier. The word means in act, or in fact and both my Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries suggest that really is a synonym for actually. Oh no, the two words are in cahoots; they are twins, identical rather than just fraternal. So, in the ‘Actually, I'm really really impressed with this crème brûlée!’ sentence, actually is redundant, or one or both of the reallys is/are redundant.

It could be argued that adding the intensifiers allows a speaker to add vocal emphasis to the intention of the sentence. Say out loud, ‘I am impressed with this crème brûlée,’ and convey your admiration by suitable changes to your volume, pitch and intonation. Where did you put the increased volume and change of tone? Probably on the verb: ‘I am impressed with this crème brûlée,’ drawing out the word impressed and with a clear separation of the im syllable followed by an uplifted and sharply propelled sibilant pressed syllable.

Now say out loud, ‘I am really impressed with this crème brûlée.’ What changed? The really grabbed all the attention. The word became like a magnetic beacon of drawn-out emphasised sound in the midst of the sentence. You slowed down when it came to saying the really word. The front section of the word was extended monotonically with a sharp perfunctory ee sound on the end. You probably opened both hands, palms uppermost, in chironomiac support as you spoke the word and the sentence became a homage to the word. The rest of the sentence, indeed the true sentiment within the sentence, was lost. Who now cares if you liked the crème brûlée? We are lost in admiration for the sonorous tones and dominance of the word really. We've been hypnotised by its attention-seeking properties.

One more thing. We should eschew the use of really as a pseudo-adjective, intensifying another adjective - for example, ‘This is a really nice wine.’ It isn't. If we are hell-bent on putting the word really in this statement, we should say ‘This really is a nice wine,’ using really to intensify the verb. Moving really next to nice turns the word into a qualifier for the adjective nice and this use of an adverb is not supported by any grammatical authority with whom I am familiar. Who would ever say, ‘We must run to catch the quickly red bus.’?

What are we to do? On television programs, I've started counting reallys. I score one point for a redundant really, two for a double really, and five for a triple or higher. If the score reaches thirty over a period of a 30-minute television show, I conclude that the show is no longer worthy of my attention and I switch to an episode of The Big Bang Theory. If the score does not reach the dizzy heights of one really per minute, I continue to watch the show or make a cup of tea or seek another episode of The Big Bang Theory or read a book or ... whatever turns me on.

In my counting process, the word actually counts as yet another really. I do not differentiate between the two intensifiers.

You may want to do the same. Counting instances of really and actually will heighten your awareness of this appalling grammatical habit and, who knows, may stop you using this form of expression if you are prone to such infelicities.

Next up? The use of ab-so-lute-ly (four distinct syllables) in reply to a question when a simple yes would have done. Oh, and the penchant, favoured by female pop singers and other grammatically-challenged members of society, for slipping in a superfluous and useless like anywhere and everywhere in a sentence.

As my wife said on reading an early draft of this essay:

‘Actually, you really need to get out more and stop worrying about such things. It's, like, really really bad for your blood pressure.’

To which I replied, ‘Absolutely!’

All lies of course. I mean, actually, my wife would never say such a thing. Really!

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Where did the other £1 go?

A mathematical puzzle

This is an old paradox. I include it because I used it to stimulate my granddaughters to think about such things and even question their mathematics teachers at school. Here it is:

Three men enter a restaurant and partake of a fine meal. The total bill comes to £30 and each man contributes £10, handing the money to the waiter. When the waiter rings up the money at the till, he is informed that there has been a mistake and the total bill should have been £25, not £30. The till automatically spews out £5 to return to the three men. The £5 is in coins: three £1 coins and one £2 coin. As the waiter walks back to the three men, he ponders on how to distribute the £5. In the end, he decides to give each man one of the £1 coins and keep the £2 coin as a tip.

As a result, each man ends up paying £9, equal to his original £10 contribution minus the £1 he receives back. This means that the total paid by the three men is 3 x £9 = £27. Adding in the £2 the waiter kept brings the total to £29, not £30. Where did the other £1 go?

The answer lies in the fallacy that each man paid £10 – £1 = £9. He didn’t. He paid £10 minus one third of the £5 overcharge (£1.67) = £8.33. Three lots of £8.33 = £24.99, say £25. Add in the £5 returned and distributed unevenly to the diners and the waiter produces the original £30.

(If you are tempted to ask, ‘Where did the 1p go in the explanation above?’, don’t! One third of £5 is not £1.67. It’s £1.6666666 … ad infinitum. Rounding up to £1.67 and then to £8.33 creates the illusion of a lost 1p. Three lots of one third of £5 have got to equal £5, right?)

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Comment on Gary McKinnon’s extradition reprieve

16 October, 2012

Theresa May blocks Gary McKinnon extradition to US

British computer hacker Gary McKinnon will not be extradited to the US, Home Secretary Theresa May has announced. Mr McKinnon, 46, who admits accessing US government computers but claims he was looking for evidence of UFOs, has been fighting extradition since 2002. The home secretary told MPs there was no doubt Mr McKinnon was ‘seriously ill’ and the extradition warrant against him should be withdrawn. Mrs May said the sole issue she had to consider was his human rights.

Snagged from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19961796

Here's what I think. The following is a work of fiction woven around a few facts but ask yourself; could it have happened like this?

Between March 2001 and March 2002, a British hacker (a hacker is someone who gains access to a computer illegally and may end up causing lots of damage) called Gary McKinnon hacked into 98 US military computers, including those of the American Navy, Army and NASA. He is alleged to have caused a lot of damage