Science fiction

I love a good science fiction film, but there are things that always puzzle me. Here are a couple.

Why do doors on spacecraft nearly always open automatically? Are crewmen so lazy they cannot open a door?

Yes, I know it’s a lift really, but pictures of people walking through doors are not that interesting

The spacecraft we have had so far in realy have had a problem – weight. Every gram of excess weight needs more fuel. Most of the Saturn V rocket was designed to lift, well, itself. The payload was minute. Surely, excess weight for door opening motors would be avoided at all costs.

And have you noticed, when people want locked doors to open they shoot them with ray guns? And when they want them to lock, they shoot them with ray guns.

And what about transporters? They are amazing things. They are machines that take every molecule of an animate or inanimate object and transfer them instantly to another place where they are reassembled perfectly (except when the plot demands they are not working properly) without mixing them up.

The destination doesn’t even have to be another transporter machine. People just appear anyway (or disappear) from thin air. In fact, you can transport from one place without a transporter to another without a transporter. That’s a miracle.

And they must be so deadly accurate, to within the tiniest fraction of an atom. If a person is being transported onto a surface and is just a little bit too low, their molecules will meld with the molecules of the floor and they will be stuck. Too high above the surface and they will fall the last distance and possibly be hurt.

Christmas time

I know it is nearly November, but it seems like people have been banging on about Xmas since, well, last Christmas. I know I always complain, but it is silly.

Here in the UK, and elsewhere I am sure, the high street shops are struggling. For many of them, their biggest time for profits is Xmas. With Brexit looming and prices increasing, they do what they can to attract trade. Pre-Xmas sales, starting April, seem one way. Whether it works or not I cannot say.

I know at least one person who puts up her decorations in mid-September. She tells me she loves Christmas and wishes it could be Xmas every day (hmm, could be a song there).

I don’t bother too much. When you take down the decorations, it all looks very bare and sad, in other words, normal.

There are local folk who decorate their houses much like the one above. Over the top?

Hmmm…

There should be rules, don’t you think?

And we haven’t even had Halloween, Brexit or bonfire night yet!