Category Archives: Humour

One of the great things about watching a lot of cop shows on television is the endless variety of mechanisms used to set up key characters. Recently we’ve had…
The Island: female detective born on Harris returns there after several years serving with the police in central Scotland.
Shetland reboot: female detective born on Shetland returns there after several years serving with the Met in London.
Return to Paradise: female detective born in a small town in Australia returns there after several years serving with the Met in London.
Get Millie Black: female detective born in Jamaica returns there after several years serving with the Met in London.
The One That Got Away: female detective born in Pembroke returns there after several years serving with the police in Cardiff.
Borderline: female detective born in a small town in Ireland returns there after several years serving with the Gardi in Dublin. OK, she then has to deal with cross-border interactions reminiscent of The Bridge working with a male detective from the PSNI, but still.
Thank god for The Turkish Detective! Some variety at last!
The Turkish Detective: male(!) detective born in Istanbul returns there after several years serving with the Met in London. Oh well…
View featured image in Album
Here’s my traditional group panorama for the 2024 Cinque Terre and Tuscany trip. From the left: Yours Truly, Grant, Elizma, Hildige, John, Buzz and Lee. Remind me never to book any of my fellow travellers for a portrait shoot – Continue reading →
Thursday, October 10, 2024 in
Italy 2024,
Travel
With Apologies to My Photography Tutors First, I’d like to apologise to all the authors, tutors, mentors and tour leaders who have tried to instil in me “correct” tripod technique. As they say, it’s not you, it’s me.I don’t particularly Continue reading →
We started day 2 by getting a train. There are essentially four ways of getting between the five towns which make up the Cinque Terre: you can walk along the cliff paths, go by boat, or get the excellent trains Continue reading →
Sunday, September 29, 2024 in
Italy 2024,
Travel
Just how wrong can an AI get it? As part of my effort to profile the power consumption of GenAI, I decided to try and summarise one of my travel blogs using ChatGPT and the other big public models, plus Continue reading →
Tuesday, September 10, 2024 in
Thoughts on the World
Just how bleak can an AI’s world view become? One of my clients asked me to write an article on the environmental impact of generative AI. Like a lot of large corporations they are starting to embrace GenAI, but they Continue reading →
Like it’s predecessor, Man Up!, this is a knock-about farce based around the capable but somewhat cursed sports agent, Patrick Flynn. This time the key protegé is a nymphomaniac Russian tennis player, but otherwise the cast of gangsters, hit-men (& Continue reading →
Monday, April 25, 2016 in
Reviews,
Thoughts on the World
This is a comedy thriller very much affecting the style of Carl Hiaasen. Hiaasen’s latest, the hilarious Bad Monkey, uses almost exactly the same Floridan and Bahamian locations, and reading this book almost immediately afterwards did feel a bit like Continue reading →
Tuesday, April 29, 2014 in
Reviews
Like the predecessor novel, Wahoo Rhapsody, this is an enjoyable romp which charges on at an impressive pace. As a complete antidote to all the “Templar Treasure” novels of recent years, while this does feature a long-buried fabled treasure, which Continue reading →
Wednesday, May 1, 2013 in
Reviews