Controversial Opinion

Gordon met Gillian, now Dave's just met Elizabeth. Mr Cameron is our new Prime Minister and the end of the world is nigh, or at least it is if you believe some people I know. In the age of slacktivism, facebook is littered with friends – even the Christian ones – “crying”, “afraid”, “mourning”, “doomed” … in a generally apocalyptic frame of mind. Horror of horrors, the hackneyed R.E.M. song is doing the rounds again.

“A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew.

“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”

“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge's nephew. “You don't mean that I am sure.”

“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry?”1

Scrooge was a mean fellow. A “tight-fisted, squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous” fellow, in fact. But he was right about Christmas. Christmas is a humbug.

1. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol ↩

In my field of study, the letters E and H denote electric and magnetic fields. They may as well denote "Ethicist" and "Hypocrite"

Tidying the lab recently, I came across a forgotten booklet, “Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse”, published by an organisation called Electronics and Computing for Peace. Watch the film Goldeneye and you'll know of NEMP: a burst of electromagnetic energy following a nuclear explosion, that can wipe out communications, computers, power supplies and more, enough to halt a modern, technology-dependent society.