Ham the monkey and his fruity prize

Exactly 46 years ago today a chimp named Ham (after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Centre) was blasted into space from Cape Canaveral in an effort to prove that humans could one day survive space flight, think clearly and not go Radio Rental in the process.

However, someone hadn't done their sums and got the trajectory wrong, resulting in him hurtling way off course. Worse was to come with re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere which saw him belting seaward at meltdown velocity, tumbling through the stratosphere in a '60s tin can full of rattling rivets, flashing lights and ungraspable levers. It's not a pretty thought to imagine him filling his space suit with liquified monkey shit, hiding his wrinkly 'old-man' face with his hairy hands, and whimpering "oop-oops" into his miniature helmet while NASA listened in.

Despite his terrifying ordeal however, Ham survived, eventually landing somewhere in the Atlantic, some 420 miles off course. The BBC reported: "Then when rescue helicopters finally arrived, they found the capsule on its side and sinking. It had landed with such force that the heat shield had punched two holes in the capsule. Ham, however, took it all in his stride and when the spacecraft was opened accepted an apple and half an orange in reward."

Half an orange? What would the poor litle bastard have had to do to get himself a whole one? It shows complete thoughtlessness by the scientists who even failed to offer him a banana - the perennial simian favourite. Monkey or not, fruit seems a woefully inadequate reward for such monumental achievements as space travel. I bet Neil Armstrong got better than that.

It's just as well that similarly ground-breaking human efforts aren't rewarded in the same way: "Congratulations Dr Pasteur, you've discovered a way of treating dairy products to prevent the growth of bacteria, ultimately saving millions of lives worldwide from life-threatening viruses. Here's some kiwi fruit."

Or Thomas Edison remarking to his assistant on witnessing the first stuttering lightbulb: "Eureka! I've finally successfully created electrical current which can power generators, make pictures on tellys and light the darkness forevermore. The world is now truly mankind's oyster!"
"Well done Mr Edison. I'll get the grapes..."

Dressing down

It's dress-down day in work today, which means it's off with the ancient formal black trousers that I refuse to replace (despite being no more than a micron thick through years of ironing) and the cheap cotton shirt, and into an altogether more comfortable combo of T-shirt and jeans. Call me a revolutionary but I think it's possible to still look smart without locking myself into a collar and tie and am of the opinion that the quality of my work in no way suffers as a consequence. If anything, the opposite is true as the freedom to breathe while I type can only ever be of benefit.

Happily, ties in the office are rapidly becoming the exception, rather than the rule and generations to come will look back at office workers of yesteryear and wonder what on earth they were thinking. They should bring in dress-down days for other occupations, like newsreading and undertaking. Huw Edwards delivering the day's events in an old gardening T-shirt, or a funeral director formally leading a procession of sobbing relatives in a casual lemon-yellow polo shirt, a pair of denims and some of those funky trainers with flashing lights in them, would add a degree of light-heartedness to traditionally sombre affairs. He could keep the funny hat on as a mark of respect if desired; you might have to make some concessions.

QE poo

There was an unwelcome passenger aboard the QE2 according to the BBC news yesterday, in the shape of a gastrointestinal virus called the novovirus. The unfortunate effects for the 276 passengers and six crew included extreme vomiting and diarhorrea.

With so many people bucketing out of both ends, the luxury liner was propbably aswill with "hay-clarse" vomit and shit (no doubt smelling of champagne and canapés). Look closely and you might even have seen the captain's log.

Channel 4 have scrapped the phone vote for Big Brother this week after mistakenly screening "to save Shilpa" instead of "to evict Shilpa", thereby forcing it to refund money to phone voters and think very swiftly to ensure a fair final result.

Somewhere there's one very red-faced typesetter who'll spend the next few days blasting nervous flatulance into the seat of his swivel chair every time his boss walks in the room...

Medical advice for reggae stars

"Girl, I'm gonna make you sweat. Sweat 'til you can't sweat no more..." sang Ian Lewis of reggae outfit Inner Circle, displaying a nonchalant attitude to the health of his partner and a dangerous ignorance of the body's basic biological processes.

The inability to sweat is symptomatic of severe dehydration and inhibits the body's ability to cool itself. To reach this point is already indicative of perilously low fluid levels.

Mr Lewis would be well advised to promote the regular intake of water during such bouts of heightened activity, for the well-being of his ladyfriends as well as himself.

Chuckles on the High Street

Is there anything less funny than a greetings card? It's a rhetorical question because the answer is abundantly 'no'. I can probably count on the fingers of Django's dodgy hand the number of cards I've ever laughed at. A branch of Clinton's is the retail equivalent of the Chuckle Brothers without the gay moustaches. Rack upon rack of singularly unfunny (and often poorly-spelled) efforts appeal to the lowest common denominator of humour and cater for the unsophisticated and comedically-challenged individuals who believe Ant and Dec are cutting edge. Gags about getting old, being fat, saucy seaside humour and other staples of the lightest of light entertainment seep out of the place like a gas leak.

And don't even get me started on the overpriced comedy mugs, cuddly toys, desk plaques, calendars, novelty glassware, lucky gonks and other tat to be found there...

Crimson & Cohen

We're in the process of moving house and almost everything is in boxes, which renders most of our stuff inaccessible including 90% of our CDs. There is, however a small section sticking out from a mountain of cardboard.

As I no longer alphabeticise my music (not due to a decrease in geekiness, more a lack of time and resource, as well as a fear of ridicule), they're in a fairly random order and I've been selecting the next one in line to play in the car on the way to work. This journey is 20 minutes each way, which happily amounts to pretty much an album length. The first couple out of the hat are: In The Court Of The Crimson King by King Crimson and Songs From A Room by Leonard Cohen, both of which have been a surprising and welcome exercise in nostalgia as I haven't played them for yonks.

Despite a belter of an opening track (21st Century Schizoid Man) though, the King Crimson album quickly devolves into poncy experimentation. I quite like my self-indulgent noodlings as it happens, but it's a even a bit too much for me. To have 20 seconds of silence broken by someone blowing a singular note on a Patagonian nose flute (or something), followed by a drum solo that sounds like Ringo falling down a flight of stairs, sadly crosses the fine line between avant garde and pretentious pap. I'd recommend it to anyone who has time management issues though as it has the effect of making half-an-hour seem like an eternity; the A350 to Melksham the other morning seemed more like Route 66.

Faring better is Leonard Cohen whose voice has dropped an octave with each successive decade since 1969 when the album was released. Sadly, this means that by the year 2009 he'll effectively be sub-audible to humans, and only certain species of whales will able to hear his gravelly monotone, so catch him while you can kids.

Salsa extravaganza - five years on...

I've only tried salsa dancing once in my life, and that was in 1992 in an effort to impress my future wife (which looking back seems ludicrous, as I probably resembled a cartoon character struggling to maintain an upright stance on a floor of recently-spilled marbles). We'd just met and, with our relationship just a few hours old, I was called upon to employ every iota of rhythm that my ill-co-ordinated body possessed in order to portray an image of loose-limbed Latino panache via the medium of dance.

Despite, or as a result of, my undoubtedly crap efforts, we ended up together and as of this evening we've been together for five smashing years. I'm saying this because I don't believe in fate and I think people wrongly attribute it to situations when instead they should revel in the fantastic Technicolor randomness of events the world is really governed by.

I believe instead in happenstance, effort, compatibility and seizing an opportunity when it comes your way, but above all luck. I was unspeakably lucky five years ago and we've since built on that luck to create something fantastic. This, I find infinitely more amazing and satisfying than the notion that there was a mysterious force which engineered our first encounter on the premise that a relationship would thereafter follow.

Happily my dancing shoes are now hung up in the dusty cupboard of memories, though the door remains slightly ajar...