Flash Fiction Challenge for October/November

It started as a harmless idea, an abstract concept. Of course that was before they realised the full implications of what they planned to do.

     Wolfram had started it over coffee in the canteen one lunchtime. They were chatting about the implications of quantum physics – as you do – when Wolfie said.’ Why is it it that most scientists are happy to ignore the one problem with the most accurate theory in all science, the fact that it requires an observer to collapse the wave function so that a particle’s position can be measured? Everyone is happy to use the maths of quantum physics because they work so well, what everyone calls the shut up and calculate method but isn’t it time someone sorted this out and why shouldn’t it be us?’

Galena put down her doughnut and looked at him over the rim of her paper coffee cup. ‘What’s wrong with leaving it as it is, everybody seems happy with it and it works so why change it? Anyway we don’t have any of the equipment that we would need to do the experiments.’

     ‘If every scientists had taken that attitude, we would still be living in caves,’ said Wolfram, ‘ and what ever happened to scientific curiosity and the need to find out?’

     ‘Oh, stop arguing you two,’ said Olivine crossly, ‘let’s just get on and do it. Where do you suggest we start Wolfie?’

     ‘Well, as Galena kindly reminded us, we don’t have any equipment or money to buy any so I think all the work will have to be done by thought experiments. If it was good enough for Schrödinger and Einstein then it should be good enough for us.’

     ‘You forget that they were clever people and we have only got you,’ said Galena

     ‘Yes, and think how lucky you are to have me.’ said Wolfram.

     ‘Come on. Let’s stop sniping at each other and get on with it,’ said Olivine, ever the peacemaker. ‘ Do you think we should fetch Tourmaline and ask her if she would like to join in and help us?’

     ‘Yes, I think that is a great idea,’ said Wolfram

     ‘Well, you would of course, you have been lusting after her since she started here,’ said Galena who had a bit of thing for Wolfie and didn’t like the thought of Tourmaline muscling in on her territory. Wolfram coloured a little but said nothing, he didn’t want Tourmaline to know how he felt. Tourmaline, of course, knew exactly how Wolfram felt and was just biding her time until Galena was out of the way. She knew very well that fixing her startling green eyes on him in a full stare just made him melt and become incapable of rational thought.

     ‘OK then,’ said Galena. ‘Lets start here at the same time tomorrow. I’ll let Tourmaline know.’

     ‘Where do we start?’ asked Tourmaline, directing her searchlight stare at Wolfram.

     ‘Well, err, I think, we should start with the most famous thought experiment of all, Schrödinger’s cat.’

     ‘That sounds good to me,’ said Galena, anxious to get on Wolfram’s good side now that her rival for his affections was here. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and describe it for us, set the scene as it were?’

‘Creep,’ thought Tourmaline who knew exactly what Galena was up to. ‘Yes, that’s quite a good idea, luv.’ She said patronisingly as if surprised that someone with Galena’s limited intelligence could think of such a complicated concept. She said it with the Australian questioning lift at the end of the sentence which emphasised her incredulity.

     ‘OK then. A cat is placed in a wooden box. In  the box there is a gadget that fires a single photon at a filter. There is a 50% chance of the photon passing through the filter. If it does then a phial of poisonous liquid is broken and kills the cat. This means that, before the box is opened the cat can be in one of three quantum states:- alive, dead or both alive and dead. Once the box is opened the wave function collapses and the cat instantly snaps into one of the two possible classic states, alive or dead. The question is, when does the cat change from being in one of the three quantum states to being in one of the two classic states? What trigger is required to change it between quantum and classic states? All experiments so far show that an observer or measurement is required but does this agency have to be human?’

     ‘Well summarised Wolfie,’ said Tourmaline, determined to get her flattery in before Galena. ‘Where do we go from here?’

     ‘Why not try to split the human and non human possible cause of the collapse along the time axis and then we can record what happened when’ said Olivine who was the most original thinker of the group.

     ‘And just how do we manage that?’ asked Galena sarcastically. She had long been jealous of Olivine’s seemingly effortless thinking.

     ‘We need to record the event so why not put a camera in the box that is triggered by the same photon result that breaks the poison phial. This will then show what state the cat is in before the box is opened. If the photo shows the cat is dead then a non human agency can collapse the wave function and trigger the change from a quantum to classic state. If the experiment is repeated many times and the photo shows that the cat is always alive then it requires a human agency to force the change.’

     As soon as Olivine finished speaking, there was a flash and they all fell to the floor of the canteen, dead.

Someone else was doing the same experiment and they were the cats this time.

Forest dreams

The speed of rotation of the Earth and hence the length of the day was determined many years ago, about 4.6 billion years in fact,  by how much mass of star dust coalesced to form the Earth and the quantity of rotational energy transferred from that dust. This rotational speed has been decreasing very slowly since the moon split off from the Earth and started the tides in the oceans. These tides act as a drag and so are slowly reducing the rotational speed and hence the day is getting longer. The friction of the oceans in their basins is also slowly warming the Earth, but not by very much.

The rotational speed of a spinning object can be varied by frictional drag, as we have seen but it can also be affected by moving the object’s mass closer to or further away from the centre. This can be seen when a spinning skater speeds up by bringing her arms in closer to her chest.

The same effect can be seen on the Earth by cutting down trees, a laid down tree has its mass closer to the centre of Earth than does a growing one. As the Earth is progressively deforested then this effect will increase and so the day will get shorter.

One more argument for growing trees and not chopping them down.

A story for Hallowe'en

The presence

He knew it was following him. He couldn’t see or hear anything but he had a very powerful feeling that it was there, always behind him, following.

It had started at the end of September in the Autumnal woods. He had been out for a walk  with Ruly, not far from home, when he first felt a presence. He should have been able to see a shadow or hear some scuffling in the dry leaves but there was nothing. This didn’t make it better, he still knew it was there. What was it? What did it want. Was it going to hurt him? He asked Alice about it when he got home. Had she seen any strangers in the village or heard anyone around the cottage? He had to be careful, he didn’t want to spook Alice, she had enough to deal with already. He just implied that someone in the village had seen a prowler. He was surprised that Ruly hadn’t made a fuss, she was usually the first to detect and intruder or anyone coming to the door a long time before either Alice or himself were aware of anyone. Alice knew nothing.

At first it was only in the woods but, as November approached, it came closer, nearer to home. It watched as he dug in the garden. It was outside the window when he worked in the kitchen. Then it was behind him when he sat at the desk in the study, sorting out the domestic paperwork. Then it followed them up the stairs to their bedroom. There was no sanctuary now, it was everywhere, all around them, suffocating in its all pervading presence. Alice could now feel it as well. They never discussed it but it was always there.

He made a pot of tea and prepared a tray, as Alice preferred it, he was happy with a tea bag in a mug. He took the tray into the small lounge where the fire was crackling in the hearth. It wasn’t really necessary for its heat but it gave a cheerful glow to the room and made it feel cosy, lived in and welcoming, a warm, soft, curved place of refuge from the cold, dark, hard edged world outside. He waited a couple of minutes to allow the tea to brew and then started on their daily tea ceremony. First a dash of semi skim from the Delftware jug, then tea from the pot through a silver strainer and finally a couple of sugar lumps presented to the cups with EPNS tongs – why did it taste better with lump sugar? The teapot , cups and saucers were Burleigh ware, part of a wedding gift from Alice’s parents. A vigorous stir was then required followed by a couple of dings of the apostle spoon on the side of the cup before being clattered into the saucer.

. ‘How was your day?’ he said.

‘It was OK but that idiot Brian messed things up again so that we had to redo the payroll run on the computer. That took an hour and made us late starting on the post so it wasn’t ready when Guy the postman arrived so we had to scurry around to get that finished as its not fair to hold Guy up, even though he doesn’t complain and is always cheerful…’ Alice chattered on with her familiar litany of the day’s minor disasters in the general admin office of the company where she had worked for eleven years. He liked listening to her stories of the daily adventures and the lives of her colleagues, poor Brian always seemed to get most of the blame. He enjoyed this time of day, remaking their relationship daily over a shared pot of tea after being apart, concentrating on their different priorities through the day.

He had lost his job with the same company two years ago when that big export contract had been cancelled. He had worked in production so when there was a quick reduction of ten per cent in the overall work force, he was one of the first to go. His compromise agreement was generous enough to see them through until he could get fixed up with another job, or so he thought at the time, but with the reduction in exports and the downturn at home, jobs became harder to find. He slowly moved into the role of looking after the house and garden, while Alice managed to negotiate a few more hours and they had settled into a comfortable routine which neither of them would now like to change.

He had dug up all of their quarter acre garden and now kept them supplied with most of their vegetable needs during the year. He sold and bartered the surplus in the village. They got by but it was more difficult now without Mr Vincent’s lodging money coming in every month. Mr Vincent, they never called him anything but that, had come to live in their two spare rooms. They had reported his absence to the police when he went missing that day. The detective sergeant asked lots of questions and searched his rooms and his decrepit van, still parked outside the cottage, but nothing came of it. Henry, that was his name, seemed to have no family so there was no pressure on the police to find him. The detective spread the enquiries around the village and the surrounding area but no one had seen him, no one had any information so the case was slowly wound down as others came in and took priority. It was eventually put up on the unsolved, too difficult shelf. He was never found, Vincent van Gone, they called him in the village.

It was about this time that he started digging up the garden, growing the vegetables that soon became the talk of the village and were in great demand, except at the annual flower show where they started scooping up the prizes – to the annoyance of the local experts.

Their tea ceremony was disturbed today by the presence they both felt, intruding into their settled lives. Even Ruly was feeling it now, she kept clicking across to the bay where she put her paws on the window seat cushions for a long stare into the darkness before coming back to her usual place on a soft mat beside Alice’s chair, looking up for a reassuring pat.

Eventually they could pretend no longer, they had to acknowledge the presence. They talked, what could be done?

Perhaps they would have to dig up the ground under the new compost heap again?

Radioactive decay and the meaning of life.

Take a lump of pure uranium 235. Make it a small lump or the experiment won’t last very long. ( See ‘chain reaction’ )

This uranium is unstable and will decay into different elements over time. This can be shown as a decay curve that shows exponential reduction of the uranium. This means that each molecule of uranium will decide to decay at a different time. But, they are by definition all the same so why do some ‘decide’ to decay earlier than others?

Possibilities:-

1 – Each molecule is different and so decides when it wants to decay.

2 – Something is in control and so tells each molecule when it is it’s turn to decay.

3 – Neither of the above are true so the decay of each molecule is totally random and it is only the very large number of molecules involved that give the smooth decay curve.

Argument:-

#1 cannot be true because each molecule is made of the same, identical smaller particles.

#2 seems unlikely, who, what, would bother to individually control every molecule in the universe?

That leaves #3 which seems to be true. If so then this fist sized lump of uranium is demonstrating that all events in the universe are random.

Sounds good to me.

 To put it into modern terms, there is no app for the meaning of life.

Today's controversy

Neutrinos have been discovered travelling faster than the speed of light. Was Einstein wrong? No, not in this case anyway. C = the speed of light in a vacuum. There never is a vacuum even in deep space – how deep is space, stupid expression, space stretches to infinity, or back on itself in every direction. Quantum theory suggests that positron / electron pairs are popping into existence and then cancelling each other out all the time so there is always something in a vacuum, quantum froth.

 This something will slow particles to less than ‘the speed of light ‘ depending on their mass. Light has a wave / particle duality. If you have an observer then they will be ‘seen’ as the quantum particle equivalent of the wave which is packets of light called photons. Photons must have mass because they have energy because they are always moving - it is a non question to ask, 'what is the mass of a photon at rest?', so they will be slowed by particles in a vacuum. Neutrinos will be the same in that they will be slowed by any particles in their way. So, if neutrinos are observed to be travelling faster than ‘ the speed of light’, it just means that their mass is less than that of photons. Einstein has not been mocked. He was probably playing dice with god at the time.

What is now?

What is now?

Send a person to stand on the sun, ok, be kind, give them asbestos boots, with instructions to shout ‘Now’ at the same time as you. Stand in your garden on a cloudless day and look at the sun through smoked glass. Can you see him? Are you ready? Shout ‘Now’ and wait. 18 minutes later you see him shout back ‘Now’. The question is, ‘why did he wait so long? Look at it from his point of view. He shouted as soon as he saw you shout so his now is 9 minutes after yours but, from your point of view, your now is when you shouted and his now is 18 minutes later. We now (!) have three ‘nows’. Which one is the real ‘now’. Depends on your point of view.

Writing challenge 14th October 2011 – Bumps in the night

Garwain was pleased to get back to the Canine Livery Centre. It had been a long trip back from the Holey Land. He had been glad to leave as he kept falling in those caves and he wasn’t that fond of Cruzade anyway, he preferred Lucozade or, if desperate Gatorade. He slowly climbed down, well up really, off his faithful Dachshund, Reinhold. He had served him well over many months and miles but, having to really jack up the stirrups to ensue his feet didn’t drag along the ground, meant that his knees kept bumping on his chin as Reinny galloped along.

      Garwain had served with distinction and so had been given a field commission to Varlet 2^nd Grade. This was unusual at his age because he had only graduated from Varlet Academy in Camelot a year before. No one usually got promotion from Varlet 3^rd Grade after less than 2 years. At the ceremony he had been given a certificate that entitled him to up grade from a Canine 1.7 to a Canine 2.1. He was delighted with this as it meant he could now choose to ride a German Shepherd and keep his feet off the deck without suffering chin bruises. He also got to spend a few shekels on extras so he chose a big woofer so that he could get the full benefit from playing his favourite classical music while he galloped / loped along. His dog’s Bach was going to be a lot worse than his Bitehoven. He was not quite sure why the Germans had got such a hold on the cruzade transport market these days but assumed it was something to do with the cross border tariff arrangements. He checked about nine dogs before settling on a fine specimen called Wilhelm. He saddled up and off they went, back on the trail to his home barracks in Aldershot.

It was raining, of course, for his trip along the M4 and he wasn’t quite sure if Wilhelm was the ideal mount for him, ‘They wouldn’t send a knight out on a dog like this,’ he muttered to himself as he slipped off the rain-soaked back of the dog for the 11^th time. ‘Thereby hangs a tail,’ thought Wilhelm as he doggedly kept going through the wind and rain.

After he had settled back in to barracks life and got to know Willi better for just over a year he got call on Skipe from the Palace. ‘Hi, it’s King Richard de Tird here’ said the voice of the King who originated from Tipperary, a long, long way away from Aldershot. ‘D’you remember when ye saved de life of dat Varlet just as he was going to disappear down one of dem caves in the Holey Land?’

‘Well, yes, of course I do,’ said Garwain.’

‘That Varlet was in fact your King, myself, Richard de Tird. I am so grateful to you for saving my life that I am going to bypass the normal Varlet grading system and promote you straight up to a Knight 2^nd Grade. This will give you an increase in salary, all the mead you can drink and an entitlement to wear plate armour and ride a Equine 1.3. I have notified the H.R.department and you should get the papers through in about two years if that department works as efficiently as it normally does.’

      ‘Tank ee, err I mean Thank you very much Syre,’ said Garwain who was delighted that he was finally going to be able to get rid of his Varlet style chain mail, he was fed up with licking and sticking all those envelopes.

So off he went to the stables to trade in Willi for Dobbin. Dobbin was getting old, a bit long in the tooth, and there was no choice as there had been a run on horses because of the Cheltenham Gold cup in a couple of weeks time. The other unfortunate truth was that the fashion for German dogs had passed and more Varlets were now choosing to ride the new fangled labranials so the trade in price for Wilhelm had dropped quite dramatically. So it was Dobbin or nothing. He chose Dobbin who was strong and willing but he was a little thin and so his ribs stuck out.

As he was now entitled to wear plate armour, he trotted off to the armoury to get fitted with his new suit. It was a shame that stainless steel had not yet been invented as this meant that he was stuck with the old style rusty plates that creaked and squealed as he walked and was high maintenance, especially in WD35 costs.

Eventually all was ready so he donned his suit of armour and was helped up onto Dobbins back where he found that the ribs stuck in his backside rather uncomfortably, making many bumps in the knight.

Daily Haiku

That’s enough Haiku

Now move on to something new

With a rhyme or two

Daily Haiku

I like many words

Some are better than others

Cerulean -  great

Daily Haiku

I have a new app

It is called gurgle e moil

Like e mail but fast

Daily Haiku

The mountain rocks are old

Formed when time was very young

Worn, washed to the sea

Daily Haiku

Haiku should not rhyme

Have I caught it just in time?

To avoid a crime

Writing challenge 6th October 2011 - A thieves' point of view

He hated being called Bill. There were many prefixes and suffixes that people added to his name and they all seemed to have some sort of negative connotation. The Old Bill was bad enough but imagine having Burglar Bill at the head of your CV.

William did not see himself as a burglar, more as a Fiscal Resource Redistribution Executive. He used to work in the Financial Services Industry, until that unfortunate business with Mrs Wainright,  so he knew how to use words in the same way as the Queen of Hearts. He would define what he meant by them, not some modern Sam Johnson sitting in an ivory tower in a university.

      The ivory trade was now banned under the CITES rules so how do you go about building an ivory tower these days, he wondered.

      He was now proud to be a green burglar, his carbon footprint was low because he always walked to work, or used public transport for the more distant jobs – and sometimes ran home. All the goods that he relocated were recycled, nothing was wasted. He used local recyclers so he generated very few goods miles. He also used few office supplies, such as ink cartridges and paper, in his business as most of his communications with his customers were fence posted on Blackberry messenger or BBM as he liked to call it. These messages are automatically encrypted, he didn’t want his competition or his industry’s regulatory authority – the Old Bill in his case - to see which particular market sector he was operating in. He saw himself as ahead of the curve- in fact he had a Blackberry Curve 9300. He also prided himself on his contribution to the Bank of England’s work on controlling inflation as the goods that arrived in his possession were always sold on at less than the current market value. He was a real asset to the community, a green, carbon neutral, monetary positive, Fiscal Resource Redistribution Executive,  in fact. He also had a fully interactive web site – it seemed to be almost de rigueur for a well run business these days – www.iburgle.co.uk. You may well try to access it but it is very secure and the access algorithms are only known to a select few of William’s customers so that they can choose their toys and trinkets at their leisure.

William was not really a snob, well, actually yes he was, he saw himself as operating near the top end of the redistribution market, no nicked beamers or flat screens for him. No, he only handled property that was light and had a high value/mass ratio, usually better than £1,000/Kg, which is way above the industry average. He kept a spreadsheet on his Sony Vaio – encrypted of course – to check that he met his monthly turnover and net profit targets. How could you run a decent business model without having a good set of management accounts? He knew better than most that it was lack of cash flow that kills most failing business so he always kept a big wedge handy and didn’t let it flow more than absolutely necessary. He was well respected within his chosen profession and had, in fact, recently been elected life president of his trade association – the Society of Property Recyclers and Relocaters, which he regarded as a great honour.

He belonged to and played at the local golf club, not the council one where the riff- raff working classes played of course. He could well afford the membership and green fees. He enjoyed the drinking sessions in the club house. He felt at ease and fitted in well with the members who tended to be his own types, bankers, IFAs and share traders. They all understood the need to keep cash flowing through society – preferably a society that they were a member of – so they talked a common language. They sometimes asked him what he did for a living’ He just answered with a self deprecating shrug and a wink that, ‘I buy and sell a few shares in the City’. He would never say any more than that so they all assumed he was a very rich financier or similar.

He picked up a lot of free tips from them although he would not target their homes, he would never mix business with pleasure. He often picked up some very nice jewellery from their girl friends homes though, they were always boasting how much they had spent on some ‘trinkets’ for ‘Lulu’ or ‘Nancy’ This was a profitable and safe market sector for him because his golfing buddies could never go public about the burglary so their girlfriends quietly picked up a crime reference number from the police, hiked the price of the item and then claimed it off insurance. The boy friend got the kudos from his girlfriend for buying it in the first place. The girl friend kept half the insurance money to replace the stolen necklace or whatever else it happened to be, the insurance company pushed up the premium for the following year, the boyfriend got most of his money back and William sold it off to one of his best customers at a knock down price. Win-win! No losers so no problem, everyone happy. All carried out in a civilised, low carbon fashion, with a boost to William’s secret spreadsheet.

If things were going so well, why was he, Bill the burglar, sitting in a holding cell in the local nick without a belt or shoe laces, being treated as a common crim? They even had the nerve to call him Chummy!

He had been interviewed by a DS and a rookie constable – him, William, being talked to by a lowly DS – the indignity. He had used his entitlement to a phone call to ring Henry, his brief, and demand that he come down the nick and at least get him out on bail, or preferably to get the charge dropped. Henry had got that business with Mrs Wainright sorted out for him although he could never work as an IFA again. He was a good lawyer and willing to bend the rules a little, well, a lot really. He was as bent as a grade 3 fish hook.

It was ridiculous, here he was, at the top of his profession, being charged with B & E a council flat, yes, a council flat, and stealing a portable black and white television. I t was outrageous. A slur on his professional standing.

‘So what were you doing, Billy Boy, walking around Victoria at 3 o’clock in the morning with £15,000 in your pocket.?’ Asked the rookie who looked like a school boy.

‘I struck lucky at a poker game with some friends in Mayfair,’ said William

‘I don’t think so chummy,’ said the DS. ‘We have you on a street camera coming out of one of the railway arch lock ups, what were you doing there, dumping some more stolen gear?’

‘Certainly not, I have never visited any railway arches,’ he said, hoping they didn’t have a clear enough picture of him to get a warrant to Phil the Fence’s lock up. If they searched that and Phil went down because of him, he would never be able to work in town again. He always made it a rule that he dropped off the goods, and his special tools, as soon as he could at a safe house as soon as he had done the job. In this case, Phil had agreed to look after his tools when he bought the jewellery for agreed fifteen grand.

‘So where is this friend of yours in Mayfair?’ demanded the rookie. ‘Give us the address and we will check your story. If it’s true you are out of here.’

William now had a problem, he couldn’t tell them which flat he had broken into and he couldn’t use Phil as an alibi. There was only one thing he could do.

‘OK, you’ve got me, I took that TV, if I plead guilty, will you put in word for me with the judge?’

He would never be able to live it down. 

Daily Haiku

I don't get Haiku

Does not make much sense to me

Hedgehog, Princess, Shoe

Daily Haiku

Wednesday’s child is

full of woe, two one five is

perhaps a mistake?

Daily Haiku

Cats in the garden

The chickens do not like them

Nor I, now it stinks

Daily Haiku

One of the suggestions near the start of the 'Creative writing' course is to practice writing a short poem every day using the Japanese Haiku discipline of three, non-rhyming lines of five, seven and five syllables. Subjects are traditionally seasons and nature but any subject can be chosen. I will try to do this and will post the results here. Here goes with the first.

The late summer sun

Warms the face, the air is cold

Warning of winter

Writing challenge 29th September - The economy

‘What do you understand by the expression, The human family, Jenkins?’

            ‘It was that time in the early 21^st century when the world came to its senses, sorted out the world economy and started the programmes that today ensure everyone has enough to eat and access to education to any level that they are capable of.’

            ‘Excellent answer Jenkins’ said Gaylord Fairfax who was Head of History at the Kathmandu Academy.

            ‘Creep,’ muttered Ardeep Singh from the back row.

            ‘Did you have a comment you would like to share with us?’ enquired Gaylord with a raised eyebrow.

            ‘Not really sir, I just said how much I agreed with Jenkins’ excellent answer to your question.

            ‘Liar,’ exclaimed Iqbal Murad who didn’t have much time for Ardeep.

            Gaylord didn’t hear this last so he went on, ‘The rest of the lesson will be a lecture from me on how this transformation of the world’s economy was achieved. You may take notes and I will be asking questions during next week’s lesson.’

            ‘The trigger for these changes was the collapse of the Eurozone in 2015 after Greece defaulted on her sovereign debt and then Portugal, Spain, Italy and France quickly followed suit. All these countries had to quickly reissue their old currencies and devalue them against the German/Finnish Euro so that their debt was nearly wiped out and they became competitive again. This caused catastrophic depressions and unemployment in all of those countries. No country could afford a large public sector so most of those jobs were either privatised or just not done – after all, what had the government economists and politicians achieved?

            I will take the UK as an example of what was the common way forward. The tax system was simplified – everyone paid 13% of their earnings to the government. There were no allowances or tax shelters or paperwork so no civil servants were required. Every month you paid your 13% in cash to the treasurer at the local town hall. Anyone cheating was shot – dead.

            The country was run by a committee – of one - otherwise known as a dictator. She could only be replaced by a petition from the town halls that gained majority support. She had one secretary. There wasn’t much dictating to do so hers was only a part time job.

            If she wanted to start a war, she had to be in the most dangerous position in the front line – there were no wars. The armed forces were dismantled, who were they protecting us against?

            The NHS was very expensive to run so it was contracted out to B & Q. Self help was encouraged, anyone overweight was automatically suspected of treason as most people were hungry most of the time. Over 60’s got 10% off their operations and medicines on Wednesdays on production of their senior card at the check out. The demand for medical services reduced dramatically as people became healthier.

            The country was determined to save fuel by not importing any and also to become carbon neutral. This was done by every town and city having to be self sufficient in food and fuel. This resulted in a lot of digging in gardens and the price of houses with South facing roofs increasing dramatically. Toilets could only be flushed with grey water and all fresh water was metered and very expensive. All rainwater from roofs was collected. Any water sent to drain was metered and charged for.

            Shale gas was exploited all over the country from previously unknown reserves, following the Blackpool model. Windmills appeared in previous Nimby places. Old coal mines with typically 60% of their reserves still in place were reopened using the new in-place gasification technology, no men needed to go underground. Anywhere burning coal had to put in place a CSS system – carbon sequestration and storage. The depleted North Sea oil reservoirs were ideal for this.

             Ten years into the transition a strange effect was detected in the country. Everyone was healthier and happier, partly because of the restricted calore diet of mainly fresh fruit and vegetables and a lot of  physical work in their gardens and fields. Because people worked closer together at physical labour, communities sprang up and people helped each other. Extended families grew as younger ones saw the value of learning from the oldies experience. Care homes were mainly closed down.Television programmes were turned off as soon as it got dark, partly to save electricity and partly to encourage people to go to bed and get up again with sun set and sun rise. More children were starting to be born between September and December.

            People became happier, they talked to each other and became involved in neighbourhood activities. Yes, they had less money but that didn’t seem to cause unhappiness, they were all into it together. Local schools were set up, evening classes boomed as people demanded to learn lost craft skills from each other.

            The few cars and trucks were electrical. Internal combustion was banned. All the excess wind power at night was used to charge car batteries, ready for the morning.

            After ten years the economy grew and the UK started exporting its main asset, knowledge.Every UK university had premises in several countries. The global language was now English, the old fashioned tongues such as French and German had been abandoned. English schools and Academies opened and thrived all over the world. There were no artificial bars to entry – if you spoke English and could afford the fees you were in. If you couldn’t afford the fees, your local government would probably support you with a scholarship – everyone knew the value of a good education.

            The girls and women who had been educated now put pressure on their men folk to improve the agricultural methods to grow more food.  Medicine improved, less children died and so there was no need to produce many children so the birthrate dropped, meaning more food to go around.

             A national debate started in the UK on the proposition, ‘Do we want to try the Euro project again?’

            The answer was a resounding ‘NO’ from  97.43% of the UK population. The question was never asked again.

            No one took PPE at University – why learn a failed system?

For the first time in human history, there were no wars. The Human Race was a family at last.

How had the politicians got it so wrong in the first place?