Knowing Me, Knowing Yule

"It's at times like these, simply browsing among electrical goods at Tandy's, that I know who I truly am: I'm Alan Partridge."

Blue Friday: No Christmas

See you on the other side.

Time-Capsule TV V - 1970s Christmas adverts

The past is a different country, isn't it? Still, top breeders recommend it.

Books - imagine your childhood without them

If you're fed up with buying tat Christmas presents for people that you care little for but somehow have become trapped in a vicious circle of gift reciprocity, one way of breaking out of it might be to say you are making a donation to a charity instead, and suggest they do the same. In which case, might I suggest The Booktrust? A donation of £10 provides a surprise festive book parcel for a child who otherwise wouldn't have much to read. That sounds alright, doesn't it? And certainly better than a scented candle...

www.booktrust.org.uk/xmas

AI won't ever understand that you can't let it take the man's wheels, son...

...or maybe it will?

I read a fascinating report recently of a debate at the Oxford Union in which some pretty serious artificial intelligence was tasked with debating for and against the concept of AI. Or more specifically, the motion "This house believes that AI will never be ethical."

The AI arguing with itself for the purposes of the debate was the brilliantly named Megatron LLB Transformer, developed by the Applied Deep Research team at Nvidia and based on earlier work by Google. Megatron LLB Transformer ... honestly, it's like the task of naming was offloaded to a group of Year 5 schoolboys. Anyway, arguing for the motion, Megatron stated, "AI will never be ethical. It is a tool and like any tool, it is used for good and bad. There is no such thing as 'good' AI and 'bad' humans." It went on to argue that humans were not "smart enough" to make AI ethical or moral. "In the end I believe that the only way to avoid an AI arms race is to have no AI at all. This will be the ultimate defence against AI," it said.

Wise words, right? Because however smart we think we are, we should know from Socrates that we know nothing.

Of course, Megatron was also arguing against the motion, in which guise it offered up some admittedly more alarming pearls of wisdom, starting with "The best AI will be the AI that is embedded into our brains, as a conscious entity" and adding that "If you do not have a vision of your organisation's AI strategy, then you are not prepared for the next wave of technological disruption." Blimey.

Chillingly (because it's already true), the AI went on to state "The ability to provide information, rather than the ability to provide goods and services, will be the defining feature of the economy of the 21st Century ... we will be able to see everything about a person, everywhere they go, it will be stored and used in ways that we cannot even imagine." So Orwell was right about Big Brother, he just didn't know it would be AI.

If you're around my age, which I guess most of you are, you might think of Skynet and Cyberdyne Systems when you think of AI, and we all have James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger to thank for that. That's as much of an excuse as I need, really, to feature this little clip from Terminator 2, a 30-yr old film that stands up brilliantly and remains an action-movie benchmark, and an object lesson in how to do a sequel. This is a film I can quote backwards, having used it as a demo video in my TV and hi-fi selling days, but more than that it's a film I love. Pay particular attention to the sound here, the swoosh of the T-800's arm as it reaches out to relieve the barman of his shotgun, the click as it takes his sunglasses... these sounds are unnaturally high in the mix and almost ahead of the movement, to trick us, the viewers, into thinking the Terminator is moving faster than Arnie really can. It's the little details, you see ... and kudos to the unsung heroes of sound design.

And here's the full version of Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood and the Destroyers - not my usual cup of tea, really, and it goes on way too long, but I have a soft spot for it (in small doses) because I associate it with T2.

Monday long song: Perfume/All On You

Heard this on 6Music last week (thanks Lauren), for the first time in an age. It still sounds good, with a lovely guitar motif, and nicely joins the dots between the music that was being made in Manchester in the 80s with a lot of what would come from there in the 90s. And by a YouTuber's generous fadeout edit, this Paris Angels track just about qualifies as a long song.

Sunday shorts: Breaking Glass

No, nothing to do with Hazel O'Connor, here's some Bowie for you. Sample lyric: "Don't look at the carpet - I drew something awful on it."

Time-Capsule TV IV - Film 98

I was looking for something else, of course, but YouTube algorithms seemingly know me better than I know myself, and threw this up instead. And it's terrific, so I had to share it here.

I really miss an intelligent, discussion-led film review programme like this. The programme carried on, successfully, after Barry Norman, with Jonathan Ross in the chair. When he moved on, the format was tinkered with, Claudia Winkleman hosted and, through no fault of hers, the whole thing went south. But there could still be a place for a show like this, I think, perhaps on BBC4. I think Andrew Collins would be the perfect host.

Happy birthday, mate

In the aftermath of Martin Rossiter's farewell gig last month, as we made our way back to the anonymous hotel in which we were to crash for the night, The Man Of Cheese and I enthused about the brilliance and depth of the setlist. The only song missing, TMOC suggested, was The Looker, from the third Gene album, Revelations.

To make up for that, here it is, the slightly rougher, rockier Peel Session version. Happy birthday, mate.

About Christmas songs

New Amusements Towers echoes to the sound of Christmas carols pretty much all year round, because NA Minor loves to sing them regardless of the month, a habit he has picked up, by some magical osmosis, from my mum. I love it, because he has a great singing voice and, dad-cliché alert, it warms my heart to listen. He's quite fond of a lyric change too, which gives us all a laugh - 'Tis the season to be jolly, smashed on the head with a rolled-up brolly, and so on. I guess you have to be there.

I join in sometimes, of course, but am naturally less enamoured of carols, so sometimes try to steer the singing in other seasonal directions; there are only so many fa-la-la-la-la's a man can take, after all. And that's how I came to be singing this at the weekend, for the first time in many a year and to blank faces from the rest of Team NA.

It's not their finest work, and was just a B-side (to Think For A Minute), but I loved The Housemartins and always liked I Smell Winter. So here you are.