Kent Plane Crash

A Cessna Citation similar to that involved in today's crash.

Breaking news this afternoon that a Cessna light aircraft has crashed into a residential area of Farnborough in Kent, UK.

The Cessna Citation 501 came down at around 2.30 pm this afternoon and has completely destroyed a house in Romsey Close, a small cul-de-sac just off Broadwater Gardens. Another house had its garage destroyed as the struggling aircraft clipped by in a desperate attempt to avoid collision.

It is believed that the eight seater aircraft had two pilots and three passengers on board. Early reports suggest the aircraft had just taken off from the nearby Biggin Hill Airport en-route to France. Shortly after take off the pilot made a May Day call and reported vibration in his engines. The aircraft was cleared to return back to Biggin Hill, but it appears that a loss of power brought it down over the residential suburb.



A pilot who was landing at Biggin Hill heard the Cessna's May Day call over the radio. He told Sky News: "As I was on the runway... we were advised the fire crews were coming out.

"A few seconds later the pilot came back over the radio and said 'We're going in, we're going in' and the radio stayed live.

"And, as I turned off the runway, I looked back and I saw the plane. It just nose-dived out of the sky. The radio went dead and the black smoke came up."

Neighbours report that the occupants of number 5 Romsey Close, the house destroyed in the incident, are away on holiday and due to return tomorrow. All five occupants of the aircraft were killed in the crash but there were no casualties on the ground.

Forbidden Love

Never let it be said that I am scared of tackling controversial issues. Last night I was watching a programme that highlighted one of the most controversial and taboo subject areas of them all - incestuous relationships.

Cutting Edge, the long-running Channel 4 documentary series, examined in detail the relationship between Scottish couple Nick and Danielle and American couple Tom and Stefanie. By all accounts two devoted couples who wanted to share the remainder of their lives together but with one slight snag - in addition to being lovers they were also brother and sister.

The film crews followed the couples for nine months as they struggled to come to terms with their feelings and battled against public backlash and narrow mindedness. In Scotland Nick and Danielle had been ostracised from their friends and family and separated by lengthy legal proceedings that could ultimately see them imprisoned for the crime of incest. In the US Tom and Stefanie were living secret double lives away from their spouses and children, trying to decide the best way of being together without destroying their loved ones in the process.

Nick and Danielle have the same mother but different fathers. They spent nearly all of their childhood apart on separate sides of Scotland but were reunited in adulthood. There was an instant attraction and within a few weeks they were engaged in a passionate forbidden love. One day their mother caught them in a compromising position and reported them to the police.

The couple take the brave decision to plead guilty to their crime in the hope that the unusual mitigating circumstances - a rare medical condition known as genetic sexual attraction (GSA) - will save them from going to jail. Another factor that could work in their favour was that Danielle was already infertile when she began her relationship with Nick.

Tom and Stefanie find themselves in very similar circumstances. They share the same mother and were separated early in childhood. They were reunited much later in adulthood, having both been married for more than a decade. An added complication is that they each have children, but that didn't stop the instant spark when they met. Within six weeks they had declared their love for each other and began hatching a plot for their future together.

The programme makers had to perform a very fine balancing act - how can we educate the viewing public about such an emotive issue without seeming to condone or judge? I think they got it just about right.

Gone with the Wind

Burn baby burn.

Great news this afternoon that the proposed development of three new wind farms in North-Northumberland has been blown away.

The decision followed an epic six hour long planning meeting by councillors on Berwick-upon-Tweed Borough Council. The three sites under scrutiny were in the picturesque rural areas of Moorsyde, Barmoor and Toft Hill.

Coun Dougie Watkin, who proposed refusal, said: "The applications sit between two protected areas. I cannot in all honesty understand that those structures are not going to dominate the landscape."

Unfortunately it is highly likely that the developer, Your Energy, will appeal against today's controversial decision.

It's a shame that, due to this government's lack of foresight, wind energy is even being considered in places like Northumberland. It might be the trendy thing for the tree-hugging, tofu-eating, ill-informed minority but they aren't an efficient means of power generation. If the wind doesn't blow they don't work. If the wind blows too much they stop them from working. They're an absolute load of tosh.

What we need is a nice new, clean and efficient nuclear power station built on the brown field site left by the old Blyth power station. Nuclear generates lots of clean electricity, lots of jobs and produces none of the nasty carbon emissions that burning fossil fuels does. It's a fact that you need thousands of wind turbines to generate the same amount of power you'd get from just one nuclear plant.

A victory for common sense - even if it's only a temporary reprieve.

The Price of Fish

Mackerel - very distinctive unless of course you're an idiot!

I've just been watching last night's The Apprentice on BBC iPlayer. For anyone who doesn't know about The Apprentice it's a show where 16 business types are plucked from obscurity hoping to win a six-figure salaried job with Alan Sugar. That's Sir Alan Sugar of Amstrad fame who is now worth £850 million and started off by selling car aerials to second hand car dealers. Yawn. Each week Sugar sets tasks for his budding apprentices to complete and each week the poorest member of the loosing team is booted off the show. The one left over at the end of the series is crowned the apprentice and wins the job. I believe the format has actually been sold overseas, so I might have just wasted my breath typing all that.

Anyway, last night's task saw the male team (the boys) and the female team (the girls) battling it out to see who could make the most profit on £600 worth of wet fish. The girls quickly decided that they would hit Islington market and try and offload their slippery merchandise to the thriving masses. The boys, despite having a choice of several markets, decided on the same venue although their thought process was slightly more convoluted.

The first thing each team had to do was unload their van, set up their stall, identify and price their fish. Sugar had provided them with an idiot's guide to fish identification and a wholesale price list so they knew roughly what to sell it for. It didn't go quite to plan. On the boys team Raef Bjayou, who describes himself as an entrepreneur, was given the task of identifying the different types of fish. As he feverishly thumbed through the idiot's guide he somehow manage to misidentify something as mackerel and came to the costly conclusion that monk fish was turbot.

Meanwhile Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, a recently qualified barrister, took the initiative to spy on a competing fishmonger and steal his prices. Unfortunately Nicholas, despite being a legal whizz, lacks in basic general knowledge and doesn't know his imperial pounds from his metric kilos. Consequently the team priced their lobsters at half the going rate.

You'd be right for thinking that the boys team weren't doing too well - they were practically giving away their stock, so it came as no surprise that they only made a £30 profit at the end of the day.

The girls on the other hand were in awe at the sheer volume of customers trying to get their hands on a bargain. All the shouting, crowding, pushing and shoving meant there was confusion on the ground and it took a while for them to establish a rigid pricing structure. At the end of the day they managed to sell their surplus stock to a restaurant, leading to a profit of about £150.

I'm amazed that the boys team leader Alex managed to survive the end of task debrief with Sugar. It was actually Nicholas who got the boot.

I'm even more surprised at the cack-handed way the boys team approached the task. I know nothing whatsoever about business but I do know that if you spend two hours choosing a poncy team name and deciding where to ply your trade then that's two hours less for actually making money. I also know that if you sell something for half it's value then you make a loss rather than a profit. Fundamental business principles I would say.

Given that all of the people on The Apprentice make flamboyant (inflated) claims about managing million pound budgets and thousand strong workforces in their day jobs I dread to think how badly a complete business amateur would perform!

Net Generation

A new study by the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that teenagers are spending in excess of 20 hours per week surfing the internet.

The report also shows that an increasing number of young children are using the internet without proper parental control. Figures released show that 40% of 8 to 11-year olds regularly surf the internet unsupervised and 57% of all children were accessing pornography.

Much of the children's browsing time is taken up by social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace with many staying connected until the early hours of the morning.

A large proportion of the children questioned also displayed knowledge of how to work around so-called net-nanny software, which is designed to limit their browsing activities to family friendly sites.

So kids are surfing the web looking at porn and most know how to use a proxy - what a surprise! Anyway, all this blogging isn't healthy so I'm away for a walk.

Naughty Cameron

One of the trendiest Conservative Party slogans at the moment is: "Vote Blue, Go Green." Right there at the forefront of the green crusade is our illustrious leader David Cameron - ever one for experimenting with alternative energy sources and modes of transport. Some people think it's all a cheap political gimmick but thanks to an article in today's Daily Mirror little doubt remains about David's commitment to the environment.

For three dreary Wednesday mornings the wheezy fat knackers from the Mirror followed David on the routine cycle ride from his Notting Hill home to Westminster. That's three days they observed David cutting his carbon footprint by choosing pedal power instead of horse power; three days he eased the burden on the capital's congested roads.



But far from praising David's sincere contribution to carbon neutrality the Mirror decided to profiteer from cheap headlines about his style of cycling. So he anticipated a few traffic signals and cut a few corners - what's the big deal? Was anyone hurt? Was anyone inconvenienced because Cameron was in a hurry to get the work and give the taxpayer maximum value for money? Did anyone even notice apart from the wheezy fat knackers from the Mirror who were in close pursuit committing exactly the same traffic violations?

Pathetic.

Winston Who?

"We shall fight them on the beaches..."

A recent survey of British primary school children reveals that one in three of them believe Winston Churchill was the first man on the Moon.

The survey, jointly commissioned by Walt Disney Home Entertainment and The Royal Astronomical Society, also shows that nearly half of the primary school children questioned think that the name Mars relates only to the chocolate bar. A third think that the surface of the Red Planet is actually blue. Unsurprisingly, given the content of my recent post about Pluto, nearly two thirds were unable to say how many planets were in the solar system and a similar number were unable to name them in the correct order.

Last month, in a poll commissioned by satellite television channel UKTV Gold, it transpired that a fifth of British teenagers thought that Second World War PM Churchill was a fictional character.

But there is a small glimmer of hope - nearly three quarters of the children wanted to learn more about astronomy.

Remember folks - according to the government education standards have never been better!

Heather in Wonderland

Embattled gold digger Heather Mills has failed in her attempt to have the details of her messy divorce hearing kept private. In a damning appraisal of Ms Mills the judge, Mr Justice Bennett, said: "Much of her evidence, both written and oral, was not just inconsistent and inaccurate but also less than candid."

Or put another way - the judge thinks she wasn't telling the whole truth in court. I shall not comment too much because this story has been covered ad nauseum elsewhere. Predictably the British press are in an absolute feeding frenzy, hysterically picking over the carcass of media-pandering Lady Mucca.

On Monday Mills left the High Court expressing her delight, at quite some length, at the £24 million settlement the judge had awarded her. In a statement on her official website she said: "I am so happy and relieved that this divorce has finally been settled and I am delighted with the overall outcome as I feel as if a great weight has been lifted."

But she was also adamant that the full details of the judge's ruling should be kept private to safeguard the privacy of the couple's young daughter Beatrice. After the release of the judge's highly critical comments about Mills' evidence we now know that her main concern was safeguarding her own image - what little image she has left. You can read some of the best judicial snippets at Times Online.

What a shallow, shallow harlot.

Stop Press: Pluto is Not a Planet

Here at Tom Jackson Online I like to provide you with the latest scientific developments. Unfortunately one major astronomical development crept under my radar back in 2006 - the news that there are now only 8 planets in our solar system.

Back in 2006 the International Astronomical Union sat down and decided on the definition of a planet. They decided a planet was a celestial body which:

• Orbits the Sun.
• Has sufficient mass so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium shape (a sphere).
• Has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit (it is gravitationally dominant: no other bodies apart from its own satellites are under its gravitational influence).
  

As Pluto fulfils only the first two criteria the IAU reclassified it as a new type of dwarf planet. In recent years many other large floaters similar to Pluto have been discovered. These bodies, comprised of rock and ice, reside at the periphery of the solar system in a region known as the Kuiper belt.

Apologies for the lateness of this report!

Dramatic Backlash

Two recent opinions poll have shown support for the Labour government has slumped to a 25 year low in the wake of Alistair Darling's first Budget speech last week.

An ICM poll in today's Guardian shows that Labour has 29% support which is 13% behind the Conservatives. The Guardian attributes the poll result to: "Voters are losing faith in the government's ability to steer Britain through difficult economic times, in spite of assertions that the UK is well-placed to ride out global turmoil."

A YouGov poll in last weekend's Sunday Times made even gloomier reading for the Prime Minister with Labour forecast only 27% - well behind the Conservatives' 43% approval rating. The Liberal Democrats (21%) and other parties have pretty much marked time over the past year. If the trend was repeated at the next General Election it would put the Conservatives firmly back in power with a Westminster majority greater than 100 seats.

Closer scrutiny of the polls suggest that Labour's most recent downward spiral began around the time of the Northern Rock crisis. The Conservatives have been highly critical of the massive costs incurred by the Chancellor's dithering management of the collapsed bank. Last week's Budget did little to reassure an already financially strained electorate. Alistair Darling's delivery and growth predictions leave little doubt that there will be harder times ahead.

On a different matter yesterday's Evening Standard led with the headline: "Boris Races Ahead In Mayor Poll." A detailed YouGov poll for the Standard puts bumbling Boris on 49% which is well ahead of Red Ken's 37%. Liberal Democrat candidate Brian Paddick is languishing in third place with a miserly 12% support - but what's new?!

It's all to play for come polling day.

Feeling the Pinch

The main political story of the last couple of days has been Alistair Darling's first Budget as Chancellor of the Exchequer. So did Darling step up to the Despatch Box with an array of mouth watering tit bits to woo a wavering electorate? Apparently not. In fact there was not much of anything on offer because the Government is a bit strapped for cash them self.

The Budget winners:

• Pensioners: Winter fuel allowance is to increase to £250 for over 60s and £400 for over 80s, although the Chancellor didn't actually guarantee these payments any further than the next financial year.
• Families: An increase in child benefit to £20 per week from April 2009. Reforms of the housing and council tax benefits system will also mean families are better off in work.
• The environment: Increased funds are made available for green housing. The Government is also encouraging shops to reduce the amount of plastic carrier bags in circulation. Tougher targets on vehicle emissions.
• Savers: Cash ISA limit of £3600 from April. A new type of 'savings gateway' will be launched by 2010.
• Business: Corporation tax will fall by 2% to 28%.
  
• Home buyers: Key workers will be able to borrow money from shared equity schemes. Sites have been identified for the development of 70000 new properties.
  
• Defence: An extra £2 billion will be spent on front line troops and equipment in the next year.

The Budget losers:

• Smokers: The prices of a packet of 20 cigarettes will rise by 11 pence. Cigars will increase by 4 pence for a packet of 5.
• Drinkers: A pint of beer will increase by 4 pence, a bottle of wine by 14 pence, a bottle of spirits by 55 pence and cider by 3 pence per litre. Alcohol duty will also increase by 2% above the rate of inflation for the next 4 years.
• Drivers: The 2 pence per litre fuel duty increase announced in the last Budget will be postponed until October this year. Fuel duty will also increase by 0.5 pence per litre in 2010. Vehicle excise duty will be reformed in 2009/10. The owners of new cars will pay a variable rate in the first year after vehicle registration - this will vary from zero for environmentally friendly vehicles to £950 for gas guzzlers.
• Non domiciles: The Chancellor hinted that non domicile families would be expected to pay a reasonable charge after living in Britain for several years.

My only major criticism would be that drivers are being hammered yet again. Whereas smoking and drinking are avoidable lifestyle choices, driving is a necessity for a major proportion of the workforce. If you live somewhere like rural Northumberland public transport is non-existent and the only way of getting to work or the shops (or even Post Office, if there's any left) is to drive there.

All in all a pretty neutral Budget. No real winners and the usual losers.

Shaken Babies

Last night's Panorama broached the harrowing issue of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). The programme took a closer look at the case of Keran Henderson, a childminder convicted of the manslaughter of 11-month-old toddler Maeve Sheppard.

Shaken Baby Syndrome, a term coined in the early 1970s, is a condition where a baby's delicate brain impacts forcefully on the inside the skull. This results in swelling and bleeding of the brain surface and behind the eyes. The majority, although not exclusive, scientific opinion is that SBS is caused when a baby is shaken violently.

But subsequent to Henderson's conviction serious questions have been raised about the validity of scientific evidence offered by the prosecution. Several eminent experts in the field concluded that Maeve's injuries were the result of forceful shaking. The implication was that as Henderson was the only person there it must have been her who shook baby Maeve to death. Huge significance was attached to the retinal bleeding shown by Maeve. Eye specialist Dr John Elston said: "I think it was most likely caused by shaking."

Friends and family of Henderson claim she couldn't have committed the offence. She was a well-respected, gentle-natured person who was well known in the local community. She had worked with children for several years before Maeve's death and there had never had any problems. Henderson herself has always denied shaking the child and has displayed geniune distress ever since that fateful day back in March 2005. Why keep up the pretence if she did it?

Scientists in the US cast doubt on the black and white assertion that a swollen brain and retinal bleeding equates to a shaken baby. Dr Patrick Lantz, a pathologist in North Carolina, studied the eyes of 1500 corpses that came through his mortuary. He found evidence of retinal bleeding in as many as 1 in 6 of the corpses - much greater prevalence than previously suggested. If this finding stands up to scrutiny then it weakens the link between retinal bleeding and SBS that was given so much weight in the Henderson trial.

Research carried out at Wayne State University also in the US suggests that the impact experienced by an infant who survives car crash is far more serious than that caused by shaking. Speaking to Panorama Dr Chris Van Ee said: "Shaken Baby Syndrome as described as an adult shaking a child holding him by the torso with the head flopping resulting in bleeding of the brain and retinal haemorrhage is fundamentally flawed from a biomechanics perspective. It's not valid. There's nothing to support it."

So is the diagnosis of SBS a case of the blind leading the blind and socially compliant scientists sheepishly following the path of least resistance? Or is it more complicated, perhaps the result of some thus far undetected disease process?

Either way it's too late to bring little Maeve back.

Panorama: Shaken Babies is available for viewing on BBC iPlayer for the next few days (in the UK only).

The Mystery of Civil Serf

Government politicians are breathing a sigh of relief today as the mysterious Whitehall mole known only as Civil Serf abandoned her revealing blogging efforts.

In a candid appraisal the 33-year old Londoner revealed the incompetence, chaos and ignorance at the heart of the Labour spin machine. Given her frequent references to dodgy geezer Peter Hain it is believed she works in the Department for Work and Pensions, although she has remained (understandably) tight-lipped about her actual role.

One of her latest blog entries, which unfortunately isn't cached by Google, hints that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, will use his first Budget speech to generate cheap headlines by announcing eye-catching but unaffordable measures.

In a separate development today the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, is to issue new guidelines to civil servants who blog or use social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo. There is an expectation in Whitehall that only those employees with direct responsibility for communicating with the media will actually do so.

You're forgiven for being under the illusion that any voter or taxpayer, regardless of who they work for, should have the right to comment on political matters as long as they remain within the limits of the law. Apparently freedom of speech, expression and thought doesn't extend quite as far as those in public office.

If you're reading this Civil Serf please get in touch and you can write a guest post for me.

Tories to Safeguard Military Covenant

Cameron announces Military Covenant Commission.

At his monthly news conference David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, announced plans for the formation of a new Military Covenant Commission. The Commission, to be headed by author and ex-RAF pilot Frederick Forsyth, is charged with narrowing the divide between the nation an its service personnel.

The news release on the Party's website explains that: "Over the past ten years, Government and society have not fulfilled their side of the Military Covenant. The Commission will investigate the state of the Covenant, the treatment of veterans, and ways to improve the support given to members of the Armed Forces and their families."

In a nutshell the Covenant is a largely unwritten agreement between the nation and its service personnel. In putting the needs of the nation above their own British troops forgo some of the rights and privileges the rest of us are free to enjoy. Whether in the operational theatre or on the training area they face the real risk of injury or death by virtue of the work they do. In return our service personnel should expect to be treated fairly, be valued and respected as individuals and be safe in the knowledge that their family will be looked after in times of crisis.

Our Armed Forces are currently slogging their guts out in two major theatres of conflict - Afghanistan and Southern Iraq. This is in addition to our long standing operational commitment in the Middle East, Balkans, Sierra Leone, Cyprus and the Falklands as well as our substantial training commitment in places like Germany and Canada. Our troops are working in oppressive conditions with often substandard equipment but still they get the job done. They more than fulfil their end of the bargain. The government on the other hand can not say the same.

I have written at length about the contemptuous way members of the Armed Forces are treated after being injured in service of their country. I have also written about how poorly equipped and thinly spread on the ground our Armed Forces are after years of penny pinching. The Chief of General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt, gave a candid appraisal in a leaked memo. Sir Richard revealed that the nation's military reserves are: "almost non-existent."

I shan't dwell on these points today, but feel free to read my previous articles for more information.

It is refreshing that the Conservatives are tackling this issue head on. Defence is an issue that doesn't normally win votes but it's something the Tories have always felt passionately about. Maybe it's because, in stark contrast to the Labour government, most Conservative politicians have actually been their and got the t-shirt.

Get more information from the new Military Convenant Commission website.

Munich Touch and Go

There's an astonishing video doing the rounds at the moment showing one of the greatest near misses in aviation history.

The footage, shot on 1st March 2008, shows the Lufthansa Airbus A320, flight number LH44, on its final approach to Hamburg in severe cross winds. As the aircraft descends to the runway the wings anything but level and are actually seen to clip the ground. Fortunately the pilot was able to maintain control, throttle up and abort the landing. All 137 passengers and crew managed to walk away from the ordeal, albeit slightly shaken by their brush with death.

If the pilot happens to be reading please buy me a National Lottery ticket!

Quotes of a Genius

At the end of my last post I closed with a quote by Albert Einstein. Einstein was probably the most influential theoretical physicist of the twentieth century. His theories of relativity, mass-energy equivalence and the photoelectric effect are as relevant today as they were at their inception nearly a century ago. He was a genius - why else would Dr Emmett Brown name his pet dog after him?!

As well as being a skilled theoretician he was also a talented orator who was able to construct the most humorous and spontaneous pearls of wisdom. For today's final post I recount some of Einstein's most memorable quotes.

• When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity.
• We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
• Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.
• The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
• The only source of knowledge is experience.
• The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
• The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead.
• Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
• A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
• Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.
• Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
• I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
• Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
• I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
• Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
• A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.
• Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

And finally,

• Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

Ain't that the truth?!

Science Fiction and Evolution

I was reading a forum yesterday where one of the threads had the catchy title: "Einstein's theory of relativity was wrong." Curious I thought, considering that most of modern day physics is built on the solid foundation that Einstein and his peers constructed in the first half of the twentieth century. Closer examination of the thread in question revealed that assertion that Einstein was wrong arose from the fact that some of his work had been based on that of Galileo which, you've guessed it, was also wrong.

Apparently one of Galileo's most famous experiments, the Tower of Pisa experiment, wasn't quite right. The story goes that Galileo dropped balls of the same material but different masses from the top of the tower and observed that they hit the ground at the same time. This contradicted Aristotle's earlier suggestion that something of mass 2 kg dropped twice as quickly as something of mass 1 kg.

Of course we know now that they were both, at least in part, correct with their observations. The Earth's gravitational field acts on every kilogram of mass to the same extent. This means if we had some hypothetical 'point masses' they would all fall at the same rate regardless of their actual magnitude, coinciding with Galileo's dropped balls. This rate is 9.8 metres per second per second - the so called acceleration of free fall. In the real world hypothetical point masses do not exist and we never see this perfect acceleration of objects in free fall. This is largely because although there is a gravitational force pulling the object downwards there is also an air resistance (drag) effectively pushing the object upwards. At some point the downwards force due to acceleration equals the upwards force due to drag and the falling body reaches its maximum speed, known as terminal velocity. The extent of drag depends on the size of the falling body, which ties in with Aristotle's observation that something big falls faster than something small.

The point I'm trying to get at, in my characteristic 'round the houses way, is that although Aristotle and Galileo were only correct in part their observations were fundamental in piecing together the whole. Had they not had the conviction to make their suggestions then it would have proved much more difficult to arrive at the final answer.

Science is sometimes like that. Sometimes incorrect suggestions are made in the quest for the truth. Sometimes the truth would be harder to arrive at had the incorrect suggestions not been made in the first place. Reflection and refinement are equally important parameters.

I leave you with a quote from Einstein: "Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."

Erm, Get Well Soon

As most people will be aware today is Mothering Sunday. Most people that is apart from me. Last night my brother, sister in law and little niece were visiting and they left behind a Mother's Day card. I spotted this card on the dining room table and thought to myself "oh shit" as I had completely forgotten about it. I'm forgetting a lot of things at the moment, as my post of a couple of weeks back explains. This year's calendar is slightly adrift because of the leap year and early Easter - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I decided that a last minute shopping trip was in order to try and make good my oversight. The trouble is that there aren't many shops open that sell Mother's Day cards at 7.30 pm on a Saturday evening. I thought I'd check out the local big name supermarket - a usually reliable source of everyday household things you've forgotten to purchase elsewhere. After hunting around the isles I eventually found the greetings card section but there was not a single Mother's Day card anywhere.

Just then I had a brainwave. I decided that I would buy a different type of card and pen a nice message in it - she'd probably not even notice the difference. A sensible person would have bought a plain card appropriate to any occasion. Alas, I am not that man and my mischievous humour guided me to the 'Get Well Soon' cards instead.

I think I got away with it judging by the roar of laughter as everyone read the message inside. It read: "Mum, I'm sorry I couldn't get a proper Mother's Day card but it's the thought that counts. Please remember to keep taking your tablets. Tom xx."

DNA Database

Regular readers will know that there are a few issues that I feel absolutely passionate about. Close to the top of that list comes the right for every ordinary law abiding person in the UK to live their ordinary law abiding life with minimal interference and intrusion by the state. People do not want to be policed in their own homes; they do not want their hands tied by petty red tape and farcical political correctness; they do not want to be spied on at every turn.

The recent convictions of Steve Wright and Mark Dixie have again catapulted the idea of a compulsory national DNA database back to the top of the agenda. Ipswich serial killer Wright's DNA was already held on the national database because he had been arrested prior to his December 2006 killing spree. This allowed the police to quickly pinpoint their suspect and take him out of circulation within only a few days.

The circumstances of the Sally Anne Bowman murder investigation were slightly different. Although the police had a DNA profile of Sally Anne's killer it failed to produce a match on the database. Instead it took the police several months to identify and apprehend Mark Dixie - a delay that could have had potentially murderous consequences. Speaking after the trial the lead investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, said: "It is my opinion that a national DNA register - with all its appropriate safeguards - could have identified Sally Anne's murderer within 24 hours. Instead it took nearly nine months before Mark Dixie was identified, and almost two-and-a-half years for justice to be done."

Let me stress that I agree entirely with the idea of a national DNA database where the profiles of convicted criminals are held. We can not progress to any sort of compulsory database that includes the profiles of non-convicted individuals when the current system is lacking in so many ways. I have huge ethical issues with the way that DNA is harvested and the database compiled at the moment.

Under the current arrangements anyone who is arrested can have their DNA taken by the police. 'Anyone' encompasses a wide range of people - not just people who commit violent crime but those who steal tins of baked beans or have been arrested for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Make no mistake that in an age of performance targets and league tables people are arrested for the most trivial of matters - matters where the police would have previously used a modicum of common sense and discretion to save themself the hassle and the nation the unnecessary expense. Importantly, the fact that a person is arrested in no way guarantees their guilt. It is important to remain focused on that point.

I am not concerned about convicted criminals having their DNA taken. By failing to comply with society's rules, no matter how trivial the offence, they have forfeited some of the rights that the remainder of society still has. It is the retention of DNA information from the sizable proportion of people who are released without charge that I have issue with. Why should the state be able to extract, process and retain the DNA information of someone who has not done anything unlawful? Unlike the collection of fingerprints the unlocking of DNA can reveal some of the most intimate of physical characteristics, not only of the suspect but also of their close family.

It would be bad enough if they were putting the DNA profiles of non-convicted individuals on the safest, most secure computer system in the world but that's not that way things work here in Britain. Over the last few months the lackadaisical approach of several government departments and agencies has resulted in the personal details of millions of British citizens being lost. As history has shown the government itself is even prepared to pimp out people's personal information.

So before we consider forcing innocent individuals into a new compulsory database let's sort out the major failings of the current one.