Nils Andersson's Blog, page 2

Too Many Professors?

Professor Kompressor in an inventor. He is excellent at inventing, but the inventions are not always excellent.
So… I have been jotting down inventive and I hope (at least occasionally) entertaining stories involving this absent-minded character since the beginning of last year. As the cast of characters keeps growing and the science on which each story is based becomes increasingly far fetched, I thought it would be interesting (and perhaps amusing) to try to figure out where the inspiration for the Professor really comes from. We all know that not much is new under the sun, so this character must be a rip-off, right?
Here are some obvious sources of inspiration (might add to the list later, but this is a start):
Professor Branestawm, Norman Foster’s mad inventor which his clocks that keep going around and around and any number of seemingly excellent schemes that backfire. You may recognize the presence of a faithful housekeeper… Heath Robinson’s wonderfully quirky illustrations make the Branestawm books stand out.
Professor Balthazar, the main character in an animated Eastern European TV series from the 1960s. I remember watching this as kid and loving it (have written about it here before, too). The range of totally crazy creations you can come up with from a single drop of red liquid in a test tube is amazing!
Professor Calculus, of Tintin fame. Must not forget him. He did, after all design that moon rocket, and the funny pendulum he wanders about with always intrigued me.
There’s a bit of varied inspiration (different media, as well). Since writing the first Kompressor book I have enjoyed exploring the issue a bit deeper. This has led to the discovery of some real gems. For example;
Professor Bullfinch, or rather Danny Dunn, the inventive boy that lives with him. A clever boy that takes liberties with the Professor’s inventions… what could possibly go wrong? These out-of-print books are seriously worth looking out for. The overlap with the science I decided to explore is remarkable as well – time travel, anti gravity, invisibility and so on. Makes me feel like a cheap copy…
Alvin Fernald, another inventing boy that comes up with mechanical contraptions to solve all sorts of problems, from a morning waker-upper to a spring loaded paper deliverer. Great fun!
The list would not be in any sense complete without a mention of the more contemporary;
Doctor Proctor, with his ridiculous fart powder and time travelling bathtub. Surprising side project for an author famous for more violent adult fiction.
Finally, from the science point of view, this kind of list would not be complete without;
Uncle Albert, who explores Einstein’s theories of the Universe together with his niece Gedanken (get it?). Russell Stannard set the standard for semi-fictional science writing for kids, no doubt about it. And the standard is very high.
George, the main character in the books by Lucy and Stephen Hawking, and his explorations of the Universe from black holes to the Big Bang. With a very real connection to what is actually going on today, these carefully researched books are a must-have for any budding scientist.
That’s all I can think of, at least right now. I suspect there is more – much more – and I am looking forward to finding out. (Suggestions on a Stamped Addressed Elephant most welcome.)

That darned cat

It was a sunny day at the end of summer. The Professor and Lily were sitting in the shade, talking about all sorts of things, enjoying a refreshing cold drink. Suddenly a cat came darting around the corner of the house. Followed by a euphoric, wildly barking, Spot. The couple careered across the lawn, under the fence and into the neighbouring farmer’s field.“Do you think he’ll catch the poor thing?” asked the Professor.“Never in a week of Sundays,” laughed Lily. “That old cat is far too cunning to get caught.”The Professor thought for a moment before continuing. “Have you heard of Schrödinger’s cat?”“The what-dinger’s what?” responded Lily, as she had not.“A famous scientist from some time ago,” continued the Professor. “He was trying to explain how things work when you experiment on something really small, like the tiny particles that everything is made from.”“The idea is that the measuring affects the outcome.”“That’s where the cat comes in.”“Imagine putting a cat in a sealed box together with a poison that may be released at any time, but you don’t know when. How can you tell if the cat is dead or alive?”“You open… the box?” suggested Lily with some hesitation because she knew the Professor was fond of trickery.“Exactly!” exclaimed the Professor. “Unless you open the box there is no way of knowing what state the cat is in.” “Some people say that the cat is half alive and half dead until you open the box.” “Schrödinger was arguing that this was a bit absurd.”“It does sound stupid,” said Lily with emphasis. “What if the cat meows?”“Make the box sound proof,” said the Professor.“What if he scratches the inside of the box?” Lily was determined not to give up.“Make sure the inside of the box is soft so he can’t scratch it,” suggested the Professor, also not prepared to lose the argument.“Ah…” said Lily, deciding to try a different strategy, “… but the cat must be either dead or alive. Otherwise it doesn’t make sense.”The Professor was a great fan of logic, but this time he did not bite.“Why does it have to make sense?” the asked. “Do you think that’s the way the world works? Surely there’s quite a lot of nonsense around?”“Hmm,” decided Lily. “That’s funny and not funny at the same time.”“Anyway,” she finished, “that hum-dinger guy wouldn’t have got away with it.”“You’re not allowed to be cruel to animals.”

Just another short story to celebrate (commiserate?) the last few days of summer. Hope you enjoyed it!

A left-right turn

Trying to give our oldest daughter an easy way to remember the difference between left and right, I suggested the classic “The right hand is the one you write with”. Fortunately - for both of us, really - this works fine in our case. Of course, it is not generally true. The world of handwriting is divided between righties and lefties.It’s quite interesting, this handedness of the world.Strangely, there are not as many left-handers as right handed ones among us. But it has been noted that many of societies high fliers are left handed. A highly unscientific survey (don’t tell them I did this!) of my colleagues suggests that this is correct. There are too many lefties for comfort. And they seem awfully clever, as well. Although... might be on dodgy ground trying to argue that the office is a particular peak performance environment.Perhaps the competitiveness of the left has something to do with the division of the brain. The left half is supposed to deal with logic, numbers, science and reasoning. The right is in charge of art, poetry and the artistic side in general. Clearly, the left siders will be too shrewd for the dreamy right siders. No surprise if they end up on top.The left-right division cuts right through society.Politics is neatly (well, maybe not “neatly”) divided into left and right. It’s not clear to me if this has anything to do with the different sides of the brain. Suspect not. It is difficult to argue to that the idealistic socialists on the left, insisting on fairness and an equal division of many things, are driven by hard logic. Similarly tricky to insist that the free market capitalists on the right, with their eagerness for cut-throat competition and arbitrarily large banker’s bonuses, are guided by aesthetics. Somehow, the left-right labels almost seem to be the wrong way around...In many countries people drive on the right. In others they stay on the left. Some countries have switched from left to right in living memory. Not sure if they did it the other way round somewhere. In some places, like India, the rules seem to be happily disregarded... and people drive all over the place.Some languages are written from left to right. I find this confusing, but this must be because I am conditioned to things being the other way around. Reading your own language backwards is certainly weird (if you think not, look back at the red button short story from a couple of weeks ago). Although, playing around with it a bit (selecting phrases carefully and breaking up the words differently) you can end up with something that sounds like a real language. Admittedly a weird one, a bit like Welsh.Nature is right and left handed at a much deeper level, as well.The idea is that things can come in two sibling forms that are similar yet different. They are mirrored in the same way as the human hands. Hold your right hand up in front of a mirror and you see your reflection’s left hand. In typical scientific fashion, there is a fancy word for this: chirality (from the Greek word for hand).Some molecules in chemistry and biology show this kind of symmetry. Others don’t, their reflection looks identical to the original.So there you go, from a simple way to remember which hand you write with to one of the key “symmetries” in nature.It really didn’t work, though.My daughter still can’t tell the difference. She only says “Which hand do I write with, Daddy?”. She might just be cheeky or... maybe I lost her with that chirality business.

The dancing shoes

Professor Kompressor was not a dancer. He was, in fact, quite severely rhythmically challenged. He could not even clap in time. This did not usually matter because he was an inventor not a ballroom performer.It came as a shock to the Professor when Maud asked him to join her for a dinner in the village hall... followed by an evening of dancing.It seemed inconceivable that this was happening.But... Maud seemed so excited that he could not say no.He would have to deal with it.It was a tough nut to crack, and the Professor did not have much time so he had to crack on. The situation required invention, but what kind?Movement was key. He needed to make sure the feet moved in a coordinated fashion without getting tangled up.“The shoes!”If he could get the shoes to guide the feet, then the rest of him could simply follow.“A pair of carefully designed dancing shoes, that’s what I need,” the Professor decided. “Surely, that can’t be too difficult?”The Professor had a lot of experience with robots and thinking machines, so the construction of the dancing shoes was indeed not very difficult. The main challenge involved the programming of the various dances. This required information about complicated steps and moves. The Professor did not have the first clue about such things. He had to look them up in a book, but this was not the kind of book he had in his library. He had to order one from the library in the village.The night of the event he was dressed in his finest suit. Maud looked beautiful in a dark green dress. The village hall was packed with people as the band struck up the first tune.“Shall we, Professor?” asked Maud.The Professor was nervous but it was too late to back out. He took Maud by the hand. The band was playing a waltz. As the Professor tweaked the remote control he had hidden in his pocket, the shoes recognised the music and gently guided him across the floor.It went swimmingly.After a couple of tunes they stopped for a drink. Maud was surprised that the Professor was such an accomplished dancer.When the music started again the Professor stuck his hand in his pocket to adjust he remote control. As he was fiddling with the dials a dancing couple bumped into him. He only lost balance for a moment but managed to drop the remote on the floor... and step on it.All of a sudden, the shoes had a mind of their own.The band was playing a tango...... but the Professor was dancing a rumba. He dragged a frightened Maud across the floor, throwing her this way and that. She held on for dear life.Moments later the shoes changed to something wild, possibly an African war dance. The Professor’s feet were drumming the floor, his arms were waving like windmills, people were clambering to get out of his way.There was no stopping him.At least not until the batteries ran out.

Television spectacles

Professor Kompressor enjoyed his television. After a long day of hard thinking and inventing he found it relaxing to sit in his comfortable chair and watch whatever happened to be on. The noise from the television brought life to the living room, which made the Professor feel less lonely. The repetitiveness of the frequent commercials had a hypnotic quality, which made the Professor sleepy. As a result, he often dozed off, lost the plot and ended up having to go to bed.In reality the Professor liked the idea of the television more than the actual thing. He had often thought that someone ought to improve on the concept. Being an inventive person, he had even had a go at this himself, but the result had been less than perfect.“Ideally,” thought the Professor, “you’d want to be able to watch your favourite programme wherever you are. Whenever it suits you.”“A portable television would be the perfect solution,” he decided.“The problem is that it would be too bulky,” he considered after giving his own television set a hard stare.“One would need to make the design a lot more economical. Perhaps by making the screen smaller?”“You could always get the same effect by watching it from close up.”“I guess there’s a limit, though... If you get it too close to your face you might scratch your glasses.”“The glasses!” he exclaimed. “That’s absolutely brilliant! Why not make the glasses themselves into the television?”He decided that this was, indeed, a fine idea so started working on it immediately. It turned out to be very tricky to fit all the required electronics into a lightweight frame similar to that of his glasses. It was a real mini-challenge and the Professor had to work away under a microscope for quite some time before he was successful.“These must be the most spectacular spectacles ever,” smiled the Professor as he was getting ready to test his invention.He switched on the tiny television by tapping his right nostril once. A scene came to life in front of his eyes, blocking out the view of the inventing studio. The sound came clearly through tiny speakers he had installed in the frames. The effect was sensational. It felt incredibly real.He changed the channel by tapping his left nostril. Deafening music blasted through the speakers. After a moment of panic, the Professor turned the volume down by pulling on his left earlobe.After a bit of tapping and pulling he settled on an interesting documentary about African wildlife.The Professor decided that a nice cup of tea, three lumps of sugar and a splash of milk, would make him enjoy the experience even more.Caught up in the action on the screen, he walked off towards the kitchen... and crashed into the doorframe.“Ouch,” he groaned as he checked if his nose was still there, “maybe the normal television is better after all?”

The big red button

Professor Kompressor finished the invention, but he was not at all happy with it. It had all sorts of exciting electronics and circuits, but they were hidden inside a grey metal box. It looked dull. He decided to give it a bit of flair by adding a red button. A big red shiny button. This made the contraption look much more interesting.Having worked on the device since first thing that morning, the Professor was tired and in need of a lie down. As he was walking up the stairs he said to Maud, who was busy dusting in the hallway, “Whatever you do, Maud, don’t push that red button. I’m not sure what the machine is for yet. It may not be safe.”He should perhaps have made sure that Maud paid attention, because sometimes she was in her own world. This might have been one of those times. She was humming to herself, waving the duster around in the air as if she was conducting an orchestra.It was not long before the Professor was fast asleep.As Maud carried on tidying up downstairs she noticed the boring grey box and the shiny button. It had a strange attraction on her. She was quite a nosy character and liked have a peek at the Professor’s secrets. His inventions were often weird and amusing, and besides she enjoyed gossiping about what he was up to.“I wonder what that box is for?” she thought as she felt her fingers being drawn towards the red button.“Surely it can’t do any harm?” she convinced herself as she pushed it.Nothing happened.Absolutely nothing.When the Professor woke up he felt a bit odd. He could not quite put his thumb on what it was, but something was definitely different.He got out of bed and went downstairs. It was time for a mid afternoon drink so he went to the kitchen to prepare a nice cup of coffee with a generous helping of milk and a smidgeon of sugar. As he was sipping the drink, he could not help thinking that something had changed.“No gniog stahw?” he wondered.Maud had finished the cleaning and was about to leave for the village. She went into the kitchen to say goodbye.“Rosseforp gniog mi,” she said giving the Professor a little wave. “Retal uoy ees.”Professor Kompressor gave her a confused look as she left. His brain was trying to figure out what was going on.Then he remembered the invention and the red button.“Sdrawkcab lla si siht,“ he decided, because it was...“Thgir sgniht tes ot evah,” he thought with a smile and pushed the button.Suddenly everything was back to normal. Left was left, right was right and things were no longer back to front.“That Maud,” thought the Professor, “she’s just impossible. Can’t help herself, can she?”
The End
This is the first attempt at writing a very short Professor Kompressor story (less than 500 words), hopefully with an entertaining twist. If there were to be enough of these (in the fullness of time), they may eventually make up a collection that would perhaps best be called "The Professor's shorts".

Going for broke

How are your finances doing? Great? OK, then you need not read any further. Unless you happen to be worried about the future... Do you have problems balancing the books? Failing investments? Can’t figure out how to pay for that sofa/midlife crisis sportscar/house or how to support yourself in your old age? You may as well stop reading as well, because there won’t be any solutions offered here.  Unless you think that someone else doing badly will make you feel better…The news this week provided a reminder that things don’t always work out as you might wish.  Optimism can turn into despair surprisingly quickly. Go back to the 1950s - a time of excitement about the future (and perhaps just a little bit of worry that the world might come to a rapid end in a nuclear apocalypse, but let’s forget about that for now). This was an era of blossoming industry and the growth of the middle class as a force in society. A time of optimism.In Detroit – the Motor City – cars were made to represent to spirit of the time. Fabulous cars! Exciting cars! Production lines churned out cars to provide the wheels for a nation.Move into the 1960s. The birth of pop music and a relaxed way of life. The future was looking great. Fabulous science fiction was written, telling us how glorious everything would soon be. We would have robot helpers. Man would colonize the Galaxy. Towards the end of the decade Neil Armstrong took his famous small step. Man had landed on the moon and would never look back. In Detroit, cars were made. Big cars. Cool cars. Skip forwards a couple of decades. Detroit is a derelict city. Just declared bankrupt. The mere idea seemed ridiculous not long ago, but apparently it can happen. The city of the future turned into the first real post-apocalyptic landscape in just a couple of decades. Factories are left derelict. Houses are left standing just as families left them, with cutlery in the drawers and books still on the shelves. An entire city walked out and didn’t come back. Cars are made elsewhere…We have not been back to the moon for many decades. The other planets seem incredibly distant, and let’s not think about the Galaxy. Science fiction has become much darker (please don’t mention vampires!). The vision of the future seems much less optimistic.What happens next? Will Detroit rise like a phoenix from the ashes? That would be nice, but… the ghost towns left from the gold rush suggest it may not work out that way. Who knows what will happen? If we allow greed to remain the main driver of society (let’s just look at how the banks are behaving, shall we?) then there does not seem to be much hope.  We need to inject a bit of sanity in society, a bit of restraint. We need to allow ourselves to dream the dreams of the future from the past (get it?). I for one really want my robot helper, and I want it soon.

Nothing stays the same

Travelling back from Poland this last weekend, I was given time to think. Quite a lot of time, in fact. The plane was cancelled so I had to stand in line – most patiently, with no food and/or drink – for around 6 hours while the airline staff tried to figure out the options. I managed to get home in the end, which I guess represents some level of success. I also learned that you can make a transfer through Vienna airport in less than 30 minutes, even without a boarding card. Well impressed with that! Might have been a new world record. Anyway.After a couple of hours of standing in line, I started experiencing the effects of gravity. At first my feet felt a bit sore. A bit later the calf muscles were aching. Later still, I was acutely aware that I had feet… and that they did not agree with the shoes anymore. The experience made me think of a talk I went to a couple of years ago on the topic of the constants of nature.  These would be things like the speed of light, the gravitational constant, the charge of the electron and so on. They pop up all over physics and relate to how strong various effects are. Now, the question is; what if these aren’t actually constant at all, but change as the Universe evolves? Who says that the speed of light has remained the same since the Big Bang? Why could the strength of gravity not vary as time passes?Uh? Actually, my experience in that airport would be fully consistent with gravity getting stronger the longer you stand in a queue.But maybe this would be expecting things to change a bit fast… I’m also not thinking about the fact that walking up stairs gets harder as you get older. That’s not a change in gravity, just the perception of it.I am thinking about a gradual shift and how this would affect the world around us. If the constants of nature change, then the Universe could end up rather different provided you wait long enough. This is fun to think about. For example, change the relation between the gravitational constant and the speed of light and you can suddenly make smaller or larger black holes with a given weight. Fiddle with Boltzmann’s constant (which enters in thermodynamics) and you can adjust how hot the black hole is, as well. Finally, jiggle Planck’s constant and you can make quantum physics relevant at a completely different scale.  You can come up with the weirdest things this way. And thinking about it may keep you entertained. Which is a good thing.Especially if you have to stand around waiting for 6 hours…

Equally true today?

Just over half a century ago a gravity meeting was held in Warsaw. The leaders of the field gathered to discuss the key issues of the area. Among the experts was Richard Feynman, the maverick genius that fathered a fair part of modern physics. He was not at all impressed by the meeting. As he described his impressions in an often quoted letter to his wife (taken from the entertaining autobiography Surely you are joking Mr Feynman?);
I am not getting anything out of the meeting. I am learning nothing. Because there are no experiments this field is not an active one, so few of the best men are doing work in it. The result is that there are hosts of dopes here and it is not good for my blood pressure: such inane things are said and seriously discussed that I get into arguments outside the formal sessions (say, at lunch) whenever anyone asks me a question or starts to tell me about his “work.” The “work” is always: (1) completely un-understandable, (2) vague and indefinite, (3) something correct that is obvious and self-evident, but worked out by a long and difficult analysis, and presented as an important discovery, or (4) a claim based on the stupidity of the author that some obvious and correct fact, accepted and checked for years, is, in fact, false (these are the worst: no argument will convince the idiot), (5) an attempt to do something probably impossible, but certainly of no utility, which, it is finally revealed at the end, fails, or (6) just plain wrong. There is a great deal of “activity in the field” these days, but this “activity” is mainly in showing that the previous “activity” of somebody else resulted in an error or in nothing useful or in something promising. It is like a lot of worms trying to get out of a bottle by crawling all over each other. It is not that the subject is hard; it is that the good men are occupied elsewhere. Remind me not to come to any more gravity conferences!
It just happens that another gravity meeting is being held in Warsaw next week, and I am going... Just before travelling, it is interesting to reflect on how the area has changed in the last decades. On the one hand, things have changed enormously. On the other hand, you can argue that many of Feynman’s comments are equally valid today.
Let me explain.
Feynman wrote his letter at a time when Einstein’s General Relativity (that describes gravity) was pursued mainly by theorists and mathematicians. The theory had been tested, but as Feynman points out, there were no current experiments. And physics tends to progress by theory and experiment going hand in hand.  However, astronomy observations were about to undergo a revolution. Radio and X-ray observations were just around the corner and they were destined to change our view of the Universe completely. Through these new windows it became apparent that we live in a violent Universe where stars end their lives in massive explosions, there are systems that flare and exhibit enormously powerful outflows and perhaps most astonishingly… black holes are plentiful. Einstein’s theory has been central to our current understanding of these amazing phenomena.
There was, of course, no way that Feynman could have seen this coming.
Following this revolution, General Relativity must be a vibrant research area, right?
Maybe not quite…
The reason is that many of the exciting ideas, like black holes, that originated from Einstein’s gravity have now become part of mainstream astronomy. The change has come about in such an astonishing way that gravity theorists have been left behind. Astronomers often don’t see the need for the intricate mathematics required to actually understand the theory. They seem quite happy with a more handwaving discussion of the phenomena…
This – pretty much as in Feynman’s day – leaves General Relativity as a comparatively small area with stalwart groups and individuals pushing on even though the main focus is elsewhere (high energy physics and colliders, cold atom gases, metamaterials, nanotechnology,…) And just as half a decade ago we don’t have experiments. Actually, we do, but we are still waiting for them to provide the goods. The difference is that this time we expect great things to come, so there is an undercurrent of excitement.
Having looked at the programme for next week’s meeting I think I will be able to find presentations that cover the numbered list in Feynman’s letter. No problem. This is obviously not great. However, regardless what happens next week I am unlikely to compose my own Feynman-esque letter to my suffering wife.
Why not?
First of all, the first direct detection of gravitational waves – as elusive as they have proved to be – should only be a couple of years away. When the current LIGO detector upgrade is complete and data is taken, they should see something. If they don’t then much of what we believe is true about the Universe is wrong (which would be interesting in itself!). Secondly, electromagnetic observations of neutron stars and black holes are becoming increasingly precise. We are not far from the point where astronomers will have to know Einstein’s theory if the want to understand their data. Won't that be fun?

Two fat ladies

After a long and detailed investigation, involving agents spending months under cover, the authorities finally moved in this morning. In a swift action they wiped out a nefarious gambling ring. One of the criminals was caught red handed with his greedy fingers in the biscuit tin.     Local residents can yet again rest easy. The threat level to law-abiding citizens can be brought down from critical to normal. Time to breathe a sigh of relief.     In a week where the news has been dominated by the ins and outs of whistleblowing and whether or not various countries in the west have become totalitarian states, the news broke this morning that police in Portugal have arrested an entire pub for gambling. Or, to be more precise, playing bingo.     Imagine the scene. The call of “Two fat ladies!” rang out. A man shouted “Bingo!” and just as he was getting up to pick up the box of biscuits that were to be the reward for his long-time illegal behaviour... He was grabbed by the strong arm of the law and hauled off to prison.      Great, you think, crime should not pay.      Does it matter if it’s a laughing matter, as it were?      Let me humbly suggest that it probably does. Today’s two leading news stories seem so disparate, and yet they were given equal weight (at least for a moment). On the one hand the Bingo ring and on the other hand the whistleblower that uncovered several governments’ immoral snooping into electronic messages and social media posts. Surely, the second story is a few orders of magnitude more important? Although, having said that, it is perhaps equally ironic. After all, do you not think it is (just a little bit) funny that the authorities accuse this whistleblower of spying when all he did was reveal the fact that they were doing just that?       The fact that government agencies are keen to listen in to everyone’s skype calls etcetera should not come as a great surprise. They are after all trying to “keep us all safe” so surely it makes sense that they need to track what are are up to? Did you not see the signs? Did you never wonder if that guy who wanted to be your friend on facebook... The one you could not remember from school... Could possible be a part of the secret service? Well, you should have!      Do I have a problem with this underhanded Big Brother action? Of course, I do! As should everyone else. It is illegal and reprehensible. I may not be surprised, but that does not mean I have to like it.      Am I worried about a knock on the door in the early morning hours, and the interrogation at the secret headquarters that will surely follow? Surely I must have broken a gazillion obscure laws in my life? I may even have played Bingo!      Still, I am not too bothered. Seems a bit vain to think that even the most dedicated snoops would care too much about my personal (hypothecated, I assure you...) crimes. Also, being somewhat familiar with the challenges of working with big data... and the combined email traffic of the western world amounts to an absolutely enormous amount of data... I suspect that electronic eavesdropping on the entire population would be an essentially wasted effort. Targeted on particular suspicious individuals (whoever you think the “bad guys” are, I guess), it may be effective, but trying to pick out the worst of a bad bunch when you have a pool of many millions. Well, good luck!       Basically, I would imagine this tired, overworked, mid-career official slaving away in a grey cubicle equipped with a couple of flat computer screens. Trying to scan message after message. Checking out the latest facebook status updates. Listening... Listening... Being bored out of his wits. Thinking that he has 20 years to go until retirement. Worrying that, by then, there won’t be a pension system anyway. 20 more years of listening… He may be dreaming about his holiday and perhaps wondering what happened to the glamorous James Bond existence he was promised when he joined the service.       How efficient do you think this man is likely to be? I have a feeling most of us can get away with murder.