Saturday 11 September 2010

the name's case, justin case

I love the gadgets in early James Bond movies. And when Bond went to see Q he always, always came away with a few that, regardless of what was to come, would actually get used. Better yet Q obviously had the BEST gadget ever - foresight. He knew exactly what gadget to give Bond before he set out on the mission. He would never have said, "James take the fingerprint encoded backwards shooting Walther PPK because you never know, it might come in handy..." And Bond would never have replied, "Do you know something I don't?" No, he would always take the offered gadget without further thought, confident at some point in the mission it would get used.

(Later in the movie when Bond's true purpose is revealed the baddie knocks the gun out of Bond's hand and tries to shoot him with it. "I wouldn't do that," Bond says. "Why? Do you know something I don't?" the baddie replies as he pulls the trigger. BANG! The mortally wounded bad guy clutches his chest, drops the gun and falls dead to the floor.)

Weather forecasts are like foresight but occasionally they fall short. On the recent trip to Scotland I added in a few extra items under the insistence of Mr J Case because snow and minus temperatures were predicted. However on this occasion Metcheck, MWIS and the Met Office must have had clag clouding their collective vision. More likely since that highly amusing (in retrospect) proclaimation back in 1986 when Michael Fish stated that hurricane force winds were NOT going to happen forecasters have always put the worst case senario. Any danger of adverse weather and the storm force winds, snow flakes et al get top billing. Makes me wonder wonder with this soaking into the pysche that we now believe that the weather is worse than it was twenty four or so years ago...