101 Things #46 - Get Real

What's on your bucket-list of things you really want to do before it is too late? When you look back and flick through the photos, grandchildren gazing up admiringly, what will you tell them that will inspire them to fulfil their potential and to make the most of their own time while they can?

I'm pretty sure it will not be the suggestion on Bucket List Journey website to

Apply to be on a reality show

because, let's be honest here (and when I am anything else?), this is one of the most unambitious BL items I have ever seen. For this reason it is fitting to be considered for my still-expanding collection of anti-bucket list ideas that I modestly call 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die.


Anyone can apply to be on a reality show. All that is required is to be able to fill in a form. Nothing truthful need be said nor do you have to have the slightest desire to be accepted. Enter some details, click the button (or stick a stamp on and post it) and you can rub your hands with the knowledge of a job well done. Hardly worth putting on your bucket list; hardly worth my while to mock it by including it in my own compendium.


Let us be charitable and assume that what the originator meant was "Go on a reality show". Now that is a very different proposition. To be a participant on Masterchef, or The Apprentice or Bake-off, or to be stuck on a desert island with a bunch of celebrity wannabees, you must meet the criteria specified by the show's producers; some demonstrable talent and achievements, or a dazzling smile, irritating Essex accent and shapely figure, depending on show.


I watch some of these shows either because it is interesting to watch people with skills that I do not possess engaging in a competition or to watch idiots such as those in The Apprentice bigging themselves up before failing spectacularly when they attempt to do something. And there we have the reason why Appearing on a Reality Show is a worthy addition to my set of undesirables, and since applying must precede appearing, why the former is included as well.

None of which militates against being on a reality show if one is invited to do so. A guest appearance as a judge on Masterchef perhaps, tucking into the rack of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes and pea puree, with a chocolate fondant to follow. I'd be happy to do a bit of that, sure. The studios are not too far from my home and they can send round the stretch limo with the complementary champagne any time they like.

101 Things #45 - Going Up

Today we delve once more into the rich field of travel suggestions that people feel they or others ought to follow. [Warning: horrible cliché follows: Ed]. The topic for review is literally out of this world. [Told you. You can relax now: Ed] for we are going to examine the idea posited on the Location Rebel website, amongst others, that before you die you should

Go into space on Virgin Galactic.

Adding this one to my ever-growing list of achievements to be avoided, 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die was a no-brainer. Here are the reasons.

1. It's unbelievably expensive ($250k) . 
2. Rich people have already bagged all the available seats. 
3. It would mean a long distance flight to the USA. 
4. It's operated by Virgin and I am still waiting for an apology from R. Branson or one of his minions for making me redundant without good cause when I happened to be employed by that very same organisation some years ago. 
5. You don't actually go into space at all. You go to the edge of the atmosphere, completely within Earth's gravitational field, and do not so much fly as get hurtled up and then glide back down. 
6. Virgin Galactic is the most pretentious name since .... no, I shall start again, it is the the most pretentious name. Just getting to the next planet is beyond them, hell, they can't even get to the moon 
7. You don't get duty frees as you pass through the troposphere. Or coming back. Disgraceful.

Having said all that, to see the Earth from high above and to experience weightlessness would definitely be high on my real bucket-list of things to do, if it could be done cheaply, without the huge waste of chemicals required for the launch and one could spend a bit of time up top. But the VG flight will be about an hour and a half, most of which is getting up and coming down. And can you imagine the safety demonstration?

'The crew will now point out the emergency doors. If these are opened whilst we are pressurised you will be sucked out to certain death unless your seatbelt is fastened. In which case you will asphyxiate in a few moments. Or will be drowned if we have made a crash landing at sea. If we are attacked by a Thargian battlecruiser the crew will endeavour to keep them occupied by showing them offers of Virgin Mobile calling plans. If our parachute should fail upon re-entry, the crew will illuminate the sign that reads "Oh shit"'

I can think of a huge number of better uses for the price of a VG flight, not all of which involve luxury chocolates and 3-Michelin-star petits fours, (though quite a few do, as it happens), but anyway, sitting on top of a rocket is not one of them.

101 Things #44 - Feeling Lucky?

Why do people compile bucket-lists, things to be achieved before a certain age or, at any rate, before death makes further ticking off of any more items a trifle difficult? The essence of BL stuff is doability - it has to be something you can aspire to actually do as opposed to idly pondering how nice it would be to have done it. Some things require a lot of study and preparation, others that you have lots of money and a desire to spend it, but you expect them all to be believable. Nonetheless, there are some I refuse to even consider attempting and I have already detailed quite a number of them in my ongoing series 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die.

Today is little different.  The suggestion about to be rubbished was found on the Personal Excellence website which put forward (I assume seriously) the notion that something worth doing as a lifetime attainment is to

Win a lucky draw.

I think the author of this proposal is not being quite as excellent as he might wish to be. For the problem here, and the reason why I have no intention of ever trying to do it, is that one cannot just win a draw. One must enter it. Unless it is rigged (and that to me somehow invalidates the key concept of it being 'lucky') then the winning of it is out of one's hands altogether. The word 'draw' tells us that a random selection will be made from all the participants and that the winner will have done no more than buy a ticket or two, using absolutely no skill, judgement, experience or ability of any sort other than going up to a counter (or digital equivalent) and saying "A lucky draw ticket, please".

Now, I suppose, as one lies on one's deathbed with the relatives gathered round, leaning in close in case there is a final change of the will (little do they know it's all going to the Ruislip Dogs Home), one could wheeze
"I entered a lucky draw once, you know, and I ...."
"Yes, yes?" they urge. "What happened?"
"I lost - but I nearly won. If only I had bought the winning ticket I would have won. Honestly".
There is a silence broken by an irreverent nephew muttering "Hoo-bloody-ray".

Leaving aside the bathos of this moment, how actually do you go about winning this draw? Other than by buying a ticket and waiting hopefully¹ for the outcome. I ask because surely, if this going on one's bucket-list, there must be a way of doing it. Otherwise you just accumulate tickets here and there and spend your days waiting for the phone to ring. But I cannot, no matter how hard I try (which is not a lot) see any way of improving the odds to be better than the number of tickets you bought divided by the total sold.

 The conclusion is that to aspire to win a draw is a daft aspiration. Daydream about it by all means but do not confuse it with a genuine BL item. Perhaps what the Personal Excellence team should have promoted is "Enter a lucky draw". Anyone can do that and it is something you can legitimately tick off the list. It ranks as about the most pointless achievement you can have and is not something that will have heads turning when you enter the pub - "Blimey, don't look now, but here's that bloke that bought a lucky draw ticket once" - but at least you can take pride in it (if you are that way inclined).

To win a draw reflects nothing whatsoever on you and while it may make you instantly popular, your new-found fame will not last long once everyone hears that the prize was a bottle of David Beckham 'Smell like a Footballer' after shave.

-&-&-&-

Readers!
Do you fancy your chances?
Is the goddess Fortuna smiling on you?

Enter the Ramblings Lucky Draw today!! You can at once then tick this off your bucket-list of Things To Do Before The End Of Next Week. Send as much as you can afford to the usual address. Do it now.

The draw will be made sometime and, as always, a shedload of terms and conditions apply, and the Editor's decision is final irrelevant.

Footnote:
1. [Correct use of this much abused adverb. Jolly well done: Ed]

101 Things #43 - Have Dart, Will Travel

Travel to remote or unusual places comprises a very significant part of most bucket-lists. The vast majority of travel recommendations are for specific locations and I see no reason in pouring contumely on them or on those who wish to go there.  Today, however, I am happy to include in my list of rejected ideas, 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die, one of the vaguest and most random proposals I have encountered.  There is no way that I might, as suggested by a contributor on Pinterest,

Throw a dart at a map and travel to wherever it lands.

At first glance this may sound an appealing concept. Let the laws of aerodynamics and the sureness of your throwing arm determine your forthcoming travel plans. No more wearisome arguing with your other half about the local cuisine or the unsavoury habits of the locals - let Fate decide. You take out of your trusty arrows¹, kick the cat to get it out of the way and let fly. Off you go.

Let us begin to hack away at the foundations of the whole 'Dart-Travel' conflation. Firstly and most crucial what is meant by "map"? ². Is it a flat paper map, with all the problems of the most common projections distorting the real shape of the earth's landmasses? If it is, does it cover the whole world or a subset that represents places you would rather go to in the first place (for example, a large scale map of some of the more pleasant harbours of the north Cornish coast). If the latter, this undermines the randomness behind the 'chuck a dart at it' reasoning. But if it is the whole world then most of it happens to be ocean. Do you really want to spend a few nights at 140^oW, 22^oS, clinging to a raft, watching the foam, the waves and the circling sharks, and wondering if that yacht is really going to come back for you?

It is no better if you use a globe as your target.

Pic:see link

 If it is stationary then you have effectively ruled out some 60% of the world because the dart will not able to hit the bits not facing you or which are occluded by the supporting mechanism. If the globe is given a spin before you throw, then, whilst this will significantly increase the number of places you might hit, the dart will almost certainly rebound instead and perhaps inflict on you or an innocent bystander a nasty injury, one on which no insurance company is going to pay out.




The only reasonable answer is to use a flat map, preferably with something like the Peters projection, but with the major oceans cut out, and keep on throwing the dart until you hit land (or a patch of water that it is reasonable to visit, such as the beach at Monte Carlo). Hopefully you can do this before there are so many holes that it falls to bits.

However, if you want a really random result (as is implied by the spirit of this idea), then actually aiming at the map is right out. You must look away or wear a blindfold.

Pic: Barfblog.com

The consequences for your china-ware, windows and pets may be drastic so you are best advised to do the throwing bit in your shed or outside your property, perhaps with a suitable warning issued to the neighbours and a man with a red flag on standby³.

Now, if fortune has favoured us, we have stuck the dart in a piece of land that we can actually try to visit (in other words we have not hit the interior of Antarctica, the Darien Gap, Chernobyl, Area 51 or GCHQ, amongst others). Here, though, is where our fortune runs out. On inspection you realise that the place selected is rife with yellow fever and malaria, the government is run by a rabid bunch of xenophobes, disaffected rebels with ground-to-air missiles live near the airport and no sooner has the rainy season ended and the floods finally subsided than the dry season starts and water rationing and power shortages are in force. You will need a visa which takes at least three months and £800 to obtain and must exchange all of your currency for the local, worthless, paper on arrival. The Rough Guide recommends only one hotel but when you look it up on the internet you find it burnt down a year ago. Camping is illegal without a permit (that's another £800) and staying with locals requires registration and reporting to the police daily.

You had better cheat (nobody need know) and take another throw of the dart. You can go on chucking it until at last it sticks in near Disney World, which you always wanted to visit anyway, and you can finally make your travel plans. But let's be honest - you haven't really done the Dart-Travel thing at all, have you? You have done what anyone with half a brain cell does - gone to somewhere you actually want to visit. And that is why my darts set will stay in the cupboard⁴.

Footnote
1. Or "arrer", as they say in these parts, especially people from Sarf 'Arrer.
2. I assume you all know what a dart is and how to throw one. If not, there are plenty of educational videos on the internet, I imagine.
3. Green will do in a pinch
4. At least, it was in the cupboard the last time I looked but that was a long, long time ago, now I come to think of it. Trouble is, I don't think I can justify buying a new set. Still, as I am not going to do the 'Dart-Travel' thing, it doesn't matter a jot and I don't know why I bothered to mention it in the first place.

101 Things #42 - Watch This Space

We all love brands, don't we? Even my good friend, the Editor, swears by his trusty Merridew and Withers Gentleman's Quill Pen. [Very funny: Ed]. No, but seriously folks, an article of clothing with a designer label, a car bearing the badge of a respected marque, laptops identified by the outline of a fruit - brands are important and we aspire to identify with them, to be perceived as more distinguished human beings through a recognised possession.

I have used the inclusive "we" so far but now I must assert and support my own brand, the utterly non-aspirational anti-bucket-list that is 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die. I don't object to brands but I don't worship them either. The notion that one should seek to own something just because it is branded, rather than because it is worth having for its own sake, is one I find repellent. Let us explore this a little further as I pick one of the most popular brands for bucket-lists and explain why I will not

Buy a Rolex.

Pic: It's one of mine, obviously.

Here are the watches I own. On the left my day-to-day trusted companion, the Casio digital. It tells me the time (note, I mean actually tells me the time, as opposed to letting me guess about positions of big hands and little hands). It has an alarm. It has a backlight. It has a stopwatch. It knows what day and what month it is, so it never needs resetting on the first of the month (leap years excepted). It cost me less than £30 and I have had it many years.

On the right is my Sekonda. It is just a plain analogue watch with no fancy features. I like the look of the face and that deep blue background. I wear it when dressing up, because I find it smarter than the Casio. Oh, and it cost less than £30.

I am aware that one can pay much more for a watch. Hundreds, thousands of pounds even. Since the functionality is identical to those I already own, and many of the additional features (such as waterproof to 50 fathoms or a glass face hard enough to park a tank on without either of them cracking, etc) are irrelevant, why on earth would I want one? Of course, at these prices, one is buying an item of jewellery or an investment (or both).

My Sekonda is all the jewellery I desire and if anything should happen to it (I'm fairly sure it would not be working after a tank drove over it) then I would buy something similar - no, let me clarify, I would buy the same model again - it took me long enough to find something I really liked and I don't want to go through that endless looking in jewellers' windows again.

How about as an investment? I think one of the other fancy brands like Patek Phillipe used to advertise that you didn't own one, you merely looked after that for the next generation. [Yes, they did: Ed]. It's a clever marketing line. I don't know if such watches perform better than, say, a broad-based equities fund or rare stamps, but, if you can convince enough punters to take a chance, then they may well do so. Of course this implies that there is a next generation waiting with their grasping little hands out, cold eyes scanning the latest auction sales, totting up the value of the antique china in your old cabinet and wondering whether to sell or melt down your platinum cuff-links. Be proud - you want them to value it, don't you?

The Ramblings household does not have this problem. I intend to leave my watches for the reduction of the National Debt ("Thank you, thank you", says a moist-eyed Chancellor) and the rest will be monetary so that my heirs can do as they choose and not be shackled with the thought that they in turn are supposed to guard a timepiece for their own descendants.

I chose Rolex as the most recognised brand in watches [Is it? Researcher to my office, please: Ed] and see no reason to acquire one. Having had a look at a few online, I have even less reason to stick one on my wrist.

Rolex Submariner: Pic- Watchmaster.com

I don't think they look particularly attractive with the chunky, pointless bezels engraved with numbers even though they also have digit markers on the watch face. And if I was to sport one, every arm movement must be restrained to prevent scratches, every dark alley avoided to evade muggers and God knows what it would do to my household insurance policy. The item pictured above, for example, will set you back a nice little £5,900.

So I shall not be bothering.With my phone almost as convenient a way of ascertaining the time, and a much more sophisticated alarm app than my Casio can match, maybe even that venerable watch will not be replaced when its quartz crystal drops into a well earned sleep.

Important note:
I have categorically stated that I will not buy a Rolex. This does not in any way rule out my acceptance of, shall we say, a commemorative award involving an expensive and exclusive timepiece presented by an admiring and grateful public. Should you wish to donate to this presentation then the lines are now open and the Editor is waiting to take your calls. [Huh? Ed]. Absolutely no terms or conditions apply. The Submariner is a perfectly acceptable gift for this purpose but plenty of other models are available as I suspect my days of diving deep under the polar ice in the old hunter-killer may be numbered.