THE FRAME RATE MADNESS

Captain Kirk and crew met a lot of alien races that were obsessed with games. It seemed to me that every other week they'd be in the thrall of the Game Masters of Andromeda of the Game Players of Titan and the Starship Enterprise would be locked in orbit until they figured out a way to defeat the latest game.

When I was younger this all seemed fantastically cool on the part of Captain Kirk. No matter what game you threw at him he could always figure out the way to win, to throw the whole thing in the alien's face. And so the Enterprise would go free to have another fly around before getting picked up by the Dice Thrower of Rigel IV.

Looking back, however, you have to wonder what was going on there. Captain Kirk has a crew of trained, naval minds aboard, his right hand man is the most logical being in the universe and he's got a starship with enough speed and firepower to theoretically handle any situation. Yet, some alien kid with a playstation can trap the Enterprise for 40 minutes just because it's flying past? That doesn't inspire me with confidence in mankind's space exploration programme.

"For goodness sake, Cap'n, it's an alien child with an xbox. And we cannae get outta the grip o' its power ray!"

MY DRINKING PROBLEM

I find myself increasingly dissatisfied with the drinking water options in restaurants. When I ask for water the waiter or waitress will inevitably ask one question: "Still or sparkling?"

Now, I think about water at this point and I see the splashing waterfalls of Niagara, crystal clear and fresh as can be. So clear that they sparkle in the rays of sunlight. By contrast, the stagnant pool, the kind of putrid water you find in swamps, that stuff doesn't move. It's still. And so I think it's reasonable to assume that the options I am being given are "Stagnant or refreshingly clear water?" when asked "Still or sparkling?"

But no, friend. That's not the way these restaurant cats play their little game. Sparkling means it's water with some fizzy added. Foul disgusting fizzy, ruining my wonderful glass of water. Someone got water and they sexed it up. Why anyone would want to ruin the perfectly fine drink of water is beyond me but they have, and then they went and stole the best name for it.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it's unnatural. Are there any fizzy rivers or oceans? Is the Pacific fizzy? The Seine? The Mississippi? Many bodies of water are sparkling, few are carbonated. So called "sparkling water" is like drinking water that's having an epileptic fit. It's bipping and bopping in your mouth like it got its finger caught in a power outlet.

However, perhaps the difference that is being highlighted to me is really simple. Maybe that question "Still or sparkling?" is actually shorthand for "Do you want the sparkling water, the stuff with the added 'sparkle' in inverted commas, or do you want something that's pretty much still water, as far as we can make out?"

I'll take the stuff that's still water.