On the lookout

Does it matter if the book you're reading was written with the help of artificial intelligence? Does that somehow make the book corrupt or invalid or phoney?

The USA release of horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard has been cancelled after it was suspected that most of the book was a product of AI.

Recently the literary agent Kate Nash noticed that the submission letters she was getting from authors were becoming more thorough and more formulaic. She thought nothing of it until she saw a reference to AI on one of the letters.

Publishers in general are now on the lookout for AI-generated books, but AI can be hard to detect and no doubt some are slipping through the net.

Does it really matter though if a book has AI input? Surely the key question is whether it's a good book or not? If AI enables the author to writer a better book or do some useful editing for her, what's wrong with that?

The idea seems to be that only a book written totally by a human being, with no outside help, relying entirely on human imagination and creativity, is of value, while anything that uses a machine must be inferior.

What alarms authors of course is that publishers will start producing AI-written books themselves and do away with authors altogether. Which would be disastrous for authors but probably of no great concern to readers.

Perhaps I can use AI to write my blog posts?

PS: The New York Times has cut ties with freelance journalist Alex Preston after discovering he used AI to help write a book review.

Act your age

Thankfully I don't often get told to "act your age". If people think I'm behaving in an unseemly way age-wise, they have the tact to let me get on with it and not tick me off.

What on earth does "act your age" mean anyway? What behaviour exactly is suitable for someone of sixty? Or seventy? Or eighty? Should we wear clothes that hide every square inch of flesh? Should we never say anything rude or controversial? Should we avoid contentious subjects like sex, drugs, religion or politics? Should we avoid doing anything that might be seen as childish or immature?

You could tie yourself in knots trying to act the way people expect an oldie to act - whatever that may be. Who gives a damn? The way I see it, we oldies have spent decades being bossed around by employers, bureaucrats, relatives and big companies, and in our final years we should be able to behave however we like and ignore any age-based remarks.

Perhaps "act your age" should mean act like someone who's old enough to have seen plenty of life, who's well-informed, experienced, worldly-wise and confident enough to expose young people's naivety and wishful thinking. That would be a definition worth pursuing.

Fuss and bother

I've commented before on how anything involving sex or nudity can cause a ridiculous fuss out of all proportion to what's being objected to.

I keep thinking people will become more relaxed about what is perfectly harmless behaviour, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

What am I talking about? A long list of things. Breastfeeding in public. Kissing in public. Skimpy female clothing. Visible cleavage. Bra-less breasts. Naked male chests. Nudity on TV. The word vagina. Politicians having affairs. Older people's sex lives. Photos of women with stretch marks, scars or mastectomies.

There's still a huge tacit understanding about what is and what isn't allowed, and one step over the boundary can unleash a barely-concealed puritanism.

What the complaints usually amount to is a supposed flouting of "decency" (or sometimes public decency). But decency is such a vague concept it's almost meaningless.

Given my enthusiasm for kissing and hugging in public, I'm surprised nobody has ticked me off. But we in Northern Ireland are very keen to show public affection, even to people we've only just met. It's a delightful custom.

Not so British

Just for a laugh I thought I'd try the British citizen test, which you have to take if you're applying for British citizenship or settlement in the UK.

I didn't do very well. The pass mark is 75 per cent or 18 correct answers out of 24. I only got 79 per cent. But that's quite good considering the questions are ridiculously obscure and have little to do with everyday life in Britain.

For example, some of the questions:

• When did the Habeus Corpus Act become law|?
• What was called the Glorious Revolution?
• When was the first Prime Minister in power?
• Who had important ideas about economics during the Enlightenment?
• Which two countries took part in the Battle of Agincourt?
• Does Scotland have its own banknotes?
• Who supported King Charles 1st during the Civil War?
• Where was Anne Boleyn executed?
• Who developed radar?

As far as I'm concerned these questions completely miss the everyday reality of living in Britain. It would be more relevant to test the person's knowledge of the health service, childcare, education, transport or any number of things that directly affect people's lives in 2026. Who on earth needs to know about the Habeus Corpus Act or the Glorious Revolution?

Oh and just to show me up, Jenny did the test and got 92 per cent. Smartass.

Into the eighties

It's my birthday in a few days' time (the 20th) and my modest celebration will consist of a box of Lindt truffles, a game of Scrabble and a meal at one of our local restaurants. We haven't had a birthday cake or candles for many years.

Which started me looking into the history of birthday cakes and how they came about.

Cakes have been a part of birthday celebrations in Western Europe from at least the mid 19th century. They started off very simple but became increasingly elaborate with multiple layers, icing and decorations. For a while the cakes were generally only available to the very wealthy. They became affordable to the lower classes as the Industrial Revolution led to mass production of ingredients.

So I'm 79 this year. Next year is the big milestone as I become an octogenarian. Will I still be fairly fit and healthy into my eighties or will I be a crumbling wreck? Who knows?

If I'd been born earlier, before all the recent medical advances, I might not have made it to 79. I may well have died in my sixties. I wonder what the eighties have in store?

Inside outside

 

Isn't it weird that we can never see ourselves as others see us, because we're always inside ourselves looking out and can never be outside ourselves looking in (or at).

I might think of myself as having a rather nondescript appearance, while others see me as very distinctive. I might consider myself kind and considerate, while others think I'm somewhat mean and selfish. I might imagine I'm highly intelligent while others think I'm rather a dimwit.

Wouldn't it be interesting if I could step outside myself for 24 hours and see myself as others see me? Would it be a bit of a shock as my rosy picture of myself was rapidly demolished? Or would it be a pleasant surprise as I discovered I was more appealing than I thought I was? And would I be embarrassed by some of my daft remarks and clumsy gestures?

I might think someone has got me completely wrong, only to find out that actually they've caught the real me.

If only some of those public figures who think they're so wonderful could stand outside themselves and be confronted with the mortifying reality....

Jaywalking

I'm an incorrigible jaywalker. As long as the road is clear enough I'll happily defy convention and dart across.

Jenny thinks jaywalking is dangerous and tries to stop me but I'm undeterred. I've been jaywalking all my life and I've never yet been hit by a vehicle. Ironically while Jenny was jaywalking for a few minutes yesterday she slipped and fell and got a few minor injuries.

It helps of course that jaywalking isn't illegal in the UK so I'm not going to end up in a police station.

I see it's illegal in most US states and in Canada, though people aren't too fussed and prosecutions are fairly rare, usually resulting in no more than a smallish fine.

One reason I jaywalk is that the pedestrian phase on some street crossings can take quite a while to appear and I can't be bothered to wait for it.

So why is it called jaywalking? I gather the word jay refers to a gormless hick from the countryside and the term jaywalking was coined by the auto industry to blame pedestrians for accidents. How very sneaky of them.

Devalued lives

I can't begin to understand how a person can place no value whatever on another human being's life. How other people become mere objects to be exploited.

Obviously I'm thinking of all the political leaders who're prepared to sacrifice thousands of lives in the name of some dubious cause or other - territory, power, religion, whatever. They show absolutely no sign of hesitation or conscience or shame but just carry on sending people to their death.

Of course it happens at every level of society, not just at the top. Husbands killing adulterous wives, gangsters murdering other gangsters, fanatics on shooting sprees, racist attacks, honour killings.

The devaluation of other humans implies also a belief in the potency of violence, and the idea that violence can solve problems, which it seldom does. Isn't it obvious that it just leads to more violence, and endless terror for whoever's on the receiving end?

The normal inhibitions that stop most of us resorting to violence are absent in these murderous individuals. Their inhibitions have somehow been suppressed, either by nature or nurture, and sooner or later they cause havoc.

Who do I trust?

One thing I don't like about life today is that I have to be a lot more suspicious and a lot less trusting than when I was younger.

There are so many more scams and fake identities and fake websites that I have to be very careful how I use the internet and I have to be suspicious of every website and every online person that isn't already well known to me.

Now there's the extra possibility that something I'm reading or looking at is actually an AI creation and not the genuine article.

I don't like having to be so distrustful, but if I took everything at face value I would soon be in big trouble from innocently responding to something that was totally bogus.

People have lost tens of thousands of pounds, or even their entire life savings, by being too gullible and believing a cleverly presented website that promises instant fortunes from some sure-fire investment.

Or someone claims their child has cancer and asks for donations for some life-saving surgery. No surprise when it turns out their child is completely healthy.

I don't like being so suspicious, it's a deadening emotion.

Children online

Parents are rethinking the desire to share images of their children online, given that those images could be misused in quite disturbing ways.

A few years back nobody thought twice about posting images of little Jason or little Julie. The mages were basically for the benefit of family and friends, and few people thought about the possible consequences of those images being freely available to complete strangers online.

Now there's a growing realisation that those images could be stolen and abused in all sorts of repugnant ways, and it may be difficult to get the unwanted images removed.

We're now aware of images that have been "nudified" i.e. children stripped of their clothes. We're aware of children and parents being unwillingly recognised in the street. We're aware of fake identities cloned from the original.

And then there's the children themselves, who may object to having their image posted online, who might feel their privacy has been violated. Or they might just object to how they have been portrayed.

So a lot of parents are rethinking their impulse to put their children online. They might do it more sparingly, or they might keep their children offline altogether.

A shame that once again there's reason to be suspicious and cautious and mistrustful.

PS: Luckily I've never had to wrestle with this problem as Jenny and I don't have any children.

The death of chivalry

Interesting how the idea of male chivalry has died a death. It used to be very common when I was young but now it's just laughable.

As a young lad, I was introduced to numerous ways in which men should be chivalrous to women i.e. assuming women weren't as capable or resilient as men and needed a helping hand in all sorts of situations. We were supposed to:

• Hold doors open for her
• Walk on the curbside in case of runaway cars
• Offer her a coat in cold weather
• Carry heavy bags for her
• Pay for meals
• Offer her a seat on public transport
• Pull out a chair for her to sit
• Have her go first
• Guide her along
• Stand up when she arrives

Nowadays all these things seem ridiculous and patronising and all that's required of a man in this more liberated era is to be considerate and thoughtful.

The only thing that still applies in this age of sexual harassment is to walk a woman safely home, though even that she might object to.

The idea of chivalry seems as old-fashioned as the idea of a gentleman.

Getting justice

Justice. Isn't that a vague word? It's flung around as if it means something quite specific, but far from it. Is it even attainable?

People talk about a demand for justice, but what exactly are they demanding? What do they mean by the word?

If my child was knocked down and killed by a drunk driver, what sort of justice could I ever achieve? Whatever the consequences - the driver jailed, or banned from driving, or more roadside alcohol tests for drivers - it wouldn't bring my child back to life, it wouldn't lessen the grief, it wouldn't stop the feelings of rage and helplessness and despair. So where is the justice?

Or what about the pregnant woman whose baby dies because of some fatal mistake by a nurse? The hospital can issue a profuse apology, training can be tightened, the nurse can be reprimanded, but that doesn't lessen the sense of misery and loss the woman is going through. What form of justice could possibly make up for this tragedy? Her baby is gone and nothing can change that.

Justice is more an anguished hope than a reality.

Tried that

I was never seriously attracted to leisure drugs (dope, cocaine etc). I always wanted to be my natural self without my mind being subject to artificial alterations.

When I was young, when other people were praising the joys of whatever drug they had just discovered, I would wonder why they were so desperate to escape their everyday reality for hours on end.

Yes, reality can be pretty grim, but I never had the wish to escape from it. I wanted to experience it and deal with it, however difficult it might be. Drugs seemed not so much an escape as running away.

I did try dope twice, and LSD twice, but they didn't do anything for me. As a result, I was put off drugs for good.

Apart from anything else, you don't know exactly what's being handed to you. The content of the drugs isn't verified and depending what's in them, they could be lethal. There are plenty of grieving parents out there wishing their dead daughter or dead son had never been tempted by someone's chance offering.

The only drugs I favour come over the pharmacy counter.

Identity crisis

Despite the unanimous decision of the English Supreme Court in April 2025 that a female means a biological female, hundreds of people are still defying the law and insisting that if a man declares himself to be a woman then that's what he is.

Those who maintain that declaring yourself a female is nonsense and there's no such thing as a sex change are roundly attacked as "transphobic" and subjected to vicious abuse and hatred.

Male prisoners are declaring themselves female and being transferred to female prisons where quite often they sexually abuse female prisoners.

It's extraordinary that in 2026 women have to protect themselves against men who declare they're female and insist on invading female spaces like women's refuges and women's sports events.

When I was young, transsexuals, as they were called then, never believed they were real women, and knew they were merely passing as women. And other people were willing to treat them as women as long as they kept a low profile. They didn't make the sort of bizarre demands they're making now and didn't encroach on women's facilities and activities.

I wonder how long this insistence on sex changes will go on before people finally come to their senses and revert to reality.

Skill shortage

I'm shocked that so many children now arrive at school lacking some of the basic skills they should already have acquired. Such as:

• How to have a conversation
• How to play with toys
• How to focus on a task for more than two minutes
• How to hold a pen or pencil
• How to throw or kick a ball
• How to use a paperback
• How to follow a story
• How to interact with other children

These failings are attributed to the Covid lockdowns, when children were stuck in the home; children glued to screens rather than engaging in physical activity or exploring the outside world; and parents who think children will develop these skills naturally and don't need parental instruction.

Teachers are having to teach these basic skills on top of their already heavy workload. They could do without it.

When I started school aged five I certainly had all the necessary basic skills, as did my classmates, and there was no question of our needing special instruction. The idea would have struck us as ludicrous.

Unfortunately, unless screen use suddenly declines, it looks as if this shameful situation can only get worse rather than better.

One of those things

I've remarked before on the widespread under-provision of women's toilets and the fact that women invariably have to queue while men don't (I was reminded of this by a male journalist who found himself having to queue for a pub toilet).

There are obvious reasons for increasing the number of women's toilets and they shouldn't need explaining. Women usually take a lot longer because of menstruation, fiddly underwear, checking make-up and not being able to use a urinal.

But most men couldn't care less. As long as they can slip in and out of the toilet in 60 seconds they're not bothered. Women having to queue is just "one of those things" and they simply have to suck it up.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, pledged some time ago to increase provision of women's toilets in the city. Whether he's made any progress is unclear. I imagine he's had plenty of resistance from intransigent males.

Personally I think we need at least a 2 to 1 ratio of female toilets to male toilets. There should be enough female toilets to abolish queues altogether. Why should women have to wait while men can use the loo at top speed?

Window fad

In several countries it's routine to open your windows for ten minutes in the morning and another ten minutes in the evening, even in winter.

This is supposed to reduce condensation, drive out stale air, invigorate you, and generally improve your health.

Well, it may be the done thing in Scandinavia, Germany, and other European countries, but the British are having none of it.

I don't want to open my windows in mid-January and let in freezing cold air, thank you very much. Apart from the huge waste of central heating, I'm sceptical about the supposed health benefits.

I've never had a major illness in all the 17 years I've lived in this house. I've hardly ever had a cold or flu either. So I'm keeping my windows firmly closed in winter's plummeting temperatures.

Jenny agrees entirely, especially as she tends to feel the cold more than I do.

Interestingly, all those articles telling us how to improve our health never mention flinging the windows open twice a day. Even the health gurus aren't convinced it's a good idea.

Plimsolls reborn

To us oldies, it's intriguing how common-or-garden plimsolls were stealthily rebranded and suddenly became ultra-fashionable trainers.

When I was young, there were simply plimsolls, very casual soft shoes that were only worn in informal situations like the gym, indoor activities or casual meet-ups. Otherwise we wore smart leather shoes or boots.

Somewhere along the line plimsolls were reborn as trainers and became stylish must-have items. Instead of being cheap shoes that cost a few pounds, they became much more expensive and even became designer items costing hundreds of pounds.

Now they're routine daily wear, worn by everyone from shop assistants to chief executives.

How did this ludicrous change take place? How did something that was affordable and unremarkable turned into a hugely visible high-fashion item that people looked down if they didn't cost enough?

I tried trainers for a while but they weren't always waterproof. I went back to conventional leather shoes that are very definitely waterproof - surely one of the basic requirements of a shoe, especially in Northern Ireland weather.

Pushing up the daisies

We're still so coy about death, aren't we? People don't just die, they pass away or meet their maker or are no longer with us.

Why all the euphemisms? There are at least two dozen. What's wrong with the word dead? Dying is a fact of life, as it were, and doesn't need to be downplayed as if it's something shameful or disgusting.

I hope when I die, people will say I'm dead and not gone to my maker or bitten the dust or given up the ghost.

People are equally coy about the cause of death. Quite often no cause of death is given and it's anyone's guess what the person died of.

I can sort of understand why people don't name the cause of death as suicide or an overdose or anorexia, to avoid being blamed for not helping to keep the person alive, but again there's nothing shameful or disgusting about such disturbing causes of death, and with the best will in the world it's hard to stop someone being self-destructive.

Yes, sooner or later I'm going to kick the bucket and be pushing up the daisies. I might even die.

Not moving an inch

I hope I never have to move home again. It's such a complicated and exhausting business. I just want to stay put and enjoy the home I have right now.

I've lived in 13 different homes in my lifetime, and that's quite enough uprooting and re-settling, thank you very much.

Every so often Jenny and I ponder the possibility of downsizing, but we always conclude it's not worth the enormous upheaval unless there's some really urgent need.

Having lived in a fairly spacious house for 16 years, it would be very hard to adjust to somewhere much smaller. I'm sure we would feel cramped and restricted and it would take quite a while to attune to our reduced territory.

People who think those of us who live in "over-sized" houses should sell up immediately and move to somewhere smaller are missing the point. There are over 260,000 long term empty houses in the UK that should be brought into use rather than quietly rotting.

I'm staying right here until something drives me out. Hopefully it never will.