It only takes 30 seconds, according to Jared Leto

Yay, it's hump-day!

So we're halfway through the week and it's all downhill from here, unless you're on a skiing holiday, where it's only half downhill... But at least you're sitting down for the uphill bit.

Anyway, I was listening to the news yesterday, and it seems that we're running out of nurses.  I mean, who knew that they were disposable?  I regularly run out of stuff like chocolate, and toilet paper, but never a particular kind of person, or someone with a particular job.  I looked into it further and realised that what the person who wrote the script for the news report actually meant was that we don't have the requisite number of nurses for all the sick people that there are.

Now, I know that there are many healthcare professionals who read the Blog, some are even Scottish - So you could say that I have the ear of the International Medical community.  It would be an easy win for me to go on about low wages, long hours, unappreciative and abusive patients (or customers... Are we calling them customers yet?) and terrible working conditions.

But how many times have you known me go for the easy win?  OK, apart from those few times that you've just thought of? See, not very many at all.

Well, I looked into it further, and realised that we're also running out of Police & Fire people, Care home workers, sewer cleaners, money, services, petrol, fuel oil, jobs in general, affordable housing and clean air.

So it seems that the problem isn't that there are not enough people, quite the opposite in fact, I'm fairly convinced that there are too many.  I don't just mean in this country - This isn't going to be a racist rant about uncontrolled immigration, I'll leave that to the frothing at the mouth EDL types, they do a much better job of putting together a cogent, measured argument than I do *cough*.

I mean globally, there are currently about 6.8 billion people on the planet, and only about 58 million square miles of landmass.  If you remove the 18 million square miles that make up the Arctic, Antarctic and various deserts, that's 0.005 square miles  (just over 3 acres for the bumpkins amongst us) of space for each one of us to call our own.  'That's a bit abstract,' I hear the townies say, 'Exactly how big's that?' - Well, I'll tell you... It's not quite two soccer pitches each.  A family of four would have seven soccer pitches, which isn't bad if all the land was equally good and it was all shared out equally.  But it's not.

Greed, the mechanisation of food production and heavy industry have all helped to make sure that most of us are crammed together like sardines, as tightly as possible.  And laziness and coddling has led to most people not being able to care of themselves.

So, a perfect cure for this problem, that will cut down the population, take the stress off the service sector, encourage self-sufficiency, advance scientific endeavor and give the reality television companies something to really spunk their budgets on for the next ten years.

Send 75% of the population to Mars.

No, stop laughing, I'm being serious.

I'm sure a lot of people would volunteer, they could be the new planetary government.  Then you could send all the able bodied people who've been on benefits for over eighteen months, they could be the people who actually 'do' things.  Then there's long term prisoners, for whom Mars would become the new Australia - Might be worth settling them on the other side from all the 'nice' people though, no need for walls or guards then.

Then, as the colony became established, you could introduce new regulations.

• Fail your exams - Go to Mars
• Receive a prison sentence of over five years - Go to Mars
• Wear a snap-back - Go to Mars
• Be convicted of a terrorist/paedophile act - Go halfway to Mars then mysteriously disappear
• Openly enjoy Dubstep music - Go to Mars
• Walk down the street outside my house at two O'clock in the morning shouting  - Go to Mars
• Watch the X-Factor unironically - Go to Mars
• Change your name to Ziggy and sing about spiders in a whiney voice - Go to Mars

Within a couple of generations, Earth would be a relative paradise again, Lions would lie down with lambs side by side on piano keyboards.  The air would be clean, the rivers would flow like polished crystals and all clouds would look like comedy animals performing circus tricks.

Right up until the mad scientist that we accidentally deported builds a flying saucer with nuclear powered lasers and neutron bombs and comes back to claim his birthright.

So, the plan might need a little work, but I think it's still basically sound... Maybe Jupiter might be a better bet, less chance of any of the useless buggers coming back.