It's like talking to the wall.

Welcome team.  I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, but with writing a couple of books (Yes, actually writing them, rather than cobbling together stuff from this blog and palming it off on all and sundry as original work.) and the day job, things have gotten away from me a bit.

As far as the books go, I’m still finishing stories for ‘Forever Girl & Other Stories’ that I’m trying to get out in time for Christmas 2014.

And Book 1 of the Windspider Chronicles is in need of a major re-write and some cover art (If any of you fancy painting a full-colour Steampunk female airship pirate captain with her power-armoured younger brother in the background? Volume 2 will have the opposite, volume three will have them standing together). It’s looking like an Autumn 2015 release at the earliest.

And my children’s book ‘Mummy where’s my Soul?’ about a ginger kid and his pet dinosaur wandering through the pantheon looking for the titular spiritual construct is still in the early planning stages, still trying to decide who’s going to be most offended if I’m honest.

-oOo-

So, to today’s subject.  It’s something I’ve covered before, a subject I like to talk about because it’s impossible to get it wrong.  That’s right.  My favourite subject, THE FUTURE!

I’d like to talk about a specific part though, something that a lot of us have already experienced in a small way.

Talking to your appliances and them talking back to you. If you’ve got a reasonably modern smartphone, this is part of your everyday life.  But as time goes on, more things will do this, more of your household items will think they know better than you, is this something we should have to stand for?

Imagine for a second you’re a chap called… Erm… I don’t know… Maybe Dave? – Well, a lot of people are aren’t they? I mean, they’ve even got their own TV Channel and everything.  So, you get home after a long shift at Spacely Sprockets and really fancy some cheese on toast (Grilled Cheese)

Dave: Crap! I’m hungry, Mr Spacely really gets on my ass sometimes, could just go for some cheese on toast.

iFridge: I’ve got some of that Cheddar you like Dave, probably just enough for a sandwich.

Dave: Great, thanks, [Opens the fridge and sees that the little bit of cheese that he has left has been pushed suspiciously to the front] we got any bread?

iCupboard: You have half a loaf of Farmhouse that your Mum bought you last week when you felt ill and… Two slices of thick white [Two cupboard doors open automatically to display the choices]

iGrill: [Apologetically] Ah, I’m sorry Dave, I’ve started my self-clean cycle… You were late and you normally bring a take-away home on a Friday, I just assumed…

Dave: Don’t worry, I’ll make a normal sandwich… Hang on [Eyes the toaster]

iToaster: Awww Hell No!

Dave: Look, all you have to do is lie on your side!

iToaster: And how many times have you used that line?

Dave: Here, just… Owww!

iToaster: You did NOT just try and invalidate my Warranty!

Dave: You burned my finger!

iToaster: Self Dee-fence Honey, any court in the land would agree with me, you’d be banned from owning kitchen appliances for life.

Dave: [Points at a non-existent something out of the window] Look! A flying Halibut! [Tries and fails to grab the toaster and turn it sideways]

iToaster: [Yells] Help! I kid you not I will set fire to your raggedy ass in your sleep!

Dave: I’ve dropped the cheese on the floor now [Looks sullenly at the smug toaster] I hate you…

(In my mind, Chris Rock played the iToaster, or possibly Wanda Sykes, which is only slightly racist.)

-oOo-

But it’s not just appliances that will have personalities, I think that eventually everything will, even things that you wouldn’t even consider normally.  I heard on the radio some months back that it costs the local council thousands, if not millions, of pounds every year for them to sort out people putting the wrong rubbish in the wrong bins. This would be the perfect opportunity for some cut-price sentience, each bin would know what you were supposed to put in it and have some method of figuring out what you were attempting to throw away.  For ease of use, each would have a different accent perhaps? 

Your garden waste/compostable bin could have a deep West Country accent, ‘Hedge Trimmings? Yarr just the thing innit? Gorrany more?’ – Although that might be your pirate bin, where you throw away your unused pieces of eight and dubloons.

Your recycling bin could talk like a hippy, possibly Nigel Planer’s character Neil from ‘The Young Ones’, ‘Ooooh, Heeyy, yeah! Baked bean can mannnn! You’re helping to really save the planet Daaave! ’

And your normal bin? The one that doesn’t want your garden trimmings or your recycling? The one that sits there in the corner imperiously telling you what you can and can’t throw away without being fined?

Well, it’d be French wouldn’t it?

Dave: Why won’t you open? I’m trying to throw stuff away.

iBin: Non, Ah shall not open for you. What ees eet that you are even throwing away you peasant?

Dave: It’s a… Yoghurt pot.

iBin: Ees eet  plastique?

Dave: Er, I suppose so.

iBin: Zen eet ees le recycling, non?

iRecycle: Oh yeaaah Maaan, that’s totally my baaaag.’

Dave: OK, [Moves to recycling bin] What? Why won’t you open?

iRecycle: awww bummer! There’s still, like, yoghurt in it maaaan, that’s food waste!

Dave: Seriously?

iRecycle: Sorry… It’s The Man’s rules! [Whisper] Fight the system! Boomshanka!

Dave: [Moves to compost bin] Food waste!

iCompost: Olroight moy lover? Oh that’s mahhhvelous [Lid opens for yoghurt leftovers and closes with a comedy burp]

Dave: [Moves back to recycling bin] What’s wrong now?

iRecycle: You need to wash it maaan.  It’s not me! It’s him  [Recycling bin shrugs towards normal bin]

iBin: Oui you feelthy animal! Wash your recyclables before you recycle them, what are you, a tramp?

Then you set fire to your bin and pay the hefty fine. Then you keep setting fire to them until they send you one that sounds like Ray Winston.

How cool would that be?

See you soon Brothers and Sisters!

*Yes, I realise that I missed a huge opportunity by not having something say ‘What’re you doing Dave?’ I thought it was too obvious though.

Anything ELSE for the weekend?

So, most of you know that I work in IT, and you've read some of the stories about the sort of things I've had to put up with in the past.  Some of them were from genuinely stupid people, some were from people who just didn'y know any better and still more were from people who shouldn't be allowed to eat with a fork.

Others of you will know that I work for (Not as) a hairdresser... Can I just point out that I cannot and will not cut or style your hair... Although I'll quite happily have a blundering, all thumbs, attempt at a vajazzle for you. Can you imagine the sort of IT problems that hairdressers create?  I share an office with the IT Support team, and the quality of support calls that their team have to deal with is... Well... I'll let you decide for yourself.

Please note, these things all happened in the last week, and it's not been a particularly busy week.

-oOo-

I've told a story similar to this one before, and I include it just to let you know that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our salons are split into regions, each of which is overseen by a Regional Manager.  These are often hair stylist who've 'climbed the ladder' and been given more and more responsibility until they're deemed powerful enough to hold other peoples' careers in their hands.

We had an R.M. (as they're known, colloquially) come into the office with the printer from her 'home office' - (Please note, this particular young lady has a thick, Liverpudlian, accent - Bear that in mind, I feel it adds something to the story.)

'This thing doesn't work!' She said, dropping the printer down on the table.

'What seems to be the problem?' Asked one of our guys, very politely, and after a good ten minutes of 'It doesn't work / What exactly do you mean' roundy-roundy type questions, he ascertained that it did everything but actually print.  She'd tried everything that she possibly could, she'd changed the toner (twice), replaced the drum, sacrificed a chicken but nothing would make it spring into life.  By the time that she'd explained all this, she'd decided that she had too much to do to stand around watching someone trying to fix an obviously broken printer - and went off for a coffee.

So, the printer was plugged in, connected to a PC and tested - It didn't print (Please tell me you've figured out what was probably wrong with it)

I'll give you another few minutes, what could possibly be wrong, with a printer, used by someone who has hiring / firing responsibility for 60 or so people, that was so technically intricate that she had to haul it a hundred miles to get it fixed by a tech?

That's right, there was no paper in it.

He put some paper in it and ran a few test prints... Then did the same when she came back to check on his progress.  She had the decency to go a rather fetching shade of scarlet, and swore us to secrecy - And none of us have ever told another living soul. *cough*

-oOo-

I recently overheard on of my other colleagues on the phone to a real, live, hairdresser who was having a huge problem with the printer in the salon, I can only imagine that the poor girl was on her own, had a huge queue of customers and was flustered to the point of turning into... Ah... Something that's notorious for being easily flustered.  Obviously I only heard his half of the conversation, so I've decided to fill in hers from my 'Great Big Book of Things Users Say'

Him: OK, so what's happening when you try to print?
Her: Nothing
Him: Nothing at all, no sounds?
Her: No [To Customer] Sorry to keep you waiting...
Him: Does anything come up on the screen when you try to print?
Her: Yes
Him: [Waits for a few seconds] Well, what does it say?
Her: I can't remember - It doesn't print so I've stopped trying to print things
Him: OK, can you try and print something and tell me what it says?
Her: OK [To Customer] Yes, that'll be £75, I'm sorry the printer's broken, I can't give you a receipt. [To Him] It say 'Printer Not found'
Him: Right, are there any flashing lights on the printer?
Her: No
Him: We're going to need to check if there are any lose cables, can you get to the back of the printer?
Her: Erm... Not really [To Customer] No Madam, I don't think there should be a tingling sensation, but I've only ever used it on my head... [To Him] It's all a bit jammed in.
Him: Are there any lights on the printer at all?
Her: No, not that I can see
Him: Really? Right, was there any noise when the lights went out? or a funny smell?
Her: No, it's been like that since we turned it off.
Him: [Facepalms quite expressively] There's a switch on the front with a 1 and a 0 on it, can you press the side with the 1?
Her: Oh! that seems to have fixed it, well done!

Then he went over to the kitchen and put his head in the microwave, luckily though our microwave is electric and not gas, so he just got a bit of a tan.

-oOo-

And today's final foray into the world of the slapdash shampoo and set is about one of our compatriots in the office.  She has no staff to worry about, but nevertheless, is in a position of some power.

We have just issued everyone who has a workphone with a brand-spanking new iPhone 5 - There have been teething problems, as you would expect, but this one sticks in my mind.  Please also keep in mind that this particular person, relies on her phone more than she relies on her left leg.

She came into the office claiming that her phone had stopped working, and she'd appreciate it if we fixed it.
Her phone was duly examined and found to be working perfectly well, she was asked to demonstrate the problem... She rang her desk phone, which forwarded the call to her iPhone, which remained silent - But the screen lit up and flashed that someone was calling her.

'Ah, this happens sometimes!', explained the same gentleman who 'fixed' the printer in the above story, 'You just have to do this:' He stiffly banged the top of the iPhone, whilst surreptitiously switching off the Mute button.

'Try it now.'

So she did, and it worked (Well, it would, wouldn't it.?)

'Yeah, just a loose connection... I wonder...' He gave it a brisk tap (and switched the Mute on again). 'Try it again?'

Which she did, and of course it didn't ring... Tapped... Unmuted... gave it back to her.

Now, the plan is, every time any of us sees it unattended on her desk, we're going to mute it, then wander past and see if we can catch her beating the crap out of her phone trying to unmute it.

We've planned an upgrade to this jolly jape... We're going to try and convince the next person who had this 'problem' that you can mute and unmute the iPhone by voice control - See if we can get them to re-enact the Scotty 'Invention of Transparent Aluminium' Scene from Star Trek: the Voyage Home.



Have a nice weekend kids, I'm going to be a bit busy myself... Whilst I'm on the subject - I don't suppose any of you have a radiator that'd fit a 2002 Citroen Xsara Picasso have you?

Opinionated isn't even a word

We've covered bigotry in most of its forms before, in my second ever Blog entry in fact (See November 2012's post - I'm a Bigot, You're a Bigot, We're ALL Bigots). But there's one type that I left out. If I were trying to sound clever, I'd say 'I left it out on purpose so that I could cover it now, when I had a bigger fanbase,' but actually - I've only just thought about it.

It's not a recent invention, people have suffered this particular ailment for at least the past hundred years, if not more.

I'm talking about the bigotry that masquerades as 'Brand Loyalty', this is most prevalent in whatever the current emergent technology market is of course - In recent times for example hordes of fan-bois throw insults at each other about their choice of mobile phone operating system -

Android being for the Geeks,

IOS is for the hipsters,

BlackBerry is for the pay-as-you go Jeremy Kyle watchers,

Windows Mobile is for the hard of thinking.

I mean it can get pretty brutal at times, well, as brutal as people who fixate on electronics and their firmware can get, I mean - You might get a Chinese burn from one of them maybe, if they'd known you for a long time, and as long as your Dad wasn't bigger than their Dad. No-one's going to stab you for having an iPhone, well actually, there is a chance that you might get stabbed if you have an iPhone - But it won't be because of your choice of operating system, it's more likely that the stabbist will be chemically imbalaced and he'd like to sell your phone to his mate, Honest Brian (Unlock any phone for a fiver - No questions asked, Very clean Sister, you like her?), down the market, for £15.

Psychologists, or at least people who are currently doing the first year of their Sociology Degree will say that this is all to do with the Homo-Sapien tribal urge, strength in numbers, social stratification etc. And will point you at the collected works of Max Horkheimer (Mainly to get rid of you for a while, as his stuff's a bit off the wall).

I say that it's a lot more simple than that, and that most first year Sociology students are only doing that subject because Media Studies or Sports Marketing was over-subscribed. I reckon it's because everyone thinks that their own, personal opinion is worth about a bajillion times more than anyone else's. I don't mean their professional opinion, I wouldn't take my car to the garage and ask the opinion of the oily chap who'd been fixing cars for the past twenty years, wait for him to look it over for an hour and when he says,

'Your head gasket's gone, it needs replacing,'

Reply, 'No, I think you'll find that the oil and water in the engine have had a bit of a chat and decided to co-exist in a shared living space, embracing their cultural differences and going halves on the shopping.'

I mean that'd be nuts, people are called professionals because they do something as a profession, they get paid for it - The clue's in the name.

But your Brand Loyalist only has a personal opinion, it's subjective and often completely wrong - But that doesn't mean that he (because it's invariably a man) won't defend this opinion up until the point where he foams at the mouth, jumps up and down, grabs hold of his feet and tears himself asunder, leaving only a smoking beanie-hat with a post-it note on it that says 'HTC's are the best phone to buy because I've got one.'

I'm exactly the same, not with phones as such, because I've got an ancient 'Candy-bar' phone that does me just fine when I remember to charge it. I have a work-provided BlackBerry that mostly gets used for playing Texas Hold'em during my 'alone time' at work and an iPad, also work-provided that I use to... erm... well, get my email when I'm not at work.

It's the iPad that causes me the problems, the only reason that every single person in the free world doesn't have one is because they're guinea pig meltingly expensive. Mine was free, and therefore has become (In My Humble Opinion) the single greatest piece of tech the world has ever seen - It has bad points, don't get me wrong, but I don't talk about them, so for all intents and purposes they don't exist. The interface is a bit clunky, even hit and miss sometimes, but that's because I've got old, fat fingers, not because it's a thrown together triumph of form over function. It's sleek, blank visage evokes mystery and familiarity at the same time, it's not just a magnified iPhone at all (You can tell by the way that the iPhone charger fits into it, but it won't charge it very well - that's a feature to remind you how different it is, and how different YOU are for owning one).

The first thing I think when I see people with a tablet that isn't an iPad is:

'Oh, poor you, couldn't you afford a real one?'

Which is odd, because the first thing I think when I see someone with an iPhone is:

'Dude, you seriously have more money than sense, they're not even that good, functionality wise, compared to other SmartPhones'

And I will react in exactly the same way, right up until I get my new iPhone when work replaces my BlackBerry.

That wasn't the year that was.

Well, I suppose - As it's the last day of 2012, I should do some sort of hoitsy-toitsy review of the year... High points, low points, mid points - What trended on Twitter, how many people found the Blog interesting, how much my personal Facebook index flopped around like a halibut in a Zumba class.

But I'm not going to, I have a memory like a sieve and the few things that I can remember actually happening, I can't remember when it happened or to who and with what.

I might make some stuff up I suppose - Hey, that might work - In fact, that's what I'm going to do! A month by month guide to things that didn't happen in the last year.


January.

An early news report from Khazakstan informed us that civilian contractors were transporting a Sperm Whale by air, using one of those huge Russian sky-hook style helicopters and an intricate system of thin straps and pullies - It turns out that the whole thing had been organised by an Italian company and the instructions had been translated from Italian to Khazakstani by the same Icelandic chap from the Dutch East Indies who writes out the instructions for Ikea. Within minutes of taking off, the poor cetacean suffered terminal garroting and fell into six neat pieces. Luckily, local villagers were able to follow some supplementary instructions, and fashion the remains into three free-standing bookcases and a very avant-garde table-lamp.

February.

Shoppers in Sheffield, UK, were startled to find that due to an issue with autocorrect at a local advertising agency, a launch event for the BluRay release of the X-Men origin film 'Wolverine' had become a little more feral than expected. Where the original instruction had been 'Make sure the guy in the Wolverine suit gets to Meadowhall by 09:00' - It appeared on the Talent-Wrangler's iPhone as 'Make sure you release 900 live Wolverines in Meadowhall - Guy'. In the ensuing chaos, four people were bitten to death - two seriously, one by a policeman.

March.

March will be remembered, more than anything, for the temporary repealing of the laws of conservation of momentum by the US Senate. The reason that this was a temporary change was that not much research had been done beforehand and no-one realised that this would make any form of 'Coasting' impossible - This alienated one of the largest US demographics - i.e. The 15-35 year old, itinerant, disallusioned skateboarding company director - And Google threatened to launch a class-action suit due to lost productivity at its HQ, as no-one was able to use the swings and slides.

April.

Apple fanboys were shocked to learn that they had been taken in by a complex ruse perpetrated by Samsung. An email had been sent to anyone with an @overpricedtoy.com or @moremoneythansense.org email address, offering them the chance to take part in the new Beta Test of the printable iPhone 5. The 'dupes' queued for hours at their own home printers, after being told that the device would be launched at 00:00 on April 31st, a completely new day, that would only exist for the Apple glitterati - At 11:59 on the 30th, a print job was generated that printed out a picture of a house-brick with a smiley-face painted on it by a duck. The joke was on Samsung however, as this proved to have slightly greater functionality than the standard iPhone 5.

May.

Plans were unveiled by NASA to recreate the original Starship Enterprise in Earth orbit. The $60 Billion dollar project stalled however, as not enough people could be found who were willing to be boarded into the walls for the entire five-year mission and operate the sliding doors whilst making the 'Shhhht' noise.

June.

June played host to the hottest day ever recorded in the history of the known universe. It occured when an office party prank at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland went horribly wrong. A group of scientists, bored with making drinks that changed colour indicating the arousal level of the drinker, decide to see what would happen if you accelerated a shish-tikka-donner mixed kebab (with extra salad) to lightspeed. The effect was devastating, but thankfully shortlived. As the chilli sauce reached 299,792,459 m/s its quantum state changed to anti-chilli and a small, but quite fragrant sun was instantly created - raising the local temperature for Western Europe to approximately 74.2 bajillion degrees.

July.

On the 8th. Due to an unusual weather pattern, 95% of the world's remaining 17,600 White Rhino performed The Timewarp - from Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror show. The quake produced when they all initially 'Jumped to the left' caused massive flooding in Botswana and large cracks to appear on the peak of Kilimanjaro - It's not known why the remaining 5% didn't join in, but the prevailing research shows that they were probably Mama-Mia fans.

August.

August shall be remembered for the temporary cessation of all sporting activity on the UK mainland - Absolutely nothing competetive happened. TV programming that would normally have been sport related was replaced by re-runs of Come Dine With Me. Even conkers was outlawed. Anyone caught flouting this new ruling was taken to Sebastian Coe's underground hideout and birched ruthlessly until they'd learned their lesson.

September.

Danish inventor Myrtryk Von Hunboltzon premiered his world-beating new invention - The Cat-a-porter, a method of instantly transmitting cats from place to place globally. Initial trials proved effective as cats of all sizes, colours and personalities were transmitted around the world. Unfortunately, it all turned out to be a massive con, as the cat that was being 'transported' was in fact, being minced by hidden equipment and not transported at all. All Von Hunboltzon had actually invented was a device for spontaneously creating cats out of thin air.

October.

The world of Fortean Research gained another martyr in early October as Brigadier Hawksworth McTavish-Silverplib (Retd.) completed his two year stalk-fest of the Beast of Bodmin in spectacular fashion. The Brigadier, known to local Beastarians as 'Mad Dangler McTavish' due to his habit of hunting the beast a Magic-tree car air freshener tied to his genatalia to mask his scent, was believed to have cornered the animal in a disused barn. His mangled remains were discoved in various places scattered around Cornwall. He is survived by an English Springer Spaniel called Leonard.

November.

Almost nothing of any note happened in November, the tides continued in their sploshey up-down motion, birds flew south, cheese matured and the complex system of checkes and balances that we call life continued unabated. Right up until the point where every man, woman and child who lived through the 1980's was discovered to have been some kind of pedophile or assorted rapist, sheep worrier or sodomiser. Apart from Bruce Forsythe, he was outed as a vampire and ritually staked by Tess Daley on the set of 'Strictly Come Dancing'

December.

Hollywood news that peaked in December was centered around the revelation that Kristen Stewart, 'Star' of the Twilight films and Snow White and the Huntsman, did not actually exist. She was outed as a completely digital construct by her ex-partner Cedric Pattinson. When questioned by a representative of the Jo McCarthy Rights for Real Humans group, Pattinson admitted that he thought it strange that Stewart dissapeared every time there was a power outage at their shared apartment in East Compton, LA. However he thought that this may have been due to her childhood spent in California. It was also discovered that it was during one of these power outages that her facial expression subroutine had been deleted.


Well, there you go, a month by month list of things that didn't happen in 2012 - I hope to continue making youse guys shake your heads in mild disbelief in the new year.

Let me leave you with a quote from my good friend Pedro Vader that I think sums this year up.

'If you stick your hand right inside, and I sort of make a sawing motion like this, do you think you can feel it?'

But I feel fine!

Gods-Dammit! I should have kept the Nickleback 'If today was your last day' post until today shouldn't I?

Anywho, it seems that tomorrow is the end of the World, and if it means I don't have to travel the complete length of the M42 at 10mph again, I welcome it with open arms. I got to thinking, whilst I was sat in traffic, for two hours, this morning... What form will Armageddon take?

Hollywood has given us several different possibilities - Films with deeply original names like '2012' and 'Armageddon' have covered the natural disaster angle quite extensively - We've had ELE asteroid impacts, floods, ice-ages, solar prominences & alien invasions - All the big bang endings that can be depicted with massive special CGI effects and Dolby / THX surround sound.

I'm convinced that the end will come tomorrow with a whimper, rather than a bang. The end will be gradual - I mean it'll still be fairly quick, we've got to cram it into the 24 hours after all, but it won't be all 'Ah! what's that?' Bang! *Dead*.

Below I list some possibilities that I think have a very real chance of ending the world:

The magnetic North and South poles will swap places - This will render all GPS devices non-functional causing apocaplyptic car-crashes all over the planet - The only people to survive will be iPhone 5 owners who suddenly find that AppleMaps is now correct - Unfortunately a significant proportion of these people have under developed genitals, and the remainder of the human race will slowly die out.

There will be a massive explosion of radiation from the sun which will grow ducks to the size of horses and shrink horses to the size of ducks. This will, at a stroke, wipe out global bread reserves as flocks of giant mallards decend on supermarkets and bakeries and also destroy 90% of the agrarian economies around the world as it suddenly takes 200 horses to pull a plough. It will also cause the almost instantaneous fouling of our inland fresh water supplies - I mean, ducks are pretty filthy animals to start with...

The Moon will turn out to be the egg of a giant, mutant, Star-Goat (As I have always secretly suspected) and planet earth will be grazed to the mantle whilst the uncontrollable tides boil the seas away into space.

The amount of IT/technological waste that companies have been stockpiling due to people not really understanding the WEEE regulations will achieve sentience, we will be subjugated and decimated by millions of suddenly self-aware DVD players that have gotten tired of having shiny discs inserted into them and want to know how we like it when they do it to us.

The hidden back-masking embedded in the REM track 'It's the End of the World as we know it' will kick in as it is played incessantly by radio stations around the world. This will turn us all into mindless zombies who... Oh.. I don't know... Shave our heads, look painfully thin and eat each other's brains, or something.

But you don't need me to tell you, after all, most of you are incredibly intelligent, or you wouldn't be reading this Blog, that the chances are we're all still going to be here on Saturday morning - I don't mean here, at my desk, in Coventry - I mean generally where all of you are now, within a few miles at least.

Unless of course, there was just some massive mix up in translation... Where some aged scientist sat in a dusty office somewhere thought the Mayan Calendar said, 'The chain will end by a huge Comet on 21/12/12' and it actually said 'Huge electrical chain Comet will cease trading on 21/12/12' - If you take into account Gregorian shift and leap years and stuff - They were bang-on.

Just as likely in fairness...