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Sliced Bread: Should it Really be the Gold Standard for ‘The Best Thing Since…’ ?

  The expression ‘The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread’ seems to be on everyone's lips in the UK media nowadays, and has even been adopted as the title of a documentary radio series on Radio 4.  Whenever I hear it used to describe yet another ‘wonder-product’, I find myself wondering where on earth it came from…. As it stands, the phrase implies that the process of slicing bread during its manufacture really does represent an improvement over ‘prior art’ (presumably this would have been un -sliced bread). The nearest I’ve come to an explanation for this somewhat inexplicable enthusiasm in the past for sliced bread as a ‘new and revolutionary' product, is that housewives* in the 1950s were so fed up with having to slice their loaves themselves that they couldn’t wait for someone else to do it for them. To my mind, slicing bread as part of its manufacturing process has some notable disadvantages – let’s take a look at a few of them: 1)       1)  The slic...
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) – What is it, and should we be concerned about it ?

AI development has continued apace since this blog was first published in June 2024, with little sign of a slowdown. Herewith an update for 2026.....   Introduction There has been much discussion, and not a little concern, voiced in the press and on social media recently about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the dangers it might pose for humanity. How dangerous is it really, and what if anything can, or indeed should, we do about it ? First, let’s try to pin down what we mean by the term ‘AI’. The OED dictionary definition is: “.. the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages. ” This rather narrow definition focuses on the use of AI as a tool, to be used to enhance what we as humans already manage to accomplish, rather than considering what a new ‘cohort of intelligent machines’ might do themselves in the future....
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UK's Social Media Obsession – Is it Affecting Our Kids’ Mental Health, and will there be a UK ban ?

    Social Media and Mental Well-Being The large increase in mental health referrals in the UK's younger age groups since the end of the pandemic has finally got the UK government worried…so it should, and not before time. Why ? Apart from the more obvious consequneces of excessive screen use, which we'll conider shortly, we have at least 1 million young people in UK classified as ‘NEETs’ (i.e. Not in Education, Employment or Training); this is a shocking indictment for any 1st world society, particularly one that prides itself on its sense of 'fair play', and is still the 6th richest in the world, despite recent economic mismanagement by successive governments.  A significant proportion of these NEETs are likely to be in this category because of mental health issues. More and more of our youngsters, including even some under 5s, are also being diagnosed with some form of mental health issue, and not all of this is likely to be due to the 'over-diagnosis'...
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