Tag Archives: artificial intelligence

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone again this morning.

But what do you expect? If you don’t go to bed until 04:15 you don’t have all that much time to go a-wandering by the time that the alarm goes off.

What is surprising is that despite the short amount of sleep, I’ve not been at all tired today, not even for one single minute. It must therefore be the dialysis and not the overall state of my health that’s causing these little “moments”. And as it happened almost every day before dialysis, we can narrow it down to something to do with my kidneys.

So last night, or, rather, this morning, after I’d finished my notes I wasn’t all that tired and found a few things to do but eventually I thought that if I don’t go to bed now, I never will and that’s no good at all.

It took an age to go off to sleep but once I did, I remember nothing further until the alarm went off. And then didn’t I have a struggle to leave the bed? Not that that was surprising because the stabbing pain in my foot had started up again.

For once in my life I couldn’t face the bathroom so I thought “tough” and went into the kitchen for my medication.

Back in here, I found nothing on the dictaphone so I spent some time making notes about the next radio programme or two to keep me occupied.

Isabelle breezed in, in something of a rush as usual on her first day back. She mentioned that she was off to visit the town of Avallon in Burgundy. Regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous incarnation will recall that we visited it years ago as part of our quest for the legends of the Knights Templar

After she left, I made breakfast and then read more of MY BOOK. I was correct about not spending long at Kilpeck. This morning we arrived in Knaresborough.

As usual though, I was distracted. I spent more time reading about the conflicts between the Kings, usurpers and Barons in Yorkshire in Medieval times than I did about the castle. And then following up a clue, I managed to track down a copy of John Leland’s “Itinerary”.

Leland was one of the first travel writers and his book was written towards the middle of the Sixteenth Century, in which he described his ramblings around England and Wales. Its interest as far as I am concerned is that he was a big fan of castles too and described them in great detail. Our author Geo T Clark makes several comparisons between what Leland saw and what he saw 300-odd years later, indicating how much of the superstructure had disappeared in the interval.

After breakfast I began to make the series of ‘phone calls that I talked about the other day.

By the time that I’d finished, I had my summons for the hospital in Paris (and that was a job in itself). I’m expected to arrive there Monday 5th May between 14:00 and 17:00 and I’ll be there for a week. My dialysis is arranged here in Avranches for the Monday morning and I’ll be having it in Paris on the 8th. I’ll be back on Friday evening.

The taxi is booked too. Early morning on Monday from here to Avranches and then after dialysis, straight to Paris. They’ll wait to hear from the hospital for the return.

There’s someone coming to see me on Wednesday about my renovations downstairs. I had a lovely mail this morning from the letting agent "on further consideration, your tenant has decided that she will rent a storage box as of the 3rd June, put her affairs in store and move in with relatives."

She’s obviously received my letter of the other day and it has had the desired response. Consequently I’ve been advertising the work on some of these “artisan” sites run by the various professional bodies, designed so that their members can look at them and see what work is available. I’ve already had one response.

With a bit of luck, God’s help and a Bobby, this removal planned tentatively for the last week in August might even take place. Several friends have offered to come to visit and help out, and there’s always room for anyone else to lend a hand.

What I shall be doing is talking to a few workmen, having some kind of starting and finishing date, and then handing in my three-months notice to the letting agent. I don’t mind a couple of months’ overlap of accommodation. It’s far better than finding myself out in the street.

The rest of the day has been spent radioing. 260306 is a concert, as I mentioned a few days ago, 260313 is nothing special and 260327 is another concert, one that I caught in, of all places, Montréal where my cousin’s son-in-law was sound engineer.

260320 is going to be interesting though. 20th March is “International Francophone Day”. Leaving aside French rock bands like Magma and Gong, have you any idea how many rock songs by British and American groups there are that contain lyrics either wholly or partly in French?. I’m up to thirty-four and I’m still counting.

Remember the other day when we were talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us was" – ed …? I’m disappointed in my AI search engine, that only came up with three that would fit in my programme. I had plenty of ideas myself of course … "and about the music too" – ed … and a brainstorming session in an Internet forum came up with the rest.

As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … Artificial Intelligence is not all that it’s cracked up to be.

Tea tonight was the stuffed pepper that I should have had yesterday, with plenty of stuffing left over for my taco roll and leftover curry, which shall be on Thursday this week.

And now, hardly tired even after the turmoil of last night, I’m off to bed. Tomorrow I have my faithful cleaner coming to sort me out and apparently she’s bringing an assistant, so I’ve been told. I shall need to be on my best behaviour.

But seeing as we have been talking about house renovations … "well, one of us has" – ed … I hope that they turn out to be better than the last lot that I had.
When I moved back to Crewe from Winsford in 1981 I had some local builders in. One of them was pulling nails out of his bag to knock into the wall, but he was throwing half of them away.
"Why are you doing that?" asked his mate.
"They are defective" he replied. "Made backwards. When I pull them out, the heads are the wrong way round."
"You fool!" roared his mate. "They aren’t defective at all. They are to be used in the wall behind you!"

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Sunday 20th April 2025 – I HAD NOTHING ON …

… the dictaphone this morning when I awoke. And that was a big disappointment. As I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … I depend upon what happens during the night for any excitement that there might be to brighten up my boring, miserable days.

Things might have been different had I had a decent night’s sleep.

After I’d finished my notes, which wasn’t all that late, I dictated the notes that I had written for the radio programmes that I’d prepared during the week, organised myself properly (and you’ve no idea just how long that takes) and then went off to bed, just before midnight. So with my lie-in until 08:00 it would be a good night’s sleep.

As I said yesterday, I was good and ready for it too. After the dialysis session I was totally exhausted. So once I was in bed I was asleep straight away and didn’t move a muscle for a good while after that.

However, it’s a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday and regular readers of this rubbish will recall what happens on a Sunday after a dialysis Saturday. And so at 08:00 when the alarm went off, I was sitting at my desk working.

What was so bad about that was that it had been another one of these “sitting bolt-upright” dramatic awakenings and at that point I was away on my travels, but the shock of awakening wiped absolutely everything out of my mind and I could remember nothing.

With over an hour to spare, I had a dive into that site that seems to know where all of the best Artificial Intelligence programs are, and after some practice I have now succeeded in being able to swap one face onto another person’s body with a reasonable amount of accuracy.

Add that to the voice generator with which I played the other week, my next trick is to go with a background remover. Then, with my PaintShop Pro (25 years old and still going strong) I can use the image that I created, transform the missing background into “transparent” with the aid of a green screen.

Once I’ve done that, I can superimpose it onto any screenshot from Street View (so I’ll need an Artificial Intelligence image enhancer for the screenshot) that I like, so I can have people doing strange things and saying strange things in any location in the World that takes my fancy…

There’s no doubt about it – amusing as it might be, it has some very dangerous undertones. I reckon that we will be hearing quite a lot more about Artificial Intelligence, and it won’t all be good.

The nurse turned up as usual and had a lot to say for himself. He was soon gone and I could make breakfast and read MY BOOK.

We’ve finally left Kenilworth and we’re now at Cydweli which, for the benefit of our geographically-challenged author, is in South-West Wales. And on page 154, without the slightest hint of irony, he tells us that "The new town, parts of which are of high antiquity … "

Back in here, we have football to entertain us. Stranraer were entertaining Edinburgh City.

Once more, today, I saw some more sad attempts at defending, with defenders standing around waiting for each other to clear the ball and watching as an opposition forward pushes it into the net, another shot fully covered by the goalkeeper until a defender sticks out a leg and diverts it into his own net, open goals by the dozen blasted wide or well over the bar.

For a change though, it wasn’t Stranraer doing all of this but Edinburgh City. How Stranraer managed to win this game 2-0 is one of those big mysteries that will forever remain unresolved.

We also had the highlights of the weekend’s games in the JD Cymru League. While highlights can be very, very deceptive, I do have to say that I have never seen a team look so disinterested as Y Drenewydd.

Relegated last week, I did nevertheless expect that their final game would be one in which they would go out with a bang but Y Fflint, deep in the mire themselves at one stage just recently, strolled through the game and the Drenewydd defence with ease. A 4-0 victory was nothing like representative of the hundreds of chances that they were gifted throughout the game.

Rosemary’s computer is now fixed and working. She reset all of the parameters for the internet connection and on one particular combination of settings, it made a Wi-Fi connection and we now have one very happy Easter Bunny, just as I was today at breakfast when I had two more of my delicious toasted hot cross buns smothered in vegan butter.

The bread roll that I made for lunch was perfection and made some wonderful toasted cheese and tomato bread roll halves washed down with disgusting drink, and then I came back in here.

Most of the rest of the day has been spent editing the radio notes. Programme 260220 is now finished (I just had to lose eight seconds) and 260227 is almost completely edited and assembled, the final track has been chosen and remixed and the notes written ready for dictation next Saturday.

There was a break to make some dough for the pizza. Two lots are in the freezer now and the third made probably the best pizza base that I have ever made. The pizza was delicious too, melted exactly as it should be.

So tomorrow, I have dialysis again. I also have to ring up Paris to find out what’s going on about this visit and also to ring around to find some workmen who want to earn some money. There’s a lot to do and time is getting short.

But seeing as we have been talking about Cydweli Castle … "well, one of us has" – ed … when our author Geo. T Clark went to visit it, he was totally taken aback by the most rude and offensive manner in which the castle welcomed him.
In the village pub afterwards he met the local doctor and talked to him about it.
"It was most offensive" he said. "All the time that I was there, it kept on shouting abuse, insults and rude word at me."
"It’s nothing to worry about" said the doctor
"Really?" asked our author.
"Ohh quite" said the doctor. "A psychiatrist came to see it a couple of years ago. Apparently it has Turrets Syndrome"

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Tuesday 15th April 2025 – I HAVE HAD …

… a Day of Rest today.

Our Welsh class is on an Easter break this week and next week so I was planning on having a leisurely day today for a change.

What contributed to that particular idea was the fact that I had another very late night – long after 01:30 when I went to bed. But there again, a Marshall Tucker Band concert came round on the playlist and as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I have something of a weakness for Southern Rock and lead guitar solos that can sometimes last for as long as several weeks. After all, how many other Southern Rock bands can you name WHO CAN MUSTER UP A FLUTE?

So eventually I made it into bed and settled down for a good sleep only to awaken in a real panic when the alarm went off – sheets and bedding flying everywhere. For some reason or other I was convinced that I’d heard the alarm go off previously and that this was the second alarm.

As it happens, it wasn’t, because it went off five minutes later. So whatever that was all about, I really don’t know.

The sad part about that was that I was off on an interesting little voyage at that particular moment and in the panic, the whole lot was wiped away completely and I can’t remember anything at all about it.

In the bathroom I had a good wash and then into the kitchen for the medication. It’s a non-dialysis day so I remembered the disgusting powder that I have to mix with water.

Back in here I had a listen to the dictaphone to find out where I’d been during the night. We had a car parked on the lawn somewhere and the front end of it had sunk into the grass. We were debating on ways to manoeuvre it out. I would have expected that we would have raised up the front, put it on a couple of planks underneath the wheels and then pulled it backwards. My father though was going on about changing the gearbox. Even if it had been a practical proposition to change the gearbox, I didn’t understand how that was going to help to move the car out of the trenches that it had dug for itself.

The car, I can still see it now. It was my red Cortina Estate that I came in when I immigrated to Europe, all of my wordly possessions that remained, crammed into the back. I still have the car today – inter-galactic mileage and needs the valve guides replacing but apart from a spot of rot on the scuttle underneath the windscreen the bodywork is perfect and, rare for a Cortina, has never been welded. It’s sitting in my warehouse in Montaigut quietly gathering dust with the 2000E saloon that Nerina bought me once and my Citroën “Traction Avant”.

The nurse turned up early for the start of his week’s shift. No surprise, because he doesn’t have the injections or the blood tests to do, by popular request of his clients. He was complaining that he didn’t have much sleep last night, but that’s a quite common state of affairs around here.

After he left, I made my breakfast and read some more of MY BOOK.

We’ve finished our visit of Helmsley Castle and after a remarkably brief passage by Hereford Castle – a mere dozen pages devoted to one of the strongest fortifications in the Marches – we’re now visiting Hertford Castle.

Our author is once more tying himself up in knots. When talking about Helmsley, he tells us on page 106 that "it is possible that the whole may have been the work of Robert Fursan, especially as, remarkable as it is, it is not named in Domesday nor any early record"

However, on page 121, when talking about the town of Hertford, he tells us that the town of "Hertford was so held of the Confessor, and so accepted by the Conqueror, and entered in Domesday, which, however, as was not uncommon, makes no mention of the castle,"

So why is it remarkable that some castles such as Helmsley Castle aren’t in the Domesday Book, but not uncommon that others such as Hertford Castle are omitted?.

After breakfast I had some paperwork that needed attention and then I had quite an idle morning not doing anything except searching for items of personal interest on the Internet.

Something else that I did was to have another in-depth look at some Artificial Intelligence programs. Every day it seems that there are more and more slowly coming onto the streets every day. The latest one seems to be an automatic story writer. All you need is to write out the very basic outline of your plot, your main characters and their characteristics, press “send” and sit back to let the machine type out a book for you.

You can type as much – or as little – as you like for the story outline and so I had a little fun with it, testing out its limits and finding out what it could – and couldn’t or wouldn’t – do. But it’s going to spoil all kinds of creativity and imagination once it all becomes on-line.

While we are talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us is" – ed … I was told of a discussion between two people on the Internet about how someone, unable to find any secretarial assistance anywhere on the island where he lived, had engaged an AI bot to do all of the work for him and it seemed to be working fine.

Interesting as all of this might be, I couldn’t keep on doing that all day and in the end I began to concentrate on programme 260227 for the radio. First of all though, I checked over programme 250418 and sent it off for broadcast this coming weekend.

For 260227 I didn’t have half of the tracks that I needed so I had to hunt them down. One or two were quite obscure and took some finding but I found them in the end thanks to help from my Artificial Intelligence-powered search engine.

So all of the tracks are sorted out, re-edited and re-mixed, paired and segued. Tomorrow while my cleaner is here, I’ll write out the notes ready for dictation on Saturday night. For the rest of the week I can make a start on Saturday at Woodstock. There will also be a LeClerc order to prepare.

For tea tonight I searched through the freezer and found one of my aubergine and kidney-bean whatsits and cooked it with some pasta and veg, followed by orange, ginger and coconut cake and soya dessert. There is just one more slice of that cake, and then I’ll be into the chocolate cake.

Something else that I have to do tomorrow and not forget is to bake some hot cross buns. We can’t have Easter without toasted hot cross buns. The batch that I made last year weren’t particularly well-made but they tasted delicious all the same. I’m hoping that my new improved technique will improve things this year.

But now that I’ve finished my notes, I’m off to bed

But seeing as we have been talking about Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us has" – ed … before I go I’ll tell you about the chat that I have just had with an Artificial Intelligence chatbot.
What I did was to ask it to tell me the funniest joke that it knew.
It came back with "A man takes his sick Chihuahua to the veterinarian. They’re immediately taken back to an exam room. After a while, a Labrador walks in, sniffs the Chihuahua for 10 minutes, then leaves. Next, a cat comes in, stares at the Chihuahua for 10 minutes, and leaves. Finally, the vet arrives, examines the dog, and prescribes some medicine.
The man is shocked and says, “That must be a mistake! I’ve only been here 20 minutes!”
The vet replies, “No mistake. It’s $100 for the lab test, $100 for the cat scan, and $50 for the medicine.”"
It finished by telling me " If you want, I can share more like this!" but I don’t think that I’ll bother. At least, when I remember a joke from the old “Plymouth Polytechnic” days (and that’s a story in itself) I don’t forget half of the story like my AI chatbot has just now. Artificial Intelligence is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I’ll prefer natural stupidity any day.

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Tuesday 18th March 2025 – THEY HAVE HAD …

… the results of all of the tests and examinations that I underwent at hospital in Paris several weeks ago, at long last.

"And Mr Hall, we need you to come to see us as soon as possible." said the secretary. "And bring your jammies."

"You’ll be seeing Professor Roos-Weil" (my haematology specialist) "and Professor Maisonobe" (my neurologist). " They both want to see you. I’ll talk to the dialysis people tomorrow and arrange for some of your sessions to be undertaken here."

All of that sounds quite ominous to me. Heaven alone knows what’s going on and why I need to be away from home for so long that they are arranging dialysis sessions in Paris. But never mind. I have so much going on right now to worry about that it will be at least another three weeks before I’ll be able to spare the time to worry about this latest development.

One thing that can be said for all of this though is that they are actively doing something and that can only be good news as far as I’m concerned. They aren’t leaving me to stew in my own juice.

So having pushed that out of the way I can go back to doing what I ought to be doing, and that is to write up the notes of today before I forget.

As usual, we’ll start (or maybe finish) with yesterday. After writing up my notes and backing up, I stayed up for a while, wandering around in cyberspace having a good look round before I went to bed. And it was 00:30 before I knew it. That was the cue to sling my hook and I crawled into bed.

Once more, it was another good night’s sleep where I hardly moved a muscle as far as I’m aware. However when the alarm went off at 07:00 I was already up and about, and had been for a good half an hour. It’s the morning following a Dialysis Day so no surprise there.

There was the good scrub up of course, and then into the kitchen for the medication. Back in here to listen to the dictaphone to see where I’d been during the night.

To my surprise there were some items on it. It had obviously been a busy night. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were driving a taxi. They had to go to pick up someone at 25 Vincent Street Crewe. That was a house that I had bought and was waiting for the tenant to leave so I thought that it might be interesting for me to go along to see and have a look at the tenant. I turned up and it was a younger woman and an older woman. The younger one helped the older one down towards the car and helped her climb in. She told them that she had to go to the pharmacy rather than mess around with the British Government’s telephone health service. The only place where there was likely to be a pharmacy was the airport. I said “I think that its 24 hours at the airport, the pharmacy” but they weren’t so sure but we took the lady and set off. Holmes and Watson had noticed that she looked like a typical alcoholic and they’d been whispering amongst themselves about it. It turned out that she had been out last night and someone had put some pills in her drink, I’m not quite sure why. They set off in the car and reached the airport. She told them to wait in the waiting room while she went to the pharmacy. Watson told her to be careful not to go back on the stage again. Holmes and Watson were waiting there, waiting for quite a while but the woman never reappeared. They slowly began to realise that it was they who had been taken for a ride. They began to discuss the woman and noted a few of her identifying characteristics which were almost certainly false. When they began to talk about her voice, which was disguised, they suddenly realised that they had taken Professor Moriarty to the airport. He’d enticed them there by the story that they were at this house that I had bought and it would give us an opportunity to see the tenants. Holmes and Watson were then wondering what would now happen that Moriarty had planned for them while they were at the airport.

It’s interesting that Holmes, Watson and Professor Moriarty should appear during the night. They aren’t my usual night-time companions by any means and I wonder what has happened to drag them out of the woodwork. As for Vincent Street, it’s certainly not the type of house that came into my mind when I transcribed the notes (distant recollections like this are triggered off when I write them out) but the parallel with “waiting for the tenant to move out” is quite clear. However, why Vincent Street?

A little later I’d been out with some guy from University, a student who was a disabled campaigner. We’d been seeing people and he’d been driving the car and had come back home. Then there was something else that needed to be done so I said that we’d go in my car. He replied “we could always carry on in mine”. I answered “it must be my turn to drive”. He opened the door to climb out of his car. At that moment a big old Ford came past. I expected him to climb back into the car to let it go but he just climbed out in front of it and made the car swerve round him. But the car didn’t. It drove very close to him and brushed him as it went past. He walked after the car to have a word with it which I found amazing because he’s usually in a wheelchair. They began to have an argument in the street. I went to the house and picked up some slices of apples that I’d been preparing and put them in a plastic container and swirled them around with a little water to keep them fresh while I was waiting for him to come back. However, in all the time that I was waiting he never returned.

Knowing the guy concerned, it really would be just like him to go waging war on innocent motorists and other people who have unwittingly trod on his rather principled toes. He was a lovely guy and I liked him a lot, but he had become disabled following a “serious incident” involving a representative of a group of people of whom one would expect much better behaviour, and he was rather bitter about it, which is no surprise. He had my deepest sympathy, but I wish that he would have restrained himself once or twice instead of taking far too personally everything that happened subsequently that had no connection whatever with anything that had happened previously.

Not so much though as another former friend of mine, also disabled and on crutches, who once left his car and was on the point of hobbling over, on his crutches, to a motorist who had blown his horn at him in order to give that motorist something rather more than a piece of his mind. At that point I decided that this was an association that ought to be wound down. I suffer enough from my own issues as it is, without suffering them by proxy on behalf of someone else.

This morning I also had a lovely chat with a friend, at it looks as if the Hound of the Baskervilles might be paying me another visit, dragging its master behind it all the way from Memph … errr … Munich. That will be nice.

The “other” nurse started his round today. He picked on my choice of a variety of food, complaining that it was industrial not good for the health, and he had a friend … etc … I explained to him that I didn’t like it either, but when you are housebound as I am, all that you can do for shopping is to buy whatever is in the catalogue of the supermarket’s deliver service. If it’s not in there, you can’t buy it and that’s an end to the matter.

It was a rather disappointing breakfast today – no book to read. As a result I was finished much more quickly and came back in here to revise my Welsh.

The lesson passed quite well today, presumably due to the extra time spent in revision. We had a quiz today and I even finished on the podium. It’s very rare that that happens. One of the things that we had to do was to summarise a newspaper report on infectious diseases. I found it really difficult to translate it word for word but it was quite easy to pick up the sense and I was surprised to find that my summary was quite accurate.

My cleaner put her sooty foot in the door later on. She’d been to LeClerc and bought my coconut oil and Brazil nuts. So the baking will continue for the next few weeks. But as for that flapjack that I made two weeks ago, I’ve still not eaten any of it.

And while we’re on the subject of food … "well, one of us is" – ed … I asked my Artificial Intelligence search engine about suitable vegan foods to take to hospital that will be nutritious, filling, and keep at room temperature for a week. It came up with a list of about a dozen. So it’s clearly doing its stuff. I’ve already taxed it with several complicated questions and I’ve only managed to confound it a couple of times.

But while we’re on the subject of Artificial Intelligence … "well, one of us is" – ed … there’s quite a thing going on in cyberspace about it. I’ve been hunting things down and I’ve come across an Artificial Intelligence web browser that accesses an enormous suite of Artificial Intelligence programs that is absolutely frightening in what the programs are capable of doing. I’ve been manipulating … "PERSONipulating" – ed … photos and voices and produced some really good results.

For some light-hearted relief this afternoon I found an Artificial Intelligence chatbot, invented for myself a fictional scenario, and had a very lengthy and in-depth conversation with it. What I intend to do when I’m at dialysis next is to use the travelling laptop, create another account and, using the internet connection there (which of course has a different IP address) to have a similar conversation, but with the completely opposite viewpoint to that of today. I’ll compare the comments from the bot, to see if it criticises the opposite of what it praised today. If it does, then we know that we are on to something. But if it keeps on agreeing with me, then we know that it’s really not up to all that much.

As for the voice manipulator … "PERSONipulator" – ed … whilst it has a very good front-end, I’ve found that I can produce very similar results with the audio editor that I use. So the AI program, good though it might be, is not everything that it’s cracked up to be.

I’ve also been working on the radio programmes and I shall carry on there tomorrow and complete another programme ready for dictating on Saturday night.

Tea was, as usual, a taco roll with rice and veg, followed by date bread and soya dessert. And now I’m off to bed, ready for work and a shower tomorrow. We’ll have clean bedding too (I hope).

But seeing as we were talking about Holmes and Watson just now … "well, one of us was" – ed … Watson came back to 221B Baker Street to find Holmes sitting by the fire.
"Now, let me see" said Holmes. "You went to the Capital and Counties Bank in the Strand. You stood in the queue for ten minutes, then you went to window number three. You wrote out a cheque for £10:00. The cashier gave you two x £5:00 notes, the large white variety. You folded them in four and put them in the left ticket pocket of your waistcoat. You chatted to the cashier for two minutes and then left. You forgot your umbrella at the window and had to come back for it. "
"That’s amazing" Said Watson. "It’s all incredibly true too. How on earth did you deduce that?"
"Elementary, my dear Watson" said Holmes. "I was standing in the queue behind you."

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Saturday 28th December 2024 – I NEARLY CAME …

… home by myself this afternoon – without a driver from the taxi company.

When I came out of the building, the car was there but the driver wasn’t. He’d had to dash off as an accompagnateur in one of the ambulances to take an ill person home. So there I was, sitting in the car like Piffy on a rock waiting for things to happen

But I can promise you – had the chauffeur left the keys to the car behind him, that would have been the last that either he or his company would have seen of the vehicle.

Meanwhile, back at the ran … errr … apartment, I was up yet again until 02:00 – in full holiday mode. No rush at all to go to bed. After I finished my notes and backing up, I had a little project to do, about which I’ll talk in due course.

Eventually though, at 02:00 I struggled off to bed and there I stayed until 08:00, when the alarm rang and I fell out of bed.

The nurse caught me in the bathroom doing my washing. He’s coming earlier and earlier these days, not giving me time to do anything.

We had the usual banal questions and then he left, leaving me to make breakfast, and to read MY BOOK.

We’re discussing stone circles at the moment, and he tells us that "stone circles are to be seen in the northern counties of England, in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, Shropshire and Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Somersetshire, and Cornwall; and also in Glamorganshire, Orkney, the islands of Arran and Lewis, Argyllshire, Perthshire, Inverness-shire, Banffshire, Aberdeenshire, and Kincardineshire"

However he also reminds us that "menhirs, or isolated standing stones, and stone rows are found in this island only on Dartmoor, in Cornwall, Northumberland, Scotland, and Wales"

It’s interesting to note that there’s a very strong geographical separation between the location of stone circles and the menhirs. The menhirs … "PERSONShirs" – ed … seem to be situated in the areas that are either more isolated, further from the sea or further from the south-east of England, the traditional place of arrival of invaders from the European mainland. Those stone circles in the North of Scotland would be in places more easily accessible by sea.

And yet again, the areas close to the South-East are devoid of anything.

It seems to me that it may be possible that the population in the isolated areas has been pushed there by the weight of numbers of whoever arrived and who brought with them their own traditions of stone circles, followed by another wave of invaders with a different culture again but who didn’t spread out so far.

What’s more unusual about all of this is that these really isolated locations where we find menhirs are the areas where 200 years ago the Celtic languages (Gaelic, Welsh and Cornish) were strongest. Could it be that the “flight to the west” of the Celtic people generally attributed to the arrival of the Saxons took place a couple of millennia beforehand and took place under threat from a completely different invader?

And is that why we have all of the hillforts from this era? To defend the area from these new invaders?

Back in here I transcribed the dictaphone notes. I’d been taken by the dwarves, a bunch of whom lived in the valley nearby, and was taken to their main stronghold in the mountains. There I was imprisoned, at least for several weeks, but the start of a great layman offensive cooled the spirits of the nuns somewhat and after a few minutes of fighting they put me on a scale and weighed me outside the village hall, that everyone could see that in fact I’d gained 3kg since I saw them last and that brought this rescuing party to a dead stop while they configured out what would be the next move.

So we were out with the Hobbits again last night. I must stop getting into these bad hobbits. But yes, I really did say “nuns” just there in that dream. The weighing and gaining 3kg – that’s just like in the Dialysis Centre at the moment. But by the looks of things, I seem to have merged two dreams together somehow.

And then I noted that “so far we’ve had two phantom alarm calls tonight, one at 04:25 and the other one at 07:05”. And I remember nothing whatsoever of those. I certainly can’t recall dictating those notes

My cleaner turned up and fitted my anaesthetic patches and then stopped for a chat for a while.

We had a new taxi driver today – one from Villedieu-les-Poèles – and she had difficulty finding my address. But once we were in the car we had a lovely chat all the way down to Avranches.

At the Dialysis Centre I wasn’t the last to be plugged in today, which was a change. But although the first pin went in totally and absolutely painlessly, the second one more than made up for it.

The unfriendly doctor came for a prowl around and didn’t have much to say for himself. He asked if it hurt and when I told him that it did, he said that he would prescribe some Paracetamol for me. I suppose that it’s different than Doliprane, and in any case I forgot to pick up the prescription.

After I’d had my customary doze, I had work to do. In fact, I’ve been undressing women so that they were totally nude

The project to which I referred earlier came about as a result of a conversation with Rosemary the other day, and in particular the manipulation of photos and voices by Artificial Intelligence to represent something that they are not.

Back at the ran … errr … apartment I’d managed to find a voice clone on the internet and I’d been experimenting with it. Even with the free version of this clone, I came up with some pretty impressive results.

This afternoon though, I tracked down an Artificial Intelligence photo manipulator designed simply to remove someone’s clothes to reveal what the AI robot might think the person wearing them looks like underneath.

This manipulator is dynamite. It was the freeware version, like the voice clone, yet the results are stunning.

In just a few hours of practice with a freeware set-up I could produce enough “evidence” to dynamite someone’s entire life and career, so heaven alone knows what an experienced operator with a “paid version” could produce.

This is terrifying for everyone. No-one is now safe and if this Artificial Intelligence is the future, I’d rather go back into the past, or "past into the back" as Bush once said, and promote a return to Natural Stupidity. I’ve had years of experience of dealing with that and am quite used to it.

When they unplugged me I wandered off to look for my taxi. One of the other drivers pointed it out to me and so I climbed in, and there I waited. And waited.

Eventually the ambulance returned and my driver climbed into the car and we set off. And for the first time with this company, I had a driver who made me feel uneasy. I’ve driven with thousands of other drivers and no-one has been less at home behind a wheel than the one this evening.

My cleaner watched as I strode upstairs with purpose, and after she left I had a slice of Christmas cake, delicious as always.

Tea tonight was a breaded quorn fillet with baked potatoes and vegan salad followed by ginger cake and soya dessert – really nice as it always is, and I could certainly eat it again.

There’s nothing to dictate tonight as I’ve had a week off, so I’ll lounge around and then go to bed.

Tomorrow I’m baking – a new cake for pudding and another flapjack. Supplies are running out.

But before I clear off, while we’re on the subject of removing clothes … "well, one of us is " – ed … Milady crept into the garage late one night and sidled up to the chauffeur
"James" she said "take off my blouse"
"And now, take off my skirt"
"Now, James, take off my bra"
"And now, take off my panties"
"And now, James, if I ever catch you wearing my clothes again, you’re fired!"

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