Miranda calls up another journalist.

Miranda: Hello I work for Contempory News. I'd like to speak to someone about your policy on the Newcastle taxi industry.

Secretary: Certainly. I'll put you through.

Screen comes up with company she's ringing's logo and her current fav backgound sounds.

Javid: Hello Miranda. (He gets her name from the screen.) And what can I do for you?

Miranda: Hello Javid. I suppose you realize that our newsagencies disagree on policy regarding the Newcastle car industry?

Javid: Well yes, you do seem to be fighting a war that doesn't exist don't you?

Miranda: It seems obvious that the recent craze for taking taxi's is coming to a halt, and fashion is turning back to buses again. Newcastle seems to have put all its eggs into the taxi basket. Since Newcastle has such a disproportionatly high number of people involved in this industry it could have dramatic consequences. Already sales are very low, and they're only going to go down. The knock on effect to the whole community in the North East is going to be drastic, and no one seems to recognise this. What the congloms need to do is invest in alternative industries and respond to the changing fashions. Surely that philosophy is what makes society work.

Javid: Well that's really nice of you to be so considerate as to ask for a quote from the opposition. I don't know what you're expecting.

Miranda thinks: Does he not want to address the point or something? Is there a problem?

Miranda: I don't particularly want to quote you if you don't want to be. I just want to try and understand why people aren't giving this issue the attention we think it deserves.

Javid: I suppose you think it's a credit to our society that two newsagencies both owned by the same conglomerate can publicly take up opposing views about an industry that forms a core part of their group. Do you think accusing our conglom of incompetance is going to help either of us, the conglom, Newcastle or the World?

Miranda thinks: You complete bonehead. Why are you trying to upset me? I don't know how you've managed to get this far in life without understanding society.

You bastard, it's working. You are upsetting me. Not because of the things you're saying - I can stand up to a damn sight more than that, but I just can't cope with the fact that someone is picking on me and trying to upset me for whatever reason.

Don't answer. Let him say the first thing.

Intense frame pause.

Javid: I think it's you that ought to explain your policy to me.

Frame pause.

Miranda: Oh well, thanks then. (Said with a lump in her throat.)

She pushes a button to hang up.
 

H/I-b2 Couples Letter
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Dear James,

I suppose I should start off with an appology for my last letter. It was really vicious I know, but I hope you saw through all that and took it for what it really was: a cry for help. I shouldn't have been as direct as I was, but I was quite unhappy on the whole. I suppose I just suddenly realized that everything wasn't working out. Things have always gone the wrong way every now and then. It pisses you off at the time, but you know it's all going to work out in the end. That letter is the result of taking all those little things that you usually take in isolation and say 'orse things happen at sea,' and looking at them together. In that letter the eggshell that I've been living in for the start of my life finally cracked and I was exposed to the whole world.

Do you remember me mentioning about when Todd chucked me. I must have told you, I've told every one. It was my big shock story that I used to use to show off about. The instant I read the start of his letter giving me the old spanish archer, just for a split second I considered suicide. I rejected the idea straight away, but I still considered it. It was supposed to be a measure of how much I was in love with him or something.

Every day before I get up now I have to justify my existance to myself. Suicide is always in the back of my mind. I never think about slitting my wrists or hanging myself, never about the mechanics of it. I just consider what prospects the future holds for me (will I ever be happy?) and how me not being here would affect anyone else. The answer's always the same: no one wants or needs me here, and I can't see any way that things could ever get better, but ultimately in several years time some change might occur that I can't forsee at the moment, I suppose it's still worth waiting for the unexpected. Maybe tommorrow.

I've started smoking again. It's just such a crap drug, I don't know why I do it. I don't get a decent high, not like poppers - straight up, laugh for a minute and straight back down. It just goes to my head and I think aggh, I don't like this, stop it now. Aggh, I get that sort of emptyish feeling in my gut after about 2 of them. But I still light up another one within ten mins of putting the last one out.

Why does everyone tap off with someone a couple of times and then feel they should set about spending the rest of their lives with them? I mean, for starters it's so touch and go who you tap off with: it's basically no more than who happens to be both availiable and pissed at the same time that you are, where at worst, neither one of you repels the other. It could be absolutely anyone, it's just so random. Then you spend the rest of your life trying to convince yourself that their attributes are just the traites you want to see in them.

Everyone at work's like that. Mostly they're over five years older than me. None of them can just decide, I'll go off and stay at my sisters tonight, get pissed, get up at five with a serious hangover and drag myself onto a train to get down for work ten minutes late as normal. For starters, they can't even do an hour's overtime without consulting the 'diary,' and the idea that going out with someone other than the person they're with for over half their life might be a nice change and quite a laugh is tantamount to moving in with someone else.

It's just so sad, people who are a real laugh and ace, independant people leave college and end up spending the rest of the lives with the first half decent bloke that comes up on dateline. Suddenly they're inadequate as a whole entity, suddenly they've got to be half of a couple to be whole. Then they can spend the rest of their lives saying 'All men are bastards.' Er, I think it's your expectations of men that have been bastardized actually you cliche/. It just makes me want to throttle the gits.

Just cos everyone does it just cos the family they grew up in was like that. Can't they see how restrictive it is? I suppose it's alot easier to follow like sheep, I mean, the whole society's geared up towards couples. If you form a couple everyone encourages you plurally. And whole people seem somehow to get looked down on, and certainly not encouraged to continue as such. I just look down at them all so much, they seem to be taking a short term easy option. They'd have much more fun as separate entities spending time where thay want.

The worst thing of all is just the banal inevitability of marriage. However much I despise the whole concept of it, I just know I'm going to end up having kids (which incidently I can't wait for) within a nuclear family under marriage. I don't know what'll change, but something will. You've just got to smile at it all.

Well I suppose that's enough moaning. It's good for me to carry on these letters now you've passed lover's limit. I suppose you'll receive this in a couple of years time for you, but I'll be well over 300 by then I expect. It's better than any diary, knowing that someone is going to read it and that your feelings are recorded, but that it can never have any comeback on you.

Lots of love then,

Miranda xx
 

H/I-b3 Communications
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The world is literally plastered with screens that display almost any information we want. Only a very small amount of dwellings haven't got a screen of some form in every room. We use them to communicatie directly with others on the phone, we watch the tele, listen to the radio or even play back videos or play records on them. We order buses on them, and of course, everyone has a screen on the bus. All of society's member's finance are done on a screen. Books are read, short educational lessons, like this one on communications, span the entire range of Man's knowledge. You can get medical advice, find the nightclubs / cafes / B&Bs that suit you when you visit a new town, even ask people out with a guarenteed positive response!

So with a basic understanding of the system, one can use it more effectively, and more cheaply.

OK. We'll start with a description of the communications links. In a medium sized town, say Loughborough, there is a main exchange. Every screen in the whole of Lough has a direct connection to the exchange. This link is effectively a pair of wires sending signals back an forth from the exchange to the screen, although the actual realization is usually more complecated, it remains conceptually a simple two way link. If you know which screen your mate is sat at, and you're both in the big L you can ring him up. You both have direct links to the exchange, and the exchange simply connects the two of you together. In addition, each town has many high bandwidth (capable of transfering large amount of data quickly) links connecting them to surrounding towns like Leicester, Derby and Nottingham. Other links will connect the town to the major local Cities like Brum, Glasgow, London and Brussels. Using these links we can now speak to our mates in various important local locations. But each of these towns will also be connected to other cities, and those to others etc. Using a string of links we can communicate with any other screen in the world.

The direct two way link to the exchange is not the only source of information though. Down every street is a cable that contains every radio and TV station. This broadcast information only needs to be one way, so having one link down a road with spurs off it to each house and only one one way link from the exchange makes the reception of broadcast information considerably cheaper than making phone calls and other two way info transfers. Mobile communications are achieved by transfering data across the couple of inches gap between the bus and the road.

A large amount of our usage of screens is spent recalling standard sets of information eg. listening to records, reading a book and taking a lesson (like this one.) Each major record company / publisher / educational establishment, has a high bandwidth link from each exchange to their local office. If you've got a record on, the record company's local office sends you the sounds down a small part of their link to the exchange, and then down to you. Smaller publishers may have fewer offices, and you may need a slightly more expensive link, to Nottingham say. To avoid incurring such costs each household has a 'cache' of memory which stores your favourite records that aren't retrievable locally. This cache space is limited and careful use of it is the key to economic communications.

The price of the link is not the only cost accrewed by the use of the cable when listening to music etc. The musicians and publishers must also get paid for creating and distributing the sounds. Although all publishers' charging systems are different, they generally follow the same pattern. The first time you listen, it is relatively expensive. The cost gradually decreases as you use it, and after a certain point the only cost accrewed is the cost of the line, or if it is stored in your cache, nothing! At this point you effectively own a copy of the record in the old traditional sense, but without all the risk involved in buying a record you've never heard before. This is vital in maintaining the wide availiabliliy of music, and supporting musical fashion. Payment for such services introduces the concept of the bank.

The bank has traditionally been a store of wealth in terms of cash. In the past, assetts such as records were tangible, vinyl or CDs that you could touch, and were kept at one's house. Nowadays, if you've heard a record enough times, you effectively own it in the way one used to own a record, since you don't have to pay to listen to it anymore as I've just explained. This information in the form of a list of possessions or partial possessions (tracks you've listened to a couple of times, but you're still paying something for it each time you listen) is kept at the bank. As well as your current account. So say you want to listen to a relatively new sound. First you ask your screen for it, it finds out the price from the bank (There is no charge for finding out prices,) the bank then pays the publisher from your current account (maybe they've got a different bank which involves some conceptually simple communications between banks.) The bank then gives the go ahead to the publisher to send you the music, paying any local authority for any inter exchange link used, and you get your sounds. If the record is on cache, you still pay the publisher, although you'll get a reduced rate for not using any of their link's bandwidth, and you won't pay the exchange (owned by the local authority) for making a connection between the publisher and your screen, since none will be made. The direct link from the screen to the exchange is rented say quarterly and all local (the same exchange) calls only incur a connection charge (waived by some local authoritys) since you both pay for the lines separately with the rental. If your favourite band's record company have an office in your town, it will be most economic to always download the tracks from them via the exchange as you listen to them, and use your cache for data that requires a link from elsewhere.

To allow accesses to you current account, you obviously want some kind of securiy, otherwise anyone could say 'I'm Jane Gizzard, transfer all of my money to Janet Gambers account please.' Each user has a word or phrase that they say to authorize all their transactions. This phrase produces a pattern unique to them dependant on the physical size and shape of their mouth and throat: their signature. Everyone is familiar with this method of validation since we all use it to tell screens we're talking to them rather than just maintaining idle banter. For particularly important transactions, facial details may be required. Ultimately, if anyone's going to go to the length of making a fully functional human replacement, identical to someone that would fool the system then they're going to get the information they want however sophisticated the security system is, and what's someone doing storing information that important without a better safeguard anyway. Also any finacial transactions are recorded, so they'd leave a trail for when their scam was discovered.

You might think that safeguards could be inherent in the system, all transfers of data could be checked to see if anything untoward was afoot. There's two main problems with doing this, the first one is a technical matter. Each transfer would be subject to many tests, this would require a disproportionate amount of processing power for the amount of data being transfered. Who could justify the immense extra cost of developing techniques, coding them and implementing the hardware. It'd all be a waste of time and effort and hence money that would be better spent on a better network in the first place. The second problem is an ethical one: does anyone have the right to follow us around, tracing our footsteps, checking up on us? This is a relatively civilized society, the whole system is based upon trust and acting responsibly, such 'safeguards' would be against the nature of society. It's very well documented that people rise to both responsibility and lack of it. So we have a communications network where only transfers involving possessions or finance are recorded, unless specifically asked for.

Most people make their screens record telephone conversations up to a day old, and they often go back and store some of them for personal reasons or reference. Basically you are given the freedom to do what you like as long as you've got enough money.

If conversations are of a particularly private nature, they may be encrypted and all financial transactions are encrypted. There are mathematical techniques that provide two numerical 'keys': a 'public key' and a 'private key'. If you are sending some information to your mate, you first find his public key from the directory of them, encode the data using his public key. The data can now only be decoded by the private key known only to your mate, so no one else can get at the photo you've taken of his wife on holiday! He would then reply by encrypting his response (in whatever form that might be) with your public key that everyone's got access to from the directory. You're the only person who can decode it as you're the only person with the corresponding private key. There's one minor problem so far, you don't know who's really sent the response since it's coded with your public key that everyone's got access to. One way of guarenteeing that data has been sent by you is to 'sign' it. Firstly the raw data is coded by your mate with your public key, then he recodes the coded data using his own private key, and sends the code that has now been encoded twice. You then decode it using his public key, and your private one. Since he's the only person with access to his private key and you with yours, the message is guarenteed to be sent by him and received by you.

It is mathematically possible to calculate the private key form the public key, although this would take up to 10 million years with current processing power and current algorithms. Even so, everyones' keys are constantly being updated. The networks of encryption are quite complecated when you allow for each screen having its own set of keys too, but the basic concept remains the same.

It seems appropriate to say a couple of words about the electronics that provide our excellent communications. Originally, what we call hardware was actually that, hard! You could touch the silicon chips and capacitors. An engineer would see what components he needed to do the job and link them together. The direct equivalent of their hardware is our configuarble blocks. Much of the original interface components (e.g. for sending data down an optical fibre) are very similar to those we use now, but it just enters a big block now rather than travelling through a set of discrete components. The engineer these days chooses the set of configurations of logic blocks that they require (sets of blocks being equivalent to hardware components of old) and links them together. All this information is 'soft' in the conventional use of the term, but never the less it is generally referred to as hardware. Its configurable nature is its beauty. The only different parts of real hardware in use now are different sizes of configurable logic. What was once the most creative section in industry now produces only a handfull of products. The design of configurations is now the creative part with literally millions of microprocessor and peripheral configurations. The 'hardware' engineer now links configurations together, bought in from industry standards. The 'real' software is developed in the same way as it always has, but with tools so sophisticated as to make the task comparatively trivial. Mind you looking back at old software techniques can really break the ice at parties, some of them are surreally complecated. Now, generating hardware or software is not a major part of any task, and full attention can be given to the task.
 

H/I-b 4 Fame
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Dear James,

Fame. Why do I so desparately want to become famous? I feel I'm pushing myself up a mountain of ego. I go around all the time thinking that I'm this great Journalist: the only person in the world that can see certain things that the rest of the world are shielded from, and hence I have a divine right to be loved. Is self criticism the asset I really believe it to be? I notice a weakness and remidy it, then in my mind I'm better than I was to start off.

Teenage boys have posters of me on their walls and worship me for my body. Men love my brain and all I stand for first, then my body (or the other way around if I'm true to myself.) I'll be recognised as being truely great. People will remember my birthday.

But then what's wrong with being normal? Why shouldn't I clean the bath after me like everyone else? Mind you, I suppose famous people are more normal than normal people, at least normal people have over come this basic human floor that requires widespead admiration. They've come to terms with reality.

It's easy to become famous, anyone can do it. All it requires is hard work, dedication, a willingness to neglect other parts of life that are usually integral ones, and a need to proove yourself. This instability is inherent in all famous people except those who genuinely have a love for a particular activity - rather than those that are driven to have a love for the subject because they either: want to block something out of their lives - so they put all their efforts into their work; or they feel that the only way to have a useful life is to be famous, so that they can stick two fingers up at their old school friends and say look at me, you haven't done a thing with your lives.

Britain has a class of Intellectuals who have no need to proove themselves, they get their enjoyment out of the arts and science etc. Some lesser mortals believe that money is the only important thing in life and their whole life is geared up towards persuing that. They can only get good jobs by holding the 'right' views that they just pick up from opinion polls. Still someone's got to do it I suppose. Maybe they're just unable to become famous?

I think I should leave it until late on in life before becoming famous. If I'm still immature enough at that age to still want fame for fame's sake then I suppose I can take it. But no one will ever look at you in the same way again. All the friends you've made over the years will treat you as if you're a different person. (Maybe you'll act as a different person too.) Even your closest friends won't be properly at ease with you. And you can right off making new friends like you used to. Mind, that might not be such a bad thing as I've been finding increasing difficulty meeting people recently, although I've been surrounded by them. Having other people approach me might be what I need.

All of this goes round and round in my head all the time. I know I want to combat that inside me that urges me to strive for fame. I also know that I tend to think more about the ultimate nature of man as opposed to how he balances his existance in this bumbling period of history. However, I can view the situation from whichever direction I think gives rise to my answer (being famous) being correct. What I really need is justification: I've got a damn sight more to say than most of those famous bleach blondes. Why shouldn't I take the airtime from one of them? No one will notice. There's loads of them and only one of me.
 

H/I-b 5 Wolve's independance
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Miranda to someone on screen: Hello Mrs Craven. I'm Miranda from Contempory News. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about the Wolve's independance movement.

Mrs Craven: I'd love to. Glad you're taking an interest.

Miranda: Thanks. Can I use some of what you say in a report?

Mrs Craven: Of course you can. Fire away.

Miranda: OK. Well, why do you think Wolves should be granted independance from Brum?

Mrs Craven: In short, Wolves isn't considered by Brum as being part of it. All of the members of the government, except myself, come from Brum, and very few of them are at ease in Wolves. Now they all understand Brum very well and identify weaknesses in the infrastructure very efficiently. So revenue is directed to Brum from the West Midlands government. As none of them appreciate Wolve's problems, these are hardly ever identified and we're loosing out. We have a disproportionately high level of revenue since major British transport, water, electric and telecommunications arteries pass through the region, but we do not get the benefits from them. It gets diverted to Brum. They can do without us pulling them up, they'll have to work more efficiently without our revenues, which will be better for the global community as a whole. Also, all of the country's admin centres: again transport, water, lecky, telecoms and land allocation are all based in Brum. Not only do the staff have little sympathy with Wolves' concerns, but Wolves' population is starved of these jobs that exist in Brum. A split would bring our fair proportion of jobs to us.

All of that is just straight forward common sense, housing though is the most tangible reason for a split. The current Brum system where the state not only owns the land you live on, but the house you live in too is a tad silly to put it mildly. Now I understand that at the time when the world was grabbing 'social capitalism' by both hands, the notion that everyone could stop trying to do minor house repairs themselves out of their precious free time with inadequet equipment must have been appealing. Everyone being guarenteed a decent place to live - quite revolutionary in it's time. However, the evidence that we've got now after what seems like a millenium of blinkered vision, and evidence that was around at the time of West Midland's departure from the rest of the Midlands maintain that this policy doesn't work. People ring up for absolutely everything to be done on the house, even in some circumstances, to the extent of changing light bulbs. This is obviously a wasteful way of maintaining a house whatever the ideals are behind it. Major things go wrong with the houses quicker than with equivalent owner occupier houses. This is because people let there houses get in bad nick as it's not their house anyway. It's a pain to organize preventative treatment and the government will pay for any repairs when they occur. So they have no incentive - financial or otherwise - to maintain the place properly. Of course many people enjoy maintaining their homes, but such a waste of free time cannot be justifyed within Brum's system.

Although attempts were made to allow as much freedom as possible to home renters intending to make changes to their house, there's so much red tape involved in acheiving such changes through the council that people are put off. Any improvements to a home will increase the rent aswell, so there's even a financial incentive not to maintain the place. If someone was to apply for an improvement, the dweller has a group of officials traips round, inspecting their house and their suggestions. This has the effect of standardizing the changes to houses rather than making the housing more diverse. Of course when they move house, they receive no renumeration for the state they leave the house in, so no one really bothers. Other countries have much better systems involving auctions by weekly rent and renumeration for the previous dweller etc. It seems to me that Brum's system was only created to be different from other local states, rather than because it actually works.

Miranda: What housing system are you proposing?

Mrs Craven: Well, there's many options open to us. I wouldn't want to force us into any wrong housing policy. We'll discuss it and make our decision when Wolves has obtained independence.

Miranda: In summary then?

Mrs Craven: We will take a snap shot of Brum's regulations, adopt them as our own to reduce the trauma, and then adapt them gradually. Brum shares alot with Wolves socially, culturally and economically. The whole relationship between us will improve following the breakup releasing the tension that currently exists between us. The emphasis will then be on the many similarities between the states and not our differences, we can concentrate on mutually helping eachother. All the surrounding states should benefit from the reduction in tariffs of all types of traffic that is enevitable within Wolves following the split.
 

H/I-b6 Hospital Letter
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Dear James,

Today I was one of those sad and lonely gits that go to the doctor's, not because there is anything wrong with them, but just for some social contact: for some attention. To have someone caring for them. I was sitting in the waiting room when I pieced it all together. I suddenly got that empty feeling like something was eating my stomach from the inside. The same as I felt when you left the car to go to Gensim. My eyes glazed over and some tears got going. 'Has It come to this now Miranda?' Then I tried to pull myself together and get a grip seeings as I was in a public waiting room.

When I got to see the doctor he spent the 30 seconds looking at my hand that I didn't deserve. Of course it wasn't painful in the way it should have been. The nurse was really nice and bandaged it up and spoke to me, but I wasn't really in the right mood for a chat. I just felt I was wasting their time. Thing is, I really didn't feel right at all. I know it's all just phychosymatical and it's just cos I'm a bit depressed at the way my life - the life that really did have everything going for it - is just going a bit wrong. I'm not eating properly either, but it's just too much effort to cook. I just can't do it. Even when I'm really hungry beans on toast is just beyond me and I go to bed and try to sleep at about eight just so I don't have to actually do anything. God, and the washing as well. Every ten bloody days that comes along on top of everything else. Maybe I should go see a councillor. I suppose they're free which is one thing. But that's for people with real problems, I'd just be wasting their time. Especially as I know a bit about psychology. They can't tell me much I can't tell myself. Anyway, I'll struggle through somehow. I mightn't be as pretty and innocent when I make it, but I may well be a better person having sorted it all out me self.

Oh God, there was this bloke at the hospital who'd done something real to his arm, but he was still very mobile. His adoring bird really made me want to chuck. She'd obviously taken time off work to come to hospital with her man. They were touching and kissing all the time. The thing that really made me want to land her one (I'm so sensitive) was when she came out with 'I don't think you know how much I care for you.' IF YOU CARE FOR HIM THAT MUCH DARLING, THEN WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE WITH A BOOK AND GET TO WORK AND EARN SOME DOSH. AGGHHHHH!

I'll write more when I'm feeling a bit better.

Miranda xx
 

H/I-b 7 Letter Religion
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Dear James,

Why am I so afraid of religion? Is it because I don't want to be looked down upon by everyone the way I've always done? You know: 'She may be a wonderful company chairman, but she's religious. All those wonderful things she's done are for the wrong reasons.'

I don't know, just look at the people with religion. They're careing, giving, loving, quite the most beautiful people you could hope to meet. They have that sunny outlook on life that I used to have. Na"ivity or innocence. They have just such a wonderful glow that really can't help but brighten up your day.

I mean, the general world view is that God, in whatever form, doesn't really exist. People just use religion as a mental sheild. But it is surely true that we have 'spiritual' needs. If it isn't then why am I so messed up? And quite apart from that I quite like the idea of divine reduction of wave packets, saves you having to define what a consious being is!

I don't know if you've ever come across this analogy, but it really sums it all up: If you are thirsty and have a drink of water, it quenches your thirst. If someone now tells you that water doesn't exist then their arguement doesn't carry any water, like. You don't feel thirsty any more, who cares if it exists. So whether water is tangible or not, it still quenches your thirst so you're going on carry on drinking.

If religion can quench my thirst then surely I should embrace it with open arms. But I know I know too much about reality (what is real Miranda - Ed.) to fall for it all. Surely you can't coldly make the decision to become religious because you wish to become something that you're not just to be relieved of the burden of life. I suppose that you'd have to be introduced into it, much like my conversion from 'science' to 'art encompassing science'. Just like you've spent your whole life in a world that goes on until infinity in all directions except one which has got a huge wall preventing any penetration through that plane. You don't know what's beyond it and it doesn't really concern you, it's just the way it is. Just like the laws of physics are the way they are, you can't do anything about it. One day with your first piece of knowledge that provides a real insight into art (or religion), a minute hole appears in the wall, but you don't really notice it. Then gradually as you get other odd little bits of knowledge a crack starts to visibly appear. You can see the crack but think nothing of it. All walls get cracks in them. Who knows, it was probably there all along and you just hadn't noticed it before. Then maybe two or three different gems come your way, all unrelated except that they are, together, the straw that breaks the camel's back. Suddenly paintings, music, journalism, architecture, fashion, pornography, industry, science, everything just fits into place as the wall rips apart at the crack so fast that you don't see it ripping, you just feel it being drawn from you. You're just left looking at the whole world as if it's a completely different place, which of course it now is for you. You can never turn back the clock and see the world as it was, what's more you're part of it now. Your bumbled path through life has brought you to journalism and everything's just there for the taking.

But I know too much for that to happen to me now with religion. I don't think I could fall for it. Besides, I quite enjoy the luxury of changing your mind, admitting you've been wrong all these years and that there are other considerations: the aetheist's prerogative to be a hypercrit. To reflect society.

Religion's irrationality is its beauty. Relieved of the burden of life, you can concentrate on having fe/te\s. I would love to have religion, and lets face it I'm in the target group, but it just ain't going to work.
 

H/I-b 8 Transport
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Miranda is infront of a screen

Miranda: Right then James. I think I'm going to need the low down on transport man.

James: The one that's supposed to be best is from Easyinfo.

Miranda pushes none of the buttons.

Miranda: Is there nothing else.

James: Quandry have got one that's got about a quarter the rating as the Easyinfo one.

Miranda: I don't know who reads or writes Easyinfo's crap, but really you should know better James, especially when Quandry have got an alternative. In future ignore the fact that Quandry have got relatively low satisfaction ratings and high prices. Most of the gits that use it have no idea what they want to know. I do, so give me that one. OK?

The details of all the lessons' prices and popularity etc. are displayed on the screen.

James: Yes. Sorry.

Miranda: It's alright I wasn't having a go at you. Just remember it.

A big Quandry logo comes up onto the screen. Throughout the lesson the screen shows figures to accompany the narrative.

Teach: This lesson is about transport. It covers the basic requirements of travellers and freight, and details the current solutions to them. If this is not what you require then stop the lesson now and you'll only be charged for the bandwidth you've used so far.

Both passengers and freight require speedy transfers from door to door with the smallest amount of hassle. Ideally this would take the form of a vehicle picking them up and taking them directly to exactly where they're going, avoiding any bottlenecks that occur. If this ideal was realistic then every group of travellers or parcel would have an individual vehicle for each journey. The roads would be completely full and the number of vehicles required would be enourmous. This would push the price up astronomically, like the late twentieth / early twentyfirst century when practically everyone actually owned and maintained their own 'car' (until they used up almost all the oil for us).

Both cost and journey time can be reduced from this 'Ideal' by reducing the number of vehicles on the road. Many parcels will need to be sent from one city to another city at about the same time of day. So one vehicle goes around the first city collecting all the freight, travels directly to the destination city, and delivers all the parcels to the door one by one.

A benefits of this system is that a particularly urgent parcel can sent quickly by paying significantly more than normal and be collected immediately to fill up a truck that's already been filling up for half an hour, and be delivered first. Other parcels in the truck get some form of rebate usually if this is the case. Also, by not collecting and delivering to towns inbetween, unneccessary traffic in those towns is avoided.

When passengers are travelling rather than freight there are two main differences: firstly, waiting to be collected or delivered whilst the bus potters around town collecting or delivering others is particularly time consuming; and secondly, passengers are easily moveable from one vehicle to another. In order to make the most of the situation, each town has a couple of main stations around its periphery. These stations regularly has buses shuttling passengers to and from various parts of the city as and when the customers require. None stop, high speed buses to other towns operate mainly between these stations.

So a typical holiday journey for a family would be as follows: they'd pack all their stuff into two separate containers: the main one with everything that is needed for the duration of the holiday, and another one with just the odds and ends needed for the journey. The large one is put outside in a safe weatherproof shed next to the road. Every household has one of these sheds and they all take a range of standard sized boxes. Trucks can automatically remove these boxes from the road and place new ones in them so no human lugging is required except to and from these sheds. After filling the box they leave it to be collected by the truck. This my be done the previous night since to make the journey as cheap as possible the freight will travel relatively slowly, and as they are more likely to need something from the box at their destination than at home, it's better to have the box awaiting them as they arrive.

When they are ready to leave, they simply call a bus from a screen. This could pick them up from their house, but again from a purely economic point of view (for the traveller) this is disproportionately expensive on the whole compared with a journey after a one or two minute walk to a more convieient pick up point from the buses point of view. The bus will have picked them up after two minutes, but in less than five minutes from the request call in 97% of all cases, and a wait of over ten minutes only occurs in cases where some form of problem has occured. That's 1 in 10,000 journeys or twenty times in the average lifetime, any improvement in the service over that results in too higher increase in costs / increased benifit. If this does happen to them then they can just call for another one, it's inconvenient but looking at it objectively, it's only twenty minutes wasted.

They are taken to one of their local stations, the one that's in the direction that they're heading, maybe stopping a couple of times to pick up some others en route. Now at the station they make their way to the faster bus that takes them directly (execpt in very long distance trips, or those overseas) to their destination city. This will leave up to five minutes after they arrive. Once at the destination city, they change again for a shuttle either to a nearby street, or straight to the door if they don't feel like walking the extra couple of hundred yards. A surprisingly high number of people take this option when one considers how disproportionately expensive it is. Their large box will arrive (assuming they sent it just as they left) usually up to four hours after them in a very similar shed this time outside their holiday home.

The beauty of this system is not only that it runs consistantly at just below maximum efficiency, but that it is so flexible. If you are the only person wanting to travel to a certain destination at a certain time, then you'll get a vehicle to take you by yourself. Although it might seem at first glance obvious to charge much more for such a facility, in practice it works. By providing a relatively stable price, the consumer and producer have much more stable expenses/income. This security is obviously advantagous. Since most vehicles are used during the day, journeys made at off peak times also enable travel operators to keep their vehicles in service for a higher proportion of the time.

When ordering a vehicle the various specialist interest buses running are listed, and you can choose to dance, read, converse, play chess and do almost anything else! People consider this an essential part of travelling, so their time is not wasted. Groups of friends can all take the same bus etc.

Whilst travelling down streaches of road, the overall throughput increases if the cars group together into a long train. This is highlighted by a bus (or more often a train of them) turning right onto a busy road. By concentrating cars into trains, large gaps occur along the busy road. When a gap coincides in both directions the bus (train) turning right can cross both carriageways of the road and start accellerating.

Busy roads have two different types of lanes on the roads. Fast lanes at the centre where trains are travelling at top speed in both directions, and slow lanes where vehicles leaving the road may slow down, or speed up when joining the road. Occasionally cars may stop in this lane to admire veiws etc. and sometimes even another lane is provided for this.

All cars are magnetically levitated above the road when travelling. This a wholly satisfactory way of acheiving motion for many reasons: since there are no moving parts things very rarely go wrong with them; the cars have relatively little engineering effort going into them as the complecated and powerful motion components are embedded in the road and so the busses are cheap; as there is no actual contact between the road and car, no wheels on the car or road wear out and the suspension is superb.

The roads are owned and maintained by the state which the road is in. Some times several neighbouring countries group all their services together as they are too small to operate efficiently on their own. All the main conglomerates have transportation companies within their group. These companies own the cars, lease the road from the communities, coordinate customer journeys with other companies and charge the customer. The state is responible for the manner in which you travel along the road, different states vary a fair bit. For instance the length of the train varies wildly between states.

On the screen comes up: Other Quandry lessons on related topics include: Road construction, Traffic theory, Transport charging mechanisms (and any other you can think of.)
 

H/I-b9 Not pissed off
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Dear James,

I've lost most of the anger that so filled most of my letters to you over the last year or so (God is it really that long?) It seems that after spending all that time enshrouded in circumstances that I'd always considered abnormal, they have now become the norm. I do still try and convince myself that it's only temporary and I'll find myself an ace group of friends to live with and everything'll start going great, but I just don't believe it. Recently I've been trying to refind my depression as tangible proof that I won't accept this life for myself, and that with it I'll find the impotus to try and find a new break if it comes, but I won't. Depression seems to be the only way to avoid accepting life as it now appears to be. I'm very good at my job, I interview all manner of people and drive the conversation. But if I bump into exactly the same people out of the safe structure of work, I'm so embarressed at the situation I try to walk off if possible. If they force me into conversation, they have to work really hard at it. Everything I say can close the conversation unless they restart it. I walk away so relieved when they finally get the idea that I'm really uneasy talking with them. I have real trouble even speaking to people like shop assistants. I mean the etiquette is very well understood for that and I still talk quietly. I've even had to call 'James' (my signature if you remember - I've changed it back now) a couple of times to authorized sales because I was putting myself under so much pressure that I was speaking so quitely and croakily that he didn't recognize me.

That lucky break I need so desparately is now even further out of my grasp: the other day I was calling people up to find out some stuff for an article when up popped dateline. He pushed it fairly obviously, but I didn't, he looked quite nice and I had an extramely good matchup with him (83%,) but something just wasn't right. When I was off the phone, dateline came up again telling me that I was too choosy. Aparently I've turned down 30 consecutive men with matchups that would normally result in dates 28% of the time. Then it said that deep down, maybe I don't really want a man and that I should consider this and maybe address it. Sod considering it. I dealt with it alright: I turned it off! I felt such relief when I did it. I can relax a bit now, and I don't have to worry about when the next trial will be.

I suppose dateline was right to a certain extent. I certainly feel that I could never properly love anyone anymore: madly and na"ively. I'll be much colder and logical, you know, this person is right for me because of this, this and this, rather than 'Oh God he's so ace!'

People who don't know me very well (and who does these days?) think I'm really odd. They're never sure what sort of reaction they'll get to anything they might say. Sometimes I'm just solid and dull, not reacting enthusiastically, but usefully. Other times intercourse is just the last thing I want and I'm morose and aggressive towards them. The younger ones especially just can't understand how anyone can possibly act so differently on consecutive days when nothing has happened, the world's exactly the same as it was the day before. I remember someone who used to be like I am now. He was one of our standard conversations, listing the latest odd things he'd done to each of us. We used to laugh loads about it. I can't even do that anymore. If I'm walking through town and there's a group of young girls laughing and giggling uncontrollably I get a serious lump in my throat. I don't actually start crying, but I might as well be. It's not tears for myself and how bad it's going (well I suppose if you go a level further it probably is) but tears of joy, like a mother crying at a wedding. That time of life is just so wonderful, and the laughing is just so real. I never spontaineously break into laughter any more. Sometimes you are forced to make yourself laugh. It's all so false, so superficial. I really do envy teenage girls. They've got the whole world at their feet. I suppose I must have had at one time, but I never realized. I suppose the boys our age then could have had us at their feet though too. They just weren't interested in us then. They didn't have the hormones.

As much as it's true that beautiful young women have the world at their feet, ugly women have everyone's backs turned to them. A pretty face can open doors that six years training and experience can't. The whole world goes out of its way to help pretty girls, they make friends instantly, and are always pampered. Ugly women have no friends, they have to battle for everything. There's just nothing can be done about it. It's always been that way and it always will be. Men making gets of themselves.

Oh why do I write these letters? (Have I written this to you before?) I suppose it's purely ego. Wanting to live on after I die. Everyone on Nalengua will, in the fantasy that my mind lives in, look on it all as the greatest collection of literature that they have. Literature that the Earth doesn't have. The most consise, but precise summary of the human condition. Kids will grow up knowing my name and not knowing my work! They'll all think I'm dead boring and pretentious until eventually one of their mates sez ' Miranda- she's bangin'.'
 

H/I-b 10 School Philosophy
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Miranda is at work and gets a call come up on her screen.

Receptionist: Hi Miranda, got a parent calling in about the school she sends her children to.

Miranda: OK, Thanks. Hello, I'm Miranda, how can I help?

Mum: Hello, well the school that my two girls go to are trying to change their philosophy.

Miranda: I see.

Mum: It's currently child centered and they want to move away from that. The way I see it is that if you're not interested in what someone's trying to tell you then you're not going to learn anything. The only effect that it is likely to have is to turn you away from that subject. Both the student and the teacher might aswell spend their time doing something else. Now I thought all this was fairly well established educational doctorine. So why is it that the Warden of Comberton Village College is trying to force through changes that make a core curriculum mandatory? I chose this school like all parents do, on thier teaching philosophy. If I wanted my children to stand in a corner with their hands on their heads reciting some boring, outdated by centuries prose, I'd have sent them to the Lees. But personally, I don't want my children to stand in line and conform. Children that attend that sort of school don't create, are inarticulate, and inherit other peoples respect criterion. So what if my children cause problems, they'll only be forcing society to address situations head on, and generally get real. My children'll have a positive impact on society and they'll grow as fast as they can rather than being held back by some of their peer group.

Miranda: OK, but you'd agree that the general trend is back away from a child centred approach, and that it's inevitable that some schools change.

Mum: Certainly, for better or worse, that seems to be the case, but apart from Comberton, there's only one other child centred school in the area. There's no way it could absorb all of Comberton's students that still believe in the child centered approach. And Linton's hardly local anyway.

Miranda: Can I use that in an artical.

Mum: Please do. Anything for some press.

Miranda: OK. What I'll do is I'll make some calls, pass it through the panel, that's really a formality cos this news should get some coverage. Then we'll edit some quotes together with some comments and publish it. I'll let you know what happens. OK?

Mum: Great. Thanks Miranda.

Simultaneously: Bye.

Miranda: James. How's Comberton financed.

James: The Cambridge Education Consortium.

Miranda: Oh, what about Linton?

James: Most comes directly from the local companies rather than them passing the money up the corporate structure for distribution as the Education Consortium sees fit. The consortium provides a token 20%. Linton companies supply a similar token proportion to the consortium.

Miranda: Yeah, but what about all the products that Linton buys that are not made locally. The companies that get Linton's money should contribute surely.

Miranda: Hmmm. I supose it all cancels itself out, but not if half of Comberton start going to Linton. See if you can get me the Top Dog at Comberton.

Warden: Hello.

Miranda: Hello, I'm from Contempary News I understand that the college is planning to change its philospphy. I'd like to get a comment from you explaining why you want the change.

Warden: Oh right. Well for starters changing the philosophy of a school is not something that anyone takes lightly. It's obvious that such a change can have a major negative impact on students that would be forced to change. So the proposal has been very carefully thought out. That said, there is substantial evidence to suggest that making a small core curriculum mandatory propels students forwards. Obviously a student that's interested in a subject will learn and understand substantially more in substantially less time than one which is forced to attend a lesson and forced to do work. So ten hours, say, of work with an uncooperative student is very roughly equivalent to one hour with an interested one. Also forcing anyone to do anything is only likely to cause friction and anymosity between student and teacher. For a long while these arguements seemed too convincing to be challenged. But it's true to say that the things in life that give you the most pleasure are the things that cause most pain. An excellent example is hardcore music of any form. When you first hear it, it seems cacophonous in the extreame and is often very unpleasent to listen to. However with a little knowledge of the genre, it very often becomes the most pure example of any type of music and you just can't beat dancing to it.

Almost everyone has to give up sugar in tea sometime in their life. Again it's a move away from the simple pleasant taste, followed by two months of drinking tea that tastes disgusting when you could quite easily add a couple of spoonfuls and make it not only paletable, but nice. Then of course you reach the status of acquired taste and get so much more out of tea than you ever could with sugar.

I think it's important to show how good things can be when sacrafices are made, and of course it's good to show students that you can't always get what you want - often the hardest realization to come to terms with. Many of my students' parents and their generation who received a generally pure child centred education are accused of not accepting this basic fact of life. This problem with almost all of the population is often blamed for some of the teething troubles of social capitalism. The mistake should not be made by two generations on the trot.

Miranda: What about all the parents that chose Comberton just because it was a child centered school, and all the surrounding schools were not.

Warden: Yes that's a very hard question to answer. There's a grey area in education: for a newly born baby it is obvious that asking it which play school philosophy does it feel it is most ethically aligned to is ridiculous. The child's parents have chosen to have a baby and have a good idea which philosophy they like, and which they disagree with. At this age the parents and the child are one unit and no one would deny the parents their right to bring their children up in whatever way they see fit.

Similarly, it is unreasonable to ask a 20 year old's parents what subjects their daughter will be studying this term. The transiton from dependance to independance comes somewhere within these two dacades, but it is impossible to attempt to pinpoint it, as responsibility is gradually given/taken and each case is different.

Most of the children who come to Comberton arrive here when they're about 12. Almost always by their parent's decision. And we most certainly do have a duty to the parents to declare a philosopy and follow it wholeheartedly. We also undenyably have a duty to the students. In this particular school at the moment I believe that there is a conflict between the wishes of the parents and the needs of the students, in a few core areas. We are very axious to keep these down as low as possible, but we can't get away from the facts that the students respond better once these small refinements of child centered learning are made.
 

H/I-b 11 Hugging
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On the bus back from an interview with someone, watching the world go by.

Miranda thinks: Come on Miranda. What the bloody hell are you doing with your life? Now that you've started to get good at your job and you've got into a position where you are given the freedom to prove you're good, you don't like it anymore. What's the matter? Is it the fear of fame and the change that it would bring to your life? Your life. Why can't you make a decision? Sod it, we're getting too close to home. I want to feel miserable longer.

Miranda: James, can you let me out here please. I'll walk throuugh town to home.

The bus stops and she gets off at the edge of the centre of town and proceeds through town.

Miranda thinks: You know you don't want to be married, not being able to make decisions on your own. Stopping going out and forgetting the life I've got with Sis and everyone totally, couldn't do that with a hubby. But you can't stay single either can you? The lonelyness and lack of love is really fucking you up now after a relatively short time, what could it do to you in a whole lifetime. Think of all those habits you'd pick up that no one would ever comment on, you'd get odder and odder without that restrain.

Miranda approaches a group of the punks or similarly strong imaged cult on the opposite side of the road having a laugh. What follows doesn't happen except in Miranda's mind, but depict it as if it does.

Miranda thinks: What's stopping you from going over and befriending them? I bet they're really nice. Yeah, I will!

Miranda crosses the road and approaches them. They stop talking and turn around before she gets to them. A girl who's much larger than Miranda is standing closest to her.

Miranda: I'm sorry. Can you hug me.

Girl: Come here. (With open arms.)

In the deep embrace they have, Miranda has tears eventually flooding down her face. Eventually Miranda loosens her grip and pulls her chest back to see the girl's face.

Miranda: Thank you.

Girl: Come back anytime.

Miranda crosses the road back onto the original side and them reenters reality having really just walked past the group without crossing over.

Miranda thinks: But if you had it in you to do that, you wouldn't need to do it in the first place.

Miranda thinks: You've got to change jobs Miranda. Change jobs and have a baby.

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