Jeeves & Wooster

Watching the TV series ‘Jeeves & Wooster’ which completely passed me by and I’m keen to fill in a cultural blank. I’m not sure it aired on Australian television at all and the first I heard about it was glimpsing a VHS copy at my local library.

I’m struck by a couple of things about Hugh Laurie’s performance as the bright young thing Bertie Wooster. It’s not the least surprising that he is a great and gifted comic actor. That was obvious since his turn as the idiot Prince Regent in the second series of Blackadder, but just how good he is is a constant revelation, particularly doing pure physical comedy. At these times, his resemblance to Stan Laurel is amazing, especially while doing a certain gormless, self-satisfied smirk.

I’m reminded of Stephen Fry’s comment during his recent Sydney appearance that he was surprised, upon meeting young Hugh during their Footlights days, by his assured comedic chops. Laurie was a natural comedian who seemed to have been born with a full comic toolbox at his disposal.

The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when!’

Bertie attempting to describe a Member of Parliament upon making his acquaitance in Wodehouse’s ‘Jeeves and the Impending Doom’.

Robot fuel

“One day you could find yourself sitting in a bar next to a humanoid robot, who is taking a shot of vodka to give himself the energy to go to work”, says Ray Baughman, a nanotechnologist at the University of Texas at Dallas, in the 25 March edition of New Scientist.

He’s talking about self-powered artificial muscles he has developed that could be used in robotic and prosthetic limbs, in a report by Zeeya Merali. A mixture of oxygen and methanol or hydrogen is passed over the platinum coating of a nickel-titanium wire, which catalyses a reaction between the gases. This releases heat, which warms the wire and makes it contract. When the fuel stops and it cools, it returns to its previous shape. The wire muscle exerts 100 times the force of a natural muscle of the same size, according to Baughman.

The problem is how to deliver the fuel to the muscle. Someone should send Ray Baughman a DVD of Matt Groening’s series ‘Futurama’, featuring the appropriately named robot Bender who requires the chemical energy from alcohol to be able to function properly. Excessive drinking is necessary or he will become sober and unable to control his body.

If they manage to build one of these robots, I just hope they program it to say “Bite my shiny metal ass!”