Sci-fi geeks shall inherit the mirth in a fair world

Until now this has been something of a Houdini blog, now you see, it now you don't, writes our Grumpy Old Man Bill McCarthy.

Technical gremlins I am assured so this little hi-tech tome should now be available to all.

Teething troubles, but at least the glitches did not stop the legendary Steve Zacharanda posting a message on my last blog.

For those who do not know him, 'Miami Steve' volunteered to cover the Barack Obama election campaign from the hellhole of sunshine, sea and sand that is Florida.

A journalist, ( I won't say where he is from, but listen to the accent) he is also known Miami Spice, because of the heat he brought on himself for indiscretions babbled to a TV crew after the election night victory.

He wittered on while sitting on the pavement in front of a laptop, a little tired and emotional and definitely the worse for wear.

The interview, with expletives not deleted, swept the internet and he became something of a sensation.

Still, he is interesting and a real character, which is more than you can say about some sci-fi nerds.

Doctor Who and Star Trek fans I'm talking about generally, but there is a whole range of them.

These are mostly grown men and sometimes women, who are quite happy to dress up like circus clowns at their freak show conventions and babble on incessantly about Daleks, Cybermen, The Doctor, Kirk, Spock, the Klingons and Romulan space.

These people really should get a life or at least try, at least a little, to cling on to reality.

I can understand children loving Doctor Who and even now the grandchildren copy their parents and hide behind the sofa.

I even understand pubescent teenagers, with their hormones going berserk, watching it.

After all I took more than a passing interest in many of the Time Lord's female assistants while going through my teens.

Sexy Jo Grant and sultry Sarah-Jane, as she was then, often fired a vivid teenage imagination with a wicked smile and a deliberate flash of thigh.

But grown men? It's nearly as bad as adults in replica football shirts.

It's infantile behaviour that makes Jeremy Clarkson and those two other blokes on that BBC car programme seem mature.

Hold on, is there anything more infantile and cringe-making than the Tommy Cooper of Top Gear and his cronies? That's one for discussion later.

Escapism is one thing, but geeks walking around with fake pointy ears is another.

Or is that because they have a pointy head encasing a pea-sized brain that they do this?

At least Star Wars had Yoda and his pointy ears were real, weren't they?

Still I suppose their mothers love them...

As a footnote I said on my last missive how much I was looking forward to the school holidays and traffic free roads.

Mistake. Wolverhampton has become an open prison, with an escape-proof ring of roadworks, and sewer and gas main replacements.

It is policed by guards wearing high visibility bibs, strange white helmets and leaning on shovels looking amusedly at the feeble escape attempts from frustrated rush-hour commuters.

Colditz looks a breeze after this lot.