Told You

A little while ago I was extolling the many potential virtues of 3D printing and opining that a few of the applications could be somewhat dubious.

Ne’er-do-wells printing themselves off a Bowie knife or a nuclear warhead for example. I was quite glib in my choice of examples.

Unsurprisingly – because, let’s face it, you don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict this kind of thing – somebody has now printed off a working handgun. And not just printed it off and fired it to prove that it can shoot bullets but has also uploaded the blueprints so that anybody – anybody at all – can print off their own gun. And fire it.

This somebody is from Texas. Which is so fitting it is beyond me to make a joke about it. Candy from babies and all that.

Various anti-gun groups are already up in arms about it (OK, that I will make a joke out of) and have expressed concern about such guns and blueprints falling into the hands of people too mentally imbalanced to safely be allowed to own a firearm (basically anybody who wants to own a firearm).

And I quite agree even as I sigh and shake my head at the ridiculousness of it all. Because although I warned off this type of thing happening I am very aware that a cheap version of one of these 3D printers costs over £5k to buy. I’m pretty sure you can buy a black market Colt .45 / Magnum / Star Trek phaser for less than a quarter of that these days – basically a metallic weapon that isn’t made of plastic and won’t melt in a house fire that you can buy quite cheaply off a bloke in the pub for less than a fortnight at Butlins.

So what’s the problem?

For me it is just the fundamental waste of designing a printable handgun. The world was hardly crying out for yet another handgun, now was it? Not being able to print one off was hardly an inconvenience of global proportions. We need less access to guns not more.

What we need more of are things that could improve health and life conditions for the majority of people on this planet. Printable medical equipment. Printable water purification devices. Printable artificial human limbs. Just three examples off the top of my head. I’m sure there are many, many more.

A plastic handgun that kills living things surely doesn’t appear on any sane person’s wish-list.

Nice try Mr Texas.

But next time try printing off the obituary pages of the local newspaper in Newtown, Connecticut and thinking a little harder.

Lost And Found And Losing It

After days of moping about the house, dejectedly fingering bookcases, cupboards and drawers for a sign of my great Uncle’s missing spurs, I finally found them yesterday morning.

On top of the cabinet in the dining room, admittedly contained in a nondescript Marks & Spencer’s carrier bag, but in full view. I must have walked past the damned thing countless times in my search for them.

The sense of joy and relief I felt was akin to finding a, well, a long lost treasure, funnily enough. But this joyous feeling was matched by a corresponding sense of discomfort and chagrin at the realization that I cannot for the life of me recall putting them there.

I don’t doubt for an instant that it was me though.

It is a worrying thought that my heretofore prized memory has let me down so completely. I never lose things. Never. Or if I do misplace something the memory of where it is usually comes to me within a few days if I avoid thinking about it and just let it come in its own good time.

Not so this time. I’d been looking for the things for weeks. It was only by getting desperate and looking into every single box and bag, every nook and cranny that I found it. And even finding it didn’t jog my memory of actually putting it there.

Such a complete loss of memory is worrying. I’d even begun to wonder if maybe I’d lent the spurs to someone (unlikely) or even accidentally thrown them out in the post-Christmas sort-out (so unlikely as to be impossible). I’d really begun to doubt myself.

All I can think now is that the emotional trauma associated with the spurs and my granddad’s recent death somehow contrived to burn out a few brain cells. It was a one-off brought about by being in emotional extremis.

But in the meantime, just in case, I am going to start wearing a dog-tag with my name, home phone number and address on in case I am ever found wandering around a far-flung train station, drooling and looking confused.

Be careful next time you come across some unattended baggage – it might be me.

When A Knight Lost His Spurs

I’m going to gloss over Christmas and the New Year. Not because they were especially bad (though circumstances could have been better) but because between illness and grieving I am just sick to death of harping on and on about my own misery and I really don’t want this blog to become my own personal version of the Jeremy Kyle Show*.

(*And, no, just for the record, I haven’t had a sex change operation, sold my liver to raise money to feed my crack addiction or produced 17 kids of wildly differing skin tone from a surprisingly restricted gene pool.)

Upon my grandfather’s death I inherited his medals and other war time paraphernalia. In themselves they are not of much monetary value but in terms of personal family history their significance is obviously immense.

Last year, at another funeral, I was given some other war time paraphernalia that used to belong to my grandfather’s brother – some cavalry spurs, a silver plated cigarette case and a pendant among the many treasures.

Naturally I’d now like to bring these two historical archives together in one place and create a source of family memorabilia that will be worthy of the name “heirloom”.

But do you think I can find the spurs and the cigarette case?

They have vanished.

Not. Not just vanished. That is way too passive. They are deliberately hiding from me; withholding evidence of their visual corporeality. I am convinced of this.

Normally I have a great memory. I can remember dates, times, appointments, things to do and things I have said. I can definitely remember where I have put things. Especially precious important things that need to be kept safe.

So why the hell can I not remember where I have stashed the spurs? It’s honestly like my memory has been wiped by rogue aliens with a penchant for bodily experimentation or I have been (without my conscious knowledge) recruited into the same American military camp that trained Jason Bourne. I have hazy recollections of storing them on a shelving unit and then moving them elsewhere at a later date where I thought they’d be safer.

But this safer place is now completely and absolutely unknown to me. That particular memory cell has ripped itself away from its fellows, climbed out of my ear and somehow abseiled into oblivion.

I have checked all the logical storage places.

Nothing.

I am now checking all the illogical storage places in sheer desperation... behind the cooker, the ice compartment in the fridge, underneath the rug in the front room...

Because I know they are in the house. I know it for a fact, for sure.

But yet they remain lost.

Completely lost. Lost in the last place that I put them.

My God, is this what dementia is like? You start hiding things from yourself, losing things simply because you cannot recall the original care you took to store them safely?

My God, is this the actual start of dementia?

*Sigh*

Happy New Year everyone. Whatever year it is.