The latest topical insight from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
Professor Hector Schlenk, senior researcher at the Bogton Institute for Public Engagement with Science
As a scientist, people are always asking me questions, such as: “How are current extreme weather conditions linked to global warming?”, “How many of our politicians own electric cars?” and “How can a bollard installed in a day take three weeks to remove?”
But this week I have been replying: “Never mind that, look at the robots!” An enterprising beachfront restaurateur has imported two robotic waiters from China. These robots have the faces and voices of cats, and can interact with customers, take food orders and bring meals and cutlery.
It is, of course, a complex issue, as the benefits of increasing automation also lead to a loss of actual jobs. I am fearful, therefore, as to what a cat-faced robotic future will mean for those already impacted by the recent decimation of the hospitality industry. Though, of course, equally importantly, I really can’t wait to be delivered a bacon roll by a Dalek.
And what of the future? Well, according to the robo-kitten smitten owner, the automatons are capable of learning. “The more we teach it,” he says, “it will only get smarter”.
Chilling. One must anticipate that we will soon find ourselves faced with an unstoppable army of super-intelligent, self-replicating cat-faced robots, eventually taking over the city.
Some might say this would make a refreshing change, but even if they come with an attachment to assist with bollard removal, we should be hesitant to welcome the rise of our robot overlords. Just look what happened with Skynet.
Also in the news this week is the startling fact that the number of beavers in Scotland has more than doubled in the last three years to a population of 1,000, after being reintroduced into the wild. This means both a huge positive impact on Scotland’s ecosystem and a dramatic increase in the numbers of people doing the joke from The Naked Gun, though now principally outdoors, which is for the best.
I, however, cannot help but notice that if the beavers continue to repopulate at this rate, they will outnumber we humans by 2061. The good news is that, with their self-sharpening teeth and engineering skills, they should be more than a match for the robot waiters.
Kevin Cash, money-saving expert and king of the grips
Weel I hiv seen it a’ noo. Some boy has jist bought a bittie o’ Charles and Di’s wedding cake for almost twa grand; 40 years after it wis stuffed in the handbug o’ a wifie fa worked for the Queen Mum. Yellowed, wrinkled and foosty-looking, and the cake didna look great neither.
Twa grand! And it’s’ nae even a hale slice, it’s jist the icing and the marzipan. Nae doot the Queen Mum scoffed the good bittie in the middle and wiz keeping the ither bits for the corgis.
A slice of the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding cake has fetched £1,850 at auction – more than 40 years after Charles and Diana tied the knot pic.twitter.com/64H3LBjmDO
— PA Media (@PA) August 12, 2021
There wiz apparently a flurry o’ bids a’ across the world afore a mannie fae Leeds bought it “tae add tae his collection” – fit begs the question: fit exactly is that a collection ‘o? Historically significant left over baked goods? His he also got een o’ Alfred The Great’s weel fired scones, the rice pudding Napoleon couldnae knock the skin off at Waterloo or an amuse bouche Queen Victoria didnae wint?
If so, fair play tae him. ’At wid be a fascinating, if gadsy, display.
Jonathan M Lewis, local headteacher
Once more into the breach, dear friends! I make no apology for getting all Shakespearean on the Garioch community, but the scintillating prospect of the start of a new term does bring out my inner Henry V.
The lack of international travel means that Mr Dykes of the geography department won’t have obtained yet another crude mug from Amsterdam to add to his increasingly problematic staff room collection
We start the term full of optimism and hope that it will be more “normal” than the preceding two years, but there will still be differences. The lack of international travel means that we won’t be able to use sun tans to determine which staff members have partners in properly paid employment, but also that Mr Dykes of the geography department won’t have obtained yet another crude mug from Amsterdam to add to his increasingly problematic staff room collection.
Pupils will be required to wear face masks initially, but we hope they will soon be permitted to remove them. My colleagues are desperate for this to happen. It’s very difficult to forge positive working relationships when one cannot see the whole of someone’s face.
Whilst I understand there will be some hesitation when that day finally arrives, particularly from those young learners sporting their first sprout of bum fluff or a massive plook, I can reassure all pupils that staff have seen it all before, and Mr Torrance in the biology department sees it every morning in the mirror.