Tales From The Simulation: Part Four - These Boots Are Made For Walking (Revisited)

I originally wrote the story below, in two parts, back in July 2023. 

At the time, a series of unlikely coincidences happened.

Here’s the story — part one.

About a month ago, I was out walking when a thought came to me that I really needed a new pair of walking boots. My old walking boots, more of a walking shoe really, had seen better days. The sole was beginning to show wear and tear, damaged from years of pounding the pavements and walking country paths.

I had put in the mileage on my footwear, and it was time for a new pair.

But I knew that a new pair of walking boots would not be cheap. A good quality walking boot, with a decent hard-wearing sole, is always likely to be expensive. The cheaper ones with softer tread on the sole never last that long. Over the years, I have had many, and they tend not to last. I must be a heavy walker. I certainly walk fast, which apparently is good for you but not so good for the boots.

The cheaper boots often look good, but as the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and I do like a bargain. Not so easy in these days with the rising cost of living. Mind you, I’ve always lived a fairly frugal life, and when it comes to footwear, I’ve usually managed to find a bargain — eventually. Typically, from a charity shop or a car boot sale (flea market in the USA), but I couldn’t rely on that happening this time.

Would my old walking boots endure until I found a bargain? The need for a new pair of boots was definitely on my mind.

And then something strange happened. Really strange.

A week or so later, I was on a trek to an appointment I had to keep. I had made the four-mile journey many times and could take several routes. In the end, I chose a route but then changed my mind when I was halfway there. A little further on I changed my mind again, deciding to take a scenic walk through open fields, finally reaching a road that I had not walked for many years.

It was there that I had my out-of-the-ordinary, strange experience.

I approached a bend in the road, and there on the grass verge was a pair of walking boots just lying there. They were about eight feet apart as if they had been thrown from a passing car. I picked them up expecting them to be worn down, tatty, old, and falling apart. That wasn’t the case. In fact, they seemed as good as new, just a little dusty. It was the kind of dust that boots pick up on a building site. They were in far better condition than the boots I was wearing.

I decided to take them with me. I would decide what to do with them after my appointment.

Meeting over, I walked home via a different route. On the way, I found a bench to sit on and decided to check out the boots. They were a good make, The North Face, and were in excellent condition. They didn’t even look as if they had been worn before. I put them on, not expecting them to fit, but remarkably, they were exactly my size. I walked the rest of the way home in them, about three miles.

They were the most comfortable walking boots that I had ever worn.

I later checked to find out how much they would have cost new. The price range for similar boots was around £100. I knew they were good quality, as the sole was of a harder tread. The type of boot that would last years.

It was as if they had been left in the road just for me.

As the saying goes, I had got lucky in my find, but perhaps it was something more.

Another coincidence that happened around that time was that I found a book in a local charity shop, titled The Secret, which had been very popular with those who believed in the idea of the law of attraction.

And then there was another coincidence.

Idiom of the Day - Jam Tomorrow

 

If you have ever invested in the stock market, you will have probably heard someone say, “Jam tomorrow”.

It is an English idiom used to describe a promise of future reward or improvement that never actually materialises. In the stock market it is often used to describe companies that promise a lot to their investors but actually deliver very little.

It is an idiom that captures the frustration of repeatedly being told that something desirable will happen “tomorrow” or at some point in the future, when in reality, nothing changes.

The “jam” is rarely delivered.

It is a criticism that implies a consistent failure to deliver a promise or implied benefit. We have all probably experienced the promise of better times ahead, but when the future arrived, little had changed.

Politicians have lived off the promises of “jam tomorrow” for years.

History and Origins

The idiom can be traced back to Lewis Carroll’s 19th-century satire, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871).

The White Queen offers Alice “jam every other day” if she will work for her.

Did You Know… life in 1960s Britain: The Year England Won the World Cup, With Thanks to Pickles the Dog

 

In Britain, when people think of 1966, one thing immediately comes to mind (especially if you are English): England winning the World Cup. Sixty years later, and with the World Cup of 2026 about to start, England will try again to add a second win and end “sixty years of hurt”.

But 1966 stands out for so many reasons. 

Even today, football fans can recite the famous words of commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme as Geoff Hurst iced victory over West Germany.

“Some people are on the pitch… they think it’s all over… it is now!”

And it was. By four goals to two, England lifted the trophy, and little Nobby Styles, all five feet, six inches of him, went on a merry dance around the pitch with the trophy on his head.

It was a World Cup that gave people many lasting memories, including one that happened four months before England lifted the trophy.

That famous World Cup trophy was stolen.

And if it hadn’t been for an ordinary dog named Pickles, football history might have been very different.

The Biggest Football Tournament on Earth

The summer of 1966 was an exciting time in Britain. The swinging sixties were in full flow, with The Beatles at the height of their fame, and, for the first time, the World Cup was to be held in England. 

In 1960, England had been chosen as the host nation for the 1966 tournament over rival bids from West Germany and Spain.

For the first time, football was coming home.

Hosting the tournament became a matter of national pride. Actually winning it in front of a national audience was something that dreams were made of. But before the football started, the famous Jules Rimet Trophy, awarded to the World Cup winners, was sent on a tour of the country as part of the build-up.

Then disaster struck.

The Day the World Cup Was Stolen

On 20 March 1966, the trophy was on display at Westminster Central Hall in London as part of a stamp exhibition. Security was arranged, but unlike today, when cameras and sensors can monitor 24/7, the trophy was not under constant surveillance. It was during a brief period when the guards were on patrol, or distracted, that thieves got inside the building and removed the trophy from its display case.

Tales From The Simulation: Part Three - A Not So Common Cold

 

Does the body rule the mind, or does the mind rule the body? I dunno. 

For some people of a certain age, those words will be familiar. It is a line from a song by The Smiths, penned by the master of misery himself, Morrissey. And like Morrissey, I dunno the answer to that question, either. But the mind, and our thoughts, can behave in ways that are strange. 

The way our mind often works, reminds me of the two shoulder angels, one good and one bad. Both sitting on our shoulders, waiting for the opportunity to make or break us. Our thoughts can lead us to think about things that make us wonder what is going on, a state where often the only thing we can fall back on is coincidence.

Or it just might be that someone or something else is in control.

And here’s my second tale from the simulation. Nothing complicated about this one, just a series of unlikely events.

The Writer's Life: YouTube to Label AI-Produced and Mostly-AI Videos: What Creators and Viewers Need to Know

 

I think we all know by now that AI is rapidly changing the way content is created online, and nowhere is this more obvious than on YouTube. Every day we see AI-generated video, voiceovers, and virtual presenters. Creators now have a choice of tools that can produce content faster than ever before.

The AI “Faceless” creator channel revolution is now producing tens of thousands of videos, both long and short, every day. And YouTube has been swamped by what has been labelled ‘AI slop’. An endless diet of very repeatable, low-quality content, which often has very little input from the creator. The algorithm then sends this content as recommendations that many would rather not see.

When it comes to AI on YouTube, it would be nice to have a choice.

In response to this, the platform is about to introduce new measures designed to help viewers identify when AI has played a significant role in creating a video. They have announced that creators will be required in future to disclose when their content has been altered or generated using AI. Videos produced by AI will be clearly labelled.

I would say, ‘About time.’ For viewers, it offers greater transparency. And while it has to be said that many AI videos are pretty obvious, it would be good to know beforehand that what you are about to watch is AI or not.

Why Is YouTube Introducing AI Labels?

The rise of AI has brought both an opportunity and also a concern. AI tools can help creators in many ways, but they can also be used to create misleading content. AI-generated footage can make it difficult for some viewers to distinguish between genuine and AI-created material.

Tales From The Simulation: Part Two — When Your Old Computer Dies

 

Actually, my old computer didn’t die, but its replacement did. 

That was a year ago. I needed to upgrade my old faithful PC, as it was beginning to struggle with a lack of memory. I suppose that comes to us all eventually. For several years it had done a good job, but time had arrived to upgrade to something that didn’t take thirty seconds to start a YouTube video.

Enter a new Dell, Windows 10 PC. Well, a new(ish) refurbished Windows 10 PC. All was well until it wasn’t. After three months it developed a clunking sound at start-up, only running silent after a restart. It sounded like something was going to fail, so I took it back to the shop.

“It’s a noise from the fan.” Said the shop assistant.

“No, it isn’t,” I replied. “I took the side off, and the noise is near the start button. A component part is going to fail.”

“I’m afraid you will have to bring it back when it fails, as the PC runs perfectly on a reboot.”

Customer service.

I took it home, but one day three months later it made a clunking sound for the final time. I looked at the monitor, and it was like a scene from The Matrix. The picture was breaking up, Matrix-style, numbers falling down the screen. Except this was the PC wallpaper image making a pretty pattern of broken pixels.

Tales From The Simulation: Part One - Do We Live In a Simulation?

 

Something strange happened to me a few days ago. It was something that I struggled to explain logically, other than the idea of coincidence in life. It was as satisfactory an explanation as any other, but only in that it was convenient.

Occasionally, things happen to me which make me wonder what is going on? There is a theory that explains it all, but it is somewhat controversial, and some might say unbelievable. A theory that belongs more in the world of science fiction than science fact — that we are living in a simulation. 

That someone, or something is in control of everything we see and do.

And I regularly ask myself the question. ‘Are we living in a simulation?’

It does sound like science fiction, but there are scientists, philosophers, and tech billionaires who have seriously discussed the idea that our universe might actually be a simulation. Some propose that we are living in a kind of ultra-advanced computer program. It is a serious proposition.

The theory became widely known after philosopher Nick Bostrom published his “Simulation Argument” back in 2003. What he was suggesting was something surprisingly simple; it goes like this.

If life became so advanced that they were capable of creating simulated worlds that were so realistic and indistinguishable from the reality that we know, then how would we tell the difference? Each simulation would contain beings who believed they were alive and real. They in turn would create their own simulated realities. There could eventually be millions, or even billions of them. 

If that happened, statistically, it might be more likely that we are inside one of those simulations rather than living in the original “base” reality.

Did You Know… Life in 1960s/70s Britain: Saturday Was the Day When Football Was Played?

  

This Sunday marks the end of the football season across Britain for 2026. Both the FA Cup and Premier League have been decided, but competition for promotion and relegation for some teams will be going down to the wire. By Sunday night, some will be celebrating, while others will have to wait until next year.

All of these games will be played on a Sunday.

For football fans growing up in Britain during the 1960s and 70s, there was one thing you could rely on every week: Saturday was the day when football was played.

There were no Friday night games or Sunday afternoon games with a start time around midday, or four in the afternoon. And the only Monday Night Football was a game played across the pond in the USA that was often referred to as ‘American football’, just in case we got it mixed up with what they called soccer.

Games for British teams in European competitions were played midweek, but domestic football? No, Saturday was sacred.

And outside the World Cup, the only game that was ever broadcast live on television was the FA Cup Final. Football wasn’t timed to suit global television audiences. 

In the absence of football being broadcast live, all we had was the BBC’s Match of the Day highlights on Saturday night. Commercial television gave us a Sunday afternoon recording. Where I lived it was called Star Soccer, and it mainly showed the games of teams based in the Midlands. We only got to see teams like Liverpool, Leeds Utd, and Arsenal, if they happened to be playing an away game against a team from the Midlands.

The Writer's Life: First Steps On The Property Ladder (From My Soon to be Published Book)

 

Imagine the scene. It is the mid-2000's, and property prices in Britain are rocketing (as usual), and I'm viewing a property, and in conversation with an estate agent.

This is part of that conversation.

“Well, a garden would be ideal,” I said. “It’s just a bit small, more of a patio, with a bit of grass.”

Charles leaned back, full of property-market wisdom and self-assurance.

“But it would be your garden. And it wouldn’t need much work to keep it in order. Gardens add value. If you want one at this price level, this is the best you’ll find.”

He was right. Gardens did add value, but I saw the “value” as more than just money. I don’t think Charles did. And this one had already added a little too much monetary value, for me, anyway.

“I don’t think I can afford it,” I said. “The salary multiples don’t work. I might need to win the lottery.”

“Yes, the lottery! I won the lottery once, just ten pounds. I make a lot more selling houses.” He laughed.

And that’s when the conversation took a turn.

“There is one possibility,” he said. “Have you heard of a self-certification mortgage? They are quite popular at the moment.”

I had. In fact, I watched a documentary about them. They were being handed out to people that they weren’t designed for, most likely fuelling the very property boom Charles was profiting from.

“You basically fill out the form, write down your income, we send it to the bank, and it all goes through,” he explained.

“But I don’t earn enough.”

“Well,” he said, lowering his voice a little, “you just have to be a little creative in the numbers.” He smiled. “Lots of people are doing it. The banks don’t check. It always comes back approved.”

“Really?” I said, pretending to be shocked.

“Then we’ll celebrate with a bottle of champagne. You’ll be on the property ladder. And you’ll have your own little show garden.”

The Writer's Life: The Future of AI and the Creative World - Get Ready for a Rocky Ride

 

At the moment, all of my books are available as an ebook and can be downloaded from Amazon. At some point in the future, I would like to make them available elsewhere, and also as a paperback. Ebooks are said to be popular, but I have found it difficult to gain traction on Amazon. 

Amazon does offer the plus of being the biggest bookseller in the world. The minus is that your book is on the same platform as millions of others, easily lost, and never found. And despite the contemporary popularity, and curse of doom-scrolling, no one is going to scroll down hundreds, or even thousands, of pages to find your book.

I have concluded that on Amazon, most authors are invisible.

Increasingly, that is because of AI.

Reports suggest that most books being published today are AI. And not just on Amazon. Even worse, I suspect that most of them fall into the ‘AI slop’ category. It is also widely believed that most of these books come from writers who self-publish, with the hope of cashing in.

No one should be surprised about this.