The Standard of Living

In 2006 I read that the average standard of living in Britain was three times as high as it was fifty years before, although I have never seen this mentioned anywhere else. I believe that the increase in the standard of living is the most important change that has taken place in my lifetime, and yet many changes that are far less important have been mentioned hundreds or thousands of times as often as is necessary to bring them to everybody’s attention.

Films

I have always wanted to bring pleasure to other people by showing them my favourite scenes from films and television. At one time I was able to do so through my website, but this is no longer possible. It occurs to me that I can still bring pleasure to other people if I direct their attention to whole films that I have enjoyed watching. The funniest film I have ever seen is Bringing up Baby, which can be purchased if you search for the title in the internet. Another is His Girl Friday, with its incredibly fast dialogue. The two films were made at about the same time and have the same director.

Exoplanets

I believe that the most important discovery that has been made in my lifetime is that there are thousands of exoplanets in the vicinity of the earth because this means means that there must be millions of millions of planets in the universe.

A Trip to Venus

The first people to go to the Moon were not Armstrong and Aldrin in 1969, as many people believe, but Borman, Lovell and Anders, who visited the Moon in 1968 but did not land. I have heard that there are plans for a similar flight to Mars in the near future. I have also heard that evidence has recently come to light of living bacteria in the atmosphere of Venus where the temperature and pressure are less than they are at the surface. It seems to me that the flight to Mars should be replaced by one to the atmosphere of Venus and that the crew should include an expert in biochemistry. If amino acids could be found that do not occur on earth it would prove that life has evolved independently outside the earth.