I hadn’t thought much about the relationship between fruit flies and Predator drones before visiting the California Institute of Technology, but Caltech, which boasts more than 30 Nobel laureates, teaches many things, not least about the fast-growing field of robotics and war.

Yesterday I wrote a satirical post calling for the exclusion of erectile dysfunction treatments in the health care plan because of my moral objections to men defying God's edict to stay flaccid. It created a good chuckle around the blogosphere, my favorite being General JC Christian's post "First they came for the boners" (and his hilarious comment section --- "They'll pry my boner from my cold dead hands.")

As you know, children, we have run all of your mock A-level English papers through the government's official examination marking computer. You will have read in the Times this morning of the fiasco when Ernest Hemingway, William Golding, Winston Churchill and Anthony Burgess failed so spectacularly – frankly confirming my own view that they should have come to me far earlier to discuss their subject choices. I wish them well, obviously, but I fear their subsequent career experiences will amply bear out my reservations.

Amid the smoldering wreckage of the popular culture, the author blames Reality TV, which has not only ruined network values, destroyed the classic documentary, and debased the art of bad acting, but also fomented class warfare, antisocial behavior, and murder.