European Language Directive

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for communication, rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negociations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as EuroEnglish (Euro for short).

In the first year, “s” will be used instead of the soft “c”. Sertainly sivil servants will reseive this news with joy. Also the hard “c” will be replased with“k”. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replased by “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20 per sent shorter.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also al wil agre that the horible mes of silent “e”s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” and “w” by “v”.

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be droped from vords kontaining “ou”, and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru.

Hazardous Materials Information Sheet

Element: Women

Symbol: Wo
Discoverer: Adam

Atomic Mass: Accepted at 53.6kg, but known to vary from 40—200kg

Occurrences: Copious quantities in all urban areas

Physical Properties:

Surface usually covered in painted film
Boils at nothing; freezes without known reason
Melts if given special treatment
Bitter if incorrectly used
Found in various states from virgin metal to common ore
Yields if pressure applied in correct places

Chemical Properties:

Has great affinity for gold, silver, and a range of precious stones
Absorbs great quantities of expensive substances
May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for no apparent reason
Insoluble in liquids, but actively increases greatly in saturation of alcohol
Most powerful money reducing agent known to man

Common Uses:

Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars
Can be a great aid to relaxation
Very effective cleaning agent

Tests:

Pure specimen turns rosy pink when discovered in the natural state
Turns green when placed beside a better specimen

Hazards:

Highly dangerous except in experienced hands
Illegal to possess more than one, although several can be maintained at different locations as long as specimens do not come into direct contact with each other

Advice

Once upon a time, in a Kingdom not far from here, a King summoned two of his advisors for a test. He showed them both a shiny metal box with two slots in the top, a control knob, and a lever. “What do you think this is?”

One advisor, an engineer, answered first. “It is a toaster,” he said. The King asked, “How would you design an embedded computer for it?” The engineer replied, “Using a four-bit microcontroller, I would write a simple program that reads the darkness knob and quantizes its position to one of 16 shades of darkness, from snow white to coal black. The program would use that darkness level as the index to a 16-element table of initial timer values. Then it would turn on the heating elements and start the timer with the initial value selected from the table. At the end of the time delay, it would turn off the heat and pop up the toast. Come back next week, and I’ll show you a working prototype.”

The second advisor, a computer scientist, immediately recognized the danger of such short-sighted thinking. He said, “Toasters don’t just turn bread into toast, they are also used to warm frozen waffles. What you see before you is really a breakfast food cooker. As the subjects of your Kingdom become more sophisticated, they will demand more capabilities. They will need a breakfast food cooker that can also cook sausage, fry bacon, and make scrambled eggs. A toaster that only makes toast will soon be obsolete. If we don’t look to the future, we will have to completely redesign the toaster in just a few years.

“With this in mind, we can formulate a more intelligent solution to the problem. First, create a class of breakfast foods. Specialize this class into subclasses: grains, pork, and poultry. The specialization process should be repeated with grains divided into toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles; pork divided into sausage, links, and bacon; and poultry divided into scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, poached eggs, fried eggs, and various omelette classes.

“The ham and cheese omelette class is worth special attention because it must inherit characteristics from the pork, dairy, and poultry classes. Thus, we see that the problem cannot be properly solved without multiple inheritance. At run time, the program must create the proper object and send a message to the object that says: ‘Cook yourself.’ The semantics of this message depend, of course, on the kind of object, so they have a different meaning to a piece of toast than to scrambled eggs.

“Reviewing the process so far, we see that the analysis phase has revealed that the primary requirement is to cook any kind of breakfast food. In the design phase, we have discovered some derived requirements. Specifically, we need an object-oriented language with multiple inheritance. Of course, users don’t want the eggs to get cold while the bacon is frying, so concurrent processing is required, too.

“We must not forget the user interface. The lever that lowers the food lacks versatility, and the darkness knob is confusing. Users won’t buy the product unless it has a user-friendly, graphical interface. When the breakfast cooker is plugged in, users should see a cowboy boot on the screen. Users click on it, and the message ‘Booting UNIX v. 8.3’ appears on the screen. (UNIX 8.3 should be out by the time the product gets to the market.) Users can pull down a menu and click on the foods they want to cook.

“Having made the wise decision of specifying the software first in the design phase, all that remains is to pick an adequate hardware platform for the implementation phase. An Intel Core with 8GB of memory, a 30GB hard disk, and a VGA monitor should be sufficient. If you select a multitasking, object oriented language that supports multiple inheritance and has a built-in GUI, writing the program will be a snap. (Imagine the difficulty we would have had if we had foolishly allowed a hardware-first design strategy to lock us into a four-bit microcontroller!).”

The King wisely had the computer scientist beheaded, and they all lived happily ever after.

Fed up with how her diet is going, Charlene takes a more serious aim at her target weight.

“Spoof Advertisement”

Especially for Geordie [no, not Jordi] users!

A Brainy Joke

You heard about the man who needed a new brain? He started looking at the samples sitting in their jars.
“How much for that one?” he asked.
“Oh, that one is 6 million.”
“What! That is unbelievable; why so much?”
“It was from a doctor who was very healthy, religious and moral.”
“OK, then how much for that one there?”
“2 million.”
“I can't believe that; look, it has some flaky parts, shady and bruised.”
“Well, that one is a fine specimen of a surgeon who made a decent living, only cheated on his wife, taxes and at cards.”
The man was beside himself. Finally he found a moth-eaten, tattered little brain about the size of a walnut sitting in a jar of alcohol.
“How much for that one?”
“30 billion.”
“Why? It is the worst example and in horrible shape!”
The Doctor looked at the man and said “It came from a pot-holer.”
“So, why so much?”
The Doctor replied “Do you have any idea how many pot-holers we had to go through before we found one with a brain?”

Bipolar Disorder *: Call for Volunteers

The first person to reach the North Pole was Robert Edwin Peary, on 6^th April 1909, along with his employee Matthew Henson. (There is some dispute over this claim, but that is of no relevance here.)

On 14^th December 1911, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. His team arrived just 35 days before Captain Robert Scott’s fated British group.

I’m planning to lead an expedition to seek the East and West Poles of the Earth, to which nobody has yet laid claim. With regard to the West Pole, I estimate it to lie just to the north of the Galápagos Islands (about 40 km NNE of the island of North Seymour), so we may find ourselves in conflict with Ecuador in attempting to claim sovereignty over it—I shall shortly be seeking advice from the British Foreign Office.

There should be no such political considerations with the East Pole, which is probably west of Sumatra and SSW of the Nicobar Islands.

In both cases these Poles appear to be in the sea. This was not a problem in the earlier cases of the North and South Poles, as they were located in areas covered by thick ice sheets. In the new expeditions, we will not only have to carry all our own provisions, but also tow behind our ship a large iceberg, so that we can anchor it over the appropriate point and place the Union Flag on it. The search for a suitable ship is already under way.

I am looking for fit, able-bodied, healthy and, above all, enthusiastic volunteers to join these expeditions. Both will involve significant periods of separation from family and friends.

If you think you satisfy these requirements and are available, please contact me as soon as possible.

* If you feel that this heading is in particularly bad taste, I’m sorry to have ruffled your feathers, but I make no apology; I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, though I have also been told it’s depression, a different thing (just the “downs” without the “ups”). Whichever way, I suggest you think of it in much the same way as you would of Woody Allen telling a Jewish joke. Still, it’s claimed that these people are or were sufferers:
Adam Ant (pop musician), Ludwig Boltzmann (mathematician, physicist), Russell Brand (comedian, actor), Jeremy Brett (actor, “Sherlock Holmes”), Frank Bruno (British boxer), Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair’s press advisor), Georg Cantor (mathematician), Sir Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister), Rosemary Clooney (singer, actress), Ray Davies (musician, The Kinks), Richard Dreyfuss (actor), Carrie Fisher (actress, writer), Connie Francis (singer), Stephen Fry (actor, comedian, writer), Paul Gascoigne (English footballer), Mel Gibson (actor, director), Graham Greene (English novelist), Ernest Hemingway (writer, journalist, Nobel Prizewinner), Otto Klemperer (conductor), Vivien Leigh (actress), Jack London (American author), Spike Milligan (comedian, Goon), Edvard Munch (Norwegian artist), Sir Isaac Newton (scientist, mathematician), Florence Nightingale (nurse, health campaigner), Sinéad O’Connor (Irish singer, songwriter), Bill Oddie (naturalist, comedian, television presenter), Edgar Allan Poe (poet, writer), Jackson Pollock (American artist), Robert Schumann (German composer), Nina Simone (American singer), Tony Slattery (actor, comedian), Margaret Trudeau (Canadian celebrity, ex-wife of ex-Prime Minister), Jean-Claude Van Damme (actor), Vincent Van Gogh (artist), Mark Vonnegut (author, son of Kurt), David Walliams (actor, comedian, author, charity fundraiser), Ruby Wax (comedian), Brian Wilson (musician, founder of The Beach Boys), Amy Winehouse (musician), Virginia Woolf (writer, member of the Bloomsbury Group), Catherine Zeta-Jones (actress)...

Remember the So-Called ‘Millennium (Y2K) Bug’?

Well, this wasn’t the first time it happened...

I heard recently that archeologists have discovered a clay tablet in Rome bearing a message in Latin, freely translated below:

Dear Cassius,

Are you still working on that Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven’t much time left. I don’t know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort out at this last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn’t done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty.

We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won’t work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune selling clay tablet upgrades out of this I suppose. The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. It’s an ill wind... As for myself, I just can’t see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards.

We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won’t arrive until it’s all over. I have also heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition.

Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this Y zero K problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops. If you have any ideas, please let me know,

Plutonius

And now for something completely different...

Alerts to Threats in Europe

From John Cleese

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent events in Syria and have therefore raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”. Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”. The English have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies nearly ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was in 1588, when threatened by the Spanish Armada.
The Scots have raised their threat level from “Pissed Off” to “Let’s get the Bastards”. They don’t have any other levels. This is the reason they have been used on the front line of the British army for the last 300 years.
The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from “Run” to “Hide”. The only two higher levels in France are “Collaborate” and “Surrender”. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively paralyzing the country’s military capability.
Italy has increased the alert level from “Shout Loudly and Excitedly” to “Elaborate Military Posturing”. Two more levels remain: “Ineffective Combat Operations” and “Change Sides”.
The Germans have increased their alert state from “Disdainful Arrogance” to “Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs”. They also have two higher levels: “Invade a Neighbour” and “Lose”.
Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual; the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels...
The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy. These beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.
Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from “No worries” to “She’ll be right, Mate”. Two more escalation levels remain: “Crikey! I think we’ll need to cancel the barbie this weekend!” and “The barbie is cancelled”. So far no situation has ever warranted use of the last final escalation level.

Regards,
John Cleese,
British writer, actor and tall person

[See also The ‘Dead Parrot’ sketch from the Monty Python team.]

“I lost my virginity so late, that when it finally happened, I wasn’t so much deflowered as deadheaded” – Holly Walsh at the Edinburgh fringe, 2014.

Cancellations

The Annual General Meeting of the Manchester Apathetic Society was cancelled owing to a lack of interest.
The monthly gathering of the Bristol Orienteering Society was abandoned because nobody could find the venue.
An Extraordinary General Meeting of the Glasgow Millionaires Consortium was cancelled because nobody could afford the train fares to get there.
Nobody attended last month’s meeting of the Bognor Regis Philatelic Society because someone had torn the stamps off all the envelopes containing reminders of the arrangements, so the Post Office refused to deliver them.
This year’s AGM of the Clairvoyant Society was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances.
Members of the Chesham Railway Appreciation Society were unable to get to this week’s meeting because of leaves on the line.
Nobody attended the Julian Calendar Restoration Campaign meeting because of confusion about its date.
Attendance at the Spoonerism Enthusiast’s Group was poor because almost everyone went to the Clarence Pub instead of the Parents’ Club.
The start of last week’s Kensington Bridge Club session was delayed by the Health and Safety authorities while the premises were searched for the Vulnerable. There were no trumps in Spades, Hearts and Diamonds, though Seven Clubs were on time, having Redoubled their efforts.
The Central Norfolk Union of Concord and Harmony could not hold its annual jamboree because of a disagreement over dates.

Catalan Highway Code

Having travelled up and down the AP-7 motorway for several years, I can now report that the Spanish (or at least the Catalan) Highway Code is rather different from the British one. And I don’t just mean which side of the road you drive on. Here are some of the rules that I’ve deduced, based on my observations:

A. General Rules:

There is a minimum speed limit on the motorway of 130 kph. (But see also rule D.5.)
Vehicles are required to keep a distance of no more than one vehicle’s length from the vehicle in front. (But see also rule C.4.)
There must be at least one NORBERT DENTISTSTRANGLER or WILLI BETZ lorry on each ten kilometres of motorway.
As Albert Einstein and other German scientists have postulated, light is readily converted into other forms of energy, thereby allowing German-built vehicles to travel in the fast lane unimpeded.
Ash-trays must be emptied at the roadside in designated service or parking areas. Other rubbish (cigarette packets, Coke cans, plastic water bottles, etc.) must be thrown from the vehicle when travelling at speed.
In fog, vehicles must increase their speed so that the drivers can clearly see the tail-lights of the vehicle ahead.
A flashing headlight from behind is a warning that the vehicle in front must not change lane as the one behind is likely to pass it on the near side.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (which basically states that you can’t know accurately both where something is and where it’s going) applies to Spanish motorway traffic, but on a macro scale.
Areas marked with ‘P’ signs are provided for lorry drivers to relieve themselves.
A crossed knife and fork sign at a service area indicates that food (except for potato crisps) is not normally available.
When entering a motorway by a slip road, either the left indicator or the right or both must be used (except as allowed in rule D.11).
Special Rule for Map Users: Road numbers may be changed without notice; thus the N-340 may become the A-7 and the A-7 may become the AP-7; or the A-16 may become the C-32 with its exits numbered in the reverse order. These changeovers never occur at the same time for a given road.

B. Rules Associated with Types of Vehicles:

Seat Ibizas must weave in and out of the traffic lanes, and are required to overtake on the near-side at least once per journey.
BMWs, Audis and Mercedes cars must only travel in the overtaking lane of the motorway.
White vans must not travel in the slow lane, except when passing other traffic.
Car-transporters must always give the appearance of having just been involved in an horrendous pile-up.
One lorry may only overtake another on uphill parts of a two-lane motorway. In this case, as an exception to rule A.1, there is a maximum speed limit of 75 kph. The difference in speeds of the two vehicles must not exceed one kph.
Coaches having a rear window must ensure that the rear seats are fully occupied by children pulling faces or making obscene gestures.
Coaches without a rear window must ensure that there is a constant trickle of liquid from the vehicle onto the road or onto following vehicles. The nature of the liquid is not specified, but may be corrosive or toxic.

C. Rules Associated with Old-style Registration Plates:

Cars with Girona or Lleida registrations (GE, GI or L) must always travel in the middle lane of three-lane sections of motorway.
Cars with Madrid registrations (M) must always travel in the fast lane of three-lane sections of motorway.
Vehicles with a [this is illegible in my copy] registration must maintain the matriculation plate caked in grime.
Lorries with a Murcia registration (MU) are subject to a lower minimum distance (see rule A.2) of one half a vehicle length.

D. Rules Associated with Nationality Plates:

(Special rule only for Catalonia): Cars bearing a Spanish (‘E’) identification are to be given a wide berth, especially if they also carry a Madrid (‘M’) matriculation.
Cars with Belgian (‘B’) identification plates must carry at least one bicycle on the roof. This rule is relaxed for motorized caravans, which are allowed to carry the bicycles strapped to the back.
German caravans must have a television satellite dish on the roof.
Cars with Netherlands (‘NL’) plates must tow a caravan.
French vans must have a tarpaulin on the roof, loaded to at least one half of the height of the vehicle. Such vehicles are exempted from rule A.1, and are subject to a maximum speed limit of 80 kph; they must also travel only in the middle lane. This rule also applies to Italian vehicles, but only those with old-style registrations.
French plates may only be carried by Renaults, Peugeots and Citroens.
British and Portuguese registered vehicles are not allowed to use the motorways.
Italian vehicles must carry at least two months’ worth of dust.
Swiss vehicles must carry less than one day’s dust.
French vehicles in the off-side lane of the motorway must keep their direction indicators flashing as an indication that they may be about to occupy the central reservation.
Belgian cars must not use direction indicators.

E. Rules Off the Motorway:

The three traffic lights have the following meanings: green — go; amber — go faster; red — go, unless there is a physical obstruction or Police checkpoint ahead.
STOP signs (pronounced /estop/) are provided for English tourists and may be ignored by all other road users.
A blue circular road sign with a red border and a red diagonal with ‘1-15’ at the bottom means that vehicles may be parked on that side of the road in the first half of the month; ‘16-31’ indicates parking is permitted in the second half of the month; no qualification means that parking is permitted at any time.
A white circular sign with a red border and a large number in the centre indicates a minimum speed limit.
Cyclists must use the pedestrian pavement at all times.
Motorcyclists and pedal cyclists are prohibited from wearing crash helts unless they are wearing brightly coloured skin-tight Lycra clothing.
Riders of small motorcycles (‘motos’) must carry a child under five years old wedged between their legs.
The maximum age for moto-riders is twelve years.
Flashing direction indicators show that the driver has successfully completed a turn.

Professionals

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted: “Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied: “You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be an engineer,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman. “How did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist. “Everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help so far.”

The woman below responded: “You must be in management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist. ”But how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman. “You don’t know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is, you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”

Memorandum to all Employees

Subject: Lay Offs

As a result of the reduction of money budgeted for department areas, we are forced to cut down on our number of personnel. Under this plan, older employees will be asked to take early retirement, thus permitting the retention of younger people who represent our future. Therefore, a program to phase out older personnel by the end of the current fiscal year, via retirement, will be placed into effect immediately.

This program will be known as SLAP (Sever Late-Aged Personnel).

Employees who are SLAPPED will be given the opportunity to look for jobs outside the company. SLAPPED employees can request a review of their employment records before actual retirement takes place. This review phase of the program is called SCREW (Survey of Capabilities of Retired Early Workers). All employees who have been SLAPPED and SCREWED may file an appeal with upper management.

This appeal is called SHAFT (Study of Higher Authority Following Termination).

Under the terms of the new policy, an employee may be SLAPPED once, SCREWED twice, but may be SHAFTED as many times as the company deems appropriate. If an employee follows the above procedure, he/she will be entitled to get HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel’s Early Severance) or CLAP (Combined Lump-sum Assistance Payment) unless he/she already has AIDS (Additional Income from Dependents or Spouse).

As HERPES and CLAP are considered benefit plans, any employee who has received HERPES or CLAP will no longer be SLAPPED or SCREWED by the company. Management wishes to assure the younger employees who remain on board that the company will continue its policy of training employees through our Special High Intensity Training (SHIT). We take pride in the amount of SHIT our employees receive. We have given our employees more SHIT than any company in the area.

If any employee feels they do not receive enough SHIT on the job, see your immediate supervisor. Your supervisor is specially trained to make sure you receive all the SHIT you can stand.

And, once again, thanks for all your years of service with us.

The Management

They Got the Wrong Man!

...despite sending him ↓ to fight them...

...but, with much of the time having him ↓ in charge...

...who knows what the outcome might have been?

Another Pot?

What kind of tea is that?? I don’t know. I found it in my grandson’s room.

Things that Never Happen in Star Trek

The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of a type that it has encountered several times before.
The Enterprise goes to check up on a remote outpost of scientists, who are all perfectly all right.
The Enterprise comes across a Garden-of-Eden-like planet called Paradise, where everyone is happy all the time. However, everything is soon revealed to be exactly as it seems.
The crew of the Enterprise discover a totally new lifeform, which later turns out to be a rather well-known old lifeform, wearing a silly hat.
The crew of the Enterprise are struck by a strange alien plague, for which the cure is found in the well-stocked sick-bay.
An enigmatic being composed of pure energy attempts to interface to the Enterprise’s computer, only to find out that it has forgotten to bring the right leads.
A power surge on the Bridge is rapidly and correctly diagnosed as a faulty capacitor by the highly-trained and competent engineering staff.
A power surge on the Bridge fails to electrocute the user of a computer panel, due to a highly sophisticated 24th century surge protection feature called a ‘fuse’.
The Enterprise ferries an alien VIP from one place to another without serious incident.
The Enterprise crew is captured by a vastly superior alien intelligence which does not put them on trial.
The Enterprise separates as soon as there is any danger.
The Enterprise gets involved in an enigmatic, strange, and dangerous situation, and there are no pesky aliens they can blame it on in the end.
The Enterprise is captured by a vastly inferior alien intelligence which they easily pacify by offering it some sweeties.
The Enterprise is involved in a bizarre time-warp phenomenon, which is in some way unconnected with the 20^th century.
Somebody takes out a shuttle and it doesn’t explode or crash.
A major Starfleet emergency breaks out near the Enterprise, but fortunately some other ships in the area are able to deal with it to everyone’s satisfaction.
The shields on the Enterprise stay up during a battle.
The Enterprise visits the Klingon Home World on a bright, sunny, day.
An attempt at undermining the Klingon-Federation alliance is discovered without anyone noting that such an attempt, if successful, “would represent a fundamental shift of power throughout the quadrant.”
A major character spends the entire episode in the Holodeck without a single malfunction trapping him/her there.