OPINION

Bots in motion

Re: "First-ever humanoid robot games begin in China", (World, Aug 16).

The Robot Humanoid Olympics are on in China over the weekend with hundreds of teams from 16 countries.

There are many of the usual sports, including track and field, football, table tennis, but also speed medicine sorting and cleaning services. Finally, I might have a chance for an Olympic medal, maybe in the medicine sorting events.

The last real Olympics showed how wide the definition of "sports" has become with the introduction of break dancing and skateboarding, although the traditional events were still there. At least the 1900 event, live pigeon shooting, hasn't returned to the Olympics.

I might be out of date, but I prefer the old sports. I'd rather see a person competing, not a person with a keyboard competing.

TV match meltdown

Re: "Streaming woes", (PostBag, Aug 16) & "AIS banking on Premier League for growth", (Business, July 16).

Saturday evening, a nightmare hit me straight in the face. After much struggle, my astute and wonderful wife has managed to set up the 6.30pm EPL football match between Newcastle and Aston Villa. The match was often interrupted by prolonged still pictures, and the entire match seemed shot from somewhere from the ISS space station, making it an uncomfortable viewing.

Worse was to come. At 9pm, I settled down with my beer to watch the other matches. Alas! We, aka my wife, who, unlike me, is a wizard on the mobile and its functions, could not get the transmission back on. However, it did show on the mobile, which is impossible to watch on such a small screen.

Frustrated after so many efforts, I drank the beer and went to bed in a very foul mood.

Would there be a charitable soul who could explain to me, step by step, simple steps, please, what to do to get the programme back on my TV? I would be very, indeed enormously thankful to you and will share my beer with you gladly.

Note, we did follow the instructions given to the letter, but to no avail. Thank you for your understanding and help. I long for the simple days of last year's football transmissions.

Plastics are a threat

Re: "Freedom over spin", (PostBag, Aug 16) & "Clock ticks as plastic talks drag on", (Opinion, Aug 14).

Yet again, Michael Setter demonstrates his obsessive insistence that any attempt by international bodies to tackle any of the world's problems, from pandemics through climate change to pervasive plastic pollution, is driven purely by a desire to crush sovereign-state and personal freedoms.

He passes off the scale of plastic pollution with the scant concession that "everybody knows that plastics have been a huge problem for decades".

Yes, Michael, and 90% of unrecycled plastic continues to accumulate in massive landfills; increasing numbers of sea birds and fish are washed up dead with their bodies stuffed with plastic scraps; and, most alarmingly, nanoplastics are found in many organs of the human body.

Mr Setter would have us believe that new biodegradable plastics are on the verge of resolving this disaster.

He must know that such nascent technologies are far from being developed at scale and have little hope of defeating the dominance of the major petrochemical economies, such as the UAE, Russia and the USA, which have collectively vetoed in Geneva this past week any chance of a cap or even limitation on plastic production.