The Algorithm Needs Strangling

A few months ago, I bought a 1999 Yamaha Virago 535 motorcycle. Before buying it, I'd naturally spent some time looking at other Viragos on Facebook Marketplace, comparing prices and generally satisfying myself that I wasn't buying a complete wreck.

As it turned out, that last bit was rather optimistic.

The motorcycle developed an infuriating intermittent misfire. One moment it would run perfectly well on both cylinders, the next it would decide that one cylinder was quite sufficient, thank you. Particularly when it warmed up. At times it would barely manage 64 mph, accompanied by assorted popping and backfiring that made the whole experience rather more exciting than Yamaha probably intended.

So began a succession of visits to the motorcycle repair shop. The mechanics were convinced the problem was fuel-related, and initially I agreed with them. The carburettors were rebuilt, adjustments made, plugs replaced and various fuel-system problems investigated. Each time there was some prospect of a cure. Each time the damned thing eventually reverted to its old habits after half a day of riding.

To be fair, the carburettor rebuild was entirely justified on a 27-year-old motorcycle. It needed doing anyway. But when the intermittent misfire persisted after all that attention, the fuel explanation was looking increasingly unlikely.

So I changed my hypothesis. Perhaps the problem wasn't getting fuel into the cylinder, but getting a spark to ignite it.

I replaced the ignition coils and HT leads, which proved rather less straightforward than anticipated. The original coils were mirror images of one another, but the replacements were two identical units, meaning the terminals were now in different positions.

This caused a certain amount of head-scratching, although fortunately the connectors were idiot-proof. Even I couldn't connect them incorrectly.

Having sorted that out, I confidently anticipated two functioning cylinders.

No joy.

Finally, I replaced the spark plug cap on the offending cylinder. £5.

Bingo.

After all the investigation, the replacement parts and the repeated trips to the workshop, the fault had been lurking in a component costing less than a decent pint of beer. There is a certain satisfaction in solving something like that yourself, although it is somewhat diminished by contemplating the money already spent getting absolutely nowhere.

But throughout this mechanical saga, another piece of machinery was demonstrating its own peculiar form of stupidity.

Facebook.

Having spent some time searching for a Yamaha Virago, I had apparently convinced Facebook's advertising algorithms that I was developing a lifelong ambition to collect them.

And despite having bought one, repaired it and spent rather more time thinking about its internal workings than I ever intended, Facebook continued bombarding me with advertisements for more Yamaha Viragos.

Not workshop manuals. Not spare parts. Not even the occasional useful accessory.

More bloody motorcycles.

Perhaps it thinks I need two. Or three. Maybe it imagines I'm planning to corner the international market in elderly Japanese motorcycles. Presumably, if I buy enough of them, I can eventually assemble one that runs properly.

What's particularly irritating is that these systems are supposed to be intelligent. Technology companies spend billions developing algorithms that analyse our behaviour, predict our preferences and supposedly anticipate our needs. They can track what we look at, how long we look at it and what we might conceivably want next.

Yet they apparently cannot grasp the elementary distinction between somebody looking for a motorcycle and somebody who has already bought one.

Of course, I understand the technical explanation. Facebook doesn't necessarily know that I've completed a purchase, particularly one made privately. But surely there ought to be a little more intelligence involved than endlessly repeating the same advertising proposition until the customer dies of boredom.

An experienced motorcycle salesman would recognise that someone who has just bought a Yamaha Virago probably isn't in the market for another one. He might, however, be interested in something that would help keep the first one running.

A £5 spark plug cap, for example.

And there's an interesting commercial absurdity here. Somewhere, someone is paying Facebook to advertise motorcycles to me. Facebook is happily taking the money, congratulating itself on having identified an enthusiast and delivering precisely the wrong advertisements.

The advertiser gets an impression. Facebook gets paid. I get another bloody Virago.

Everybody wins, except the advertiser and the intended customer.

We hear endlessly about artificial intelligence transforming commerce, making marketing more efficient and anticipating consumer demand. Yet a great deal of what passes for intelligent advertising appears to consist of recognising that someone has looked at something and then pursuing them relentlessly with more of the same.

Perhaps that's the real triumph of the algorithm. It has managed to persuade businesses to pay for its inability to distinguish between interest and intent, never mind a completed purchase.

Meanwhile, my elderly Yamaha is finally running properly. The mechanics spent weeks pursuing a fuel problem that turned out to be electrical. I eventually followed the evidence, changed my hypothesis and found the fault.

That's what intelligence is supposed to do. Recognise when an explanation no longer fits the facts and try something else.

My motorcycle had an intermittent misfire, which I eventually cured for £5.

Facebook's algorithm has apparently been misfiring for months, and nobody seems remotely interested in fixing it.

Cornwall: The Place That Marketing Built

I'm becoming thoroughly sick of television documentaries about Cornwall. Not Cornwall itself, which is a magnificent part of the country, but the endless procession of programmes masquerading as documentaries when they're little more than extended advertisements for the tourist industry.

You know the formula. Sweeping aerial shots of rugged coastlines, fishing boats bobbing in picturesque harbours, and presenters wandering around in a state of perpetual astonishment. Everything is wonderful. Everyone is fascinating. Every little business is a triumph of local ingenuity. Apparently, nobody in Cornwall has ever opened a café or baked a cake without demonstrating some extraordinary connection to the county's ancient and mystical heritage.

What makes it particularly amusing is that so much of the Cornwall they're selling us was created, developed or popularised by people who weren't Cornish in the first place.

Take the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Both owe an enormous debt to Tim Smit, a Dutchman. The Minack Theatre was the creation of Rowena Cade, born in Derbyshire. St Ives owes much of its international artistic reputation to incomers such as Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. Daphne du Maurier, whose novels helped establish the romantic image of Cornwall, was born in London.

And then there are the surfers. You could be forgiven for thinking Cornishmen had been riding Atlantic breakers since the Bronze Age, such is the enthusiasm with which surfing is presented as part of the county's natural identity. In reality, it's an imported sport with Polynesian origins, subsequently transformed into an entire Cornish industry selling the experience of freedom and escape, complete with wetsuits, surf schools and accommodation packages.

Rick Stein, born in Oxfordshire, helped turn Padstow into a culinary destination, complete with restaurants, shops and television programmes. The town even acquired the nickname Padstein. Here we have the perfect arrangement: a celebrity chef promoting the delights of Cornwall on television while operating a substantial commercial enterprise in precisely the place being promoted.

And we haven't even reached the pasty and ice cream barons.

Ginsters, that great commercial expression of the Cornish pasty, was developed into a national brand by the Midlands-based Samworth family. Kelly's of Cornwall, with its wholesome imagery of local dairy herds and traditional Cornish cream, owes its origins to an Italian immigrant and now belongs to an international food conglomerate. The pasty itself acquired protected geographical status under European Union law in 2011. An ancient Cornish tradition, commercially developed by outsiders and protected by Brussels. Rather splendid, really.

None of this diminishes Cornwall. Quite the contrary. These are examples of enterprise, imagination and outside influences contributing to a distinctive regional culture. Cornwall has its own substantial history, of course, particularly its mining and maritime industries. But the modern tourist image is something else: a carefully cultivated commercial product.

And the business of manufacturing the Cornish dream is hardly new. More than a century ago, the Great Western Railway was promoting the Cornish Riviera, selling an exotic escape from ordinary British life. Its objective was straightforward enough: fill the trains with paying passengers.

Modern television has simply taken over the job. Where the railway had posters and guidebooks, broadcasters have drones, celebrity presenters and lavish production budgets. The underlying message is much the same. Come to Cornwall. Spend your money. Discover something authentic.

Cornwall isn't unique, either. The Lake District has its literary romanticism, Scotland its tartan and Highland mythology, and the Cotswolds their honey-coloured cottages and apparently inexhaustible supply of artisan bakeries. Entire regions have been transformed into commercial brands, their complicated histories reduced to a collection of instantly recognisable images.

There's nothing wrong with promoting a destination, but these relentlessly cheerful programmes seldom explore the less picturesque consequences. Seasonal employment, housing affordability and communities increasingly dependent on visitors don't fit comfortably into the narrative. The cottage that looks delightful on television may be entirely beyond the means of the people working in the café next door.

I don't begrudge Cornwall its visitors or its commercial successes. What irritates me is the pretence that these programmes are exploring real places and real lives when so much of their content functions as destination marketing. There needn't be any formal advertising arrangement for the result to be promotional.

The great irony is that much of the supposedly timeless Cornish identity being celebrated was shaped by people who arrived from elsewhere, bringing ideas and enterprise. Yet television keeps selling us the finished product as though it had emerged fully formed from the Atlantic mist.

The Great Western Railway, at least, had the decency to admit it was selling tickets.

The Corner of a Handkerchief

Kitty has something wrong with one eye today. I know because she is keeping it closed. She does this from time to time, perhaps every month or two, more often in summer, and as far as I can tell her entire treatment plan is to close the eye and wait. Usually, a day or two later, whatever was irritating it has gone and she is back to normal.

That made me think, which is always dangerous.

If I get something in my eye, I can do rather more about it. I can blink, wash it, pull down the lower lid, look in a mirror, ask someone else to have a look, or use the corner of a handkerchief to fish the offending speck out. If all that fails, I can go to an optician, a pharmacist, a doctor or A&E. It is such a trivial little nuisance that we barely think about how much intelligence, dexterity and co-operation sits behind solving it.

Another cat may be sitting six inches away, perfectly healthy, perfectly alert and entirely useless. It will not peer sympathetically into Kitty’s eye, lift the eyelid and say, "Hang on, you've got a bit of grass seed in there." It will not fetch a damp cloth. It will not improvise a tiny swab. It may wash its own backside while the patient suffers, but that is about the limit of the available medical service.

Dogs are no better. They have paws, teeth, excellent noses and a considerable ability to communicate that dinner is late, but they cannot perform even a simple act of delicate assistance for one another. A dog with grit under its eyelid may rub at it, make it worse, scratch the cornea and then simply carry on being a dog. There is no canine casualty department. No Labrador produces a first-aid kit.

The difference is not that we are somehow nobler creatures. It is that we have fingers, language, tools and the peculiar habit of helping each other with tiny practical problems.

A handkerchief is not much of an invention. Neither is a pair of tweezers, a mirror or a bowl of clean water. Yet put them together with opposable thumbs and the ability to explain what hurts, and you have practical civilisation at the scale of a speck of dust.

We are surrounded by these small triumphs and barely notice them. Splinters, thorns, something stuck between two teeth, a knot that needs picking apart. Minor problems to us because another human being can understand what is wrong and intervene with precision. For most animals, the available strategy is largely to scratch, bite, lick, shake or wait.

Kitty’s strategy is simpler.

Close the eye until Tuesday.

Civilisation is sometimes no more complicated than somebody saying, "Hold still, you've got something in your eye," and then removing it with the corner of a handkerchief.

If a Bird Shat on Your Head

I was once discussing toilet habits around the world with my old Dad.

Britain, naturally, has always regarded itself as a reasonably civilised country. We have indoor plumbing, sewage systems, bathrooms and an almost devotional attachment to quilted toilet paper. We therefore tend to regard some foreign lavatorial practices with a mixture of curiosity and mild suspicion.

My Dad listened to all this and then demolished the entire argument with one sentence.

“If a bird shat on your head, would you be satisfied with wiping it off with a piece of paper?”

True wisdom.

Because when you put it like that, our national devotion to dry paper suddenly looks rather less like civilisation and rather more like something we simply got used to.

If you had mud on your hands, you would wash them. If you trod in something unpleasant, you would not polish your shoe with a tissue and declare the matter closed. If, as Dad suggested, a passing pigeon deposited its breakfast on your forehead, nobody would hand you a sheet of Andrex and tell you that hygiene had now been satisfactorily restored.

You would use water.

Yet move the same basic problem a couple of feet down the human anatomy and large parts of Britain become strangely attached to the concept of dry wiping.

Other cultures reached a different conclusion. Bidets remain commonplace in parts of Europe. Across much of Asia and the Middle East, washing with water is entirely normal. Japan, having approached the matter with the usual Japanese enthusiasm for engineering, decided that merely supplying water was insufficient and built lavatories apparently capable of preparing for orbital launch.

Meanwhile, we British have spent decades improving the softness, thickness, fragrance and embossing of the paper.

There is something wonderfully British about that. Faced with a fundamentally imperfect method, we did not reconsider the method. We simply developed increasingly luxurious versions of the imperfect method.

Four-ply. Aloe vera. Quilted. Extra soft.

Still paper.

None of this means civilisation can be ranked according to lavatory equipment. Human beings have devised all sorts of perfectly workable ways of dealing with the unavoidable consequences of digestion, usually depending on climate, plumbing, religion, infrastructure and tradition.

But it does illustrate something broader.

We are remarkably good at assuming that whatever we grew up doing must also be the sensible way of doing it.

Food, driving, measurements, plumbing, social customs, even the correct way to make tea. Familiarity quietly disguises itself as logic.

Occasionally somebody asks a very simple question and the whole edifice wobbles.

My Dad's question has remained with me for years.

If a bird shat on your head, would you really just wipe it with a piece of paper?

Exactly.

When Sex Meant Gender

I was watching Anastasia, the 1956 film with Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergman, when Helen Hayes, as the Dowager Empress, came out with this:

“To a woman of your age, sex should mean nothing but gender.”

Brilliant.

I actually stopped at the word “sex”, because this was 1956. Hollywood was still operating under the Production Code, and you tend to imagine that even saying the word would have had someone in a dark suit reaching for a red pencil.

But apparently not. The word itself was not the problem. The Production Code itself used it repeatedly. What mattered was what films actually did with the subject. Explicit sexual treatment, excessive passion and anything considered obscene or too suggestive were another matter altogether.

Which, when you think about it, probably made the writing better.

The line is plainly about sexual desire. There is no mystery there at all. The Dowager is telling another elderly woman that, at her age, her interest in sex ought really to have become academic. But she gets away with it by switching meanings halfway through the sentence. Sex as activity becomes sex as classification.

That is the joke. Nothing more is needed.

And that, oddly, is what struck me most. The audience is simply expected to get it. Nobody explains the double meaning. Nobody pauses to establish definitions. Nobody wanders in afterwards to point out that sex and gender are not quite the same thing, or that attitudes to ageing and sexuality have moved on, or that elderly women are entitled to have desires too.

Of course they are. That is not the point. The point is that the joke is allowed to exist.

We have become very odd about language. In some ways we are vastly more relaxed than people were in 1956. You can show and say things now that would have given the old censors palpitations. Yet at the same time we have become far less relaxed about words themselves. Everything has to be unpacked, qualified, contextualised and checked for ideological contamination.

A line like that now would be dissected before the audience had finished laughing.

Somebody would want to discuss the distinction between sex and gender. Somebody else would object to the implication that old people cease to be sexual beings. Then someone would point out that the joke relies on binary classification. By the time everyone had finished being correct, the joke would be lying dead on the floor.

And perhaps that is why so much old dialogue feels sharper. Not because people were cleverer then, and certainly not because censorship was a good thing. It plainly was not. But restriction forced writers to imply rather than announce. They had to trust the audience to hear what was actually being said beneath the respectable wording.

That requires rather more skill than simply saying everything out loud. The Dowager Empress does not explain herself. She does not qualify the remark. She reaches for one meaning of a word, replaces it with another, and demolishes the poor woman in a sentence.

And the best bit is that the line is not really about sex or gender anyway. It is about age, and the magnificent assumption that desire ought eventually to pack its bags, leave quietly and confine itself to administration.

I am not entirely convinced it does.

Village People

I live in a village, so I have a perspective on what people mean when they talk about protecting village life. I moved here myself, although I married someone whose family history in the area goes back to pre-Conquest days. That does not make my opinions more valuable than anyone else’s, but it does make me wary of people claiming to speak for “the village” as though everyone in it wants the same thing.

 Many people who grew up in villages find that the work and housing they need are elsewhere. They move to towns and cities, while houses back home are bought by people who can afford to commute from them or retire to them. The new arrivals have every right to be there. But it is a bit rich to arrive for the peace and quiet, then insist that nothing should change, even when change might give somebody else the chance to stay.

Of course, a proposed development might be dreadful. Some are. But when someone says it would be “bad for the village”, I want to ask: bad for whom? For the person who might get a proper job close to home, or for the person whose view of the fields might change?

A community needs more than attractive houses and people willing to organise the fête. It needs somewhere for younger adults to live, and work that pays enough for them to do so. Otherwise the village gradually becomes a pleasant place to sleep between trips to an office, or to spend a comfortable retirement. The people who grew up in it come back to visit their parents, if their parents can still afford to live there.

None of that means every field should be built on or every employer welcomed with open arms. Roads, noise, pollution and the nature of the work all matter. Residents are entitled to raise those questions, and should expect proper answers. But “we moved here for the peace and quiet” is an argument about the life you bought for yourself from a catalogue. It does not automatically settle what is best for everyone else.

What particularly grates is the claim to speak for the village. Often the people with most at stake in its future are missing from the meeting because they have already had to leave. They cannot object to a lack of housing from a house they cannot afford.

So by all means ask what a proposal will do to village life. Then ask whose lives are being counted. If protecting the village means keeping its view while losing its young people, we ought at least to be honest about what we are protecting.

The Nelson Loaf Incident

It began, as these things often do, with a body.

The deceased was found at approximately 05:55 hours, lying several inches from a partially eaten slice of Nelson loaf. There were no obvious signs of a struggle, although the victim was on its back, which in fly circles is rarely encouraging.

The first question in any investigation is motive.

The Nelson loaf had one immediately. It was sitting there, flagrantly displaying seeds, grains and assorted nutritious debris, the sort of thing calculated to attract attention from any passing insect with poor judgement. Whether the fly intended theft, trespass or merely an opportunistic breakfast remains unclear.

Opportunity is rather easier.

The fly was in the kitchen. The bread was in the kitchen. I was also in the kitchen, which technically makes me a person of interest, although I reject any suggestion that my possession of both a bread knife and a fly swat constitutes evidence of premeditation.

There are several possible theories.

The first is natural causes. Flies do die. Indeed, compared with most criminal suspects, they do it with suspicious frequency. The victim may simply have reached the end of a short but presumably fulfilling career involving windows, lampshades and repeated attempts to escape through perfectly transparent glass.

The second possibility is death by misadventure.

Nelson loaf is formidable stuff. This particular specimen contains enough seeds to establish a modest agricultural holding. Perhaps the fly landed expecting ordinary bread, encountered a sunflower seed the size of its torso and suffered some sort of catastrophic dietary event.

There is also the possibility of foul play.

The slice itself cannot be ruled out. It had means, opportunity and, arguably, motive. Being gradually eaten alive must engender resentment. One can imagine the bread lying there silently while the fly approached, waiting for precisely the right moment before deploying a strategically positioned pumpkin seed.

Forensic examination of the scene revealed crumbs scattered over the chopping board. These might indicate a violent struggle, although they might equally indicate that somebody had cut bread on it. Investigators are keeping an open mind.

There were no witnesses.

The toaster declined to comment.

The butter dish is believed to have information relevant to the inquiry but has so far remained refrigerated and uncooperative.

A nearby kettle was interviewed and became extremely heated.

One troubling aspect remains the position of the body. The fly is several inches from the bread. If the Nelson loaf was responsible, how did the victim travel that distance?

Did it stagger away after the attack?

Was the body moved?

Or are we looking at something darker still - a carefully staged scene intended to implicate an innocent loaf?

Detectives are now examining the possibility of a second slice.

Until toxicology reports are available, the cause of death must remain officially unexplained. But one thing is clear.

Something happened in that kitchen.

And Nelson loaf knows more than it is saying.

The US of Irritation

I have a small linguistic irritation. Nothing serious. No letters to The Times, no campaign group, no need for a referendum. It is the habit some people have of saying USA instead of America. For reasons I cannot quite defend, it jars.

“I went to the USA.”

Did you? Were you attending a trade delegation, filing a customs declaration, representing Britain at the United Nations? Nobody says, “I spent three weeks driving across the UK,” and produces the same reaction. UK is perfectly normal. We use it without thinking. We live in it, complain about it and occasionally threaten to leave it. And yet USA somehow sounds as though it ought to be printed in block capitals on the side of a shipping container.

This is, of course, completely illogical. The United States of America is abbreviated to USA. The United Kingdom is abbreviated to UK. There is no sensible linguistic principle by which one should sound natural and the other faintly ridiculous. But language is not sensible. It is a collection of habits which have somehow survived long enough to become rules.

Perhaps the problem is that America already has a perfectly good short name: America. The United Kingdom does not quite have one. Britain is close, but technically it leaves Northern Ireland standing awkwardly by the buffet wondering whether anyone remembered to invite it. Great Britain is the island. England is absolutely not the same thing, although this remains news to quite a lot of Americans and, occasionally, the English. So UK has earned its place.

USA still feels to me like unnecessarily unpacking the full title, then carefully folding it back into three letters. Oddly, “the US” is fine. “The US economy.” “The US president.” “I’m going to the US.” Perfectly ordinary. But “I’m going to the USA” sounds as though there should be fireworks, a bald eagle and somebody singing very loudly in the background.

And then there is “the good old US of A”, which is worse. Having abbreviated the country to two letters, somebody apparently felt the need to put “of” back in, as though the phrase had lost too much grandeur in the trimming. Less geography, more branding. You can almost hear the country music starting.

I realise this is entirely irrational, but that is language for you. We happily say UK, tolerate US, prefer America, become vaguely suspicious of USA and regard “US of A” as evidence that somebody has started performing their nationality rather than merely stating it.

There is probably a doctoral thesis in it.

Which is exactly the sort of thing the USA would fund and America would ignore.

What If Fairford Wasn't the Target?

Five terrorists with bombs heading for an American airbase.

Perhaps.

But indulge me in a thought experiment.

Take RAF Fairford out of the equation.

Three white vans on a country road in the middle of the night. Hooded or masked men. Some apparently running into fields when disturbed. Farms nearby. Fishing lakes everywhere. Suspected explosives.

Around here, that screams rural crime.

And rural crime is rampant. Agricultural machinery, plant and vehicles are valuable and relatively easy to move. Only this month an operation targeting organised rural crime across Gloucestershire and Herefordshire recovered more than £300,000-worth of suspected stolen machinery, vehicles and equipment.

Then there are the lakes. Whelford sits in the Cotswold Water Park, surrounded by them. Explosives and fishing lakes inevitably made me wonder about illegal fishing. Perhaps completely wrongly, but it was another perfectly mundane possibility.

Then put RAF Fairford back into the picture.

Suddenly everything changes.

Suspected explosives have been discovered close to an American airbase being used during a conflict involving Iran. The police would have been negligent not to assume the worst. Counter Terrorism Policing became involved, bomb-disposal teams arrived, homes were evacuated and five men were arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act.

Quite right too.

Unfortunately, while the police were investigating, others had already solved it.

Nigel Farage announced that he had been warning for months about Iranian agents arriving in Britain in small boats. Robert Jenrick also drew a connection with small-boat arrivals, while Richard Tice demanded to know the suspects' identities, arrival times, provenance and residence status.

Then Counter Terrorism Policing supplied one rather awkward fact.

All five are British nationals, aged between 23 and 25, living in London.

Perhaps there is an Iranian connection. The police are investigating precisely that possibility.

And yes, I'm speculating too. That's why I called it a thought experiment rather than a press conference.

I'm not claiming to know where the breadcrumbs lead. I'm asking whether there might be another trail worth following.

Which brings me to the breadcrumb that bothers me rather more.

All five have now been released on police bail.

They haven't been cleared. The investigation continues and terrorism may ultimately prove to be exactly what this was.

But five men arrested close to an American airbase after suspected explosive devices were discovered are no longer in custody.

That makes me considerably less certain about the story we started with.

And there is a fascinating line in Counter Terrorism Policing's own statement. Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor pointed out that threats can sometimes first appear as small-scale criminal activity committed by people whose primary motivation is simply making money. Police are keeping an open mind and considering the incident from every possible angle.

So am I.

Perhaps Fairford really was their target and the evidence will eventually demonstrate it.

Or perhaps these men were up to something completely different and had the spectacular misfortune to be caught behaving suspiciously, with suspected explosives, next door to one of the most sensitive military installations in Britain - an installation they simply weren't even aware exists.

Imagine setting out to nick a tractor or illegally stun a few carp and discovering by breakfast that you're suspected of working for Iran and plotting to attack the United States Air Force.

Perhaps the evidence will eventually lead straight back to RAF Fairford. Until then, there's one question worth keeping in mind.

What if Fairford wasn't the target at all?

The Home Guard Never Went Away

Anyone contemplating an attack on RAF Fairford might reasonably think the difficult bit would be getting past the RAF, the Americans, armed police, counter-terrorism officers and whatever bits of the intelligence establishment happen to be paying attention.

But Britain still possesses another, largely unrecognised, layer of national defence which no hostile planner should ever underestimate. The curtain twitcher.

Reports say the Fairford incident began when a local resident noticed three suspicious vehicles apparently heading towards the base in the middle of the night. She reportedly tried the airbase police first, got no answer, and rang 999 instead. Shortly afterwards there were armed officers, bomb disposal teams, emergency vehicles and arrests.

Which suggests that, if this does turn out to have been a serious attempted attack, somebody may have made one fairly elementary planning error. They had allowed for the RAF, the police and perhaps even MI5. They had not allowed for Brenda at No. 27, who has lived there since 1984, knows everybody's car, knows who has visitors, knows who parks badly and certainly knows when three unfamiliar vans appear in the area at an odd hour.

This is Britain's unofficial Home Guard. The original version had uniforms, rifles and Captain Mainwaring. The modern version has a fleece, a spaniel and WhatsApp, and its members are permanently deployed beside bay windows, front gates and kitchen sinks. Any unfamiliar van is logged, any stranger standing about is noted, and any unexplained activity is mentally filed for possible discussion over the fence.

A hostile intelligence service might spend months studying CCTV coverage, police response times and electronic surveillance. All wasted, because nobody has yet invented a countermeasure to somebody saying, "That's funny. I've never seen that van before." You cannot really jam it or spoof it, and once Mrs Miggins has mentioned it to Derek over the fence, the intelligence has already been disseminated across the entire sector.

Within minutes somebody will have checked the village Facebook group, somebody else will have taken a photograph through the curtains, and a retired bloke called Geoff will have walked past twice with the dog for reconnaissance purposes.

The Americans have stealth bombers and MI5 has surveillance teams. Rural England has people with absolutely nothing better to do and an encyclopaedic knowledge of who belongs there. That may turn out to be rather more useful than it sounds.

During the Second World War we armed the Home Guard because invasion was expected. We have since refined the system. What really mattered was not the rifle so much as the deeply rooted British instinct to notice somebody doing something they shouldn't and immediately tell somebody else.

So if the suspicions surrounding Fairford eventually prove justified, the lesson for any future would-be saboteur is fairly simple. By all means plan for the perimeter fence, the cameras and the police. Plan for MI5.

But for God's sake, plan for Brenda.

Because the last line of British national defence is still sitting behind a net curtain thinking:

"Who the bloody hell is that?"