Don't waste time, leave it to the clones

ACCORDING to a survey published this week, millions of Britons are wasting hundreds of hours every year doing mundane tasks.

On the same day it was reported that the first steps were to be allowed in human cloning.

It takes only a nimble hop in imagination to link these two topics.

After all, the time-wasting report suggests that the average Briton waits for buses and trains for 90 minutes each week, or three and a half days a year.

If human cloning were ever achieved, we would be able to make duplicates of ourselves and send these genetic doppelgangers for the bus.

These other selves could do away with three and-a-half hours a week of washing up, or the half an hour a week spent queuing at cash-points.

Our alternative selves could also fill in our lottery coupons, a task which is said to take six hours a year.

Whether or not this copy, this exact-a-like, would be permitted to keep the money from the cash machine, or any potential winnings from the lottery, might be a matter of some controversy.

Personally, I do not spend anything like 30 minutes a week queuing at a cash machine.

This is because Barclays has been going through a difficult patch lately, and I wouldn't like to take away more of their money than strictly necessary.

As to sending my clone to queue for the bus, I generally walk to work.

Roughly 20 minutes each way which is 40 minutes a day and - if the calculator on this computer is to be believed - 200 minutes a week, or 3.333333333333 hours.

This me needs the exercise more than the other me, so if it's all right with you, which is to say me, I'll carry on walking.

As you can see, cloning is hard work and could well lead to all sorts of complication.

And before any scientist writes to point out that I have wilfully misunderstood the nature of human cloning, I shall own up to that one right away.

Such cloning, if it is ever possible, will not lead to the duplication of existing human beings, which is just as well.

Nor will cloning allow for a human child to be created in place of the normal means of reproduction.

The ethics report published this week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission ruled against cloned babies, but did leave the door open for cloning human material in the name of curing intractable diseases.

This issue is not so much a moral maze as a moral minefield.

The idea that the super-wealthy might invest money in the hope of buying genetic immortality is certainly creepy.

Yet if genetic research can help bring about a cure for certain diseases, it should surely be allowed, though only under strictly controlled conditions.

HAVING already voted themselves a handsome pay rise, MPs are next week set to vote for an extra week's holiday a year.

Obviously they have right on their side, as 17 weeks off in a year cannot be enough for anyone.

If this measure is passed, the extra week will be taken during the school half-term in February.

The Government had even recommended a second extra week's holiday to be taken in October, but this has apparently proved difficult to schedule.

Some cynics suggest that the Government would be happy for as many holidays as possible as it has such a huge majority it is hard to occupy all of its MPs.

Another, possibly sinister, explanation for the Government's apparent generosity is that while Parliament is not sitting it will be less open to scrutiny.

MPs will, of course say that they don't have long holidays as they need the time for their constituencies.

Those of us getting by on four or five weeks off a year will sympathise deeply with their plight.

10/12/98

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.