With my wife and step-daughter overseas and Tom house-sitting for his mum, I have had lots of time alone. I've said before that solitude is something that you can choose, whilst loneliness is thrust upon you by circumstances. Truthfully I do occasionally feel lonely, used as I am to a house that is constantly occupied by others. Night is probably the most acute time for feeling so.

I have occupied some of my time by watching old space movies. Many were made in the 1950's and 1960's, these decades being the dawn of the space age. Pretty much all of them are B-grade with tight budgets and limited scope for special effects.

But all have a few things in common. Firstly, the science is way off beam, given even the knowledge of the time. Mars and Venus have breathable atmospheres. Travellers (I dare not call them astronauts) wear casual clothes and are usually of an age or disposition totally unsuited to space travel. Security and launch procedures are incredibly lax - a policeman checking a crew list in the dark and using a flashlight to ID the crew member, press conferences with only minutes to go before take-off, flights that should take months only taking a few days. In one hilarious case, the evasion of a meteor storm saw the rocket go into 'infinite acceleration.'

In many respects, the movies take all their cues from ordinary Hollywood films of the time, where the focus was on the characters (especially different character types) and the plot revolved around solving problems and conflicts. There is almost aways a 'love interest.' In this scenario, the space is merely a device which is neither fully explored nor seriously engaged with scientifically.

That is not to say I haven't enjoyed them, though the fast forward button is helpful when the plot becomes too stuck or the acting too wooden.