Well, well, well, I thought Lesley looked familiar! Lovely Lesley. She was, as I've just researched, a contestant last July, and went on to lose the game 88 – 72. So a very apt little period now for Channel 4, with them (or at least some of their television crew/cast) exerting the minimum effort possible in delivering to us programmes originally aired just over a year ago, and not continuing the present series of Countdown as we would expect. But in this instance they can be forgiven for putting Lesley back on our screens. Those in charge of Eggheads are also currently spinning the same yarn with programmes from (if I'm not mistaken) last year.
In a similar vein to all of this it is possible for a person or organisation to exert not the minimum effort possible on a task or project, but the maximum amount in making it as inconvenient as possible for people to receive, as is the case with Channel 4's 4oD, on which I recently attempted to watch Monday's (unbeknownst-to-me repeated) episode of Countdown - the first after a two week break - only to discover, upon clicking the Get 4oD on your PC now button on this page, the rude message to the right of this paragraph. It can be found on this 'sorry' page if your computer outstrips the meagre requirements of 4oD, or if you click this link, you can see if yours just makes the cut. But why so specific? If the wonderful BBC iPlayer is available for all, why can Channel 4 not get its act in gear and provide a comparable service? This isn't good form, in my book. If a thing is to be made available, it ought to be available to all. Not just those 
who happen to fit a particular demographic, or happen to have buckets of money (pictured, left), or happen to have sold their soul to a religion of their choosing. This isn't to say that everything ought to be forced on everybody in an equally aggressive fashion to each, but that it merely be available, for a person free to choose whether to accept/embrace it or not. Consideration must always, I feel, be made to the 'best for all' - not the best outcome for the individual, but that which one may do in order to ensure the best situation for everyone.
A simple example being those who drive fuel-guzzling cars. They may argue for everyone, saying that 'everybody can buy one of these cars, and be able to afford its upkeep were they to work hard for the money and save it wisely; it is a win-win situation for everyone: we all work hard - that is good - we can all buy lovely cars; nobody is excluded from that'. But then it must be remembered that these cars of which we speak are ones of the petrol-guzzling variety, thus the assertion that 'everyone can have one' is simply untrue, for the reason that there is not enough oil in the world for their upkeep. And this thought brings with it the case that, even were a person not interested in buying and maintaining such transportational machines, their lives would be detrimentally impacted upon by the existence and ownership of them in the form of their own petrol prices increasing. Were people to relinquish their selfish self-interest, and fund research into energy sources which will make as little impact on the natural and animal (animals are natural, of course, but I mean basically 'plant and animal' - including human, need I reiterate?) population, and nurture the happiness of all. Is that called 'do-gooding'? Well, fuck you if think so.
Finally, on the subject of Effort, I've recently learnt that I passed my Open University course U211 Exploring the English Language with a disgraceful 'D'. The reason for the 'D' is my poor performance in the exam, for which I achieved a paltry 45%. However, with an average of 74% for the seven assignments I completed throughout the course, would it not be fair to assume that to account for a fair proportion of the final result? Thus I did assume, and had I known the real formula for calculating the final result (pictured, right - from here), I would have exerted myself more fully in the exam, and written as much as I could, rather than spend much time organising my thoughts, and selecting the ones I thought most relevant and conducive to receiving a marvellous mark. The technique obviously failed, but having tried it once and learnt it not to be the best, I can now go into my next course, A210 Approaching Literature, and try my hand at making an improvement.
Word of the Week
Effort
effort /'efət/ n. 1 strenuous physical or mental exertion. 2 a vigorous or determined attempt. 3 Mech. a force exerted. 4 colloq. the result of an attempt; something accomplished (not bad for a first effort).
Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary
